It is an interesting concept. We have a president who essentially is a community organizer. It is pretty much his only work experience. Yet he and his fellow Democrats seem very angry that people might be organizing and standing up against his policies.
Once upon a time, liberals prided themselves, as the staunchest defenders of free speech. Now they are its fiercest opponents. They were also at the center of the baby-boomer generation protests of the 1960’s… the hippies, flower children, peaceniks and anti-establishment kids were all liberals.
The left has always loved community organizing. And Senator Obama, candidate Obama, and The Great Uniter Obama as recently as fall 2008 told supporters, “Go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face." Hmmm… I guess when they are getting in your face, President Obama, things are different?
Senior White House adviser, David Axelrod and deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina, gave Senate Democrats ‘a battle plan for their summer recess, arming the lawmakers with tips for avoiding disastrous town hall meetings while showing the participants the popular aspects of the reform efforts’; basically telling them if they hit you hard ‘punch them back twice as hard’. Obama, himself, said at a meeting in Virginia, “Stop talking and get out of the way” about people who don’t agree with him. Hello… this is The Great Uniter??
I do not belong to any organized groups and I am not registered as a Democrat or a Republican. And out of interest I attended two tax tea parties last April, read the main healthcare reform bill that the House is looking at and pushing, HR-3200, from cover to cover, and then wrote up an outline of the main points including the link to the bill, should someone else choose to read it or verify my findings. I sent a copy to my Congressman, emailed it to my friends and then made copies and delivered one to every doorstep in my 500 home senior community, where I live, with the suggestion that everyone read as much of the bill as they could and then come to an impromptu get-together at our community center, two days later. I expected 40 to 50 attendees. We got 312 and then I stopped counting because we were over the allowed fire marshal attendance umber for the facility. And since then I have read every piece of literature, every email and every tidbit that I could find on the 5 healthcare bills floating around in the two houses of Congress and any related articles. And I have attended a couple other healthcare meetings and receive online updates from my Congressman.
My first question is, “How many Congressman, Senators, White House Advisors and Aides and even President Obama have done the same?” Secondly, IF NOT, “Why not and how can you be holding town halls and spouting off your opinions, let alone voting?” And thirdly, “How can you be making fun of concerned Americans exercising their first amendment rights?” The answers to two and three are, “You can’t… unless you just don’t care about any of the facts; what the voters think; and you are determined to vote for socialized or nationalized medicine (in one step or two or three) that covers illegal aliens while rationing healthcare to seniors and the disabled; paying for abortions and promoting “duty to die” policies, whether directly or indirectly; and giving all Americans worse care for higher costs with long waits, while putting government into all aspects of our lives (medical records, health decisions, access to our bank accounts, end of life decisions and the list goes on), while not participating in any of this yourselves…
At all the meetings I personally attended there was no organization or coordination, other than someone saying, “Show up here if you are interested in or concerned about: taxes, healthcare, too much government...” No agendas, no pre-meetings or pre-conceived goals, no professional signs or banners; just concerned and worried American citizens and legal residents looking for answers and wanting government to notice.
Over the past few days, I have made it a point to watch all the town hall videos available on television and online. I see concerned and worried Americans looking for answers and hoping their government hears them. There are no swastikas like Nancy Pelosi talked about, and had there been she would have had photos or film. There is no one who looks like they are a part of an organized group with professional signs or shirts that represent organizations on the right in the crowds, only the pro-Obama professionally organized groups from the left… ACORN, SEIU, La Raza etc etc, who are now being organized and sent out to disrupt the town halls and intimidate and embarrass the concerned citizens.
The elected officials at the town halls are unprepared and unaware, and the majority of officials are focused on selling the party line instead of listening to their constituents. The senior citizens, average Americans, moms and dads, veterans and small business owners at the healthcare town halls fall into two groups; either informed because they have read the healthcare bill and are concerned with the content or are against it or those that haven’t read it and want to ask questions and get ‘real’ answers from people who have (or should have) read the bill.
I have seen people crying, upset, frustrated because their representative know less than they do and just plain tired of being lied to. These are not organized mobs or ‘tea baggers’ or professional agitators. They are Americans who love their Country, respect the Constitution, want less government not more, and want the medical care they deserve and have paid for, for their twilight years. They want reform of Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Benefits and Reservation Benefits that are government run programs riddled with fraud and abused by frivolous lawsuits and whose funds have been pillaged and borrowed from by the government for years instead of invested and protected. These changes plus some sensible changes in the medical insurance rules like portable coverage, focus on prevention, inclusion of alternative and holistic medicine and supplements, no more exclusion for pre-existing conditions, allowing the self-employed and small businesses to form and buy insurance as co-ops, allowing inter-state sales of insurance and tighter regulation of Big Pharma and the AMA would pretty much take care of the uninsured and spiraling costs. Take out covering people who are in the U.S. illegally and paying for abortions and elective surgeries and allowing ideas from the Republicans and any politicians and companies who have made positive changes in healthcare or learned from trial and error and we could reform American healthcare without destroying the best coverage in the world or giving up our freedoms.
HR 3200 or any form of government-run or controlled healthcare is not the change that most Americans want or thought they were voting for. And being accused of being a part of organized mobs by the community organizer president and government who just asked Americans to snitch on each other was not the hope Americans voted for either.
Marion Algier/Ask Marion – Daily Thought Pad
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