The Truth About Anti-Reform Mobs

---

BLT August 9, 2009 9:48 am (Pacific time)

If opponents of Obamacare are Astroturf, then how come all of their signs are homemade, with all sorts of different shapes and sizes and colors and stuff... And how come all of the pro-Obamacare demonstrators have official-looking and uniform, pre-printed, signs? Then so what if people are organized? How many times over the years have you seen people bussed in by national organizations like unions to lobby for their perspectives on issues? Now that would be better descibed as astro-turf, but again so what. It is about peacefull assembly and from what has been reported it is not the tea baggers and the anti-Obama healthcare plan citizens that are being arrested. It's easy to make up things about people, but we have a preponderance of evidence that shows what is really going on. By the way I am part of the majority who likes my health insurance, but I want all people to have what I have. But you don't burn down the house to remodel the living room. Why do some want to move so fast on this? We have no models anywhere in the world that work. According to the American Cancer Society just take prostate 5 year survival cancer rates: In America it is 100%; in Canada it is 93%; and in England it is approx. 70%. These are sobering stats. By the way England's National Health organization is the 3rd largest employer in the world, that's right in the world. These civil service workers far out number all the doctors, nurses and other medical staff workers.Do we want this? Let's look at other ways to deal with health coverage. Maybe even vouchers, like we have in some school systems. Let's slow down and do this right.

---

Jacob August 9, 2009 9:01 am (Pacific time)

These healthcare protests are sure dividing the country. Remember the expression-- "Bush spied on us."? The Privacy Act of 1974, was passed after the Nixon administration used federal agencies to illegally investigate individuals for political purposes. Enacted after Richard Nixon's resignation in the Watergate scandal, the statute generally prohibits any federal agency from maintaining records on individuals exercising their right to free speech. The White House has been under fire since it posted a blog on Tuesday (8/4/09) that asked supporters to e-mail any "fishy" information about healthcare assertions by individuals/organizations seen on the Web or received electronically to flag@whitehouse.gov. "There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there," the blog said, adding that "since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help." There's a federal criminal statute that requires the White House to retain all communications that it receives. It can't try to rewrite history by pretending it didn't receive anything. If the White House deletes anything, it violates one statute. If the White House collects data on the free speech (which it publically requested), it violates another statute. If and when an investigation happens there will be a clear record of all IP's via the Freedom of Information Act, ironic isn't it!? Change you can believe in? History repeats.

---

Rich August 8, 2009 9:32 am (Pacific time)

Below is a video of who is getting arrested, and it is the union thugs people. What would be the motive for one to suppress news that turns the democratic talking points upside down in the above article? The word is getting out and the usurpers of truth will easily be known and pointed out. Why would propaganda liar's like this want to live in my country, they should go be with like-minded in Cuba and Hugo Chavez, or maybe eastern Europe. There will be trials for those who engage in sedition and treason. "Video: Carnahan attempts to explain “right-wing assault” comment http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/08/video-carnahan-attempts-to-explain-right-wing-assault-comment/ ^ After his town-hall meeting, Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) decried the “assault” on his constituent meetings by right-wing activists. Jamie Allman, a St., Louis talk-show host, attended Carnahan’s press conference the next day and asked Carnahan to explain why the only people arrested for assault at his town-hall meeting were ObamaCare supporters — specifically, union thugs who assaulted opponents of the health-care reform plan. Suddenly, Carnahan got a lot more universal in his accusations: It “got out of control on both sides”? Did anyone from the opposition start cracking heads at that rally?

---

Anonymous August 7, 2009 3:23 pm (Pacific time)

I can’t begin to tell you what a political mistake this is by the democrats.

Obama and Emmanuel are using tactics appropriate to Cuba and Venezuela.

This is a tactical mistake. They believe that intimidation will stop the protests and energize their base.

By not understanding that their voters were comprised of people who simply had enough of Bush, and not a mandate for Obama, they have now allienated people completely.

