What you really need on this site is nested comments.

A little laughter about now is needed … even the ‘Pulp Fiction’ kind:-).

I too agree about the nested comments – like at Kos.

It’s been clear for some time how evil Chris is.

Heck, I already bought my Swedish passport from some dude at MacArthur Park. I think it’s a good fake, but it says “El Sweden” on the front, so I’m not so sure . . .

if you’re going to actually post on your strategy wrt single payer, instead of attacking strawmen that don’t exist…

* how about an explanation for the pre-compromise? how exactly does that help get a public option, let alone the best one possible?

* how about an explanation for the “single payer or die” comments and other put downs of single payer advocates? how does that help mobilize support?

* how about an explanation for completely ignoring (including not even attempting to refute) critiques of the public option by healthcare reform experts (including elizabeth warren’s coauthors one of whom bill moyers has featured)? was it because they are single payer advocates? how does that advance our understanding of the policy issues regarding healthcare reform?

mocking strawmen you’ve created doesn’t change the fact that there are genuine disagreements.

Please stop supporting welfare for the health insurance oligopoly. In addition to being unimaginably unfair to Jane, that’s the net of your comment above. You stubbournly refuse to admit that the policy decisions exist in a wider political context.

Very few people have the time to drop everything and become health care policy wonks. Even fewer have the resources to filter the long term effects of policy decisions through a complex political process.

If you think you have a strategy that HAS THE VOTES, post something ACCESSIBLE over at the Seminal. I’d be very interested in reading it, but you will have to make it ACCESSIBLE and it will have to have a political component.

Based on your comment above, you’re now supporting Obama. Funny, you refused to vote for him in the general. As many of us explained to you at the time, that decision incrementally increased the leverage of Blue Dogs in the Democratic party. Those chickens have now come home to roost.

You did great work and tremendous effort in the FISA fight. We got crushed, because 90% of Americans had no clue what FISA.

This is a retail fight. Messaging matters and positioning is key.

Another issue is that your comments serve to fracture progressives. That’s not a compliment. Please read a good history of the Weimar Republic in Germany or the splits between various shades of abolitionists in the US.

* how about an explanation for the “single payer or die” comments and other put downs of single payer advocates? how does that help mobilize support?

This is a pile of crap and I’m being polite.

I can’t count the number of posts Jane has done on this. The votes aren’t there. The tooth-fairy isn’t going to rescue us.

If you think the votes are there, include the names of the Dems who are going to vote for it in your post.

mocking strawmen you’ve created doesn’t change the fact that there are genuine disagreements.

Jane created the bluedogs, I had no idea.

The health insurance oligopoly has no disagreements. They will slurp up all the new revenue you’re driving at them and use it to crush future efforts to implement Medicare-for-all.

There’s a way for people fighting against completely malevolent opponents, who are motivated by nothing except their desire to socialize losses and privatize profits to disagree. Your comment at number four, doesn’t reflect it.

Please cut Jane some slack.
After all the work that she’s done, she’s earned the right for a humor break.
As have we all, since, to paraphrase a great man,

“Despite the best that has been done by everyone… the health reform situation
has developed not necessarily to our advantage.”

Instead of attacking Selise, why not just answer her. These are not invalid or unfair questions.

I’d add that now may not be the time to answer, given where we are, but the questions are valid.

Say ten Hail Mary’s, then, sin no more.

Here’s an answer, “don’t give aid and comfort to the enemy, the health insurance oligopoly.”

AFAIK, Jane is trying to cover millions of uncovered Americans TODAY in a way that doesn’t enrich the health insurance oligopoly. It’s a preferential option for the poor that also has political ramifications for the midterms, the other elephant in the room besides the health insurance oligopoly. If we don’t get those people covered, who will pay for that loss? Will it be the blue dogs or progressives?

If we get them covered without a public option, it just strengthens the health insurance oligopoly. Jane’s made it clear that’s not acceptable and I agree with her.

Here’s another answer, trust is in short supply.

I’m not a policy wonk and neither are most Americans. I trust Jane to make complex issues accessible, because she has this really annoying habit of being right. I was here, when she was getting bludgeoned for suggesting a primary run against Leiberman. Worse, I can’t think of anything she’s gotten wrong. When was the last time a Jane political prediction turned out to be wrong? Read her stuff on FISA before the votes. Read her stuff on the War Supplemental cave-in in June. She knows how people are going to vote.

