Community Organizing

[kandrathe]

I find it interesting that a tactic used for decades by the left in the US, has suddenly become huge news when employed by the right. Here is Media Matters spin on the whole thing. I think it is a bad sign when both sides rear their ugly radical, hate blinded, stone deaf heads.

When I was at the University, I intentionally joined the "Peace Studies" student organization in opposition to the "Protesting Student Organization", or was that "Progressive Student Organization". The PSO tactic was to march around with a deafening cacophony, interrupt well attended and unrelated events and hold up pithy banners to get attention, and to chain themselves to inanimate objects until the police would cut them loose and drag them off to the paddy wagons. Meanwhile, my group would write letters, use connections, have civil meetings with policy makers, and organize peaceful events where people were allowed to actually speak and voice their opinions.

I'm still recovering from the heartrending advert by the WWF (not the wrestling one), regarding the terrible plight of the drowning polar bears. Yes, the same ones whose population has quintupled in the past 50 years. I'd say judging by what I've seen in Churchill, that the polar bears are doing just fine living inland.

In other news, what do Obama and Nixon now have in common? They both abuse(d) the power of the White house to engage in domestic spying, and attempts to bully and intimidate citizens who are political opponents. It's not quite yet to the level of sending the CIA and FBI out to make lists of activists, and then rendition them off to Gitmo, or reeducation camps.<blockquote>"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."</blockquote>Well I just happen to know a little site that is filled with fishy health care advice.

[Zenda]

Question: What do the noise of protesting crowds, the decline of polar bears from global warming, Nixon's past illegal activities, health care disinformation in USA media, and mercury pollution in consumption fish have in common?

Answer: Nothing, but they can still be used for lobbying if you believe that goals are more important as means.

[Jester]

:unsure:

At least the title pre-Godwinned the thread, so we can leave it the way we found it.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

At least the title pre-Godwinned the thread, so we can leave it the way we found it.

If you check the rules on "Godwin", you will note that when the topic is actually concerning Hitler, Nazi's or related, then Godwin does not apply.

So for example, CBS is reporting violence breaking out at many of the town hall meetings.<blockquote>"One conservative African-American activist, who was taken to the emergency room of a local hospital with injuries, told the newspaper that another black man used a racial slur against him and then physically attacked him."</blockquote>Who attacked this conservative black man? Source (s) suggest it was an SEIU union thug, one of many who were packed into the meeting from the side door, while hundreds of citizens were denied entry at the main entrance.

That sounds like what "Brown Shirts" do, does it not? You know, rough up the organized opposition and dissenters at the meetings. I'm just not sure which side the neo-SA are on, or maybe there are thugs on both sides.

Edit: I found the *raw* feed for the St. Louis attack on that guy on Youtube. But, then again, this strays off topic. This whole vilification things is what is wrong with the debate, and what leads the politically neutered to lash out at each other when yelling and chanting slogans won't change their minds. Do you remember any of the protests from a few years ago, where it was Bush=Hitler? So, the its the same tactics, just the Democrats who are wearing the horns now. Does it help us work through these issues? Is this the "Change" we were hoping for?

[kandrathe]

Question: What do the noise of protesting crowds, the decline of polar bears from global warming, Nixon's past illegal activities, health care disinformation in USA media, and mercury pollution in consumption fish have in common?

Answer: Nothing, but they can still be used for lobbying if you believe that goals are more important as means.

Ah, I was too subtle again. What the three have in common is how the 4th estate has been melded with the 5th column, the executive branch, and the progressive congressional leadership. Nixon made it clear that he was only the President of some of the people, and an enemy of the others. Obama is making the same mistake. Yesterday he essentially said to the Republicans, "Shut up, get out of the way, and we'll fix your mess." Which, is so wrong on a number of counts. Clinton and Bush, at least when they were in public, attempted to be the President for all the people, even though they secretly harbored a resentment towards some. Yes, the polarization was there and is there, but once the factions have leaders we move from civil disharmony to civil unrest, to civil war.

