Forbidden Donut

Agreed. It is totally fine to go to a town hall meeting and ask tough questions or rattle off facts to try to make the politician you don't agree with look bad, but shouting him down is useless.

What're your thoughts on the involvement of the GOP in this initiative?

FreedomWorks Guide to Being a Dick.

I'm inclined to think that Steele is telling the truth about his and the RNC's involvement, but I bet you he wishes he thought of it.

The phone thing is just EL OH EL to me.

These people know very little about the issues. What they do know about certain issues is spun to suit religious and moral rationals while detailing few actual facts. Why is it surprising that when addressing the issues that these people know little about and have already formed opinions based in their steadfast ideologies, they react irrationally and with aggression. These townhall meetings are challenging their worldviews. They have been fed ignorance their whole lives, and now with the truth presenting itself they must face the hypocrisy.

I don't know the extent of GOP involvement in this. It seems more like these are localized groups doing this.

I find it somewhat hard to believe, personally, that all across the country, in the space of a week, like minded (read batshit crazy) conservatives all came to the same conclusion that the way to keep the governmetn out of your healthcare was to sit in a townhall and yell at their senators. Impossible, no. But it seems unlikely that they aren't taking their orders from somewhere. Not in a nefarious way, in a Rush Limbaugh talked about how participation in democracy was the best way to demostrate your dissention for 3 hours one day and then the idea got legs. And I don't believe for a second that Limbaugh, Hannity, Kilmeade, O'Reilly, et al are not in collusion with the GOP. But that might be where I jump the shark.

Sure they are in collusion with the GOP (in that the GOP needs votes and wants to pander to them) but the GOP does not even get close to advocating all of the policies they want.

And I really do think these are just localized groups (sure they may be revved up from talk radio but who is telling them what local meetings to go to?).

Did anyone check if they were Freepers?

How would one check that?
----
Eve:
I'm confused about why you'd think a central organizing group as big as the GOP would bother with the nitty gritty of what meetings to go to. Or why that's necessary to categorize these movements as GOP led initiatives.

The party is no stranger to astrotufing.

Behold the Florida Recount "Protests"

/call me skeptical

At least one Freeper was there.

phew... you actually waded into that shit for us? DAAAAMN.



This woman is 67. Behold the wisdom of age.

And this sounds like pretty standard fare for this stuff. You don't bring a sign into a town hall, particularly a protest sign. Since it's not supposed to be a protest. If you yell a lot at these things, or talk for too long without having a point, they will do the same thing. That's why the rules from freedomworks are out. How to protest without protesting.

I can feel for this lady, cause this is how war protesters were treated for the last 8 years (sometimes better sometimes worse), but seriously... you went there hoping to cause a ruckus, and they wanted none of it. And then you bitch about how victimized you were?






I *LIKE* this freeper. It's like Poe's law has no meaning or power there...

Luckily, it was on the front page.

At the event close to me:
http://thedanashow.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/meet-the-mob/

LIES! That wasn't my mom, and I don't have a child!

This anecdotal evidence is just as convincing as my anecdotal evidence

It takes but one Glenn Beck listener.

Also those folks in your link could easily have been saying some of the same (useless) things:
"You work for us!"
"Hear our voice!"
"Tyranny Tyranny Tyranny!"
"Read the Bill!"
"Obamacare Seniors beware! Rationing is here,"
"If socialized medicine is best ... why didn't Ted Kennedy go to Canada?" (completely ignorant of the fact that Teddy already HAS government run healthcare... and Canada's healthcare not being socialized...)

Which means they aren't interested in getting answers or holding their elected officials accountable.

I don't think all of the people showing up to these meetings are organized nationally, but probably some of them are. When someone watches TV and it shows all of these people protesting, I don't think it is too far of a jump to assume that people might rally behind it.

What annoys me is that people who are protesting Obama's heatlh care reform are called the "Mob" and not wanting to discuss change, but when people backing Obama organize like crazy and show up to an event its ok? What makes Obama's campaign/organizations great for America and "grassroots" but when people apposing the reform try to do the same thing, they are the mob? Seems wrong to me.

I think that fact that they're showing up to events that aren't hosted by their own supporters and acting like ignorant assholes is why they're called "the mob", not their political viewpoints.

false dichotomy is false

I feel like there is a dichotomy =\

People that protest his health care reform are not called the "mob." People that show up to town halls that are designed to discuss the legitimate merits of such reform and resort to shouting down the assembly are the people being labeled the "mob." If someone shows up to a town hall meeting, attempts to engage in an honest public discourse about the dangers or drawbacks of the planned health care bill, and they are instead shouted at until they are basically forced to stop speaking, then you could apply the "mob" title right back to those who support the health care reform.

What makes the dichotomy false is that in one instance, people were organizing to support a political campaign, and in the other people are organizing to oppose a political agenda.

It's not even the same as what Code Pink did. They just went to events and did their protesting from outside the earshot of the event itself, since that's how the last administration rolled. These people are *protesting* at a Town Hall Meeting.

This is more like going into a courtroom where a guy you like is being tried for murder, and not letting the prosecution speak without you yelling about their last trip abroad. Except when you get kicked out of the courtroom and possibly charged with a crime, nobody takes you seriously when you bitch about being oppressed.

I'd also like to point out that the ONLY people who have used the word "mob" in this thread are Evestay's article, KP's post bitching about the characterization of the right by the left described in said article, and Court pointing out that the word doesn't pertain to all organized political movements, just the ones that engage in thuggery.

So frankly, I don't know what the fuck has you two riled up so much.

5 years ago, liberals doing somewhat similar things (though they simply weren't permitted the same amount of power in the national dialogue), were labeled un-american, traitors and terrorist sympathizers. But you both got upset at seeing these folks called the mob*.

*wherever you happened to see that. Cause it sure wasn't in here.

I am not riled up, and I don't think my post was overly bitchy...but thanks for your input.

Meh, you're just the fourth or so person who has defended these folks as not being "the mob", by defining the word themselves... just like the DNC ad that *typically* has the defender all antsy in their pantsy.

It's about as meaningful a term as "useful idiots", which is the single most obnoxious phrase in the universe.

My curiosity has slowly been eating away at me. Why did you add the poll? It holds absolutely no meaning.

I thought we liked to throw around false dichotomies here. Sorry.

side note