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Why Dems Are Losing the Health Care Fight
I was so stoked about Organizing for America's Office Visit for Health Care Reform, I signed up for the first available appointment. Too bad it sucked.
In case you somehow missed the email, Organizing for America—the vestigial remnants of President Obama's massive net-roots organization—is SPAMing the flock to visit their senators during the August recess in support of health care reform. The plan is geniusly sticky and simple. You click the link, pick a time you'd like to visit, and print out a map to your senator's local office, plus a two-page form to record your visit, and viola, CHANGE. It isn't supposed to be a violently disruptive town-hall meeting, just a group of average, level-headed Americans putting democracy into action through basic civic engagement. Totally rad. Even better, tens of thousands of other people had already signed up to do the same thing, according to Organizing for America. The prospect had me genuinely excited, which is rare for me.
In general, I do my best to avoid overt displays of political activism. But health care reform was my one big issue, the one I was ready to man the trenches for. When I was eight, the day I was supposed to start 3rd grade, I was struck by a rare illness that left me paralyzed from the waist down. That was September 1994, the same month that President Clinton's ambitious healthcare plan gasped it's last breath and died, crushed by reactionary fearmongering, red-baiting, and corporate-sponsored insanity. I'm 23 now, and the current debate feels like deja vu.
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Conservatives and Healthcare
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Gov't Health Care Kills Granny Dead!
The conservative strategy to derail Obama's reform plan.
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Pro-Lifers Hijack Health Care Reform
One of the most controversial issues related to the health care debate? Whether the government health care plan should cover the cost of abortions.
Only this time, I'm one of the millions of Americans with no safety net. In a few months, I'll lose the coverage my mother extended to me while I was in college. Because of my pre-existing condition, I'm either ineligible for or priced out of private insurance, but since I'm working I'm not eligible for Medicare either. Naturally, I'm interested in a public option.
So too were the seven ageing hippies who showed up just before 9 a.m. at One Post Plaza, home of Senator Dianne Feinstein's San Francisco offices, cluching their Organizing for America forms and hoping to speak to a policy expert. After fifteen minutes or so, a flustered young aid named John appeared with a Steno pad and invited us all to step to the other side of the lobby where he collected our forms and repeated some talking points about how Feinstein supports a public option and is waiting to see what comes out of committee. A few of us shared personal stories, as the form and the email had encouraged us to do, but the whole thing made me feel like an uninvited guest staying for tea.
Compare this with the massive Astroturf machine the GOP has mobilized, and it's clear why the right is winning this fight no-contest. Even as pro-reform volunteers canvass their neighbors and fill seats at town hall meetings around the country, the left's leadership can't get it together. And I had such high hopes.
Hands Across America for Public Health Insurance
Alan P.
On Sunday August 23rd at 3 PM (EST) we'll join hands all across America in support of quality affordable health insurance for all. This will give us almost two weeks to put this together. The visuals will be stunning so we'll be able to get press coverage & our Congress will see what it means to have over 70% of the public in favor of something!
Contact Info
Email: Jayne4Obama@gmail.com
Location: Main Streets all across the country
As a Refusing-To-Age Hippie...
So too were the seven aging hippies who showed up just before 9 a.m. at One Post Plaza, home of Senator Diane Feinstein's San Francisco offices, cluching their Organizing for America forms and hoping to speak to a policy expert. After fifteen minutes or so, a flustered young aid named John appeared with a Steno pad and invited us all to step to the other side of the lobby where he collected our forms and repeated some talking points about how Feinstein supports a public option and is waiting to see what comes out of committee. A few of us shared personal stories, as the form and the email had encouraged us to do, but the whole thing made me feel like an uninvited guest staying for tea.
This is the sort of experience that makes a political activist feel they're being USED, by a politician who Talks The Talk, but the only Walk she's willing to Walk is along whatever path keeps her in office and well positioned among the party's major movers & shakers. A "Dennis Kucinich" she isn't!!
