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Aug. 7, 2009
Blog for Arizona
As reported earlier, there was a near-riot last night at a town hall in Tampa, FL Protesters in Ybor City drown out health care summit on Obama's proposal - St. Petersburg Times:
Hundreds of vocal critics turned out, many of them saying they had been spurred on through the Tampa 912 activist group promoted by conservative radio and television personality Glenn Beck. Others had received e-mails from the Hillsborough Republican Party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered talking points.
And Healthcare reform sparks meeting mayhem | 10connects.com | Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater:
Moments later, violence broke out just outside the main auditorium doors, prompting police to close off the meeting room. A freelance photojournalist was among those roughed up suffering damage to both his glasses and camera equipment.
"That's the most violent anyone has been towards me," said Mark Bishop, who drove from Orlando to video tape the event. "It was surprising to say the least."
At least one person was treated for minor injuries following the altercation and could be seen on video with a shirt partially torn off his body.
Bomb-thrower Rush Limbaugh played a role in inciting attendees as well. Limbaugh promoted town hall hours before disruption:
Earlier in the day, Limbaugh had featured the townhall on his radio broadcast. According to Media Matters' summary of today's broadcast, Limbaugh read a report that "Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) scheduled a 'last minute' town hall event."
"This is what's happening," explained Rush, "Obama has mobilized union thugs to go out and also attend these town meetings to intimidate the genuine citizens out there who are upset about this." The implication here, we guess, is that "union thugs" aren't "genuine citizens." He added:
LIMBAUGH: Those are paid act -- paid activists are going to be showing up. And that's why -- so the Democrats are going to get brave now. They're going to have protection there. The mob's showing up. The real, genuine mob is showing up to defend these Democrats from the unruly Nazis that are showing up to protest the health care bill.
Seems that Rush Limbaugh was half-right: the mob did show up. Only thing is that the real mob is his mob, and he seems set on taking ownership of it.
Sam Stein of the Huffington Post reports today Obama-Allied Unions Threatened With Gun Violence For Town Hall Participation:
One of the country's largest unions has been hit by a wave of hostile calls and even death threats from people upset with its involvement in town-hall health care debates.
The Service Employers International Union was, as one aide put it, "deluged" with calls on Friday after several conservative media outlets accused the organization of trying to assault demonstrators who had showed up to protest Obama's health care agenda. Making it even scarier for union employees, the address of the union's St. Louis headquarters was mentioned on air by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
Callers who reached both the front desk and the communications department compared the union officials to Nazis, union aides say. On Twitter, organizers of the town hall protest urged people to take pictures and write down the license plate numbers of attending SEIU officials. More alarming than anything else, angry callers and protesters pledged to take up arms against the union.
"If ACORN/SEIU attends these meetings for disruptive purposes, and you have a license to carry....carry," read one tweet.
"I suggest you tell your people to calm down, act like American citizens, and stop trying to repress people's First Amendment rights," one caller warned. "That, or you all are gonna come up against the Second Amendment."
The union had actually put up a petition on Thursday for its organizers and members to attend these town hall events and "honor the long-standing American tradition of town hall meetings and public forums to allow citizens to participate in our democracy." Things got a bit hairy during the evening, however, when the SEIU helped turn away people at a forum in Tampa Bay, Florida, and a near riot ensued. Similarly, in St. Louis, an SEIU staffer was arrested after a scuffle ensued with protesters at a town hall event with Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.).
The SEIU wasn't the only Obama ally receiving threats on Friday. An official of the AFL-CIO, which has pledged to counter conservative protests at these town hall events across the country, said that union received angry emails throughout the day as well -- mostly accusations that it was promoting communism and socialism.
American's First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, assembly, and to petition their government have been the first casualties of the GOP Astroturf campaign. The mob tactics are designed not to engage in civil discourse and debate but to "shout down" and "shut down" health care town halls to deny their fellow citizens their First Amendment rights. This is what these protestors mockingly call "democracy."
The threats and intimidation have now progressed to death threats. Why? Because these protestors are in love with their BlueCross/Blue Shield health insurance plan? Are they really willing to kill someone for their health insurance plan?
Let's get real. This has nothing to do with health insurance. This is just the issue of the day around which a collection of right-wing grievances have coalesced to provide a veneer of legitimacy to far darker motivations. The coalition is a collection of disaffected far-right fringe extremists who cannot accept the fact that Democrats have won two consecutive elections in a landslide and an African-American is now president. These are the John Birchers, the white supremacists, the anti-immigrant nativists, the end-times Christianists, the anti-government secessionist militias, the eliminationists, the culture warriors. The glue that binds them all together is their fear that they are no longer in power, and their hatred for anyone who does not believe as they do.
The American people soundly rejected their brand of far-right extremism in 2006 and 2008. They could not convince their fellow American citizens on the strength of their ideas and arguments. So the GOP has fallen back on its time-tested tactics of fear mongering and white resentment. The GOP Astroturf campaign has lost control of its winguts, who are increasingly turning to violence and death threats.
The GOP is principally responsible for this uncivil conduct. But the reckless and irresponsible mainstream media and their advertisers are equally responsible. The media conglomerates who employ bomb-throwers like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have a duty to dial back their incitement to paranoid fears and violence.
More impotantly, the advertisers who support the antics of these bomb-throwers with their advertising dollars should immediately pull their advertising. It was not that long ago that Dom Imus was suspended by his employer and advertisers pulled their advertising after he referred to female African-American basketball players as "nappy-headed ho's." His crude offense pales by comparison to the over-the-top batshit crazy demagoguery that is daily fare for Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and so many other imitators in the conservative media.
Support for or acquiescence in this incitement to paranoid fear and violence is ratification of this dangerous demagoguery by the media conglomerates who employ these bomb-throwers, and ratification by any advertiser who buys advertising time on these programs. These corporations are equally responsible.
Enough is enough! What does it take before corporations behave responsibly? Does someone have to tragically die first? These corporations will be an accessory to the crime for standing idly by when they had the authority to stop it, and did nothing when a responsible citizen would have acted to stop this insanity.
