Citizens Gather for "End the Fed" Event in Downtown Cincinnati (Video Report)

This is cross posted here.

Hundreds of Tea-Party Members Gather Downtown to Oppose Health Care Reform Legislation

On Saturday afternoon, hundreds of people gathered outside the Carew Tower building carrying signs and chanting the phrase "We Surround Them" in order to voice their opposition to the health care reform legislation that is currently before both houses of Congress.

This event was organized by members of the Fairfield-based Cincinnati Tea Party as well as the Cincinnati 9/12 Project. While the march around Carew Tower was meant to send a message to Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) of Ohio's first district (whose office is inside Carew Tower), there were many people in attendance who were not constitutes of Driehaus. One protester was commenting on how she drove from Liberty Township to attend the event while others commented that they lived outside of Driehaus' district.

This event was the culmination of a week of protests that were staged at various exit ramps off of I-275, where members would hand out leaflets and other information on health care reform. I-275 was a symbolic choice as the highway literally "surrounds" the city of Cincinnati and the message of "We Surround Them" has been a central theme in Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project.

After the march, the protesters gathered on Fountain Square to hear speakers, recite the Pledge of Allegiance and listen to Lee Greenwood's patriotic anthem "God Bless the USA".

Chris Littleton, Director of the Cincinnati Tea Party, was the first to speak and he drove home the point that the while the Tea Party movement "has no problem" with health care reform, they believe that government intervention in the health care system will lead this country down a "slippery-slope" toward a single payer system and eventually, wealth redistribution. Littleton made the statement that the current health care system is broken due to the government's attempts at regulations and challenged the crowd to name something good that the government has done in the past 100 years.

Littleton chided the creation of the Department of Energy as well as the Department of Education mockingly saying "...that has really worked out well hasn't it?" Littleton did not cite any specific statistics to explain why he believed that these Departments were a problem, but the crowd seemed to agree as a chorus of boo's came in response to the mention of the Department of Education. It was also unclear as to what Littleton meant when he stated that former President Carter created the Department of Energy to stop "our dependence on energy".

Founder of the Cincinnati Tea Party, Mike Wilson, then took to the stage to exclaim that he didn't really want to be at the rally since it was the homecoming game for the Cincinnati Bearcats, but that he felt it was important to make the time for this cause. Wilson, criticized the mainstream media for ignoring stories like that of the undercover operation that recently took place by two Conservative activists who sought advice from ACORN employees while dressing and posing as a pimp and a prostitute. It is unclear which media outlets Wilson feels have ignored the story as a quick Google search shows a wide-range of coverage on this topic.

Cheers erupted from the crowd as Wilson asked if anyone listens to Glenn Beck. Wilson claimed that Beck is one of those in the media who are bringing important stories to light. Wilson cited the resignation of Van Jones from the Obama Administration as an accomplishment to Glenn Beck and stated that the White House is so afraid of Fox News and talk radio because they are always "scooping" outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post. Wilson also spoke of Glenn Beck's latest target within the Obama Administration, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn. Wilson stated, as Beck has done, that Dunn said that two political philosophers that she turns to the most are Mother Theresa and Mao-Tse-Tung...apparently further "evidence" of socialism/communism in the Obama White House.

It is important to note that, Crooks and Liars has shown how Beck edited Dunn's quote to serve his purpose. Here is the Dunn quote that Beck ran:

"[T]wo of my favorite political philosophers, Mao Tse-Tung and Mother Teresa, not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most ..."

and here is the full quote:

"The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse-tung and Mother Theresa -- not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is 'you're going to make choices; you're going to challenge; you're going to say why not; you're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before."

This distortion was not addressed by Wilson, nor was the fact that Beck has lost dozens of advertisers on his program ever since he labeled President Obama as a "racist". What was addressed was how Wilson feels that the government is unfairly infringing in the lives of Americans and how health care reform is just another way that the government will be telling people what to do. Wilson's example of how government is currently overstepping its boundaries was how the school that his son attends apparently prevented his son from eating sugar-free pudding that Wilson had packed for him because it wasn't in one of the food groups that is approved of by the Department of Agriculture. "You know what? It's my life!" shouted Wilson.

