Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Mon 03 Aug 2009 17:54 Post subject: Citizens give elected officials HELL
This is GREAT. In each of these cases, people are letting members of Congress know they are upset. This is a snowball starting to roll down the mountain, we ain't seen nothin' yet.
I really believe in HC reform. I don't see the right change happening. Maybe if people start questioning and learning,good changes for all can be made.
I hope so. I would go to one of those town hall meetings.
All I can say to these Democrats and the DNC: please keep it coming, do not stop at all!!! Keep insulting regular people, do not change your game plan!!!
Many of these protesters are being organized (sponsored, really) by right-wing corporate interest groups. This is not grassroots, up-from-the-people dissent. This is an example of corporations who oppose healthcare reform using "regular citizens" to get their message across.
I thought the teabagging, neo-secessionism was bad. This might be worse. Find some people without health care who don't want "government interference." Better yet, find a protester without health insurance.
Okay, this is just embarrassing: When your righteous protesters show up at an event to pontificate on the evils of socialized medicine, could you at least make sure they AREN'T ON MEDICARE/MEDICAID or receiving free, government-funded health care from the MILITARY or VA?
How do you write your president and tell him, with a straight face, that
Quote:
'I don't want government-run health care. I don't want socialized medicine. And don't touch my Medicare,'
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Fri 07 Aug 2009 03:26 Post subject:
sagascend wrote:
Many of these protesters are being organized (sponsored, really) by right-wing corporate interest groups. This is not grassroots, up-from-the-people dissent. This is an example of corporations who oppose healthcare reform using "regular citizens" to get their message across.
I thought the teabagging, neo-secessionism was bad. This might be worse. Find some people without health care who don't want "government interference." Better yet, find a protester without health insurance.
And what "right wing corporate interest groups" might they be??? Where's the evidence that the regular people are being put up by these groups. Typical left wing unraveling. Like I said, keep it coming!!!
When the left protested against Bush, it was reported as legitimate, now since the tables are turned, the people are "mobs", "plants", "Nazis".
The left is now getting a taste of their own medicine and lo and behold, they don't like it!!!!
Oh, BTW, what is "teabagging"????
I hope the Democrats and the left do not change their game plan, keep doing what they're doing. Insult people like Princess Pelosi did.
Americans for Prosperity (a lobbying organization partially funded by oil and tobacco companies (not people who work there, the companies); has direct connections to Abramoff through the lead Tim Phillips, a former partner in Century Strategies)
Tim Phillips was on The Rachel Maddow Show Thursday night insisting that his lobbying firm was organizing other "grass roots" protesters. This is completely disingenuous coming from the leader of an organization headquartered in downtown D.C. and that relies on public relations gimmicks to stir up conservative wingnuts. Watch it for yourself - he disputed not one of her facts.
Are these people incapable of civil, rational dialogue on an important issue. Let's consider some evidence from the rallies:
Teabagging refers to the shrill and loony groups of tax protesters who likened themselves to the colonials who put on the Boston Tea Party and garbed themselves in silly hats draped in tea bags and exercised their First Amendment rights to make extremely spurious and sometimes incorrect statements about the stimulus plan and the Obama administration. Many seemed to just need the cathartic release of acting out in front of television cameras.
You might see this as the tables turning, but this is in fact a typical tactic from this part of the political spectrum in the U.S. The only thing that seems to change is the issue. I am also taken aback by the Republican party's embrace of its fringe, which is probably why they perceive centrist and moderately liberal Democrats as the second coming of the RAF. There is no comparison. If one sees no difference between the Obama administration and the Stalin regime then perhaps there is no difference between fascism and American conservatism. It is understandable that political partisans or ideologues of any kind reach for the ideological bogeyman to make a point, but it is unconscionable to do so as a rhetorical flourish, when people's lives are at stake.
Just compare the behavior in a similar context. It would be as if radical environmentalists, labor populists, ethnic separatist blocs and Communist groups got together and started protesting the prescription drug benefit or privatized Social Security under the Bush administration sponsored by AARP if it was the front organization for some fictional corporation (couldn't think of a company that might actually do this). That didn't happen. Even the most virulent war protests were carried out by the usual true believers rather than a cross-section of "regular Americans," and I'm not talking about people who think like Dennis Kucinich or Bernie Sanders, scary as they may be to someone on the right. I'm talking about people whose unrestrained id has been channeled into a cause and marshaled (as well as misinformed) by powerful corporate interests and who are having a collective fit the average three year old couldn't muster up on her worst day.
