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I had to make that statement. I had to ask that question.
Why won’t progressives unite and take the universal health care fight to the mattresses? Why not put it all behind Sanders’ S703 bill?
I had to make that statement. I had to ask that question.
Why won’t progressives unite and take the universal health care fight to the mattresses? Why not put it all behind Sanders’ S703 bill?
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31 Comments
i’m in!
Re: The headline.
Simple answers to simple questions: Yes.
Re the body:
See above.
the ‘i’m in’ referring to supporting sanders’ s 703, since i didn’t make it clear in my first comment.
thanks, lambert. we don’t have the luxury of time re “ego recovery” right now. i think progressives and rest of citizenry need to declare political war on a Congress (and Prez) that sold us out to the corporations one more time.
re the “robust” option, progressive Congress people promised to vote ONLY for a robust bill. And Kucinich and Massa were the ONLY two who kept that promise. so are public option progressives all right with that? they are the ones who should be railing and rallying to fight for universal health care especially, having just been so profoundly betrayed!
S703 is coming up for a vote. so everyone IGNORES it because it is still not feasible and pragmatic re the bottom feeding corporate puppets? I say we put up a fight!!! I say it is time to share our outrage and rally the citizens, but at the very least, back up the universal health care people still fighting bravely, the single payer Medicare for All folks committing acts of civil disobedience, going to JAIL to help America get universal health care and not feed the profit coffers of the corporations.
Let us take it to the mattresses. I am calling the Senate nightly to vote yes for Sanders’ S703!!!! I am also talking up this bill to the non-choir people in my social network for whom so much of this has been under the wire. Who trust that our new President and our Democrats regard the citizens as their constituency, and not the corporations as those watching more closely truly grasp.
excellent, hipp!! let’s ask for what we WANT and what we DESERVE!!!
too bad our President is not working for us, or our bought off Congress, but we deserve to fight hard for our civil and human right of universal health care. the fight is not over, even though they stomped all over their “robust” promises.
I think it is time we try to rally the non-choir in terms of what is really going on, not what the media and the new pharma corporate advertising (part of the Obama drug deal) will be spinning. I think we ask the non-choir to wake up to the reality and start fighting for their right of universal health care and recover from “learned helplessness” and to support S703. What do we have to lose if we fight for it? Look what we have to gain if we push it hard and are heeded!
What if on all the talking head programs the pundits start to notice that the electorate has declared moral war on its Congress!!!! That Bernie Sanders S703 bill is no longer a one man show?
Take it to the mattresses!
You’re dead right, lib. Also about the title, except this is not only about ego. It’s about money and jobs too. It’s kind of hard for HCAN to call up George Soros and tell him they were wrong about how to use his contribution to get health care reform.
Lib, didn’t you see Harry’s speech where he told us all that his was a “robust” PO?
Shame on you for not recognizing that Harry’s opt-out PO which is only forecast to include 3 million people is robust.
How can we get the pundits to recognize this? If we pressure Congress, how will the pundits hear about it? All last week Dems have been going on Rachel’s show to tout the House and Senate bills, and she doesn’t seem to be calling them out on it. Maybe it’s the pundits who need to be pressured first?
lets, thanks. Yeah, I heard Rachel talking about how the right wingers were against the bill and never ACKNOWLEDGING the single payer medicare for all folks also were MOST unhappy with the bill. I have been behind Rachel for a long, long time, and that really disappointed me.
The loudmouthed tea baggers have certainly been useful to the Congress people and Prez who want to talk the talk as much as they can to their seeming progressive constituency, but then to point to the right fringers in citizenry and the Congress who won’t let them be anything but centrist sell outs on a human and civil right we should have, that every other industrial nation has. Is there no shame even on that score? Anyway the Repubs say, “let them eat cake, the citizenry”. And the Dems get their cake and to eat it, too. “Look how hard we are trying.” NOT!!! And they still get their oodles of money from the corporations, since they assume the citizenry is too DIM to get the con. And much of the citizenry tragically is. EVEN NOW. EVEN AFTER THE BAIL OUTS!!! Unbelievable.
I think we need to kick it up among anyone who will listen. I know the non-choir in my social network that are over-trusting Obama and Congress, and the socalled Obama apologist liberals. The media, lets, is going to get more intensely crazymaking because $150 million is being spent by Pharma thanks to the pre-deal with Obama to spin whatever the outcome of the bill would be (guaranteed pro-corporation, that is) to the public.
