Good for the goose

Heh... When the TEA parties and town hall meetings started getting noticed by the nattering nabobs in Washington, the liberals got organized and started busing in members of ACORN and the SEIU to the meetings to counter-protest. They are following a strict rulebook (and here) codified by Saul Alinsky. Fortunately, the liberal people attending these events aren't the sharpest tools in the bunch and they only repeat what they are told by their puppet masters. Using this rigidity, it is easy to deflect and confuse them. Fortunately, I ran into this website: Derailing for Dummies From the introduction:

You know how it is. You�re enjoying yourself, kicking back and relaxing at the pub or maybe at the library; or maybe you�re in class or just casually surfing the internet, indulging in a little conversation. The topic of the conversation is about a pertinent contemporary issue, probably something to do with a group of people who fall outside your realm of experience and identity. They�re also probably fairly heavily discriminated against - or so they claim. The thing is, you�re having a good time, sharing your knowledge about these people and their issues. This knowledge is incontrovertible - it�s been backed up in media representation, books, research and lots and lots of historical events, also your own unassailable sense of being right.

Yet all of a sudden something happens to put a dampener on your sharing of your enviable intellect and incomparable capacity to fully perceive and understand All Things. It�s someone who belongs to the group of people you�re discussing and they�re Not Very Happy with you. Apparently, they claim, you�ve got it all wrong and they�re offended about that. They might be a person of colour, or a queer person. Maybe they�re a woman, or a person with disability. They could even be a trans person or a sex worker. The point is they�re trying to tell you they know better than you about their issues and you know that�s just plain wrong. How could you be wrong?

Don�t worry though! There IS something you can do to nip this potentially awkward and embarrassing situation in the bud. By simply derailing the conversation, dismissing their opinion as false and ridiculing their experience you can be sure that they continue to be marginalised and unheard and you can continue to look like the expert you know you really are, deep down inside!

Heh. Like playing whack-a-mole... As for the "activists" and members of ACORN and SEIU being bussed in to counter the grass-roots protests, it is real and it is happening all over the USA. From the L.A. Times:

Wanted: Obama healthcare reform volunteers willing to be paid $15 an hour
It seems that, despite all the media attention lavished on e-mail appeals to his supporters, not everyone pushing for President Obama's embattled healthcare reform plan these warm August days is an idealistic volunteer in it for the sake of helping move the country forward and gaining medical attention for millions of uninsured Americans.

The website's large-type headline announces: "Work to Pass Obama's Healthcare Plan and Get Paid to Do it! $10-15 hr!"

It is happening in Sacramento and Pennsylvania, New Hampshire. Here is a 30 second clip of two schoolbusses filled with ACORN redshirts leaving the Pennsylvania rally: The liberals accuse the conservatives of being run by high-paid operatives and being a mob. Pot -- meet kettle...