Working people would have nothing if they were not willing to fight for it.

[kentuck]

And the same goes for health care reform. If it is not worth fighting for, it is not worth having. Are you willing to fight?

This is not a time to give up or to surrender the fight to President Obama and the Congress. This is a fight for the people. They have to feel the heat.

It is up to the Democrats. The Republicans are only a side-show, as they have been for many years. We have to make sure the Democratic Congress knows how we feel. We expect them to carry this fight forward. We voted for it. We will expect nothing less from them. There is a time to compromise and there is a time to fight. This is the latter.

[H2O Man]

1. Exactly.

I agree 100% This is the "Good Fight." And if we do not engage in it, we lose. And we'll lose a heck of a lot more than an opportunity for health care reform.

Recommended.

[kentuck]

2. "And we'll lose a heck of a lot more..."

Very true.

[ThomWV]

3. Have you ever hear of a small town called Matewan?

Matewan is a small town in southwest West Virginia. Just the word Matewan gives definition to the fight working men and women have to make to improve their lives. I ride down there once or twice a year just to remind myself that nothing comes either easily or free.

Your post is right on the money. Keep it up.

Oh, no matter how many unrecommends the trolls stick to this post at least know that it got one solid Recommend before they got to it.

Thom

[kentuck]

4. Yes, I have heard of Matewan.

Have you heard of "Bloody Harlan"? That's my part of the country. Matewan is a very good movie to rent for those that have not heard of it.

http://markinbookreview.blogspot.com/

[HereSince1628]

5. That's exactly how health-care has died every time since 1945

Now, the powerful look to have decided to walk away again. And us ordinary people are supposed to "make it happen." We get to start our critical role with little more than confusion and distrust as a starting place to stem the professionals' retreat. We are back to the cry of MAKE THEM DO IT. That is a phrase only sung out when those abandoning the fray know there is damned little chance of making them do it.

This summer was an exercise aimed at destroying real HCR. It wasn't absolute political incompetence by our professional side, because our professional side is just not THAT incompetent. Rather, they were in discussions to guarantee profits to big pharma even as they were bumbling with the on-again, off-again public option. And people on the left who recognized it and were screaming "double dribble!" were ignored.

Reality is that there never was "_The_ Bill" for supporters to get behind, there was only ever the promise that a bill would be forth-coming.

Everyone with a drop of common sense knows that people fall in love with hopes and dreams. But, when they want to buy a car, they want to look it over, kick the tires, give it spin around the block. They want to touch it, check the title, read the details of the loan agreement.

Having NO BILL to sell during the August recess created the opportunity for all the mischief and distrust that we witness. But that wasn't incompetence, that was the fault of "the people" working off energy during the "silly season."

Trying to sell an empty bill of goods and asking for it to be paid with a blank check was a bloody stupid approach that doomed the effort from the start.

Call me a tin-foiler but I think that was the intentional mischief of professionals on the DEMOCRATIC side who really do understand what is required for selling cars, ideas.

The clear absence of a product to sell was covered up by the cheerleaders encouraging "trust us trust us; don't worry this is a Chess game, not the simple checkers played by a political vulgate."

NOW when the professionals have poisoned the initiative, when the project is in a coma on the floor, _we_ are supposed to MAKE THEM DO IT? And if we can't pulloff that bit of magic, we just never really deserved it in the first place????


After many decades of DC watching I'll point out that when the vermin in DC are looking for escape routes from accountablity for a disaster they often say,"Its all up to the people. If the people were just really committed it would happen."


So,

while we go about our lives trying to salvage our jobs and keeping our families cared for we are supposed to do this as homework.

In the evenings and on weekends we are supposed to write a bill.

Forgoing saturday morning soccer for the kids, we are supposed to march door to door, and to stand outside strip malls trying to convince the population.

Convince them of what? That they should force Congress to accept a bill written by a group of neighbors around a coffee table in some credible place like MySpace?

Yep, that's the ticket to success, and if we can't do it it's just OUR fault; we really never wanted enough to MAKE THEM DO IT!


While that looks to be at least a recipe to do something, there is an awful lot of sawdust and chicken shit in that mix.

And some will try to do it because with the mercenaries running for the bunkers, with all the other options abandoned, going forward unarmed and penniless is all we've got.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. +1000 nt

[kentuck]

7. "Having NO BILL to sell during the August recess created the opportunity..."

"...created the opportunity for all the mischief and distrust that we witness."

I think that is correct. It's difficult to sell an idea when you know the other side is out to discredit the "idea" before it is even presented.

But, I don't think that means we are totally helpless to do anything. There are people up for re-election and we can choose to put them back into office or we can choose to send them home. So long as they get that message, we are not helpless.

If "going forward unarmed and penniless is all we've got", then we will just have to continue forward. We have to fight for it if we want it. If we surrender, that makes it easy for the Congress to give up.

[HereSince1628]

13. Hoping to get new reps in 2010? Hoping to withdraw and regroup?

Frankly, disappointment from failed health-care reform is likely to be off-putting to most democratic candidates.

Honestly, it is very difficult to run on an idea that was crushed, big-time, while people still remember the crushing defeat. That's why Goldwater's Republican Party died and got replaced by the Anti-ERA, Anti-Clean Air, Anti-Clean Water, Anti EPA party of Ronald Reagan. That's how the republican party became synonomous with the Moral Majority/Religious Right.


When HCR dies, it will not get another hearing for at least 8 years and probably 12.

And it is very likely to die, because Rahm Emmanuel and the other crazies who believe the myth that there are a majority of voting Americans in the political middle, are the people influencing OUR president.

I see Obama's most important initiative dying because of very very bad leadership from the WH. And I don't mean just Obama when I say that. It means that he is failing to lead the team of anti-base politicians that he put together.

Or maybe not.

Maybe destroying the progressive base was some of his team's objective.

How would I know the difference?

[ipaint]

10. Somebody actually gets it...thank you. n/t

[Edweird]

8. This is bullshit. We 'hired' Obama to do a job for us. His MANDATE was the election.

This 'now make him do it' schtick is complete and utter bullshit. He knows what the right thing to do is. He knows what his base wants. He knows what we, as a country, need. Anything else is a dog and pony show before a world class screw job.

[kentuck]

9. You are sure they know?

Maybe it wouldn't hurt to remind them once again?

[Edweird]

11. The fact that Dr. Dean isn't a part of this but the insurance companies ARE

tells me that the problem isn't that they aren't 'aware'.

[jeffbr]

12. Truer words never spoken