Monday, August 3, 2009

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.


Sunday, July 19, 2009

What's All This Then?

Maybe a waste of time, or yet another way to spread myself too thin. Hopefully, this will become a a place to learn and share news of politics and progress in Bastrop County - from Elgin to Smithville to the county seat, and all the hamlets, subdivisions and various other wide spots on the roads out here.

It's clear that what media is available in this county has abdicated any and all responsibility to adequately inform our citizens and and promote healthy debate - and we'll get around to that very soon. It's particularly clear that Democrats and other good people of common sense in BC need a resource for information and perspectives on how to make our local government and officials more responsive, effective, and progressive.

Too much ground has been conceded to the forces of greed, ignorance and know-nothing fanaticism. Strong public schools, unspoiled public lands, a healthy small business community, family farms and ranches - these were the legacy of parents and grandparents who conquered a Great Depression and made the world safe for democracy. The current Republican power cabal in Texas has laid waste to that legacy and endangered our children's future. While they haven't quite managed to completely infect Bastrop County yet, rest assured they're working on it, determined to sell us all off to the mercy of big-box corporations, water wholesalers and land-grubbing developers. But decent folks still have room to maneuver and push them back.

There is a coalition here, big enough to turn it all around and headed back in the right direction. But it needs to come together in common purpose - willing to play smarter, pool resources and ideas, be ready to fight when necessary and stand against foolishness from all corners. If this blog will help expedite that formation and feed the need for good sense and decency in our blessed little county, I'll consider it worth the trouble and a rousing success.

And of course, we can always poke fun at people who deserve it, and irritate those without a sense of humor. I'll try to get around to all of it, but I am only one man - and a busy one at that.

More posting will follow, in rather haphazard fashion I'm sure, in the weeks to come. I'll also be recruiting others to contribute to it.

Topics for posts in the works:
Whither Tim Kleinschmidt?
Tracking local races - the 2010 Primaries
Down and Drought - What's up with the Water?
Bastrop Growth Patterns and Demographics

...and maybe a high school football preview or two. Friendly bets will be made, gauntlets thrown down. Don't be shy - Please kick in yer two cents if you see fit. Comment or send an email -

Robert Cyrus Ryland
Elgin, TX