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Well the Democrats did it again!
They screwed up change . And many are pointing the error of of their centrist ways.
Peter Doau is just one of many voices pointing out how this tepid centrist third way is destroying democratic chances.
A Coakley pollster had this to say.
The feeling among voters, said Lake, is that Washington prioritizes Wall Street over Main Street and that, despite Coakley's credentials as a state attorney general who has taken on and beaten Wall Street banks, sending her to Washington would not make a difference. "On the eve of the election, Martha Coakley had a 21-point advantage over Scott Brown on who would fight Wall Street and deliver for Main Street. But it didn't predict to the vote, because voters thought, even if they sent her down here that it wouldn't happen. 'Fine, she had done it in Massachusetts, but no one was doing it in Washington,'" Lake said. "Voters are voting for change and we have to go back to that change message. And we have to deliver on change, especially an economic policy that serves working people." -Huffpo
And the stenographers of the status quo AKA the media will give you a lot of BS about how this will kill reform. First, if the house just passes the senate bill then there is no revote in the senate. Though many of us would like to the senate bill die. Second, the Democrats never needed 60 votes. They can still pass Medicare for All by budget reconciliation. That means 50 votes plus the Vice-President.
As Thom Hartmann pointed out you can allow us to buy into medicare. Charge a slight percentage to cover the less well off up 200% of poverty(around $28,000). It is revenue nuetral! The nay sayers can't scream about the deficit. And they can't attack it because they have been using fears about medicare to derail healthcare reform.
But then the White House would have to give up its deals with Big Pharma and the Insurance Industry.
And it is not clear that they get it either. They may take this as a signal to to run even more right.
So we as greens must get active. And yes we must talk to our fellow progressives still in the Democratic Party. We must champion Medicare for Everyone as our healthcare reform.
We help candidates like Kucinich while running against blue dogs and Republicans.
And must get out there and explain to the indepedents that vassilating between two corporate owned parties will not bring the change they are looking for.
Are we up to the challange?
Comments
So now we are going to turn on each other?
This site is designed to be a collaborative site.
If others don't jump in and give their time and energy, it is not my fault.
No one has to wait to have their piece to be posted on this site.
Thom Hartmann has encourage folks to get involved in politics.
And yes he has asked the people to look at the greens.
I don't understand why you criticise someone for pointing out the failure of the democratic party. It is time for us to stop making excuses and route around the obstacles we have in front of us.
did what?
Actually Rod we greens have always supported a medicare for all type system, medicare is a single-payer system, but that it should also include other health care methodologies and have a focus on preventive strategies. The Democrats, we should remember, are by in large working for the same financial interests who dictate policy as the Republicans. It is the big financial interests who ultimately decide who is going to be President in such a political system as ours, we should be done with the shoddy theater that our national institution, over run with corporate whores, has become. The two are one as far as policy goes and greens warned of this when Obama was running but we were met with scorn as people I thought more aware than that swallowed the myth. The arrogant and heartless U.S. response to the tragedy in Haiti will be labled Obama's but it doesn't matter who the front man is. Greens represent a change from that but we know too that sustainable change comes from the bottom. At some point communities will have to form for mere survival. The industrial age is now in its decline, it is a dead end. The only way forward is to go back to that fork in the road. As Pete Seeger once said about conservatism: "I like to say I'm more conservative than Goldwater. He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax. I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other." We can do it now or wait and exhaust every other alternative first.
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I don't disagree
I just wish people would wake up before the hard fall.
Perhaps it is my fault. But while I was aware of our support for single payer, I haven't Greens talk about Medicare. And if I haven't then the average Joe certainly isn't getting that message.
I think Medicare for is an easy to understand meme. And I do believe it is catching on amongst all progressives. This certain a time when we should goad the he Dems into doing right thing or else face challenges on their flanks.
dem dems?
further... when have 'we' ever successfully goaded the democrats into anything? Democrats are professional excuse makers. I learned that from Al Gore when he was still in the House. Dem Dems are much better organized than they let on. They look silly and confusing because their rhetoric doesn't match reality. Please see the movie with Eddie Murphy called The Distinguished Gentleman, it was a brilliant comical expose of Congress and how all the votes are brokered. The truth is always wildly unpopular but the only time I met Buckminster Fuller he told me "the most important thing is to follow the truth." He failed to mention what a wild ride that would be and that most Americans don't want to hear it.
If we want to wake people up to reality, however, we have to be pointing it out. Pampering them and their myths does nothing productive. Taking sides in this American political theater is tantamount to supporting the myth. For the ruling elite the two party system is the key to the treasury, a continual divide and conquer strategy, and they protect it. This is why the Democrats are so rabidly opposed to Greens getting a ballot line. You may say "well, which democrat? I know democrats who say they want to see the Green Party succeed." I say they are kidding themselves about what and who their party represents. They should stop playing the sucker to these great rhetorical strategies and understand that the human mind is easily misled by binary logic: "if A is evil, it seems wholly reasonable to claim that the opposite of A must be good." The real world does not work that way, the rhetoric on both sides ignores reality.
talk?
I guess that is because you are only listening to the debate between the left and right, real greens are neither. If you had gone to the Green Party's national site, gp.prg, you would have seen single-payer advocated continually, if you had read the platform, if you had read the press releases, if you had heard Green Dr. John Batista speak eloquently about what needs to happen in health care. Why you could have even repeated it here but this website is like faux green because you focus on the liars world of mainstream politics where greens are not allowed to be. We are on the outside of this brutal, arrogant and racist empire while Democrats are on the inside making endless lame apologies for it. But Obama's response to Haiti exposes the disgusting fraud that he is and that we tried to tell everyone he is. Yes, and I told you so. Of course, the rights flack machines are so thick with their attacks that our much more in depth critiques are lumped in with there's. By whom? All the sniveling democrat so-called progressives who've done all they can to distance themselves from the truth and the values carried by the Green Party. Thom Hartmann has been good enough to tell some truth on his program but he stops short of the whole truth and genuflects to the democrats, like Amy Goodman does, so he can stay on the air because you know as well as I do that if either of them advocated for the Green Party and showed people what policies we advocate, and why, they would loose their shows in a heart beat.
David Sirota tells it like is
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/its-not-mere-cynicism-or_b_42...
One the reasons I'm in the "Kill the Bill" crowd is I feared that it could derail true reform.
IF Sirota is right an entire generation has been demoralized.
Can reignite that passion and redirect to the Green Party?