Let Them Eat Cake.

[Barack_America]

No, really. We should feed the astroturfers cake.

We just celebrated Medicare's 44th birthday.

Many of the town hall participants who are "opposed to government run health insurance of any kind" are Medicare recipients, though most seem to be unaware that Medicare is a government-run, public health insurance option.

Like a broken record, when Medicare was being debated the GOP railed against it as a certain step towards inevitable socialism.

Speaking of records, anyone remember Reagan's promotional LP raging against "socialist" Medicare, bought and paid for by the American Medical Association?



Write those letters now; call your friends and them to write them. If you don’t, this program I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow, and behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country. Until, one day, as Normal Thomas said we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don’t do this and if I don’t do it, one of these days we are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.--Reagan, 1961

Well, Medicare passed, our seniors have health insurance, and we're still not socialists.

So, instead of fighting fire with fire, why not fight it with some sheet cake, balloons and the hyperbole of their beloved Raygun?


http://www.firedupmissouri.com/category/topics/medicare

Medicare birthday parties at health care town halls, that's the way to go, imo.

[MineralMan]

1. Yup. But did Raygun work to end Medicare when he was

President? I guess not. Wonder why that was...

[Barack_America]

3. Exactly. Because people like it and depend on it...

...against the blood-sucking insurance companies.

On my imaginary cake table I would have the cake, Reagan's printed words decrying Medicare, and the going rates of some private insurance plans for people around 60 years of age.

[juno jones]

2. Good idea!

Anonymous protests always feature caek and fun is had by all.

Medicare birthday party; great counter protest and educational moment!

[Barack_America]

4. And if they start shouting at someone who is merely offering them cake...

...What a youtube moment that would make.

[juno jones]

13. Yep.

It's exactly the sort of thing that has made Anonymous symathetic figures in their protests of scientology. They can be quite salty online, but their protests have been peaceful and humorous.

[csziggy]

5. Raygun used the same arguments against Medicare as are being used now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs

You'd think they could come up with some new issues!

[Barack_America]

6. That's the point. The same arguments, the same corporate sponsors...

...the same bullshit trying to stop a program that will actually help Americans.

Medicare passed and we're not commies...the same will be true of a health plan with a public option.

[csziggy]

8. And here is the part many do not remember - or chose not to remember

I only know because my sister started to college in St. Pete Florida in 1964 and I went for a year there in 1970-71. St. Pete, then as now, was mostly an elderly community. But in those days before Medicare and as it was getting started a lot of the old people had little or no health care. Old people on average were a lot sicker then and if they did get care, it took too much out of their meager retirement incomes to allow them to keep up with expenses.

I'd see old people who could not pay their bus fare to go buy groceries, who bought cat food for protein, who lived in the Florida version of tenements to make ends meet. It was not unusual to see a feeble elderly old lady tottering down the street, trying to carry a bag with a few cans of cat food and a few vegetables.

At least the bus system in St. Pete was adequate so those who could afford the fare could get around the town. And they had good parks with lots of trees so in the summer the olders who could not afford air conditioning had places they could go for a bit of relief.

But it was a sad place to be.

[Lagomorph]

7. Because they're all diabetic.

And we'd have to pay for that, too.

[gkhouston]

9. Oh, but you know what *that* would lead to...

FOOD FIGHT!!!!

Actually, it's a good idea and it would entertaining to watch their confusion, if nothing else.

[TokenQueer]

10. I like it.

Methods like these upend the opposition and catch them off guard.

:thumbsup:

[Barack_America]

11. Thanks!

:hi:

[FatDave]

12. The cake is a lie.

Somebody had to say it. It's an internet rule.