Look-- here in Michele Bachmann land, we can't escape this "town hall thuggery" thing.

I want to escape it--but I can't. Bachmann has announced that she is going to hold something like a live town hall meeting, for the first time in years. And the announcement comes at a time when conservative jackasses are hi-jacking town meetings, all around the country.

And that "goon squads disrupting live town halls thing" is not Bill's panicky imagination, it's a real national phenomenon that is being reported all over the country. Here are three links to articles that I collected since I posted a headline on this "town hall thuggery report," yesterday. All the links below are to respected local and national political observers, except for the last link to the guy on the Kos. (He's some just some guy on the Kos, but he links to other stuff about punks organizing to disrupt live town hall meetings.):



Religious right watch: Health care reform is against God’s design
Conservative Christian leaders urge flock to swarm town hall meetings and 'read them the riot act'
By Andy Birkey 8/7/09 9:36 AM

(Radio personality Jan Markell, Bachmann fan and "it's the end of the world as predicted in the Bible" expert is referenced.)

The Town Hall Mob

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 6, 2009
( EXCERPT... (A Norman Rockwell painting...)That’s a far cry from what has been happening at recent town halls, where angry protesters — some of them, with no apparent sense of irony, shouting “This is America!” — have been drowning out, and in some cases threatening, members of Congress trying to talk about health reform...)


All Heckfire Breaks Out at Republican Town Hall Meeting
by Muskegon Critic
Fri Aug 07, 2009 at 10:12:27 AM PDT

(This one indicates that people are trying to organize Democrats and progressives around the country to "deal with" the Republican "we'll shout the liberals down at town hall meetings(and hopefully trigger a few fights and police incidents!" strategy.

The author also links to some stuff about how some Republican politicians won't *hold* town hall meetings! (Ring a bell? Michele was on the cutting edge of that.) And about how GOP town halls get poisoned with pre-screened questioned designed to make the GOP politician look good. (Again: ring a bell? This stuff rings more bells than Quasimodo.)

A commenter whom I respect wrote in to say that the best response to Bachmann nonsense at some future town hall is "laughter." I respectfully disagree. We've always responded to her wacko pronouncements with "laughter," and will continue to do so--but the news reports indicate that that may not be the highest and most useful response to the kind of town meeting response that conservatives are now organizing.

I'm posting all this stuff about organized disruption of town hall meeting by conservatives--so that people wishing to attend can come up with a better strategy in response than just trying to "laugh at" the antics of Bachmann and her supporters on the extreme right.

People are going to bring video cameras to the alleged Bachmann town hall meeting. That's a good thing. What will they record? I don't expect any disruptions to start from Bachmann's liberal constituents. But we know that conservative lobbies opposed to health care reform are organizing these goon squads to drown out opposition views at town halls. We also know that this is something Bachmann wants to do--stop health care reform, and suppress opposition views.