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'Mass Hysteria' on Capitol Hill
Tea Party protesters disrupted Speaker Nancy Pelosi's press stakeout at a House Office Building, yelling "you're a disgrace to your office" and one protester yelled a gay epithet at Rep. Barney Frank again on Sunday, adding yet another layer of chaos to an already tense afternoon on Capitol Hill.
In a moment of apparently unscripted political theater, Pelosi and Democratic leaders marched arm in arm - with civil rights pioneer John Lewis - across the Capitol complex while protesters yelled at them and police held a barricade. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., holds a large gavel as she crosses Independence Avenue to the U.S. Capitol before Congress is set to vote on health care reform legislation on Sunday, March 21, 2010 on Capitol Hill in Washington.
(AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke) In a moment of apparently unscripted political theater, Pelosi and Democratic leaders marched arm in arm - with civil rights pioneer John Lewis - across the Capitol complex while protesters yelled at them and police held a barricade.
The Pelosi disruption came inside the Cannon office building, where Democrats where whipping the final votes for the historic health care overhaul. When Pelosi said "We're doing this for the American people," a protestor yelled "you're doing this TO the American people!"
Someone in the crowd yelled "faggot" - an epithet overheard by a POLITICO reporter - at Frank, who is gay. A group of Catholics supporting reform sang a chorus of "we love you Barney, oh yes we do."
"It's like the Salem witch trials, and healthcare is the witches," Frank said. "There is mass hysteria."
Some Republican lawmakers encouraged the protesters.
As the House was voting on an unrelated bill, Republican Reps. Tom Latham of Iowa, Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri, Brett Guthrie of Kentucky and Greg Harper of Mississippi stood on south balcony off the House floor - an area known informally as "the beach" - holding pieces of paper that read "kill the bill" to a group of cheering protestors. Some Republican lawmakers waved a "Don't Tread on Me" flag from the balcony, causing the crowd to go wild.
Inside the House chamber, a protester was ejected by Capitol Police after yelling from the House gallery.
Frank was visibly angry with his GOP colleagues whom he believed goaded the protesters.
"Did you guys see the Republicans encouraging the disruption?" Frank left the House floor to tell about 15 reporters. "These clowns are out there encouraging violation of the law and making the job of the guys up there harder. It's really disgraceful."
Outside the Capitol on a brilliant spring afternoon, Pelosi and Democratic leaders marched across the Capitol complex - after Lewis gave a speech to the Democratic caucus that motivated the impromptu walk.
The five-minute unplanned walk of the Democratic caucus from Cannon to the Capitol led to complete chaos. Pelosi held the gavel that was used to pass Medicare. The rest of the members locked arms. Police shoved reporters, and the members flowed out of Cannon into streets where protestors loudly screamed "Kill the Bill."
But Tea Partiers don't necessarily own the Capitol lawn today.
While Tea Partiers flew American flags and sang""God bless America" and "We shall overcome" - the anthem of the civil rights movement - a major immigration rally unfolded on the National Mall.
The two groups have not directly clashed, but as they loomed close to one another, tensions ran high.
Immigration reformers had been planning the march for some time to pressure the Obama administration to address immigration reform as he had promised in his campaign. Many were young and rowdy, chanting "Obama, escucha! Estamos en la lucha!"
Cries of "Si se puede!" Clashed with "Kill the bill!" across the National Mall.
But most of the attention was focused on the Tea Party, whose protest on the hill yesterday and rush towards the Rayburn building created some serious moments of tension for Capitol Police and lawmakers. Out of Saturday's clash came accusations that some Tea Partiers yelled racial and homophobic epithets at lawmakers. Lawmakers of both parties condemned the attacks on Sunday.
One Tea Parter protester stuck a bullhorn in a POLITICO reporter's face, and chanted "media bias!"
On the fringes of the crowd on Sunday, protesters squabbled with what they said were Service Employees International Union members.
Some Tea Party organizers were warning protesters not to engage counter demonstrators.
"We do not want to engage with them if they come up" said Mary Beth Martin.
The crowd, which looked smaller today, was still planning to pressure wavering Democrats in their offices.
"We're going to Dahlkemper's office again and again and again," one protester said, of Pennsylvania Democrat Kathy Dahlkemper, an anti-abortion Democrat who is undecided.
"And when she votes for it?" "We'll go again?" his daughter asked with a hint of exasperation.
