Right-Wing Turncoat Gives the Inside Scoop on Why Conservatives Are Rampaging Town Halls

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141833/right-wing_turncoat_explains_why_conservatives_are_rampaging_town_halls/?page=entire

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 America by the Old White Guys of the far right, and greed by the insurance industry.

8/07/09...From Facism: are we there yet, at Crooks & Liars:

“…That description sounds eerily like the dire straits our Congressional Republicans find themselves in right now. Though the GOP has been humiliated, rejected, and reduced to rump status by a series of epic national catastrophes mostly of its own making, its leadership can't even imagine governing cooperatively with the newly mobilized and ascendant Democrats. Lacking legitimate routes back to power, their last hope is to invest the hardcore remainder of their base with an undeserved legitimacy, recruit them as shock troops, and overthrow American democracy by force. If they can't win elections or policy fights, they're more than willing to take it to the streets, and seize power by bullying Americans into silence and complicity.
When that unholy alliance is made, the third stage -- the transition to full-fledged government fascism -- begins.

Snip

“…the guessing game is over. We know beyond doubt that the Teabag movement was created out of whole cloth by astroturf groups like Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and Tim Phillips' Americans for Prosperity, with massive media help from FOX News. We see the Birther fracas -- the kind of urban myth-making that should have never made it out of the pages of the National Enquirer -- being openly ratified by Congressional Republicans. We've seen Armey's own professionally-produced field manual that carefully instructs conservative goon squads in the fine art of disrupting the democratic governing process -- and the film of public officials being terrorized and threatened to the point where some of them required armed escorts to leave the building. We've seen Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to "a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress."
This is the sign we were waiting for -- the one that tells us that yes, kids: we are there now. America's conservative elites have openly thrown in with the country's legions of discontented far right thugs. They have explicitly deputized them and empowered them to act as their enforcement arm on America's streets, sanctioning the physical harassment and intimidation of workers, liberals, and public officials who won't do their political or economic bidding.
This is the catalyzing moment at which honest-to-Hitler fascism begins. It's also our very last chance to stop it.

before violence like beatings etc will appear legitimate. Look at how they justify the Tiller murder without any real evidence as to what Tiller actually did...saving mother's lives...but lies put forth to demonize a very needed medical practice.

We have been pushed into silence by being shouted down and intimidated...not through honest discussions or debates. The shouters are not the enemy they just work for the enemy (unknowingly in some cases). It is their funding we must expose.

Edward Bernays, a nephew and student of Sigmund Freud, is generally regarded today as the profession's founder. In the United Kingdom Sir Basil Clarke (1879 - 1947) was a pioneer of public relations.

The First World War helped stimulate the development of public relations as a profession. Many of the first PR professionals, including Ivy Lee, Edward Bernays, John W. Hill, and Carl Byoir, got their start with the Committee on Public Information (also known as the Creel Committee), which organized publicity on behalf of U.S. objectives during World War I.

In describing the origin of the term Public Relations, Bernays commented, "When I came back to the United States , I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans ... using it. So what I did was to try to find some other words, so we found the words Counsel on Public Relations".

Ivy Lee, who has been credited with developing the modern news release (also called a "press release"), espoused a philosophy consistent with what has sometimes been called the "two-way street" approach to public relations in which PR consists of helping clients listen as well as communicate messages to their publics. In the words of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), "Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other." In practice, however, Lee often engaged in one-way propagandizing on behalf of clients despised by the public, including Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller. Shortly before his death, the US Congress had been investigating Rockefeller's work on behalf of the controversial Nazi German company IG Farben.

Bernays was the profession's first theorist. Bernays drew many of his ideas from Sigmund Freud's theories about the irrational, unconscious motives that shape human behaviour. Bernays authored several books, including Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Propaganda (1928), and The Engineering of Consent (1947). He saw public relations as an "applied social science" that uses insights from psychology, sociology, and other disciplines to scientifically manage and manipulate the thinking and behavior of an irrational and "herdlike" public. "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society," he wrote in Propaganda, "Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_public_relations


EDIT: Its all related; Freud, wartime Propaganda, the 'unconscious motives that shape human behavior.' The rw has and continues to make use of this knowledge to the detriment of the rest of the world.

More people need to know about Bernays and how he created the propoganda/public relations/mind control industry.
Even more importantly,imo,people need to learn how to recognize such campaigns when they are being used to push an agenda.

which is why I posted it. I think this story is extremely important, not just for the sake of history, but to enable us to understand what's happened here, and what continues to happen.