I'm sure that all of this spazzing out feels good and plays to the segment of the U.S. population that is extremely uncomfortable with the Obama administration on ideological, racial and/or generational grounds, but when all of the grandstanding is said and done, I hope that no federal buildings have been bombed or assassinations carried out.
When one of these lunatics decides to take their emotional instability to the next level and harm or kill member of Congress (one was already threatened with assassination), I'm sure that the bloggers, Fox News and lobbyists who fed the beast will wring their hands and say they don't understand what happened. Dr. Tiller might just be the beginning. There seems to be a convergence among fringe right-wing elements, and history tells us that they aren't afraid to get violent.
What mainstream left-wing commentator incited his/her audience to violence during the Bush administration? How many Republican members of congress held town hall meetings on an issue that were disrupted by liberal protesters organized by corporate sponsors?
Lastly, if you are protesting against socialized medicine ON MEDICARE or MEDICAID, perhaps you should live by your principles and refuse coverage. It seems to me that if this sort of stupidity is representative of this vocal yet ill-informed minority, there is no reason to pretend like holding these events will result in civic discourse between reasonable people.
The status quo for health care is unsustainable for all but a few corporate stakeholders, and the country desperately needs sober, informed, civil dialogue about the issues. If these passion plays are all one can expect from the far right and idiots who don't even realize that they already enjoy government-sponsored health insurance, it's my opinion that they are not equipped to have a debate about it and need to be quiet while the adults are talking.
Joined: 19 Jan 2006 {Posts: 223 } Location: Southern California
Posted: Fri 07 Aug 2009 12:29 Post subject:
Quote:
Oh, BTW, what is "teabagging"????
Sagascend is right with her definition of this term. However among some circles, these specific tax protesters are ridiculed for their use of the above term because it has another-more sinister definition.(hint: look it up in Wikipedia or The Urban Dictionary)
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Fri 07 Aug 2009 13:18 Post subject:
DucorpsToo wrote:
Quote:
Oh, BTW, what is "teabagging"????
Sagascend is right with her definition of this term. However among some circles, these specific tax protesters are ridiculed for their use of the above term because it has another-more sinister definition.(hint: look it up in Wikipedia or The Urban Dictionary)
sagascend wrote:
Teabagging refers to the shrill and loony groups of tax protesters who likened themselves to the colonials who put on the Boston Tea Party and garbed themselves in silly hats draped in tea bags and exercised their First Amendment rights to make extremely spurious and sometimes incorrect statements about the stimulus plan and the Obama administration. Many seemed to just need the cathartic release of acting out in front of television cameras.
Oh, really now??? I went to one of these rallies, I am I "teabagger".
You both are WRONG!!!! "Teabagging" was a derogatory term used to describe the "Tea Party" protesters by left wingers in the media, particularly Anderson Cooper (who has since apologized), Oblermann, and activist Rachel Maddow. It is a term used to describe a homosexual act. I never heard of the term until it was used in the left wing media. It is an INSULT. I am not asking for an apology because this is what expect from unhinged left wing Obama supporters when they see support for the agenda start to go down the drain. It might be a little early yet for me to make that assertion though.
No matter what you say, Maya, this is a grass roots movement by regular people. I am in contact with many of these types of people and I can assure you many are not right wingers. I have written letters to the editor about this, and I am very careful not to make ideologically partisan because I do not want to offend people who do not share my ideology. So like I said, keep on offending people like this. The majority of people in this country are not the Obama base. The last thing you want to do is alienate these folks. They are well on their way to doing so. Many people who voted for Obama also voted for Bush and many years back, Reagan. These types of antics from Pelosi and the DNC will turn these people off. This is why I want them to continue.
I called the DNC Thursday and told them I loved their ad about the GOP Mob, and I told them to turn it up. They were very receptive. Little did they know that I have alterior motives.
Gee Maya, how many of these rallies have you gone to??? How many people do you know who have attended these rallies??? Since you know so much, what "right wing" group has put me up to attend the April 15 rally (which was not covered by TV, incidently, as many were not. Many were not even covered by their hometown papers), and to attend a town hall meeting with my Rep, John Hall (of the group Orleans)???
