Phony protests against health insurance reform

REMEMBER THIS UGLY SCENE?



This was what was portrayed by the media as a 'citizen riot' which stopped the Miami-Dade recount in 2000.

We now know that these were paid Republican congressional staffers who were put on a chartered plane from Washington DC and flown to Miami where they basically served two purposes; they created so much chaos that the elections board was unable to finish the recount (while also being put in fear of their personal physical safety,) and they defined the media story as angry 'ordinary citizens' being outraged that 'Democrats' were trying to 'steal' the election. The identies of the protesters were not known for several weeks and by that time we were already into the Bush presidency.

I bring this up because it seems like the GOP and their allies in the health insurance industry are apparently going back to the same playbook.

Reports coming from seperate townhall meetings held by congressmen from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Texas all have rowdy members of the audience carefully choreographed and shouting slogans to drown out the answers that the members of Congress gave to questions that were asked about health insurance reform. Apparently these folks have no interest in the answers the congressmen gave themselves but only in shouting so loud that they can't give an answer at all. In Austin, Texas after congressman Lloyd Doggett was shouted down so loudly that nobody at all could hear what he was saying, protesters outside the event followed him to his car and physically blocked him from leaving.

My own congresswoman, Ann Kirkpatrick was a bit smarter. She held a townhall last week (which I listened to)-- via teleconference. Callers who wanted to ask a question gave their name to a screener and only one was allowed on the phone at a time, and congresswoman Kirkpatrick gave intelligent, thoughtful answers. Maybe next time Lloyd Doggett will do the same thing.

If this were a genuine citizen revolt, that would be bad. Only it isn't. After it was reported that some of the protesters arrived in a group and were bused in, and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs specifically fingered an organization called, "Conservatives for Patient's Rights," that organization took responsibility today for organizing the protests. And they said they will continue to do it, too. They even acknowlege that they are using the listserv for the 'teabaggers.' I guess the same group of zanies have more than one hat they can put on. Given what happened eight and a half years ago, I think it's fair to ask how many of these folks are paid Congressional staffers. It's almost funny now to hear them call things like this 'the teabagger movement' or the 'private insurance movement.' Yeah, they make me think of a movement all right, and I'll leave it there and keep it clean.

Conservatives for Patient's Rights is headed and funded (to the tune of millions of dollars) by one man-- former hospital CEO Rick Scott. Scott had to step down as CEO of the Healtcare Corporation of America, a for-profit chain of hospitals after financial fraud led to the company having to pay $1.7 million in fines. In other words, let's say he's an 'outcomes-based' kind of guy, how he gets there doesn't matter. And the outcome he wants right now is to defeat health insurance reform.

So the tactics the right is using to derail health insurance reform apparently include shouting down any attempt at a normal rational discussion, theats of violence and physical intimidation (ask congressman Doggett about that.) I guess the good news is that they must know that they can't win an open debate based on the merits of their position (if they thought they could, they would allow the debate to just go forward, feeling confident that if the facts were on their side the proposal would just cave in under its own weight, sort of George W. Bush's social security reform plan did in 2005.) So knowing that they would rather revert to the kinds of tactics that worked for them back in the Florida election dispute.

It's worth pointing out though that there are other guilty parties besides Scott for putting misinformation out there.

We now have seen two of the main righty bloggers cross the line into full out manufactured video tape. The issue in question concerns a video that was featured on Matt Drudge's site (courtesy of Andrew Breitbart) that apparently shows Obama saying his goal is to eliminate the private health insurance industry. Only it now turns out that Breitbart in fact pieced together clips of Obama speaking the words he needed and cut and pasted them sort of like old ransom notes used to be put together with words clipped from a newspaper. People who intentionally manufacture stories to fit their point of view like that give all bloggers a bad name.

Sticks and stones-- the sequel

Several days ago I published a post titled sticks and stones about the rising tide of violence from the far right.

And sure enough, today we had another such episode, a gunman who attacked the Holocaust Museum in Washington and killed a security guard.

The gunman is identified as James von Brunn, a well-known white supremacist who has claimed that the Federal Reserve is part of a conspiracy run by Jews to control the world's wealth. In 1981, von Brunn tried to arrest the entire Federal Reserve Board.
Besides denying the Holocaust, von Brunn is also a 'birther,' one who claims that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

The attack highlights the increasing willingness of those on the far right to use violence. And just as Scott Roeder, Dr. Tiller's murderer, was once an anti-tax protester, so too von Brunn has ties to several facets of the extreme right.

I've found that there is in fact a shadowland out there consisting of extreme anti-tax, anti-government fanatics who are also tied in with single issue fanatics (such as abortion and anti-immigration fanatics). Some, but not all are also white supremacists and members various hate groups, but even among those who are not it is easy for conspiracy theories to gain a foothold (be it 'birthers,' who deny Obama is a U.S. citizen, 'truthers,' who think the government planned and carried out 9/11 or whatever.) They meet up through networking, and have clearinghouse websites like American Patriot Friends Network with links to whatever nutty right wing idea you are looking for.

Where possible they try to influence public policy by getting members ('true friends' as they call them) elected to public office. But increasingly they seem to be turning to violence-- and yes, they are almost always well-armed.

This is not to suggest that many, or even more than a small minority-- of conservatives who hold strong views on topics like taxation, immigration or abortion, are members of this shadowland (though the dividing line between conservatism and 'off the deep end' does at times seem like a very fine one.) But their numbers are hard to define (just like any such organization they seem to have a core of true believers, then layers of people they want to draw in but who may run the gamut from hardcore converts to casual contacts.) What we do know is that they are dangerous and becoming more so.

