Grass Roots at Town Hall

They’re un-American,” says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “They’re spreading lies and distortions,” says senior White House adviser David Axelrod. They are “being funded and organized by out-of-district special-interest groups and insurance companies,” says the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

"They," as you probably guessed, are the concerned citizens who've shown up at town-hall meetings across the country to express their displeasure over what President Barack Obama and the Democrats are about to do to our health-care system. But who are they really? What motivates them? And why are they so angry?

So begins an excellent article by John Goodman, President of the National Center for Policy Analysis in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal which looks at the makeup of the rising tide (Tsunami?) of realization that proposed health care reform bill is a neutron bomb of change to health care as most of us know it.

Remember, according to a Fox News poll conducted last month, 84% of Americans rate the quality of their insurance as "excellent" or "good." When they voted for Mr. Obama for president, they thought "universal care" meant helping some unfortunate Americans obtain insurance they cannot otherwise afford. Not once did candidate Obama say he was going to make changes that affected them and their health care. In fact, he promised the opposite.

As Tonto once said to the Lone Ranger: "man speaks with forked Tongue"

The left is quick to characterize the outpouring of concern for the proposal as something sinister that is being orchestrated by Right Wing subversives. Look again at the picture above. Where are the uniform tee shirts and professionally-designed signs that characterize the "spontaneous" left wing protests? What the Democrats are slowly learning, is that they have kicked over a hornets nest of anger among the vast middle class of Americans who don't want their medical care messed with. And these folks are not being misled by partisan interest, they are horrified at the actual provisions of the legislation. Maybe the legislators are too busy to read the bills, but the voters aren't that dumb.

Want to do something? Click on the ON LINE PETITION and add your name to the 1.1 million of concerned citizens who have signed the Free Our Health Care Now petition. And don't take any one else's word for it, read the bill's language and don't let a bunch of socialist wannabees bulldoze the best health care system in the world into the abyss.

The Bust of a Rolling Stone

By now, everyone on the planet knows about the famous Harvard professor who got himself pinched by the Cambridge Cops for mouthing off while they were answering a report of suspicious activity. But the coverage of an eerily similar episode that took place a few days later in New Jersey seems to have garnered negligible coverage.

As described HERE by abc news, A mere forty years after Woodstock, where he did not perform, and fifteen years after Woodstock 94, where he did, Bob Dylan apparently needed a few hours of down time from his current tour stop at the Jersey Shore and took a walk around a nearby neighborhood. Seeking anonymity, he disguised himself as a mental hospital escapee as he tromped around in the rain checking out local real estate listings. The neighbors knew a weirdo when they saw one and called the cops. Just like Skip Gates, Dylan was asked for ID to prove he really was Bob Dylan. The cop, twenty-something Kristie Buble, recognized the name Bob Dylan, but didn't see how the soaking-wet reprobate in the back of her squad car could possibly be someone who was touring the country with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp, as he claimed. Nor was he recognized by any of the other cops who eventually came on the scene. Maybe if he had been wearing his harmonica?

Unlike the dust up in Cambridge, however, the situation was quickly de-fused when the cops brought Dylan back to the hotel where the tour was staying and someone finally produced an ID. Dylan, apparently, took it in stride with no hard feelings.

To some extent, that's the end of the story, but many are asking difficult questions. Is there a double standard that a national flap erupts when a black man is arrested breaking into a (ok, his own) house, but when a 68 year old white man (who is still a celebrity in the minds of many aging music fans) is arrested for merely dressing funny and walking around in broad daylight (and the rain), there is no reaction from the White House, or (with the exception of one abc news article) from the media. Why weren't Bob Dylan and the cop, invited to the White House for a beer? What does this say about America? How is it that we can read about the Dylan bust and smile, while the Gates fiasco brought the world to a standstill?


At least Bob Dylan's travails provide a small break from the never-ending health care debate and shouting match.