Does this sound familiar?...Think Florida 2000....

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday July 31, 2009 · 6:04 AM PDT

2009/07/31 · 06:04

Town halls gone wild

Screaming constituents, protesters dragged out by the cops, congressmen fearful for their safety — welcome to the new town-hall-style meeting, the once-staid forum that is rapidly turning into a house of horrors for members of Congress.

"I had felt they would be pointless," Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to suspend the events in his Long Island district.

In Bishop’s case, his decision came on the heels of a June 22 event he held in Setauket, N.Y., in which protesters dominated the meeting by shouting criticisms at the congressman for his positions on energy policy, health care and the bailout of the auto industry.

Within an hour of the disruption, police were called in to escort the 59-year-old Democrat — who has held more than 100 town hall meetings since he was elected in 2002 — to his car safely.

It's right out of Karl Rove's playbook for shutting down the vote count in Florida in 2000. Remember the hordes of young angry white men in Brooks Brothers' suits storming the recount headquarters demanding the recount be stopped? It worked then and it's working now.

The Republican campaign to deny health coverage to all Americans lest they displease their masters who run the drug cartels and health insurance companies is a two-pronged attack plan. The big money is being poured into an endless stream of TV ads in which outright lies are spouted in an effort to terrorize and instill fear into the hearts and minds of all Americans. (And if that sounds familiar too, it's because that's how Bush won his second term in office. Only then the topic was terrorists not tonsillectomies.) Count yourself lucky if you are going to be on vacation during August because you'll probably not be inundated with the nonstop showing of these ads.

The second part of the plan is the use of paid and unpaid demonstrators who are charged with shouting down anyone who defends the proposed health care plan and simultaneously making sure that the event makes the local evening news which then has a very good chance of hitting the Net and going viral. And considering the reaction we've seen so far from those politicians so attacked, they are, for the most part gutless cowards, more concerned with keeping their seat then helping the sick.

Now here's what really puzzles me. Why do the Republicans hate their fellow citizens so much that they would make it their singular goal to defeat any and all attempts at making the lives of their fellow citizens better? One can only hope that those fighting for those people will manage to be heard above the din of dissent.

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

Make YOUR voice heard!

Comments are closed on this story.