So, two cannibals are eating a clown and one cannibal turns to the other and says, "Does this taste funny to you?"

I thought I'd open with some light humor before I turned to the current literal laff riots being funded and organized by right-wing GOP "revolutionaries" against all things Obama.

Let me see if I have the Republican formula for political reform down. First, take two heaping teaspoons of ideology and hubris. Mix them in with a sprinkle of racism. Simmer in a pot bought and paid for by big industry and those making a fortune off maintaining the status quo. Add in a cup of false populism. Pour in two carafes of vintage fear. Season with broadcasted lies and false talking points. Then, bring to a boil, tossing in a few twisted historical references for good measure. Voila! Muttonhead stew! (Best served with swastikas, dead brain cells and Glenn Beck.) Ummm. Tastes just like AstroTurf!

Welcome to Amerika '09 folks, where a Kafkaesque cabal of conspiracy conmen (and women) is intent on dragging this country back into the '80s when greed was good, he who died with the most toys won the game and those not in the mix were welfare cheats and "those" people. In other words, Republican Nirvana.

Obama's very existence has cause many right-wingers to hit the panic button (Is he from Kenya? Mars? Area 51?), but his attempts at health care reform has caused a real low IQ insurrection.

Last weekend, the patron saint of victimized vapidity, Sarah Palin, weighed in on Obama's attempts to overhaul the health care industry, writing, tongue clenched firmly betwixt teeth, on Facebook, "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."

(Sarah? The Scarecrow is on line one. Since you haven't used it, he'd like his brain back.)

Just to make sure she earned herself the Gold in Batshit Crazy, Palin went on to site the GOP's Lady GaGaaa Michele Bachmann as a source of inspiration. "I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors." (And sock puppets.)

Now, it's easy to single Palin out for her Bizarro World take on things. (So easy, I may do it again!) The troubling thing is that Palin is only regurgitating one of the popular talking points put forth by GOP groups who, not only want to derail Obama's attempts at health care reform, but also want to derail ANY healthcare reform.

According to these puppet masters, Obama's plan calls for the killing of old people, the takeover of private savings accounts to directly filch money from citizens to pay for reform, the cutting back of medical procedures ("Cancer? Bite the bullet, Betty Lou."), the reduction of Medicare and/or Medicaid benefits, the destruction of all private insurers, the coddling of illegal immigrants, the ordering of mandatory abortions, instigating mandatory sex change operations and encouraging the mandatory killing and eating of the first born. (I made that last one up. Could you tell?)

Now, although a majority of Americans are FOR health care reform, the Republicans have decided to stir up their "white is righteous" base with visions of Granny getting her plug pulled and all those with terminal illnesses being dropped into a jungle with a compass and a Bowie knife. (Except those afflicted with terminal stupidity. They become Republican talking heads.)

So, who is responsible for this current wave of agitprop? The usual suspects, of course - the highly trained, lobbyist-created, industry-funded spinmeisters who know that fear of the unknown can be the cornerstone of retro-rabble rousing. The Swift-Boaters have become Sick-Goaders.

The grass-rootsy, populist-named "Conservatives for Patients' Rights," for instance, is actually operated by Rick Scott, former founder of health care outfit Columbia/HCA. They were found guilty of Medicare fraud (to the tune of a $1.7 billion settlement). "Patients United Now" and "Patients First" are affiliated with "Americans for Prosperity." This outfit includes bankrollers Art Pope, a mega-millionaire GOP activist and David Koch, co-owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately-held oil company in America. They've already compared Obama's health care plan to the Holocaust and instructed its followers to put the "fear of God" into Democratic members of Congress.

"FreedomWorks" is operated by former House Republican Leader Dick Armey who has always watched out for the little guy, as long as the little guy was named Dick Armey. (FreedomWorks is nice enough to list upcoming town hall meetings for aberrant protestors as well as providing nifty Google maps. In their "August Recess Action Kit," sent to those yearning to teabag Democrats on health care reform at Town Hall meetings, they suggested folks "turn up the heat." The kit included postcards that read, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that 'she's not afraid of August,' but she should be.")

"American Majority" includes such working class backers as former Bush speechwriter Ned Ryun. The folks behind "Let Freedom Ring" produced the GOP ads last year showing 9/11 footage. Also in the mix is weepy Glenn Beck's 9-12 group.

