Americans showed their creativity and passion for health care reform ...but the WINNING video all Americans should see is longer than 30 seconds, and so would be disqualified:
http://vodpod.com/watch/2367112-american-sickos-will-the-current-bills-help
http://blip.tv/play/gdElgajBUQI
My parents provided me with health care 33 years ago when my dad's job brought us to Canada. It has never failed me, and Canada's nowhere near the top of the list of countries that do better for their citizens than the U.S.
President Obama can expect an instant surge in poll numbers if and when he gets back on board with the majority of Americans who don't give two figs what Snowe and the Party of No think...
To me the only mystery is why some seem to think there's any mystery. It's not like Republicans, with whom a mere 20% of Americans identify and only 36% still think have a clue about what to do are picking up the numbers.
I can only speak for my own disappointment in this once inspirational president who used to fill us all with so much hope, but I fully expect there are others who feel as I do. The President's approval numbers are inversely proportionate to his tacit approval for the antics of disingeuous Republicans such as Olympia Snowe and Chuck Grassley, support for spineless compromises such as Max Baucus's self-serving gift to the industry who supported and supports his re-election, his willingness to place the groups who elected him on hold, as he's done with the gay community, or to call us"opinionated," as he did when he recently described me and my fellow progressives that way. "Principled," Mr. Obama, and "resolute" are two of the adjectives I'd have chosen.
I don't need a public option, I live in Canada where they've understood for decades that single-payer provides the widest high quality coverage at the lowest cost to tax payers. Like over 80% of Canadians I'm very happy with the way it works, and I know it doesn't shut out private companies that enhance my coverage. I'm worried about my nephew and niece, who live in the States and have no health care. I'm worried about families who are plummeted into bankruptcy and still have to bury their 4-year-old child who dies of cystic-fibrosis, a disease that also claimed my first wife -- at the age of 40. She was Canadian. She was covered. "Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are more than words in Canada.
The so-called "public option" is the compromise. It has the potential of proving to Americans that the health insurance industry will either adapt and put up, as it has all over the globe, or shut up. Without a robust public option health care reform is a sham.
Democrats, progressive or otherwise, must reject the Baucus Boondoggle without blinking. Bought and paid for by the Health Care industry Wendell Potter describes it as an "absolute gift" and that it "might as well be called the Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act."
We need to put Max Baucus on notice -- his allegiance is with the sources of his campaign funding -- banks and Wall St., and the pharmaceuticals/health care/insurance industries -- not the American People, and he does not deserve to sit in the Senate of the United States of America.
The Tea Partiers may not understand American history or the concept of taxation as it relates to representation by a democratically elected president and congress, but they have one slogan that rings true: it's time to take our country back -- from the corporations and industries who now own Congress.
"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering," President Franklin Roosevelt told an audience in Madison Square Garden in 1936. "They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred."
Currently Americans oppose health care reform for only two reasons: 1) they and their opinions are entirely beholden to propaganda and as a result they remain ignorant and afraid of the facts or 2) they have a financial stake in the status quo and are actively involved in spreading the fear and propaganda that keeps the others beholden.
If the so-called Blue Dogs, or the President himself, fail to bring about believable health care reform -- publicly funded universal health care comparable to any provided by the remainder of the industrialized world -- then we must find candidates and individuals who are not afraid.
I stumbled on two articles on NPR that are only about a year old and contain some very interesting facts.
I've posted some excerpts below, but I highly recommend reading the entire article and using the comparison utility to check out what's done in other countries...
I am an educator who has been blessed with the opportunity to live and work abroad for a large part of my life, and to see what an impact the American dream has had in places as far apart historically and culturally as Ethiopia and Canada. America's promise shines as a bright light regardless where in the world one may be. Dark clouds of fear and loathing have briefly dimmed that light, but the election of President Barak Obama has reminded the world that Americans have good hearts and always, ultimately, remember what is right. His presidency has begun to push away the clouds, and we recall the dream of the Founders who established the egalitarian system under which The Law is our only king.
The Press has been very reluctant to look beneath the surface of Obama's falling popularity numbers, and once again the spinmeisters on the right step in and dominate. My own support for Obama began to decline before the election, when he flipped on the FISA issue. The fact that John Yoo is free to teach law at Berkley infuriates me. The constant attempt to appease the nihilist Republicans, or give credit to dinosaurs like Chuck Grassley with anything but obstructionism and dishonesty of the highest, most hypocritical order, just turn my stomach. Where's the change I believed in?
In summary, Obama's falling numbers are due to his turning his back on the progressives who elected him, not the fantasy being perpetrated by conservatives and parroted by the uncritical media. He will continue to slide the further he moves to the center. If there is no public option in health care reform he will almost certainly be a one-term president.
On the other hand, the Republicans would have to find someone to run against him. Unless Meghan McCain suddenly wants to run for president I don't see anyone with any credibility, never mind vision, anywhere on the horizon.
