Just some thoughts and ideas going around in my head while trying to figure out where I am and where everyone else is going.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Fun at the Town Hall Meeting

I think that if you are looking for drama, suspense and maybe even a little action, you can’t go wrong by heading to your local town hall meeting where a congressman or senator will be discussing the virtues and or evils, depending on your political persuasion, of health care reform this summer.


Now I’m not talking about the type of telephone town hall meeting that Bob Andrews, congressman for the district I live in is having where everyone is picked in advance and the questions are screened and the answers are formulated well in advance of the entire thing. I'm talking about the kind of town meeting that Arlen Specter, senior senator for PA does. The ones where old white people come orchestrated with their white paper in hand and their carefully scripted questions ready to shout and scream that there will be a special place in Hell for the President and all the socialist, elite, Kenyan lackeys that follow him.

Of course Sen. Specter’s meetings might not be a good example since I think he may be experiencing a backlash for changing his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and, in the eyes of some, may be seen as a traitor to their cause. But there are other politicians that have experienced that same kind of virulent outburst that will bring a member of the House almost to tears as they try to explain that the government has no intention of creating a single payer health care system. They will shake at the knees and look peevishly at security as they tell their constituents that the government will not create death panels in order to kill off old people and save money. Naturally this kind of town hall meeting doesn’t happen when the President is having one himself. I would think that the secret service would put an end to that kind of behavior even before they took the offenders outside and beat them to a pulp.

However, I’m starting to wonder if these protest meetings are really about stopping health care reform or more about having President Obama, as that one congressman said, face his Waterloo. When people are showing up at meetings with posters ridiculing a man who has been in office less than a year and comparing him to Hitler or the Joker, I have to wonder if the disruptions are really about saving the welfare of the nation and its citizens, or about correcting a perceived mistake that was done at the last election? Is this the meaning of what being post-racial is all about?

Regardless, last year I thought that it was the most thrilling political year that I had ever experienced. This year, tops last year in spades and it’s just August. I wonder what will happen next year. Will the revolution be televised this time?

11 comments:

  1. THE WAY THESE ACT @ THESE MEETING JUST MAKES ME SCRATCH MY HEAD...

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  2. TGK - It's really weird how people that you would expect to be civil and respectful to one another can turn into an evil mob when they get together.

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  3. It's a new era with a new cause...just as Roe vs. Wade or The Little Rock 9...
    People come out in masses and don't really understand the bill, or even understand why they come out to fight something they only heard about in the barber shop chair...

    It's also about having a black man in office...I think the cold water has hit their faces and now they are like...WTF, where was I when we were electing this president...

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  4. BBB - All of your points are valid but I think the last one is probably the most legitimate. Now I'm not big on conspiracy theories but I do think that most of these people could not possibly be not interested in health care reform but more interested in getting the black man out of office not because of his race and not because of his policies.

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  5. I hear that the Main Event takes place at Town Hall Meetings; no need to pay big money to see the fights hell all you need is a location, an attitude and bring up the issue of Health Care the President's Plan.

    Death Panels? it appears that more people are for it than against it, especially the younger voters... watchout old folk and terminally ill.

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  6. many of these people that are coming out to these town hall meetings know nothing about the health care reform. all they care about is that it is a black man idea and since they couldnt stop him from being elected president they will shut down any ideas that he comes up with. its like those who said that the clunkers program was a bad idea and putting the nation in debt after it was reported that the economy was doing better and people are going out and buying new cars because of it. its a lose lose situation either way you put it.

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  7. the ones here in georgia has been crazy. alot of the stuff that goes on they have not shown on tv but it gets bad

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  8. Yea - you've gotta wonder what the real motives of these outbursts are.

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  9. Chet - Yes HBO Saturday night fights have nothing on what seems to be going on at these meetings. But as long as the reform bill is going to be reported as us against them and not something that we all can gain from, then this behavior will only continue.


    xxxx - That's the funny thing about this. When you listen to many of the people shouting and hollering, you realize many of them haven't got a clue about what they are talking about.


    Darren - Yes, I don't see how anyone can be against health care or not realize how it and it's costs have changed over the last few years. This behavior must be a revolt against something else.

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  10. Thanks for the insight. No I know that thre are crazy people in the suburbs.

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