Fighting For Health Care Reform: Practical Suggestions

This is it.And the Rude Pundit is ready to rumble.

Time to Join the Fight Against the Right-Wing Townhall Uprisings?:

Is this really the way you guys wanna play this? Is this the way it's gonna go down? You're sending to townhall meetings of members of Congress a bunch of frightened people with misdirected rage, no real understanding of the issues surrounding even their own health care, and little articulation of their point of view other than "Government bad" to shout down officials, the discursive equivalent of howler monkey yawps across the rainforest. And you're doing it with the imprimatur of the Minority Leader. And with the applause of the right-wing media, who, rather than appear at a townhall to lead the charge like in honorable days of old, are like modern generals, staring at their computer screens and smiling at action they foment.

(By the way, a note to Michelle Malkin: the action of loudmouths trying to shut up everyone else ain't a counterinsurgency. You're using that word to make it seem like you're defending the mainstream. Obama and the Democrats were legally elected in part to implement universal health care coverage. Attempting to stop a lawful government from enacting the will of the majority through intimidation, threats, and fear is, at best, an insurgency, and, at worst, terrorism.)

Can you imagine the cries of "quel horreur" and the fainting gestures of the Fox "news" hosts with dainty constitutions if liberals had coordinated the disruption of meetings of members of Congress in order to oppose a policy of the Bush administration? Oh, wait, we don't really have to stretch that far since any effort, large or meager, to halt the march to war in Iraq was not treated like the free speech acts of citizens to question their government. Nope, we were portrayed as traitors. And we didn't get the support of the Democratic leadership. Is this jealousy that the right gets away with shit we can't? Fucking A, it is.

So the Rude Pundit's of two minds about this strain of reactionary civil disobedience. There's that free speech advocate part of him that's thinking, "Hey, cool, at least people are participating and voicing themselves, and, in general, that's a good thing." But then there's the other hand.

That's the part that says it's time to stop acting like pussies in all of this. Sweet fucking Jesus, we sit by and act like the motherfuckers who protest family planning clinics are just innocuous diversions until some doctor gets killed. We didn't fucking shut down the assholes that barged into the recount in Florida. We take it and take it and take it and then simply sigh that our protests amount to so little, and the whole storyline is stolen from us and run by the compromisers, shills, and punks.

He's got a plan, and it's not bad. Read the whole thing.

Steve M. also has an idea, and it has the advantage of being witty and involving the use of props, which attracts TV cameras.

Get some people to the Democratic events now. Democratic officials need backup.

Oh, and I think you should buy a bunch of these, cut them into (reasonably big) strips (i.e., big enough to show up well on TV and YouTube), and wave them as soon as the wingnuts start acting out:

Yes -- products made of artificial turf. Wave 'em at the angry wingnuts and chant, "AS - TRO -TURF! AS - TRO -TURF! " It's clear even to the Times and other mainstream media outlets that the right-wing response is ginned up by well-financed pros. Why not shout the foot soldiers of the corporatists down by identifying their "grassroots" tantrums as exactly what they are?

Personally, I think the sooner President Obama shows up at a Blue Dog townhall invaded by the mouthbreathers and introduces them to his Secret Service detail, the better.