I am sure there are some plants, there are at most of these types of events. Most of these folks are merely excersizing their rights to let their representatives know how they feel (their right and responsibility) and they're angry. So go ahead, Maya, and keep insulting them and me, call us "teabaggers", "right wing puppets", "loons", "Nazis", etc this will give us all the more power because then we know we are getting to folks like you.
and I am very careful not to make ideologically partisan because I do not want to offend people who do not share my ideology.
Could you extend members of this forum the same courtesy?
DChapman wrote:
So go ahead, Maya, and keep insulting them and me, call us "teabaggers", "right wing puppets", "Nazis", etc this will give us all the more power becase then we know we are getting to folks like you.
You've overstepped here. I called members of the "Tea Party" groups (including you, I suppose) teabaggers. That's how many refer to them in the media and it IS unfortunate that the term is linked to a sexual act.
People, even people who can't bother to get their facts straight before confronting elected officials, ought to behave better.
If the point is to "get to folks like me" rather than actually solve a problem I suppose that doesn't surprise me at all given the antics at some of these meetings. I thought this was about health care reform rather than trying to push people's buttons. My mistake!
Rick Perry, the governor of my state may have killed his chance to run against Kay Bailey Hutchinson because of his endorsement of secession while pandering to these...tea bag enthusiasts. Since Texas is majority Republican there is a non-lunatic, conservative majority that is obvious uncomfortable with the whole situation. These are the people who ought to be in front of cameras, emphasizing that these issues are complex and resolution comes from hammering out agreements rather than putting on costumes, trying out slogans and selling t-shirts.
If this movement is overrepresented by nutjobs in the media then it seems to me that normal people ought to remedy that and get rid of them.
There's no answer for the corporatism and aggression in its midst, which is also not surprising. It's all fun and games until someone gets shot or blown up. Then the backpeddling begins.
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Fri 07 Aug 2009 14:53 Post subject:
sagascend wrote:
You've overstepped here. I called members of the "Tea Party" groups (including you, I suppose) teabaggers. That's how many refer to them in the media and it IS unfortunate that the term is linked to a sexual act.
No, I have NOT overstepped, YOU have. The "many" you reference who refer to us as "teabaggers" are left wing Obama supporters in the media and it was meant as an INSULT, there is no way around that, no matter what spin you try to put on it.
Like I said, it doesn't bother me, so you can keep on doing it, but I just want you to know it is ad hominem. The more and more folks on your side continue to denegrade and insult people, the more people you will alienate. Keep on keepin' on!!!
sagascend wrote:
Could you extend members of this forum the same courtesy?
Well I suppose if I was an Obama supporter this would not be a problem. Being that many here are Obama supporters, I like to present the other side in case they are inerested that there are people who disagree with the radical left agenda. I am probably not the most popular person here because of it ,but that's ok. I will continue to present the other side of the issues that likely many people here would not be otherwise exposed to. So your request is denied.
That's fine with me. I had to try because there is another (and better, IMO) way to resolve challenges. I think everyone here can decide for themselves what to think when presented with accurate information and sound arguments.
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Fri 07 Aug 2009 15:44 Post subject:
sagascend wrote:
That's fine with me. I had to try because there is another (and better, IMO) way to resolve challenges. I think everyone here can decide for themselves what to think when presented with accurate information and sound arguments.
Yup. And referring to citizens excercising their rights as "teabaggers" because that's the way the media you frequent refers to them as, is not accurate information and will not lead to a sound argument, unless of course you are in MSNBC circles. I am not telling you do not do this though, you do what you like and feel that is appropriate.
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Fri 07 Aug 2009 16:29 Post subject:
sagascend wrote:
Rick Perry, the governor of my state may have killed his chance to run against Kay Bailey Hutchinson because of his endorsement of secession while pandering to these...tea bag enthusiasts.
That was stupid on Perry's part.
Think about it, "teabagger". That's almost the same as referring to me/them as "cocksuckers".....which was the intent of the left wing media when they first made that reference.
Think about it, "teabagger". That's almost the same as referring to me/them as "cocksuckers".....which was the intent of the left wing media when they first made that reference.
