Yeah, that's about right. I actually sent this clip to the @Maddow twitter account, hoping they'd pick up on it for tonight's show. I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot of this video in the next few days.

I'm sure that if those able-bodied teabaggers ever fell ill or became disabled, and had nowhere else to turn, they would refuse on principle to ever consider getting help from the government.

Yeah, just like all those teabaggers at the August townhells who kept screaming "keep your government hands off my Medicare!!!!"

That video is heartbreaking.

I ask you: whom would Jesus taunt?

I said this over at C&L but for me, this video is not particularly moving. The plight of a man (or anyone naturally) with Parkinson's is moving. But for a man with Parkinson's to kind of intentionally collapse in front of a group of anti-HCR zealots os too obviously an attempt to stir the pot, like a gay guy walking past anti-gay rights crowds wearing a bridal gown and doing a dance and throwing his garter. You're getting attention, but it isn't the right kind of attention, the kind ofattention the cause really needs. Now, had this guy been speaking and trying to explain his plight only to be shouted down and heckled and berated by the crowd, that to me means more than what is essentially putting a kick me sign on your own back, walking up to bullies, bending over and then acting incredulous when they indeed kick you. We're better than that, The fight is better than that.

So now compassion joins morality, national defense and the rule of law on the Republican shit-heap.

What do they have left but naked hate and blind fear?

Since when does contracting Parkinson's, or any other malady, exclude one from 'working for everything you have'? What makes these wingnuts think the unfortunate guy HASN'T worked all his life, for everything he has? God, that is painful to watch, and after seeing it, I believe I could enjoy a front row seat at their waterboarding.

One of the greatest disservices to this country was the media making legitimate this small association of bitter, rancorous, mean-spirited racists. the Tea Party movement is nothing more than venomous hatred because the President is a black man.

I grew up in one of the most racist neighborhoods in Chicago, and believe me, whenever I see any of these Tea Party losers all I see are my old neighbors.

Bruce Hornsby said it best:

Standing in line marking time--
Waiting for the welfare dime
'Cause they can't buy a job
The man in the silk suit hurries by
As he catches the poor old ladies' eyes
Just for fun he says "Get a job"

That's just the way it is

Way to go, slappy magoo! Blame the victim! Kick him again!

So, is there anything left of the Republican party except psychotic white trash?

Sorry, rhetorical question.

Oh my god! having political convictions while with Parkinsons! How provocative is that old man-slut! He deserves to be raped, or spat on, or whatever else manly right wing assholes think he deserves.

aimai

Mark Jo, like our senator Sherrod Brown, has been consistently progressive even though she's a freshman representative in a competitive district. Might be worth tossing her some donations for what will be a very close race against the same opponent that she had in 2008.

whom would Jesus taunt?

We already know: the rich, the greedy, the self-righteous, the smug.

The Beatitudes mocks the Tea Partiers and other GOP fools.

Bah, that would be Mary Jo in the comment above.

Bill From PA - it's an article of faith among wingnuts that anyone who doesn't agree with them politically is a parasite who can't possibly be a productive tax-paying member of society. Anyone who advocates spending government money on anything is taking their money and giving it to the undeserving (meaning lazy brown people, but they're not supposed to say that any more.) No amount of evidence that red states are the welfare queens of the country will ever convince them otherwise.

The latest incarnation of this is an absolute refusal to believe when we talk about the uninsured, we're not talking about the unemployed (meaning willfully unemployed parasites, of course.) Anyone they know personally who can't afford health insurance is an exception, of course, and would be fine if their money wasn't being stolen for taxes.

$2.00

Not bad.
Now if we can just get a few million citizens to do the same thing...

Oh, right. We already do that. It's called "taxes" and we do decide when to give this money. It's called "election day."

If you want $2.00 to go to the Parkinson's guy, you vote Democratic. If you want it to go to Blackwater, Haliburton, or Exxon Mobil, you vote Republican. (generally speaking.)

If you want to keep your 2 bucks and not pay anybody, you vote Libertarian in protest. (You still pay, but maybe it'll help you feel better.)

Try to pay attention, sweetcheeks: The Republicans do NOT let you keep your money. (unless you make 6 figures and up.) They had 6 years and they took your two bucks and lifted your credit card for their personal pre-emptive war.

DavidinNY, I guess it depends on what you mean by "blaming the victim." I'm not blaming the victim for having Parkinson's. I'm not telling him to get a job, or that nobody rides for free or any of that typical neo-con/AynRandian-worshipping horsecrap. I'm just saying what he pulled was a cheap stunt that demeans the import of the rally on our side. Let's face it, does anyone think that his falling in front of those douche bags would've resulted in any of them thinking twice about their position. Of course not, it was designed to make them look bad. BUT THEY ALREADY LOOKED BAD. And I'm only bringing it up because if you think Malkin and Rush aren't going to muddy the water of the debate with the exact same comments, you're nuts. Only they're going to take it to conspiracy theory lengths, claiming that there was an elaborate plan for this guy to fall in front of these anti-HCR protesters, probably at the behest of Obama himself, to try to shut up the protesters, and "good for them" that they didn't fall for it.