Martin warned the crowd not to let accusations of racism cloud the debate. "That's not what we're about. we're about three things: fiscal accountability, constitutionally limited government and free government," she said.
The stew of passions from disperate demographics and political interests promised to make this a tense Sunday -- hours ahead of the House health care vote.
"Those are the Tea Party movement" said one immigration reformer leading a crowd of young people across the street. "Obama is afraid of them...well we're going to tell him he needs to be afraid of us, because he's not making enough change right now!"
Across the street from the immigration protesters, Tea Partiers were yelling " free people not slaves!" One rallier told the crows if signs were not in English they should be dismissed. "If we can't read it we don't need it," he said, to audience.
"Obama, god is watching you," an immigration reformer screamed.
Kasie Hunt, James Hohmann and Jake Sherman contributed to this report.
132 Comments so far
Show AllHate filled people yelling racial and anti-gay epithets also hate democratic process. During world war 2 we fought the Nazi bigotry against the Jews. The fight against hate goes on.
Thank you for truth
These teabaggers will stave off the Democrats' collapse yet.
The Tea Baggers and the Obamacare supporters are just trying to keep their sides of the pots simmering. Neither one of them deserve any support from us.
Dim sellouts to corporate power and the neo-fascist Glenn beck fans deserve each other if I was religious (which I am not) I'd say we are in "hell" already.
"In a moment of apparently unscripted political theater, Pelosi and Democratic leaders marched arm in arm - with civil rights pioneer John Lewis - across the Capitol complex while protesters yelled at them and police held a barricade."
Tell me these Politico writers are kidding! Arm in arm, John Lewis and these others: the very picture just reeks of "political theatre," using a well-worn script from the civil rights era of Lewis, M.L. King and other marchers arm-in-arm through a crowd of anti-civil rights protesters. Did these writers never even study the history of political theatre? If they had, would they not have reported this scripted event as an effort of the Obamacare advocates to throw the mantle of public sympathy for King-era demonstrators over themselves? If there is anything remotely civil-rights like in the health reform campaign---other than its co-optation of Lewis and other members of a Black Caucus that does little to nothing to advance the interests of black Americans---it escapes my understanding.
John Lewis or no John Lewis-- if this same bunch trampled on Pelosi's palace lawn in San Francisco, she wouldn't be holding a Historic Gavel and marching in solidarity.
She'd be holding a garden hose aimed at the intruders, and shrieking, "Get the hell off my lawn!"
YOS: If we're going to be all that metaphoric about it:
I think Pelosi would be likely as well to point her little garden hose in the direction of you and me and many other CD posters and yell:
"Get the hell out of the beautiful Garden of Obamalove that I have so carefully nurtured on Capitol Hill!"
Indeed, phoenix20.
And then she would "flag" all of our comments for good measure. ;)
"She'd be holding a garden hose aimed at the intruders, and shrieking, "Get the hell off my lawn!""
Sounds more like John McCain.
I don't mean to make too much of what was basically a throwaway cheap shot, but my wisecrack was based on Pelosi complaining a few years back about "Out of Iraq" antiwar protestors trespassing on her property and otherwise making a nuisance of themselves.
Like Dubya and Obama, it's all about trivializing and marginalizing dissent.
Pelosi is just McCain in drag. Both fondle sex toys shaped like dollar signs.
Wow, the comments were "Godwin"ed on the first post. This is going to be some real deep discourse, right here.
"Tea Partiers...sang...'We shall overcome'"
what exquisite irony!
an irony:
consider :
Russia, China, Iran, many other countries , small or large, hugely influential or not, old or young can be said to have their many flaws - from which NONE can really assume the claims of being the world's or history's Exemplar of governance that OTHERS "must follow".
the USA however HABITUALLY does that......
and YET - for all the world to see, in fact for all the IMPERFECT world to see....
it is the USA --- IN THE MIDST of its many, uncounted claims of "supremacy" of governance and society as "model to be followed" (often at the point of a gun) -- and in the face of its own history of denigrating OTHER nations for their imperfections , even making FUN of them or almost as often implying that their "regimes" should not "be taken seriously" that they OUGHT to be toppled or "regime changed".......
that is displaying that IT is the world's GREATEST CLOWN SHOW.
