by Jorge Mesa-Tejada
\nHampstead<\/p>\n
To the editor,<\/p>\n
Last Wednesday, about 12-15 citizens assembled in front of Hampstead\u2019s Town Hall from 12:15-2:30 PM to protest the provisions of Obama\u2019s proposed Health Care Reform Act. They were citizens from Hampstead and area towns who came freely to express their views. Some took time off from work.<\/p>\n
We stood along Main Street, displaying our homemade signs expressing various concerns about the program and the intrusion of government into our lives while chanting \u201cSilent No More,\u201d \u201cJust Say NO!\u201d \u201cRead the bill!\u201d and such. Hardly a horde.<\/p>\n
Around 1:15 PM, we entered Town Hall to meet with Shaheen\u2019s representative, Leticia Ortiz. We were told that the meeting was a one-on-one meeting even though Organizing for America, Obama\u2019s campaign arm, had sent an email the day before announcing a Shaheen Town Meeting in Hampstead. We were told to fill out forms which Ms. Ortiz would take back to the office for a mailed reply.<\/p>\n
That set the group off. Many of us had followed that procedure before only to receive the same generic form letter over and over. So, we started voicing our concerns for Ms. Ortiz to take to Shaheen, especially our demand that she read the bill and meet with her constituents face-to-face.<\/p>\n
Yes, we were loud and determined. But at no time did we deny anyone the chance to approach or access Ms. Ortiz, as Shaheen falsely claims in her 8\/6 press release. Please call Town Hall 329-4100 or Hampstead Police 329-8398 for verification.<\/p>\n
In fact, the whole inside episode lasted about 15 minutes (out of the scheduled 3 hours), after which we went back outside and continued our demonstration. <\/p>\n
Shaheen also states that we were part of an organized effort by the Republican party and other stakeholders to disrupt the meeting. That\u2019s a flat out lie. <\/p>\n
We are citizens extremely concerned with the way the Obama administration is trying to spend the country into poverty and have the government take over every private enterprise. He has already effectively nationalized banking, insurance, financial institutions, and automobile companies. Health care is next.<\/p>\n
And the \u201chordes\u201d bit? That\u2019s also a lie. Please go to YouTube, search for \u201cHampstead, NH Town Hall Protest\u201d and see for yourself. <\/p>\n
But I have questions for Shaheen that haven\u2019t been answered: 1. how come that a SEIU contingent arrived before noon, in MA licensed cars, wearing their trademark purple t-shirts emblazoned with the yellow \u201cI\u2019m a Healthcare voter\u201d slogan (seen in NH campaign stops since June 08) to offset our demonstration? 2. Who sent them to this NH meeting? 3. Were they paid? 4. How come they would not talk to us or tell us what they liked about the bill?<\/p>\n
If the exercise of our right to freedom of expression is now considered illegal, the US is in worse trouble that we thought. <\/p>\n
We have a message for Shaheen, Obama, Pelosi and Reid: the demonstrations will get bigger and more determined and the rhetoric louder and more heated until we get our country back!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Jorge Mesa-Tejada Hampstead To the editor, Last Wednesday, about 12-15 citizens assembled in front of Hampstead\u2019s Town Hall from 12:15-2:30 PM to protest the provisions of Obama\u2019s proposed Health Care Reform Act. They were citizens from Hampstead and area towns who came freely to express their views. Some took time off from work. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":732,"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions\/732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nhteapartycoalition.org\/tea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}