It seems the item the rightwingnuts are most in need of is a DICTIONARY!!!

If Obama & Co. were REALLY "SOCIALISTS", they would have pushed through a UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE PLAN just like LBJ did MEDICARE!!!! Instead, they started negotiating FROM THE LOWEST REQUIREMENTS for a reformed system that may end up helping NO ONE but the INSURANCE INDUSTRY and BIG PHARMA!!!

Wonder if these crazed protesters will ever realize they could end up destroying their precious Medicare AND Social Security plans, which their sponsors are determined to do??????

I'd like a moment of your attention, CD readers/posters.

There are now a couple of people here -- just a couple, because as we ourselves are showing, that's all it takes -- who are Freeper-types who have come here to turn these message boards into conventional flame wars and sniping between "Libtards" and "Repukes" so that we will not discuss the themes of the articles or communicate effectively on how to organize. What are we doing? Are we Pavlov's Dogs For Progress? Can any one or two people just waltz in here and turn us all into babbling paralytics? Before anyone issues a Pavlovian response to me, that is a rhetorical question. Obviously I've already drawn my conclusion based on ample existing evidence.

Did you ever hear the expression, "if you want trolls to go away, stop feeding them?" These people are now reporting back that it only took one or two of them to destabilize a communications network of hundreds of progressives by taking several of us completely off task, which in turn has interrupted the flow of information between those who have not been taken off task. That's giving them the information they need to most effectively allocate resources for progressive communications destabilization. And now, sadly, I'm off task just because I have to write this.

Now I'd like the attention of the couple of Freepers who have succeeded in having their fun here. You are free to move to disrupting other forums. This one does not contain any real threat to your preferred way of life. Nobody here is actually organizing any resistance to your program. It's just idle chit-chat between passive people. You are free to take other assignments. Feel free to check back once a month to see if that's changing. I doubt it will.

I am organizing (obviously not through this forum), but I and the people I work with are immune to you. I'm throwing that at you as a challenge -- your nature is to not believe that anyone is immune, and you will divert your resources towards proving we are not, and those will be resources you will no longer have available to direct towards things where you are effective. Even though I've just told you that's why I'm giving you this information, you will not be able to stop yourselves. You, too, are Pavlovian. I'm not hiding. I'm not raising funds, either, which is the most significant tactic to protect our immunity from your attempts at interference -- no central blood supply you can cut off. My totally elementary-school quality information (why incur the expense of complicating things when simplicity is so effective?) is at www.eisenhowerproject.org and www.commonplans.blogspot.com. I live in New Paltz, NY.

Now I'd like the attention of the progressive CD readers/posters again. This is how it works. You stop typing to the whole world, and you organize your own little region. There is no central brain, or heart, or any other single vital organ, the loss of which can destroy the movement. It's amorphous. It works the same way as mass civil disobedience -- the working unit is the affinity group. The affinity group makes its own small-scale collective decisions and is in full control of its own span based on circumstances within its own immediate reach. Its gain or loss has no major impact on the whole -- so the whole is always intact, and acting in concert.

The working models abound. Look at your local volunteer Fire Department. Every fire in America gets put out, without any Pope or Central Command. Every dead or retired firefighter is replaced by a young one who is rapidly trained, so continuity is assured both locally and throughout the wider system, and no matter what, over time, across distances, every single fire gets put out. Or AA & NA. Single neighborhood groups, meeting once a week for an hour, shared purpose. Self-supporting, self-training, self-replacing. No central command, but they collectively keep millions of chemical addicts nationwide clean and sober -- a near-impossible task, more impossible than confronting corporatism.

Get started. Get started out in the open. Start your own progressive AA-modeled working group. Use your real names, your real locations, and spend much more of your time on actions rather than words. And don't feed the trolls. Save the little food you have for the people who agree with you and want to work with you.

www.commonplans.blogspot.com

Spot-on analysis, Abby. Every last person in this rally was paid for by corporate interests. How could they all be so ignorant of the government's purely altruistic motives in reforming health care? As you say, with unquestionable accuracy, the government just wants "to help those who need help." Anyone against this must hate the poor or be racist or be just another inexplicable drone of "wingnuttery." There's just no other logical way of understanding the opposition to health care reform.