These outfits provide instructions on how to spontaneously disrupt events, distribute signs, give out talking (or shouting) points and provide transportation to the already addled. Toss in a few references to Big Brother and Hitler and the stage is set for something resembling a Shakespearean tragedy as performed by nut-challenged squirrels.

It's perfect in its simplicity, in every sense of the word. A quick glance at the signs held by those disrupting Town Hall meetings gives a sense of the intellect behind the protests. There are hammers and sickles. Swastikas. "SS" lettering. Obama as Hitler. Obama as The Joker. "Go back to Kenya." "Obama...the Anus of America." "Stop Obamacare. Its (sic) Socialism." "I will not pay Healthcare for 10 million illegal aliens." "Stop Abama."

As of this writing, at least two dozen Town Halls have been disrupted by violence of one sort or the other. There have been fistfights. Shoving matches. Shouting matches. Screaming matches. People wailing "I want my country back" and "I don't want government touching my Medicare!" (Mensa called. You've flunked 'irony.')

At Chris Dodd's Town Hall event, held despite his recent diagnosis of prostate cancer, one protester shouted: "Barack Obama clearly said all you should do is take a painkiller! How come we don't just give Chris Dodd painkillers? Like a handful at a time! He can wash it down with Ted Kennedy's whiskey!"

This is the kind of guy who'd be rejected from the recipe for Soylent Green. ("Soylent Green is assholes!")

There have been death threats phoned in and faxed to both Democratic politicians and union representatives. The addresses of private homes holding health care discussions have been printed and distributed on the Internet. One Democratic Georgian rep had a swastika painted in his office. Another rep was hung in effigy outside his meeting. One speaker had his own tombstone replicated outside his hall. In Arizona, one attendee accidentally dropped his concealed, loaded gun at a "meet and greet" session. ("Yes this is a gun and, yes, I'm glad to see you.")

In New Hampshire, where Obama held a Town Hall meeting, one lugnut named William Kostric held up a sign reading "It is time to water the tree of liberty." (Based on Jefferson's quote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.") Oh, yeah. He was also packing heat. When asked if his gun was loaded, he told Chris Matthews, "Who'd be silly enough to carry an unloaded firearm?"

Why bring a loaded gun to a Presidential Town Hall meeting? "That's not even a relevant question," he replied. "The question is, why don't people bear arms these days?"

Uhhh. Should we tell him?

Now, while these motivated mobs have been replicating the angry villagers from those old "Frankenstein" films, they've been egged on, not only by the conservative groups, but the airheads on the airwaves.

Rush Limbaugh took the high road, exhaling, "The Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo. There are far more similarities between Nancy Pelosi and Adolf Hitler than between these people showing up at town halls to protest a Hitler-like policy that's being heralded by a Hitler-like logo. Oh, another similarity. Obama is asking citizen to rat each other out, like Hitler did."

Glenn Beck, who joked that he'd poisoned Pelosi's wine, also went the Nazi route, stating that Obama's health care plan left things wide open for eugenics. "Of course, it's not (called) eugenics, because eugenics has been so horribly maligned." Yeah. It was totally tarnished by liberal types.

And for all those who don't think the Hitler/Obama comparison is scary enough, there are people like birther Orly Taitz who declare, "If Obama is not stopped, we will be in Nazi Germany!" (She has one of those super-time-traveling Google maps.) before upping the ante with, "Obama is another Stalin - a cross between Stalinist USSR and Nazi Germany." (One way or another, Obama better grow a mustache fast to appease the mini-masses.)

Two fascinating aspects about the new invasion of the Pod People are the GOP "proper's" reaction and that of the MSM. The press (with a few notable exceptions such as Rachel Maddow) has, by and large, portrayed these goon squads as "angry Americans." You know the salt of the earth types. If they do mention that these "grassroots" groups are "AstroTurf" to the extreme, it's always framed as "Democrats allege" or "some Democrats accuse..."

If a Democrat has the temerity to state that these shout-down tactics are un-American, folksy Republicans magically appear stating that the Democrats are using "brown shirt tactics" (on these nouveau GOP brown-shirters) and are denying them their right of free speech. If bellowing and drowning out a speaker is freedom of speech then my picking up a two-by-four and transforming some fat fucktard's motor mouth into a replica of a Hoehner harmonica is nothing more than me exercising some severe editorial judgment.

