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SPINELESS DEMOCRATS / BEGIN WITH OBAMA
There is no known antidote for Spine Flu which is brought about by an addiction to Corporate soft money and a lack of backbone and determined leadership by the Democrats ~ beginning with their leader, Barack Obama: Allen L Roland
As Chris Bowers points out yesterday in openleft.com " In both branches of Congress, Democrats already have the votes and procedural options in place to pass a public option on health care reform. This means it is possible to pass a public option now. It also means that if a public option does not pass as part of health care reform, it will be a because of a political calculation made by the Democratic leadership, not because there was no way to pass one. "
In other words, the Democrats, starting with President Obama, are more concerned with the soft deep financial pockets of the heathcare corporate Wall Street elite than the growing anguish of Main Street America, which includes myself, who seek Single Pay healthcare but would settle reluctantly for a non-co-op Public Option.
This is a situation that demands strong and determined leadership from the top ~ and it's not happening ! As I have written before ~ Obama is a centrist pragmatist, beholden to the economic royalists, and gives no evidence that he will fight for a progressive Public Option ~ unless he is forced to and realizes his re-election could well be effected.
The reason Obama and Congress approval ratings are plummeting is because Americans are rightfully angry ~ but the anger goes much deeper than healthcare. We are angry because we voted for REAL change in 2008 and we are not getting it in Healthcare, Afghanistan, Government transparency, Iraq, Wall Street bailouts at the expense of Main Street as well as holding the Bush administration accountable for illegal renditions and torture.
The Democrats want to eat at the same corporate financial trough that the shameless Republicans ate at for the last eight years and the public be dammed. Remember, we live in an Oligarchy ~ it's the tyranny of the elite where America is ruled by the powerful few.
Ralph Nader appropriately nails it " The formless, waffling Obama health insurance proposal is being shattered by the Republican cluster of Limbaugh-driven lies and the Blue Dog renegades in the Democratic Party, who are busy cashing mounds of campaign checks from the so-called health business."
And Michael Lind sums it up perfectly in Salon " The most dangerous deficit that the United States faces is not the budget deficit or the trade deficit. It is the Democrats' demagogy deficit. Franklin Roosevelt, looking down from that Hyde Park in the sky, would not be surprised that conservatives are seeking to channel populist anger and anxiety, not against the Wall Street elites who wrecked the economy, but against reformers promoting healthcare reform and economic security for ordinary people. As he told his audience in 1936, "It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them." But FDR would be shocked by the inability of his party to mobilize the public on behalf of reform."
Lind goes on to say that you can't fight and win a war without identifying the enemies ~ " You also can't fight and win a war without naming your enemies. In the case of healthcare, the enemies of the American people ~ if I may be demagogic as well as accurate ~ include rent-seeking insurance companies, rent-seeking pharma companies, and overcompensated doctors and hospitals. "
If Obama won't take off the gloves than we must get tough and wage this battle ~ but do remember ~ it's a mid term election next year and our united voices for meaningful health care reform must include the implied threat that any candidate who does not listen to Main Street will be replaced and that includes Obama in 2012.
Allen L Roland
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