Again, I don't blame the victim for having an awful disease and wanting help. I blame him because in the attempt to make the douche bags look worse, he makes it look like our side isn't above petty stunts for sympathy, and that's the sort of thing I usually associate with "the other side." McCain workers carving "B" backwards into their faces and claiming an Obama supporter did it. A plant and his daughter walking into the middle of a Pro-Kerry rally in 2004 with a "George W. Bush - Four More Years" sign, only to have two more plants posing as Kerry supporters tearing up his sign so he could look dejected and have Dems look like rabid douchebags who would emasculate a man in front of his daughter, let's get back at those mean libs by voting for Bush again, gang! As I said, our side is better than that. Well, we oughta be anyway.

slappy magoo--they taunt a woman in a wheelchair, a dying woman, a child who has lost his mother--they taunt *absolutely fucking everyone* as unworthy not just of sympathy but of holding a political opinion on a matter of national importance. The central issue for these assholes is that they get to tell other people to shut up, they just do it because they can. It has nothing to do with this poor man getting tired and sitting down while advocating for his political position. He didn't invite their anger and contempt, he didn't provoke it--they used him to vent. And they would have done that anyway.

aimai

In face, David, I'll take it one step farther. Look 19 seconds into the video. There's a cut from the protesters berating this man, to a shot of the man shot at a different angle, the camera pointed down at him as if the POV of one of the protesters, and the man is holding his sign up defensively as if whoever behind the camera is about to hit him. The video then cuts back to the wide shot of one of the protesters throwing 2 dollars at him. It's not only petty and exploitative, designed to evoke sympathy for the man, it's amateurish. You could've accomplished the same thing by interviewing the man, because dollars to donuts the anti-HCR protesters would've tried to shout him down. It's what I mean when we say "we're better than that."

Alright Democrats -- make this video go viral, just like George Allen's "Macacca" moment.

And then shove it down the GOP's throat.

slappy, you make it sound like the guy did some kind of Parkinson's fandango in front of these a**holes. He didn't. He's just sitting there, with a sign, reminding them that health care is about real people with real problems. And it looks to me like he was trying to speak. Their reaction was to go into a piranha-frenzy of bullying abuse. I think it's a perfect illustration. The video of bully-boy in the tie and dockers, throwing dollar bills and yelling abusively, should be aired repeatedly -- he's so perfect I could almost suspect he was a left-wing plant.

AIMAI, I KNOW they taunt everyone, that's my point. They probably would've taunted this guy wherever he ws and whatever he was doing and whatever he was saying. But by him going up to them and dropping down trying to look sympathetic - STAGING - it looks like that's how we roll. Remember how apoplectic we were during the dark days of the Bush regime, when we'd hear that his town hall meetings were stocked exclusively with Bush supporters, and if there was anyone there who even looked like they MIGHT be an anti-war protester, or had a "no blood for oil" bumper sticker on their car (Which wasn't even visible anywhere the president would be) they would be escorted ot of the event? Remember last week, Carly Fiorina getting deservedly mocked for trying to get the crowd whipped up to cheer for her BEFORE "officially" videotaping? Well, I equate this with those.

First, they'll insist he doesn't have Parkinson's.

Yes, Nolo, he's "just sitting there." He got himself over to where they were, and parked himself down and was just sitting there. Hence my "kick me" analogy. He went where he'd get a certain type of attention and then invited the attention. WE ARE BETTER THAN THAT.

Who wants to bet this video doesn't make any of the big three evening news broadcasts tonight?

Another aspect of this is how quick they are to play the victim card. Contrast this mean-spirited video with Sarah Palin trying to impose some kind of rule that you cannot even say the word retarded in any context (unless you're Rush Limbaugh). It is a crazy world.

Whatever happened to "walk a mile in the other guy's shoes"? The reaction by some to this man is just sad in our so-called civilized society.

But IMO the bigger picture is that we are all fighting for the same thing: our own well-being. And there is too little of that to go around. Too few have too much, and the rest of us are left to scramble for the table scraps. So among those who are afraid (probably most of us) of losing our jobs, our homes, our health, some start to blame and fear those who are suffering, because they realize they themselves could be there someday.

We see the world through our own experiences. Many put others in the "boxes" that is their own life, without bothering to find out the circumstances of others' lives. The stories told about real people are threatening to the Rs and others against reform because the more those people's stories are told, the more we can relate and feel sympathy towards them, turning public opinion.

But the kicker for me is how on earth plain old people can defend the actions of some of the insurance companies. Because that is what they're doing by attacking this man. It's beyond crazy!

