The Manatees and the Sharks

As I listened to Texas Congressman Lloyd Doggett speak at the Kerr Community Center in the rural town of Bastrop, Texas last Saturday, I studied the aged, concerned faces of the congregation. They were old Democrats -- they cross their legs, and put an arm around their wives and dab at sweat from their foreheads. They wear hopeful t-shirts ("Together We Can," the battlecry of the Bastrop County Democratic Party) and drink iced tea. A woman pushed pens with fake flowers glued to the top, collecting names for her sign-in sheet. We are, I thought, like manatees.

Pushing at the front door were the sharks. Angry, vociferous and often literally snarling, they brought signs which the police quickly told them they couldn't bring in -- it was a private building and the owner's rules. Posterboard screaming "OBAMACARE: EUTHANIZE OLD PEOPLE" was shoved through the doorway before the cop quickly threw it out. If it was a message for our president or a judgment on his policy, I couldn't quite tell. The sharks were allowed in, as long as they didn't bring signs. The door slammed shut.

Doggett had already endured being run off from a South Austin community meeting earlier that day. He looked relieved that the crowd was now under control, with his fingers interlaced and hands crossed over the microphone at times, as if he was saying a prayer that the teabaggers would stay quiet.

None of them did. One laughed -- violently -- whenever Doggett attempted a joke. It was one that bordered on disturbed, forced to the point of painful, and meant only to disrupt. That same man interrupted Doggett so many times that the Congressman addressed him tersely: "If you want to be treated respectably, act respectably, sir!"

Another woman who had brought her family of four stood in front of me wearing a t-shirt that read this on the back:

"Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own pantyhose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound."

Doggett answered questions from the audience on a variety of topics, but most of the conversation was dominated by the health care debate. His talking points typically ended in a downturn, with Doggett conceding that the reform measures could have been better. Doggett seems to want to fight for progressive ideals but he appears too quick to compromise for the sake of bipartisanship. The Texas Congressman appeared much of the time as a caricature of his own sound byte --"progressives demand a third of a loaf and end up with a heel." He even distributed a photocopy of his recent commentary in the Austin American Statesman entitled "How an imperfect bill helps you," a bulleted attempt to rationalize for the bill being "no panacea."

Doggett ended his forum with a reminder of a local Bastrop man who, after Doggett last spoke in Bastrop, passed out fliers about "The Austin Strangler." He told the audience that despite the man's anger, "he's a hard worker," and that progressives should start mobilizing for their cause as well. When a Democrat shouted, "We're angry, too," everyone laughed.

Are we angry? We seem all too happy to gnaw on the heel of our bread and read fluffy editorials on how an "imperfect bill" is reform. We trade talk radio for Obama rhetoric, and forgive our anointed politicians for bending to industry giants. We gape at the opposition party's demands, rather than forming our own. We are often like manatees, unwilling or unable to defend ourselves. We stare at the sharks and think "That will never work," and only later wonder why we were wrong. Maybe progressives are in fact angry. What's unclear is when we'll start doing something about it.

Follow Rachel Farris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MeanRachel

Comments

[HST]

I just love how the people who are "outraged" by Obama sat quietly for the 8 years as Bush layed waste to our country. Your selective anger makes me laugh. I'm so sorry Obama can't undue in 6 months 8 years of crap that the Boosh shoveled out.

[Gr82bRight]

If the out-of-control antics of this administration haven't made you angry yet, then you're either not paying attention or a slave to your ideology.

[olmossy]

Out of control ? You mean like lying us into a war. Bankrupting the country.

[jsgaetano]

Or violating the constitution, or sending US citizens to secret prisons and having them tortured, or spying on everyone in the entire country.

Although actually, Obama voted to support those when he voted for the Republican's FISA bill.

[CellarDoor]

Out of control? How? The spending? Nobody likes it but yet the right insists on not "controlling" the market through regulation so what else can be done? Surely you do not suggest we just "ask nicely" that the foxes don't eat the hens after we removed all the rules to stop them? I don't get it anymore...I used to think there were the irrational and the rational but all I see/hear is the irrational?

30 years of manic deregulation by both parties but Obama trying to save this broken system, that's what you think is out of control? Seriously?

Obama is trying to save capitalism and you accuse him of being out of control and/or a socialist? If it works, it will only postpone the true great depression to come but yet he's out of control? We have a government chimera of capitalism, socialism, and even a little communism and literally trillions of dollars have gone to prop up capitalism but yet you have ignored this utterly and condemn him for what exactly? Health care will likely not pass or be gutted as to be meaningless so there goes your socialism charge...what's next?

I don't support the President on many things but this modern Right-wing rhetoric seems hyperbolic to the extreme. No viewpoints, just scream loudly to prevent the discussion, like children. It blinds both your side and the opposition to the areas of reality that we actually can debate...areas we *should* debate.

[Gr82bRight]

Nothing Obama has done yet has "worked" in the sense of improving our economy. It has "worked" though in growing the government in both size and scope which was/is Obama's main goal anyway. The economy crashed because of the sub prime fiasco caused by democrats forcing banks to loan money to folks that had no business buying houses. That was on Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Rangle, etc. Republicans are on record trying to put more regulation on in 2006, the democrats refused.

[LMPE]

Be sure to distinguish between this kind of manatee and the man whom Keith Olbermann calls the Manatee (Sean Hannity)