No amount of public pressure is going to get the votes, because we
are dealing with folks who just don’t care what you or I think. Period.
I’m to the point now that I think the Senate is only floating the
public option to fire up the House and make them more opposed to any
bill without a public option, so that way they can blame the house for
no bill passing when the Senate public option effort fails.I
know it is fashionable to beat up on Joe Lieberman, but honestly, I’ve
seen nothing the past few months that makes him any worse than the rest
of the centrists. If anything, he is just more upfront about the fact
that he is just doing things to piss people off. Evan Bayh is so upset
with the lack of bipartisanship that he is going to quit and reward the
GOP with a seat for their obstructionism. That is the kind of quality thinking we get from the centrists.So
basically, we successfully vilified the insurance companies, got the
house to pass the public option, got the public to support a public
option, and ten unnamed Dems in the Senate will scuttle it, leading to
the inevitable death of the whole bill in the House. And should a
miracle happen, Bart Stupak and the C-Street goons are waiting in the
wings to get their fetus fetish on.I wish Obama would live up to the reputation the wingnut bloggers have given him and just nationalize the whole damned thing.
Here’s where I start to go off the rails with this shit. I really think we as a country have a lethal tendency to take what we think we can get and be satisfied with it. On a personal level I don’t have a problem with the strategy of learning to love what you have, instead of pointlessly yearning, but by and large we really do believe every asshole and his brother when they tell us that something is impossible.
Public option? Not enough votes. Single payer? Never happen. Fight poverty? Shut up, hippie, be realistic. There’s a wall here. You can’t get over it or under it. Go home.
When people say this, we LISTEN. Dear God. The only possible response to someone telling you not to do what you know in your blood and your bones is the right thing to do isfuck you I’mma be over here working if you have something to contribute then gimme a call but for now get out of my face. But we listen. I can’t … what are we really afraid of here? Losing? We’re going to do that anyway. We are doing that anyway. Sitting still is losing. Sitting still, by its very definition, is losing.
And we have utterly no way of knowing if the people who are saying this is all we can get are right in any meaningful way. Absolutely no way of knowing. So why believe them? In fact, as far as health care is concerned, there is a pretty good reason in the form of every poll on the planet to know they’re wrong. Yet all it takes is somebody saying, “Eh, it’s not politically feasible” and off we go, right past denial and anger and bargaining straight into depression and acceptance.
A.