PROGRESSIVES THINK THE PROTESTS ARE MANUFACTURED
By
Jon Christian Ryter
August 9, 2009
NewsWithViews.com
Wall Street Journal writer John Fund wrote an www.opinionjournal.com piece the other day noting that the "...White House is clearly worried about the opponents of its health care plan who are showing up at town-hall meetings with members of Congress. It took an extraordinary step of issuing a three-minute video rebuttal to a Drudge Report item that featured a 2007 clip of Barack Obama supporting the 'elimination' of private health insurance over time after a government plan is introduced. Later in the day, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called the health care protesters a form of 'manufactured' anger. Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse went further and called them 'angry mobs of rabid rightwing extremists.'"
Let's face it. This is one time the media spinmeisters can't win the public relations debate. Why? Because those agitated rightwing extremists in "...limes and pinks and Brooks Brothers suits" who showed up at the health care town halls wearing Dockers and short sleeve sport shirts; or dresses, shorts and tank tops and flip-flops represent about 80% of the People of the United States. The protesters, in this instance, were not the minority voices of the voting public, they were the voting public. (And, the White House can't steal enough ACORN votes next year to overrule the will of the People who clearly intend to fire a bunch of Congressmen and Senators.) Let's hope they remember they are voting out the idiots who voted for the stimulus bills, and the idiots who nationalized the auto industry, and the idiots who voted for a socialist healthcare bill. Sadly, the arrogant fools on Capitol Hill who see themselves as demigods haven't yet disambiguated the message from the Tea Parites or the message from the healthcare town halls. Maybe it will translate better when the voters say, "You're fired!" Isn't that nice...everyone gets to play Donald Trump next November.
When the political issues are not so clearly defined, the politicians and their partners in the mainstream media can play the smoke and mirrors shell game and fool the weak-minded people that fiction is truth and truth is whatever they say it is. But, with the whole country vehemently opposed to the theft of the healthcare industry by greedy, corrupt politicians in bed with America's Marxists and healthcare lobbyists who come to dinner with pockets full of money, the American people are fed up.
Far left Californian Sen. Barbara Boxer, whose re-election campaign war chest will be filled by lobbyists who want to make sure their clients are sitting at the feast-laden universal healthcare table when the gratuities are doled out, told MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews that the media needed to "...take a look at what's going on here." Boxer apparently believes that the American people won't mind if their health care is doled out in dribbles while their children wait weeks or months to visit to the pediatrician when they get sick; or that the elderly won't object to being denied healthcare because old age is eventually terminal anyway.
Even though the Tea Party protests earlier this year were spontaneous, Boxer insisted that the healthcare protests were "...all planned. It's to hurt our president," she said, "and it's to change the Congress." For once a liberal may have actually got something right. The American people are boiling mad. They fully intend to change Congress in 2010. Boxer was right. For a liberal Senator, being right once in 18 years is better than average for the left. The American people intend to change Congress in 2010, and even more in 2012. The people of the United States do not intend to become the Soviet Union of the West. And, they do not intend to let Barack Obama become the Marxist dictator he sees when he looks in the mirror every morning.
The White House joined the fray once they saw that, universally, the American people were opposed to the government's single payer healthcare plan (that is now referred to simply as the "public option.") The White House and the far left House and Senate leadership—and the mainstream media—are using Obama's talking points "manufactured protest" to characterize the reaction of the American people from Florida to Washington State, and from Bangor, Maine to San Diego, California as being fabricated by the Republican Party and/or lobbyists for the healthcare industry who want to continue gouging policyholders with escalating insurance premiums and partially paid claims.
Gibbs, like Chris Matthews, referred to the healthcare protesters as the "Brooks Brother brigade," making it obvious where the talking points originated. When Sen. Arlen Specter [D-PA] together with Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, held a health care town hall in Philadelphia on August 3, they were booed by a bipartisan audience. One woman in the audience told Specter and Sebelius: "I look at this healthcare plan and I see nothing that is about health or care..." (the audience starts applauding.) "...What I see is a bureaucratic nightmare, Senator. Medicaid is broke. Medicare is broke. Social Security is broke. And you want us to believe that a government that can't even run a cash for clunkers program is going to run one-seventh of our US economy? No, sir! No.!" So, let me ask—now, does this sound like a woman who was paid by the healthcare industry as their shill? Or, that's she's a "rented" protester? No, sir! No! She's nobody's shill. She's an angry American. And, by God, before November, 2010, every liberal politician in America is going to know what an angry American looks like and sounds like...and just how much damage they can do to a worthless, graft-sucking politician!
Congressman Lloyd Doggett [D-TX] encountered the same reaction to the "public option" when he tried to sell government healthcare to his constituents. Congressman Frank Kratovil [D-MD] was hung in effigy by his constituents. Fourth term Congressman Tim Bishop [D-NY] was harassed so badly that he had to be escorted from the town hall site by the police.
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The liberal website, Think Progress wrote a blog-post accusing the conservative advocacy groups, Americans For Prosperity and Freedom Works of organizing the "right wing harassment strategy, which they added was "..often marked by violence and absurdity." White House press secretary Gibbs suggested that protesters may have come via AFP's 13-state bus tour. Think Progress said that the DNC had a 10-page memo from a Connecticut activist that was evidence that there was a well-coordinated national campaign by the Republicans to protest healthcare. That, of course, is not true since, at the highest levels of politics, the money Mafia that fund both parties are in bed with each other.
