Yay, The lunatics Win!!!

[Dinger]

the townhall terrorists win. Public option DOA. Nice.:sarcasm:

[OHdem10]

1. Conservatives and Disruptors sure made the Dems roll over and

scream Uncle on this one real fast.

They are willing to pass a RW Bill so fast it will make
your head swim.

[IndianaGreen]

2. We were so distracted by the crazies, that we failed to notice what was happening on our side

While we talked about the death panel and gun toting idiots, we didn't see how many of our Dems were doing the bidding for the health industry.

[Skidmore]

3. Bullshit.. We sat on our hands and whined.

Where were the rallies and marches for reform? Huh? Where were the visible numbers of people on the streets and the mall in DC demanding change? Huh? We sat on our hands and whined and have never once given thought to perhaps the President may be spot on and has a different vantage point than us.

We sat on our hands and whined.

[Umbral]

5. I remember them, they happened last November when Democrats were handed Congress and the Presidency.

Their only excuse for failure is incompetence. That, or maybe they're just corrupt?

[Better Believe It]

7. Why didn't the Democratic Party organize such activities?

I don't even recall hearing members of Congress urging rallies and marches.

How about Move-on? And all those other organizations pushing a public option. What did they do?

It seems the main people active on the battlefield were proponents of single payer Medicare for All!

[andym]

9. You tend to be well-informed, you haven't heard the calls to organize?

Are you not on the MoveOn mailing list? The Democracy for America mailing list? Any pro-Democratic party, progessive cause mailing list? If not, perhaps you should join, you seem to have missed many calls to action. I assume your post means that you have not heard any of these calls from any pro-reform group-- or participated in their rallies and activities. MoveOn continually asks for help with the Public Option.

For example, as long ago as June 30 I received this from MoveOn:

"We've petitioned. We've called. We've faxed. We've dropped off fliers.

Now, the health care fight is really heating up in the Senate, and some Democrats are trying to bargain away the heart of President Obama's health care plan—a strong public health insurance option. We need to escalate our campaign for real health care reform.

On Thursday, July 9th, MoveOn is organizing nationwide "Public Option Now!" Health Care Rallies to send a strong message to every senator: Health care reform must include a strong public health insurance option.

But we still need someone to organize a rally near Mountain View. Can you help?"

------------
Here is an excerpt
from Democracy for America email on August 7, 2009:

"Senators and Representatives are heading home. Congress is going on recess and insurance companies are trying to use their time away from Washington to kill healthcare reform. We need your help to stop them.

Join us Tuesday for our first-ever interactive online workshop. We'll show you how to get involved locally in the fight for real healthcare reform. We'll show you how our Small Business Pledge Drive can keep the public option alive and we'll show you how to get local businesses on board.

If you're looking to get more involved in the fight for real healthcare reform, then join us Tuesday, August 11 at 8:30 PM Eastern Time for our online interactive workshop."

[Better Believe It]

14. So why didn't those organizations try to build a mass movement in support of their cause?

E-mails for actions!

:)

That's no way to organize a big movement and effective mass actions.

Do you know how many turned out to participate in these alleged tiny "actions"? Organized by MoveOn, 50 marched in Louisville, Kentucky for less than an hour. A grand total of 50! That's embarassing.

These tiny and other similiar actions organized via e-mails just didn't get the job done. Isn't that rather obvious by now?

Move-on, the Democratic Party, organized labor and other organizations with the blessing of President Obama should have and could have built powerful, united and truly massive demonstrations and rallies demanding universal health care with a strong public option, one that would have driven the private insurance industry out of the health care business!

Remember all of the mass meetings and rallies for candidate Obama? Are you telling me that similiar actions could not have been organized for universal health care. How about a March on Washington? Did any of the organizations you mention even propose anything as bold as that? Probably not.

The point is this, the biggest advocate organizations for the public option totally failed, and really never tried, to organize a mass movement behind a public option because a mass movement action strategy was probably opposed by the leadership of the Democratic Party and the White House. Can you present any information indicating that the White House and Senate leadership supported a mass action "in the streets" strategy? I'd like to see it.

Rahm Emanuel sure didn't want to see a mass movement. He's never participated in or helped to build one in his entire life. His main claim to fame is the ability to work and "cut deals" behind the scenes with corporate America while he uses his "sharp elbows" against Democrats who criticize conservative Democratic "blue dogs"!

[stray cat]

4. And if insurance reform is trashed as well the progressive lunatics win as well

The right and left wing lunatics will celebrate their joint victory!

[Better Believe It]

8. Progressive lunatics? Name them. You mean like Sanders, Dean, Maddow, etc.,

[QC]

12. Progressives are enemies of the people. n/t

[Unsane]

6. nothing sarcastic about it, the bad guys won

[Enrique]

10. link?

I thought Congress was still in recess, I didn't realize the battle was over. :shrug:

[FrenchieCat]

11. I don't think anyone has won anything yet.....

But if we keep saying that someone has won, then perhaps someone will, and it won't be us.

It's called self defeatism.....and it happens to the best of us...
It can be caused by just about any turn of events or of a phrase or the appearance of such...
wording too ambigious for all liking, a statement not made that we wanted to hear,
and POOF...we are off the reservation! e.g., something a Secretary of the Administration
stating that the Public Option is not the end all of all,
and the AP takes that as saying "Fuck the Public Option" and prints the blaring headlines
as that being so....and then just waits.

Sad that we are this weak....actually as weak if not weaker than the elected Democrats we profess
are fucking it all up for us.

We are the ones that we are waiting for. Not the media, not this President, not this congress,
not the Republicans, and not the loonies. We are waiting for us....and from what I can tell,
looks like you've cancelled your appointment, and I know, that's an easy thing to do; takes
no effort at all.

[masuki bance]

13. If the message from Sebilius, Gibbs and Conrad was bungled

don't you think it would take about 2 seconds to correct it?

They haven't issued any denials, corrections or clarifications. What does that tell you?