The Fool on the Hill

[erehwon2]

Baucus has sold us down the river, folks. Maybe he should hook up with Katherine Harris, they'd be a great team.

No public option, no passing of bill, huge defeat for Americans.

The public option was already a huge compromise. Why compromise at all with people who flat out say nyet to any proposal just for the sake of putting down Obama and the Democratic majority? If the Dems had pulled all the stops when they had the chance, we'd have single-payer right now, but no.

Political whores and pimps. That gets us screwed all right, but not in the good way.

DUer grahamhgreen started a great thread about his general dismay on the lack of progress we've seen lately. I share the disappointment on most points, but in my mind HCR was really getting close to change I can believe in, and it's getting shot down by a handful of twits. It's 2000 all over again.

Hope this link works:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6576642&mesg_id=6576642

[dionysus]

1. you're aware right that there's actually 5 different bills, and what eventually comes out of

committee and gets voted on will be much diff-- oh nevermind.

[monmouth]

2. A lot of jumping the gun these days. There isn't even a bill yet, just

a lot of "suggestions" if you will for lack of a better word. Time to calm down and watch the right disintegrate I say...

[dionysus]

3. did you check out the thread the OP links to? it's a gas, all about how we were fooled

by that evil corporate whore obama. :eyes:

[monmouth]

4. Projection...sad....n/t

[erehwon2]

5. Thanks for chiming in

Dionysus, you're right, of course. But this last little committee is holding things up, and in the meantime concession after concession is being made by people who should know better.

Monmouth, I think you're right too, I shouldn't jump to conclusions. I didn't get the "Projection ... sad" thing, but it was good of you and Dionysus to engage and cool my jets.

Thanks.

It ain't over till it's over. Gotta remember that.

[ddeclue]

6. There's only one bill that is really being considered and it's the Baucus bill.

I'm tired of people telling me not to be upset about this and to "wait and see".

:eyes:

The OP is right -we've been sold out by Baucus and the conservadem faction.

Obama isn't really twisting their arm or giving them the "Johnson treatment" either.

[dionysus]

8. no one here can presume to know that either way. the damn pessimism around here is infuriating.

[erehwon2]

9. I'm with you there

But I have to take some solace from the reasonable position of dionysus.

It ain't over till it's over, and the real on-the-table bill has not yet even been written, much less signed. It damn sure has to include a public option.

It's hard for me to accept that the financial committee has taken its sweet time to cobble up a shitty proposal that could have come out 6 months ago, and it could have all been on the table by July. I am not happy about this, but dionysus is right. It's still at the committee stage, and the fight ain't over by a long shot. It ain't over till it's over.

Having lived in a socialist, communist, faschist, joker-faced place like Europe for a long time, the health care issue has never been a part of a live-or-die equation for a long time for me. It is not perfect, but it's pretty damn good. If anyone talks to you about "free healthcare", please counter with the moral equivalent of "free roads", "free cops", "free fire departments", and "free right to be a fucking idiot". We all pay for it, toss it in a pot and use it as needed.

I got a big fucking dawg in this fight. My kids were born and raised in Europe but speak perfect American English (an oxymoron, but so what) and several other languages, their math and science skills beat an 11th grader by the time they were, ok, 10th grade, and guess what? They are now Americans. Birth certificates since live birth, passports (fees paid, don't spend it all in one place Uncle Sam). They could be Prez one day.

They all want to stay in the States for a while. I don't blame them. I love that fucking place. It's the people. North, South, East, West, we're pretty nice people. We're also not as stupid as we look.

So let's do this thing.

In the 30's, Social Security was going to make the Martians invade, sorry, Orson, didn't happen. Civil rights? That took a while. I am from Mississippi and do you realize that it cost us white folk 65 cents to see a 4th-run Sergio Leone film, while the Coloreds only paid 35 cents in the separate but equal line AND they got the balcony? Now we all payin the same shit, that's equality. This is no shit, I was there and it was 1968.

Single-payer, goddamit, right now.

Dionysus, cool me down again, brother or sister, I need your calm guidance.

[dionysus]

7. don't give up too easy, is all i'm saying.