I appreciate what Slappy is saying, but this guy seemed to be just sitting there, no falling down, that I saw. It could look staged, and the righties are going to go apoplectic no matter what, it's how they roll. But I don't see how this differs from the die-in's the right were planning in DC a few months ago to show what HC will be like after reform passes.

Honestly, he's lucky he didn't get beat up.

I agree, make it viral. I went to a tea party counter-protest. We outnumbered them a dozen to one, which felt awesome. The write-up in the paper included a teabagger quote that we were the "leeches of society". Then a quote from the reform side: a retired veteran worried about his grandchildren not having health insurance. It was a pretty good illustration, and I expect could be repeated in a thousand cities across the country.

Slappy: It's called fighting fire with fire. It's acknowledging the this age of "truthiness" and a horrible, corporate serving media that the only way you get air time and attention is with stunts such as this. We've been playing the "we're better than this" game for years and years while the right wing bat shit crazy folks dominate the airwaves. If you want to spend your time taking the high road, by all means do so, however some people have realized that in order to get your voice heard these days it takes something more than just having the facts on your side. You may not agree with this strategy, but believe me the public in general is not as sophisticated as you. They will not get that it was a staged event. They will only see that the crazy Tea partiers were attacking a man with Parkinsons.

He went where he'd get a certain type of attention and then invited the attention.

People with Parkinson's should keep quiet and stay home and out of sight, so real protesters can go about their business without distractions.

But I don't see how this differs from the die-in's the right were planning in DC a few months ago to show what HC will be like after reform passes.

Posted by: MsJoanne on March 17, 2010 at 2:42 PM | PERMALINK

The difference is, we don't (shouldn't) need to do stuff like this. This is going to go viral no matter what, and I'll tell you exactly what will happen. Instead of it being the "kumbaya" moment we'd all like it to be, it'll either be ignored, OR analyzed like the Zapruder film/the Rodney King tape in an attempt to discredit the guy and then try to extend it to the whole movement.

qwerty, don't act like a jackass, that's not what I'm saying and you of all people should know it. Protest. Be creative about it. Get on a soapbox and tell your tale of woe. Just don't set yourself up to look like a victim, because it's counterproductive. Jesus H., Heaven forbid I agree with a goal but question the method...

Slappy,
I see what you are saying, but I really think you are wrong. First, you compared this guy to the woman carving the backwards "B" on her face. That was a bad analogy--but it went to the heart of what is going on. The Republicans have gone to great lengths to accuse the Democrats of being *violent* so they could pose as weak victims and gain sympathy from supporters. They had to fake the incident because it fit in with the larger story they were trying to tell which was that black people, and people who vote for black people, are violent.

In your version of what is happening this man has gone to great lengths to fake falling down in order to demonstrate--what? That Republicans are angry assholes? He's not faking that accusation. He's simply filming what happened when they were offered the chance to act like human beings. The normal human thing to do would be to expect the angry protestors to show sympathy, try to help him up, leave him alone--what strange trap have they fallen in to by *attacking a sick man?* If he's not sick, certainly, that's a problem but they aren't arguing that he's not sick. They are arguing that sick people are beggars, not taxpayers, not fellow citizens, and that sick people and beggars must be objects of charity and attack.

The notion that sympathy, empathy, and respect for the fact that millions of people who are tax paying, employed, fellow citizens lack health care is some kind of weird fake out by the democrats is just strange. We aren't "better than" this--evoking sympathy, asking for respect and understanding for the pro-HCB point of view isn't some kind of weird emotional ploy that should be out of bounds. Its the heart of this political struggle. They are delegitimizing our *examples* of why this is necessary by insisting that all these cases of people dying uninsured, or battered by their insurance,
a) aren't happening
b) aren't representative
c) don't happen to good people
e) are too much trouble to deal with

WE have to fight that story on every level.

aimai

slappy, the guy is just sitting there in the video. Where the bleep do you get the "falling down?"

"Just don't set yourself up to look like a victim, because it's counterproductive."

Why is it counterproductive?

Mike

One of the greatest disservices to this country was the media making legitimate this small association of bitter, rancorous, mean-spirited racists. the Tea Party movement is nothing more than venomous hatred because the President is a black man.

Posted by: SaintZak on March 17, 2010 at 2:04 PM

Hear, hear! It's also what's behind all the recent "state's rights" and "the government is out of control!" bullshit we've been hearing from lots of them lately.

How dare this man have the audacity to confront those ignorant morons with the reality of his situation! We're "better than that". We should know our place.
Yeah, whatever. Really, this is the nit you want to pick slappy? I'd like to think you're better than that, but you've obviously decided to keep digging. Have fun.

Yeah, I was going to ask slappy magoo where the "falling down" stuff came from. It makes it sound like a basketball player flopping to draw a foul.