'They' adopted it immediately (tobacco) and have never let go. 'We' have nothing as powerful. Professor Lakoff has tried.

I hadn't heard of Sigmund Freud's American nephew, either.

The phrase, "truth in advertising" must have come from this, too.

It's fascinating. Watch it. Here it is on Google.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151

Very enlightening and highly educational.
Everyone who calls themself progressive or liberal needs to see this documentary in order to learn some basic facts about what we are up against.

Just joking, but I wish.

Karl Rove & the Spectre of Freud’s Nephew

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country… We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized… "

So opens Propaganda (1928), one of several strikingly frank analyses of western social psychology written by Edward Bernays. This nephew of Sigmund Freud founded the public relations industry in the United States.

Mr. Bernays lived a fascinating life. He first got involved in high stakes politics when he "warmed up" the dour Calvin Coolidge by arranging the first presidential celebrity photo op in 1928. For the private sector, Bernays engineered a most notorious publicity stunt for the American Tobacco Company, by single-handedly neutralizing the taboo against women smoking in public. He organized a "Torches of Freedom" march down Broadway by ten smoking debutantes during the 1929 Easter Parade. With the help of feminists – some of whom understood the "right to smoke" as libratory – Bernays expertly publicized this spectacle, thus setting in motion the expected stir on op-ed pages across the land.

For Bernays, truth in public affairs did not exist per se. Rather, truth was the product of the "public relations counsel" forging prevailing "public opinion." It should be said that he readily recognized the ethical implications of his work, as witnessed in his later anti-smoking advocacy, after the dangers of cigarettes became known in the late-1950s. He could also be, in his own curious way, a humanitarian – as reflected in his work promoting the NAACP and anti-syphilis public education.

For Bernays, however, the necessity of controlling the public mind was a crucially important matter confronting the better element, a group in which he clearly included himself. In his first work, the hugely influential Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Bernays noted that the establishment of public education and the gradual extension of the right to vote caused consternation among western elites. The use of public relations techniques, then, was a way for the minority to "so mold the mind of the masses that they will throw their newly gained strength in the desired direction."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/bender2.html

take away their tax exempt status!!! If they are being political and using their pulpits to preach about politics...it is the law that they lose that tax exemption. Since money is the bottom line with these madmen...that should do the job.


*edited for speeling :P

Not only informative, SHOULDN'T this be part of U.S. History curricula?

K & R.

the republican party, the MAIN STREAM if you will. Republicans like Colin Powell should be appalled and should be denouncing them, that they aren't shows that I am correct. This IS the republican party and the party is about to be over.

Until then, it will only get worse.

more into lala land the few sane people will leave. The remainder, the 20% or so, will be easily identifiable by their drooling mouths and tin foil hats. At that point they will be the laughing stock of the nation and a new conservative party without the crazies and the fundies will emerge. Although I'd never be a part of the conseratives they on occasion do have one or two good ideas. I think one party only is a bad idea for any country even if it is a progressive party.

Not sure about the sane part (smile), but I am no longer a registered Republican because of the direction I saw the party going, and because of some of the actions I saw them taking, without their base raising any complaints.

Started with the Clinton witch hunt. Strengthened with the support of Dubya Bush in 2000, finalized with the demonizing of Kerry's military record (vs Bush's version of the same?)

To me, todays Republican party is a dangerous mockery of what it used to be. Damnable shame.

Powell, who voted for Obama, HAS been on Meet the Press on several occasions denouncing the GOP and their racism. Rush and the rest of those idiots retaliated. Ditto Meghan McCain.


And it's not like corporate media would give them a platform to *keep* promoting that message anyway.

Rush, Hannity, Ann C., O'Reilly, Beck and their ilk the main stream of the rethugs so the few remaining near normals like Powell will be forced out.

why would they believe that their leaders would lie to them?

Where does this end?

Which doesn't sound good, 'cause there are no return tickets, and no restrooms available at the last stop.
Most US Americans will most likely end up working for the allmighty North American Union, labouring away in swine-flu protected camps, eating, drinking govt approved food and beverages. During nighttime, propaganda reels are played with 'news' from the outside world, brought to you by Fox. And you'd better be glad you're in a camp - others have not been that fortunate and either died from the flu or have been gunned down by highway gangs.

