Random Notes on This & That

Letter to Lynn Woolsey

Dear Congresswoman Woolsey,

I’m writing to you about the two recent public meetings, one in the Sonoma Plaza and the “rowdy” one (as the PD described it) in Petaluma. I attended the former, missed the latter.

As you know the first one went fine, you and the other speakers got your points made, Sonoma was exceedingly polite – probably the union and march/rally leaders’ presence didn’t hurt, and that was that. You vowed to hold the line for a “robust” public option – Medicare-like, and using that existing system to save years of time and money, etc. – and everyone heard that. However I’m a realist and a pessimist so I don’t think that’s going to hold true. I think there will be many more compromises about the public option and other aspects of health-care reform down the line, and as we know, the Republicans don’t compromise much. They’re ballsier that way. I hope I’ll be proved wrong.

The main point of this letter regards the Petaluma meeting where by all accounts things did not go swimmingly. We’re all familiar now with how organized, purposefully intimidating and uncaringly insulting these meetings have become, and you got a personal taste of that. It was bold and gutsy of you to take that on whatever the outcome, but more important is that there’s a lesson here for the Democratic Party and us in the liberal/progressive camp.

As I see it the lesson is this: These kinds of town hall meetings have to be conducted under the same rules governing representatives and members of the public meetings, i.e., city councils, board of supervisors or state committee hearings, now and in the future, regardless of the issue at hand. There’s a conduct of behavior that has to be followed; if not there’s chaos, anarchy – the biggest, loudest voice will win. If people are continually obstreperous or even personally insulting they are escorted and kept out of the proceedings. They’ve lost their right to speak because they’re preventing others from that right, or their behavior is beyond the pale and they have to leave. Period. I’ve been to countless local government meetings and that’s the way business is conducted. Why are these same time-honored methods of decorum not being followed in every town hall meeting in every state? The behavior, the actions of people at these meetings, whether orchestrated by the right or not, would not be tolerated by any city council or board of supervisors anywhere.

So my conclusion, and that of friends who were at the Petaluma meeting, is that the Democratic Party had better learn to deal with an organized right-wing mob that knows exactly what it is doing, and that has a self-righteous (I’d say deluded) rationale as to the why. I don’t think they’re going away. I think in this issue, health-care, and every one succeeding they’re going to be a presence. And you know as well as I that the media love this stuff. You’re not going to come out of it looking good.

Unless you get tough. The Democratic Party has to stand for something. You know this, you’re one of the stalwarts. But somehow you’ve got to let the Party know. They have to have clear goals and convictions, and the cahones to fight for them. I think that’s the lesson to be learned here. How you’re going to get that across to your compatriots in Congress I don’t know. But if not you, then who?

In closing a brief note. Three good friends of mine attended the Petaluma meeting. One is a long-time union organizer, one a cynical environmental activist and the other, a newer acquaintance who tells me she’s been to many political rallies. All three people reported that the hatred, venom and vicious insensibility they heard in the room that night was shocking, startling. Now these are not naïve or politically inexperienced people. If their report is accurate, and I believe it is, then progressives, the Democratic Party, and anyone who favors logic and reason and knowledge of the issues over blind, hate-filled emotions is in for a hell of a time.

It’s time we learned how to deal with this.

Respectfully,


Will Shonbrun, Sonoma