Decision sends a clear message: violence works

The family of Dr. George Tiller announced today that his clinic in Wichita (one of less than ten in the country that perform late term abortions) will not re-open.

Just one question: Doesn't this suggest that violence works? Scott Roeder, though he attempted to drive away, probably was not all that surprised when he was caught. So even if he spends the rest of his life in prison or gets the death penalty, he will probably be satisfied, sort of like jihadists who praise Allah before blowing themselves up in a crowd, or before having their heads chopped off for acts of terror committed in Saudi Arabia.

Now I will grant that there are practical business reasons why the clinic will not reopen without its founder. For one thing there is certainly a limited supply of doctors who are willing to risk their lives to work there (even more so given that there is a limited supply of doctors anyway, in nearly all fields of medicine.)

However, not re-opening the clinic still seems to send a chilling message to those who contemplate any act of terrorism (be it against abortion, against taxes, against some racial or ethnic group, etc.) The message is that they can now not only carry it out, but if they do then they can actually succeed in changing things just as they wish to. This decision will lead to more domestic terrorism, not less.

UPDATE:

This prediction didn't take long to become reality. Only one day later (today, June 10) a gunman carried out an attack at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We don't yet know the details but it is clear that now that they've seen violence work in Wichita, every kook out there with a cause will be coming out of the woodwork, armed and ready to wreak havoc.

McCain mob threatens Obama counterdemonstrators.

I go to a lot of Democratic events. And at some of them there have been counterdemonstrators.

I remember going to listen to Bill Clinton speak at the University of New Mexico in 1992. And as it happened I ended up right in front of a group of pro-life demonstrators who were holding up a big sign calling Clinton a draft-dodger and a baby-killer. They were also quite vocal, although Clinton had a mike and they were some distance away so I doubt if anyone at the stage heard them, but I sure did.

I remember watching John Kerry when he made his whistle stop in Winslow in 2004. In the back of the crowd were two men holding up a 'Bush/Cheney' sign and who booed when Kerry was being introduced. Like everyone else, I chose to ignore them.

I remember also in 2004, Hillary Clinton was giving a speech at the Wild Horse resort near Chandler. On the way in, I passed a group of Bush supporters who were enthusiastically waving signs, and strategically placed to try and make people think that the right road to go down was one that led to the casino there (not the building where the speech was.)

But hey, that's America. We believe in freedom of speech, and as long as people don't actually try to disrupt a campaign event they are every bit as free to show their non-support of a candidate as others are to show their support.

Except, apparently at John McCain rallies like the one in Miami today. It seems like his supporters are willing to threaten violence and engage in mob mentality if anyone dares to show up and suggest that they are not for McCain.

From fivethirtyeight:

Tonight we'll be at the Obama-Clinton rally in Kissimmee, Florida, and we're breaking in from Miami, where John McCain just concluded his "Joe the Plumber" rally at Everglades Lumber.

After the rally, we witnessed a near-street riot involving the exiting McCain crowd and two Cuban-American Obama supporters. Tony Garcia, 63, and Raul Sorando, 31, were suddenly surrounded by an angry mob. There is a moment in a crowd when something goes from mere yelling to a feeling of danger, and that's what we witnessed. As photographers and police raced to the scene, the crowd elevated from stable to fast-moving scrum, and the two men were surrounded on all sides as we raced to the circle.

The event maybe lasted a minute, two at the most, before police competently managed to hustle the two away from the scene and out of the danger zone. Only FiveThirtyEight tracked the two men down for comment, a quarter mile down the street.

"People were screaming 'Terrorist!' 'Communist!' 'Socialist!'" Sorando said when we caught up with him. "I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me."

Asked what had precipitated the event, "We were just chanting 'Obama!' and holding our signs. That was it. And the crowd suddenly got crazy."

Garcia told us that the man who originally had warned the two it was his property when they had first tried to attend the rally with Obama T-shirts was one of the agitators. Coming up just before the scene started getting out of hand, the man whispered in Garcia's ear, "I'm gonna beat you up the next time I see you." Garcia described him for us: "a big stocky man wearing a tweed jacket." He used hand motions to emphasize this was a large guy. We went back to look for the gentleman twenty minutes after the incident but didn't find him.

The two Obama supporters had attempted to attend the event with tickets printed from the McCain website. Both were clad in Obama T-shirts, Sorando in a blue "Obama '08" shirt, and Garcia in a white "Obama-Biden" shirt. They were told that the event was being held on private property and that wearing the shirts or carrying the signs they would be asked to either remove the shirts or not attend.

For an hour during the rally, the two had stood across the street from the lumberyard on public property holding yard signs. Some drivers honked in support, and others honked in disapproval. When the rally ended and the crowd spilled out, the disturbance began.

Note that they did obey the request to vacate the private property, and were situated on the street, which by law is public access (anyone can stand there and demonstrate in other words.)

Well, Tony had something else to say to the man who had threatened him:

Garcia had a message for his stocky, tweed-clad threatener. "You tell that guy he can find Tony Garcia down at the West Dade library every day from 7 to 7 helping people early vote. I'll be there from 1 to 5 on Saturday and Sunday. You tell him if he wants to kick my ass that's where he can find me. Come beat me up."

Not thirty seconds later, John McCain drove by in his SUV and waved at Garcia on the sidewalk, who was happily waving his Obama sign.

But this is something that the McCain supporters don't get. Maybe Tony Garcia got under their skin by using his Constitutional right to counterdemonstrate at a McCain rally. But what else is he going to do this weekend? Darn right, he's volunteering to help people vote.

There are millions of Tony Garcias in the country, people who want change and whether they are as outspoken as he is or not, are going to do their part to make it happen.

We are all Tony Garcia.