If selise or you can make stuff ACCESSIBLE, do it.

Looks to me like Jane was writing a sarcastic article about how single-payer had far, far less chance of getting passed by Congress than the public option did and does, Here’s what I see as the meaty part of her piece (I’ve bolded the REALLY key part):

At least 16 or 17 junior staffers on the Hill will swear that there are enough votes in the House to pass single payer.   (Don’t read too much into the fact that H.R. 676 cosponsors are heading for the hills and won’t support it now that it might actually come to the floor for a vote.  Three words:  Nancy Pelosi, nunchucks.) 

But you don’t like hearing that — the whole “H.R. 676 cosponsors are heading for the hills and won’t support it now that it might actually come to the floor for a vote” part — so you have to keep changing the subject.

Which means that the only straw around here is the stuff you keep tossing into the air.

mocking strawmen you’ve created doesn’t change the fact that there are genuine disagreements.

Selise, you’re one of the “little people” (aka “little single-payer advocates”) now. Your arguments don’t matter — just like the arguments against the Iraq war never mattered, because they aren’t accepted by “serious” people like the astroturfers at HCAN and their allies. If you’re not a member of the Church of the Savvy — if you’re not tuned into what’s “politically possible” according to DC cocktail party chatter, you don’t matter.

Get used to it.

Can she drink some Bloody Marys too? Or is it too early in the morning for that?

Meanwhile, Sherrod Brown is throwin’ down: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo…..?ref=fpblg

Jane got crushed for being right first about Caroline Kennedy. Then when everyone figured out Caroline was Harry Reid’s idea, no one remembered who said that first. Move-on caved in on the War Supplemental in June. Jane didn’t. What political blog has done more to expose the Democrats complicity with Wall Street than Jane?

She’s been way, way, way out front on glbt issues, unions, and the tri-caucus for as long as I can remember. So yeah, it’s not a hard decision for me to follow her lead.

Paul, enough with the strawman bullpucky about “little people” — why aren’t you addressing this little factoid:

At least 16 or 17 junior staffers on the Hill will swear that there are enough votes in the House to pass single payer.   (Don’t read too much into the fact that H.R. 676 cosponsors are heading for the hills and won’t support it now that it might actually come to the floor for a vote.  Three words:  Nancy Pelosi, nunchucks.) 

Can you tell me how single-payer could overcome its own cosponsors running away from it once it actually came up for a vote?

pluk, Hillary couldn’t find a job for you at State after your “vigorous” defense of her canidacy? It must have been tough for you when she endorsed Obama.

Only Virgins, at this time of the morning, with Grey Goose chasers…

But you don’t like hearing that — the whole “H.R. 676 cosponsors are heading for the hills and won’t support it now that it might actually come to the floor for a vote” part — so you have to keep changing the subject.
_
did you bother reading the story? 4 people (out of over 90 people who co-sponsored 676 in the last congress) might vote against the Weiner amendment…. NOT because they don’t support single payer (they still do) but solely for political reasons. (I mean, only an idiot would think that Rangel was “heading for the hills” on single payer because he has decided, for political reasons, to put all his eggs in the “public option” basket.)
_
The point being that had the “Savvy” A-listers not abandoned single payer in favor of the billionaire backed, astroturfing HCAN option, we’d be a lot closer to real health care reform right now, rather than focussed on a desperate rear guard action designed to save face rather than provide universal health care.

I knew this would come in handy some day:

lukasiak June 20th, 2008 at 8:18 pm 35
Paul, liberals need a big favor from HRC. Since Barack endorsed the blue dog Barrow in GA-12 against the liberal Regina Thomas. The primary is July 15. Can you use your contacts with HRC’s campaign to persuade her to get down to GA and help state Senator Thomas?
Nope.
See, its all you Hillary-haters that need to go to Clinton and say “we’re sorry, we were a bunch of jackasses, and we really need your help now.”
She needs to hear that from YOU, because she’s KNOWS WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE YOU ARE, and that YOU WILL STAB HER IN THE BACK THE FIRST CHANCE YOU GET.
If I were her, I’d want to see you crawling on your hands and knees through broken glass before I did anything that you wanted — because right now she’s DOING WHAT YOU WANT, being a good little unity pony soldier — and she knows that you can’t be trusted.