I'm in Europe, however. We don't camp anymore. I hope.

over corporations (and soon), that may well be the new fascist America.

and their army of gullibles. I can't see a solution. And violence will only tighten their stranglehold.

...then maybe corporate America would stop importing so much of what we buy from China, and other low-wage, high-polluting countries.

The next time you shop at Wal-Mart, tell the manager that you will stop shopping at their store unless they make more products made in America available for purchase.

Some of the most annoying ads on television are the ones for prescription drugs. People who go nag their doctor to prescribe that crap must not be paying attention. The disclaimers mostly say that the side effects are similar to the symptoms that the drug is supposed to relieve. So if the drug doesn't work, people will believe that, it is not that the drug is worthless and stop buying it, but it is merely a side effect to be tolerated because the drug actually works so well. Some of the disclaimers actually point out that the "side effects" could be worse than the symptoms it is supposed to alleviate, and could actually kill the patient.

However, the people who take the stuff must not listen to the disclaimers about side effects. The history of the drug Vioxx comes to mind.

Again, one way to limit the influence of CorpAmerica is to stop being such passive and agreeable consumers.

We are caught in a catch 22. Walmart imports products from China and sells them for a low price. This hurts American workers who then loose wages in the cost of living struggle. These workers and the poor must by from Walmart out of necessity.

I try to support American businesses and the local stores but it gets harder and harder. I try to support Powell Books and not Amazon, etc. But I see it as a losing battle.

As many big box retailers do, they will have loss leader items that are cheaper than at other stores. However, many items at Wal-Mart are priced higher than at other stores.

All the big retailers do this. Americans have lost the art of comparison shopping. Americans have lost the ability to shop for "value".

Many Americans' buying decisions are knee-jerk responses to advertising they see on TV or to appear "hip". In olden times, a person would buy a water bottle for a few dollars and fill it for pennies with tap water. Today, the "mod" thing to do is buy a 12 ounce bottle of water for a dollar each that in most cases contains just tap water. This kind of consumer mentality is why cheap crap from China can cost more than American made goods, and it is so profitable to offshore jobs.

The advertising of prescription drugs on TV is another situation in which marketing, not the cost of the drug or its development, drives the prices up. Advertising drugs on TV is right up there with advertising cigarettes on TV. It is called creating demand. The drug company can sell a billion dollars worth of drugs in a very short time before someone in the medical profession notices that the drug is causing side effects such as heart attacks or birth defects.

BTW: for those ungodly sorts who don't know about the Evangelical world, Frank Schaeffer was once REALLY big stuff in the Christian right - a favorite speaker at all the important conventions. His father, the late Francis Schaeffer was probably the most important fundamentalist-Protestant scholar of the past 50 years.

Frank Schaeffer tells the story of his own background and his enlightenment in this book: 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

Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-God-Helped-Religious-Almost/dp/0306817500/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249648516&sr=1-1

Google Book Search:

http://books.google.com/books?id=mJIKlq2v6WAC&dq=frank+schaeffer+crazy+for+god

.

So far industry is winning everything they want and owns 1 and one half of the 2 parties. God bless the progressives

It is 2.5 hours long but it is a great insight into fascist and the brown shirt mentality.

And that is why Rush Limbaugh and health care protesters have usurped the terms Fascist and Nazi. This is actually part of the strategy and works well because fascism is widely misunderstood in semi-literate America.

So, it does no good to alert the American people that these are dangerous time. Some will agree these are dangerous times but for reasons pointed out by Limbaugh and Beck.

GOPs/NRA . . . GOPs/"pro-life" murderers --

how about election steals?

but we got wise to them.

This whole angry mob thing is all they have they are hoping that Dems are SOOO AFRAID of angry Pugs that they'll wimp out. The repugnican base is all that is left so they call names. Obama is a terr'st, a comm'nist, a socialist, a Muslim. You know they can't get away with calling him a nigger so this is all they have left. They are a sad bunch of losers. It's funny that they call him a Nazi but THEY are the ones with the Nazi emblems. We took care of the nazis and we will take care of them. Laugh at them. They have lost their power and their way and every move they make makes them weaker! SEE YA!!


911 WAS an inside job, pulled by cheney/wolfy/rummy to scare us into going along with their illegal, immoral war crimes. This angry mob is more distraction so that we don't look at the obvious reality of the 911 hoax.