Truly despicable, but representative of GOP thinking. This is what you get when you have a gathering of angry, uninformed, anti-government halfwits drunk on Glenn Beck's crazy juice. And thanks to the crack media (once again) for failing to point out that changing the law to allow people with pre-existing conditions to PURCHASE private insurance is not a handout.

"Falling down" and "kind of collapsing" are admittedly bad terms, as the video explicitly states the man sat down, so my apologies on that. But by the same token, it's not like he was sitting there and the protesters came to him. The announcer clearly states "he sat down in front of health care opponents." Was he doing it to engage in a discussion? No, he dd it because he knew he'd look pathetic being yelled at by healthier angrier younger guys. I stand by my sentiment. I don't question why this guy did what he did, but I do think it only serves as more fodder for the right than it does the left. Yeah, the crowd shouldn't have treated the guy like garbage, and it's no surprise that's what they did. But when it comes to sympathy, I find it more evocative when attackers have to make the effort to attack someone, rather than have the "attackee" come to them. It only provides fodder for them to change the subject to "WHY did those protesters have to treat a man with Parkinson's like that?" to "Why would a man invite abuse on himself like that?" If it does anything, it will serve as a distraction, rather than an illustration, to the problem at large. "look at the pathetic attempts Dems go to to prove their point, obviously, if they have to have someone plop their ass in front of God-fearing Americans exercising their God-given right to protest in order to prove their point, they must not have one!" Hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

Is it awful that he has this disease? Yes.
Do I want healthcare reform so men like this don't have to rely on charities or begging? Bet your ass I do.
Do I think the protesters were nitwits and worse? Does the Pope shit in the woods?
Do I think his actions could've been more effective in other ways, and do I think this way was counterproductive? Do I think anyone with more than 2 days of "video and TV production" classes under his belt will see that cut in the video as a shamelessly manipulative stunt where one was not necessary? Sadly, yes.

Aimai, maybe I'm just more suspicious than you or anyone else here, but the way I see it, the argument on the right is going to be that this victim of Parkinson's was trying to "use" his disease to get protesters to shut up, thus, the protesters were correct to mock him, because, you see, THEY, the protesters, are the oppressed minority (even though they constantly manipulate polling data to claim they're actually the majority), and THEY have to fight fire with fire by shouting even louder to those trying to silence them with humanity and dignity. Yeah, it's stupid, but it's how they roll, and it's been surprisingly effective for them. To these schnozzles, a man with Parkinson's is a bully, and any attempt to frame him as a plant from the left will be well-met by supporters, and confuse the undecided and the led-astray, confused by the lies perpetrated by the right.

As I said before, had this guy been speaking to the protesters, or been interviewed about his plight, the attempts to silence him would've seemed unnecessary and cruel. And in a just world, their comments WILL be seen by and large as unnecessary and cruel. But we don't have the media on our side, and this will be explained away to point of any effect being neutralized. Again, hope I'm wrong, but don't think I will be. Road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that.

Maybe the guy with Parkinson's is a ventriloquist. Maybe the pee-baggers weren't really verbally abusing him, he was just throwing his voice. But even then, the TBers would still be dummies.

Tea party: frat house for weird adults. Grow up America.

"Just don't set yourself up to look like a victim, because it's counterproductive."

Why is it counterproductive?

Mike
Posted by: MBunge on March 17, 2010 at 3:13 PM | PERMALINK
_______

Because with our current level of discourse, if the media brings it up at all, it will be talking about whether it was appropriate or not that this Parkinson's sufferer made the health care opponents look bad, instead of how the health care opponents actually looked bad. It will become a debate about optics rather than ideas. Unfortunately, what I thought would be me expressing a concern has de-volved into a sad example of what I was worried about in the first place.

Nothing for free over here, you have to work for everything you get."

Uh, sure. Let's apply that to, oh, Goldman Sachs, and then let it, er, trickle down...

I'd love to see how many of these "manly-man" bullies were supposed to be at work---but called in sick so they could join in the brutish teabaggery. As I recall, failing to report under false pretenses is legal grounds to fire somebody.

There, Mr. Teabagger---now you're stupid, angry, and UNEMPLOYED!*

*evil laughter ensues....

Slappy-so basically you're saying that the guy knew that merely sitting quietly in front of them would likely result in them flipping out and acting like a-holes? Isn't that the point he was trying to make-that many tea partiers are so venomous that they can reliably be counted on to taunt a disabled guy holding a sign?

C'mon, you should know that the tried and true tactic to deny plain truth captured on tape is to say "you don't know what was happening before the clip started". With the implication that just prior to the camera being turned on, the Parkinson's guy was turning cartwheels naked in front of the teabaggers while warming himself over a pile of burning $100's. Wouldn't matter if the clip adhered to your Platonic ideal of a guy getting taunted by d-bags, that'd still be the playbook they'd go to.

