| | Looks like the Tea Bagger folks are really kicking it up a notch and really disrupting the health care town hall meetings that Congressional Reps are holding during the summer break. Last night there was reportedly a fistfight.
There have been some posts on Daily Kos about various tactics used to keep the dialogue open at the meetings, and prevent the Tea Baggers from destroying the dialogue. What I think would work very well would be for supporters of healthcare reform to show up with drums and beat on them (in unison) whenever the Tea Baggers tried to interrupt things. You could have all the pro-reform people in matching t-shirts and American flag headbands. You'd need some chants too. I've seen this done in Korea and it's very effective. You basically get a wall of noise.
What's important is to confront the Tea Baggers and to show Americans that the people who support healthcare reform are willing to step up when challenged. Some so-called intellectuals may believe that confronting idiocy "only makes it stronger" because you can "give in to get your way." Usually that kind of commentary is followed with some kind of b.s. new age "eastern philosophy." That's pretty much ridiculous coming from the mouths of most people I've heard it from. "Giving in" implies you actually have the cohesiveness to make giving in a choice. 99 percent of the so-called intellectuals who mouth cheesy pieties about "giving in to get your way" do not have the kind of personal practice to even make it a choice. A lot of this type of talk comes from Esalen and the people there who got into aikido. Problem is they didn't really understand what was meant by "don't resist"-- you have to accept the force into you, but that's how it feels, not what you see on the outside. On the outside the person looks like they are a brick wall (to a point of course) while the subjective experience is of the power passing through you, i.e. accepting the power. In a practical real world sense, if a person is putting in their time meditating and performing certain types of esoteric practices, good luck trying to push them over if they don't want to be moved. That's a byproduct of their training. There are specific things that people do to produce the kind of resolute mindset that allows a person to self immolate or stand in front of a firehose.
Of course, a strong resolve could also be used to take decisive action to directly confront thuggery, if that is the choice a person wanted to make.
It is important for the pro-healthcare reform people (and the left generally) to show that they are willing to stand up for what they believe in .
This is because most Americans are not interested in being monks. They don't want to throw their lot in with a movement that won't be there for them when things get tough. When organized labor was successful in the US, it was because people were willing to throw their lot in with groups like the Longshoremen and the UAW. People knew that things would get ugly , but they also knew that they were part of a group that would use direct confrontation when necessary. If you don't believe me that Americans love a good confrontation, then tell me why MMA, NASCAR and football are so popular with Americans today? There are a lot of Americans who will tell you that in their view, there is about a nickel's worth of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, so they choose the party that they think represents their values the best, and that has people who will fight for what they believe in. I'm not the only person who has observed this-- Joe Bageant has written about it extensively. There's a great bit in one of his books about his experiences talking to guys who work for a Rubbermaid plant. They have terrible health benefits and bad pay. They are proud people who want strong leadership. If the left wants to gain even some of those people as supporters, it had better show that it knows how to confront people directly.
Plus, I think the drumming and chanting in unison would be pretty fun.
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| | Posted 8/7/2009 8:08 AM - 18 Views - 4 eProps - 2 comments
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