Town Hall Meetings- The Two America's

I have been as flabbergasted as anyone watching footage of the town hall meetings being held around the nation by publicly-elected officials to discuss health care reform. Working my gears, I have not come to any explanation that truly settles my mind or stomach. Aside from the shitty avarice of special interest groups hiring enraged (though what they actually are enraged about has not been touched on by the media covering them except for Jon Stewart)citizens to use violent language and behavior to control the discussion and neutralize the national push for health care reform.

Did you see the man who actually strapped a gun to his thigh to intimidate folks at a town hall meeting where Obama was to speak? The guy arrogantly accepted an interview on Hardball with Chris Matthews where he demonstrated his profound lack of understanding of the issue or ability to use reason.

Aside from the paid-for assholes, there are still legions turning out to shout down their representatives over an issue so critical in the lives of millions of Americans at this point, that it's like shouting down the scientist who came up with penicillin ('Ta hell with 'ya Alexander Flemming). How fucking dare you try to save our lives!

I'm afraid, watching the footage, this is simply about two America's: those citizens who regularly use the fancy, new-fangled frontal lobe that helps with reason, and those who can't give up the hormonal pay-offs of the tried and true reptilian brain. There is reason and there is emotion and those capable of moving between the two cannot deny the obvious, which is that if good medical care capable of improving quality and duration of human life is available, all humans have a right to it. To believe otherwise is something akin to subscribing to the brutal logic of wolf culture where resources are dominated and distributed by the most aggressive in an attempt to control genetic representation in future generations.

There are parts to this "debate" that are downright laughable. When Senator McCaskill asked the legions of screaming citizen protesters how many received Medicare, many in the crowd raised their hands. She asked how many would like to give up their benefits because they're government provided. No hand was raised. This astonishing lack of insight and understanding about the very system they depend on profoundly disqualifies the validity of their position. But they don't realize that.

Even less understandable to me was the woman my age crying, literally weeping about the loss of her country to socialism. Considering the downright forceful Obama policies launched to save our capitalist economy save no expense, the use of the word "socialist" is a weird, inaccurate cover word for "Black." Obama is Black, his wife is Black, there's that Hispanic lady on the supreme court now. She's not black, but she is brown. When folks from the Obama administration go in front of cameras, it's not uncommon for the person to be non-white, non-male.

And then there's all this caring from the administration for the poor.It's almost as if some of these protesters are offended that powerful men would care about the health and welfare of the poor. These seem to be people most comfortable with being abused then disregarded by their government.

Or maybe it really does come back to the wolf analogy for many of the protesters. People of political and economic power have come from the European ethnic groups for the last several hundred years. To acknowledge and accept leadership from outside of the Euro-American male background, say maybe Black people, women, dare I even consider it...Black women, is to acknowledge that something truly remarkable and perhaps even unprecedented is happening here.

The consciousness of the majority of our voting public has risen above the confining, base impulses to protect the interests of one group above other groups-one tribe over the others. Millions of Americans are considering the actual gifts, ideas and abilities of individuals regardless of their skin color or cultural background. When true individualism is respected, somehow it seems to work that the best interests of the larger whole are also served. Go figure. But there are many citizens left behind in this evolutionary leap and many of them are showing up at town hall meetings promoting, or rather, forcing down our throats their reason-less debates.

The reasonable majority must continue to put pressure on our political process right now. If we are not showing up to the town hall meetings, we need to give our senators and representatives a call on the phone. They need to know most of us can use reason, and if they come up with a reasonable bill, we will support it.