And it is as effective today as it was then. This outrage always works in economically distressed times. Who knows, this could have been part of the long term plan.

The police and PTB always come down hard on left wing protesters while those for RW causes disrupt and bully. How much more evidence do we need than the the examples of the past few years. And the public is completely unaware that there were massive anti-Iraq War demonstrations yet town hall meetings are ruined by a few and get huge coverage.

Someone who has had a change of heart doesn't need to be insulted.

A good reminder that we should consider renaming our posts if its original title isn't the best.

a horror flick.

Sounds pretty much like the base of the Republican Party.

I am a lukewarm abortion supporter (don't really pay much attention to it) but considering that women and healthcare practitioners have had to deal with these violent thugs for decades makes me empathize with what they've been through. The author himself says these people are pulled from pro-life groups.



"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."

Even better quote:

"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"

Thanks for an informative post/thread. :thumbsup:

I hate those anti-American pigs. Why won't corporate media EXPOSE THIS BULLSHIT???

I have bookmarked the article and plan to send it around and post it everywhere. The dems need to be persistent in letting the world know about this.

like to be careful when identifying these nut bags. I prefer to focus on their ideology more than their party, for we really can't forget that these ideological morons probably use to vote democratic (mind you it was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away). These are the same idiots that made up the Solid South that stonewalled every piece of civil rights legislation, if not even human rights legislation such as anti-lynching bills, proposed by progressive Democrats and largely Republicans. until the two parties seemed to have some kind of Freaky Friday like switch, with the Republicans keeping their love of big business but losing their stand on civil rights and equality, and the Democrats staying the party of the people while losing most of that bitter, racist ideology (mostly, by literally swapping their geographic positions with the Republicans) that the party was prevalent in.

Also keep in mind that this took some time from the 1930s until the 1980s. But here we stand, today, with the Republicans still on the right of the spectrum and loving big business, but also diluted by the backwardness and racism that once infected the Democrats. Of course, that is not to say that Republican ideology hasn't influenced them at all. It has pushed these idiots, whose parents and grandparents were probably New Dealers, to believe that big business controlling health care for a profit is a good thing, and government intervention for the good of its citizens is evil socialism, nazism, blah blah blah.

What an amazing article! He hit the nail right on the head! :applause:

:kick:

Replace the whole "master race" ideology with "American exceptionalism" and there you have it. There has to be a way to stop this.

Why does it have to be white? Someone trying to inject racism here?

I just saw news coverage of around here with both sides protesting. They interviewed two people. The woman for health care reform was white and the woman against was black.

Old White Guys?

You mean like Ron Williams, the **BLACK** President and CEO of Aetna, one of the most abusive health insurance companies around?

It's about GREED and SELFISHNESS, not race.

People who see racism in everything are the most racist people around.

--where the camera would pan to one of the two black faces in an overwhelming sea of white? Percentages actually do matter.

and kick it and recommend it and send and post that interview EVERYWHERE - it REALLY needs to go viral:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x350158

.

Seems like the cons have it all worked out in terms of turning out their base against Healthcare, no matter what you're beef with the world is.

Clearly I'm a bit masochistic, as I like to read through right-wing forums, the following are the various strains of Wingnuts and their reasons for opposing healthcare

RACISTS:
- Its Obama's way of "reparations" for black people
- "They will cover illegal aliens too, kick them out of our country"
- OBAMA!!!! blaarrgh! boo! he hates white people"

FREE MARKETERS / CAPITALISTS:
- "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!"
- Obamacare (spelled with a sickle for added effect)

FISCAL CONSERVATIVES:
- "It costs too much!"
- "It will destroy the economy"
- "OMG, look at that deficit, this is what Democrats always do!" (after Dem presidents come in to mop up the mess)

RELIGIOUS NUTS / ANTI-ABORTIONISTS
- "They are willing to pay for abortion, but not to treat sick kids, they're sick!"
- "He is the Anti-Christ!! wait, which thread is this again?"

HYSTERISTS (my made up word, this covers all groups)
- "Obama is Hitler, he will kill everyone! aaaargh!!"
- "Granny will be sent off to the glue factory"

DUMBASSES (probably covers most of the above):
- "Government bureaucrats will control your life!"
- "Its going to somehow take away your guns!"
- "Great opportunity to go and pick a fight with your local representative!"
- "Its evil!"