Packing Heat at Obama's Town Halls

You've seen the pictures:


There's more here and here.

After they shot Dr. Tiller, I wanted to say to them, "Put the gun down. Take a step back and take a deep breath."

Finally. someone beside me is getting a little concerned about this:

“I’ve been worried for some time, even before the events surrounding these health care town halls,” Rich told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday. “It began during the campaign, where people were shouting ‘treason’ and worse about Obama at Palin rallies — and, essentially, no one in the Republican Party would condemn it. … It’s just been stepping up ever since then.”

--- snip ---

“I think we have a problem,” Rich stated. “This has been going on for too many months. It always seems to happen when there’s a new liberal group taking over. It’s not coincidence that the militias started up again in the 1990s when Clinton came in — or, when Kennedy came in, the right-wing stuff in the early 60s.”

“It’s shocking to me that very few Republican leaders have really condemned this kind of activity,” Rich stated sharply. “In fact, they’ve sort of encouraged it.”

I remember all the right wing bruhaha after Waco. I paid attention to their stuff and even went to a rally in Marietta, Georgia and met Linda Thompson. I liked their view of the Constitution and distrust of government.

However, all their credibility with me went out the window over the last eight years and the Bush administration. None of these people raised an eyebrow when Bush was shredding the Bill Of Rights and saying the Constitution was "a god-damn piece of paper." They said not a word when the Bushistas were tapping our phones, disappearing people, torturing others, and in all ways throwing any semblance of fidelity to freedom out in the trash as "quaint" relics of the past.

So they can keep their partisan outrage. And by the way, I faced this kind of attitude forty years ago in an SDS meeting. It was just after the national guard had shot the students at Kent State and some idiot in the meeting was talking about how we needed to start getting guns. Being from Detroit and having seen them shut down the city in '67, bringing in tanks and armored personnel carriers with fifty caliber machine guns, and they were not reticent to use them, I thought any talk of arming ourselves was ludicrous.

The real lesson of Waco was that the government will in no way allow any challenge to its authority in an armed fashion. It will crush it like an ant.

\

I Confronted My Congressman Today

A week ago I learned that my congressman, Jack Kingston (R-GA-1), was coming to hold a town hall in my hometown to talk about healthcare - a subject near and dear to my heart. I'm familiar with Jack, seeing him on Bill Maher and the different cable shows, but I did a quick check of the congressman's website to check his position. Of course he's against government take over of health care, but I felt something had to be said.

Over 300 people showed up for the town hall. Since this is a very conservative area, most of the crowd looked like it was on Jack's side. Almost immediately after sitting down a petition was passed to me that was "AGAINST SOCIALIZED HEALTH CARE" or something like that. Half the crowd were seniors, which I mean over 65, so I was interested how they would approach the Medicare issue, and since this is a military town there are a lot of former military who love their TriCare.

Jack came in to a standing ovation, and after a couple laudatory introductions he got up and went through a bullet point presentation about the health care problem, at least from his Republican talking points, which were echoed on occassion from the crowd. Then he opened up the meeting, and for the next thirty minutes or so, half the commenters were in support of government sponsored health care.

I thought there might be ten minutes left when I stood to be called on. I knew I might get a minute, maybe stretch it to two, but also simple boldness can go a long way. Anyhow, the congressman called on me, and it went something like this:

Congressman, I'm so happy to have you here today so I can relate to you my situation and my thoughts.

You see, January 15 last year - 08 - I had to go to the emergency room at the medical center because I was bleeding. Two days later, I had a colonoscopy, and when the doctor came in the first words out of his mouth were, "I'm sorry. It's cancer." (This landed rather heavy on the crowd as I was a bit emotional in remembrance). On January 25, I had surgery and they removed fifteen inches of my large intestine along with a tumor the size of a tangerine that was a millimeter from breaking through the intestinal wall. Thank God, it had not spread and I stand here today. I have nothing but praise and gratitude toward the people at the medical center, they saved my life.

(About this time some handed me a mike, and I saw a TV camera pointed my way)

But congressman, I had a friend that was in the same boat as I - a computer guy and business was drying up. By the time he got the care he needed it was too late and we buried him early this year.

You see he did not have health insurance and neither did I - I was trying to cobble together two or three part time jobs and bootstrap a business.

Jack tried to get the floor back and sympathize with the loss of my friend, but then he pissed me off. He said something like, "But you're alive. This is how great our health system is, you got care" and he was being rather condescending about it. Now the adrenalin is rushing, and I still had the mike, so I said,

Yes, congressman, but now I'm functionally bankrupt, and half of my income goes to my medical bills and the credit card debts I incurred during that time.

You don't get back to work the following week after surgery like that. Not even the following month, or three months. It was nine months before I could say I was beginning to feel myself again. I knew my time was up, but I held the mike and I had to say what I came to say:

As I see it, it's the insurance companies that are standing between us and our healthcare. These companies are reaping billions in profits, paying ceo's like Bill McGuire of United Health Care, one of the largest insurance companies, 1.7 billion in compensation. Billions are having to go to "investors" with names like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, while they deny claims and practice that horrible recission refusing to pay when people need it most. Cut out the fat at the top and for no more money than we're paying today we can cover everyone.

This is when the crowd turned and started booing. I could barely hear them as I was focused on Jack, and I could see them coming for the mike. Had to get this out:

Five billion dollars has been spent over the last ten years lobbying congress by these companies. Lately a million and a half a day has been added. Billions are being spent on ads against government run health care not to mention campaign contributions. My question to you congressman is:

Are you on our side or with the insurance companies?

There was a little bit of an uproar going on, but wouldn't you know it, Jack quickly changed the subject. But I had said what I came to say.

The TV station interviewed me afterward. She actually asked if I was for "socialized medicine". I explained how I took issue with her characterization. that socialized medicine was like the VA system, the government owns the hospitals, and the doctors, etc are government employees. What I'm advocating is turning the entire population into one giant pool. She didn't use that. My quote she used:

We do need to revamp the health care in this country. I mean, we may have the best health care in the world, especially if you're a millionaire and a billionaire. They can get whatever they need. But most of us are not.

I guess that's okay too.