Did you tell this fantasy to your shrink to the Energy and Commerce committee?

Sherrod Brown, now that’s what I’m talking about. I don’t mind a bloody nose as long as I get to throw a punch or two.

PW, I think most people agree that single-payer would not pass this time. But a stronger show on single payer might have made the compromise to public option more visible, more apparent, and thus the PO position stronger.

How many times has that concept been pinned on the Obama administration–that they gave up too much, too fast–so fast that nobody understood that the PO itself was the compromise? How many times has JH had to say that herself–here, on TV, etc?

How can that criticism be uttered by progressives at this Admin. if they did the same thing themselves.

The above is not in accusation of Jane or anyone else. But when this is all over, it would be crazy not to discuss these issues and learn some lessons, as we have battles coming up immediately. Afghanistan being one of them.

I’d urge anyone reading here that questioning is not bad–in spite of what Bush and the GOP said and says. Questioning is good strategy, good tactics, and good for strength and unity.

PW, there are people who regard health care as analogous to the civil rights struggle: An effort that needs sustained attention over a period of years instead of a single legislative initiative. Lawrence O’Donnell (among others) has spoken about how the lack of just such an effort after 1993 caused the effort this time to start from scratch, and how that time could have instead been used to make Medicare for all a viable option this time. I understand that those focused on the short term goal might not want to hear the impractical agitating of single payer advocates, but that doesn’t mean it’s an illegitimate position or that we’re not on the same side. And it certainly isn’t deserving of snide and cynical posts from Jane Hamsher on the Unseriousness of those not engaged in Jane Hamsher-approved activism.

CO, I try and practice what I preach, so I always want to do everything I can to hold FDL’ers together. I apologize if my comments to you above were too strident. selise and I have been around this issue before. The work she did on FISA was a model of activism and will always command my respect and gratitude.

FYI,

below is the earliest form of “the pledge,” which Jane crafted back in July???

We need you to call progressive members of Congress and ask that they Take the Pledge to vote against any health care bill that doesn’t have a public plan which is:

available nationwide
on day one
and accountable to Congress and the voters

It’s intrinsically a fall back position, but its genius was that it smoked out all those vichy progressives who campaigned on Medicare for all. They were only “for it,” up until Rahm told them they weren’t, just like the War Supplemental.

I just don’t see how anyone who is COMMITTED to Medicare for all, could not take the fall back position that “the pledge” represents.

The splintering that selise imho is fostering is exactly what sunk the FISA legislation in the Senate. Harry got a whole bunch of amendments to scuttle the bill we wanted. Everyone voted for an amendment that they knew would lose. Then when we questioned them back in their district, they held up their vote for an effing amendment that they knew would lose. Everyone’s ass is covered, they kept our money and the 4th Amendment was ripped out of the Bill of Rights.

You appear to know nothing about the earliest period of the Civil Rights struggle. Lincoln was a segregationist, as were 90% of the abolitionists.

Your position doesn’t make any sense to me.

Single-payer-or-die is a stronger position than the public option pledge. If there’s so much COMMITTMENT to single payer, what’s the problem with taking the measley public option pledge?

Oh my Ms Hamsher, that is some tasty sass

I do not have anything to add to the current discussion – other than to thank Boo Radley @ 14 for speaking my mind on Jane’s annoying habit of being right.

I wasn’t planning on writing about my experiences at last weekend’s 3,000-strong OFA/HCAN health reform rally near Times Square, but I think I may need to do a post on it as a counterweight to the bad blood boiling up in this thread. I was a member of a proportionally small but vocal and visible single-payer contingent; we were met by none of the animosity and vitriol in evidence here. Very, very much the contrary. I’ll try to wangle some time to discuss the interactions and potential lessons.

Not sure why the word TODAY got all caps. You’re aware that a “day one” public plan would go into effect at 2013 at the soonest?

Why try to weaken the medical industrial lobbyist congressional knot that was going to jam through an insurance industry bail-out when we could have repeated a losing strategy we’ve been wedded to for 40 years?