That guy with Parkinson's definitely shouldn't have worn that short skirt to that bar. He was practically begging for it.

I have several uneasy feelings about this video. The first is the obvious one, the sickening display of clean cut white guys mocking someone they believe to be sick. There's no getting around that.

But, I have an equally sick feeling that we're going to hear a hundred different diagnoses for this man in the next 48 hours. We'll learn about his job or lack thereof, what medications he is or isn't on, that people see him walking without a cane all the time. He'll be accused of faking, fudging, lying, cajoling, taunting. There will be satellite trucks in his yard. He will be stripped and hounded and asked whom he wants to win American Idol.

It's going to get nutso.

And the Tea Baggers will never believe it is real. They will never — even for a second — consider that, whoever the guy is and whatever his story, three or four white guys mocked a man they had every reason to believe was sick. And they did it knowing a video camera or two was just inches away from their miserable sweaty faces.

Truly this is what the health care reform debate is all about now. One side wants to help people who don't have health insurance live slightly better lives. The other side screams at a man who is representing the tens of millions of Americans with medical conditions who can't get health care and they demand that he, in the worst job market in three decades, needs to get a job.

Let's show these assholes. Pass the bill.

Slappy-so basically you're saying that the guy knew that merely sitting quietly in front of them would likely result in them flipping out and acting like a-holes? Isn't that the point he was trying to make-that many tea partiers are so venomous that they can reliably be counted on to taunt a disabled guy holding a sign?
Posted by: CT on March 17, 2010 at 4:18 PM | PERMALINK

Yes, but MY point is that if you believe Point A, and you get more or less in the space of people who believe Point B, there will most likely be some sort of altercation, and the discussion will be over whether the believer of point A should've gotten in the space of the believers of Point B...AND NOT THE ACTUAL POINTS. Things I believe include the "fact" that the media by and large is in the pocket of the right, despite all their handwringing and panty-wetting over how liberal the media supposedly is. I don't know if this is because the media is in the pockets of giant conglomerates who align themselves with the interests of people who make them more money even at the expense of everyone else instead of all of us profiting though some more than others, OR if they've internalized the "liberal media" argument for so long they reflexively cut the right all sorts of slack they rarely if ever cut for the left lest they seem liberal again. But if this video becomes a thing, and the right is able to argue, even a little, that this was a setup designed to make them look bad, the media will pick up this narrative AND IT WILL STOP MAKING THEM LOOK BAD. Sure, I think that's wrong. But I also think it could've been avoided.

Those people are like monsters.

Shine a light on that conduct and it will repulse huge swathes of the American public.

Slappy, I'd also point out that this was video from the Columbus Dispatch, not deliberately filmed by the anti-tea partiers. So your suggestion about the angle it was filmed wasn't something dreamed up by the guy with Parkinson's, but something filmed by a local reporter.

slappy's argument is reminscent of the "just ignore the bully" arguments of my youth. And it has a certain logic to it. Its definitely the case that no amount of video cruelty stands free of interpretation. I'm old enough to remember Rodney King and the videotaped beating. By the time the Police defense lawyers got through with the frame by frame analysis the people who always wanted to think the Police did the right thing were convinced they had done the right thing--anyone would have beaten the crap out of the man lying down in the road. And people who felt that perhaps beating the crap out of an unarmed and prone man was excessive, we still felt that way.

That's by way of saying that beauty/and terror are in the eye of the beholder. But the question is whether the video works as truth and as propaganda with some portion of the public. And the answer is, yes, if it is shown correctly and given the correct gloss. Because its horrific and horrifically telling. And the right wing knows it is because they have to not only act out this bestiality but defend it by saying that so and so "asked for it" or "was faking." because even they know that if the poor guy has parkinson's, works for a living, and can't get insurance that's a blow against their entire argument for opposing the bill.

So we kind of *have* to show it. It dramatizes just how wrong they are, and how cruel they are, and makes the rest of their arguments suspect to anyone in the audience with half an eye and a half a heart. And we know it works in separating the sheep from the goats, and the truly evil from the merely confused, because we already had a nearly identical incident about two elections ago. Remember when Michael Fox went on TV for an interview advocating for stem cell research on behalf of parkinson's victims? Rush Limbaugh accused him of faking it, and specifically faking it to play on people's sympathy (which Rush thinks is an illegitimate form of political decisionmaking). Rush Limbaugh's cruel imitation of Michael Fox's parkinson's went over really well with a small portion of LImbaugh's followers but pissed off the rest of the voting public who saw it as cruel and disgusting. The legislation Fox was agitating for won, I believe, and Rush's followers were royally pissed off. But he lost some listeners.

aimai

Slappy Magoo,

The fact is that the actions of a group of people who behave like a pack of rabid jackals towards one sole unwell person need no elaboration in words, because those actions speak for themselves. There are no words that can translate those actions into any language understood by those who cannot instinctively understand their meaning.

