Violence in Air at Grievance Town Halls
11 August 2009 6:20 pm by Taylor Marsh
It’s like that Phil Collins song, you can feel it coming in the air at every town hall. Just ask Arlen Specter, who faced a grievance mob today, complete with boos when Specter spoke of Obama’s Americanness. Town halls turned grievance fests with health care only the launching pad for people to act out.
“IT IS TIME TO WATER THE TREE OF LIBERTY,” was printed across William Kostric’s sign today. It’s the same quote used in the video by a different man (h/t Peter Daou) only in a separate context. But it all implies the same thing. That is if you finish Thomas Jefferson’s quote, which Kostric was careful not to do and the man in the video just hinted at himself. With a wink and a nod the message is sent, the code easy to decipher. None of this having anything to do with health care.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
William Kostric, given a platform on “Hardball” today, utilized the usual rhetoric gun fanatics employ when challenged: If more people had guns there would be less crime. These fanatics contend that if all the good guys and gals carried weapons the bad guys wouldn’t have a chance. As a gun owner myself, I’ve heard this ad nauseam, which usually leads me to laugh in their face. It’s as if to say to a single woman that she should own a gun to stay safe in her home, even if guns scare the crap out of her and she doesn’t want to own one. Shorter: It’s all her fault she’s not safe because she refuses to own a firearm. The perfect NRA sales pitch. The reality that people have a right to feel and be safe in their own homes, regardless of whether they own a firearm, never occurring to the nuts.
As the man in the video squeals Jefferson’s threat through his bullhorn, “Read what Jefferson said about the Tree of Liberty – it’s coming baby”, never having the nerve to say it out loud, because he knows very well what it implies.
As witnessed today at Arlen Specter’s town hall, you get a further sense of the grievance fest we’re witnessing across this country, all on the back of Obama’s push to get health care reform. With right wing radio giving out the call to arms, inciting their angry army to take to the town halls to defend “liberty,” though Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity (and his mini me, Mark Levin), and other hate speech peddlers like Ann Coulter have no clue what the incitement they’re stirring can manifest.
Chris Matthews said it simply on his show today.
“I think some of the people are upset because we have a black president.” – Chris Matthews, “Hardball”
A very dangerous pattern has taken shape, complete with gun toting, xenophobic, angry haters each with their own personal grievance and ax to grind.
