Guest Column
By Frank Schaeffer
The
Republican Old Guard are in the fix an atheist would be in if Jesus showed
up and raised his mother from the dead: Their world view has just been
shattered. Obama's election has driven them over the edge. Consider Former
Congressman Dick Armey. Several far right foundations and the multitrillion
dollar health-insurance industry have teamed up with him to organize the far
right foot soldiers of the Republican Party to intimidate people speaking on
behalf of health-care reform. They are using my old shock troops - given
many of these folks were first energized by the Evangelical pro-life
movement that my late father and I started in the 1970s. What we did to
clinics they are now doing to congressmen and others speaking out for health
care reform.
Having failed at the ballot box, having watched their Fox News-organized
"tea parties" fizzle the intimidation tactics which the Republicans have
embraced are being used in a well-financed, top-down orchestrated fake grass
roots campaign by corporate interests to try and protect the profits of the
insurance business. Armey's FreedomWorks is organizing against health care
reform. Armey's lobbying firm represents pharmaceutical companies including
Bristol-Myers Squibb. Armey's lobbying firm also represents the trade group
for the life insurance industry. FreedomWorks is supporting the status quo
at all costs. (They are also fans of fossil fuels. Armey's lobbying firm
represents Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of the UAE,
on energy related issues.)
Last
year, the Wall Street Journal exposed FreedomWorks for building
"amateur-looking" websites to promote far right interests of Armey.
FreedomWorks represents a top-down, corporate-friendly approach that's been
the norm for conservative organizations for years. How do I know this is the
norm? Because I used to have strategy meetings with the late Jack Kemp and
Dick Army and the rest of the Republican gang about using their business
ties to help finance the pro-life movement to defeat Democrats. I know this
script. I helped write it.
Democratic members of Congress are being harassed by angry,
sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior at local town halls. It's the
tactic we used to follow abortion providers around their neighborhoods.
"Protesters" surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and forced police officers to
have to escort him to his car for safety. We used to do the same to Dr.
Tiller... until someone killed him.
How
Can the Right Stoop So Low?
I
used to know Dick Armey quite well. One of my sons even worked for him as an
intern. I knew Armey in the context of his being a fan of my late
Evangelical Religious Right leader father Francis Schaeffer. (Back in the
day when I was a right wing "pro-life" organizer who has long since quit the
Republicans in disgust at their - our - descent into extremism and hate.)
Armey was once a decent guy, whatever his political views. How could he
stoop so low as to be organizing what amounts to
I
think I know what happened to him, Gingrich and the rest: They can't compute
that their white man-led conservative revolution is dead. They can't
reconcile their idea of themselves with the fact that white men like them
don't run the country any more - and never will again. To them the black
president is leading a column of the "other" into their promised land. Gays,
immigrants, blacks, progressives, even a female Hispanic appointed to the
Supreme Court... for them this is the Apocalypse.
The
last presidential election (to paraphrase Bart Simpson) "broke their
brains." What else could explain their embrace of intimidation - rather than
discourse - over the health care debate and such unsavory moments of madness
as the Republicans accusing Obama and Judge Sonia Sotomayor of racism,
knowing full well that they'd just destroyed their chances with the Hispanic
community forever?
The
"Scorched Earth Policy"
Dick
Army and company have been driven mad by their reversal, not just of
political fortunes but of seeing that they've wasted their lives. They now
know they were wrong: about the country, the free market, war for fun and
profit, and what the American people really want. They made their best case
and were rejected by the American people - and by history. Bush was their
man and he turned out to be a fool. So now all the the Republican gurus have
left is what the defeated Germans of World War Two had: a scorched earth
policy. If they can't win then everyone must go down. Obama must fail! The
country must fail!
The
Lobbyist-run Groups "Americans for Prosperity " and "FreedomWorks/ Dick
Armey-Orchestrated Memo:
Here
is a leaked excerpt from the folks organizing the intimidation campaign:
Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: "Spread out in the hall and try to
be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with
your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a
majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience,
opposes the socialist agenda of
Be Disruptive Early And Often: "You need to rock-the-boat early in
the Rep's presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge
the Rep's statements early."
