Please Stop Blaming the Victim-

[asdjrocky]

If a spouse is abused, we tell them to get out of the relationship. We tell them that no one deserves abuse.

If someone gets robbed we do not blame them for having a wallet or a purse.

Some people are victims, and some are victimise. It's a fact.

When I see people complain that by not voting, or voting a third or even fourth party, we are giving the election to the other guys it really makes me think. Who are these other guys? The same guys that are doing what these guys are doing? I have to wonder how long will we be the victims of a distant and unresponsive party. If we are told lies again and again to secure our support, our money, our votes, aren't we victims of those lies? Are we victims of the very people that tell those lies?

I'm not asking for a pony, I'm demanding the health care we have been promised for 60 plus years. We've given them the majority, and we've given them our blood sweat and tears. It's time.

The truth is, I haven't made a decision on my vote in the up coming year, I'm mulling it over. It would be hard not to vote for the first time in 30 some years, and I think they count on that. I may have to send it to committee for mark up and then run it by the OCB for scoring. I hope to be done examining the matter by Nov of 2010 but there are a lot of considerations and I want to be clear, it's a lot of hard work. If I have to, I make work through the long summer recess. There are two sides to consider here, both the left and the right hemisphere of my brain, and together, I'm sure we will reach a consensus. What's most important here, is getting a good decision, not a quick decision.

Does that sound like bullshit to you? Maybe I'm not sophisticated enough understand it all. I'm open to dialog, I'm certainly hoping that someone here can persuade me my vote matters.

They say there are consequences to elections, that's ture. What they don't tell us is only we suffer the consequences.

[stray cat]

1. People who don't vote are victims?

[asdjrocky]

2. I really don't know.

I guess in the broader picture we are all victims or beneficiaries of what our government does. Perhaps it's personal, perhaps it just feels worse because I feel like, by voting, I'm adding and abetting the abusers.

[mkultra]

3. if you dont vote you are a victim

people will only see the truth over time. If we keep switching presidents, the center will never move. If we constantly support the most liberal person we can in each election, then eventually, the center can move.

[DailyGrind51]

13. Voting is the minimum a person can do to affect change.

Thom Hartman advocates even greater activism.

[treestar]

4. I apologize to the RW. They are right.

There are some on the left who just want to be victims.

Health care you've been promised for 60 years? 60 years? Are you fuckin' kiddin' me? If that's the case, then it's been that hard, then whatever we get now is a fuckin miracle.

[asdjrocky]

5. You need to read your history.

Yes, more than sixty years.

[treestar]

6. than that just proves how difficult it is!

The sainted LBJ couldn't get it through. This country took a right turn in 1980.

Clinton couldn't do it.

that just proves how hard it is. There are right wingers and they own the M$M and damn you should be glad we can get anything through!

[asdjrocky]

7. Are you being sincere.

First you mocked me, for saying it's been more than sixty years, and then you come back and say since it's been so long I should be happy with what little we get for all of our work.

Really, how twisted is your logic, and how twisted do you have to be to say I just proved your point? And where does the "sainted LBJ" comment come from? I was talking about Harry Truman.

History, once again, is your friend.

[JI7]

10. i just saw an ad about how Dems want to cut Medicare and to keep Govt out of Medicare

i mean WTF ??????????

and there are people who believe this crap. not just the right wingers.

[Honeycombe8]

8. You forgot to say what you want in health care reform. We ARE getting reform...

but I guess it's not what you want. So....what is it you're complaining about not getting?

What did someone promise you 60 years ago? Who promised it?

No one will get what s/he wants. I want Medicare opened to every adult (children are already taken care of by other bills). But that's not going to happen. So the choice is either nothing.....or something less than 100% of what I want.

What would be LESS than what you want, that you would settle for? Since, if you want single payer and that's not going to happen - ever - in this country....since that won't happen, your choice is either nothing (the Republican Way) or something less than what you really want.

So...what would you settle for that is realistic?

[asdjrocky]

9. Right now, at best you could call it is insurance reform-

and calling it reform right now is almost a joke.

I'll try to answer your questions, I'll answer the first question at the end, if that's okay.

Perhaps using the word promise is a bit strong, but we can go back to 1945 when President Truman first proposed a National Health Care system with health care for every American. If you want a link I can provide many. So that's what was proposed, not promised, and that is who proposed it. Being a part of the Dem party since I was old enough to vote, I always thought this was a basic part of the Dem platform, forgive me if I was wrong.

As far as getting everything I want, I'm sure I won't have that, but I did expect at least a strong public option. Really, I did. Giving up what you talk about, Medicare for every adult, was given up before we even got started, and that was the compromise, was it not? We gave up single payer. Here we are with a strong majority in the House and Senate and the White House and we drop single payer before we even get start. So yes, I want a strong public option. That would not be 100%, in my book that would be a compromise.

Here's what I'm complaining about. (Guess I just like to complain, sorry.) We live in the richest country on the planet, we have the biggest military by far than anyone else and we just keep buying, and yet 45,000 people a year still die because of lack of health care. This is a CRISIS. But no one speaks it, not even in whispers. This should be the headline everyday in every paper, but we turn away.

That's what I'm complaining about. That's too many people for me and it just tugs at my heart.

So in the very end I'd be real happy with a strong public option. I'd feel great if we could at least cut that number in half. That's the bare minimum of what I would settle for. Call me a dreamer.

What will we get? Far less than that, I'm afraid.

[Aragorn]

11. your point is clear

and right on target. I find it hard to believe other posters don't understand it.

"Is DU already down the tubes?" BTW if you get victimized for your posts you should stop answering.

[Honeycombe8]

12. I think opening up Medicare to younger people is a good start.

It doesn't accomplish much, for now. But it DOES help a group that is considered toxic to insurance companies and employers. Older people who've been fired, and they have no hope of getting a new job with health care. This is an important group.

It opens the door to national health care for many more people. And it will alleviate much suffering.

I think it's better than a public option, in some ways.

We cannot change an entire system in one bill overnight. The cost would be exorbitant, and in practical terms, it couldn't be done smoothly and efficiently. Which would cause much suffering by those who fall through the cracks in the coming years.

It has to be done in steps, anyway. Opening up Medicare is a good start. But I'd take a good public option, too. I haven't seen a good public option proposal, though. They've all been weak. But again, that would open up the option door, and it could be amended later. Either one.

But no trigger. The trigger would NEVER be pulled. That is such a red herring that I would totally disregard any trigger in any bill; it might as well not be there. Its existence would solely be for the purpose of pacifying progressives (as if progressives are stupid).

[saltpoint]

14. But you aren't the problem to begin with, asdjrocky. You are an

informed voter not least because you are an evolved being. The unease many of us have is that even if we believe Gore and/or Kerry won their respective elections and that Bush cheated, around half or so of eligible voting adults thought a sociopathic moron like George W. Bush was a legitimate candidate to lead the western world.

Some decidedly unpowerful soul will come up in a court decision against a judge appointed by Dubya and will have to accept the verdict rendered by that kind of judge instead of a judge appointed by Al Gore or John Kerry, which by my best guess would be a different cut of cloth altogether as far as judicial appointments go. Progressives were not only cheated for 8 years but dismissed entirely once the fix was in.

Madison and Jefferson believed that the educated farmer / town dweller was of essence to sustaining the republic they helped design. A post-Reagan voting populace that is so fiercely against public education and scientific inquiry is a dangerous landscape. I'm for bringing pressure to bear on the Democratic Party to choose the Madison/Jefferson model, and would hope that more Wellstones and Boxers emerge from that fight than Nelsons or Bayhs.