Friday 7 August 2009
Fists Pounding on Glass, Right-Wing Violence Stops Tampa Town Hall ☀
With fists pounding on exterior windows like a street mob out of a 1930s newsreel, a crowd of right-wing agitators against health insurance reform descended on a town hall meeting in Tampa, Florida, “banging on windows” until police and organizers were forced to end the event. The result? A violent mob silenced the voices of each and every American desperate to find a way out of the endless cycle of fear, shame and family bankruptcy brought on by an inhumane, profit-driven health insurance market. Moreover, by using violence to shut down civic discussion between neighbors, this right-wing horde trampled underfoot one of the most sacred and historic symbols of American democracy.
Town halls in America are much more than information meetings. They are emblematic of a unique aspect of face-to-face American democracy. A tradition that reaches back to the founding generation of the Republic, Thomas Jefferson himself imagined the nucleus of American democracy not in the vaunted halls of government palaces, but in farm sheds and village meeting rooms. In these regular meetings in town halls, neighbors would gather to learn what needed to know in order to solve the core problems of the day. It is a tradition that has served this country well for well over two-hundred years.
Today in Tampa, that bright American town hall tradition came crashing down at the hands of another, ignominious trend in political life: the politics of intimidation, threat, and violence. This is the brand of politics that wields the toxic force of fists and the sound of breaking glass to cut of healthy civic exchange. This is the brand of politics that fills the public square first with talk of violence, then promises of violence, and then violence itself.
This is also the brand of politics that media coverage is quick to gloss over—quick to conceal behind some false notion that violence is on both sides. Do not believe it.
Americans trying earnestly to gather with their neighbors and engage in discussions about health insurance reform should beware of every account they read that depicts town hall disruptions as generic, two-sided violence. Beware, because these descriptions are false.
The health insurance reform debate in this country is not a fight between two violent sides. It is a peaceful discussion that right-wing mobs are trying to stop and prevent. Tonight they used violence in Tampa to successfully stop that peaceful discussion from happening.
