Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Banana Republicans strike again

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Yep, nothing says "grass-roots" like unwittingly doing the dirty work of corporate lobbyists. (In case you're wondering, the post title is an allusion to the excellent and concise book Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing is Turning America into a One-Party State.)

Here's something interesting to note: when student protesters at Columbia University ran on stage and interrupted a talk by Minute Men co-founder Jim Gilchrist Michelle Malkin called the students "monsters" during an appearance on the O'Reilly Factor and on her blog called them a moonbat mob and "hoodlums." And, of course, Malkin took the students to be indicative of the unhinged nature of "liberals."

So what did she have to say about the folks showing up at Townhall meetings with the intention of preventing a discussion of health care reform (and other matters) from taking place? She was all for it. Funny how that works ...

... Ok, I just got done doing a search at Media Matters and see that Eric Boehlert noticed the same thing. I guess anti-Malkin minds think alike.

Update: Utterly priceless

During the town hall, one conservative activist turns to his fellow attendees and asks them to raise their hands if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Almost all the hands shot up. Rep Green quickly turned the question on the audience and asked, “How many of you have Medicare?” Nearly half the attendees raised their hands, failing to note the irony.
Update II: More town hall storming organized by astroturf groups.

2 comments:

Left-wing Wacko said...

"Yep, nothing says "grass-roots" like unwittingly doing the dirty work of corporate lobbyists."

Hi HG,
I just posted about this myself.

http://left-wingwacko.blogspot.com/2009/08/is-right-out-organizing-left-on_04.html

And you know I think we should recognize these tea-bagger movement for what it is. It doesn't matter if it is partly organized by corporate lobbying orgs. and think tanks, and assisted by talk radio and Fox News. It is unfortunately is a grass-roots movement. They really are mobilizing real people against health-care reform. These people may be mis-lead and delusional, but there is a good chance that they are going to win this battle because they have mobilized a social movement.

This is something to pay attention to and learn from. Progressive politicians can't get anything progressive done unless they also have a genuine social movement behind them.

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