The primo Republicans, for the most part, have tried to stay above the fray, seeing this in purely political terms because, you see, for them, this has nothing to do with health care. Both Boehner and McConnell have basically said, the bigger the mobs, the more likely Republicans will "win." Win what? What can you possible win when the majority of Americans will wind up losing?

Why, power, of course.

They'd love to knock down Obama's health care plan the way they did Clinton's back in the 90s. If they show Obama as weak, maybe they can recapture Congress next year. The public be damned. Obama is jes' too uppity for his own good.

And, so, they suddenly champion free speech. Free speech of the following variety.

Rep. Todd Arkin (R-MO) joked that Democrats "almost got lynched" in front of a laughing crowd. He then mimed a lynching. More laughs.

Republican Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert told his followers that Obama's health care "is going to absolutely kill senior citizens. They'll put them on a list and force them to die early."

Oklahoma's Repub John Sullivan combined both birther and health care paranoia telling a crowd, "This is a scary time in Washington. It's a very frightening time. I see Barack Obama is creating an enemies list of people who oppose this miserable health care plan. I think that's frightening. That's from a guy that can't even show a long-form birth certificate. I think we all ought to be prepared to fight that."

Democratic Rep. Brad Miller's North Carolina office was advised over the phone, "Miller could lose his life over this."

Rep. Tim Bishop, Dem of New York, had to have police escort him to his car as a group of loquacious Morlocks exercised their right to breathe through their mouths at heavy metal volume.

Washington Dem. Rep. Brian Baird was faxed a photo of Obama as The Joker with the text "Death to All Marxists! Foreign and Domestic!"

After Rush Limbaugh gave the St. Louis address of The Service Employers International Union, they were deluged with calls along the lines of "I suggest you tell your people to calm down, act like American citizens, and stop trying to repress people's First Amendment rights. That, or you all are gonna come up against the Second Amendment."

The AFL-CIO got an e-mail reading, "I will be going to a local town hall this weekend, all you union members BEWARE! We will be waiting for you. better make sure you have arrangements with your local ER. today is the day when the goon meets the gun. see you there."

One of the most creative of the anti-union e-mails was received by the SEIU. It read: "You socialist f--s have the nerve to say stop the violence at the town hall meetings when they weren't violent until you p--ies showed up because your n--- leader obama said to?????? When we have ours in Racine, Wi, I want you there. I want one of your little b--- to put his hands on this Marine. I want one of you to look or talk to me wrong. I'll be the last thing your ignorant faux body guards will remember for a very long time. You can f--ing guarantee that."

And the SEIU version wasn't censored.

A friendly fellow in New Mexico, Scott Oskay, has been tweeting his pals with such cheerful chirps as "If...you have a license to carry...carry" and "Stop being peaceful, and hurt them."

Now, adding insult to injury, all of the faux grassroots leaders and spokespeople have given fairly smarmy, smirky interviews on both CNN and MSNBC where, basically, they come off as wide-eyed innocents who are shocked, shocked that their message should be twisted or misconstrued. Wink-wink. They're ordinary (millionaire) Americans engaging in dissent and debate.

Unfortunately, their duped puppets don't watch those networks, so they miss the sarcasm. They're tuned into Fox where Obama, apparently, plans to take over Poland as soon as he's done with health care.

So, what do health care reform supporters do? If you attend a Town Hall meeting, do you try to shout down the shouters? Punch-out the punchy? Have a shoot-out?

I don't think so. When violence erupts in earnest and, more than likely, by month's end, it will, health care supporters shouldn't be put into a position of being the scapegoat. If and when violence does occur, watch how fast the GOP proper backpedals and condemns some Joe Shmoe and a few "rotten apples."

I, personally, think ridicule is the answer. Not intellectual scorn or sarcasm but something that the puppets will find humiliating. Slapstick. Bring clown horns. Whoopee cushions. Fart machines. Imagine one of these idiots standing up to scream, "I want my country out of the hands of these socialist Kenyans!" and a hundred of you all press your fart buttons at once. Or toot your horns. If these people want to act like cartoon characters of the Yosemite Sam variety, treat 'em the way Bugs Bunny would. Mortify 'em.

Let's face it. You can't talk with them. You can't debate with them. You can't even enlighten them. Their only function is to sling mud.

And to quote the learned B. Bunny: "Remember, 'mud' spelled backwards is 'dum.'"

T-t-that's all, folks. Please.

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