We throw word around in this society like Nazi or terrorism much too easily. The Liberals call the Conservatives Nazi and vise versa. Which, instinct tells me should not be possible to exisit at both ends of the spectrum. I'm sure I'm guilty to doing it a time or two. But in my defense I was making a comparison between the Principle of Fascism and American Society at the start of the Iraq War, but I wasn't calling anybody a Nazi. OK, may somewhere on this blog I called someone a Nazi... ok, maybe twice. Alright, it was 11 times. Wait it might be a dozen but that one I said she was "acting like a Nazi."
The path the Republicans are heading down can be such a dangerous one . It contains a much too high degree of unpredictability. When you purposefully inflame, not very well informed people or worse societies most vulnerable, with outright lies and horrific distortions, We might as well start a campfire in the living room and hope for the best.
The Republicans are rightfully being punished for incredibly, if not historically, poor governance. No matter how you look at it, where we stood when the Republicans came into power, with budget surpluses going forward that could have made Universal Heath Care a walk down a government funded walking path, maybe even keep grandma alive indefinitely. When we compare that with where we are now standing in the wreckage of an economic collapse brought about by unregulated financial shell games. Two wars with hundred of thousands of innocent lives disrupted by violence and death and a constitution so distorted the question is will we ever get it back to where it belongs? Needless to say the Republicans need to go sit quietly in the corner and think about what they've done.
So the Repubs at the moment have zero political power in Washington. They are a minority in the House and totally impotent in the Senate of course I'm not using impotent, Vitter, to challenge any Senator's, Vitter, sexual prowess or competency, Vitter. I'm using it as term to
represent your political powerlessness, Vitter. They see their only option is to mount an insurrection, to shutdown debate by shouting down other views and hijacking town hall meetings.
The Republican do have an impressive army of storm troopers who will believe anything they are told even the most ridiculous. It is army of fringe conservatives, "the birthers", "the teabaggers" the anti abortion crowd even the the gun fanatics... "Obama to deny healthcare to accidental gun shot victims ... Our children at risk!" Can you hear the scary music?
It not very hard for the Repubs to mobilize the activist fringe. They send out the emails with crazy distortion or flat out lies. Talk Radio beats the drums of fear and anger. The idea of disrupting town halls takes root. Now if your town has a population of 100,000 it's very likely you got 15-20,000 crazy conservatives, in the south probably more, living in your neighborhoods ( did anyone hear scary music again?). So even if you only active 1% of those. You got 150-200 people. more then enough to disrupt any town hall meeting. All you have to do is tell them where to go. Why orchestrate when you can agitate.
It's one thing to use your supporters to come to the Health Care debate with a coherent discussion of the issues it's quite another to use a stick of lies and distortion to poke and agitate people, to the point of furious anger and then throw open the gate.
