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What was the message that Candidate Obama campaigned on last year again?
After reading David Dayen’s FDL News Desk post, “Obama, in OFA Webcast, Urges Unity for ‘Least’ of Health Care Bills” this morning, I’m starting to think it was:
Let’s have just enough change to make it look like we’ll have done something good, but not enough to have actually accomplished much of anything at all.
And after reading Scarecrow’s diary post, “Why the White House Probably Doesn’t Want a Public Option,” this morning, I wrote the following letter to President Obama, sent via the contact page of White House’s website:
Oct 21, 2009
Dear President Obama,
As you continue to send Rahm Emanuel, Peter Orszag and Kathleen Sebelius into the Senate’s conference where efforts are right now underway to merge the bills from the Finance and HELP Committees, please remember that a growing number of people in your base are becoming very dissatisfied with your apparent efforts to stymie real health insurance reform, which must at the very least include a public health insurance option like the one that appears in the Kennedy-Dodd HELP Committee bill.
Harry Reid’s leadership looks weak right now. But your Administration will be blamed for this great failure of moral leadership if you fail to show us real change that we can believe in.
I joined the OFA drive yesterday and called my Senators and Congressman. But I did not follow the script provided by OFA. I did not say that I support President Obama’s plan for health insurance reform. I said that I strongly support real health care reform, which must include a public health insurance option like the one that appears in the Kennedy-Dodd HELP Committee bill. I could not say that I support your plan, because no one is sure what your plan is for health insurance reform.
Why won’t you fight for real change, Mr. President?
If the bill that comes out of this conference is not real health insurance reform, the energy and momentum that you put in motion last year will fade away very quickly.
If the bill that comes out of this conference is not real health insurance reform, you will be facing a Republican Congress come January 2011.
The private insurance companies have given us all ample evidence that they cannot be trusted to act in the best interests of the United States or of the American people.
Please tell Rahm Emanuel, Peter Orszag and Kathleen Sebelius to side with the millions of Americans who want to believe in you and your leadership. Tell them to start fighting hard for a public health insurance option like the one that appears in the Kennedy-Dodd HELP Committee bill.
Why spend the next year trying to trick the American people into believing that you have not wasted this once-in-a-generation opportunity, which is what you will have done if you fail to produce a public health insurance option, when you can spend the next year energizing people by showing them what we can accomplish when we work together?
Do it because it’s the politically smart thing to do.
Do it because it’s the right thing to do.
Do it because, if you don’t, you will be facing a Republican Congress come January 2011.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Brc
17 Comments
Just in case anyone here hasn’t looked at the FDL petition to Reid and signed it yet, Jane has asked again that we do so now:
“Tell Harry Reid: Stop the Silent Filibuster of a Public Option”
http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/hccallthemout?source=email&subsource=fwd
Tell friends.
I sent the following email to friends in TN and NY:
Please take a look at the petition in this link and consider signing it today.
“Tell Harry Reid: Stop the Silent Filibuster of a Public Option”
http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/hccallthemout?source=email&subsource=fwd
And forward it to anyone you think might be interested!
I already signed it and forwarded it to some friends and family I thought might sign it, too.
Hah! Great letter…
The only thing I don’t agree with is this:
Really, he should just remove them from the health care debate completely, since, as a group, they don’t seem capable of negotiating in good faith.
It isn’t enough to push back against industry lobbyists who cannot operate in good faith; we have to do the same to deserving Democrats.
I would have suggested that they just be pushed aside, but the conference is happening now and I think the suggestion that they not be in the room at this point wouldn’t be taken seriously. For now, that ship has sailed. Best to demand that the people he’s already sent start doing what Candidate Obama said his Administration would be doing.
You’re probably right about that, but I honestly don’t foresee them negotiating in good faith to keep his campaign promise for true health care reform. Call me cynical. ;~)
Actually, I think his message is: change is good – toward centrism, the right-moderate country he believes we live in, away from rule by right-wing ideologues, and toward greater public engagement in governance. This “change” has nothing to do with reclaiming our country from corporations or in creating a truly kinder, gentler and more progressive America. I think progressive Dems read into the word “change” way too much or perhaps just the wrong things.
Uh, I don’t think so. Read his campaign speeches again. He campaigned as a progressive and is governing like a Reagan republican. No audacity here.
There You go again. Thinking He will ever see what You write or even be told of it.
If you can tell me how writing letters hurts the effort to accomplish the goals that I’m saying I want to accomplish, then please tell me how sending these letters is harmful.
I’ve already told you that I do believe that it makes a difference.
Many others here agree with me.
So, why do you keep writing these comments? Do you really have such a deep character flaw in your personality that you feel the need to drag us down again and again and again while we’re doing what we can to speak out and effect change?
Hey write all You want if it tweeks you twinky, but making it sound like your going to make a difference pleads for psychological coulseling.
Your coming to this site hour after hour and leaving these comments ad nauseam seems like the bigger plea for psychological counseling, dude.
You either need serious help, or are being paid by the likes of Newt Gingrich to spend so much time trying to slow us down. Sounds like something Newt would do. Well, tell Newt or whoever that I’ve got more energy than he’s got money to pay you. And tell him that I don’t suffer from the same character flaws and delusions that afflict him 24-7. He and his ilk don’t stand a chance to take power back ever again.
If you can present a valid argument that explains why you think writing your comments on this site, which are all about how we’re not making a difference, is a better use of one’s time than is my communicating my thoughts to as many people as possible and encouraging others to do the same, then maybe I’ll start thinking your comments are worth reading.
If you cared about any of the issues discussed at this site or about achieving the goals of the people who come to this site, you’d stop writing comments like the ones you’ve spewed out on this thread.
No. The reason it won’t make difference is because Obama
doesn’t have faith in the health care reform proposed.
Otherwise he wouldn’t wait until 2013 after the election
to have it implemented.
good letter
Knoxville, you’re asking Obama to show political courage; please don’t hold your breath.
But please keep being involved and not passive EVEN when you know that the odds are insurmountably against you having any effect.
thanks knoxville!
Yeah, very handsome, intelligent guy, the President. Excellent speech writers on his team. Mop analogies aside, I don’t think he thinks of himself as a public servant, which means he’ll not make a great leader.
Insurance companies are going to continue raising their rates after this health care bill passes. It’s going to be embarrassing for the Democrats, I predict, unless they are able to open the public option to everyone not covered by big companies (the likes of IBM or WalMart). It has got to look like Hacker’s public option. And, if that isn’t the case, they’re losing some seats in 2010.
Writing letters to elected representatives and leaders in our government and encouraging others to do the same makes a huge difference.
If you come to FDL because you care about what Jane and true Firedogs are working to accomplish, write letters!
If you think you’re not being heard. Write another letter. And another. And another.
The people who are coming to FDL and commenting on threads like this one about how it is just a waste of time to write letters and make calls and raise money to run ads because our leaders don’t listen are
BOTH
A) used to the ways of the Republicans for whom they are working, who twist the truth to trick their constituents rather than listen to the needs of their constituents,
AND
B) scared shitless because they know that all the letters that we send, all the phone calls that we make, and all the money that we are raising for ads ARE MAKING A HUGE DIFFERENCE.