On those town hall meetings

Some posts you may have missed here.

My views on the town hall meetings. Attempts at disrupting meetings can easily be stopped by the organizers. The fascist hordes are not massing at the gates. The 60’s were a whole lot crazier than now. The right will push the middle class to the left. We need to be there helping that process.

How to stop hecklers and troublemakers at meetings.
Have contingency plans and your own security. It worked for us in the antiwar movement.

Are liberals freaking out as much over the town halls as conservatives did over the 60’s?.
Yes, I think they are. And for what purpose?

Town hall meeting disruptions could tilt the populace to the left.
This is key. And would be the reverse of the aftermath of the 60’s, when left radicalism drove the middle class to the right.

Fascism alert?
Because, while I suppose you could view the town hall protests as the leading edge of a surge in right-wing radicalism, it’s far more likely what we’re seeing is their final enraged sputterings before they marginalize themselves completely. Because, rather than making inroads into the middle class, they will alienate it. And without broad-based support from the middle class in the US, a political movement is doomed to irrelevance.

Could a few hardcore members go underground and get violent like the Weather Underground did in the 60’s? Sure. But in the broad view, the Weather Underground  probably helped push the middle class to the right and had little real political effect. Just like what will happen, should right wingers attempt the same. Except they will drive moderates to the left. As well as not accomplishing any of their goals.

12 Comments

  1. Thanks for your perspective on these events, I’ve found them very interesting and certainly preferable to all the yelling about fascism.

    I’ve been thinking particularly about your comparison with the 60’s, and I think you’re on to something there…

    Interesting times.

  2. “Could a few hardcore members go underground and get violent like the Weather Underground did in the 60’s? Sure. But in the broad view, the Weather Underground probably helped push the middle class to the right and had little real political effect.”

    So terrorism is fine as long as it makes us look like the good guys? Thank you, George W Bush.

  3. You really think these old people worried about their health care are the forefront of the right wing mob? And if so how can they be fascist if they are on the side of individual freedoms and smaller government?

    Aren’t the democrats advocating for bigger and greater government control?

    Just curious, thanks!

    Mike.

  4. Wellll… maybe I have been a bit alarmist ‘ore the brownshirt popularity, but It’s up close and personal. I’m the one by definition homeless, under-employed and without healthcare. When a conservative opponent of health care reform would be fighting (literally) to defeat a plan that would bring coverage to those who lose their jobs, after having lost his own coverage when he got laid off, I see it as an assault on me personally – Death Panels in the long-term.

    I’d only quibble that the Weather Underground pushed anyone anywhere, they were really pretty fringe and not so well known as now, and indeed had little political effect.

    If there were any “push” at all it would have been the events at Kent and Jackson State Universities pushing the “middle class” to do the right thing. If anything the “push” through the seventies was to the so-called left, ending in the desultory Carter administration. The return swing “right” began, as it is today, with the entertainment industry’s contribution to our collective misery.

    Did I tell you about that school bus?

      • On The High Cascade, with guns and dogs and goats, a couple of children, ammo, and three years dried goods and sundry. In the aftermath of St. Helens* – before the Internet – I mapped out the fallout pattern of the ash across the country and determined the least likely sites along the East Cascade glaciers to get dusted if Seattle or Portland got nuked. Didn’t get to far away from them for about seven years.

        Reagan really freaked a lot of people out around here. Good, solid Loggers home from War.

        *Witnessed the eruption from fifty miles helo SE, spent two and a half years salvage logging (helo). It was an exciting ride!

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