You know…if things are going to change in this country it is going to be because of ordinary Americans talking to their representatives one-on-one in their states and districts. There are two examples I’ve read in the last day, where Democratic politicians were forced to listen to the truth from well informed constituents. The more civil of the two is retold by Jane Hamsher at firedoglake. She and Howie Klein met with Jon Tester at the home of a supporter. Go ahead and read it. After Tester tried to dance around the Senate’s inability to end the war, he looked like he knew he wasn’t getting the job done.
Howie said afterwards that he looked forlorn.
And Tester should look forlorn. But Tester’s problems paled compared with those of Rep. Peter Welsh (D-VT). Welsh held a town meeting in Barre, Vermont, and it turned very, very ugly.
The plan was for Welch to answer the questions directly, yes or no, after which he would be given ten minutes to say what he wanted, and then the floor would be open for questions.
And then all hell broke loose.
Welch wanted to speak before the questions, not after them, mentioning something about wanting to correct something that Legare said about him that he said was untrue. At that point, people started yelling. And yelling. Some people were quite adamant that Welch would adhere to the format. Others were yelling because they wanted to allow Welch to speak at that moment. So the next ten or fifteen minutes was consumed by lots of shouting. Everyone was shouting. People were shouting at Welch. At each other. Microphones were grabbed. It was pretty chaotic. Welch stood his ground, and I’m quite surprised he didn’t just walk out of there, because it was quite hostile. You could tell he was very unnerved.
Unnerved, forlorn…afraid of mobs with pitchforks…ultimately it will be scenes like these that will force Democrats to show some spine and will scare Republicans into listening to the will of the people.
If your representative is making appearances near you during the holiday recesses, please try to get out there and confront them in person. Make them uncomfortable. Come armed with the facts. And when they try to make bullshit excuses, give them hell. Actually, just tell the truth and they’ll think it’s hell.
