The emerging protest movement is almost the mirror image of the grass-roots campaign that helped sweep this Arrogant Ass into office by pulling in people who'd never been politically active.
Posted on 08/13/2009 5:20:56 AM PDT by Zakeet
Nancy Snyder says she kept quiet when abortion was legalized and prayer in schools was eliminated. Not this time.
“They did it for prayer, they did it for abortion, and they're not going to do it for our health care,” the 70-year-old nurse from Philipsburg, Pa., said Wednesday as she and her husband Robert, 74, a retired coal miner, waited in a long, snaking line for Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter's town hall meeting.
“We're not standing back this time,” Snyder said.
Instead, the Snyders and many Americans like them are adding their voices to a populist backlash evident in the taunts, jeers and rants at lawmakers' health care forums around the country in the past week and a half. The contentious sessions highlight the difficulty for President Barack Obama and the Democrats as they push for a comprehensive remaking of the nation's health care system.
[Snip]
The emerging protest movement is almost the mirror image of the grass-roots campaign that helped sweep Obama into office by pulling in people who'd never been politically active. This time Obama is seeing the other side of what can happen when people are motivated, connect over the Internet and seemingly reach a tipping point that turns them from onlookers into activists.
“You have awakened a sleeping giant,” one woman told Specter at a town hall meeting he held Tuesday in Lebanon, Pa.
Protesters interviewed at Specter's town hall events in central Pennsylvania this week were almost exclusively white, conservative and working class. But they ranged in age and their concerns went beyond health care to deficit spending, taxes, government growth and other issues. Many contradicted claims from Democratic leaders that their protest was manufactured by lobbyists or that they represented an orchestrated opposition led by Republicans or national conservative groups.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
The emerging protest movement is almost the mirror image of the grass-roots campaign that helped sweep this Arrogant Ass into office by pulling in people who'd never been politically active.
Didn't some Japanese feller say something along these lines? It sure was the truth then, eh?
Can you imagine that arrogant dial, in that same pose, that same expression, carved in Mt Rushmore...?
YES WE CAN
It is the same giant that threw off the most powerful country of the time in 1776.
I call it the American spirit of liberty.
It can and will reduce the person known as Obama to rubble.
0 may be the single reason for Republican resurgence. Or the emergence of a viable third party.
Ping to a “remorse” thread.
Not exactly sure how “the giant” managed to sleep through last fall.
Did I miss any pejoratives?
Obozo seriously “misunderestimated” flyover country.
bookmarked.
Lack of choices - weak and none.
Looks like the old folks get it. What I don't understand is why the young folks don't understand that we are spending their money already and that it is they who will have to support an aging populace. It's the kids who should be protesting the most.
Racist, sheet wearing, xenophopic, homophobic, swatika tattooed, nazi, angry, stupid right wing extremist.
There is no republican party!!!!
Yee Ha!
Keep up the good work, Nancy.
And all the rest of the protesters utilizing the tools of democracy.
You forgot “Domestic Terrorist”.
” Not exactly sure how “the giant” managed to sleep through last fall. “
We weren’t on the streets then the way we are now — we were too busy holding our noses and pulling the lever for the “R”, no matter how unsatisfactory the candidate.
What we’ve awakened now is the portion of the population that has given Congress an approval rating below that of Used Car Salesmen - we’ve given them a (loud and boisterous) voice, and they’re responding...
For weeks, now, we’ve been lectured - even attacked - by the elites of the political and punditry world - of all political stripes - about how we’re supposed to meekly and politely accept the decisions of our ‘betters’, and we ain’t knuckling under - and *that* gives us more credibility than they have...
It’s working!!!
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” - Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto
Breeder might be in there somewhere, too.
I called my useless “representative” last night (Yarmuth), and asked why they don’t just try this overhaul in a few states like New York and Massachuetts. Then if it works, they won’t have to sell it, the other states would demand it. The person on the other end hung up on me.
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