The fact is that we each are responsible for our behavior - and it's all too ironically revealing that the people who shout and scream the loudest about "personal responsibility" are always the quickest to blame their worst behaviors on others.

The fact is that the bullies in this video are precisely the same type of people who mocked and jeered at Jesus, beaten and bloody, hauling that heavy cross - after all, he, too, was considered by such people to be a parasite, and even a criminal.

The mindless viciousness of such pathetic, self-obsessed bullies is *not* any sort of deserved punishment or valid judgment - it is most often a badge of honor.

Also, if *any one* of those people had any shred of simple human decency, then, regardless of the political view expressed on his sign, that one person would have stopped, gotten down, and asked the man if he was OK or if he needed help. Not one did so.

Although I voted twice for Reagan, it is the behavior shown in this video, and videos of the venom spewed at so many town-halls, and so on, plus their rejection of most of the Constitution and most of what made the US a Nation, which now renders me incapable of ever aligning myself with the self-obsessed nastiness of most of the current *so-called* "conservatives" - I see no desire to conserve, only a desire to tear down everything and remake in their own snarling image.
-

Slappy, I am just not seeing it. Unless this is a snip from a longer video? The guy is just sitting there quietly with his sign. I see nothing overly staged or dramatic or faked about it.

Lou at 4:46, I understand it was reporting done by the Dispatch. I kinda try not to think about it. Because after watching it again and again, and that point where the camera cuts to an over the shoulder shot looking down on the Parkinson's sufferer, it means
1: They had more than one camera at the event. Possible. Not likely.
2: The camera operator got footage from one angle, then swung around to get a shot of the Parkinson's sufferer from the POV of the anti-reform crowd. Also possible. More likely than #1. This crowd has a love-hate relationship with the media. When they can rant, they love it. If it's making it look bad, they're hating it.
3: The camera operator asked the Parkinson's sufferer if he can get additional shots of him after the fact, for dramatic purposes. Because the shot looks so staged (look at it again), I'm genuinely worried that this could be the case, but nearly as worried as I am about my conspiracy theory du jour...
4: The whole confrontation, on both sides, was staged as a photo op. By whom, I don't know. Well-meaning libs who thought they were doing the movement a favor by having guys poses as neocon thugs mocking a helpless Parkinson's sufferer? Or actual neocon thugs who will turn around and say something like "we were paid 50 bucks each by MoveOn to pretend to be mean to that guy," something outrageous that could easily be fact-checkd but won't be by anyone but liberal bloggers, reinforcing the notion that the media is liberal and inspire tea partiers to be even bigger douches? Again, I don't know. But the "staginess" of the whole event leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I know how it sounds. But if there winds up being more to this story, something that bites someone in the ass and not in the way we'd all like (with those jerkoffs getting fired for missing work, their wives leaving them, friends and relatives of Parinson's sufferers beating them to a pulp), I will not be surprised in the slightest. As always when it comes to this matter, hope I'm wrong.

Tazistan Jan, it is a snippet of a longer video, though the longer video doesn't include any more footage of the Parkinson's sufferer altercation with the anti-reform nitwits. Here's the longer video if you choose to watch. http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/tea-partiers-mock-and-scorn-man-parkinsons

This has become my own private Zapruder film, but for more evidence of the "staginess" of it, watch when the first jackass is telling him "no handouts here." You can see the guy who throws dollar bills at him approaching him, wallet already out. We then cut away to that shot of the camera looking down on the guy. We then cut back to the original shot, EXACTLY right where we left off, with the guy's hand in his wallet pulling out the money to throw at the guy.

It's one of those questions that plague documentarians - you want to record the event as it happens, but you also want to maximize the dramatic impact. In this instance, clearly, footage before or after the altercation was included, and that's one of the reasons why this whole thing doesn't pass my own "smell test" (insert obnoxious comment here). It's right out of the movie "Broadcast News." But it makes me sad, because, as I believe I've said once before, I'm dearly in favor of health insurance reform, as imperfect as this current incarnation may be, so for stuff to be staged - and again, I don't know by whom and for what purpose - only serves to potentially cause us more problems than progress. because we're better than that.

Slappy......My own experience attending "honk and waves" in support of HCR showed that the hate was all on one side of the street. I had multiple people slow their cars, look me in the eye and shout "Fu*k you". My sign said "Choice is Good" on one side and "Public Option" on the other side. Was I guilty of inciting their rage?

MLK and other civil rights activits deliberately staged demonstrations in locations where they knew police would use teargas and clubs against them. It was in many ways a stated open tactic to provoke a response simply by being there, walking across a bridge or standing at a whites only counter. It exposed for every the hypocrisy and evil of segregration or stripped away the veneer to show the base racism and ugliness at its core.