Just making the World Safe for Hypocracy •••
a writer - usually among the Conservative websites -- who is also considered among the best constitutional scholars - Philip Garibaldi - ended an article of his recently with :
"HYPOCRISY is Deeply Ingrained in American Foreign and Security Policy"....
and as examples - he cites that Venezuela CAN be considered a "rogue state" or "supporter of terrorism" (according to complaints by a Spanish Court Judge trying to indict Venezuela or Chavez on involvement in destabilizing projects against Colombia.) -- but that like Colombia which can ALSO be defined as also a "rogue state" -
BOTH venezuela and colombia are NOT in washington's "List of terror states and rogue states"
but for DIFFERENT reasons:
Colombia is a right-wing ally...hosting the USA's own "latin american" military project -
BUT Venezuela CAN'T be listed by washington as "rogue" despite the difficulties and insults trading with Chavez - BECAUSE venezuela Supplies the USA with 15 % of America's Oil usage...15% -- that is huge (i thought it was much less) ...and if venezuela were to get really annoyed and shipped that same 15% TO china or russia or others - that spells an immediate disaster for the USA stability. ..maybe even enough domestic difficulties in prices that there could be a potential for massive disturbance that the USA's armed forces can not quite handle simultaneously or for any length of time.
THUS -- "rogue states" for involved with the USA for different reasons but NEITHER listed by the USA as rogue states....
BUT -- IRAN is listed...and ISRAEL is NOT...
thus the American "deeply ingrained hypocrisy" in foreign affairs and even matters of 'security'.
by different perspectives - CHINA could be "listed" by the USA as "rogue" or "terrorist" - say , because China is repressive or authoritarian over Tibet..
BUT TIBET is , for the moment's CONVENIENCE, NOT as important as China's continuing to BUY US treasuries...and other things....including the chance to get china to "sanction" Iran for another of the USA's "regime changes" - and "remove iran" from the "rogue state" list....
ALL THAT while the USA - says GARIBALDI -- "conveniently IGNORES ITS OWN actions" as a rogue state or supporter of friendly rogue states.
I guess - whatever their flaws - Russia's PUTIN DID make a VERY good point when the USA - in the person of George Bush publicly tried to lecture Putin in a joint press appearance a few years ago to "reform and democratize" Russia, with the response:
"Well........we really don't want the kind of Democracy you have like in......IRAQ".
because it is after all like a Teacher telling his students not to cheat during exams but actually got his own "degree" BY cheating.
It's Philip Giraldi, not Garibaldi. The article you refer to can be read at antiwar.com.
You ain't seen nothing yet! Wait until we see the ignorant vicious masses after the health care bill passes and immigration reform starts. It will be America in all its glory.
Thalidomide: Yes indeed, I really look forward to that; where the "vicious masses" will even be joined by many of "us" who draw the line against tolerance of those nasty "illegals" who threaten the welfare of our country: "Mexican welfare Queens" the yahoos are already starting to scream about. After a year of "debate" (or more), today's Obamacare will become tomorrow's Obamapath-to-citizenship, wherein our Mexican border will be secured, aliens rounded up, employers fined for employing them, the aliens will be deported, sent back "home" then pay a fine and return for a chance to get in line to become an American citizen (that's the "reform" part of the deal).
When this "historic" reform (first overhaul of immigration policy since presidency of William Howard Taft) is finally to be voted for, Pelosi and company will of course have to find an icon of immigrant rights to replace John Lewis. But whom to get, whom to get? We mostly forgot to "iconize" such leaders, maybe because an immigrant civil rights movement never found any voting constituency in this country. Cesar Chavez is dead and indigenous leaders are busy getting themselves killed by government agents in Chiapas and elswhere; but we're talking political theatre and maybe some of the vicious masses can be fooled if we find a good Latino actor who can portray the hero of the California lettuce fields. That would give Hollywood a year to develop a suitable icon of celebrity status (as an alternative to the Chavez impersonator) as our "arm in arm" icon.
If immigration reform works anything like health care reform we'll be paying illegal immigrants to cross the border and giving tax breaks to the companies that hire them.
"Fight" and sarcasm (and poor grammar) never work. Learning to LOVE, not money but righteous action, always works—sooner or later.
Really? Pardon my skepticism, but it always seems to me that the very people who most ardently (supposedly) follow the "prince of peace" (who taught that love is the "greatest of all things") are the dumbest, most intolerant, willfully ignorant assholes of all. Why is it that the most fundamentalist of christians are the most incapable of love?
In other words, "learning to love" only "works" for those who learn to love. Those incapable of learning, whether it's willful or congenital, repeat the same harms over and over and over. Love is as nothing in such cases.
