The Threat Is Real: Why Right-Wing Rage at Townhall Meetings Could Quickly Turn Deadly

The Threat Is Real: Why Right-Wing Rage at Townhall Meetings Could Quickly Turn Deadly

By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet. Posted August 12, 2009.

The insurance industry has agitated the far right to prevent health reform, but they don't know whom they're messing with.



From the Internet to Sarah Palin this strange claim is being made: Obama wants to kill the elderly and the infirm with his health care plan. Palin even said her Down's Syndrome child would be a target. The claim is being repeated, or rather screamed, by angry groups invading town hall meetings that congresspeople have organized to discuss health care reform. How on earth can the outright lie that health-care reform will lead to the euthanasia of the elderly be accepted by anyone, even by those on the far anti-Obama right?

I happen to have the answer to this question.

Over thirty years ago, my family helped start the myth leading to the present bizarre turn of events. From the mid 1970s to mid 1980s I was an activist on the far right, an evangelical, and a Republican. I quit the movement by the late 1980s. (Disclosure: I'm now a supporter of President Obama and health care reform.) To understand what is happening today in town hall meetings invaded by angry mobs convinced that their representatives are part of a conspiracy to force the elderly to forgo care, you have to understand what we the founders of the pro-life movement set in motion.

In the mid-1970s, Dr. C. Everett Koop (who became Ronald Reagan's Surgeon General), my late evangelical theologian father Dr. Francis Schaeffer and I helped launch what became the Evangelical-led wing of the pro-life movement. Instrumental in the formation of our anti-choice movement was a book written by my father and Dr. Koop. I then translated it into a multi-episode documentary film series called "Whatever Happened To The Human Race?" Stressing the importance of "the sanctity of all human life," the book and film series claimed that abortion is murder and the legalization of abortion in Roe v. Wade would inevitably lead to legalized infanticide and euthanasia.

As a warning to our audience, we talked about what happened in Germany when -- in the 1930s -- and fascist theories about the mentally ill, physically deficient, etc., led to "mercy killings." We drew comparisons with the Supreme Court ruling and said the door was now open, with "the loss of the sanctity of life, in the United States" to the same fate as awaited Germany. Then my dad took it to the next step and wrote a book called "A Christian Manifesto." He discussed the possibility of Christians using force to change the United States government if all else failed to reverse Roe. He made the comparison of America to Hitler's Germany. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/politics/141925/the_threat_is_real%3A_why_right-wing_rage_at_townhall_meetings_could_quickly_turn_deadly_/

There were people who lied to get us into a war, lied to justify torture, tortured people including women and children.

There were people that refused to enforce laws on almost all areas from immigration to environment.

There were People that ran up a deficit while moving power to a few people not accountable to peoples votes.

There were People that funneled money to private mercenaries, and private companies without bids.

And many more thing that are not acceptable to most people.

And these people are yelling about what? Health care reform to lower the taxes paid to corporations in health care premiums used for lobbying and funding deception?

If it was true that anyone is afraid of these things, they don't understand the sides of the battle. Fear has been their weapon of choice for a long time, and once overcome it is seen to be what it is, empty threats from people that need intimidation for their illusions.


The health care argument should not scare people that we could end up in fascism, it is the battle to get us out of fascism. Comparing the economic system, control of government by private sector corporations is fascism. Add to that dishonest media, and lack of justice or legal enforcement. What do you have...

We are not trying to stop us from becoming fascist, we are trying to make it to the other side where the system is no longer unjust and corrupt.

:kick:

The Threat Is Real: Why Right-Wing Rage at Townhall Meetings Could Quickly Turn Deadly

By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet. Posted August 12, 2009.

The insurance industry has agitated the far right to prevent health reform, but they don't know whom they're messing with.......