Are you now saying they were wrong to do so? Blacks should only have protested in their own neighborhoods, not gotten into the faces of the the white power structure becuase the confrontaion could have been viewed as 'staged' and somehow bringing them down to their level.

It seems your biggest complaint is how the local news show may (or may not have) edited the footage together.

I saw we kick all of those old people off their damn Government Provided Medicare and see how long they stay in these insane crowds and babbling about "Socialism".

Slappy, I was going to kind of agree with you (your point's valid enough) but as I read the comments I realized it wasn't a Zapruder moment but a John Ford moment.
No, sir. This is (the West) politics, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

slappy, just go look at the original video on the Columbus Dispatch website. I'm really just not understanding what your problem is.

You think the whole thing was staged? Really?

At first I hoped that the mother of Mr. Dockers flipping dollar bills would see what she raised. but then I hoped that his boss would see it and fire him resulting in the loss of his health insurance. Ohio is not a right to work state.

The fact is that the bullies in this video are precisely the same type of people who mocked and jeered at Jesus... -k_michael

Oh, please. We all know Jesus could have avoided that whole incident had he simply not confronted the people he disagreed with. I completely blame Jesus. The whole crucifixion thing just feels staged.

kc, what I am (perhaps inartfully) saying is that clearly, one shot of that altercation is staged, that being the shot of the man who has Parkinson's after being mocked by one TBing loudmouth ("no handouts here") but before being mocked by the other (the dollar-bill thrower). And that would lead me to question who staged it and why? And if I - a person with a tendency to believe all sorts of evil about the right - questions it, I'd suspect people on the right, with so much to lose on this issue, will have questions as well. And if those questions turn out to reveal an answer that makes us look bad, that ain't good.

Again (and again and again and again) I GET IT. No man in pain and wanting something as noble as healthcare for all deserves to be mocked for that pain, any more than civil rights leaders deserved to be beaten because Whity didn't agree with their cause, or high school nerds deserve to be pummelled because they try to stand up for their right to go to school without fear, or women deserved to be raped because they were flirty and wearing something provocative. I GET IT.

What many of you are not getting in your righteous anger is that progressives have SO much stacked against them - the lies and smears from the other side, and a media willing to present those lies either in a "this is true" context or, if we're lucky, a "he said she said" context. When it comes to fighting our fights, we're only effective when we're 100 percent in the right and credible. Even then, it's often like trying to draw blood from a stone, and our political enemies will seek to destroy us but will gladly settle for muddying the waters, confusing low-info voters so they tune out & don't participate. That's as good as a "win" in their column.

So when events like these come across to me as even partly staged (and I'm clearly not the brightest bulb in the bin), then other people will have similar suspicions. And if you can't trust some of this altercation, it'll be argued that you can't trust any of it, and further argued that you can't trust anyone making the argument. See Rather Comma Dan, making statements we all knew to be true but relying on evidence that turned out to be questionable. How did that work out for him?

DON'T let this snippet of video be part of your argument for HCR. Don't let it be your argument that Tea Partiers are douches (even though they quite often are), because I'm telling you, this video doesn't smell right. There are plenty of videos & plenty of stories that do ring true. I was just rading today about how the insurance company Fortis was caught abusing their rescission capabilities on people who contracted HIV, and have lost numerous appeals with one former customer they dropped after he was diagnosed. THAT'S something you can point to as a deliberate abuse of power and trust. But this video? Until that cut can be explained, I'm sorry, I'm distrustful of any of it, and my fondest hope is that NOBODY in the media picks up on it, because my biggest fear in this matter is that it was entirely staged, and thus we're "making shit up" to advance our eeeevillll socialist agenda, just like we "made up" global warming & we all traveled to Iraq to hide Saddam's WMDs.

Let this one - THIS ONE - go.

Someone should have just beaten the fucking shit out of that guy.

Clearly, we need to know what kind of countertops this man has in his kitchen before making any judgement.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one, slapster---A grain of rice tips the scale; a drop of water starts the flood; a single snowflake heralds the avalanche. Use all means, and let NOTHING go.

Your immediately-preceding post---"we're "making shit up" to advance our eeeevillll socialist agenda, just like we "made up" global warming & we all traveled to Iraq to hide Saddam's WMDs"---is nothing but 100% pure, unadulterated DEFEATISM. One might even dare match you up to the term "McClellanist"---do nothing, regardless of possessing total superiority on the battlefield.

Does this clip have seem staged? Perhaps---but would a pro-HCR type with a camera have walked so boldly into the lion's den? No. If this was staged, it was staged by the teabaggers themselves, and the exposure of the fraud will reflect fully on them.

That fraud becomes an albatross 'round the neck of the GOP....

And if I - a person with a tendency to believe all sorts of evil about the right - questions it, I'd suspect people on the right, with so much to lose on this issue, will have questions as well.