I can honestly say that I never thought about it that way, especially because no one (I hope) would make the purposeful mistake of associating their political movement with a sexual act that is still fairly controversial to mention in "polite" conversation (quotes indicate skepticism about polite conversation requiring asexual content).
It is pretty funny though, on second thought, because most people simply do not know what the term means and likely made "Tea Party" and tea bag accessories into a new verb and noun to provide shorthand descriptions....just like the term "Birther."
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Fri 07 Aug 2009 16:50 Post subject:
sagascend wrote:
DChapman wrote:
Think about it, "teabagger". That's almost the same as referring to me/them as "cocksuckers".....which was the intent of the left wing media when they first made that reference.
I can honestly say that I never thought about it that way, especially because no one (I hope) would make the purposeful mistake of associating their political movement with a sexual act that is still fairly controversial to mention in "polite" conversation (quotes indicate skepticism about polite conversation requiring asexual content).
It is pretty funny though, on second thought, because most people simply do not know what the term means and likely made "Tea Party" and tea bag accessories into a new verb and noun to provide shorthand descriptions....just like the term "Birther."
Like I stated before, I did not know what the term meant. After I found out and saw clips of Olbermann and others using the term and they way they used it, I knew full well what their intentions were. Again, I laughed it off, it did not anger me whatsoever. I expect this sort of thing from them. Perhaps this is the reason why their ratings are so low.....
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Fri 07 Aug 2009 18:33 Post subject:
Quote:
‘You Are Terrifying Us’ Voters send a message to Washington, and get an ugly response.By PEGGY NOONAN
We have entered uncharted territory in the fight over national health care. There’s a new tone in the debate, and it’s ugly. At the moment the Democrats are looking like something they haven’t looked like in years, and that is: desperate.
They must know at this point they should not have pushed a national health-care plan. A Democratic operative the other day called it “Hillary’s revenge.” When Mrs. Clinton started losing to Barack Obama in the primaries 18 months ago, she began to give new and sharper emphasis to her health-care plan. Mr. Obama responded by talking about his health-care vision. He won. Now he would push what he had been forced to highlight: Health care would be a priority initiative. The net result is falling support for his leadership on the issue, falling personal polls, and the angry town-hall meetings that have electrified YouTube.
In his first five months in office, Mr. Obama had racked up big wins—the stimulus, children’s health insurance, House approval of cap-and-trade. But he stayed too long at the hot table. All the Democrats in Washington did. They overinterpreted the meaning of the 2008 election, and didn’t fully take into account how the great recession changed the national mood and atmosphere.
And so the shock on the faces of Congressmen who’ve faced the grillings back home. And really, their shock is the first thing you see in the videos. They had no idea how people were feeling. Their 2008 win left them thinking an election that had been shaped by anti-Bush, anti-Republican, and pro-change feeling was really a mandate without context; they thought that in the middle of a historic recession featuring horrific deficits, they could assume support for the invention of a huge new entitlement carrying huge new costs.
The passions of the protesters, on the other hand, are not a surprise. They hired a man to represent them in Washington. They give him a big office, a huge staff and the power to tell people what to do. They give him a car and a driver, sometimes a security detail, and a special pin showing he’s a congressman. And all they ask in return is that he see to their interests and not terrify them too much. Really, that’s all people ask. Expectations are very low. What the protesters are saying is, “You are terrifying us.”
What has been most unsettling is not the congressmen’s surprise but a hard new tone that emerged this week. The leftosphere and the liberal commentariat charged that the town hall meetings weren’t authentic, the crowds were ginned up by insurance companies, lobbyists and the Republican National Committee. But you can’t get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting with a congressman (of all people) unless they are engaged to the point of passion. And what tends to agitate people most is the idea of loss—loss of money hard earned, loss of autonomy, loss of the few things that work in a great sweeping away of those that don’t.
People are not automatons. They show up only if they care.
What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of “carrying swastikas and symbols like that.” (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a “no” slash over a swastika.) But they are not Nazis, they’re Americans. Some of them looked like they’d actually spent some time fighting Nazis.
Then came the Democratic Party charge that the people at the meetings were suspiciously well-dressed, in jackets and ties from Brooks Brothers. They must be Republican rent-a-mobs. Sen. Barbara Boxer said on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that people are “storming these town hall meetings,” that they were “well dressed”, that “this is all organized,” “all planned,” to “hurt our president.” Here she was projecting. For normal people, it’s not all about Barack Obama.