[Jester]

If you check the rules on "Godwin", you will note that when the topic is actually concerning Hitler, Nazi's or related, then Godwin does not apply.

Oh, was this also a topic about the politics of Germany in the 1930s? I suppose just adding one more to the list isn't so bad, given that it's already about absolutely everything.

That sounds like what "Brown Shirts" do, does it not?

This is the very *essence* of a Godwin. "XYZ is happening today... and it's just like Hitler! (dun dun duh)"

-Jester

[Jester]

Ah, I was too subtle again.

Well, it was certainly abtruse and difficult to understand, and that is one usage. However, subtlety is usually distinguished from nonsense by actually having a point at the end of it. Yours is?

-Jester

[kandrathe]

... it's just like Hitler! (dun dun duh)"

No, it's not like Hitler. It's like what the brown shirts did in the beer halls to anyone who was opposed to the party line. Had they rounded them up and shipped them off to work camps in Montana, I would have compared it to Stalin.

The thread is about silencing dissent, and one or both sides engaging in violence against their fellow citizens and telling the other to "Shut Up" and get out of the way.

[Jester]

No, it's not like Hitler. It's like what the brown shirts did in the beer halls to anyone who was opposed to the party line.

... so it's not like Hitler. It's just like... these guys.



Definitely no Hitler there.

The thread is about silencing dissent, and one or both sides engaging in violence against their fellow citizens and telling the other to "Shut Up" and get out of the way.

... and it's just like the brownshirts! (dun dun duh...)

-Jester

[kandrathe]

... so it's not like Hitler. It's just like... these guys. Definitely no Hitler there.

The context of "like" implies congruence, not equality. When I say that someone is like a barbarian, I'm not implying their ancestry is Goth or that they don't cook their meat enough. The SEIU people were kind enough to actually wear their SEIU t-shirts, which were actually dark blue and not brown. Perhaps some of Obama's citizen army are the militant types... But, a militant citizen army wouldn't be at all like the SA would it?

... and it's just like the brownshirts!

So you *do* agree.
You are in good company. Here is an article in the notably conservative, Canada Free Press. It's pretty far on the conservative side, but I add it to show that the congruence of squashing political dissent with SEIU and Acorn activists is not lost on everyone.

[kandrathe]

Well, it was certainly abtruse and difficult to understand, and that is one usage. However, subtlety is usually distinguished from nonsense by actually having a point at the end of it. Yours is?

One is that I'm frustrated with the lack of honest debate in our world. I'm sad that we no longer take the time to really listen to each other and consider another persons point of view. Instead, it seems politicians (federal employees who serve the people) doggedly adhere to their positions, engage in demagoguery and vilify their opposition. Who's right, and who's wrong? Who knows? But, without a debate the two sides, now breathless, are in the same position before the shouting match began. So what's next? Guns?

[Jester]

Kandrathe, if you really want to talk about this topic, cobble together a first post that makes sense, stays on topic, and doesn't mention the Nazis. I'm not touching this one.

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

I'm not touching this one.

Ditto.

--Pete

[Chaerophon]

Re: polar bears.

Population numbers prior to 1950 are unclear. What scientists (and residents of the NW territories/Nunavut) know: overhunting led to precipitous decline in the '60's. Regulation led to bounceback, population growth in the '70's. Now scientists have found that many populations are declining once again, in spite of hunting regulation. In fact, hunters can't actually hunt for the full season because the ice is melting earlier than ever.

At the most recent meeting of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (Copenhagen, 2009), scientists reported that of the 19 subpopulations of polar bears, eight are declining, three are stable, one is increasing, and seven have insufficient data on which to base a decision. (The number of declining populations has increased from five at the group's 2005 meeting.)

These are real scientists reporting real results. The results are disturbing.

[kandrathe]

The results are disturbing.

You mean the theoretical results? The actual data raises questions about polar bear habitat and human ignorance about polar bear behavior, but it makes me wonder what polar bears did in the last interglacial warming cycles (e.g. Holocene optimum) where the polar ice receded? Like most limited habitat species, I expect they adapt or if they are too niche then they die off. I highly doubt they survived for so long without a strategy for warmer weather.

