George Rebane
Tonight Jo Ann and I joined a lot of neighbors from these parts in the Grass Valley Veterans Hall to meet with our Representative Tom McClintock in the town hall format that is now sweeping the country. On this warm summer evening more than 1,500 people showed up, many with signs of all persuasions, and all with spirit and enthusiasm for the event. The whole meeting was well organized by members of the Nevada County Tea Party Patriots and McClintock’s congressional district staff.
It seemed like everyone arrived about an hour early for the 6pm start time in order to get a good seat, wave their signs, and ease into the swing of things. Lots of friendly talk, floor debates, and people just being delightfully outspoken and unabashedly American. I didn’t hear a single ‘Oh yeah! Well, your mother wears army boots …’ in the whole crowd, although later during the formal proceedings there were occasional spontaneous emissions of unbridled partisanship. But then, that was the whole purpose of being there.
Things got started promptly on time when Congressman McClintock walked in to a standing ovation – well most of us were standing anyway. The first thing he did was to get the measure of the crowd by asking how many were for nationalized healthcare, and the hall was filled with a roar from people carrying signs that read ‘Public Option Now’, ‘Pass Kennedy Healthcare’, ‘Medicare is Government Run Healthcare’, and other pleasantries. Then he asked who there was against Obamacare, and things suddenly got so loud that it almost got silent – you’ve been to basketball games when the needle on your earbones goes off the high end, and your ears say ‘OK, that’s too much, we quit.’ I thought the paint was going to come off the walls; pretty good for a bunch of older right wing extremists.
After some brief opening remarks about where we are and how we got there (charts and all), Tom opened up the floor mikes and people started asking questions. Well, they actually made little speeches to the end of which they sometimes put a question, sort of like a caboose dangling at the end of long train going across the prairie. McClintock’s strong suit is an encyclopedic command of American history, and a handy passel of relevant numbers that illustrate his points. But every once in a while some illuminati of the Left started yelling ‘Answer the question!’ when it was clear that what they really meant was ‘Hey, that wasn’t the answer they told us to expect.’
Both sides cheered their respective questioners at the mike, as was proper for a bi-partisan audience. The left got to hoot and holler real loud when McClintock reviewed the federal deficit history and came to the part during the Clinton years when we ran up a surplus. Then they got to do it all over again when Tom pointed out what idiots the Republicans were during W’s years when they decided to outspend the proverbial inebriated mariners (ex-Army guys get to pull that example as often as they can).
Then someone from the liberal contingent thought they finally had the killer question that would expose McClintock and his rightwing knuckledraggers once and for all. ‘Since you are for states’ rights, why aren’t you for a state-level single payer healthcare system?’ You could almost hear the collective ‘Gotcha!’ from the floor before the question even ended. Well, Tom said yes he was for states’ rights but against state run healthcare systems because they too have proven to be unsustainable. Apparently the liberal contingent had never thought about that little piece of rocket science logic, and all that a few of them could do at this point was to go back to cue card #7 and shout ‘Answer the question!!’ When reminded that the question had been clearly answered, there was a moment of contrite silence, and the mike passed to the next person.
All in all the meeting proceeded in this fashion where the impassable gulf between the groups again became apparent. The Left maintained that it’s silly to oppose Obamacare since we have already accepted government run healthcare in the form of Medicare and Medicaid. The Right made no headway in pointing out that since neither of these healthcare programs were fiscally sustainable, comprehensive Obamacare would be even less so. No comprende.
The little point totally missed was that the much quoted 49 million ‘without healthcare’ was really only 9 million (less than 3% of the population), which even the cold-hearted corporate-controlled Republicans wanted to help, but not at the cost of socializing an added 16% of our economy in a totally unsustainable manner.
Somewhere at this point an aide whispered in the congressman’s ear that there were a lot of people still patiently waiting outside the Veterans Hall who also wanted their attendance and questions noted. It was quickly decided that this would be a town hall meeting with two seatings, and Tom asked us if some would be willing to give up their seats and let the new contingent into the hall. Jo Ann and I joined a big bunch of people who were ready to call it a delightful and fulfilling night of grass roots democracy in action. I might add that this full-fingered edition of the town hall meeting was a cut (bite?) above the recent one in Thousand Oaks – everyone left with the same number of digits originally in their possession at the start of the festivities.
rebanesruminations.com 
Leave a comment