Want information from your congresscritter regarding the issues affecting you? Good luck with that.
Wingnuts receive marching orders on how to disrupt upcoming town halls with phony outrage…From the GOP harassment memo, entitled “best practices”:
All of that in contrast to the massive and real grassroots protests that occurred over the last eight years over disastrous and actually illegal Bush Administration policies that were carried out with nary a peep of corporate media coverage (other than to marginalize, lampoon, and otherwise disparage them as "unAmerican").
Artificially Inflate Your Numbers. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive.Notice the complete lack of anything resembling "have your facts well-prepared for Q&A sessions."
Be Disruptive Early And Often
Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate
The media is having a field day with this, and unsurprisingly, are getting it wrong. This is no “grassroots movement.” This is another rightwing-manufactured teabagging.
Fuck.
Remember when the news used to give you something called… let’s see now, what was it… uh, facts? All we get now is variations on shit like Senator, your republican opponent says your bill calls for the mercy killings of thousands. Why do you hate freedom, you murderer? Even formerly-dignified wonk shows are featuring loonytoon haters such as Michelle Malkin and that Orly Taintz Borat character. I’m so fucking disgusted I could puke.
5 comments:
You know I basically equate the Tea Baggers tactics with those of Hitler's brown shirts in the 30's, but if it means the end of "Town Hall" events, I say more power to them. The whole format is suspect as just another tactic for politicians to lie to their constituents. I would rather send my representative a letter or e-mail. I will not get a straight answer, but it is a lot easier being lied to my mail than at a staged "Town Hall" meeting.
Along the lines of what 'Anonymous' says above - - you just can't seriously consider virtually ANYTHING a mainstream or right-wing politician says in a social forum as an authentic statement of policy...they're ALWAYS playing to the camera/mike. I think leftie/liberals will generally say what they mean because they're presently so excluded from the political process that they can afford to be 'daring' -- what the hell do they have to lose? As we learned in 6th grade social studies, you HAVE to judge politicians and products by their ACTIONS, not by the words of their spokesmen.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, you are mixing quotes from the ThinkProgress article with those from the memo-- which is expected, since that's what ThinkProgress so carelessly did, and BradBlog so carelessly copy-n-pasted.
You really should have smelled a tuna on first reading, Maru, as I did-- no republican activist is going to actually say in a memo stuff like "Artificially Inflate Your Numbers," "Be Disruptive Early And Often," or "Try To 'Rattle Him,' Not Have An Intelligent Debate." Again, these are ThinkProgress's characterizations of the "marching orders" in the actual memo, which naturally are far less incendiary.
Reread the Bradblog post. Read the ThinkProgress article. Read the actual linked memo PDF. As you'll note, the TP article is essentially providing "shorter" type commentary on the contents of the memo but is sloppily inserting them in the body of the memo, a creepily dishonest practice, and they oughta know better.
As yet, TP has issued no apology, though they've been called on it a few times. They will of course, but meanwhile the post has gone viral, as they say, and sadly is sort of a black-eye for their credibility.
Lastly anybody tempted to holler "right wing tool" at me based on what I've just written, ask Maru, read comments I've posted here in the past before doing so, please.
Or just ask Maru; She knows better. :)
Woops, sorry. I jump to conclusions a lot.
Ayyy, atsa kay, you gooda kid. Like I said, it ain't your fault. ThinkProgress, specifically writer Lee Fang, is at fault here, and don't you forget it, Fang!
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