About
Learn More about our progressive online community for the Granite State.

Create an account today (it's free and easy) and get started!
Menu

Make a New Account

Username:

Password:



Forget your username or password?


Search




Advanced Search


The Masthead
Managing Editor
Mike Hoefer

Editors
elwood
susanthe
William Tucker
The Roll, Etc.
Prog Blogs, Orgs & Alumni
Bank Slate
Betsy Devine
birch paper
Democracy for NH
Granite State Progress
Mike Caulfield
Miscellany Blue
Pickup Patriots
Re-BlueNH
Still No Going Back
Susan the Bruce
New Hampshire Labor News
Chaz Proulx: Right Wing Watch

Politicos & Punditry
The Burt Cohen Show
John Gregg
Landrigan
Pindell
Primary Monitor
Scala
Schoenberg
Spiliotes

Campaigns, Et Alia.
NH-Gov
- Maggie Hassan
NH-01
- Andrew Hosmer
- Carol Shea-Porter
- Joanne Dowdell
NH-02
- Ann McLane Kuster

ActBlue Hampshire
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC

National
Balloon Juice
billmon
Congress Matters
DailyKos
Digby
Hold Fast
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talking Points Memo

50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin

A Knee-Jerk Night with Arnie

by: Tully Fitzsimmons

Thu Oct 20, 2011 at 21:51:56 PM EDT


(Thank you for sharing this, part moved below the fold - promoted by William Tucker)

Back in January, I wrote an article on the philosophical divisions inherent in the NH Republican Party, as evidenced by an unpublished Presidential Preference straw poll I had obtained of GOP State Convention delegates (Sadly, they largely favored some of the more extreme candidates, such as Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum).   I didn't think much about that post after I published it, and went on with other issues as the spring and summer rolled on, responding to occasional comments as warranted...and, once again, moving on.

That is, until I was contacted via email by someone who had read that blogpost on the New Hampshire GOP.  She was intrigued by it, and wanted to discuss its implications a bit further.  She included her telephone and asked me to call her.

She signed her name, "Arnie Arnesen."

To be honest, I had never met Arnie, and only knew the most cursory political facts about her, having only moved to New Hampshire in 1998. I called her house and enjoyed a lengthy conversation with her husband, but was never able to connect with Arnie... until last night.

Tully Fitzsimmons :: A Knee-Jerk Night with Arnie
Arnie was the featured speaker at the Massachusetts Community College Council convention, the teachers union to which I belong and serve as a delegate.  I waited for her arrival, and after she was introduced to the head table, I approached her simply to introduce myself.

She looked at my name badge, made an immediate connection, and shouted, "Ohmygod, what are you doing here?!" She threw her arms around me like we had been long-separated best friends.  She offerred her agreement with a number of blog articles I had written,  we raced through a conversation like excited little kids, and a few minutes later she was up at the podium in command of the room, ready to deliver her message.

She told us stories of single moms on assistance caught in bureaucratic catch-22s.  She decried the corporate fundraising obsession of both parties.  She advocated for the global Occupy Movement, and condemned the lack of regulation on the financial industry.  She boldly termed the President's approach on major issues to be "tepid," criticizing his 'pre-compromise' approach on progressive issues, and calling on us to hold his feet to the fire. She decried the Republican's rejection of science (though curiously, she opened her address by praising Huntsman, Johnson, and Roemer for some of their more enlightened positions), and offered a heartfelt defense of her desire to see change in the NH tax system.

I have often felt my "blood stirred" by political speeches.   But I have never been moved to cry - not once, not twice, but three times in one night, moved by the incredible sincerity, passion, and plain-spoken outrage at what has happened, and is happening, in America.

Arnie was, in a word, heroic.

She concluded by reading a small portion of a 1991 article written by James Michener. Michener was reacting to his first exposure to "talk radio" in the south;  and like the compelling morbid curiosity of one staring at a horrific accident, he found himself drawn every evening to tune in to a particularly hate-filled radio host. Arnie read:

"...[the program] became a must for me because in it, he abused, vilified, and scorned every noble cause to which I devoted my entire life.  It seemed to me that he was against any law that sought to improve the lot of the poor, any tax that endeavored to improve the quality of our national life, any act in Congress that hoped to better the condition of our nation as a whole, any movement that tried to lessen police brutality, any bill that struggled to maintain a fair balance between contending forces in our society, and any move to improve education, protect public health or strengthen the supervision of agencies running wild...

