Aug 05 Crushing Dissent

The DNC sent out an email yesterday that said this:

The Republicans and their allied groups – desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill – are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country.

However, much like we saw at the McCain-Palin rallies last year where crowds were baited with cries of 'socialist,' 'communist,' and where the birthers movement was born – these mobs of extremists are not interested in having a thoughtful discussion about the issues – but like some Republican leaders have said – they are interested in ‘breaking’ the President and destroying his Presidency.

These mobs are bussed in by well funded, highly organized groups run by Republican operatives and funded by the special interests who are desperately trying to stop the agenda for change the President was elected to bring to Washington. Despite the headline grabbing nature of these angry mobs and their disruptions of events, they are not reflective of where the American people are on the issues – or the hundreds of thousands of thoughtful discussions taking place around kitchen tables, water coolers and in homes.

The right wing extremists’ use of things like devil horns on pictures of our elected officials, hanging members of Congress in effigy, breathlessly questioning the President's citizenship and the use of Nazi SS symbols and the like just shows how outside of the mainstream the Republican Party and their allies are. This type of anger and discord did not serve Republicans well in 2008 – and it is bound to backfire again.

This email should send a shiver up your spine. The power that the DNC has-- their party has the Presidency, the Senate and the House-- and yet they feel the need to use these awful scare tactics and lies.

This is designed to scare people like you and me into not getting involved with the townhalls. Stay home, stay out-of-it. Anyone who speaks out against their rush towards European-style socialism is an extremist. The rest of the people are having "thoughtful" conversations....but you are nuts. They will call us every name in the book to get us to stay home. Good luck with that.

These people don't get it. Most of the people showing up at these events (tea parties, town halls) aren't even affiliated with a political party. They're just ticked off. Really ticked off. They are some of the 60% of Americans who have any federal income tax liability. They know that once that balance is tipped passed 50%, America is done.

As far as conservatives like me-- well I'm just learning from the liberals, I'm just learning from our President. HotAir points out this from Obama's campaign last fall:

In Elko, Obama tried to anticipate his critics and called on the crowd of about 1,500 to sharpen their elbows, too.

“I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face,” he said.

A girlfriend of mine and I have been talking about renting a bus to get people to townhall meetings, another Republican I know has offered up his mini-van that seats seven. Yeah, those K-street lobbyists are funding this. Yeah, right. I wish I had some money for all of this stuff I do. I'm a Republican, I like to work to make money.

I'm a proud activist and "community organizer" and these threats only fuel the desire to organize taxpayers and citizens to speak up.

Oh, by the way, another thing I'm learning....how to find town hall meetings that aren't posted publicly for our two liberal Senators.

They want to crush any dissent. They will use any means necessary including the propoganda in the DNC email above. It's astounding, it's frightening.

Cross-posted and comments welcome at The Activist Next Door.