"Whatever one's opinion about abortion, the fact remains that the abortion debate introduced a political polarization that has never been healed and that has turned violent before. The fact that otherwise sane people now believe that United States government is in a conspiracy with the Obama administration to kill our elderly makes sense only when seen in the context of the hysterical, Armageddon-like expectations of the religious right/pro-life movement. When you understand the link between the hate mongers, the lobbying groups carrying water for the insurance industry and the ideology that came out of the pro-life movement then you can you understand what is happening today in town hall meetings that are being disrupted by screaming people. More importantly you can then also see where this may lead."

love your avatar. I'm sure I'd love your puppy. Please give him or her a scratch for me.

Outstanding article. I hope people will take the time to read it in its entirety.

This 2nd Republicon Great Depression we are going through. People are losing their jobs, their homes, their health-care, their communities, their self respect and dignity. Even those on social security don't have enough to make ends meet because the payments have not kept up with inflation. (If you adjusted Social Security to inflation, current payouts would be about 40% more)

The elderly frequently rely on their home's equity to provide a cushion in their later years. But no longer are homes worth what they paid for them and they have frequently already borrowed against their equity.

So, they see going to a meeting and yelling at the top of their lungs as a minor thing. They can yell out all their frustrations with the economy and act out their worst behavior while rationalizing it as a way to help America, the GOP and prevent Nazism.

So, when the yelling and intimidation doesn't work what do they do next?

The only argument the Republicons have against this becoming more violent is that no one has shoot anyone...yet.

Picking up a gun and shooting someone seems like the next step. What do they have to lose?

as soon as the sane, patriotic majority do something about the hate-filled media, some semblance of normality will return quickly.

With our mass media in conservative hands and conservative voices dominating the airwaves, allowed to spew lies and distortions with great freedom, we need to hear from those who have abandoned those dangerous practices. Those who know from the inside how deliberately peoples' emotions have been stirred and inflamed by the right wing.

Thank goodness we have a few token liberal TV shows and media outlets in which we can hear these important voices.

The extreme-right's powder is a little drier and a little hotter every day. The monster the corporatists and the media have created is going to go *boom*. Not "might". "Will". And when the corporatists and the media try to look all innocent and say, "Who, us? What do you mean, we created this mess?" the rest of us will point to the last 40 years of history then point at them and say, "yes, you sunsabitches, YOU. You created this. And you will pay to clean it up." I for one am tired of paying for right-wing follies, excesses, stupidities, follies, and laziness. Let them wear their own messes for a goddam change.

as long as we are ready to fight back when it happens. And I don't mean whining and trying to get some sponsor to drop Glen Beck.

If Obama hadn't come out and said both that he was going to cut hundreds of billions from medicare...

And the said

"evidence shows are not necessarily going to improve the patient's care," followed by

"Maybe you are better off not having the surgery, but taking the pain killer."

And then tried to rush a bill through before August...

Maybe people wouldnt be getting so frightened. That's pouring gasoline on a fire.

Blaming all the anger on stupid right wingers is wrong headed. Yes they are out there, yes they are loud, yes they could get dangerous..

But only if you ignore all the reasonable people who are up in arms (the majority) and lump them in with them, demonizing them. Cutting them out of the debate. Only then will violence really become likely.

Calm reasoned talk is the answer, educate those reasonable people, listen to them as well, and everything will work out fine.

If people kept trying to spin what Obama says and actually debated based on what he really said we could calm everybody down. For example, your quote that he was going to take 'hundreds of billions out of medicare' was answered at his town hall meeting in NH. What he said was he was going to stop giving hundreds of billions in medicare subsides to the private insurance sector he is not taking it out of the money going to patients for care. That is part of how he plans on paying to cover more people.

"Maybe you are better off not having the surgery, but taking the pain killer."

Sometimes, surgeons are like that guy who only has a hammer and everything looks like a nail.

Surgeons like to cut things out to make you better. Sometimes, it really ISN'T necessary to cut on someone to cure the illness.

...right up there with Straw Man and Undivided middle.

You've heard it before.

"Sex education in schools leads to promiscuity, teen pregnancy and the downfall of society."

"Homosexuality will lead to the end of civilization - no more children if everybody is gay".

"Gay marriage will lead to bestiality".