Try To "Rattle Him," Not Have An Intelligent Debate: "The goal is to
rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something
outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these
opportunities before he even takes questions."
The
Last Republican Tactic: Outright Lies
A
barrage of outright lies, wherein the Democrats are being accused of wanting
to launch a massive euthanasia program against the elderly, free abortions
for everyone, and "a government takeover" of health-care is now being
combined with physical intimidation that in several cases has required
police escorts to protect pro health-care reform speakers surrounded by
angry plants sent to disrupt public forums on the health-care issue.
Demonstrators hung Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) in effigy outside of his
office. (Missing from the reporting of these stories - with the notable
exception of Rachel Maddow - is the fact that much of these protests are
coordinated by public relations firms and lobbyists who have a stake in
opposing President Obama's reforms.
There
is no daylight between the Republican Party, the health-care insurance
industry, far right leaders like Dick Armey, the legion of insurance
lobbyists, and now, a small army of thugs. All we're missing is actual
uniforms, otherwise we now have a full blown American version of the Nazi
Brown Shirts.
No, I
don't believe that these people are about to take over the country. No, the
sky is not falling. But the Republican Party is. It is now profoundly
anti-American.
The
health-insurance industry is run by very smart and very greedy people who
have sunk to a new low. So has the Republican Party's leadership that will
not stand up and denounce the likes of Dick Armey for helping organize
roving bands of thugs trying to strip the rest of us of the ability to be
heard when it comes to the popular will on reforming health care.
Conclusion:
the Fascist Formula
Here's the emerging American version of the fascist's formula: combine
millions of dollars of lobbyists' money with embittered troublemakers who
have a small army of not terribly bright white angry people (collected over
decades through pro-life mass mailing networks) at their beck and call, ever
ready to believe any myth or lie circulated by the semi literate and
completely and routinely misinformed right wing - Evangelical religious
underground. Then put his little mob together with the insurance companies'
big bucks. That's how it works - American Brown Shirts at the ready.
What's the results of the fascist formula for the rest of us? Well,
think how this "method" worked against Dr. Tiller's abortion clinic and how
that story ended. In this case a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save our
economy from going bankrupt because of spiraling health care costs may be
lost, not because of a better argument, but because of lies backed up by
anti-democratic embittered thuggery. The motive? Revenge on
What
Can Be Done?
It's
time that this whole shabby (and insane) business be exposed, vilified in
run out of town on a rail by whatever responsible Republicans - if any -
that are still in the party and who want to see the fortunes of their party
revived. Republican leaders taking insurance industry money via lobbying
firms and using it to organize what amounts to roving bands of thugs not
only need to be exposed but thrown out of the public debate forever. They
should become absolute pariahs.
It's
time to give this garbage in name: insurance industry funded fascism.
_________________________________________________________
Frank
Schaeffer is a writer and author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One Of
The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or
Almost All) Of It Back Visit article original at:
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141833/right-wing_turncoat_gives_the_inside_scoop_on_why_conservatives_are_rampaging_town_halls
Note:
Stephen C. Webster writes for Raw Story the latest example of extreme
right-wing demagoguery in Tampa on Thursday, this time inspired by
right-wing Fox News's Glenn Beck: "In a stunning display of anger, Florida
Republicans and fans of Fox editorialist Glenn Beck turned a Tampa
healthcare forum into a "near riot," one reporter said, as they attempted to
enter the meeting hall and drown out a group of community organizers and a
member of congress. There were at least two reports of violence at the
forum. "The meeting which was scheduled to begin at 6:00 at the Children's
Board of Hillsborough County drew hundreds of people who quickly began to
overwhelm staff and event organizers at the front entrance," reported Tampa
news station
10 Connects....
"Thursday's
forum/near riot was sponsored by state Rep. Betty Reed, D-Tampa, and the
Service Employees International Union, who apparently had hoped to hold
something of a pep rally for President Obama's health care reform proposal,"
noted St. Petersburg Times reporter
Adam Smith. He continued: "Instead, 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
to challenge supporters." Such "mobs" have been denounced in recent days by
Democratic lawmakers, while journalists like MSNBC's Rachel Maddow have
revealed the
corporate interests and Republican operatives that bankroll and organize
these town hall disruptions.
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