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A group of us went out to Diane Black's town hall meeting last night. For those not in TN, she's a Republican representative in one of Nashville's suburban counties and she sits on the House Budget Committee with Paul Ryan.
It seemed to be a pretty well attended event. I would guess maybe 200 people or so. Of that 200, maybe 50 to 75 were Dem/Progressive. We were pretty loud though. I'm proud to say that I got told to shut up by the people sitting in front of us 5 or 6 times. And all I was doing was holding her feet to the fire on her answers. She would answer with a half truth or start to spout propaganda designed to obfuscate the issue and we had to TRY and keep her on the subject. Apparently, we weren't supposed to do that. For myself the personal high point was when she started talking about the wealthy "job creators". She didn't seem to have a good answer when I brought up the fact that DEMAND creates jobs, NOT the rich.
She kept repeating the "Medicare is broke and we're just trying to fix it" propaganda line. I don't recall her admitting that the Ryan plan (which she voted for) actually DESTROYED Medicare by privatising it. She talked about how the Republicans had put the budget proposal out there and were willing to talk about it. She didn't answer my question (shouted from the floor) about how you could have a productive meeting on the budget when revenue enhancement was taken off the table.
Finally after the meeting, when a group of us were outside a Teabagger couple came up to a group and started to become belligerent with us. The wife was trying to get him out of our faces and he kept shoving her out of the way. The cops were called and a report filed. But no blows were exchanged and no one was arrested. :)
I didn't expect to change her mind, but as I've always said, you don't argue to change the minds of the RW, you argue for the ones who AREN'T yet convinced. To give them an alternative. I think we did that.
Nothing yet in the local newspaper about the meeting, but it was fairly late. We'll see if they have anything about it tomorrow. If not, it's been ignored.
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