So I am calling the Senate, leaving voice mails, etc., to endorse S703 and kill this bill. And I am communicating with my social network more and more to do the same.
Support Bernie Sanders’ bill S 703. Give the president a call at 1-800-578-4171, and/or call a Senator or more. Four toll-free switchboard numbers for the Senate and House: 1-800-828-0498, 1-866-338-1015, 1-866-220-0044, and 1-800-473-6711. Or email or write. It matters. The more the better.
List of senators:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
I would like to see Bernie Sanders open his 2012 run for President with a filibuster for S703 on the Senate floor. And when I call, that’s what I’m going to tell them.
Until Progressives become a political force in congress and just say no every once in a while, left-leaning legislation will never be achieved. I blame the progressives for the sorry state of HCR. Its a rather pathetic spectacle, the only bunch that are responsive to the people are too timid to upset the apple cart.
Wouldn’t that be something!
Had better hopes for the Congressional Progressive Caucus for sure. What was all that promising about?
Typo in your headline, libby. You wrote progressives when I think you meant to write “progressives” (with quotes). Heh. After all, just because access bloggers self-identify as progressives doesn’t mean they’re going to make any actual progress, at least in any direction that matters. In fact, given that they butchered both the policy and the politics of health care reform — at least insofar as the public interest is concerned — any progress that’s based on these guys isn’t likely, eh?
Although this oped was not about health care specifically, this part can be used to describe those in power and the tea baggers etc who are preventing single payer from becoming law.
*********
“You choose to stand still, mired in the mud of your own self-inflicted stupidity, content to be led by-the-nose by useless loud-mouths so blatantly devoid of constructive thought. We choose to move forward, unfettered by the need to memorize talking points, inspired by each others quiet-but-determined sense of purpose.
We are divided between those who believe in equality for all, and those who believe they are somehow more equal than others; between those who are content to propagate lies and those who are restless in their pursuit of the truth; between those that take without regard for who goes without, and those who are determined that until no one goes without, nothing taken is truly earned nor deserved.
This is not only the way things are, this is the way things were meant to be. It was always going to come down to this: the ill-informed meanderings versus the facts-on-the-ground, the do-as-I-say versus the do-as-I-do, the Bible-thumpin’ I’ve-got-mine versus those who are in fact thy brothers’-keepers. ”
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/NanceGreggs/536
lambert, so appreciate your presence and sensibility on what is kind of a “kryptonite” diary I would imagine. I consider my appeal, though not received that way undoubtedly, as a kind of “tough love” message to sibling progressives.
The chasm between the single payer m4all folk and the po folk. Will the cronyism and collective ego prevail, or can unity happen? Can there be re-commitment to goal of justice and the demand for universal care as a civil right and to fight for the now 95% of the citizenry against the exploitation of the top 1% which has recruited an awesome number of Congress people to prostitute themselves for it.
The po path did not work. And now the decision is to surrender to this frustration and isolate from fellow progressives or achieve a noble brinksmanship to join the fight still underway and in need of fresh support and now not eclipsed by the “public option” hyperfocus.
I have this great fantasy and hope more than anything else of a move by Jane et al. to rally with single payer m4all folk and use media and political clout and its network. I think this would be an incredible thing to do and it would make a serious difference. It would be a remarkable achievement to transcend natural ego recovery on the part of the leaders, and that would release the network from the allegiance of loyal cronyism which can be fierce and unforgiving to anyone threatening their leadership.
So, I gave it a shot. And am a very presumptuous messenger, for sure. (With my own ego issues, obviously :-) )
I loved loved loved this article. Thank you.
Sorry I didn’t get back promptly on other thread. Am trying to get help for my computer and use the work one too much as compensation (makes for procrastination). My youtubes are chopped up and hard to hear on my own.
You and our friend have fascinating exchanges. So rich and deep and at times obscure but exciting.
Thanks for another inspiring and enlightening link. Every one creates more wakefulness and somber awe.
“Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not”-Bobby Kennedy
That’s my answer to the “enemies of the good” crowd. The senate kerfluffle over just how much to give the insurance industry is the greatest argument for public financing of elections ever made. The ability of the industry to raise rates with impunity rings the death knell for any meaningful relief for Americans. (See credit card reform legislation..hahaha). How hard is it to frame the debate in terms of “Medicare for all”? Simple. To the point. I’m calling my Senator today, and every day, to support S703. I don’t have to call my Rep for HR676, he’s J. Conyers, and he’s got the WH and Obama, and all their apologists dead to rights..called ‘em out.