I'm looking at this site, which shows if I'm not mistaken, that while there is an ebb and flow in polar ice, that mostly it snaps back to near normal. The polar ice cap fluctuated between 5 and 14 million sq km in 1980, and slowly erodes to between 4 and 13 today. There appears to be a loss of about (on average) 1 million sq km, but you might expect that at the end of a global cooling cycle.

[Taem]

I find it interesting that a tactic used for decades by the left in the US, has suddenly become huge news when employed by the right. Here is Media Matters spin on the whole thing. I think it is a bad sign when both sides rear their ugly radical, hate blinded, stone deaf heads.

When I was at the University, I intentionally joined the "Peace Studies" student organization in opposition to the "Protesting Student Organization", or was that "Progressive Student Organization". The PSO tactic was to march around with a deafening cacophony, interrupt well attended and unrelated events and hold up pithy banners to get attention, and to chain themselves to inanimate objects until the police would cut them loose and drag them off to the paddy wagons. Meanwhile, my group would write letters, use connections, have civil meetings with policy makers, and organize peaceful events where people were allowed to actually speak and voice their opinions.

I'm still recovering from the heartrending advert by the WWF (not the wrestling one), regarding the terrible plight of the drowning polar bears. Yes, the same ones whose population has quintupled in the past 50 years. I'd say judging by what I've seen in Churchill, that the polar bears are doing just fine living inland.

In other news, what do Obama and Nixon now have in common? They both abuse(d) the power of the White house to engage in domestic spying, and attempts to bully and intimidate citizens who are political opponents. It's not quite yet to the level of sending the CIA and FBI out to make lists of activists, and then rendition them off to Gitmo, or reeducation camps.<blockquote>"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."</blockquote>Well I just happen to know a little site that is filled with fishy health care advice.

I read this and I read it again, and still I am totally lost to what point you are trying to make. I'm sure it all makes sense in your head, so care to sum it all up, because it all seems like nonsense to me, no offense.

[kandrathe]

I'm sure it all makes sense in your head, so care to sum it all up, because it all seems like nonsense to me, no offense.

Ok.

First, lots of conservative people against the health care bill have been adopting the plays from the Alinsky handbook "rules for radicals", and the democrats are up in arms about it. That is what I meant by goose and gander. For decades, anti-war, environmental, anti-fur, anti-G8 progressives have been "community organizing", so it is ironic that the "Organizer in Chief" is being foiled by a bunch of tea party neo-patriots chanting "Tyranny" and running around with "Don't tread on me" flags. Or, in other words, community organizing. The white house responds by asking US citizens to inform on each other with a tip line, and they say it is merely an innocent way to find out how people are misinformed. Imagine if Bush had set up a tip line for people to send in the names of web sites that were against the Patriot Act?

Then you have democrats Pelosi, Durbin and others running around calling the protesters Nazi's because they spotted a sign implying Obama might be one. And the Republicans are calling the Acorn and SEIU muscle "brown shirts" for intimidating the "organized anti Obama HC protesters". I've heard of both sides now claiming that they are getting death threats, and no one is actually talking about what is in the thousand pages of the health care bill. This is the genesis of my comment on brown shirts, suggesting that both sides are thumping heads and not trying to listen to what the other people are saying. This is not how we engage in debate in America, and if we continue this way, it will escalate into outright violent confrontation.

Obama continues to recite the mantra "No one will lose their private health care", while Krugman, Pelosi, Barney Frank, and other democrats are on record assuring their constituents that this bill will lead to a single payer system. In fact, there is language in the bill that I interpret to mean that once you are on the public option (e.g. you lose your job and can't afford the COBRA option), then you can never leave it. It's a one way trap door that will slowly squeeze private health insurance out of business. And, then they claim the evil insurance companies and big corporations are organizing people which they denigrate as "Astroturf" not grass roots. How more damn insulting can they get?

