Where Do We Go From Here?

Conceding the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1980, Edward Kennedy told the delegates at the Democratic National Convention:
We cannot have a fair prosperity in isolation from a fair society. So I will continue to stand for a national health insurance. We must—we must not surrender—we must not surrender to the relentless medical inflation that can bankrupt almost anyone and that may soon break the budgets of government at every level. Let us insist on real controls over what doctors and hospitals can charge, and let us resolve that the state of a family's health shall never depend on the size of a family's wealth.
The president, the vice-president, the members of Congress have a medical plan that meets their needs in full, and whenever senators and representatives catch a little cold, the Capitol physician will see them immediately, treat them promptly, fill a prescription on the spot. We do not get a bill even if we ask for it, and when do you think was the last time a member of Congress asked for a bill from the federal government? And I say again, as I have before, if health insurance is good enough for the president, the vice-president, the Congress of the United States, then it's good enough for you and every family in America.
Nearly 30 years later, that dream—of health insurance for every American—is still unfulfilled, and now Kennedy won't be around to lend his considerable political heft to the continuing debate. His seat in the senate will be empty for six months before Massachusetts can hold a special election to fill it. (Unless Massachusetts Dems change the law.) The Democrats will have 59 votes (if the ailing Robert Byrd is healthy enough) in the Senate, and the Republicans will be able to filibuster anything and everything they want. When the seat's finally filled, it'll be well into 2010, an election year. No one expects sweeping health care reform to be passed in an election year.
Even without Kennedy, the Democrats are at a high-water mark in their political power. For sixty years, the party has tried and failed to bring health care to all Americans. Everyone, inside and outside the party, thinks this year may be health care reform's best chance yet. If Senate Republicans stand firm and filibuster, Democrats' only option to pass health care will be the budget reconciliation process—a parliamentary maneuver that would allow them to pass a bill with a simple majority. Will the Democrats muster the courage to move forward through reconciliation, even in the face of what are sure to be fierce protests from their GOP colleagues?
During the election campaign last year, Teddy and most of the rest of the Kennedy clan made a big show of passing the family torch to Barack Obama. "This November, the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans, so with Barack Obama, for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew, the hope rises again and the dream lives on," Kennedy told the delegates at the Democratic National Convention.
Can Obama bear the burden? His style is not Kennedy's—he's more careful, more moderate, less emotional. Obama can sure give a speech, but it's not a Ted Kennedy speech. Obama talks about common sense and working together and bipartisanship. Teddy spoke about doing the right thing. As the Boston Globe's Charlie Pierce wrote in 2003, Kennedy's best speeches were eulogies—his greatest from the pulpit of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, over Bobby's coffin, "in a voice like that of someone choking on blood":
My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.
As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."
Teddy Kennedy's funeral will be a huge moment in the history of the Democratic party and the nation. What will his chosen torchbearer say about him? And how will he carry forward Kennedy's legacy?
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Comments
Extinguished
I believe the odious Kennedy's torch was extinguished a while back somewhere near a bridge in a body of water in New England.
Trolls are never classy.
That they are usually anonymous says volumes about them doesn't it?
Odious??? This man has the
Odious??? This man has the legacy for the ages. This man has done more for American people than any other. He will be remembered by historians as one of the greatest of American statesmen, certainly standing head and shoulders above anyone of his era.
This is the reason I despise about half of the people
Residing in the country of my birth... I am an Old Retired Navy Chief, I voted for the first time at the age of 22 for John F Kennedy. He was a sailor, just like me! He was a hero to this young sailor a man of great honor. He was a member of a very elite group of sailors who sailed their little wooden splinters into harm's way where just one round from the ships that were superior in every way would destroy their little boat and probably kill every member of the crew. A navy consisting of wooden boats and Cast Iron Men. He was my introduction to the Kennedy Family, followed by Robert and then Teddy.... Camelot was a living and breathing thing, and the Kennedys had the guts and fortitude to stand for the common man, something that very few if any Conservative Republican or Blue Dog Dem could or would do. I have heard the pathetic bleatings of those who feel that the Kennedys betrayed their trust... Never have I heard these same pompus butt wipes grumble about the Bushes, Cheneys Roves and the rest of the charlatan bands that roamed Washington for years. The Kennedy's gave more as a family than probably the entire Rethuglican Party.... God Damn! I despise Republicans and all they stand for.... It's people like Annymouse here who weren't qualified to lick the dirt off Teddys shoes, but like to fire the first salvo at a dead man... I classify you annymouse and the dog turd of the year... Efff You and the whore you rode in on.....
Just this old Chief's 2 cents
If my language offends, it was meant to.... I am a Chief and I speak parables in 4 letter words.... And when I am really pissed you can find me standing on the front of your shoulders shitting in your mouth!!!!
I know how you feel, "Old Retired Navy Chief"
As activists who fight each and every day to attempt to make our country a better place, my husband and I are repulsed by these Right-Wing fanatics who have not only taken over a once noble political party, but have done everything in their power to prevent any important social reforms needed by this country. My husband, who is a normally calm person, stormed into the room after watching some Right-Wing Senator blast "Government run" health care and said "I hate Republicans!" As a Primary Care Physician who strongly advocates for a Universal Single Payer Health Care System for America, he has watched his practice be hijacked by private "for profit" insurance companies who are the real rationers of care!
Thank god for men like Teddy Kennedy who knew the moral imperative is to help people in need and provide a system of fair, equal and affordable health care to ALL AMERICANS.
These despicable men & women are doing all they can to destroy President Obama and his desire to implement real health care reform. I hope that they get really, really sick and then watch as their private insurance companies cancel their coverage and leaves them to die in agony with the lack of treatment they deserve. I really think that this is the only thing that could change their narrow, heartless, corrupted minds!
