My Advice: Take Your Focus Off Obama, Put It On Congress, LTTE, and Insurance Cos/AMA

[NashVegas]

When we voiced our anger at Washington 2001-2009 and focused it on GWB, we lost every time.

By publicly, vocally, blaming the current debacle on Barack Obama, you're letting the insurance lobbies and AMA skate from public notice, and you're making it easier for Republicans to further undermine a Democratic president.


Just sayin' ...

[OHdem10]

1. The Senate is writing the Legislation. Focus your attention there.

The Senate are the ones giving the Insurance Companies Welfare
and the people the crumbs.

Obama will get the bill after it is written. I respect and support
Obama. We do not have a king. There is only so much he can do.

Year after year we permit the Senate to slink around in the background
and never be accountable.

Right now they will slink around staying out of the Cameras view
and let Obama take the Heat. It is time for them to be accountable.

[vaberella]

9. The house wrote the Legislation Obama is supporting. The damned Senate will vote.

The Senate is made up of some shit heads. I don't think they will pass it.

[jwirr]

2. I agree. It is congress that is selling out.

[vaberella]

12. It's been Congress from the Beginning...more so the Senate. n/t

[FrenchieCat]

3. I agree!

Contact congresscritters using this tool: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt

[Raine1967]

4. Very good advice.

time and time again, it comes down to the legislation that CONGRESS passes.

I think sometimes that congress wants people to blame Obama for stuff -- it takes the focus off of them, and they, after all--are the ones who write laws.

[angee_is_mad]

15. then want him to campaign for their asses

SOBs!!!

[Raine1967]

16. After any election -- it s up to US to campaign for OUR issues,

We cannot expect Obama to do the work we need to do --- this is about the House and the Senate right now.

[s-cubed]

5. Agreed. And I will re-issue my Challenge:

For every post or comment you put here, make at least one call or send at least one email to Congress.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5876622&mesg_id=5876622

There is contact info in my post, and more in a reply. And don't limit yourself to just your reps and sens. In my experience, the staff rarely ask where you are from or who you are when you call. With email, you always have to fill out a form with name, rank, serial number. But with calls, they don't know where you are from (unless they are recording by caller ID, which I doubt.)

Besides, it's fun to call a pug office and tell them you want them to stop opposing everything the American people want, and make them be all polite and nice.
:nuke:

[andym]

14. Great idea! nt.

[avaistheone1]

6. I don't vote for the insurance lobby, or the insurance companies.

I vote for the President and the Congress.

The focus is where it should be. If our elected officials get in bed with the pharmaceutical lobby or the health care lobby and vote against my best interests, I can only hold my representatives from top to bottom accountable. I have no sway with big Pharma, or the health insurance industry.

[vaberella]

11. No it's not. It's not on the Congress.

The focus of all posts is Obama is not leading and all I see him doing is leading. The Senate?! How many have already come out and said they will not vote for a public option----while others rail and scream for single payer!!! They won't even support a public option let alone even glance at single payer.

Do you know what that means? The pressure is entirely and should entirely be on the Congress. Obama as a candidate and as President has always said he wants a solid public option. BEFORE any legislation was written or pushed 5 Democrats said, "NO!" in the Senate. And you think the amount of ridiculous pressure on the President is justified when, it seems he's got our back any one else.

Before even someone said...I'll write one, they said NO. They are fucking us up and not enough here are supporting our president or even a Public Option. We have one faction pushing single payer and can't see reason. Fine. Do you know what those people are doing in light of the fact that Congress can't even like the Public Option----in my eyes they're as much to blame in actually destroying the public option and therefore a substantial health reformation plan.

Single payer goes nowhere. Everyone knew it would not make it because The CONGRESS is in the pocket of health insurance companies. Not only that...any single payer believer knows very well that there are ZERO compromises in health care adding to more stupidity. There are Centrist Dems and Independent individual people who actually don't mind health care. Many of them sincerely don't. Giving a public option actually gives us more leverage because it helps in the breakdown of the hold of private insurers. Rather than supporting something like that and supporting the President---the President is not leading and they find the single payer is the ONLY way to go. When even in the world amongst nations of universal health care it has been shown that private insurance is alive and well. They're just very small. As it will become in this country.

So we have that faction against the President's Public Option, we have most of the Public Option people as a small minority fighting for full beneefits and making sure we get something viable and substantial and not shit while we have single payers not helping. Then we have Republicans and Conservadems adding even more drama and definitely destroying.

So in the end...the public option supporters who are fighting alone (and I think we're a small number on this board) are on our own because even though we want universal health care we're willing to compromise to ensure that everyone who needs it can get it and those who want to keep their own plan (as there are millions of Americans who do and some are on this board) can benefit with new guidelines and lower prices.

[phleshdef]

17. Yea, but because of the Senate, I'm not sure Obama can get his public option through.

People are saying he should fight harder and all. But shit he is buying TV time to try to push this and really, what else is he supposedly gonna do that doesn't alienate the Congress from him in such a way that guarantees failure of this or anything else. I guess he could go on national TV and tell them what he did to that fly was just a warning. But we all knew before voting for him in either election, that he just isn't the type of guy to get all hot headed on people.

He has clearly stated his support for a public option, he campaigned on it and has asked Congress to fund it. The problem is that we have Democrats in the Senate that are being wishy washy about supporting it and thats really the only thing standing in the way. President Obama certainly isn't.

