Time to Join the Fight Against the Right-Wing Townhall Uprisings?:
Is this really the way you guys wanna play this? Is this the way it's gonna go down? You're sending to townhall meetings of members of Congress a bunch of frightened people with misdirected rage, no real understanding of the issues surrounding even their own health care, and little articulation of their point of view other than "Government bad" to shout down officials, the discursive equivalent of howler monkey yawps across the rainforest. And you're doing it with the imprimatur of the Minority Leader. And with the applause of the right-wing media, who, rather than appear at a townhall to lead the charge like in honorable days of old, are like modern generals, staring at their computer screens and smiling at action they foment.

(By the way, a note to Michelle Malkin: the action of loudmouths trying to shut up everyone else ain't a counterinsurgency. You're using that word to make it seem like you're defending the mainstream. Obama and the Democrats were legally elected in part to implement universal health care coverage. Attempting to stop a lawful government from enacting the will of the majority through intimidation, threats, and fear is, at best, an insurgency, and, at worst, terrorism.)

Can you imagine the cries of "quel horreur" and the fainting gestures of the Fox "news" hosts with dainty constitutions if liberals had coordinated the disruption of meetings of members of Congress in order to oppose a policy of the Bush administration? Oh, wait, we don't really have to stretch that far since any effort, large or meager, to halt the march to war in Iraq was not treated like the free speech acts of citizens to question their government. Nope, we were portrayed as traitors. And we didn't get the support of the Democratic leadership. Is this jealousy that the right gets away with shit we can't? Fucking A, it is.

So the Rude Pundit's of two minds about this strain of reactionary civil disobedience. There's that free speech advocate part of him that's thinking, "Hey, cool, at least people are participating and voicing themselves, and, in general, that's a good thing." But then there's the other hand.

That's the part that says it's time to stop acting like pussies in all of this. Sweet fucking Jesus, we sit by and act like the motherfuckers who protest family planning clinics are just innocuous diversions until some doctor gets killed. We didn't fucking shut down the assholes that barged into the recount in Florida. We take it and take it and take it and then simply sigh that our protests amount to so little, and the whole storyline is stolen from us and run by the compromisers, shills, and punks.

So there's the part of the Rude Pundit's mind that says it's time to show these motherfuckers how it's done, to join the fucking fight. Maybe get some stone-cold WTO protesters to fuck up a few Republican townhalls. When Lloyd Doggett was being shouted down in his district, where were the good Austin hippies to counterprotest? Where, in general, are all of us that fucking fought for Obama to be elected? Step the fuck up.

Tell you what: the Rude Pundit's gonna put up or shut up. He'll go to a few townhalls up here in the wicked Northeast. He'll bring his recorder. And if any assholes try to manipulate the proceedings by thinking they can shout loudest, well, the Rude Pundit's feeling confrontational. No violence. That's for idiots. Just a promise to make sure that liars are called out and motherfuckers are accused of fucking their mothers.

Let's open this up. Who's got ideas - real ones, not fantasy ones - about how to be an actual counterinsurgency?

Update: Apparently, organization, politeness, and a heavy police presence can also work.