Editor: Give it a rest will you?  Your extremely unique position does not represent anyone but a few pissed off white people who just can't stand to see the smaller man represented.  This time you guys are a day late and a dollar short.  Your rallies are intimidating to people, we've heard about the tactics from quite a few, so what's new about right wingers bullying their way through life anyway?  

---

Jersey August 7, 2009 3:16 pm (Pacific time)

The Change is Clear to See.
The White House’s actions in the health care debate have made clear the fundamental change from the Bush administration’s way of doing things that President Obama has brought to the White House.

The Bush administration treated America’s enemies as dangerous threats bent on destroying the country and used every resource at its disposal to defeat them while respecting American citizens’ right to disagree with its policies. This is a fact that cannot be refuted with any solid evidence.
The Obama Administration tries to appease America’s enemies and uses every possible opportunity to cower to them while treating American citizens that disagree with its policies as dangerous threats bent on destroying the country, using every thuggish tactic at its disposal to silence them. Even now as you read this apathetic Americans are waking up and getting out to protest. Woe to those who try to stop them.

Editor: What kind of threatening BS is that?  The funny thing is that law enforcement is onto you guys.  Screw your intimidation, better yet why don't you move to some other place like eastern Europe where fascism is far more popular.  President Bush soiled our reputation in the world with his POS teammates who are all a bunch of rotten jerk draft dodgers parading as Americans.  You know absolutely nothing and you betray that very clearly here.  I heard from some cops here in Oregon that your charades will be stopped dead in their tracks if you get out of line  Woe is who?  

---

Mark August 7, 2009 3:04 pm (Pacific time)

There sure are many conflicting stories going on out there regarding the Townhall meetings. I found cruising the net and finding generally different television stations putting video on can give you at least some trends, including who are the mobs and who are the people using their 1st Amendment rights. Also considerable paranoia out there by some who think by suppressing info that they can have an impact on the ultimate outcome. That won't happen, too many sources. For example here's the latest on voter interpratation of current events: "41% View Town Hall Protesters Favorably, 35% Don’tRasmussen Reports ^ | August 7, 2009
Forty-one percent (41%) of U.S. voters have a favorable opinion of the people opposing health care reform at town hall meetings now being conducted by members of Congress, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Senior Democrats charge that many of the protests at the town hall meetings are orchestrated by special interests, but 49% of voters believe, generally speaking, that the protesting citizens are reflecting the concerns of their neighbors." The last stat is proving to be more and more accurate as time passes. So much video showing union thugs attacking people, watch the lawsuits and arrests increase. Obama is responsible for this union criminal behavior and it will be a future issue before congress in 2011. Mark my words on that.

Editor: So you're "Mark" today?  Not Jerry O'Brian or Jerry Warner?  You know who you are? Absolutely nobody.  I find it comical always that you won't use your real name.  Do you realize that your cause is lost?  Most people care a great deal about Americans receiving healthcare.  You are an irritating little wart and all of the time you spend writing comments here under different names underscores the pathetic nature of your words.  

---

Anonymous August 7, 2009 12:26 pm (Pacific time)

I have the feeling that not any of you people even looked at the bill. It's a scam, it cost way to much money and it will kill our elderly. The Government is lying to the people, like always. We, the tax payer will pay for abortions here and abroad. Read the bill and think. It's Socialism at it's finest. The Government will control you from birth to death. The Government will decide who lives and who dies. Are you people all that brainwashed with that Obama bull that you can't think for yourself anymore?

---

Henry Ruark August 7, 2009 9:04 am (Pacific time)

To all: File-search located liberalist manual just cited. Also notes from last mob-scene reported, and clip of story. Score: 6 int'vwd; 4 turned out to be tavern habitues, hired for event. Other two included small retailer and a member of town council, opposing first 4. Their signs were snatched and smashed by first 4; they preferred police charges, with outcome uncovered in story since appearance set a week later --no clip. Honest Injun: That's what writer's files are for...you never know coming-needs !! Single incident, but sets longtime still-standing mob pattern. See Sen. Reid AP-story in leading dailies today castigating mob-scene with details reflecting pattern. Reporters live strange lives demanding constant learning and later application of solid truth so taught by painful experience...ask any working mediamanorwoman you may know.

