There is a well orgnized corporate funded attack on Democratic Congresspeople’s efforts to meet with their constituents in ‘town
hall’ meetings – including shouting down citizens who ask questions the
Republican fascists don’t support. It is supported at the top levels of Republican leadership.  At least one Congressman has had to be
escorted from the meetings by police to ensure his physical safety.  There are reports that people are bused in from elsewhere to disrupt the meetings and intimidate locals.  It is an
attempt at intimidating anyone who does not agree with them and their corporate
masters.  Much more below the fold.

This has happened before.  In 2000 the Republican Party sent mobs of demonstrators from out if state to disrupt vote counting in Florida.  The ‘concerned citizens’ turned out to be Republican operatives from out of state.There are strong similarities today with what is happening.

The organized shouting down Congresspeople and citizens
needs only one response – jail time for the organizers and most aggressive of
the ‘demonstrators.’  Shouting out
a question is one thing, shouting down any effort to answer it or an attempt by
others to ask questions is quite another. 
This is a serious attack on democracy that will inevitably end in
violence.  It needs to be squashed
immediately.

Rachel Maddow  has an excellent report on this threat to our
country by corporate funded thugs.

The thugs might answer that they are just exercising
their freedom of speech. 
Nonsense.  They are
preventing decent Americans from hearing genuine back and forth in meeting with
their Congresspeople.  They are
preventing others from speaking and intruding on meetings with only one goal-
to disrupt them.  Documents to that
effect have been discovered.  They
are using tactics developed and perfected by Nazi, Fascist, and Communist
thugs, tactics designed to destroy what remains of democracy in the United
States.

Turns out former Republican leader Dick Armey and his
lobbying firm, bouyed by lots of corporate cash provided by the insurance
industry are among the forces behind this.  Armey
should be sued by people who went to these meetings to hear their
representative answer questions from his constituents.  Then he should be jailed.

This situation reminds me more of the decline of the Weimar Republic than  of America.

UPDATE

Due to the wonders of the net, and the alertness of some of Balloon Juice’s readers, here are several links to articles on how Republican operatives were bused into Florida to disrupt the vote counting, thereby helping make Bush II president.

A Salon article “Miami’s rent-a-riot“

Robert Parry’s “Bush’s Conspiracy to Riot”

Time Magazine (Europe) “Mob Scene in Miami” (cover story)

These cases are important because it demonstrates how the right-wing of the Republican Party has utter contempt for democracy and the American people, and are in essence a criminal organization devoted to winning at all costs and by any means necessary.  

AND here is an account of how a meeting went smoothly despite the attempts by thugs to disrupt.  Police presence was a necessary part of what they did.