Congressman Lloyd Doggett's appearance today at the CommUnity Care health clinic today in North Austin.
I received a heads up email from Austin activist Glen Maxey on Friday alerting me to an appearance of Lloyd Doggett at a local Austin health clinic today. After missing the fiasco at the Randall's grocery store last Saturday (only a mile from my house), I made sure to attend this event with camera in hand.
Congressman Doggett spoke first to the people inside the community clinic, many with kids there to receive care. Outside, a crowd of appx 200 or more gathered, most with signs supporting or opposing health care reform. At this event it appeared to me that those supporting health care reform comprised somewhere close to 2/3 of the crowd. There were interactions between camps, mostly pretty civil, some more heated than others. I was encouraged to see that in some cases there seemed to be actual conversations happening. I call that a success right there. During our waiting period outside, Senator John Cornyn was spotted in a small SUV close to the crowd. The crowd chanted "Support our President! Support our President!" all around his vehicle and, with the help of the police, he was able to back up and drive off. I don't know if he went inside the clinic (or had been inside), maybe using another entrance around back or what.
After Congressman Doggett spoke inside, he came out to face the crowd. There were both cheers and boos. The public address system available was not up to the task of speaking to such a large crowd outdoors, what with passing traffic noise plus the noise of the people arguing around the fringes. I was close enough to hear most of what he said, even with the rude comments being made by a few people around me. He told the crowd he was glad we were there and that it was good for us to have a CIVIL discussion about such an important issue. He spoke for a few minutes, then took questions, alternating between volunteers from the audience who supported health care reform and opposed health care reform. All of the questioners asked very reasonable, respectful, and even thoughtful questions, including those opposed. I felt the situation was handled about as well as could be expected with a weak sound system.
The midday August Texas heat took its toll (mid to upper 90's on black pavement in the sun), so the crowd started dwindling gradually during the 45 minutes to an hour that Doggett spoke and took questions. By the time he concluded there were probably only 50 or so people left. I assume many folks probably left because, whichever side they were on, it wasn't worth standing in that kind of heat when they couldn't hear.
I have posted some pictures from the today's event on Webshots, and I'm in the process of posting a few minutes of video on YouTube, so I'll update later with that link.
Pictures from event
My purpose in doing this is to make sure people know that there are indeed plenty of people supporting health care reform, so this is my effort to document that fact using my camera.
Also, I would like to thank Bruce Elfant for providing cases of bottled water for the crowd (as he said, courtesy of supporters of health care reform). I thought that effort was priceless.