[sandnsea]

7. HCAN June 25 Rally For Health Care

Attend an event or organize one.

http://www.healthcareforamericanow.org/

[vaberella]

8. I 100% Agree and that has been the focus of my posts. Obama signs. Those asses vote & write.

I can't stand them because they're the ones fucking us up. Obama isn't a miracle worker when there are people who are intentionally set out to sabotage him and us. I cannot understand why it's always Obama when Congress is set out to destroy us.

[Fire1]

10. Good advice. n/t

[Sebastian Doyle]

13. Obama is not the problem in this case.......yet

The minute he signs a shitty half assed bill, he will be.

But it would certainly help if he would make a point of telling Congress not to even bother sending him a bill that doesn't do the job, because he WON'T sign it.

[phleshdef]

18. I don't get this anger at "bill signing". Just because he signs 1 bill, doesn't mean there won't...

... be more bills to come. When people say its only been 5 months, the other part of that is you have to realize that means we have 3.5 more to go. The guy has to do all these things like getting the economy back to a state of growth, getting our troops out of foreign war endeavors, amending the legal messes created by the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners and the list goes on and on. On top of all that, he is TRYING to get something done with healthcare and he is getting a lot of opposition from the Washington establishment.

[Sebastian Doyle]

19. Uh, wrong.

Because if a shitty health care bill (i.e. RomneyHillaryMandatoryCorporateCare or Conrad Co-ops) passes, then the whore media machine will tell everyone "problem solved" and the issue of REAL health care reform will never be discussed again.

As I said elsewhere, I'd rather they did NOTHING than pass a shit bill. Because if they do NOTHING, the issue can always be brought up again, though we'll have to purge every last goddamn useless DLC'er out of both houses of Congress before we dare try again.

[phleshdef]

20. You don't know if there will be a continued discussion. You are just predicting.

[Sebastian Doyle]

21. So you honestly believe that once everybody is "covered" by some half assed corporate bullshit

that the bought and paid for pieces of shit in Congress will still care about a REAL solution?

I guess you haven't been paying attention to how these ba$tards operate.

[phleshdef]

22. I believe, as our history has shown, big changes can often happen in small increments.

[Milo_Bloom]

24. That really isn't true.

We actually have a long history of ignoring glaring problems after crappy fixes, only leading to huge changes needing to come later.

[Milo_Bloom]

23. We NEED Obama to be leading that fight.

"The people" have been complaining about lobbies forever and it falls on deaf ears.

Obama should/does have the power to twist the arms of the democrats who are standing in the way of what needs to be done. This is something the bush administation did very effectively when it was in power. If bush wanted something, they could twist the arm of any senator/congressperson standing in their way. They won the PR war nearly every single time, attacking members of their own party who stood in the way of what they wanted... even when what they wanted was idiotic.

Despite higher popularity and approval ratings, Obama lacks the same type of sway over the Democrats in congress. A public option shouldn't be "up for the debate".. it should be centerpiece of any health care reform and Obama needs to LEAD that message and paint ANY legislator trying to take it out as unamerican. This messages needs to come from the top and be sent through the party... Either you are with Obama or you are against him on this. Democrats will fall in line if they believe that some of that party money will be withheld from them in the midterm elections.

[Dr Fate]

25. I agree-Obama has the most power to get congress to listen to us.

I'm not saying we should blame Obama- but the idea that it's 100% up to people with no power to twist their arms and tear them away from their lobbyist checks- I'm not buying that either...

Obama can go on TV, name names, name who is getting what donations, name corrupt instances that he has seen himself, get new debate & talking points out there,tell his supporters which DEMS they should be targeting, etc.

[sandnsea]

26. He has sent that message

He has created an organization for the people to carry that message. He's held town halls to carry that message. He's going on prime time tv on Wednesday to carry that message.

When are people like YOU going to do your part.

[Milo_Bloom]

31. I've been doing my part for years now.

Only to be continually disappointed and pushed to the side by the democratic party and those who apologize for the weak willed politicians within.

Here's the reality. OVERWHELMINGLY the public WANTS the public option.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/19/opinion/polls/main5098517.shtml

So don't talk to me about how he "created the organization" or his "town halls". The people didn't want a war with Iraq without full UN action and approval... bush pushed it through without even having control of the senate. People didn't want tax cuts for the rich.. bush pushed it through.

I want to see Obama get tough. I certainly haven't seen it yet. I have seen completely unecessary compromise.

THIS is the moment he can be a strong president or a Clintonian compromiser who winds up just slightly slowing our decent, rather than actually stopping it.

[BlooInBloo]

27. Sure seems like the Senate is where the problem is. It's interesting that it's not DUers' focus.

[Dr Fate]

28. I think the focus should be on everyone in DC who holds power.

I think we agree more than we do not- but there is plenty of focus on the conservative DEM senators in question here at DU.

I've leanred most of what I know about these senators from DU posts, for instance...

Here is the problem that scares me the most- swing voters, moderates, etc tend to give credit to the President, fair or not, for whatever happens in politics.

So- if all goes well, Obama gets the credit-WONDERFUL! If thinbs go poorly, swing-voters, moderates and folks who are not political junkies paying attention to all this might just blame Obama.

We agree when it comes to the bigger picture- Conservative Senate DEMS seem to be the real problem here...

[GivePeaceAchance]

29. ...

[GivePeaceAchance]

30. Exactly the congress is where the issues really are anyways.