Poll Majority: “Don’t Touch Social Security or Medicare!”

Powerful interest groups have spent billions of dollars bribing Congress and trying to brainwash the public. “We need to fix [i.e. privatize] these entitlement programs or the country will COLLAPSE!”

Bribing Congress — Check. Mission Accomplished. It’s hard to find a legislator who isn’t completely bought and paid for.

Brainwashing the public — not so much. According to an AP-GfK poll, 60% of Americans say Social Security and Medicare are vital to the safety net; and we can balance the budget without cutting either of those programs.

One poll respondent nailed it with:

“I'm pretty confident Medicare will be there, because there would be a rebellion among voters. Republicans only got a hint of that this year. They got burned. They touched the hot stove.”

Between this survey and the backlash at Republican town hall meetings, conservative politicians are getting the message and making the necessary changes:

Realizing that their taxpaying constituents have spoken, Republicans have decided not to derail Medicare after all

We need to crack down on those raucous town hall meetings and stop these embarrassing YouTube videos. Republican politicians have turned into a laughingstock, being shown all over the Internet squirming and twitching in front of their enraged constituents. Solution: Ban all recording devices at town hall meetings.

And if a few lowly senior citizens try to gather outside of a teabagger meeting, call the police on them.

Problem solved.

Congressmen Cowering and Withering at “Wild” Town Hall Meetings

This was supposed to be the ideal job: Congressman. It comes with a six-figure salary; probably closer to seven figures when you add in all the perks and benefits. And you get to spend most of your time bending over for getting wined and dined by your biggest corporate donors at yacht clubs and exotic resorts. And don’t forget all those important fact-finding trips to Monte Carlo, Paris, Rome…

And it’s all FREE. You get to scream and rant all you want about “balancing the budget,” “socialism!” and “welfare,” while your own million dollar lifestyle is financed by taxpayers.

But sometimes, when you poke your head out of your limousine or your gated community, you get confronted by those lowly rubes who are paying your salary. Hey, this wasn’t part of the deal! Help! Security!!

I don’t have to listen to these peons. Write me a seven-figure check for my re-election campaign or shut the fuck up!

When Congressmen are visiting their home districts and going to town hall-style meetings, they’re more and more likely to be greeted by protesters and screaming constituents. At several town hall meetings, police were called to restore order. And at least one representative is going to discontinue these meetings because of all the chaos.

Either man up and face the music, or get the fuck out of there and go look for a real job. “Job skills? Uh, I can bend over real good when my customer tells me to.”

I thought I’d read somewhere long ago that democracy was supposed to be messy, disorderly, chaotic, unpredictable. Did these assholes think they could spend their whole lives sheltered away in plush meeting rooms and country clubs and never hear any negative feedback from the masses?

Most of the incidents in this article are Democratic Congressmen being confronted by teabaggers and other rightwing Astroturf puppets. Be that as it may, liberals are just as free to demonstrate and confront, assuming Republican politicians are having these town hall meetings too.

Either take the heat or get the fuck out of the kitchen.

cross-posted at Bring It On!