The final speaker at the event was former Congressman Steve Chabot (R-OH) who will be running against Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) to try and earn back his seat in Congress that Driehaus took from him in 2008. Chabot compared the Presidency of Barack Obama to that of the runaway balloon that received lots of coverage a few weeks ago: "Lofty and shiny at first, but found to be nothing but hot air and empty after crashing to the ground."

Chabot claimed that politicians and "their special interest friends" are trying to push through government health care that would "increase health insurance costs" and "increase the deficit". There was no mention of the score that the Congressional Budget Office gave the legislation put forth by the Senate Finance Committee which states that this particular bill will actually reduce the deficit by $81 billion over a 10 year period.

Chabot went on to claim that the Tea Party movement is important because they "are helping to educate your fellow Americans about the truth about what is actually taking place in Washington."

"The Washington establishment and their allies in the mainstream press said that you were just the Fox-watching political fringe, a temporary bump in the road. Well, they know better now," Chabot exclaimed. Chabot embraced the Tea Party movement and the 9/12 Project by associating himself with the movement, often using the term "we" and "us" in describing "Republicans or Conservatives or tea-partiers or 9/12'ers or whatever you want to call us..."

Chabot concluded by stating that the country will be "taken back" by Conservatives and Republicans. "No moderates!" shouted a woman from the crowd as Chabot insisted that the "left-wing agenda" of the last year can "do a lot of damage" and will be "hard to reverse" in the future. Chabot told tea-party founder Mike Wilson that he hopes to work with him once he is back in Congress and once Wilson gets elected to the Statehouse (which Wilson is running for to "fight back against the Federal Government").

There was much criticism of of Rep. Steve Driehaus by former Congressman Chabot due to Driehaus not agreeing to speak at this event. "It's unfortunate that Steve Driehaus chose not to show up today to listen to your concerns," Chabot stated, "and finally tell us where he stands on the important health care issue. Although he has been particularly cagey in letting his constitutes, you, know where he stands, he did find time to let Howard Dean know that he supports the so-called public option plan."

Though Driehaus did not speak at this event, it is important to note that it is not completely accurate to imply that Driehaus has been hiding from the public or failing to let people know where he stands on issues of health care. Rep. Driehaus has held multiple town hall meetings on the topic of health care, during which he was repeatedly shouted down and booed by members of the same organizations that sponsored this rally on Fountain Square. You can view footage of these town hall meetings at links here, here, here, and here.

The Fountain Square event concluded with the singing of "God Bless America" as well as a call for donations to help pay for the event on the square by members of the Tea Party organization. "It's on my credit card right now," joked Director Chris Littleton, "and that gets really scary for me."

Below is some video that I took at the event so that you can see what took place and discuss the topic further:




This piece is cross posted here.

Local Activists March in Favor of Health Care Reform

This past Sunday, close to 100 local activists and concerned citizens gathered on the corner of 5th and Walnut streets in Downtown Cincinnati to march in support of health care reform. Members associated with Organizing for America, the AFL-CIO, Cincinnati Progressive Action, and the local branch of the International Socialist Organization all helped to promote this event and their messages ranged from supporting President Obama's call for a public option to calls for pressing members of Congress to have a dialogue about the adoption of a single-payer health care system.

Activists began gathering a little before 11:30am on a chilly Sunday morning, carrying homemade signs and wearing clothing that expressed their support for health care reform. As organizers began to pass out materials and leaflets, about a dozen anti-health care reform activists (some wearing shirts indicating their membership in the Cincinnati Chapters of the Tea Party and 9/12 Project Organizations) made their presence known. They carried signs implying that President Obama is ushering Socialism and Marxism and voiced many of the same concerns that have been heard at the various town hall meetings that I and many others covered throughout the country this past August.

Unlike some of the town hall meetings, those who are not in favor of health care reform were outnumbered by those in favor of fundamentally amending the health care system. Local candidates for Cincinnati City Council Nicholas Hollan, Anitra Brockman and Greg Harris were also in attendance to show their support for health care reform and as you will see in the video that I have provided below, all three spoke at the event.

