A little history lesson, on why, if the conditions are right, the Town Hall Liars may help us ...

[zbdent]

A passage:

In my sophomore year, as a cub reporter for the Daily Californian, the student-run newspaper that was widely read both on the sprawling Berkeley campus and in the city, one of the first assignments that I drew, quite by chance, was to cover a campus speech by Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan's United Nations ambassador and an architect of his hard-line anti-Communist policies in El Salvadore and Nicaragua, which countenanced human rights violations throughout the region by our anti-Communist allies. An acerbic, schoolmarmish neoconservative Democrat and former university professor, Kirkpatrick had been invited to deliver the Jefferson Lectures, a distinguished annual series on the history of American political values. As with nearly every campus event in Berkeley, a protest was announced in leaflets that had been stapled onto bulletin boards in the main plaza.

When I arrived at the auditorium at the appointed hour, the expected conga line of sign-holding protestors had not materialized. Berkeley's lecture halls were cavernous, and on this warm day in early fall Wheeler Auditorium was filled to capacity. I walked into the hushed room and took a seat up front near the platform. Opening my reporter's notebook, I was set to jot down the details of what I expected to be a rather dry academic address. Kirkpatrick was introduced by the mild-mannered Berkeley law school dean, and she approached the podium with a clutch of papers in a hand that looked more like a bird's claw.

No sooner had she begun speaking than several dozen protesters, clad in black sheets with white skeletons painted on them, bolted from their seats, repeatedly shouting "U.S. Out of El Salvador," and "Forty Thousand Dead," a reference to political assassinations by the death squads linked to the U.S.-backed Salvadoran military junta. Kirkpatrick stopped speaking, waiting patiently for the din to die down; but as soon as she uttered another word, the chanting commenced, and it grew louder and louder with each recitation. As an exasperated Kirkpatrick pivoted toward the law school dean for assistance, a protester leaped from his seat just offstage and splashed simulated blood on the podium. After several more attempts to be heard with no help from the hapless dean, Kirkpatrick curled her lip, turned on her heels, and surrendered to the mob.

The scene shook me deeply: Was the harassment of an unpopular speaker the legcy of the Berkeley-campus Free Speech Movement, when students demanded the right to canvass for any and all political causes on the campus's Sproul Plaza? Wasn't free speech a liberal value? How, I wondered, could this thought police call itself liberal? As I raced back to the threadbare offices of the Daily Cal, were we tapped out stories on half-sheets of paper hunched over manual typewriters, my adrenaline was pumping. I knew I had the day's lead story. For the rest of the academic year, a controversy raged in the faculty senate and within the board of regents, where several of former Governor Reagan's appointees still sat, over whether the campus administration should have done more to secure Kirkpatrick's ability to speak freely. The few outspoken conservatives on the faculty, and the Reagan regents, raised their voices in support of Kirkpatrick's free speech rights. The liberals seemed to me to be defending censorship.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The above passage seemed to be the defining moment where David Brock decided to go against "the nutjobs" of the left ... (Blinded By The Right, 2002)

However, Brock found a sympathetic niche which comforted him and welcomed him into an embrace which nurtured his "conservative" reactionary feelings. These days, I doubt that there's any real outlet which could catapult a "lefty" counterpart to the old David Brock into the "mainstream" like he had available to him, nor is there a real desire by the "liberal media" to really show these "concerned citizens" for what they really are ... when they are interviewed, they are given the moment and are portrayed as calm, unlike the mob/riot mentality they gave inside a few minutes before.

Fortunately, Brock saw the truth about the people he associated with ... and turn away from them. In another part of his book, he became aware of the true nature of the Clarence Thomas he had defended, and found that the portrayal that Brock so ridiculed and trashed was pretty much true. After a public crucifixion of her, and a few years, he privately apologized to Anita Hill (via a letter). There was no reply from Hill, which probably was good, because I don't know if there's a really diplomatic way to tell someone to go fuck themselves and then jump ass-first into a lake of lava and burn for eternity.

If there's any justice out there, these Town Hall (Liars) Whiners would turn the tide against sympathy to the Repugniconvict cause ...

but I doubt the "liberal media" would have the balls to help ...

[zipplewrath]

1. Short term help

Truth is in the short term these nuts actually help. They prevent the development of any serious alternative arguments. They make good copy for the newspaper, but that's about it. It's much easier to explain that you're not creating "death panels" than to argue CBO estimates for the next 10 years. In the long term however, it distracts from the ability to establish a general reputation for well thought out and executed ideals. It's not impressive that you're not creating death panels. Calming maybe but no one says "I'm glad we elected democrats because they aren't creating death panels". Quite the opposite, there is an underlying implication of "well, they didn't create death panels THIS time". The question becomes however, can these nuts get anyone elected. It's all well and good that they are useful idiots come town hall time, but if they can't put butts in the voting booth come election time, they ultimately aren't any good to the parties. Code pink was good for distracting Bush, but you didn't see alot of candidates seeking their endorsement.

[DoBotherMe]

2. Brock couldn't understand WHY

the protesters were so animated and angry, he just thought they were rude. He didn't fully grasp (until his conversion) that you can't give totalitarians an inch, because if you do, all right to the pursuit of happiness will be swept away by their pursuit of control. There's a difference between righteous indignation and top-down manipulation. He was naive. Dana ; )

[zbdent]

3. but, with the right conditions (which the media won't allow), the American population

could see that these Town Hall Screamers are really a bunch of nutjobs ... especially if the "Don't let the govt. do my healthcare, and don't touch my Medicare!" rhetoric was explained to the "viewing" public ... "Um, Medicare is run by the government, and at a fraction of the cost of private insurance."