The Democratic National Committee chimed in with an incendiary Web video whose script reads, “The right wing extremist Republican base is back.” DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse issued a statement that said the Republicans “are inciting angry mobs of . . . right wing extremists” who are “not reflective of where the American people are.”
But most damagingly to political civility, and even our political tradition, was the new White House email address to which citizens are asked to report instances of “disinformation” in the health-care debate: If you receive an email or see something on the Web about health-care reform that seems “fishy,” you can send it to flag@whitehouse.gov. The White House said it was merely trying to fight “intentionally misleading” information.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas on Wednesday wrote to the president saying he feared that citizens’ engagement could be “chilled” by the effort. He’s right, it could. He also accused the White House of compiling an “enemies list.” If so, they’re being awfully public about it, but as Byron York at the Washington Examiner pointed, the emails collected could become a “dissident database.”
All of this is unnecessarily and unhelpfully divisive and provocative. They are mocking and menacing concerned citizens. This only makes a hot situation hotter. Is this what the president wants? It couldn’t be. But then in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office. You really, if you’re president, can’t call an individual American stupid, if for no other reason than that you’re too big. You cannot allow your allies to call people protesting a health-care plan “extremists” and “right wing,” or bought, or Nazi-like, either. They’re citizens. They’re concerned. They deserve respect.
The Democrats should not be attacking, they should be attempting to persuade, to argue for their case. After all, they have the big mic. Which is what the presidency is, the big mic.
And frankly they ought to think about backing off. The president should call in his troops and his Congress and announce a rethinking. There are too many different bills, they’re all a thousand pages long, no one has time to read them, no one knows what’s going to be in the final one, the public is agitated, the nation’s in crisis, the timing is wrong, we’ll turn to it again—but not now. We’ll take a little longer, ponder every aspect, and make clear every complication.
You know what would happen if he did this? His numbers would go up. Even Congress’s would. Because they’d look responsive, deliberative and even wise. Discretion is the better part of valor.
Absent that, and let’s assume that won’t happen, the health-care protesters have to make sure they don’t get too hot, or get out of hand. They haven’t so far, they’ve been burly and full of debate, with plenty of booing. This is democracy’s great barbaric yawp. But every day the meetings seem just a little angrier, and people who are afraid—who have been made afraid, and left to be afraid—can get swept up. As this column is written, there comes word that John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO has announced he’ll be sending in union members to the meetings to counter health care’s critics.
Somehow that doesn’t sound like a peace initiative.
It’s going to be a long August, isn’t it? Let’s hope the uncharted territory we’re in doesn’t turn dark.
DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. -- U.S. Rep. David Scott (D-13th) was involved in what many called an embarrassing display of losing his temper at a town hall meeting in Douglasville last weekend.
In the meeting, Scott lost his temper and began yelling at a crowd that included two people who came forward during the question-and-answer portion of the meeting to ask Scott about his stance on the health care plan proposed by the White House and being debated on Capitol Hill.
The city of Douglasville taped the event and you can see Scott become increasingly agitated after a question about health care.
At one point he chastized some in the crowd for "hijacking" the meeting.
11Alive News has found the Douglas County doctor who posed one of the questions. Dr. Brian E. Hill, a urologist, said he simply wanted to know Congressman Scott's stance on government-provided insurance.
"I did not go to a meeting to create any problem. I simply have real questions about the quality of health care my patients are going to get not just now, but down the line," Hill said.
Members of Congress and Senators have been confronted in town hall meetings nationwide by constuents who are expressing anger about the upcoming vote on the proposed health care legislation.
Some say political groups are now recruiting individuals to purposely disrupt such meetings and gatherings. Dr. Hill said he's hardly a political plant.
"We depend on our congressmen and congresswomen to really do what's right for us and represent our views. I just don't see that happening. We have a right to ask tough questions directly to them and have them answer them. That's how politics is supposed to work. They should answer to their constituents," said Hill.
The meeting was originally set up to talk about the relocation project of Hwy. 92 in Douglasville, but toward the end of the four-hour session the crowd was told they could ask questions about other things.
Dr. Hill was the second person in the meeting to address the Congressman with a question about health care.
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