Moore, OK Town Hall [View All]

[a la izquierda]

So, I went to the town hall meeting led by Tom Cole (Of course-OK). I managed to get seats, but tried to give them to these older women standing in front of my friends and I. I had a notepad ready to go, my cellphone recorder set...the women in front of us held up a giant "Yes to HealthCare" sign, which of course made me happy.
I was shaking. It takes a lot to rattle me; the problem in these situations is that I stick out like a sore thumb- I'm a short female, covered in tattoos. My two girlfriends look like modern day hippies. All three of us either have, or will soon have, PhDs. We were armed with our brains, but it was evident what side we were on. We never even got to use our brains, and we were looked at as if we were traitors to our own country.
It was rather packed; out of the 200 or so there, maybe 30 of us were Democrats (or, more correctly in my group's case, Leftists). The first person to speak was a Veteran (Vietnam, I think--I couldn't see him). He opened by saying that he's not afraid of government run healthcare, as he has had it for decades. People BOOED him!! I was absolutely stunned. Then, an older man next to me stood up and yelled "Socialist loser". I could not believe my ears. When the next Dem stood up to tell their story, another man shouted "Shut the hell up and sit down." He yelled this at a woman. I finally had to leave when a young African American woman was essentially shouted down by the whole auditorium. Someone screamed something about guns. That's when I got very nervous. To be fair, Cole was not allowing a whole lot of talkover, of anyone, for *most* of the meeting. He was very diplomatic, but dodged many questions.
I don't have all the questions that people asked in front of me, mostly because I had to take a several hour breather to calm down. Normally, I do a large group ride on Tuesdays. I was so angry, and had such an incredible headache that doing anything was really not an option.

I'm utterly at a loss. I still have a migraine. I don't normally drink to drown my frustrations, but I have to tell you, I felt so defeated when I left that my friends and I went for a beer at 130, despite the fact that we had other things to do.
The Democrats aren't showing up. I didn't see my OK State Democratic Senator or my Democratic Rep. They will be getting vicious letters from me in the morning. I understand they can't do much about the healthcare debate, but they sure as shit should be showing up to support their DEMOCRATIC constituents, who essentially got slaughtered in Oklahoma today. This is why the Democratic party will continually falter in places like Oklahoma--they give it up for dead instead of making even a small attempt at building on their base.

All in all, it was a very unsettling, angering, exposing experience.