Apparently, it’s not enough to boo and scream and make rude noises and chant silly slogans to intimidate Congressional members and others from having a civil debate on the merits of health care reform. Nope, that doesn’t cut the mustard for the defenders of our freedoms anymore. Time to water the tree of liberty with the blood of anyone who disagrees with them about the need for reform. Time to go all Ultimate Fighting on those liberal hippy commie bastards. Yeeehaw!
At least, that’s what one nascent teabagger did at a rally outside the Miami Chamber of Commerce where Senator Bill nelson was speaking yesterday. When a 65 year old man cheered for healthcare reform with his friends, fellow democratic activists and union members, another man took grave offense at the audacity he displayed. So, to silence his exercise of his 1st amendment right to peaceable assemble and speak freely this gentlemen took matters into his own hands. Or his fists, as it were:
“Luis Perrero of Coral Gables was standing among about 40 Democratic activists and union workers when a man in a Ford pick-up truck pulled up to the rally at Jungle Island and began arguing with the crowd,” the Herald’s Tolouse Oloronippa blogged Wednesday. “The man, who only gave his first name as Raul, said Perrero called him a Spanish curse word. He punched Perrero in the face. Perrero fell to the ground and lay motionless for a few minutes.”
“I’m amazed the way this has become such a politicized issue,” Perrero told Oloronippa. “It shows that people who are against the public option will resort to anything, including battery on a senior citizen to prevent healthcare reform.”
“It was totally uncalled for,” Wilhelmina Ford, another public healthcare supporter quipped. “The guy may have had words with him but he didn’t have to hit him in the face.”
Yeah! That’ll show those socialist pinkos that conservatives mean business. A few broken noses (or skulls) of senior citizens who think health care is a right and not an investment opportunity ought to do the trick. I’m just surprised they haven’t taken it to this level before.
But seriously, where were the police? This is what known as criminal assault and battery. The Miami Herald blogger who reported about this incident refers to Fire Rescue attending to Mr. Perrero’s injury, but nothing about any law enforcement responding. Is this a sign of things to come? More thuggish behavior by violent right wing opponents to shut down debate on the public option, the one part of the proposed reform that has overwhelming majority support among the American public?
I guess the lies and the gun toting cretins parading around outside Obama’s apprearance wasn’t enough to get the blood of these morans stirring. No, they had to take it to the next level. How soon before we see organized squads of “righteous teabaggers” starting brawls at the upcoming rallies to be held in support of reform while cops look the other way? It does give one pause, I must say, to consider how far down that ugly path we’ve already trod.
uummm . . I think it was Sen. Bill Nelson (not Ben, he’s from Korn Kuntry).
Are we at all surprised by this? We’re heading down a scary road and if Obama does ANYTHING to threaten these goobers’ “right to bear arms” all hell will break loose.
Oy.
How far indeed: about 500 years along, since the first realization of potential profit on this soil, via violent offense.
This is who we are; this is where we were born.
heh. in california, the anti-reformers got what they deserve when they started shit. to paraphrase “they bring a gun, we bring a knife”, “you punch one of our guys, we’ll bite off your finger”:
I’m not necessarily condoning this action, but conservatives sometimes forget that sometimes people fight back, and that when you fuck with the wrong bull you are liable to get the horns.
“you fuck with the wrong bull you are liable to get the horns. ”
Very nicely put, Brendan. I think more of these conservative ani mundi or a… holes of the world are in for a painful education. People are starting to get real riled up by these terror tactics and the counterattack is is the making.
& in the midst of it, health care reform is — what?
It’s what it always was, since this circus started: beside the point. The point is, imho, the optimal use of social engineering.
and then there was the lady in the wheelchair at a townhall. Folks hollering at her, jeering her. it actually made me physically sick to watch it. But she was tough and continued to try and get her statement out.
Who ARE these people anyway? Now if we had a decent media, someone would be all over the Miami police department asking if the guy had been arrested for assault. And if not, why the hell not?
This thing is getting way way WAY out of control. And what did Nelson do? Nothing?
Who ARE these people anyway?
These people are tasting a little bit of power & they just can’t get over it.
As for media, ours is very decent. It’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do, which is to help fabricate the most friendly environment possible for corporate profit.
If reasoned health care debate was not potentially injurious to the corporate bottom line, these circuses would not be taking place.
By contrast, look at our protests against the invasion of Iraq in ’03. In NYC, entire streets were suddenly cordoned off; everyone inside the lines was arrested. Protest, in the case of war-making, was not helpful.
Umm…two guys argue, one guy calls the other a name, the other guy punches him.
Sounds like any Friday night in a bar. Unseemly, yeah. And stupid. But even at a town hall meeting, not exactly a national news story, sorry.
As a one-time bartender, I agree. It should also be noted that the entire teabagger/GOP thought process is exactly what you get at the drunk bar from the regulars shortly before closing time. Barroom drunks, the last silent minority, are finally getting their 15 minutes via the Republican Party. Buy the GOP’s talking points and get a free supply of puke, phlegm, and stale beer.
Well, Geov, what about this?
Certainly more dramatic. But note in Brendan’s column above that a sympathetic witness claims it was the MoveOn.org guy who did the biting.
What I think is happening is the same thing that happened to the left with street demonstrations after WTO in Seattle in 1999. For the next couple of years (until 9/11 changed the dynamic) summit demonstrations attracted a subset of lots of young “activists” who showed up mostly because they were itching for some street action with the cops.
I think exactly the same thing is happening on the right now – after a month of publicity of these Town Hall disruptions, you’re getting angry dittoheads showing up who don’t know or care anything about health care, really; what they want is a chance to yell at libtards.
It should have the same effect that befell the anti-summit demonstrations, i.e., they were massively discredited in the public eye. And some of that is, in fact, happening in the health care debate. But certain spineless Democratic lawmakers are either being intimidated, fooled, or (most likely) using the media noise as cover for their preferred, corporate-friendly positions. And that’s the only impact the Republican leadership cares about, so they’re just fine with all this.
Bottom line: these sorts of relatively minor confrontations will continue, in health care or some other cause du jour, until they flame out of their own accord because the idiotistas don’t get the reactions they want. And giving them reactions, and media attention, just attracts more of them.
At the street level this isn’t about politics, really. It is, in DaveW’s formulation, the 15 minutes for barroom drunks, and IMO we should respond accordingly: neutralize them in the field, ignore them in our public pronouncements, refocus the (real) debate.
Doing that also decreases the chance that the dynamic will encourage someone who’s both really disturbed and likes their firearm fantasies, the quit justifiable fear that’s been driving Steven’s posts. I just don’t think these are examples of that.
Su’m bitch tried to give me health care, that’s what. What would you do, just stand there and take it?
Nothing wrong with these folks that a good old fashioned liberal ass kicking couldn’t fix. Most of them, at least in my experience, are abject cowards who just like to hear themselves rant and rave. Invite them out into the parking lot and they change their tune real quick. I know. I’ve tried it. Haven’t had a taker yet.