Now that the Healthcare fight has ended in a disappointment for many of us it is time to move onto other fights and show some real fights. Especially the fights where the facts are on our side. It is time that we fight for the Employee Free Choice Act because the facts are on our side and it is far past time the middle-class saw a rebound. You see, one fact is that First Contract Arbitration does nothing to kill "small businesses".
After the much advertised "bi-partisan" forum on healthcare it seems to me one glowing fact remains for the American people to be blinded by. Republicans simply have no interest whatsoever in changing one of the most costly and least effective healthcare systems in the world. They also care very little about whether millions of uninsured Americans recieve coverage and ultimately seek Emergency Room treatment for illness, passing the cost on to everyone else. Now, it is time for Democrats to take off the gloves, come out swinging and fight with every power at their disposal to pass true healthcare reform.
The most hypocritical Senator for Communist China, Mitch McConnell is at it again. Yes, this man talks a good game about the American people while he outsources their jobs to oppressive governments who use virtual slave labor all while telling them we should "listen to" them. However, the sorry truth is that Mitch McConnell could really care less about what the American people think.
During the healthcare negotiations we got pretty disgusted with Ben Chandler and his whole "Blue Dog" coalition. Instead of negotiating in faith and coming up with a real healthcare reform bill Chandler and his cronies in that Corporate Democrat coalition decided to poison and delay the process turning it into Corporate Welfare or nothing at all. Well, for millions of Americans unfortunately these folks got what they wanted and we will get nothing at all as usual. Now, he wants our sympathy for stabbing us in the back.
I keep hearing from the President and other party leaders how our country needs to get past "partisanship". Well, sometimes it is a very good thing to work together and try to agree but the times we live in do not call for that particular solution. Yes folks, what we need right now is a good round of ugly, nasty, bitter partisanship to achieve progress for the working class.
After months of healthcare debate a bill has been passed in the Senate. A bill that stripped basically all that was good for working Americans out, and has become very unpopular among a majority of Americans. A bill that mandates millions of Americans at the mercy of the insurance industry, and allows them to continue to discriminate against folks with pre-existing conditions. Quite simply, a bill that was written for Corporate Welfare complete with backroom bribes to get it passed. And for many Progressives, the fact that we had not a champion in the Democratic caucus to stand up for us and vote against these junk reforms was painful enough, Harry Reid added insult to injury.
You know, every now and then the time comes around that you see things the way they are. We thought we had fought for and won a great victory in the last two elections. We thought we had given an inspiring Progressive new President a huge mandate and the Congress he needed to bring about real change in this country. Now, we realize we are being stabbed in the back and that many of the Democrats in office are no better than the Republican crooks that preceded them. It is time that these folks are exposed for what they are and we realize who really controls our government.
Let us make no mistake about it. The only good things in the healthcare bill have been viciously buried alive in a shallow grave. Single-Payer was the real solution that would have guaranteed fair, across the board coverage for all Americans. It met a slow, and tortured death buried alive. The Public Option was then our only hope to keep insurers honest, and it met with a long, torturous death buried alive with malice while the American people virtually begged for it. The employer mandate, like single-payer appears to have been buried alive. Yes, everything good that could have come from reform seems to be somewhere near Jimmy Hoffa, dead and buried never to be found.
You know, it seems as if the one campaign promise that Obama made, to get past partisanship and unify the country is the only one so far he has kept. Think of it, for the first time in my life and his life as a Senator I agree with Mitch McConnell. Progressives are now agreeing with the tea-baggers and Howard Dean is agreeing with John McCain. Even Keith Olberman, televised champion of the Progressive point of view now agrees with the Republicans about the need to kill the healthcare bill in the Senate.
As some of you that read here regularly may have noticed, I have not refrained from ripping into Democrats and Congress here lately when I feel that they are wrong. Unfortunately, too many times here lately I find myself almost as disgusted with Democrats as Republicans. However, this is not something I take particular pleasure in. I would much rather be talking about the good things my party is doing for our country and today I finally get a chance to do that, although as always it is tempered by the fact that many elected Democrats are quite simply bought and paid for, gutless, and belong in the elitist, uncaring party on the other side of the aisle, the Republicans.
Remember last year when the stripping down of regulations on the financial industry over the last couple of decades allowed these institutions to pick the economy clean, crashing it?? I would bet that many folks who lost their jobs, and many folks like me who lost huge percentages of their 401ks remember that too well. Unfortunately their are two groups of people who seem to have completely forgotten the lessons of late last year: Corporate Democrats and Republicans.
Congress and the Senate in particular are on the verge of cramming a mandate that I buy insurance from Corporate Crooks using taxpayer money that they do not deserve. Once again Progressives and those who really needed real reform the most have been stabbed in the back. We got used to it under the Republican Congress and President George W. Bush but it is a particularly poison pill to swallow under a Democratic Congress and President I gave so much money and effort to.
I like many of my fellow Progressives across the country right now feel very disappointed and indeed stabbed in the back by our "Democratic Leaders" in the Senate. All along this debate from the lackluster performance of President Obama to the sellout of Max Baucus and the treacherous "Blue Dogs" in the House we have seen ourselves taken for granted and stabbed in the back too many numerous times for us to still count. Now, it appears as if our only hope may be one Senator we have always been able to count on.
I have been a proud member of Democracy for America, the group founded by Howard Dean after his failed Presidential bid and before his hugely successful run as Chairman of the DNC for quite some time. This organization of Progressive Democrats are not afraid to fight for a more Progressive America even if it means fighting against folks in our own party. The current healthcare debate is nailing it home to all Progressives just why we need such an organization.
While many were celebrating the historical nature of the House vote there are also reasons for real Democrats to temper celebration. Of course, we all know the ripping the House version, which actually did include some good things will get in the "House of Lords" we all know as the U.S. Senate. Of course, we know that we actually have a paltry majority in the Senate or quite possibly still a Republican majority, but the House Healthcare vote should give us a sobering reminder of just how small of a majority we have in the House.
House Democrats joined the Senate in unveiling their version of healthcare today. Although nothing will provide the real solution like single-payer most hopes were that the House version would be more Progressive. Those hopes were partially dashed as the House version had some good and some not so good. In the end, it appeared as if at least in the House this bill has a good chance to garner the needed votes.
Mitch McConnell has long been known to live in a fantasy world. After participating in one of the greatest fleecings of the American taxpayer and crashings of the American economy, just suddenly thinking he is "fiscally responsible" is delusional and fantastic enough, but now it seems poor Mitch "Economy in the Ditch" is clearly living in a world of his own making. The only question remaining is will numerous Corporate Democrats sell their souls to the devil and join him there??
An old foe is proving once again why Progressives dispelled him from our party. Yes, Joe Lieberman is rearing his ugly head again in the healthcare fight. Unfortunately for us, he has an adoring little tribe of Corporate Democrats in the Senate who seem prepared to sink any kind of public option.
You know, one thing that led to so much disaster in the Bush White House was that Republicans refused to speak out when their leader was wrong. Instead of trying to change some of the mistakes he was making, they rubber-stamped every single wish of that President. That was particularly dangerous to our country when the Republican Party controlled both the Congress and the White House. That attitude caused many of the failed policies that got us into two wars incompetently, and crashed the economy.
Although the Public Option has been written off time and time again for the sake of "bi-partisanship" and to give comfort to Corporate Democrats, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa is still confident that a Healthcare bill will pass by Christmas and that indeed, it will have a public option that will compete with private insurance and drive down costs.