---

Henry Clay Ruark August 7, 2009 8:14 am (Pacific time)

DOD: Intentionally or not, you here mirror precisely what the Blue Dog/GOPster "opinion" shapers are paid billions to create as false understandings of a complex issue. Honest analysis here, from decades of doing such damned stuff, clearly shows striking similarities in both concepts and consequent wording,the key to eliable identification of all such content. Space here prevents complete statement of analysis, but my qualifications for it start with "four gentlement from VA" otherwise un-ID'd at I.U. very special (and limited) course on propaganda analysis. (See my Staff information.) Must suggest you seek out more reliable fullly detailed analysis of strikingly and rapidly changing healthcare legislation, now drawing due and demanded additional work from Congress and many very strong national very positive groups on whom you CAN rely. Many billions obviously now being spent to defy, deny and defeat ANY reform is key fact undeniable and most revealing of all current events, other than continued carnage created by massive corporate campaign contributions lavished over last decade by swarming lobbyists now outnumbering elected representatives 5-to-1 and being further multiplied by more billions daily in a desperate effort to avoid the changes 70% of Americans have stated they really want.

---

Henry Clay Ruark August 7, 2009 7:59 am (Pacific time)

Vaughan: "Mob" or grass-roots" ? Very easy to differentiate. One is unruly, angry, will stop at nothing, starts with violence --and, for those who know how, observing the leader actions always very revealing. How many such actions have YOU ever "covered", reporting on both occurrences and how leadership always directs his gang. Leadership itself is always revealing, via its membership. For "grass-roots", without fail it is local, recognizable and ready to dialog with any qualified reporter. For "mob", reporter is put at risk, leaders are either unrecognized,OR often known to reporters as paid activists on the job, with dollar providers often also known, or easily discoverable. Re detective work to ID each involved at leadership level, unneeded for "grass-roots" as above; for "mob", even sworn oath no barrier for those well paid to conceal and take the consequences. Again, simple "been there, done that" from my undoubedly well-checkered "career". YOU ever been there, done that ? IF NOT, please refrain from over-simplified, age-related fantasy re effective action. IF NOT age-related, you are free to provide full ID so we have some conception of YOU, as common civilized pattern in conversation, as for dialog here. Yr awkward use of incident as handy tool to attack Obama is dead giveaway for analysis, especially since publicly stated purpose of these incidents, by GOP leadership itself ("Waterloo !!" is so very clear and nationally reported. WHY does anyone distort this wellknown distinction ? THAT, too, is standard move for massively-done distortion since it throws ostensible light on "easy way" to handle any such situation, thus again undermining inevitable very real difficulties for any and all existing authority. (Openly stated neocon longtime purpose, too.) See well-known libertarian "operating manual" built from longtime deadly opposition to many successful community organizers in earlier years, copy on file here, part of propaganda analysis collection of some 50 years duration, from both personal interest and demanded needs for role as professional consultant on the processes of communication.

---

Dod August 6, 2009 11:28 pm (Pacific time)

The thing that is going on now in the town halls is infuriating! Not having the public with them, the insurance and pharmaceutical companies are attacking Democrats who are trying to engage the public in giving information and having dialogue regarding the health care debate. Some congressional Republicans are supporting this. One political commentator stated a few months ago that if he had to bet on the approximately 50 million uninsured Americans or on the health/pharmaceutical companies lobby, he would pick the lobby. Given the comments by the so-called’ blue dog’ Democrats, I would have to agree with them. It is a pity because a public option would probably help people with insurance by bringing about lower health-insurance company premiums and increase payment of benefits. As so often happens, the Republicans march in lockstep as compared to the Democrats who appear to be in the process of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. A Pity!