Moral triumphs in the face of thundering defeat are so much more emotionally satisfying.

sass or not, Jane has touched on something I’ve been chewing on for about a week now and think I may have even mentioned in the past few days – I actually started scratching out a diary about it – but felt it was too emotional so let it sit for now

people on our side are going to come after Jane – and not just the SP contingent, these D+100 faux progressives will find her a handy foil to explain their vote against what 76% of their constituents want. the kidz in the veal pen are gonna need something to explain away their pissing away millions and I can hear ‘em now – ‘it was a done deal, but ‘that woman’ viciously went after our “allies” in the Caucus blah, blah, blah

never mind the fix was in on 1/20, let’s stay in denial and go after a brilliant voice

you get my drift – equally important, Jane knows this is coming and she and her team kept fighting for all of us anyway – that is moral courage

from time to time, no less than Digby speaks to the immaturity of the current progressive movement and it used to make me uncomfortable – well, it’s been on full display these past few months – right here at the Lake and you should read through some of Slink’s or Eve’s comment threads in their Big Orange diaries – Digby writ large – astonishing gullibility, naivete (you can’t attack him, he’s for HR 676!) magical reliance on personalities vs principles, sexism, yep, it’s all there

Jane and her team have provided everyone a real time lab in Sausage Making 101 – they haven’t just led our fight, they’ve shown us how to fight and I will always be grateful for this extraordinary opportunity

I have read Jane long enough to know she does not invite defending, but let me put y’all on notice – I catch any firedog of substance pulling any of the above shit, it is going to be you and me in the Octagon

I’m a single payer advocate. Just because you say it’s not true doesn’t mean it is. I just don’t believe your strategy will work to get us there.

As to “ignoring critiques of the public option,” Scarecrow likes to invoke Butch Cassidy at such moments:

Butch: What’s the matter with you?
Sundance: I can’t swim.
Butch: Why you crazy bastard, the fall will probably kill you.

Arguing with a small but vocal minority in our comments section about something that was irrelevant to what we were trying to do — convincing 40 members of the House that they would have to KILL THE BILL when it became apparent that it was the Baucus bill — was not a particularly good use of anyone’s time, particularly when it became apparent that those arguments were wedded to an unyielding faith in a political strategy whose history of massive, abject failure is hard for most people to ignore.

If it still makes sense to you, there’s nothing I’m going to say that will change it, but we’ve provided ample space for you to argue your case and I don’t notice any particular groundswell of support. It’s just the same small group of people migrating from one comment section to the other and its sole purpose seems to be to shut down discussion with an enthusiastic circular logic that doesn’t ever really engage people. Since that is something we are trying to do, I’ll keep my eyes out, but all I’m seeing is more of the same.

No worries. hot tempered remarks in comment sections are at the very bottom of our list of concerns. And besides, I like a hot discussion. It means people care.

Let me repeat my points:

1. The questions Selise asks are genuine and valid. I see no “splintering” there.

2. Now is not the time to hash through this, imo. I hope that our leadership will hash through it after this thing is done, and I hope open discussion here (seminal, elsewhere) also takes place.

I don’t know the ins and outs of this so well, but I do know that Jane is my hero. She plays REAL chess, runs the policy field like the world’s best broken-field quarterback, and is miles ahead of most of us in seeing where the real opportunities are. I think her PO strategy is just brilliant–look at the effect it is having. Yes she gets (to me, amusingly) snarky, but that’s just part of the package.

In principle, I prefer single payer. But given that BO refused to consider it from the start, and (here I trust her savvy) the lack of solid Congressional commitment to it, it becomes a chimera, that can easily distract us from what is actually possible, wasting our energy.

political strategy whose history of massive, abject failure is hard for most people to ignore.

in contrast to the wild success of the strategy of achieving progressive change by electing ‘more and better Democrats’ – yeah that kind of success really speaks for itself.

amen. the woman thinks around corners

Let’s frame this one:

in contrast to the wild success of the strategy of achieving progressive change by electing ‘more and better Democrats’ – yeah that kind of success really speaks for itself.

Let’s all remember the day that you said that things would be no different if we’d elected McCain/Palin 2008 and still had Republican control of Congress.