And, finally, former Gore-Lieberman 2000 campaign manager Donna Brazile said that the Dockers' crowd that shows up on all of the videos (instead of the Brooks Brothers crowd that simply does not exist in any of the videos) were "rented" organizers. Brazile told the media that the town hall protests were the result of "...a well-organized group of lobbyists who are paying people to go out. They're renting organizers," she said adding, as if to -self confirm the validity of her statement, "The left has done it. Now, they're doing it. This little band of protesters are trying to stop [Congress] from doing [its] job. They know they can't win the debate, so they want to shut down the conversation." Asked by the media for proof, Brazile admitted she had none, adding, "I've seen this dance before." Of course she has. She's helped choreograph it in every Democratic political photo op for at least two decades where the boys in Washington needed interested spectators that simply didn't exist..
Almost every member of Congress has faced angry crowds in town hall settings when they attempted to convince their constituents that rationed healthcare for all Americans is not as bad as the Canadians make it sound.
In Tampa, Florida Congresswoman Kathy Castor [D-FL] and African American Florida State Representative Betty Reed held a health care town hall at the Children's Board of Hillsborough County. Eight hundred Tampa residents showed up, but only 200 were admitted. Many of them were members of SEIU who actually sponsored the town hall. The rest were senior citizens or those who were not carrying signs and placards opposing Obama's healthcare "reform." Four union goons sent to help the Congresswoman by frightening the opposition to silence by sheer brawn, attempted to exclude anyone opposed to universal healthcare from their meeting.
Halfway through Castor's unsuccessful attempt to convince her constituents that Obama's socialized medicine would be good for America, a fight broke out. One audience member said to Castor, "you won't let the people speak." Someone in the audience shouted, "Why won't you let the people speak?" Castor ignored those who disagreed with her, talking over them when they spoke. Union members pushed those with opposing views away from the doors, closing them. As the doors closed, someone inside the room said: "Tyranny!" Others shouted: "Read the bill! Read the bill!" Others began shouting, "Hold it outside! Hold it outside!" since 75% of those who came to voice their views were now locked out.
Many of those in the room were senior citizens. Most were typical middle class people, the type of person standing in front or behind you when you go to vote. The air suddenly turned ugly, like a violent, dark thunder storm where ground-strike lightning precedes the rain. A man shouted: "Bulls**t!" Others began chanting "You work for us!" and "Hear our voice!" It was at that point that the union goons began to push the protesters out of the room, closing the door. In the scuffle, one man in a short sleeve green shirt was accosted by three union thugs. His shirt was literally torn from his body. Tampa police, with orders to do so from Castor, locked the doors so the protesters could not enter. Castor took that opportunity to skip out of the building without fielding the questions of those to came to aire their grievances with their Congresswoman.
This is not how a Republic woks. This is how a communist state operates. The voters in the 11th Congressional District of Florida elected Castor in 2006 with 70% of the vote. They re-elected her in 2008 with 72%. With that vote, they surrendered their right to free speech in the 11th Congressional District. Hopefully the voters will correct that oversight in Nov., 2010.
Across the nation Democrats who had scheduled healthcare town halls to give their constituents the "good news" that they were going to get the public option (i.e., anal roto-rootering) that would theoretically allow them to keep what they have if they want to keep their private insurance plan, or switch to the government's universal healthcare plan, either staged "Congressman friendly" town halls by hand-picking the attendees from local labor unions friendly with the White House, or simply canceling them. The protests are genuine. They are not "Republican." They are nonpartisan. And, most of all, they didn't begin with Obama's healthcare reform program. Nor did they start with "cash for clunkers," which has angers millions of Americans. It began with the President George W. Bush's $700 billion bailout for banks when all that was needed to solve the financial crisis in 2008 was to change the Fed's "mark to market" rule that would free up local banks to loan money. It was that simple to solve. And, it still is. But the longer Obama tinkers with the economy, the harder the problem is going to be to fix. But, as history has proven over and over again, you can't fix the economy by robbing the taxpayers and recycling their money to the welfare crowd—whether those receiving the grand gratuities are poor or rich.
America's politicians should have paid attention when the first spontaneous Tea Parties were held across the country on April 15. And, if not then, on Memorial Day or on Independence Day because on July 4, the dye was cast. On Nov. 2, 2010, the non-partisan People intend to fire every Congressman and Senator who [a] personally failed to read the legislation they voted to enact, [b] voted for any of the stimulus bills, [c] voted to seize control of any car company or bank, or [d], voted to seize the American healthcare industry and convert the United States into a communist nation.
The Obama Administration is so desperate to steal control of your healthcare that the White House website issued this statement: "There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there...These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."
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The last leader that took used approach to limit free speech thorugh intimidation in the privacy of the homes of the citizens was Adolph Hitler. In a Republic, we have a right to free thought, free speech, and the right to discuss our ideas, our dislikes and our fears in the public square. And, government, according to the 1st Amendment of the Constituion is obligated to listen to our complaints—and properly address them. And, not by using Gestapo tactics designed to intimidate people into silence. The White House's attempt to stifle free speech is not only a violation of the Constitution, it's an impeachable offense.