---

Henry Ruark August 6, 2009 9:17 pm (Pacific time)

Vaughan: I find it ironic that one who ostensibly calls for the Bill of Rights refuses publicly to answer simple question: Do you support the secular stance of the Constitution re religious freedom ? AND still missing is the slightest proof re what you stated on "government" malign control of the educational system. If such ever existed there should be copious published proof from national news and educational journals, like the educational one I published and edited in Chicago --mentioned simply to document from whence I cometh with the key query here. It began more than 50 years before I got there, with only two other editors. IF you wish to retain any level of credibility, sir, why not state openly, honestly, what you DO stand for, including revelation of your educational connection either with church or public education ? Either one is fully honorable so why delay or hesitate to name and prove it up by checkable status ?? We await your open and now publicly challenged answer, sir --nothing personal, but if one is to appear to support major American holy documents, then the answers should be both easy, rapid and checkable. Otherwise we would surely seem to be dealing with an obvious double-speak advocate here --precisely the kind you now seek to isolate and reveal by your own words. Yo ignore is by default to admit to the charge; to now answer requires checkable data for the record here. SO what's it to be ? Silence and our own conclusion, or an open statement by you ??

---

Brian Vaughn August 6, 2009 6:21 pm (Pacific time)

Depending on one's perspective, one group is a "mob" and the other side is "grass roots." I find it ironic that a president who started out as a community organizer would not support both sides of this issue as a positive aspect of our Bill of Rights. Maybe he has, and I missed it? It should be reasonably easy to find out who has been organized via some paid lobbyist group. Get some participants under oath. My guess is one side would not want that to happen, but in time we shall possibly find out.

---

Daniel Johnson August 6, 2009 5:40 pm (Pacific time)

In the movie “The American President”, Michael Douglas is the president, and he is being outrageously attacked but he doesn’t respond, avoiding what he says is a character debate. His aid, Michael J. Fox tells him his numbers are sliding because he is not talking back. At the conclusion of the ensuing argument, Fox says: The people “want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it, they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage. And when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.” Douglas replies that “they don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.” Reality is stranger than fiction. At a town hall meeting last month Rep. Bob Inglis (R. S. Carolina) fielded an attack from a man who said “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” When Inglis tried to explain that Medicare already was a government program, he got nowhere. The man continued drinking the sand.

---

Henry Ruark August 6, 2009 5:35 pm (Pacific time)

Mark: You wrote:"Polls from National Public Radio, Wall Street Journal/NBC News, The Washington Post, Gallup, and Pew all show that the American people do not support President Barack Obama’s health care plan." What they all report, sir, is the false public opinion created by the billions we know is spent already, with more to come, from those private-profit interests who now nearly control both the Congress and the once-free American press and media. Per anyone knowledgeable of polls, their strengths and their weaknesses, the fact is simply that they are highly vulnerable to precisely that kind of attack now underway, already deeply documented and undeniably drowned in dollars from profits produced by the perverted healthcare insurance and other industry components. Previous series studies well tested for both validity and comparability, with broad participation nationally, have shown over the years where the public really stands, what they want, and WHY they want it. THAT is WHY the billions are now embattled to kill off any cure for the very ill system we now know is so cost-bent and totally unsustainable. Yours is only the personal interpretation of a single observer, whose credibilities and qualification we know not, and probably will never learn in truth. IF you have any such qualifications for unsupportable "opinion", please now cite in detail with special training, experience in and of the press or other media, of education and work, and skills --demanded to support otherwise unstable b/button/level feelings. (Mine on record here in Staff section, for all to check.) Seek out the many sources of reliable information on the Internet from nonpartisan and proven accurate observers and you will find deeply differing details and rapidly changing developments as the checkable facts become much more widely known and the complexities are more fully understood. That is why open, honest, unthreatened public meetings are so important, and also why the private-gain promoters and instigators set up this kind of violence-threatening display, fully documented by multiple sources and so shown on tv for "see with own eyes" and personal evaluation, too. BTW, one tried,true,always effective propaganda technique is to insert precisely such statements as this one in any and all public channels, by action of "volunteers" and others paid for the effort. WHO is Mark ? Please provide full ID and working phone for personal contact,to Editor Tim for follow-up by me. I look forward to direct conversation with YOU, Mark, if you have the guts to do so knowing it will be reported here and also shared with national reliable press contacts. Bring full detail of all documentation you claim to have gathered, from checkable and nationally-known sources and websites.