The march lasted for about an hour, snaking through the streets of Cincinnati and through the hoards of people who were making their way down to Paul Brown Stadium to attend the Cincinnati Bengals game. I even heard a few cries of "Who Dey for Health Care" as I covered the event.

Below is some video footage of the march including the speeches by Nicholas Hollan, Anitra Brockman, Greg Harris and organizer Nathan Lane:




This piece is cross posted here.

Stop Slandering us You Health Care Reforming Nazis!

If anyone wonders why local groups from around the country, including the Cincinnati Tea Party and Cincinnati 9/12 Project, continue to compare President Obama to Hitler and the current Administration to Nazis, then look no further:



Don't you like how Beck says that he isn't saying that eugenics is going to happen? I guess he changed his mind from back in May:

He's saying you can either let the delivery system do it, in other words, the healthcare system can just say, yeah, you're not going to get that. You're too old. You're a drain on society. I'm sorry, no kidney dialysis for people over 70. What is it in the UK?

60. Some the things they cut off once you outlived your usefulness.

This is Nazi Germany stuff.

This is the kind of stuff that is progressive in its nature. It is eugenics. It is survival of the fittist.

Regardless, the rest of his rant is filled with how similar these times are to the time during the rise of the Nazis. Rep. Tom Pence just wrote a piece that was posted over at Human Events in which he decried the criticism of those who oppose health care reform:

The notion that Americans may not want the federal government making health care decisions on their behalf appears to be truly beyond the comprehension of Democrats in Congress and the White House. So they have responded by slandering honest folks looking to have their voices heard.

The arrogance which the Democrats have displayed by name-calling and discrediting these people reveals their insolence and hypocrisy.

It appears that community organizing and grassroots are terms reserved solely for liberal activism. A number of taxpayer and patients rights groups post the location of town halls on the internet, and Democrats in charge act as though it is an abomination to democracy. Yet when then Senator Obama throws together an operation of a million liberal activists, so organic they created an iPhone app for it, that’s just good old fashioned political organizing. Right!

"Slandering honest folks"...who keep comparing Democrats to Nazis in order to argue against health care. Who is slandering who here?

For me, it is not an issue of opposing the "First Amendment Rights" of Conservatives to organize, voice their opposition, or even be part of grassroots or astroturf organizations to oppose the legislation. What I take issue with is the complete disregard for civil debate and the encouragement to purposefully "shout down" people at town hall meetings that feel differently than they do. What I take issue with, is perpetuating complete falsehoods that have been circulated about health care reform and then, based on these falsehoods, start to label people as "downright evil" and "Nazis" when they question the truth of said claims.

The criticism of opponents of health care reform doesn't have anything to do with suppressing the viewpoints of opponents of this legislation. The criticism of opponents of health care reform has everything to do with trying to maintain a healthy debate that is rooted in fact and refrains from labeling people as the equivalent of Hitler because they may support reforms to the health care system.

Cincinnati Tea Party Organization Posts Letter Comparing White House Actions to Hitler

Last week Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh began comparing President Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic Party to both Adolph Hitler and Nazis. Here are a few clips that were compiled by Media Matters:





While Limbaugh is one of the latest national media hosts who has advanced these claims, Fox News host Glenn Beck began doing things like this, months ago:



Of course, Beck is the brain-child behind the "9/12 Project" where he encourages citizens to embrace his 9 principles and 12 virtues which include:

1. America Is Good.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

Ever since, Beck's "9/12 Project" has spawned chapters all over the country (including in Cincinnati) who have been active in their participation with local chapters of the Tea-Party movement and who have recently been in attendance at local health care forums.

So is it any surprise that members of the Cincinnati 9/12 Project are now adopting the same comparisons to Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany that we are seeing from people like Limbaugh and Beck? Here is a clip from a recent post of a letter by Pete Wolf from the blog over at the Cincinnati 9/12 Project (emphasis mine):

Dear Fellow Citizens,

I appeal to you to express outrage to your elected officials regarding the latest affronts to our freedoms by the White House. Based on my reading of history and my own family’s experiences, these latest White House initiatives resemble those used by totalitarian states. I am very familiar with these tactics since I immigrated to this great country of ours, have parents who survived the Hitler years in Germany, and have relatives who resisted Communism in East Germany. I am personally outraged by the following:

• INTIMIDATION - The Democratic National Committee, in undoubtedly close collaboration with the White House, released a web video on Wednesday titled “Enough of the Mob” in which they refer to constituents in community forums as “mobs” and “right-wing extremists”. This labeling, at best, appears to be an attempt to intimidate average citizens from expressing their views. At worst, it could be an attempt to define and isolate the White House’s opposition for subsequent actions by either the government or its supporters. Hitler started his assault on Jews with labeling and disparaging propaganda!