I’m operating on the premise that at least the possibility for change now exists. If I didn’t think that was true, I wouldn’t waste my time.

ooh, I did limit myself to “firedogs of substance” upthread didn’t I ?,and not those who enjoy an open invitation for a beer and regularly come in and piss on the carpet

otherwise I’d refer you to the FDL Archive where you can read Hamsher post after Hamsher post, 4 and 5 years old wherein she lays waste to those strategies – I’d even point you to “On Image” I & II, or “How It’s Done”

but it’s probably much more fun and less of a brain drain to sit here in the peanut gallery with your pea shooter

But if Chris gets credit for orchestrating the bait-and-switch of the Hacker plan on an unsuspecting public who never knew of its existence in the first place, I want it known that I’m the one who orchestrated the cabal of blogs and MoveOn that torpedoed the erstwhile single payer PR juggernaut which quite obviously would’ve obliterated every lingering obstacle in its wake. As everyone knows, an industry that represents 17% of GDP and pumps $1.4 million a day into lobbying on the Hill is no match for the all-powerful MoveOn email list.

Wolverines!

Let’s all remember the day that you said that things would be no different if we’d elected McCain/Palin 2008 and still had Republican control of Congress.

Isn’t that like every single day for Sporkie and the rest of the Naderite types?

In fact, as Jacob Weisberg pointed out back in 2000 when guys like Sporkovat were rallying behind Nader, Nader knew full well there was a difference between Bush and Gore — but he still wanted Bush to win because he thought that Bush’s awfulness would cause the people to revolt, throw off completely the chains of democratic capitalism, and rally to the Naderite banner. In other words, he tried the same stunt the German Communists tried when they worked to help elect Hitler in 1934. Didn’t work then, either.

Im a actually laughing out loud, for real.Macarthur park, “El Sweeden” THAT is funny.

it DID work, and it didnt. Bush didnt actually win, so it shouldnt have happened, but it did anyway. Im not advocating naderism, except in a passive way. Bush 2 triggered a revolt and the energy went into electing a Dem who is not so progressive. I like the naderites believe that collaborationist pollicies are worse than right wing pollicies, in that they enable imperialism. without the new deal capitalism would have stayed dead after 1928. Its not a humane way to see the world, but look how wrong collaboration can go. We elected “the most liberal man in the senate” and hes really a centrist apologist, and now THATS what “liberal” is in washington

Looks as if we will get the bill that the insurance companies and drug companies want- raise their top line revenues by covering more people while including nothing that would jeopardize their margins- in short- another giveaway- just what this “center right” country gets buffaloed into every time….Lucy and the football.

I’ve pretty much given up on this country doing anything sane-

I’m reminded of the of folks who projected the cancellation of elections, martial law and the various and sundry other Chicken Little screeches before, during and after the primaries.

I have neither the time nor the resources to become a health care/insurance wonk so I rely on others to show the way in this struggle. In some things I can lead, in others I have to get out of the way. With this issue I’ll follow the leaders we have in Jane et al. I want single payer as badly as the next advocate but I have to accept that it won’t fly in Congress. This session.

Dont do that! Im not sure i get this post, or what purpose it serves. The left cant back off now, and let pressure off the progressive caucus, not now.We need (as always) discipline

Jane:

I’m operating on the premise that at least the possibility for change now exists. If I didn’t think that was true, I wouldn’t waste my time.

If Jane says it, you can believe it. And not only does she see the possibilities, she has a genius for strategy. Follow her.

I think our strategy now should be to tell the blue dogs to support health reform with a strong public option and they can keep their fingers.

- Tom

as long as the Kucinich amendment, which allows states to use Medicare/Medicaid money to create their own single payer plans, is incorporated into the final bill, I won’t care about the rest. Not that anyone asked.

I take what you are saying to mean that you are betting that the progressive caucus pledgers will fold. Rather, that a sufficient number of them will cave so that an insurance giveaway bill gets passed.

If no public option, i’m hoping that the progressive pledgers will keep their promise rather than vote for the insurance company giveaway. Let Obama gag on his bipartisan milquetoast.

If I were betting at this point, I’d bet on a sufficient number of progressives to stab us in the back.

I do hope I’m wrong.