Even it's completely authentic, they'd claim it was fake. That's just how they are.

Anyway, I dunno. It didn't look staged to me. If it was, well, one piece of video wasn't gonna be my number one pro HCR argument anyway. Besides, if a person wanted to depict a bunch of teabaggers acting like assholes, there'd be no need to stage it. Just film them holding their "Lyin African" signs and screaming about Hitler.

On the basis of some -- obviously and *heavily* -- edited video tapes, ACORN went through hell. And I'm supposed to just fold my angel wings and keep the hem of my skirt away from the mud on the off-chance that this one *might* have been "doctored"? Uh-huh, no siree, not me. If there's any chance, *any chance* that this clip will sicken even one "independent" and turn him/her against the rabid Teabaggers, I'm all for it.

To me, this seems like one of the most extraordinary displays of civil disobediance I've seen in a long time, in the tradition of Gandhi and MLK.

Some people read "Lord of the Flies" as teenagers and recoil, knowing that this is what society can easily degenerate into in the absence of an adult presence. Others see it as a blueprint for a world in which they can thrive.

If there's any chance, *any chance* that this clip will sicken even one "independent" and turn him/her against the rabid Teabaggers, I'm all for it.
Posted by: exlibra on March 17, 2010 at 8:17 PM | PERMALINK
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What if there was a risk of turning TWO people off to OUR side, because the right was able to argue, convincingly, the whole thing was staged?

I'm not saying do nothing, I'm saying use the stories, the testimonials, the events where ONLY a paranoid teabagger would question the integrity of the person in question. You can write to me as I'm on some kind of high horse, daring to foist my opinion on what I deem worthwhile to talk about is the only one. But I'm telling ya I'm telling ya I'm telling ya, this one's fishy, and our side doesn't need it biting us in the ass. Despite the fact that I've heard teabaggers saying the same or similar (or worse) than these guys, the whole thing reeks of bad street theater, a health care reform passion play.

Here's a kid the right is pooping on because he dare speak about his mother's death at a health care reform event. Now maybe it's me, but I feel like this one, you can't spin any other way but the right being sacum bags. The kid was with Senate Democrats, not in the lion's den per se, and he spoke far more eloquently and movingly than most kids would or could. Sadly, he had reason to speak that eloquently and movingly. http://mediamatters.org/research/201003160023 You want reason to vilify the right, this does the job in spades.

I couldn't watch the video from the link given, so I looked it up on youtube and found it. At the end of the clip it fades to black with the following message, "Paid for and authorized by the Ohio Democratic Party, not authorized by any federal candidate or campaign committee. Chris Redfern, Chairman, 340 East Fulton St, Columbus, Ohio 43215". I searched with the keywords "parkinsons Columbus Dispatch" (no quotes).

Having said that, who cares if it was staged or not? At the least, it dramatizes what today's "compassionate conservatism" is all about - a concept that died a long time ago with Ronald Reagan.

This whole "staged" debate that Slappy has started strikes me as just stupid.

Let's assume the guy doesn't have parkinson's, let's assume that he planted a camera in the crowd, let's allow any other assumptions that seem to cause slappy such trepidation.

Now, do any of those assumptions have an impact on the behavior of those two humps? Is their shouting and mocking a person because they believe he is sick and doesn't have health care any less "real" because of those assumptions?

I don't think some of you realize how powerful this video is, probably because you have had debates with people who think like these two crackers and you know the score.
But for a lot of people, this will be their first real taste of the venom that is spewing from the other side, and any reasonable person can realize that it isn't about the guy sitting on the ground, it is about the clearly expressed hate these people have for anyone or anything that they think might take their toys away. It is the 5 year old's political philosophy of blind self-interest, and it's ugliness will be obvious no matter how they try to twist this - you can't explain away that response.

You know, I can not help but wonder if these healthy men in the suits and ties claim that they are Christians...bet they do. Bet they tell everyone how they go to church every Sunday and pay their tithes. Bet if Christ was standing there amongst them he would be oh so proud of them and how well they understood the story of the Good Samaritan and how well they love their neighbor as they love themselves. Gotta wonder if Jesus was there if he would jeer and throw paper at a Parkinson's sufferer. I wonder if Jesus thinks he deserves health care. Wonder if any of them really give a rat's ass.

The broader message from the mocking folks in Columbus was what wasn't said.When good people remain silent tyrants reign.Not one god fearing christian step forward to stop the brutish behavior.Perhaps the vicarious pleasure was stronger then principles.True charity and compassion doesn't seek praise or validation.As I viewed the video the idea that You're on the wrong side of town implied strongly the man failed a purity or conformity test.The taunting images were similar to god fearing citizens cheering a lynching.
To the leaders and spokes persons of the baggers clean up your acts.

Conservatives are quite simply horrible human beings - they are the worst people on the planet. We should never, ever let these savages run our nation again.