(also posted inresponse to “the future of the public option” by Jane Hamsher)
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/22/health.care/index.html
and the beat-down goes on….
sisterk, you have no idea how often I think of that RFK quote, especially with this issue, but with all it applies to .. with the wars, etc. And yet I needed to hear it today for morale’s sake … and it helps yet again especially hearing from a sister progressive! ty
And so many acquaintances and friends in my network are assuming automatic good will caretaking (a sensibility for the “common good”, respect for the “public trust”) from Obama admin. and Congress, and it is sooooo not there. And a media that is soooo not there. I wear my black arm band, each day, and the list of reasons for doing so simply keeps on growing. And as messenger I am seen as eccentric and annoying. But geeeeesssssshhhh …. life and death issues, and gratuitous, awesome levels of narcissistic greed by the already too rich and too powerful keep the machinery of ruthlessness going.
:) Good for you. Glad to hear you are calling. Let them know some of us are awake and we see what they are doing. Groupthink can make people totally block out conscience, can’t it?
@21 — ty for the update, sk.
the Repubs are pulling their big-government red scare back to McCarthyism levels and it is so craven. And the Dems are begging for croutons not crumbs, for what should be a universal right and every other industrial nation worked out long ago, even copied our Medicare plan to achieve.
Ostrich citizenry, corrupt media and congress, and all that insurance and pharma money pouring, pouring in.
We gotta stay in the solution and keep talking truth to power.
” the single payer Medicare for All folks committing acts of civil disobedience, going to JAIL to help America get universal health care and not feed the profit coffers of the corporations.”
Yes Libby this is one thing that really pisses me off. I have e-mailed the ED Show trying to get them to cover these arrests at insurance co. offices and I have been dismayed that the sit-ins have not been covered by KO or Rachel. All I can think is that a line has been drawn by sombody somewhere that has forbidden any coverage of civil disobedience over HC. The unrest at Berkeley (over college tuition, I know) warmed my heart and I thought “what if this front could be opened up tactically for M4All?” Well it HAS been opened there just has’nt been any press coverage. The 1-2 punch of near riot in the streets combined with the shock wave of the Grayson-Paul amendment pulling away the curtain on the Fed would be pretty bracing to the power elites, I would think, and embolden more people to PUSH.
You watch. Next will be the resurection of the old “public Option is dead” theme. This bill is a total fail as is. If the PO is excised then it will be flat out dangerous to the nation and may prompt voters to revolt. Being FORCED to pay for crappy health insurance so the cartel can be enriched immeasurably. NO FRIGGIN’ way. And I’ll bet the right would join us in backlash against this.
yes, GDC. I need to focus my attention more to them, too.
I have been reading about the power of individuals for causes, how inspirational they are. Look at how Obama, the whiff of his potential, catalyzed 80 million people with hope and will. Good point, re Rachel and KO. If you are not a big enough “game player” maybe, or if they must answer to the corporate top dogs.
Just read a great article a information clearing house about Joe Hill, what he sacrificed but how he inspired and still does some. May write a diary on him inspired by that.
I read the expression the other day somewhere about the “sanctity of the human being.” Bottom line to end the wars, torture, health care exploitation, credit card exploitation, etc.
Civil disobedience is profoundly brave. And it deserves respect and attention. Even angry attention is less insulting than simply being ignored.
cartel is the right word!
I love that quote, thanks. That reminds me of another one I came across recently from JFK’s remarks at the dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center in San Antonio on the day before the assassination
I think Obama and the Democratic “leadership” was and is disingenuous in this whole health care reform push because they didn’t ‘throw their hats over the wall’ with SP/Med4All
And the JFK quote is a fave of mine, also..especially liked its presentation on that Democratic porn show, West Wing :-)! I’m ready to chain myself to the WH fence, I’m so upset at the craven, calculating, corrupt Dem non-leadership. Keep up the good fight, libby, et al, and we must continue to speak truth to power. Go NNOC! (National Nurses Organizing Committee) http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/november/cna-nnoc-statement-on-the-withdrawal-of-the-house-single-payer-amendment.html
john, a great way to put it. no, those hats have not gone over the wall. the moral will was not there, even the political will was wobbly.
Dem porn show, West Wing. What a hoot!
great wording, unfortunately! yes, those nnoc keep single payer alive. we gotta keep spreading the word. thanks, sk!