And then there are those who actively practice hate (whether camoflauged with religiosity or not)--monsters like Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Yoo and Rice and Gonzalez and ad nauseum. Love means nothing to them, unless it can be weaponized, such as when supposed christians are transformed into tea-baggers.
"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ." - Mahatma Gandhi
Truer words were never spoken!
It's getting complicated. We're going to need uniforms. And machetes.
Machetes? That's old school! We all need fully automatic weapons!
want my nuke.
"One rallier told the crow[d] if signs were not in English they should be dismissed. 'If we can't read it we don't need it,' he said, to audience."
Thus proving that American education is in even worse shape than American healthcare.
What are the Tea Partiers smoking? ObamaCare is little more than a mandate on the public to buy the same private insurance that's been ripping us off for a generation. Do you see insurance CEO's out there demonstrating? Drug company employees? No, because they got exactly what they wanted.
As for ObamaCare being socialist (rather than corporatist which is what it really is), have the Tea Partiers looked beyond our shores? Every one of our major capitalist trading partners switched to some version of single payer healthcare decades ago. England which, other than the U.S., is widely recognized as the most capitalist nation on earth, has had single payer healthcare for SIXTY YEARS. Since then everyone: Asia, Europe, Australia, Canada, EVERYONE has gone that route. Why? Because despite the fantasy-benefits of 'free market capitalism' as insisted upon by the Tea Partiers, single payer would save one trillion dollars a year if practiced in America, and we would end up with BETTER healthcare.
These Tea Partiers need to grow a brain.
"Since then everyone: Asia, Europe, Australia, Canada, EVERYONE has gone that route."
I wish it were so but I guess I am living in the one place that thinks private insurance is good and the way to go in the future.
Right now, they have a large public health system and a reasonably priced private one too. (How long the price will remain affordable is anyone's guess.) Reasonably priced means I can go to a private doctor for the customary glance over, plus three or five days of medicine, for about the equivalent of $25 to $30 USD.
But the government had public 'consultations' a while back that were merely thinly disguised attempts at introducing private insurance and scaling back on the public health system. Single-payer was not on the table. The road here is being paved, as we speak, on that road to health care hell that we all know so well.
The Tea Partiers are not fighting against single-payer. With the exception of insurance thugs masquerading as grassroots patriots, many of them are favorable towards single-payer.
They do tend to confuse Social Democracy with Nazism, or so it would seem. That's a matter of definitions that can be corrected.
Republican Faux Assholes. But then I repeat myself. Twice.
"Republican Faux [Azz}holes. But then I repeat myself. Twice."
Exactly.
And the scary part is: we're going to need a lot more of them to throw the entire Congress and Administration out.
TJ
Be a witness, the great conflagration is coming sooner than expected...
Are you posting from your internet time machine straight from the 12th century?
Impressive!
No, actually much earlier...Buddhist writings of about 2,500 ago. I truly hope it does not happen, and what do I know, I am just a simple guy from south Bronx.
Does anyone wonder why executives of large companies aren't out there protesting for single payer? Imagine if GM could wipe off the books all the health care costs they owe every month for retired and current employees. They'd save money by the millions.
I suspect a couple reasons. Businessman belong to an informal fraternity and they don't like to step on another company's toes. The other is more in line from what you read so often on this site. That is, the corporate class and wealth don't want, as Chomsky would say, the threat of a good example. God forbid the people should band together and use community resources to benefit their lives. And that's why Chavez has to go - not only has he put the brakes on multi-nationals while sitting on all that oil, the elites are deathly afraid his brand of government might succeed. Might give other folks the same dangerous ideas. Now there's a legitimate domino effect to fear!
Glacier Worm asked: Does anyone wonder why executives of large companies aren't out there protesting for single payer?
Another suitable question is, why does the US Chamber of Commerce oppose single payer and health care reform? They are supposed to represent the interests of businesses and support entrepreneurs. Imagine how many creative, talented Americans are unable to start their own small businesses because they can't give up the health insurance they're getting through their current employer (those who have such "benefits").
I suspect Glacier is also right that the mythology of free market capitalism has them (the captains of industry) all hornswoggled. Their world view won't allow them to consider that some amount of socialism might benefit them. His reference to Venezuela also extends to cuba, which has been consistently shunned by the US, not because they are big and powerful, but because they've shown what socialism can achieve, a dangerous example. You can say Cuba is an economic failure but it's mostly because the US has stomped on them economically. Their socialized education and health care are quite good considering their poverty.