---

Daniel Johnson August 6, 2009 4:16 pm (Pacific time)

Will enough people be able to tell when free speech ends and anti-democracy begins.

---

Mark August 6, 2009 3:24 pm (Pacific time)

Please don't forget that pesky part of the 1st amendment about peaceful assembly and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances! The president of the United States is running ads referring to 52% of the American people as a "mob" for daring to voice opposition to government-run health care. I'm issuing a challenge to anyone: Give us the name of one person who has been hired by an insurance company lobbyist to show up at a town hall meeting or any other citizen specifically hired to disrupt any townhall meeting. Tell us who's behind this. The White House is losing the health care debate. Polls from National Public Radio, Wall Street Journal/NBC News, The Washington Post, Gallup, and Pew all show that the American people do not support President Barack Obama’s health care plan. The White House wants people to believe they are losing the health care debate because “scary … videos are starting to percolate on the internet” that are spreading “disinformation” about Obama’s health care plan and other hired groups are stirring up things. Where is the evidence? All the polls show the majority are against the healthcare bill in its current form. These are people attending town hall meetings exercising their 1st Amendment rights. It is the unions who have now stated they will be busing in people to disrupt others. So who are the real agitators!? Let's go by the evidence not the agenda of those who only site rumor that they most likely created out of whole cloth. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/08/unions_to_counter_town_hall_te.html

---

Henry Ruark August 6, 2009 2:53 pm (Pacific time)

To all: For serious readers here this whole dollar-bought attack strategy, protecting outrageous profits made by proven perversion of multiple healthcare necessities for millions, can be no surprise whatsoever. It simply carries on the same concerted cabal led by Cheney and Bush by their so-called "compassionate conservative" attack strategy and tactics, continuing actions in place from early Reagan days, with added-extra violent crowd behavior to disrupt, discourage, defy, delay and defeat rational, reasonable and courageous American consensus of citizens demanding reform NOW --with nearly 50 MILLION in dire necessities now beginning to overcrowd our hospital ER facilities. No objection to protest even from these misguided morons, motivated by money for sure; ONLY to their obvious deeply damaging attack on any pretense of true democratic protest per the Constitution. We are only beginning to pay the consequences for continued ennui, apathy and desperate non-attention by otherwise responsible citizens, with healthcare only the first of multiple similar issues NOW demanding 21st Century solution --attainable ONLY by immediate urgent activity and outrage from the other millions now directly affected and ALSO RESPONSIBLE. Thank you, Tim, for open, honest, detailed report. NOW we KNOW "that's the way it is" we can begin to do our part, as surely desperately demanded from all of us. To refrain NOW from honest, open democratic dialog AND resulting rational, reasonable decision by freely-elected representatives, bound by solemn oath to support the commonweal, and guided by our multiplied-by-millions voice to surely determine what that truly is NOW, we stand guilty of allowing mere threat to prevail over the demonstrated American courage in applying proven wit, wisdom and WILL "of the people, for the people, by the people." Failure to act will, indeed, bring further consequence,like blood flowing in our streets in both major cities and more minor confluences for truly responsible citizens still able to think and then speak.

[Return to Top]

---

©2025 Salem-News.com. All opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Salem-News.com.