You folks cool your heels for 15 minutes, an unprepared intern is dispatched to try and make you feel "relevant", and ultimately you're told that the good Senator is taking that leadership role you hoped to see her assume so seriously that she's going to "wait to see what comes out of committee".
(I've gotten the same response from my own Dem Rep when I wrote, suggesting he take a leadership role in cosponsoring a somewhat controversial bill, that a good respectable of the House ended up supporting way ahead of him...)
Damn! At least the Repubs are managing to tap into and use PASSION on this issue! That's NOT all being faked!!
So-called "Progressive" Feinstein has served up a bowl of milk-toast, and come next election day, the majority of the California Dems will come right back for a second helping.
God Help Us (which He Will Not DO, as we are unwilling to help ourselves...)
Was the Boston Tea Party "Astro-Turf" too?
I love how Democrats use terms like "Un-American" when referring to Republicans who protest Democrat agenda. Yet, when DEMOCRATS protest, it is always truly heartfelt and original. This is what happened when Republican's had their tea party protests too. It was "Astro-turf," and ridiculed by every liberal media outlet in the country, including the use of several "tea-bagging" jokes on CNN! But you know what, nobody makes fun of the REAL Boston tea party, (which, by the way, for all the Democrats reading this, the Boston tea party was actually a protest over HIGH TAXES!) Imagine that. A REAL, GRASSROOTS protest born out of conservative ideals. How could it be?! I guess that must have been "Astro-Turf" too. Oh and by the way. Anyone who supports a Democratic leader who lies to the point of claiming that protesters at the Town Hall debates carry swastikas... MIGHT want to rethink their support of that disgusting excuse for a person. Her name is Nancy Pelosi and I hope she is excommunicated from politics forever in 2010. Bush never even said anything that horrendous.
High taxes?
It was "a protest over high taxes"? Nope. It was a protest over taxes levied by an un-representative government. In fact, the Tea Act 1773 made legally imported tea -- like that destroyed in the tea party -- cheaper than it had been previously. Not coincidentally, several of the organizers were merchants or smugglers of the Dutch tea whose prices were thus undercut.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, your facts about Speaker Pelosi are just as far off base, and there is ample photographic evidence to prove it. Swastika incidents did in fact happen. Your claim of "horrendous" "lies" devolves to a claim that Pelosi 'meant to say' that the protesters were carrying swastikas as badges of pride, rather than as symbols of historical ignorance and misguided rage at President Obama. The fact that her comments were true on their face, that both interpretations are plausible a priori, and that the facts amply support one interpretation and do not at all support another must lead anyone interested in honest debate to construe her remarks in the (obviously intended) factually correct meaning.
If I said that "America went to the moon" would you call me a horrendous liar and use as evidence that America is now and has always been on Earth and not on the moon? Or would you think it was perhaps more likely that my literal meaning was that some Americans went to the moon?
Get serious, please.
The Moral of the Story
The real point here is that it is ridiculous for Democrats to paint the opponents to their agenda as "unpatriotic" or "un-American," and slander them, to try to make themselves look like the good guys. The people that attend these town hall meetings are citizens. They are not "organized." This is the same tactic Bush used, (when he was pushing The Patriot Act through is just one example), and my how we all got an earful from Democrats about that. Now here they are doing the same things. And also they are claiming that, "Republicans can't actually protest things because they're Republican. They can't actually get mad about issues and be legitimately upset with anything." Since you're so good at analyzing arguments you should have no problem identifying the flaw in that one. And by the way, to claim that civillian protestors at town hall meetings are "Un-American" IS a horrendous lie. How trendy and popular was dissent during the Bush Administration?
Americans don't take kindly to name-calling either. That is a bad road to travel down for politicians, and Nancy Pelosi does a lot of it. And frankly, it's going to come back to haunt her one of these days. And, just a question, but, if taxes were so "cheap" as you put it during the time period of the Boston Tea Party, then why did they care? What exactly made those Americans so mad as to actually do something about it? I'm thinking the people got angry because they had to pay taxes without proper representation like you said. However, a key element in that is paying taxes. If there weren't any taxes to pay, I don't think they would have been as upset.
