So I guess after a mere eight months or so we don't want to go too fast on this health care reform, do we? This article in the New York Times makes it clear that not only will DINOs Blanche Lincoln and Evan Bayh oppose the use of reconciliation, Harry the Invertebrate Reid will yield to their opposition, because, after all, there's no rush. Lieberman wants to "reach out to the Republicans" and McConnell is crowing already that the bill is dead.
I want to fight. I want to side with courageous leadership in the battle to provide for the American people what the citizens of EVERY advanced industrial democracy enjoy: universal access to high quality health care.
I am ready to sacrifice and do battle for the well-being of my country.
Instead, my "leaders" in the Democratic Party cave in to and compromise with the Corporate Prostitutes and obedient servants of the insurance industry. While other Americans are dying from untreated illnesses, in terrible chronic pain because they cannot afford treatment, or losing everything because a catastrophic illness has wiped out their savings, our "leadership" looks for new ways to grovel and to debase itself. Our "leadership" is going to hand the Tea Party psychotics a HUGE victory, one which have terrible consequences. And people like me, and a lot of you, are wondering why we--the ones who love Barack Obama, the ones who gave our money, our time, our tears, and our sweat--seem only to get the back of our "leaders'" hands.
This whole episode has contributed to a crushing depression that has me in a vice-like grip. (And I'm not speaking metaphorically--I'm going to ask my doctor for a change in medication. Guess I should be happy that I HAVE a doctor.) Our impending defeat on health care--and make no mistake, it IS a defeat--will contribute to our losing control of both houses of Congress and the presidency by November 2012. Once again, the Democrats, with (on paper) huge majorities in both houses have fallen flat on their faces, just as they did in 1993-94. Once again the conservatives have outmaneuvered us, out-shouted us, out-lied us, and run rings around us. And the Right has done this with the aid of people that LBJ would have flattened in five minutes. You know when I knew we were in trouble? When Joe Lieberman was allowed to keep his chairmanships after defecating all over us repeatedly and campaigning for the Republicans in 2008. Now who the hell is going to have any fear of or respect for the power of President Obama when the Democrats won't even punish a back-stabbing, lying, two-faced son of a bitch like Holy Joe? Yes, that's when I smelled trouble.
And the trouble came.
Bill Kristol and his boys have won again. Sarah "Death Panels" Palin has won. Pathological liar Betsy McCaughey has won again. The Tea Party assholes who shouted down your Congressman in August have won. Boehner, McConnell, and Cantor have won. Fox "News" and Limbaugh and Beck and Hannity and Coulter have won. Dick Morris has won. And the tens of millions of Americans who desperately needed our help have lost.
I hereby formally predict that we will lose 6 Senate seats and 45 seats in the House in November. I hereby formally predict that a completely crippled Barack Obama will be unable to do anything decent in health care, environmental protection, financial regulatory reform, or immigration. I further predict that a Republican will be elected president 2012, and will lead this country, with the help of his or her majorities in Congress, into utter catastrophe.
I wanted to be part of a great army. Instead, I see cynical double-dealing and craven "compromises" that always, always, ALWAYS go only one way: against the interests of the American people.
I wanted to fight for America. I still do.
But my "leaders" know only surrender and submission.
And it's killing me.
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