An Evening at Bernie's

I attended one of Bernie's Town Hall Meetings in Woodstock the other night. Here's my report:

Bernie's 'Town Hall' meeting was a bit one-sided. There was one conservative vs. 100+ plus sycophants in the audience. The usual parade of 'gimme groups' was represented. At the table were 5 or 6 talking heads from the Windsor County Poverty Center (needs more funding) , Head Start (needs more funding), Insufferable Woodstock (needs more funding), Health Care is a Human RIght (needs Single Payer system), etc. They gave a short spiel which basically centered around the government being parsimonious, especially at a time when so many people need help during the recession. Bernie would cap their presentations with his normal well-honed spiel. Jerry from the Senior Center was on the panel, he wasn't too bad, and seemed a little uncomfortable being up there with the rest of the gimme girls. 

Questions were asked from the crowd which were basically half plants from people who were with Bernie's travelling road show (most of whom were wearing the red Health Care is a Human Right tee-shirts); and half from Woodstock. 

Our townspayer's questions were generally good and interesting, the stooge questions the regular soft-ball pablum. Bob Williamson asked Bernie to join his anti-gun violence group, one person (Ola) suggested we support the troops, then asked Bernie if it was time to bring back the draft. This brought on a lot of sucked-in breaths and muttered under the breath comments "She must be a Republican". I don't know, is she?

I wish I had started to record how many times Bernie brought up the word 'Bush". It was at least 12 times, Cheney even got mentioned. Obama's name came up a couple of times. He ragged on free-trade, on how the US buys goods manufactured by Bangladeshis for 11¢ an hour and bemoaned the loss of union jobs. He extolled Keynesian economics and generally denigrated capitalism. 

Amazingly I heard something new: he actually said that the deficit is something to be concerned about. But that didn't stop he and the crowd from seeking to increase spending on every pet project or special interest they could possibly think of settling their thoughts on. 

A few interesting comments I jotted down:

Bernie called the Democratic party 'centrist' as opposed to the extremely right-wing GOP. I laughed out loud at that one. 

He spoke long and often on the decline of the middle class. Not seeming to realize that high taxation and loss of small business jobs is the primary reason for this economic shift.

He warned that there would be a lot of out-of-state money coming in to fight off the Single Payer plan that leftists in Vermont are fighting for. I found that pretty ironic, considering the audience was stacked with mysteriously funded and organized out-of-state Health Care is Human Right activists.

There was a moment of levity when Bernie called Harry Reid, 'the least charismatic guy' in the Senate.

An alarming occurrence was the number of people who were seeking the Senate to change it's rules to change from a 60 vote majority for passage of bills to a simple majority. They complained about the Republican filibusters blocking their very important legislation. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that they might not have a majority in Congress come November when they'll surely be filibustering the bejeesus out of everything and declaiming the horror of the Tyrannical Rule of the Majority.... but of course, they're not known for long range thinking. 

Bernie complained about some conservative's plan for raising the Social Security retirement age to 70, a move I've personally believed in for the last 30 years, and asked if anyone thought it was a good idea. I chickened out and didn't raise my hand. Considering I was within choking distance of ten or twenty seasoned citizens, it didn't seem too 'politic'. It was not my finest hour.

There were many calls from the crowd to 'ration and sacrifice' in the cause of global warming. Many comparisons on how we won World War Two in two years by a national effort, and why can't we do the same thing to save the planet? Bernie pointed out how the world's scientists were all agreed on the threat to the earth from rising temperatures, and how the opposition was only represented by arch-conservative talk show hosts like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. The crowd jeered and booed at those references, as you might expect, but they seemingly never heard of the Midland scandals of false science that came out to discredit their position last fall. Much easier to ignore reality for these deluded souls. Oh, there was much talk of the coming utopia of green jobs, a seemingly surefire way to save the Vermont economy if only we would open the taps and pour in enough government money. I couldn't help but think as I watched the optimistic, wide-eyed true believer faces, 'Hey if it's such a good idea, why don't you people go invest in windmills and photocells down in the Arizona deserts'? With all this untapped free power all around us, why is it that the government has the only keys to unlock the natural nirvana? 

There were the usual rallying cries of rolling back the estate tax breaks, and to increase taxes to even higher levels upon the 'rich'. Not much talk about how to make people rich. Same old same old.

The night was capped for me when one of the red shirts stood up and asked Bernie when he was going to get a government waiver (whatever that is) since he has a very rare form of undiagnosed depression that prevents him from doing anything constructive. (Other than following Bernie around). He said he came from Michigan and now lives in Rutland, where I guess someone gave him a shirt. I chickened out again when I didn't stand up and tell him I had the simple prescription for his mental problem: a job.