The Cincinnati Tea Party enjoyed this entry so much, that they reposted it on their own blog.

This implication, that the opponents to Obama's health care plan are being labeled and targeted for "subsequent actions" from the government much like Hitler did to the Jews, is the same type of hyperbolic rhetoric that has led to the following condemnations:

Cliff May of the National Review:

It is wrong, outrageous and damaging for Rush Limbaugh to compare Obama to Hitler. . . . Such hyperbole only serves to confuse and trivialize issues much more grave than tax rates and health-care plans.

The American Jewish Congress:

The Limbaugh comments comparing Obama ( and Pelosi )to Hitler and the Nazis are grossly offensive and intolerable. They reflect a nasty and hyperbolic tendency on our political culture, one which makes reasoned discourse impossible, confuses disagreement with evil, and which makes it impossible to distinguish evil from ordinary politics. . . . It behooves all participants in the political process to unequivocally disavow the comparison and to make it plain that peddlers of such noxious comparison have no place in our politics, no matter how large their audiences. And all Americans should make plain their disgust at the comparisons by talk show hosts by a prompt use of the off button.

The Anti-Defamation League:

"Regardless of the political differences and the substantive differences in the debate over health care, the use of Nazi symbolism is outrageous, offensive and inappropriate," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor. "Americans should be able to disagree on the issues without coloring it with Nazi imagery and comparisons to Hitler. This is not where the debate should be at all."

[...]

"Comparisons to the Nazis are deeply offensive and only serve to diminish and trivialize the extent of the Nazi regime's crimes against humanity and the murder of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust," said Mr. Foxman. "I don't see any comparison here. It's off-center, off-issue and completely inappropriate."

It is troubling to see local organizations fall into the same patterns that have been condemned nationally, so I hope to allow Karen Best of the Cincinnati 9/12 Project and Mike Wilson of the Cincinnati Tea Party organization to weigh in on why this type of language is posted on the blogs of their organizations and give them an opportunity to address these comparisons. Thus, I have sent the following email to each of them:

Good afternoon,

As you are aware, much media coverage has been given to the town hall meetings at which there has been vocal opposition to the proposed health care legislation. Nationally, figures such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have compared President Obama and Democrats to Adolph Hitler and Nazis which has sparked condemnations from Conservatives, Liberals, and organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League.

Recently, both on the blog for the Cincinnati 9/12 Project and re-posted on the Cincinnati Tea Party blog, was a letter from Pete Wolf which, in part, states the following (emphasis mine):

"•INTIMIDATION - The Democratic National Committee, in undoubtedly close collaboration with the White House, released a web video on Wednesday titled “Enough of the Mob” in which they refer to constituents in community forums as “mobs” and “right-wing extremists”. This labeling, at best, appears to be an attempt to intimidate average citizens from expressing their views. At worst, it could be an attempt to define and isolate the White House’s opposition for subsequent actions by either the government or its supporters. Hitler started his assault on Jews with labeling and disparaging propaganda!"

This comparison and implication (that opponents of the Obama health care plan may be targeted like Hitler targeted the Jews) is a continuation of this rhetoric that has been nationally condemned.

I have highlighted these blog entries in a recent post at the Cincinnati Beacon and have also included the text of this email with the anticipation of posting your response.

I am interested in your reaction to this kind of rhetoric and the injection of these comparisons into the dialogue on this issue. Do you condemn comparisons of President Obama to Adolph Hitler and other Democrats to Nazis or do you feel that these comparisons are constructive ways to voice opposition to these political policies? If you find the material objectionable, will it be removed from your websites?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Chris Johnson

If I receive any responses, I will post them here.


This piece is crossposted here.