Are We Really A Nation of Mindless Thugs?

Seemingly a lifetime ago, a Congressman who I worked for had "District Days." He had them almost every Saturday, scattered throughout his Congressional District in school cafeterias, church basements, and even outside in parks. The staff would be on hand to take constituent concerns. We'd write out the various problems on forms and make sure what ever aide was responsible (immigration, medicare, social security) for those issues would get the form. The Congressman also spent time answering questions on national issues (at that time it was all Watergate all the time). The Congressman was the only Member of Congress who was doing these District Days. But that's how he was.

Now, Members of Congress have town halls. They stand behind podiums and talk about all the great things they are doing for their state or district. Then a few questions and every one goes home. Except now.

According to news reports and pundits who are generally supportive of President Obama, right-wing mouthpieces have stirred up the populace, egging them to attend any public town hall meeting their Senators and Congressmen are having. And what were once quiet affairs where the local newspaper reporter took a nap in the corner, are now national prime time news events, as people shout down the elected officials and even cabinet members.

What concerns me about the media response, in particular the liberal pundit response, is this assumption that people who take the time to go to these meetings are mindless zombies expressing some "talking points" generated by Rush Limbaugh. And indeed, some of the folks who attend these meetings may have talking points from a conservative talk show host. On the other hand, people who attended Senator and Congressmen's town hall meetings after the vote authorizing the war in Iraq, shouted down the people who voted for that war. Were they mindless zombies?

The point here is that we have a Constitutional right to talk, to yell, to express frustration. And indeed, what seems to me is there is a huge miscalculation by the Obama Administration on the amount of frustration and anger people are feeling. They have watched, in less than 12 months, their 401(k) evaporate. Their credit cards are maxed out, their elected officials don't listen, foreclosures are all around them, and they worry every time they go to work that they will be laid off. It's scary out there. On top of it, no one knows what is in the several bills floating around Congress to change or reform health care (oops, now President Obama is calling it health insurance reform...hmmmm). I mean, do you trust someone who has the best health care insurance in the nation, no the world, to be making decisions about how to reform the health care insurance you get?

It boggles my mind that the current Members of Congress don't seem to know how to handle talking with angry people. And that they seem to want to engage in some sort of fight, barking back at the angry folks as if it is their own fault they are scared and tense. Or that the calls for "civil society," seem to forget that our nation is forged in dissent, vocal, somewhat abusive, dissent.

It's called community organizing.