Mr. Baumann, the copy
Mr. Baumann, the copy editors made a mistake.
"Health care reform was Ted Kennedy's dream. Can Barack Obama make it a reality?" should read, "Health care reform was Ted Kennedy's dream. Will Barack Obama make it a reality?" because as all liberals and progressives know, unity porn trumps reform.
A great man
Hopefully his dream of universal healthcare or at least reformed healthcare becomes a reality soon.
Ward in the Woods Perhaps
Ward in the Woods
Perhaps his death,will make the dream come true.
Somehow this bill MUST pass
Somehow this bill MUST pass and MUST include the public option. Without the public option, there is no reform.
The Republicans in congress must grow up and realize that the majority of Americans want the public option. Nobody in congress ought to pay attention to the Republican gun toting terrorists who show up to Town Hall meetings. I sure hope that nonsense finally dies down. Afterall, being ANTI-health would be pro-death and thus pro-death-panel. Not providing adequate, fair, and affordable healthcare does kill people. Not providing healthcare due to some pre-existing condition kills people. Providing healthcare saves lives and extends lives.
Can he?
The teaser line on MJ's home page is: " Health care reform was Ted Kennedy's dream. Can Barack Obama make it a reality?"
The answer is no, not without our help.
Not unless we pitch in with the same dedication and singularity of purpose as did The Lion.
Somehow this bill MUST pass
Somehow this bill MUST pass and MUST include the public option. Without the public option, there is no reform.
The Republicans in congress must grow up and realize that the majority of Americans want the public option. Nobody in congress ought to pay attention to the Republican gun toting terrorists who show up to Town Hall meetings. I sure hope that nonsense finally dies down. Afterall, being ANTI-health would be pro-death and thus pro-death-panel. Not providing adequate, fair, and affordable healthcare does kill people. Not providing healthcare due to some pre-existing condition kills people. Providing healthcare saves lives and extends lives.
paper cutter
Health Care Reform,
I admire, agree with and envy every word the old retired Navy Chief wrote. He has inspired me to polish my oratory skills - I tend to become incoherent when enraged - in preparation for what I predict is going to be the biggest divisional catastrophes in this country since the Civil War. I literally cannot watch FOX or even CNN anymore - because the cesspool garbage coming from the likes of Limbaugh, Riiley, Dodd and Palin gags me. I've never liked Republicans because since I was a kid I've seen their beliefs are twisted hypocricies hiding behind a facade of bible thumping. I've known about the evilness done to black people and the atrocities of the Holocaust. I knew the train infrastructure that tamed the west (and killed all the buffalo and most of the Indians) made a few more filthy rich and then later was deliberately dismantled and shoved out of the way to make way for oil that made a few more even richer.
I celebrated when others like me stopped a war and policitions like the Kennedy's initiated civil rights. I knew Bush was lying about his Mass Destruction because he wanted to take over a country and knew why - for money. I knew the stock market and housing bubble was rigged to make a few more filthy rich at the expense of the many - to hell with the have nots because that's the way its always been. I only knew because I read a lot - that a big segment of our population is violent, morally corrupt and downright evil. When Obama won by a near landslide I was thrilled and enthused until I realized that segment would and will try to sabotage him in anyway they can even if they cut off their own noses doing it. They are no smarter or more moral than they ever were. They would rather go without medical treatment than to take a chance on having to pay a tax that would cover for all and they don't grasp that it is costing double to treat people who have to resort to emergency treatment because they don't grasp anything that includes thinking. They are brainwashed because they can be by those who are getting rich off their gullibiity and ignorance. They are caught up in their own dimly perceived notion that they must be superior because they are, after all, white and their dimly perceived god is, after all, on their side.
Not all Americans are motivated by the love of money and some believe it is the right of every one born to have a chance to pursue a decent life. We tend to elect and follow leaders like the Kennedy's and Obama because of that and we are proud to do so and to call ourselves decent human beings but it is time we - like the retired Chief - must do what Obama cannot do right now without endangering his reelection in 2012.. We have to outshout the lunatic fringe and their irresponsible and greedy leaders Become verbal, even if it goes against your grain to be confrontational. Be insulting and aggressive because it is a matter of life and death to those who desparately need health care reform, not to mention a roof over their heads. Boycott all the businesses who sponser these sick and greedy predatorss who are manipulating the retarded element of the same party into their game plan the same way Hitler did - with promises of recognized superiority for the redneck class and untold wealth for the already filthy rich element (emphasis on the "filthy") Let big business know we can break their asses if they continue to let the unacceptable and despicable rule their gullible public without repurcussion and lawsuits for their lies. Be loyal and supportive of Obama and understanding of what he is trying to do and how much his hands are tied because of his unique position in history in this bigoted and violent country. Let the dog turds in power position know it is our country too and we won't let them finish ruining it without a fight so big it just might make the civil war might look like a touch football game. Be effective, but be careful doing it. We can outsmart the cold blooded and dim witted, we've done it before with the help of the Kennedys and it may be time to do it again with our new leader who is as capable - just a little more cautious, but we have to do it carefully because law enforcement is almost exclusively Republican..
Our let live nature is why we are progressive and liberal but we may have to put that aside temporarily to fight against the violent trash element who revere the rich who have the power (and obsession to avoid taxes) to sabotage the passion of Ted Kennedy's life and that of the one he passed the torch to - Barack Obama and Health Care Reform . We have already lost first place as the most desireable country to live. We have to stand up and let these loud mouthed and ignorant idiots know that they are not going to cost us what is left of our country after scumbags like Bush and his thugs got through with it. Obama will need the whole 8 years to initiate the changes that will eventually give everyone a start for a decent life including health care like the rest of the civilized world..
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