"This is not the airing of political differences; this is mob speak." Precisely! We all must strive to highlight the idiocy of a handful of people in any anti-government protest. That way, we can keep our left/right, red-state/blue-state, Democrat/Republican political interpretation goggles on tightly. There's not a single anti-government sentiment held by anyone in this crowd that is compatible with anything left or progressive. Let's just label this "Hateful Crazies Get Together in D.C." and throw it in the box marked "Them = Evil" with all the other "Tea-Bag Idiot" protests and smash it with our ideological sledgehammer.

When jobs are lost and homes foreclosed while Wall Street gets taxpayer bailouts and big bonuses, anger spreads from right and left. Americans need to better understand the inevitable cycles of vulgar capitalism driven by unrestrained greed.

these, too, are neighbours deserving of love.

but we can abhor their ignorance.

I have been a victim of right wing republican religous lunatics for 3 years. This is a sick demented twisted group of braindead,brainwashed torture freaks.

They are well organized and well paid by the elite republican money making machine.

They are without a doubt domestic terrorists.

Until the Department of Jusitce stops gang stalking across this country, thier power continues to grow.

Gang stalkers are thier armys, they have no fear, and they have immunity and county by county support.

As thier armys grows, thier courage to gather and spew hate grows.

I have seen this to be true , and am now warning the entire nation, STOP COMMUNITY WATCH GANG STALKING TORTURE SURVIELLANCE , they are out of control .

The very same so called patriots that showed up to spew thier hate, practice cointell pro gang stalking torture.

Constitution my a$$ , they have no respect for 4th amendment rights , lets take away their first amenedment rights, shut them up and jail them all.

Hate speech and inciting violence are criminal offenses. Whether it's Glenn Beck, Gordon Ligdy, or the Repugs that go along with stoking the mindless rage of these misled mobs, it is a crime. The Repugs are so desperate that they are willing to pour gasoline on a fire which will consume them as well. Obama needs to pull the plug on this public promotion and support of violent, hate-based mob nurturing.

only us leftwingers can cheer "death to Israel" and carry signs like "shoot your officers" Call Bush a "monkey" and burn him in an effigy. Burn Obama in an effigy and that is a hate crime.

What's especially annoying (aside from their immensely poor form) is that they're so angry and paranoid about entirely the wrong things. Unfortunately, the things we logic-loving people get angry about often tend not to fit on bumper stickers and shock posters. When something doesn't make any sense, it requires no rational explanation. For people who do not know how to think critically, the nonsense is just plain easier to deal with than actually doing some basic research (ie. outside of FOXland) and using your brain as more than an extra bile duct.

See also: How organized religion has stuck around for so frickin' long.

Obama and the Dems timidity just shows their throats to these wolves.

Obama should have set the tone on Day One by putting Bush and Cheney up on War Crimes Charges. THAT would have put the fear of god into these lunatics.

Step two should have been to nationalize the basic health care system, and relegated the insurance industry to extended benefits and perscription plans.

Step three should have been an instant end to Iraq and Afganistan...get the boys on the plane/boat that day..period.

Sadly, no matter what color it is, Obama has turned out to be just a timid waste of skin that gives good speech, and the majority of Dems are just lining up for the dole from their corporate paymasters as usual.

I really fear for the future of the USA

"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats

This article is full of vitriol and name-calling, to wit "right-wingers, racists, anti-Semites", and then without any awareness of irony whatever, "and name-callers", and serves no purpose except to demonize the tea-baggers.

As long as the oligarchy can divide the citizens of the US into warring camps of 'right' and 'left', they can rule without even the hint of real opposition.

The 'left' should be looking for common purpose with tea baggers, not differences, e.g., a desire to do something about Wall St. domination of the economy and govt.

How would Paul Braun care to be called, in Congress, part of the health insurance industry's steamroller of fascism?

I really blame the Democrats moreso for these folk who come out of the woodwork whenever they give them a chance. And boy, they gave them a chance by not standing strong enough on progressive health care legislation.

But what else can you expect when just about every single Senator -- just like Joe Lieberman -- would be unable to sign a pledge not to take any more money for the lot of them. And similar to Lieberman and Pelosi, just call the police to have such impudence removed.

These signs were similar to what I had seen upon coming across the polling booth lines on my way to work. When I saw seniors and vets lined up like never before with many holding similar signs, I knew Deeds was up in smoke for good.

They are angry because the confusing present has left them behind.

For good, I hope.