"He is like Mandela; he has the same capacity for justice and healing."

[Skidmore]

Yesterday we went to pick up a dining room set we had seen on craigslist and met the very nice lady from Mozambique who was selling it to us. We chatted a bit and the topic turned to the past election as it relates to current problems in the economy and world and our hopes for the future. She told us that she and her family had been praying for Obama to win and described the joy and relief they experienced upon his win. She told us how much the world needs someone like Obama with a greatness of spirit and who is able to envision history as a longer arc than just that of a single election cycle. That politics may be local but it is national and global too in its impact.

She told us that when she would listen to Obama speak, she would close her eyes, and hear Mandela in what he had to say. That America needs to experience a reunification and that we have chosen the person best capable of presiding over such a healing. That America and the world cries for hope and justice and healing and we are rising to the occasion.

[John Q. Citizen]

1. but if Obama can't talk about single payer any more than Mandela couldn't talk about AIDS

then what a waste.

I know that some things have changed in SA but lets not waste a generation before we act.

[Skidmore]

2. The man hasn't even been inaugurated yet.

I have no problem waiting until after the inauguration to hear what he has in mind and to see how he sets about implementing his plans. I do think he is a man worthy of trust and who is pragmatic above all.

[John Q. Citizen]

3. Lets put pragmatism above ideology. Lets look at all ideas. Lets get a single payer advocate in the

cabinet.

Just one. A token one. Just so we can compare ideas.

[Skidmore]

4. I think the whole point of Obama's campaign was putting

pragmatism above ideology. I agreed with him that we cannot keep playing the same old political game and expect change. If I had believed that experience fighting Republicans were the answer to our problems as a nation, I would have caucused for Hillary. As a nation, ideological fervor has been part of our undoing. We have spent the past three decades engaged in such tit for tat lobbing of crap grenades across political no-man's land and have brought our nation to its knees because of it. I'm not so myopic as to believe that the presense of one person reciting the right litany doesn't mean that an issue cannot be brought to the table and worked on with sincerity in this upcoming administration. In fact, I think that Ted Kennedy as point person on health care is definitely a nod in that direction and that Caroline Kennedy coming to congress possibly insures that health care issues will have a progressive resolution in the future.

[John Q. Citizen]

7. So now facts are "a litney." I'm asking for someone who will push for cost/benefit

analysis of any plan compared to any other plan. Someone experientially and intellectually capable of advocating for single payer fee for service.

Ted Kennedy chairs one of the two committees that any health care bill must go through. The other Chair is Max Baucus. Baucus already made the proclamation that single payer is off the table.

That's not pragmatic. That's ideology at it's stupidest. Neither Max or Ted are in their position as a result of Obama. They are there as a result of seniority.

I would like to see Obama appoint someone to his cabinet who is willing and able to let single payer compete on the merits of the plan.

Is that to much to want?

[Skidmore]

9. I don't hear facts--

I hear a lot of whining. Nothing has happened yet policy wise to count as factual.

[sandnsea]

5. Talk about self-centered

This woman is talking about a global shift that will affect the lives of billions of people for decades, and you can't get past your demand for your brand of health care, even if your my-way-or-the-highway demand means nobody gets any health care for years longer.

[John Q. Citizen]

8. Yes, the social stigma attached to AIDS resulted in silence for years. Let's not repeat

that kind of mistake here.

Look, maybe some other plan is a lot better than single payer fee for service. But we will never know unless they are able to compete side by side out in the sunlight.

All I ask for is to put pragmatism over ideology. Let all ideas compete. Don't keep certain ideas out of the debate because of ideology.

That would be regressive.

[DavidDvorkin]

6. Let's hope for our own Truth and Reconciliation Commission