RW Thugs Disrupt Health Care Town Halls

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
RW Thugs Disrupt Health Care Town Halls
40
Tue, 08-04-2009 - 4:04pm

Unbelievable!!!


See videos here...........


http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/03/doggett-health-care/


Right-Wing Thugs Disrupt Health Care Town Halls


http://www.opednews.com/populum/diarypage.php?did=13968


Disruption is emerging as the Right's method of choice for fighting health care reform as the August recess and the ground war for reform begin. Weekend town hall meetings in Philadelphia and Austin were both disrupted by shouting bands of the same basic wingnut type we saw at McCain-Palin rallies in 2008 and at the teabagging events of earlier this year. As previously, video from these events clearly demonstrates just how crazy the grassroots Right has become.


At the Austin event Aug. 1 with Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett (pictured here, see video), the usual suspects showed up shouting "Just Say No" and waving signs that included the usual symbols of communism and fascism worked into statements against "socialized" health care, in addition to an image of Doggett as Satan. The protestors' continued shouting throughout the event was clearly an effort to disrupt it and to prevent any other voices being heard. The same was the case at an Aug. 2 event in Philadelphia with Republican-turned-Democratic Senator Arlen Specter and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (see video). Here, wingnuts with bumber stickers on their heads shouted down speakers to the clear annoyance of others around them trying to listen. One woman held up a copy of the New American Bible and said, "This is the only truth," as though that were somehow an argument against health care reform.


These disruptive actions by Righties are not just an attack on health care reform but also an attack on democracy and open debate, since their express aim is to silence those with whom they disagree. The "me-first" mentality of anti-health care protestors was exemplified by one Carol O'Brien at the Philadelphia event, who told the Philadelphia Inquirer that extending health care coverage to 47 million uninsured Americans might mean that she would no longer be first in line at the doctor. "I don't want to have to wait for care," O'Brien said, clearly unconcerned about the amount of waiting others might have to endure without health care reform. Too bad Carol O'Brien is an unwitting stooge for an insurance industry that would deny care to her just as happily as she would deny it to others.


On the one hand I would hope that, in a public forum such as this, some rules of order might be enforced to prevent disruption and allow all voices to be heard; and that those who insist on disrupting could simply be removed just as they would be be removed from any other public forum. On the other hand I can't help seeing behavior such as this as an opportunity for progressives to demonstrate the depths of irrationality to which the Right has sunk. Good use was made of video from McCain-Palin events demonstrating all sorts of ugly behavior, and good use has been made of video showing similar behavior at teabagging events. As the long, hot month of August progresses I would only expect the wingnuts to get uglier and more brazen, and if they are going to insist on behaving this way we might as well make sure everyone sees the videos.


(See also: Huffington Post, TPM)

Photobucket      The WeatherPixie 

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-25-2008
Wed, 08-05-2009 - 1:02pm

Simply put, you have the right to speak your mind.

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-03-2009
Wed, 08-05-2009 - 1:25pm

I don't foresee a good outcome to the strategies of either the health-care reform opponents or the Organizing for America activists. Focus will be on the strife and probable bad behavior; rather than on a coherent and well reasoned message from the opposing camps.

Too bad. Freedom of speech works best when logic prevails, rather than mob mentality or opposition for its own sake.

Hey, are you and your computer fully recovered? Hope so!

Jabberwocka

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-25-2008
Wed, 08-05-2009 - 1:30pm

I agree.

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Wed, 08-05-2009 - 2:12pm

... but too many people aren't interested in the country's best interests, only in their own.


You hit the nail squarely on the head.


iVillage Member
Registered: 12-25-2008
Wed, 08-05-2009 - 2:27pm

Yep, it's anything where they have or think they have a personal stake in the issue which is placed above and beyond their obligation to their constituents.

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 02-20-2007
Wed, 08-05-2009 - 2:51pm

I have several right wingers as friends or family. The common thread that runs between each and every one of them is that they all resort to drowning other opinion makers out by talking loudly, or refusing to listen to any other point of view except their own.


It gets very frustrating, and at times causes me to walk away from them. If there is a town hall, or other venues to debate important bills or amendments, etc., each side should be able to have fair and equal time to discuss their opinion. Far too often, the right wingers want no part of that. It's their way or the highway. Ridiculous IMO.


Clinton tried to get a health care plan passed, but was met with angry shouts of "socialist" from the right, and in the end his attempt failed because of it. We then had 8 years of Bush, and there wasn't a peep about trying a universal health care program. Status quo was the mantra. To hell with the Americans who have no health care....let them fend for themselves? Obama tries to implement a plan that may have some "tweaking" to do, but it still provides every American with the chance of being covered in some form or fashion, and here they come screaming and hollering yet again about how ridiculous the proposed plan is. Where are THEIR solutions to this?? I'll tell you where.....NOWHERE. Their plan is to somehow lie, deceive, connive, or ridicule the left and independents in any way possible to delay or destroy any such health plan from happening. That would greatly reduce the millions of dollars in campaign money nearly every Republican representative now receives from the medical insurance companies (and some Dems are guilty of this as well).


