TEA AND TUMULT IN TRANSIT

I was at a town hall meeting that got teabagged some months ago when Senator Arlen Specter came to town. While in line to enter the building we saw the anticipated bus arrive: the big fancy one that said HANDS OFF MY HEALTHCARE on it.

(Trying to save your healthcare by denying it to other people makes no more sense than trying to save marriage by denying it to gays.)

Seemingly half the people in the room that day were there to disrupt the proceedings with groans, hisses, shouts, and questions that were actually hostile speeches.

From the outset they made it clear that they disbelieved everything Specter said, including "Hello." It used to be that righties believed in authority and respected an office if not the person who held it. Now even the president of the United States is treated to "You lie!"

The impression of these types that I got was that all of them were white and that they were mostly males in mid to late middle age, who were casually dressed but prosperous. Their motivation seems to come from what they take to be their rightful (i.e. privileged) place in the world.

What of those who were there to learn or to speak? We got the chance to do those things, though in an atmosphere of distraction. Maybe we were lucky. In a number of places, you'll recall, town halls were turned into chaos and broken up: not just teabagged but sandbagged.

Democracy and tea don't mix.

While I was waiting for the bus afterwards - a mere municipal one without luxury seats or gourmet box lunches - a man told me that he had asked a woman who arrived on the disrupters' coach who was paying for their travel. She refused to answer.

Tea and transparency don't mix, either.