Reply #23: Why Right-Wing Rage at Townhall Meetings

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The Threat Is Real: Why Right-Wing Rage at Townhall Meetings Could Quickly Turn Deadly

By Frank Schaeffer
August 12, 2009

The insurance industry has agitated the far right to prevent health reform, but they don't know whom they're messing with.

From the Internet to Sarah Palin this strange claim is being made: President Barack Obama wants to kill the elderly and the infirm with his health care plan. Palin even said her Down syndrome child would be a target.

The claim is being repeated, or rather screamed, by angry groups invading town hall meetings that congresspeople have organized to discuss health care reform. How on earth can the outright lie that health-care reform will lead to the euthanasia of the elderly be accepted by anyone, even by those on the far anti-Obama right?

I happen to have the answer to this question.

Over 30 years ago, my family helped start the myth leading to the present bizarre turn of events. From the mid-1970s to mid1980s, I was an activist on the far right, an evangelical and a Republican. I quit the movement by the late 1980s. (Disclosure: I'm now a supporter of President Obama and health care reform.)

To understand what is happening today in town hall meetings invaded by angry mobs convinced that their representatives are part of a conspiracy to force the elderly to forgo care, you have to understand what we, the founders of the pro-life movement, set in motion.

rest of article:

http://www.alternet.org/politics/141925/the_threat_is_real%3A_why_right-wing_rage_at_townhall_meetings_could_quickly_turn_deadly_