There’s a disconnect when Jane goes on shows and is asked about a compromise involving triggers or co-ops, and Jane says the public option is the compromise, down from single payer. If we’d held out longer for single payer, more people might see the public option as a compromise. As it is, I don’t think that point is landing.

And the insurance companies?….a bill that turned them into a smoking hole….

please pardon me while I fantasize a bit about that one.

Strange as it might seem, there are a lot of people out there in America who actually like their health insurance. I don’t know why, but they do. I’ve never liked how mine worked, even when I’ve had it. The people who like their insurance don’t want to run the risk of having it replaced by a government program that might not serve their needs as well.

As much as I think that single-payer is a superior system, there’s a lot more public resistance to it. Overcoming that, plus resistance in Congress, would have been much harder.

Link please? a majority of Americans support single payer.

Jane, in addition to destroying single payer, will also be responsible for failure to pass any health care bill at all, because she insists on making the Good the enemy of the Terrible.

That is a lovely image…

Single payer advocates had as much of an opportunity as Jane, and the whip count project, and DFA and labor, most of us are the same people. The PO was correctly considred to be the strongest position. It is moderate and it is what Obama was giving lip service to. Why the backbiting now? It will only weaken us. If the whip count project forces changes in their designs it will still have been worth it. 70% of the people want a PO and the WH and senate, and most of the house are ignoring them. Its entirely possible that pushing Single payer harder would have had the opposite effect, and made it easier for the BC and PC to ignore us. As it is, most of the hoi paloi dont know the difference between a PO and single payer anyway. check out Huffington post sometime.

To be heard at Democrat Labor Day picnics everywhere: “Ummm. Pass me some more of that left wing, wouldya. Umm, I just can’t stop eating this stuff.”

Why the backbiting now?

good question.

Jane has a new post up if y’all would like to join in: “White House Tells Progressive Groups: You’ve Been Rolled on Public Option”

Oh come on, folks. It was all down the tubes when Nancy Pelosi rejected national health service and would not allow a VA for All bill to be drafted by any committee.

Get used to that left wing, the right wing is all gone.

Right Nancy pelosi issued a flat statement on the PO again today. Andrea Mitchell and some other MSM twat , david gregory i think, were like (whats her problem? where is the discipline?”…the thing is, best descision or not, this is the strategy WE HAVE and we have to follow through INCLUDING all the work it will take to “discipline” any cowards in congress who betray us. and why havent we been working the senate also? If it comes down to killing a bad bill, and it probably will, we only need a hndful in the senate.

Re your comments above the above…This has to turn around or we need a new president in 2012. I’ll send some money and I’ll volunteer. If we are going down on the public option, I’m going down fighting and I hope to pull down a few GOPPERs in DEM clothing in the process. The GOPPERs are right on one thing…Obama can’t lead.

I sent the Bowers a platter for a wedding gift. I would like to apologize right now, if it wasn’t Swedish.

Obama can’t lead.

I’m beginning to believe that myself. He’s far too busy trying to inspire. Nobody told him there’s more to leading than becoming an inspiration. There’s a time and a place for everything; now is the time for leadership!

No link, just an observation. I’m not cynical enough to assume that everyone who says he likes his insurance plan is an insurance company plant, particularly when I know them. Generally speaking, these are people who don’t pay the full price of their insurance, IOW, the insurance is provided by their employers. Quite a few people at the town hall meeting I attended prefaced their remarks by saying “I like my health insurance, but …”

I’ve found my old Howard Dean buttons and will be wearing one today in preparation for 2012.

Excellent point. And I agree.

Geez folks, can’t someone have a ‘bad hair’ day? Selise’s questions are valid but Jane’s points -and awesome efforts- are also valid.

Let us NOT succumb to ‘divide and conquer’ as Rahm and the powers that be would like to see.

And Boo, please don’t forget Selise’s excellent work regarding the financial bailouts.

Jane’s snark of “Moral triumphs in the face of thundering defeat are so much more emotionally satisfying.” is so true but now we face ‘thundering defeat’ if Obama/Rahm can call the Progressive Caucus and get some of them to change their mind. I suspect that Selise sees this occurring and is reacting to that possibility.

