July 29, 2009 archive

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    A group called “Patients First,” a project of the lobbyist-funded Americans for Prosperity, has been going around the country and hosting tea parties in opposition to “government-run health care.”

ThinkProgress.org

    Yesterday, AFP decided to hold a protest in front of the offices of Democratic Rep. Frank Kratovil’s (D-MD1) office. Despite the fact that Rep. Kratovil has yet to take a stance for or against health care reform, the AFP protesters felt it would be appropriate to voice their concerns by hanging him in effigy.

    And I thought calling the Congressman or writing him was the best way to influence his opinion! I didn’t know this was an option.

    It’s not an option, of course, unless you have lost your mind or you are a hate mongering sociopath.

    Now, if I were Rep. Kratovil, I would vote for health care reform just to spite this proto-lynch mob.

    Unfortunately, I am not he, and I don’t know how Congressman Kratovil will respond to this.

    This is not the first time a Democratic Politician has been threatened with hanging by voices empathetic to the GOP. Recently Sam Joe The Plumber the Propaganda machine suggested that someone should String up Senator Chris Dodd.

    And then of course there are the tea baggers, the Obama is a socialists, the Obama is a fascists, the Obama is a Kenyan, and on, and on, and on.

    This is not Democracy of We The People. This is not the rule of law decided by fair elections. This is how to intimidate citizens through threats of violence. This is the rule of mob.

   I do not know if the goal is to threaten Kravotil into opposing Health Care reform or if these tea baggers are just so mindlessly hateful and violent that this is the only way they can express themselves. I honestly do not know what the fuck these clowns are thinking when they do this kind of shit.

   But I do know what the goal is. The goal is to use threats of violence to achieve their political means.

   And that is the definition of terrorism.

   So when is the line in the sand drawn? When do We The People who voted for NotTheGOP put our foot down and say ENOUGH to these Corporatist psychotic brownshirts?

     

Original article, by Kate Randall and Barry Grey, via World Socialist Web Site:

The New York Times is spearheading the campaign for President Obama’s health care proposals. His drive for an overhaul of the health care system, far from representing a reform designed to provide universal coverage and increased access to quality care, marks an unprecedented attack on health care for the working population. It is an effort to roll back social gains associated with the enactment of Medicare in 1965.