Yes, the Republicans have the right idea…this isn’t something I find myself saying very often, but here goes…
I just read an editorial from Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize Winning Economist, Writer for the New York Times) about the health care debates going on in the country:
There’s a famous Norman Rockwell painting titled “Freedom of Speech,” depicting an idealized American town meeting. The painting, part of a series illustrating F.D.R.’s “Four Freedoms,” shows an ordinary citizen expressing an unpopular opinion…That’s a far cry from what has been happening at recent town halls…congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds.
So, aging liberal hippies think it’s OK to burn draft cards to protest the Vietnam War…but when it comes to health care policy we need to emulate old Norman Rockwell paintings?
These protesters are being told they’re “un-american” and wrong. Actually, in the land of the stupid and home of the ignorant, these types of stunts are the only things that work.
In the country with the stupidest politics in all the land, it’s important to find simple tactics which appeal to the doped up on cable news, brainwashed masses.
Maybe the crowds are managed and organized by front groups for corporate interests (http://trueslant.com/allisonkilkenny/2009/08/07/the-decay-of-the-healthcare-debate-astroturfing-and-manchurian-provocateurs/), but it’s irrelevant.
Certainly, the Republican Party manipulating populist anger for corporate gains is nothing new, but it’s irrelevant if they’re wrong.
Their tactics work. Republicans have suffered stunning defeat after landslide loss the past 3 years, yet somehow they have complete control over the agenda.
Liberals or even worse “Democrats” never hold their elected officials accountable. When politicians don’t do what liberals want them to do, they make excuses for them. They live in an alternate reality where Obama has a master plan, and if you just trust him and love him unconditionally, we’ll all be ok in the end.
A most egregious recent example is from this month’s Rolling Stone magazine with Michael Moore. He has developed an almost pathological capacity to find a way to justify every Obama betrayal. He says, “Obama fakes right, and goes left”.
Sorry Mike, I loved Sicko and all, but where is this “left turn”? So far, I haven’t seen it.
The Democrats control both houses of Congress, the Presidency, and they have the support of the country on most of their issues they ran on. So, let’s all be grown ups and face it.
Obama is not a liberal. If he was he would have kept his promises to: overturn don’t ask don’t tell in the military, vote against immunity for the Telecoms that spied on us illegally, brought transparency and real accountability and reform to the banks and the bailout process, and closed Guantanamo Bay.
This is why I have more respect for Republicans. At least they have principles. The Republicans know what they stand for. They are against government, and they are for the rich, period.
Even if the Republicans are stupid and wrong, at least they are consistently stupid and wrong according to their stupid, wrong principles.
Liberals, at least most “Obama supporters” don’t have actual principles. They have a cult of personality.
Instead of coming to terms with the fact that they believed the Obama hype, and got shit on by the Democrats as usual; they would rather wear an Obama T Shirt that says “Yes We Did” because Obama makes them feel gooey in their private spots.
The bottom line is we can learn a lot from their example. Grassroots action is what it takes to make change. This is why liberals and Democrats lose. It’s because we think we can just speak logically, and we will convince people of our position. Republicans don’t care about convincing anyone. They care about getting the job done.
So, what are we waiting for? Why aren’t we harassing congressmen who oppose health reform? Why aren’t we making death threats to Blue Dog Democrats?
If that’s what it takes to save thousands if not millions of lives, then so be it!
If liberals or Democrats fought like this maybe we would get some of our policies through.
Why aren’t we burning and/or hanging effigies of Obama to get him to do what we want him to do!?
So, here’s an idea. Let’s get angry, organized, and active.
Lighter fluid for the first effigy is on me.