What I find disgusting is Obama’s yadda,yadda,yadda about a ‘unique American system’ ; for chrissakes, countries that have a ’single payer’ variety of healthcare ALSO have private insurance available for those who wish such and can afford it. So why didn’t he think in those terms when presenting ‘healthcare reform’? And why did it take his Admin so long to rephrase the ‘argument’ to ‘health insurance reform’?

I know the answers but that is a different subject.

Obsess much?

“…there’s really nothing that can’t be fixed by acknowledging those lonely Cassandras who saw the truth from the start while we, we were blind. They were unfairly castigated for their righteousness and their vision and now it is up to us to make it right.”

Ralph told you so…

Like 8 or 9 months ago, corporate Obama. I knew it was so when Mr. Change You Can Believe In introduced his economic team by marching out a bunch of Rubinites including the head Rube, criminal securities fraud insider trading Robert “What Me Worry?” Rubin himself.

Then came the inevitable outcome. More massive bailouts for Wall Street. No reform. No prosecutor, no perp walks. Nada. Nothing. Then Mr. Change sent little Timmie G to Wall Street to get Dimon and Blankfein’s plan for Wall Street reform… which is more tax payer cash and no rules.

Obama now OWNS the financial mess based on this tool of Wall Street performance.

Obama now owns the foreign wars for corporate profit by escalating Afghanistan for no other reason than corporate profit… don’t forget:

$1 trillion Iraq War is $1 trillion in Wall Street revenue.

And yes Obama campaigned on single payer and health care reform though now he is trying to blatantly lie his way out of it.

So Obama is now doing what any slickster Harvard lawyer would do who is a stooge of corporate power…

Produce a “reform” bill that is not. Produce a “reform” bill that is a de fact bailout of big pharma and corporate health insurance and screw the American public by forcing them to by shittier health insurance at higher prices.

Obama rates half way between NAFTA/repeal Glass-Steagall Slick Willie Clinton and 70 convicted felons in his administration Nixon on the old “Lie-O-Meter.”

Ralph told you so…

So get on board with us to form 3rd parties and vote out every incumbent in sight. They are one corporate party the incumbent party regardless of whether there is an R or D after their name.

Kucinich, Paul (Yes audit the fed and close all US foreign military bases) and Bernie Sanders are the only ones worth keeping. I wish Dennis was my Congressman.

Amen, he said, late for dinner one more time.

You are wise woman of great ability and I enjoy the hell out reading your posts.

Carry on, this is an exciting, perilous time and we need all the wisdom we can muster.

Do you remember the Communications Decency Act during the Clinton admin.? They had a large telecom bill and the only way to get it passed was to leave the CDA in. I suppose a bunch of Repubs thought it would kill the overall bill. It didn’t. what happened was the compromise went through and was then challenged in court. The CDA was stripped out as unconstitutional. Everything worked out.

FISA has yet to get through the court.

Well, there is the Steven Jobs admonishment to do the “insanely great” things!
Seems to work for him.

a little biting(!) political strategy? Heh

gives us something to chew over I suppose. ROFLMAO 707

Wow … the collective FDL ego will prevail after all? Personalities above principles. Loyalty is great but cronyism is not a healthy thing. Careful. It bottlenecks progress.

Single Payer people still working hard, but, God forbid anyone support them now???? Why not ask Prog Caucus to put that heart behind single payer? Single payer people not looking to say “i told ya so” … they are saying … “make him do it!!!” Obama! “help us!” Tell them to take the status quo and shove it.

FDL has great weight and power and people loyal to the cause. Single Payer not worth it somehow? Not about personalities. About health care for people uninsured, underinsured, going bankrupt or dying.

FWIW …

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/7843

libby

I wish I had a couple of those buttons. I’ll bet he has some interesting observations about Dem politics around the country. DNC chair sees a lot of the local stuff most of us never hear about. If we’re lucky he’ll run for senator. He’s great.

sorry I missed the stomping!

but here’s a late reply to that little outbreak of fainting Naderitis around posts 39-45.

er, nowhere was it touted that the strategy of “…achieving progressive change by electing ‘more and better Democrats” has had any successes.

the counterclaim from JH was:

I’m operating on the premise that at least the possibility for change now exists. If I didn’t think that was true, I wouldn’t waste my time.

my emphasis.

ok. but really, not such a towering summit of success from which to sneer at failed strategies, is it?

