Reply #22: I agree for the most part. I think that Obama made a mistake by not employing the people against

[John Q. Citizen]

the moneyed interests.

Here in Montana, we had a spontaneous upraising against Baucus when he had the doctors and nurses arrested from PNHP and other groups that support single payer. about a 1000 people turned up around the state to protest at his 5 offices.

We had NO support at all from DFA (formerly Dean for America then morphed to Democracy for America) OFA, (morphed from Obama for American into the DNC controlled Organizing for America) Move on, Seiu, or any other major groups. They were all co-opted into the imaginary "Public Option" distraction effort that was intended to divert the people away from demanding a government run health insurance system.

The day after the Baucus protest I attended an OFA organizing meeting where about 40 people showed up, and everyone there, with the exception of the organizers, were all talking about single payer, "How can we get it, what should we do?" Most of the people there hadn't been at the Baucus protest, because there wasn't a lot of way to get the word out.

And the organizers diverted and deflected people away from single payer and tried to enlist them instead into working for the so-called public option. Most people went home, many in disgust. They weren't much interested in a market based Republican style solution.

One man at my table in his early sixties said, "I sure would have liked to have been at the meeting in late November 1998 where Obama and the unions and Baucus and Move-on all sat down and decided that they were going to deflect the movement for single payer with this other replacement idea."

It's a shame that Obama, after waking up the sleeping giant of populism, decided to put it back to sleep again. We would have come out far ahead if Obama had provided some leadership to the people instead of cutting a deal with the health care industrial complex.