This is all yet another tool used by the right to get their way. Listen to Hannity sometime.....that's his way of debating with anyone coming on his cable news show that has opinions and beliefs different from his.....drown them out at all costs...scream, holler, finger point.....whatever it takes to insure their points of view are made to look contrite or stupid. It must be fantastic if you were someone like him. 100% right, ALL the time!! Wow. Must be great to be him huh.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Wed, 08-05-2009 - 5:11pm

"...resort to drowning other opinion makers out by talking loudly, or refusing to listen to any other point of view except their own."


That has been my experience too. Their last line of defence is name calling.


"If there is a town hall, or other venues to debate important bills or amendments, etc., each side should be able to have fair and equal time to discuss their opinion. Far too often, the right wingers want no part of that. It's their way or the highway."


There's that saying , "empty vessels make the most noise".


"Obama tries to implement a plan that may have some "tweaking" to do, but it still provides every American with the chance of being covered in some form or fashion, and here they come screaming and hollering yet again about how ridiculous the proposed plan is."


At lunch today with my GF we were discussing healthcare. (BTW we both

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 08-07-2009 - 10:11am
Republicans Propagating Falsehoods in Attacks on Health-Care Reform

Complete article at link........


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/06/AR2009080603854.html?nav=hcmodule


As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don't agree. Today, I'm going to step over that line.


The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.


There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress -- I've made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation.


Under any plan likely to emerge from Congress, the vast majority of Americans who are not old or poor will continue to buy health insurance from private companies, continue to get their health care from doctors in private practice and continue to be treated at privately owned hospitals.


The centerpiece of all the plans is a new health insurance exchange set up by the government where individuals, small businesses and eventually larger businesses will be able to purchase insurance from private insurers at lower rates than are now generally available under rules that require insurers to offer coverage to anyone regardless of health condition. Low-income workers buying insurance through the exchange -- along with their employers -- would be eligible for government subsidies. While the government will take a more active role in regulating the insurance market and increase its spending for health care, that hardly amounts to the kind of government-run system that critics conjure up when they trot out that oh-so-clever line about the Department of Motor Vehicles being in charge of your colonoscopy.



By now, you've probably also heard that health reform will cost taxpayers at least a trillion dollars. Another lie.


First of all, that's not a trillion every year, as most people assume -- it's a trillion over 10 years, which is the silly way that people in Washington talk about federal budgets. On an annual basis, that translates to about $140 billion, when things are up and running.


Even that, however, grossly overstates the net cost to the government of providing universal coverage. Other parts of the reform plan would result in offsetting savings for Medicare: reductions in unnecessary subsidies to private insurers, in annual increases in payments rates for doctors and in payments to hospitals for providing free care to the uninsured. The net increase in government spending for health care would likely be about $100 billion a year, a one-time increase equal to less than 1 percent of a national income that grows at an average rate of 2.5 percent every year.


The Republican lies about the economics of health reform are also heavily laced with hypocrisy.


While holding themselves out as paragons of fiscal rectitude, Republicans grandstand against just about every idea to reduce the amount of health care people consume or the prices paid to health-care providers -- the only two ways I can think of to credibly bring health spending under control.


When Democrats, for example, propose to fund research to give doctors, patients and health plans better information on what works and what doesn't, Republicans sense a sinister plot to have the government decide what treatments you will get. By the same wacko-logic, a proposal that Medicare pay for counseling on end-of-life care is transformed into a secret plan for mass euthanasia of the elderly.


Government negotiation on drug prices? The end of medical innovation as we know it, according to the GOP's Dr. No. Reduce Medicare payments to overpriced specialists and inefficient hospitals? The first step on the slippery slope toward rationing.


Can there be anyone more two-faced than the Republican leaders who in one breath rail against the evils of government-run health care and in another propose a government-subsidized high-risk pool for people with chronic illness, government-subsidized community health centers for the uninsured, and opening up Medicare to people at age 55?


Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society -- whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.


If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.

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Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 08-07-2009 - 10:48am

This is interesting........


Oil and Gas Industries Fuel Unruly Townhall Meetings

http://mediamattersaction.org/factcheck/200908060005

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Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-20-2007
Fri, 08-07-2009 - 2:01pm

What great information on this subject. Thank you for all the time you put in keeping everyone so up to date on the most recent news concerning this very important program.


My honest opinion is that if we don't get some form of a universal health plan in place during Obama's term, people across our land will be feeling the dire consequences of having to pay more and more for less coverage under our current health care system. People need to get their heads out of the sand, and learn all they can about what the true costs would be for a new plan to be put in place, and what effects, pro and con, will it have on them personally.