The possibility for change always exists, but there is not much evidence that the Democratic Party of 2009 is an agent of positive change, rather than an impediment.

feel free to whack me with that evidence any time you feel like it, rather than just reflexively whingeing about Ralph Nader in election 2000.

(hey remember Joe Lieberman, Gore’s candidate for VP in 2000? d’you think his unctuousness maybe had more to do with good old Al’s loss than ‘thanksRalph?’)

Back for more of this?
The strange part is, Nader is a nihilist, and his supporters know it.

Using him as the datum-point of reform is misleading at best, and mindless at worst.

Donny: Are these the Nazis, Walter?

Walter Sobchak: No, Donny, these men are nihilists. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

from a great movie called The Big Lebowski – people with a sense of humor have heard of it.

I don’t care if Nader is a nihilist or a nudnik or a nudist, I never bring Nader into things.

Democratic apologists frequently respond to the stimulus of [criticism of ‘more and better Democrats, vote (D) no matter what] with the response of [thanksRalph! GWBush, Repub funding of Pennsylvania Greens in 2004, etc].

it seems to be a vestigial, but strong reflex reaction.

I’m thinking Ralph Nader was more correct than I realized way back in 2000 when we he said that both parties were CORPORATISTS and little difference, the fix was in … there WAS less difference in them than I realized! Am seeing that as corruption has really proliferated into shock and awe devastation on people’s livelihoods and homes.

And I guess I see single payer being blacked-out the same way Nader gets blacked-out by media and crony parties because he does speak truth to power.

Nihilist who got countless regulations for the common good and then had to torturously watch Reagan and Bushco and Norquist etc. dismantle them. The Regressives.

I admire Ralph. And I am swayed by his health care opinions.

Analysis is correct, in my opinion.
Practicable solution – Ralph has his pockets turned out.

He is all for tearing down a broken system, and thinks tearing it down is the answer/solution.

In this, he and I are in disagreement.

thanks, newt. Yeah, I was devastated when Bush won the first time and the second time I really had the VAPORS!

Ralph seems to espouse having to “hit bottom” … at some point to wake up the masses. It is a trap. Teddy admitted he should have compromised with Nixon but was too perfectionistic about healthcare.

And I see old Nader’s raiders interviewed on tv and there is such love/hate toward Nader it dismays. But I think the man has an incredible bull shit detector and speaks his truth to power. He has the heart of a reformer. I think Kucinich and Feingold have that, too. Feingold voted to impeach Clinton. I am sure that alienated him from party … forever in some ways …. but he was sure no crony and voted. Not defending him on that. But it was his honest belief.

I am hungry for someone who has moral clarity. Not faux religious hypocritical moral popping off, but true moral clarity. I hoped Obama had that and had the sense of empowerment from the populace to give him permission to exercise it.

JFK was overwhelmed by the military players when he came into office and they got him into project mongoose in Cuba and that was a mess and he was sorry he was so reactive to them and not more his own man. Having Bobby join him gave him more grounding in dealing with that pressure. Obama probably whammied by those “daddies” who are so entrenched, too, on Wall St. and military.

He has a sharp detector, no doubt.
I heard him speak at a trial lawyers dinner in the Bay Area a million years ago, maybe ‘82 or ‘82 – he was tremendous.

I’m new to this computer world, and this is the only “comments” section of this length that I’ve managed to get through. I didn’t fully understand many of the comments, but reading the whole thing depressed me. I don’t mean to minimize serious differences with a “Can’t we all just get along” mantra. I’m generally of the “Be realistic; demand the impossible” school, but even though these tactical — and even strategic — differences are important, we have to remember who our friends are.

I think Nader is also a Peter Pan man. Most comfortable with the youth. I looked into working for him at one point and he had college kids passing out soap to “clean up the govt” which was funny, but I wanted something deeper to work with, and felt his comfort zone of workers were adoring college kids, though I didn’t push harder to explore it.

Don’t let one emotional thread wet-blanket you, youmayberight. Sometimes things do and should come to a head. I like your comment about who our friends are!

Thanks for posting and being so honest, and see you on campus. :)