Truth and lies

[unixronin]

The lies:

Obama says Americans' voices should be heard and Americans want health care reform, while Nancy Pelosi and others like her say that opposition to Obama's health plan is astroturf and accuse opponents of disrupting town hall meetings.

The truth:

One of Obama's Health Care for America Now organizers is caught on tape outside a town hall meeting in Skokie, Illinois instructing supporters in how to shout down opponents and block them from speaking, as he hands out HCAN stickers.  ("Quality, affordable healthcare we can all count on."  Hmmm ... "[mumble] we can count on" ... where have I heard that before?)

Now tell me with a straight face exactly who is astroturfing here, Ms. Pelosi?

It's crap like this that leads to the Rasmussen poll announced Monday that found 57% of Americans would vote to just fire the whole of Congress, every last Representative and Senator, and another 18% aren't sure but would consider it.  Only 25% would vote to keep the Congress we have.

(Yeah, I know, the GOP is claiming that this means a swing back to the right as God and, oh, say, Babe Ruth intended.  But the same article reports 69% of Republican voters believe their party has lost its way and does not represent the party's base any more.)

Previous Rasmussen polls this year have found that 50% of voters say members of Congress manage to keep getting re-elected because the elections are rigged.  Only 23% believe Congressmen are re-elected because they do a good job of representing their constituents.  The remaining 28% are unable to explain Congress's remarkable job security. 75% say members of Congress are more interested in their own careers than they are in helping people, 72% believe Congress listens more to special-interest lobbyists than to the constituents they supposedly represent, 77% believe that friends and relatives of politicians get special treatment when seeking government favors, 74% trust their own judgement more than Congress on economic issues, and two thirds of Americans believe that no matter how bad things get, Congress can always manage to make it worse.

Comments

[hugh_mannity]

We can haz revolushun nao pl0x?

[unixronin]

Preferably a peaceful one. A revolution can be a very ugly thing. But it was John F. Kennedy, best of the bunch, who said that making peaceful change impossible makes violent change inevitable.

[hugh_mannity]

I'm all for peaceful change. I've read too much history and been too close to a real revolution and a failed coup d'etat (I was in the MidEast in 1979) to want to see a for realz revolution up close and personal.

I'm also getting too old to fight effectively with anything other than words.

[ithildae]

The press simply does not understand the role of a "community Organizer". That is what our side does. Their side does astroturfing.