As with so many things, I made a much bigger deal of this than it turned out to be. The atmosphere of the event was very laid back and so was my conversation with my Congressman. This the first contact I had with him and I was rather impressed. He came across as a regular guy who happens to be a Congressman. We shared a likeminded view of the plight of the J6 political prisoners and, I think, of the issues we all face in general.
To be fair, though there was not a huge crowd there, in fact no crowd at all really, there were others who wanted to talk to him. As such, our conversation was not what I would call a “one on one”. I could tell he felt obligated to acknowledge and/or talk to others rather than ignore everyone else. The fact is, I’d do the same in his position. For all I know, the interruptions were a welcome relief from me, though I our exchange was anything but antagonistic and certainly not unpleasant from my perspective. At some point, I decided to give it up as this really wasn’t a venue conducive to anything seriously intense. Looking back, I’d say all the conversations I had around the Republican booth were similar and I talked with several people.
On J6 and him not having much to say after the much-touted tour of the DC gulag, he said he wasn’t able to tour with the rest of his colleagues. Well, that explains his lack of any after action report. However he agreed that the prisoners are being mistreated, abused even, they have been denied due process and so forth. He expressed his own frustration about this and most everything else going on in our nation’s capital. As a member of the minority party, he feels his hands are tied in so many ways (my words). He asked me point blank what I thought he should be doing.
After a moment’s thought, I said, we’ve got to be more vocal. We’ve got to raise a bigger stink. Whether he takes this to heart or not, I don’t know. However I plan on following up with some ideas I’ve since had along with one I’ve been mulling over. This last is a letter to the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and the Attorney General requesting they step up and get involved to protect the rights of the Virginia citizens who are being held by the federal government. My rep says he’s written the Governor. That’s fine. I will too.
I cannot fault him for not doing enough. I haven’t done enough. Sure, it’s not my “job” but the atrocities committed by Biden’s administration affect us all. Whose to say someone won’t come knocking on my door at 3AM some morning because I’ve been critical? Whose to say I won’t be hauled off the the DC Gulag or some similar hell hole because I won’t simply shut up? Like I’ve said before, it won’t be the first time I’ve paid a price for speaking out. As it is now, my voice was a tiny whisper compared to the megaphones of the MSN and even blogs with actual traffic. (Okay, so back then the word “blog” hadn’t even been invented.) Seriously, I was doing a 15 minute segment on a diminutive 100 watt (powered up to a whopping 1000 watts after sunrise!) AM radio station at 6AM in the morning in a market that was pretty much a footnote in the Nielsen ratings. For all that I was “downsized” because then Governor Mario Cuomo was livid about my broadcast. This I found out directly in a moment of candor from the station’s owner who considered himself a “close personal friend” of the Governor. My point is, if I was vulnerable then, I am vulnerable now, especially since my potential audience far exceeds anything I could imagine back then.
Sorry for the side trip there, but yeah, I could have done more and I still can. How can I fault my representative who is faced with dealing with all the national issues we have today. Add to that, his hands really are tied in many respects. When it comes down to it, all anyone in the House of Representatives can effectively do at this point is be vocal. I’ll add that in order for him to be truly effective, he needs to choose his battles. Certainly more him than me because as a blogger and a publisher, I have far more leeway, but even then, who is going to pay much attention to someone who runs screaming from one issue to another to another? I might as well sign up with MSNBS.
Now with all that said and done, I am now formulating a plan to make a bigger stink. Some of my ideas I will forward to my congressman and a few others who can potentially put some pressure on this. While there are other areas of concern, the J6 political prisoners is an issue that deserves a great deal of attention for several reasons. First of all, these prisoners are suffering. They are being abused, not simply because they are being denied due process but they are being treated as inhuman. We’ve all seen stories, movies about POWs and felt outraged at how they were treated. I’m convinced that should the curtain be pulled back on the DC gulag, we would be similarly appalled. No doubt some might dismiss such treatment because they believe those prisoners to be traitors, insurrectionists. I contend that even if they indeed are, they still deserve humane treatment and the due process of law.
On other news, I also met the local head of there party whom I’ve been emailing back and forth all week. As it’s hard to gauge someone over a few emails, the face to face meeting was telling. I liked him right off. I sensed he found me tolerable as well. This is good because, believe it or don’t, I’ve found I do rub some people the wrong way. There were a couple of others there also I wish I could have spent more time with, including one fellow who traveled from NC to be there. However it was a very cool morning and I was just slightly under dressed for the weather. Additionally I had another commitment so I ended up cutting things shorter than I wanted to.
One other thing, I saw no indication of a federal agency presence, covert or otherwise. Granted I wasn’t looking all that hard. Maybe if I paid more attention I’d have seen something but the event was very relaxed and I relaxed with it.