"President Obama will take full responsibility for what happens here. You heard his voice in Virginia. This is a -- I mean, he's fanning the flames of a mob. He's not a president trying to bring some sort of sensibility and order to a public debate."

According to a Fox News report, White House officials yesterday promised skittish Democratic Senators preparing to go back home to face their angry constituents that the Democratic Party and its “allies” (read labor unions, AARP and big business interests in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries) would “respond with twice the force if any individual lawmaker is criticized in television advertising.”

Hysterical comments from other top Democratic Leaders yesterday gave the distinct impression of politicians becoming unhinged in the face of serious criticism and resistance from the American people over Washington’s plans for health legislation. White House talking points being regurgitated by Democrats across the country accuse ObamaCare critics of engaging in and sanctioning “mob tactics.” ObamaCare supporters have even pulled out of mothballs the favorite epitaph used by Soviet officials to demonize critics of the Soviet regime—“hooligans.”

Contrary to all logic and empirical evidence—the clear indication of a propaganda machine in full spin mode—the White House accuses grass roots organizations such as Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks of being corporate stooges when in fact it is the White House and congressional Democrats that are cozying up to big corporate interests, including the pharmaceutical industry, insurance companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. All of the big corporate money is being spent to convince the American people to support some version of national healthcare, not defeat it. For example, Harry and Louise are back on the air, still being paid for by the insurance industry but now supporting legislation that would put healthcare under the control of the federal government and its agents.

But logic and reason don’t count for much when politicians have the fear of God thrown into them by angry constituents. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada went so far as to accuse protesters at town hall meetings of trying to “sabotage the democratic process.” “Democracy” in Senator Reid’s book, it appears, consists of voting every two years and keeping your mouth shut in between.

If citizens protest what their Representatives and Senators are up to, they get stigmatized as “hooligans.” The White House has even asked its supporters to be on the lookout for “fishy” statements about ObamaCare and to submit them to a White House watch list at Flag@WhiteHouse.gov.

Late last night reports also began to leak out that Democratic dirty-tricks operatives in districts where emotions are running the highest are actively using black-op tactics to provoke incidents in which protestors clash with police and other officials, which would provide ObamaCare supporters under the most pressure a pretext for cancelling all town hall meetings in the name of pubic safety and security.

So, the White House counterattack has begun. Critics of ObamaCare are about to experience first hand what happens when the Neighborhood-Organizer-in-Chief has at his disposal the full propaganda apparatus and police machinery of big government.

From the email traffic circulating among the many grass-roots activists it is apparent that Saul Alinsky’s classic manual Rules for Radicals is enjoying a revival. Anti-big-government activists also would be well advised to re-read their Mahatma Gandhi. This battle is just beginning, and the power elite will pull out all the stops to win it. It will require cool heads, stout hearts, courage and perspicacity to stand down the continuing big-government takeover of America.

Very soon another generation is going to learn the lessons that previous generations learned when they did what needed to be done to win freedom from overbearing government acting immorally and illegally with the threat of violence under the color of law:

“Get your hand on the freedom plow . . .

Don’t take nothing for your journey now

Keep your eyes on the prize . . . hold on!”

Dr. Lawrence A. Hunter is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Policy Innovation and Chief Economist for the Free Enterprise Fund. [1] He was previously Chief Economist at Empower America and FreedomWorks. [2]

Hunter "works closely with the Congressional leadership, testifies before Congress, speaks frequently before business and citizens groups, is quoted often in major newspapers and makes frequent television and radio appearances." [3]

Hunter "served as a member of Presidential candidate Bob Dole's Task Force on Tax Reduction and Tax Reform. During the 103rd and 104th Congresses, Dr. Hunter served on the staff of the Joint Economic Committee, first as Republican Staff Director and later as the Chief Economic Advisor to the Vice Chairman where he was the lead staff person in charge of putting together the economic growth and tax cut component of the Contract With America." [4]

Hunter was with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce "for five years where he served first as Deputy Chief Economist and later as Chief Economist and Vice President" prior to joining the Joint Economic Committee staff in 1993. [5]

Obama’s chief of staff said that one of several ways to meet President Barack Obama's goals is to adopt a mechanism under which a public plan is put into effect only if the marketplace fails to provide sufficient competition on its own.

This is precisely the trigger mechanism Republicans used when they created a prescription-drug benefit for Medicare in 2003. Any part of such a deal between the federal government and big insurance companies, of course, would have to entail a guarantee that the insurance companies be sheltered from paying the costs of the plan by shifting them onto healthcare consumers.

And guess who will pay? SENIORS FIRST. That is why it was no coincidence that the $155 billion “cost-saving” deal Obama struck with hospitals entails a decade’s worth of reductions to Medicare and charity-care payments for hospitals.

So there you have it: A stealth government takeover of big insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and even private employers along with more cuts to Medicare. When the government and private industry go into partnership, it is invariably the people who get kneecapped. The fascist healthcare system being teed up in Washington will be no exception.