Misguided Rage at Obama?
Who exactly should they guide their rage toward then? It's his health care proposal that seems to be causing this rage. Also, I wouldn't be so quick to call the pictures of Obama with symbols of swastikas on them "historical ignorance." The Nazis, like the Russians, were a socialist government. Within the past year here in America the government now owns a part of Citigroup, Chrysler, GM, AIG, and there have been talks about nationalizing banks as well as implementing government regulated executive pay. These are all pretty clearly socialist leaning steps. And now we're talking about discussing government health care too? Not to mention all of this is only after 6 months of Obama being in office. The swastikas seem to represent animosity towards socialism, as well its historical failures of around the globe.
Nazism, For the Record...
tagged as:- solution
While I do not promote socialism, Nazism is not that. The Nazi party was was indeed born from a party calling themselves The National Socialist Workers Party in Germany in the 1930s. It grew out of the humiliations Germany was suffering after World War I. However, the ideologies leaned much more right than left and combined philosophies around nationalism, anti-communism, traditionalism, the importance of the ethno-state and a Pan-Germany or the idea that their way of life should be forced and spread across an ethnically cleansed Europe. (Actually the world was the grand scheme.) This sounds more like someone else I know rather than the current administration.
Today's Conservatives Comparing Themselves to Historic Events
As a supporter of protest, I know that the message must be clear, what the protest is for and/or against. It should as well speak to an alternative solution. That's not coming from the organized hysteria happening right now.
I find it absurd how conservatives wrap themselves in the flag and compare their motivations around greed and money to the historic actions of the founding fathers; reshaping the memory of historic events to suit their ideals. Besides, if most conservatives really knew some of the acts performed by The Sons of Liberty, they'd be appalled. If you were doing that today, you'd be in prison for terrorism. If it was happening for the overblown issues the radio pundits are inflaming people with, it would be terrorism. Thank goodness most people realize that most of this is from the same group of people so inflamed over loosing the election that they are going to rile themselves to oppose anything coming out of the administration. Does anyone really believe taxation will go away? No; that whole movement is therefore not about taxes. Republican leadership didn't relax taxes, nor has this administration so much as threatened raising them for the same middle-class people who today are screaming in the aisles for no health-care reform and no taxes. We're so overwhelmed and blinded by the fear and anger perpetuated by a few choice voices, we're not even bothering to know what we're really screaming for, or we're really ashamed to say, so we'll make it up as we go along.
Besides It's Really Not That Difficult To Incite a Riot
One well placed voice is all it takes.
why did MJ delete my comment?
why did MJ delete my comment?
I don't want "affordable health insurance"...
I want quality health CARE. Period. Get rid of the middle-mob. Now. Thank you.
Amen My Countryman.
Amen My Countryman.
Gone from supporter to not so much...
As a military retiree, I and my family are fortunate enough to have excellent government sponsored health care, care that is consistent and costs very little. The people who hate this kind of system without understanding it are afraid of the best and cheapest health care available in this country if not the world. Sadly, what Obama is selling is nothing like it, and appears to be quickly becoming a joke because of the back room deals that will keep the pharmaceutical and insurance industries alive and rich despite both being major contributors to this bloated mess. I despise the scare tactics of the Republicans, yet they might be doing the right thing even if it's for the wrong reason. What is shameful is the incredible ignorance that goes along with this so-called debate. As always, we get what we deserve as a result. I wouldn't trade the health care I have for anything. America's ticket is to scream for what your reps, senators, and federal employees have been enjoying for a long time. The infrastructure is already there, they just have to open it up to everyone.
Not all have bad experiences . . .
I went to my Congressman's office on the same day, Monday, and I was the only one there. There were two interns who helped me, and I felt very welcomed and listened to. I was invited to two forums he is having. This was the office of Wally Herger in Chico, CA. I would definitely visit again.