Actually, their socialized medicine and education are quite good with or without their poverty. Better'n ours!
Whether the Republican party, the Tea Baggers or the Democrats get what they want, the American public will be screwed.
1. Forcing people to buy health care insurance? So, to give a typical example, if I barely make enough to survive (~17k/yr) and I'm supposed to pay ~$250/mo for the mandated purchase, what will I give up? Rent money? So I can live under a viaduct?
2. The people in power have never cared for the average person making less than $175k/yr. In fact the powerful elite's club entry level is somewhere around $275k/yr. The upper classes have always looked out only for their own kind and always will: until we demand something better in the way of government that addresses our needs we can expect to be treated like left over tea bags.
3. We -the bottom 97.5 % of the population - could form a government that worked on our behalf but to do that we have to scope out more than one issue. One issue parties rise and fall in this country and die back into the ground on a semi annual basis like weeds. Look at the so called war effort. A one issue party-whether it be one that focuses on health care, or education or whatever, is one that changes masks every few months.
War is THE issue... the bomb in the room.
It's "Hide under your desk when we tell you and you will be safe
and let us check your naked body for whatever we find."
So Far it never fails to leave the people slaves of manufactured and marketed fear.
You're right Ray L. Phenicie,
That's why I think we all ought to defect to the Libertarian Party, the third largest political party and steer it hard left.
TJ
???????????.......ever met a libertarian?
They are purely motivated by selfishness.
They don't steer left, AT ALL, EVER!!!!!!
Their zellous motivations are about keeping
all they get, for themselves.
?????? Ever heard of Noam Chomsky?
He's a socialist-libertarian as I am.
TJ
Not so simple; look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism
and
archives at http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/
None of 'ism's or movements remain 'pure' for long without spawning endless variations, some of which contradict the original movement or idea they came from (compare neo-liberal and neo-conservative with their non-neo roots). It's difficult to even get a solid definition for any of these ideological terms.
Wasn't there a peace rally today?
The first US Civil War was fought over the economy (the rich and industrializing North against the rich and bucolic South) with the excuse of freeing the slaves.
The second US Civil War will be fought over the economy (the wealthy Corporate Elite versus the other 94% of the population) with the excuse of preventing 'socialized' medicine reaching the masses.
Both times, doing something to advance the human spirit was/is prophesied to be the end of the United States and a decent to godless barbarism.
The first war is remembered with the associated nobility of freeing the slaves, only to have them shunted aside and treated just as badly as before, but now having the option to choose where to move. The inherent racism remained.
The second civil war will be remembered as an act of suicidal petulance and greed. And racism and intolerance will still remain.
Galenwainwright: Insightful comparisons! Many years ago one of my professors said that the Civil War proved how easy it is to get Americans to kill each other.
I think he was on to something.
How insanely fragmented things are becoming! ---that the most active grassroots citizen protesters in the US at this point, the so called TeaPartiers, are increasingly savage, proto-fascist morons.
Not, obviously, because they oppose this Obamanation of a healthcare bill, but because most of them have also been manipulated into hating the very concept of a progressive alternative in this and virtually all other areas of public policy; manipulated into defining the interests of their oppressors as their own; manipulated into accepting their servitude as "America" and "Freedom," etc., etc.
I forced myself the other night, wincingly, to watch about an hour of You Tube video clips of 1930's/'40's Nazi Party speechs and mass rallys -- taking special note of the tragic, Authority-cultivated, belief-via-hypnosis looks that were reflected in faces and eyes of so many 'Good Germans.'
It's a dehumanized look that's increasingly seen in US TeaPartiers faces today and --god help us -- not just them alone; a look that, to me, reflects a disastrous mixture of legitimately perceived betrayal, self-indulgent-but-guilty ignorance, free-floating fear, and compensatory personal cockiness.
Mass America increasingly has the look and feel of a confused, agitated crowd that could easily follow a fully psychotic leader from the frying pan into the fire; and in nutcases like Sarah Palin, it certainly has at least one such prominent choice already.
When you consider how at best glib, and at worst complicit, the so-called party of the people (the Donkey Party), is to this ruination of mass trust in the institutions of legitimation and governance, it ought to become clear that progressive energies must find a wholly new vector -- and very soon.