Bastrop Dems foil wingnut hijacking

Suh-prize, suh-prize suh-prize. Sorry, goofballs - not in our backyard.

Many of you may have heard about Congressman Lloyd Doggett being ambushed by a mob at Randall's in South Austin this past Saturday, as he tried to hold his traditional "office hours" at the shopping centers where his constituents go.
The full force of the anti-health care reform "movement" was brought to bear on Lloyd as he tried to answer absurd questions and get a word in edgewise while a cabal of teabaggers shouted at him, waved outrageous signs (including a tombstone with "Doggett" written on it) and eventually forced him and his staff to leave (as they pounded on the cars of Lloyd and his staff). They prevented a congressman from communicating with constituents.

Which is what those tools wanted in the first place. The mobs disrupting town halls this week are part of a carefully orchestrated and financed nationwide PR campaign being waged by big insurance and other corporate lobbies, astroturf groups like Americans for Prosperity, and of course, the infamous Ralph Reed and his PR firm Century Strategies, along with Creative Response Concepts - who handled the media game for the Swift Boat Vets.

Yes, the same crowd. Now they are feeding and leveraging the ignorance of their useful idiots to wage holy war on behalf of their corporate clients against health care reform. These groups and firms are stoking and advising loose-meat online gangs of birthers, tin-foil 'libertarians' and other deluded paranoiacs and sending them out to ambush and harass Democratic Reps and Senators at their various constituent meetings over the August recess. They are instructed to disrupt, shout down and shut down any real dialogue on health care reform (or any other issue, for that matter). The idea, of course, is to keep those who favor reform from making their case to the people, and to create the appearance of mass opposition to health care reform ("Obamacare means euthanasia for old people"), when in fact no such mass opposition exists.




Quite the contrary - many of you know that the vast majority of Americans favor reform, universal coverage with a public plan option, and are fine with an equitable plan to pay for it. Thus the industry is using astroturf groups like Dick Armey's "FreedomWorks"(backed by pharmaceutical, insurance, and oil companies of course) and concocting some new ones like "Conservatives for Patients Rights", to encourage mob thuggery by the wing-nut fringe: disrupting meetings of Congressional reps with their constituents and stamping out rational discussions of the issue - because they know rational people tend to be suspicious of insurance industry talking points, framed as they are to protect their profit margins at the expense of those who need actual health care services.

The fools who showed up to harangue Doggett in Bastrop, however, got more than they bargained for. We were ready for them. Bastrop County Democratic Chair Barbara Nichols - along with former chair Mitzi Van Sant and a host of other precinct chairs and other friends some sense and decency - swung into action as soon as Lloyd's staff told them what had happened in Austin that morning.

Following a short press event old City Hall to announce a $200,000 appropriation for the Bastrop County Historical Society's effort to convert the old building into a museum, Lloyd was scheduled to hold a town hall meeting at 5 pm at the Kerr Community Center in Bastrop, set up by the BCDP and open to all. Normally these little meet-ups involve around 10-20 people and are pretty relaxed affairs. But Barbara and the gang called in the troops - Democrats, local public officials, and other good people who were appalled by the morning's news and resolved to help set a different tone in Bastrop.

Just get to the Kerr Center, Barbara told them - and get there early.
It's not a big place - a historic building in the heart of Bastrop's African-American community, once used as a meeting place for Camp Swift soldiers, renovated several years ago - and only seats about 60 people or so.

Get there early, we did. By the time Lloyd and his wife Libby arrived, we had already filled the place to SRO with friendlies. When a half dozen troublemakers arrived shortly thereafter (they were following Lloyd around), they first noisily argued with police outside when informed that signs were not welcome in the building. Then they tried to create more drama in the open doorway, whining at the police and anyone in earshot about how we were "infringing on their right of free speech". They were informed them that they were welcome to come in and participate, but disruptive behavior would not be tolerated. After more caterwauling outside, they finally put the signs away and entered the meeting room, grousing about it all the way. Then they dutifully attempted to carry out their orders from FreedomWorks - hollering out nonsense & non-sequiters ("$25 trillion dollars!!") , absurd and hostile questions about "rationed care" and "tort reform", and generally trying to gum up the proceedings by interrupting Doggett as he began speaking. The spittle took flight, if you will.

But they didn't last long. As soon as they began making a ruckus, many of us in the room - which included former & current Bastrop mayors, city council members, the county judge and school board members - called out their behavior, and the very calm & professional officers of the Bastrop Police Department escorted them out. Some of them followed to make sure their comrades weren't being oppressed. Those that did return were much quieter after that, though they still made a few feeble attempts to rattle the Congressman. It was clear that Bastrop would not suffer these fools gladly. Lloyd responded succinctly and assertively to a few of their questions, and didn't back down ("If you want to be treated with respect, you should act respectively.").
The civilized super-majority in attendance was thus able to ask many questions and voice concerns on health care, the stimulus, legislative strategy, and other issues, and though we weren't always delighted with Lloyd's responses, we were able to have a civil and reasoned discourse with him. This, of course, was precisely what the wing nuts did not want and, foiled in their attempt to create a kerfuffle and make headlines, they gradually trickled out (or were taken out by the cops again) and spent the rest of the event trying to work the cops outside about how oppressed they were and how unfair it all was...etc. To top it off, a few of them had brought their young children with them - I assume in order to bear witness their parents' ridiculous behavior. I thought only rich Yankees taught their kids to be rude jackasses.

My friend and fellow blogger MeanRachel also answered the call and drove out to Bastrop Saturday, for which I am grateful. I disagree with some of her impressions of the event - we were hardly helpless "manatees", and I think "sharks" would have far better instincts than those exhibited by the troublemakers we saw at the Kerr Center. I also don't think this is really the time to publicly beat up on one of our most progressive members of Congress - though like Rachel, I want him be more aggressive and quit sugarcoating poor legislation in his desire to get a consensus bill - because we should all realize by now that a "consensus" is not going to happen with today's GOP leadership hitching their wagon to the crazy train. That said, Lloyd is now one of 57 House Democrats who have pledged to vote against any final bill that does not contain a robust public insurance option.

But regardless of our feelings about what Lloyd and other Democrats could be doing differently, the good people of Bastrop made one thing clear: WE WILL NOT ALLOW civil public discourse to be hijacked and sabotaged by fanatics - especially when we know those fanatics are being used as pawns by the insurance industry and other right-wing lobby groups. Not here.

I'd advise Democrats in Travis County and elsewhere to similarly mobilize and stand up for common decency, and start fighting for real health care reform. There are powerful forces allayed against it, and they are leveraging the best that money can buy to keep universal health care and real insurance competition at bay.

Our message to Lloyd is this: we've got your back, SO FIGHT. And if Lloyd was gun shy about going to the wall for real reform before the recess, Saturday seemed to provide him with a call to arms.

But real reform requires that we all engage in this battle. Call or write in support of progressive Congressmen, donate to groups organizing for health care reform, call and write the obstructionist Blue Dogs who are watering down reform, and show up wherever possible to support real health care reform. Talk to your neighbors and friends - calmly and considerately - and debunk the lies and distortions being parlayed by the insurance lobby and their various front groups. The radical right and their corporate bed mates use war as their model for political battle, taking no prisoners & sparing no expense to force their agenda and their rules on our country and make working people pay for it. They must be met with a proportional response from all corners.