Quote of the Day

The House Bill with its "compromises" was bad enough, but it was stronger than this pap. Do you really think the House will adopt the tattered remnants of reform that might survive whatever Reid shepherds through the senatorial gauntlet? I can't stress this part enough: this is not just about extending coverage to another 12 people (as Reich put it); this is about AFFORDABILITY. There is nothing that is going to be affordable about this once the Dems give the entire goddam thing away in the name of political feasibility. It will create a previously non-existent findancial burden on people who can ill afford it, force shitty coverage down their throats in exchange for their hard-earned money, and once the full horror of its consequences begin to perk through the heartland, the Dems won't be able to get elected dogcatcher in a town full of puppy mills.

On the other hand, if we refuse to pass this shell of a bill, yes, the Republicans will get what they want---no reform---but is that a good enough reason to do the only thing that makes sense? If this is not a strong bill with teeth, the Republicans WILL get back in, trust me, and they will dismantle what's left of it in record time, leaving Dems with both public enmity AND no health care reform. Get real. Dump this dog and start over. And get Obama out there to DO something about it, instead of sitting around trying to play the Buddha card.

It's quite frustrating that Obama refuses to put any public pressure on anyone. As to the opt-out version, which would make Republicans in every state that wanted to pull out take a public position to prevent the citizens of that state from even having the choice of picking a publicly-sponsored, Federally-chartered non-profit plan, all he would have to do is say, prominently, "Giving people in different states the choice to opt-out of a Federal plan seems awfully reasonable to me. I don't quite see how a Senator from one state can dictate to the citizens of another state that they cannot have what they want, and it is perfectly clear that in many states an overwhelming majority of the citizens want the public option."

Why is it impossible for him to really take a position and employ some common public relations techniques to promote it and make it hard for anyone to oppose it?

At the turn of the last century Teddy Roosevelt was the first major US political figure to advocate for universal health care. That was about forty years after Bismarck had established it in Germany and our dysfunctional government warns US not to move too fast in 2009 towards that end.

After a hundred years of sell outs to corporate power it has become all too clear that the Democrats are not the vehicle to meaningful reform. It is essential to any truly progressive program that the Democratic party be dissolved or rendered to third party status. Destroy the party of pretenders. Better yet, merge them together with their brethren , the Republicans. Call them the Republicrat Party or the Fascists. Fascists having such a negative connotation, we could call them the Plutocrats or Corporatists.
The Kucinich progressives could join the Greens, the Paul liberatarians could join the Liberatarians. The country would still be an even split, but now three ways. A majority government would be highly unlikely, and coalitions would be required in order to operate. Deals would have to be made. If the Fasciists wanted corporate giveaways they would have to give the Greens something in return, ie, health care.

“To turn your back on the corrupt Republican Party and the corrupt Democratic Party---the gold-dust lackeys of the ruling class----counts for something. It counts still more…to join a minority party that has an ideal, that stands for a principle, and fights for a cause.“ Eugene Victor Debs from his 1918 speech at Canton, Ohio for which he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in this “the land of the free”.