...These diatribes caused me to stop, [and]  take a long hard look at myself.  I learned one valuable trick:  Listen carefully to this fellow. Identify exactly what he's saying.  Then adopt a position 180 degrees in the opposite direction, as far from him as you can get, and you'll be on the right track...

...I am a knee-jerk liberal.

When I find that a widow has been left penniless and alone with three children, my knee jerks.  When men of ill intent cut back on teacher's salaries and lunches for children, my knee jerks. When the free flow of ideas is restricted, when universities double their fees, my knee jerks.  And I hope never to grow so old or indifferent that I can listen to wrong and immoral choices being made without my knee flashing a warning."

With that, Arnie sat down while the rest of us offered her a standing ovation.

And I couldn't help but think of what an opportunity New Hampshire missed.

Tags: (All Tags)
Print Friendly View Send As Email
What a wonderful gift she gave those who heard her speak (0.00 / 0)
...the opportunity to connect heads with hearts and remember why we believe what we believe and why we work to make politics happen. Her passion ignites us to remain in the fight!

Republicans cry only for themselves!


"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."
Albert Camus



I'm happy to hear that you had the chance to meet her, (0.00 / 0)
Tully.  Very dynamic, intelligent, does not apologize for her beliefs, and I think she's tapped into movement politics, unlike many who believe that political campaigns will be the same as they ever were.

Here's the end of that Michener quote:

Why does it jerk?To alert me that I have been passive and inattentive too long, to remind me that one of the noblest purposes for which human beings are put on earth is to strive to make their societies better, to see to it that gross inequalities are not perpetuated. And to halt them  requires both effort and financial contributions usually in the form of taxes....
    When I have been dead 10 years and a family comes to tend the flowers on the grave next to mine, and they talk about the latest pitiful inequity plaguing their town, they will hear a rattling from my grave and can properly say: "that's Jim again. His knee is still jerking."

- James Michener November 1991 Parade Magazine

Arnie for Governor redux.  The people's choice.

In the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis, the Fed/Treasury lent, spent, or guaranteed $28 trillion to save the banking system.


Excellent! (0.00 / 0)
Thanks for sharing this. We are truly fortunate to have Arnie doing what Arnie does best: being a conscience.

And glad of the Michener quote, which I had not seen before.

I finally have an explanation for the pain I have had in my knees for the last couple of years.

They. Don't. Care.
We do.
Rinse, repeat.


Arnie (0.00 / 0)
Had a similar experience. . . . In 1991, when I was a freshman at Dartmouth, Arnie came to campus to speak about women in politics and knocked the doors down. She was amazing -- smart, funny, and, of course, passionate. (Remember one anecdote in which she recalled an uncomfortable older man asking her how she would be able to serve as governor "ever 28 days.")

Later on, I used to call her up in Orford for advice on getting Dartmouth students engaged in Democratic politics. Even though she was one of the biggest names in the state (this was between her groundbreaking '92 gubernatorial run and her '96 near-miss 2nd CD campaign), Arnie always made time for this awkward 20-year-old kid.

Later, when I was working for Dick Swett's congressional campaign in rural towns in northern NH, I came across hundreds of people whom she brought into our party -- folks who never lifted a finger for a politician before. Arnie brought them (and thousands of others) to the table, and many of them stayed to help Dick, Jeanne, John, Paul, Carol, and others who joined her in leading our party.

I don't always agree with Arnie (re: calling the man who pushing health insurance reform through Congress as "tepid"), but am invariably inspired and motivated by her.

Thanks for sharing, Tully.  


It's the energy (4.00 / 3)
and the lack of fear.  We should be thinking hard about that, especially the second, this year.  


Connect with BH
     
Blue Hampshire Blog on Facebook
Powered by: SoapBlox