If you thought Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was funny, you should have seen tonight's "Town Hall" meeting held by Virginia's 1st Congressional District representative Rob Wittman. Wittman, who voted with Bush over 95% of the time was even sane in comparison to the multitudes of his constituents who dominated the "question" session which lasted about an hour and a half. The questioners were chosen "at random" by pulling 3 x 5 cards with our names and hometown on them from a plastic tub. The person doing the pulling also examined each card before handing them to Wittman in groups of two or three. I think two Democrats got to ask questions all night. I had printed off 8 1/2 by 11 inch signs from a "Move on" web page and these were confiscated after I sat down. Read on below for there are a barrel of laughs here.
They put this stack of paper on a chair next to the podium. That was "the bill". Wittman said he had read most of it. Well, I read the whole thing at least twice, so either the man has a poor memory, did not read it, or lies through his teeth. Try all of the above? Oh and I wish I could have stacked the 5 NIH National Cancer Institute program grant proposals I had to read last month for the Physics/Oncology Center Grants Program next to it. Three of the five would have equaled the bill and there were two more. We actually did about 35 grants in two days and they each involved millions or tens of millions of dollars. Wittman's only real assessment of the bill was that the Public Option was even worse than the rest of it and it should be shredded. Start with a clean sheet of paper. Did he mean a new one page bill? I wonder?
Then the people who asked questions as a disguise for making mini speeches. What a hoot! Folks at Kos, I owe some of you an apology. I have been short on the characterizations of republicans I've been seeing. No more! This was a loony bin. We even got the routine about Obama not being a citizen! Wittman had to balk on that one. He did go so far as to say that "if" Obama was holding back information on this he was obligated to disclose it.
Wittman described his own government health program coverage just before he told his crowd how dangerous government plans were. He also said that any bill passed should require those who vote "yes" on it in Congress to have to buy it just before he told how evil it was to force people to buy particular kinds of health insurance.
OK. I think you get the picture. After it was over I went out to the foyer and demanded the signs they had confiscated back so I could hold them up as people came out. They said:
PUBLIC OPTION
COST (Down arrow)
Choice (up arrow)
and
PUBLIC OPTION = LOWER COST
Wittman had used the lower cost is the key litany it seemed a hundred times. I then got the circling school of young Libertarians looking for blood (I'm a 73 year old geezer with a cane) and did some quick tooth extractions. One hurried out the door after insinuating that he could hurt me if he wanted to. I told him how I learned to kill with my hands in the USMC. I think he believed me. (It is true).
Now to the punch lines. I saw Kesey's movie after I read the book and both were a real treat. The reason I am drawing the parallel is that, as Kesey sensed then, his story was not about an Insane Asylum. His story was allegorical and was about our country. I have been at this for two many years to have to reassure myself that I am not the loony in this crowd. I know what I saw tonight and it was real as anything, sick as sick can be, and a clear demonstration that the notion of "bipartisan" is a fairy tale! These folk are not living in the same reality that I am. They are in a self created world that is fed to them by their masters and and they all respond in unison to the cues. No stiff armed salutes were necessary to establish a link with things that went on in Europe when I was a kid. I know that we are not supposed to make that comparison, but mark my word, sooner or later we all will. This is our country folks. What scares me is that because I don't buy the democrats line either that I may be seeing things others are missing. From where I sit the democrats have their own version of the reality substitute and the scary part is that they cloak it in the robes of something called "reason". There is not another planet for me to go to so you folk can save telling me to go there just like the folks in that hall were wasting their time telling me to go live somewhere else. This is quite a trip! I wouldn't miss it for the world. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction!