posted by Joel Mayer
Rally for Health Care Reform at the State Capitol in Austin
I attended the Rally for Health Care Reform in Austin today along with other San Antonians from alamObama, MoveOn, SAAPAC, and OFA. There were about 250-300 supporters from around the state gathered on the Capitol steps at 1:00 p.m. and we were confronted by about 150-200 tea baggers and secessionists. There was lively chanting on both sides, and eventually a cordon of state troopers took up a position between the Pros and Contras, who were only about 5 feet apart. When we started to sing patriotic songs, the Contras continued to taunt us, which shouldn't have surprised me since so many of them seem to want to take us out of the USA anyway. The Capitol rally continued in this vein until about 2 o'clock, when we headed over to the Methodist Church for a forum on health care sponsored by MoveOn and Organizing for America.
I have to criticize Organizing for America, since they took over the event and did not respect the sign-ups made on either the myBO or MoveOn web sites and decided to just let everyone in on a first come first serve basis. This meant that many people who had endured the heat to stand up to the tea baggers were excluded from this forum, even though they had signed up and made the extra effort to arrive early for the Capitol rally. When I had grass roots training from DFA last summer, they taught us that the first rule when recruiting volunteers is to show them respect and make them feel needed. OFA clearly has never learned this rule, since they treated the volunteers who literally sweated the most with no respect at all. After putting up with the heat, the taunting, and even the personal insults (I was called a "traitor" by one tea bagger), everyone at the Capitol should have been given a special pass to walk in and take a place of honor in the front of the church! I was one of those excluded, but managed to wangle my way in only through the efforts of Karen Newton of OFA San Antonio, who made an effort to get them to let me in to take the seat she had saved for me.
The positive side of all this is that there were a couple of thousand people who wanted to attend this forum, even though the church only had room for 1,200. Among the speakers was Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Austin, who reiterated his support for a Public Option in health care reform and his defiance of tea baggers and secessionists, for which he received a standing ovation!
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