The polar bear thing really was out of place, but I just saw the tear jerking ad and couldn't take it anymore. Polar bears are more sexy than peeper frogs, even though its reptiles and amphibians that are dying off in droves.

Anyway, what sews them all together is the strategy of propaganda. I wasn't much of a believer in Hegelian dialectics used to keep the people stewing and stupid, but this health care debate is giving me cause to wonder. The democrats want to shove as many bills through congress as they can before the people can rise up in opposition. They are seeking to keep everyone confused and off balance, even to the point where the final markups of the bills as they come out of committee are voted on without the time or desire for them to even be read or understood. What I'm seeing is the pinnacle of demagoguery and deception by both the democrats and the republicans. I think the 2010 elections are going to be interesting.

[Jester]

Obama continues to recite the mantra "No one will lose their private health care", while Krugman, Pelosi, Barney Frank, and other democrats are on record assuring their constituents that this bill will lead to a single payer system.

Got a link for any of those?

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Got a link for any of those?

Bill Moyers Journal (30 minutes) from June 4th covers most of the liberal position. A great 30 minute infomercial for universal health care on PBS. Key moments are Obama at the :50 second mark, 6:50 Moyers asks why single payer is not on the table, 20:00 minutes they talk about the public option, 30:00 one guy calls for protests, and civil disobedience (on the pro-single payer side). This video is entirely one sided in that it covers the liberal side of the argument, and has two guests who are against the health insurance industry.

Barney Frank strategy is to get it in the back door by first getting the public option. Henry Waxman John Kerry Barbara Mikulski Rahm Emmanuel

Nancy Pelosi (and here) attacks the private insurance industry, and offers the "public option" as a form of "healthy" competition.

Because the government is so good at keeping their programs in the black, right? Insurance companies might compete better if they could run billion dollar deficits year after year, oh wait, that was AIG right. Hmmm, on the one hand we are killing insurance companies, and on the other hand we are bailing them out and giving their executives bonuses on the public dime. I guess it depends on what you want insured, risky financial vehicles for the wealthy, or peoples health. No democrat is interested in figuring out some regulatory correction to the problem, such as, what has been done with national flood insurance. Private insurance still provide the coverage, and administration of the plan, and the Federal government acts as a high risk insurer of the insurance companies losses (that is, they guarantee that in the event of a loss, the federal government will pick up the tab).

Obama at the SEIU health care forum. And, here is another part of a speech to the SEIU (health care portion). At 6:15 he claims to be open, transparent able to build a consensus to pass the bill.

Here is Krugman where he says, "The public-private competition in the Demoplan is crucial, by the way, because it means that the Demoplan isn’t locked into the inefficiency of the private insurance system – it could evolve into single-payer over time." Here is another article of his where he says, "The intellectually serious debate is between those who believe that the government should simply provide basic health insurance for everyone and those proposing a more complex, indirect approach that preserves a central role for private health insurance companies."

Here is Obama, telling the people who made the mess to stop talking and get out of the way.

So much for the great unifier, so much for open dialog and debate, and so much for the first amendment. And, someone, by God, please forward this post to flag@whitehouse.gov. I'm sure that I'm already on some ones list. :)

[Jester]

I'm hearing a lot of "if we want single payer, the only way to get it is to demonstrate that it works first with a hybrid system" and not a lot of "single payer is coming, like it or not, this is just the first step." No question those people all advocate single payer, but they all seem quite gloomy about the political reality. It simply does not have enough support, something that might change if it can be shown to work. (In America, that is. It's been shown to work in plenty of other places.)

So much for the great unifier, so much for open dialog and debate, and so much for the first amendment. And, someone, by God, please forward this post to flag@whitehouse.gov. I'm sure that I'm already on some ones list. :)

A) Whose first amendment rights are being trampled? Telling one's opponents to shut up is not equal to shutting them up, even if you are the president.

B ) That decontextualized video wasn't even about health care. It was about deficits.

-Jester