I am currently supporting Anthony Weiner for president in 2012. I certainly hope he'll consider running.
info@barackobama.com on Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at 12:25 PM -0400 wrote:You've probably seen the headlines: Opponents of change are doing everything they can to delay health insurance reform. <snip> So I want to ask you for something unusual: Can you chip in $1 each day until we pass real health insurance reform? Sorry Mr. President,There's no change here to believe in. Big business has already won --- again. I voted for you because I thought you could bring Americans Universal Public Health Care. You pandered and waffled, and now you've dropped the ball.
I'm lucky enough to be married to a Canadian woman, to live in Toronto and to know what my fellow Americans have missed. And here will I remain. Richard FouchauxNo More Compromise
Those of us who remember when America's beacon was bright and honorable understand that there was only one choice for her future back in November 2008. What we've seen since from the opposing party -- Adulterers, Antagonists to Truth, Antagonists to Critical Thought, Bigotry, Birthers, Deathers, Defenders of Corporate Welfare, Divisiveness, Obstructionism -- is a shocking and depressing testimony to the degree of American decline.
There's no doubt we elected the best man for the job, the only man who did not fear to recognize or acknowledge the decline and spoke in language so eloquent, uplifting, and audacious as to inspire our fading hope.
What has become of the man we elected President, defender of our Constitution and the Rule of Law, who promised to break the cycle of special corporate interests in Washington and bring health care to all Americans?
The following is an excerpt from A country in shambles, under GOP rule - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com. It certainly sums up the feelings of many Americans I know. John McCain and Sarah Palin are running one of the most dishonest campaigns in United States history, and Americans aren't being fooled by it. Maverick Schmaverick... John McCain and Sarah Palin are the poster people for the failed policies of George W. Bush. But worse than that, they insult our intelligence. -Richard
As polling data conclusively demonstrates, the mindset of the voting public is infinitely more rational and substance-based than the pundits and the Right fantasize when they lyrically praise the Regular American -- at least it is in this time of perceived (and actual) crisis. What's happening in this country, and in this election, is rather simple and easy to see: (1) the country is in total shambles -- possibly far worse than what people even realize; (2) we have lived for the last eight years under virtually absolute GOP rule; (3) the public knows this; (4) the Republican President and his party are therefore intensely -- historically -- unpopular; and (5) the voting public doesn't want to continue living under the rule of the same faction and same political party that has driven the country into the ground. Having Sarah Palin drop her gerund endings and desperately trotting out the standard, tired GOP attack ads to depict Obama as a radical, fist-pumping, America-hating, unhinged socialist -- when everyone can see with their own eyes that he isn't -- won't change any of that. That the Right believes in the fundamental stupidity of the American voter while simultaneously pretending to revere and speak for them them is reflected in their belief that they can successfully blame the financial crisis and the country's woes generally on Democrats, who -- while hardly covering themselves with glory -- haven't had any meaningful power in this country for as long as one can remember. Ponder how stupid you must think Americans are to believe that you can blame the financial crisis on the 2004 statements of House Democrats about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when that was a time when the GOP controlled all branches of the Government and nothing could have been more inconsequential than what Barney Frank or Maxine Waters, languishing in the minority in Tom DeLay's tyrannical House, said or did about anything. In sum, Americans hate the way the country has been ruled, the economic crisis is making them hate that more by the minute, and the country has been dominated by Republican rule for the last eight years -- at least. It's just this simple:And the reality is even more imbalanced than that graph illustrates: between (1) the tiny margins the Democrats have had when controlling the Senate, (2) the true functional majority of "GOP + Blue Dogs" in the House, (3) the extraordinary centralization of power in the White House, and (4) Democratic complicity and fear, it is GOP policy which ends up prevailing in virtually every instance of alleged "bipartisanship" even during those tiny slivers of ostensible Democratic control.
As polling data conclusively demonstrates, the mindset of the voting public is infinitely more rational and substance-based than the pundits and the Right fantasize when they lyrically praise the Regular American -- at least it is in this time of perceived (and actual) crisis. What's happening in this country, and in this election, is rather simple and easy to see: (1) the country is in total shambles -- possibly far worse than what people even realize; (2) we have lived for the last eight years under virtually absolute GOP rule; (3) the public knows this; (4) the Republican President and his party are therefore intensely -- historically -- unpopular; and (5) the voting public doesn't want to continue living under the rule of the same faction and same political party that has driven the country into the ground. Having Sarah Palin drop her gerund endings and desperately trotting out the standard, tired GOP attack ads to depict Obama as a radical, fist-pumping, America-hating, unhinged socialist -- when everyone can see with their own eyes that he isn't -- won't change any of that.
That the Right believes in the fundamental stupidity of the American voter while simultaneously pretending to revere and speak for them them is reflected in their belief that they can successfully blame the financial crisis and the country's woes generally on Democrats, who -- while hardly covering themselves with glory -- haven't had any meaningful power in this country for as long as one can remember. Ponder how stupid you must think Americans are to believe that you can blame the financial crisis on the 2004 statements of House Democrats about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when that was a time when the GOP controlled all branches of the Government and nothing could have been more inconsequential than what Barney Frank or Maxine Waters, languishing in the minority in Tom DeLay's tyrannical House, said or did about anything.
In sum, Americans hate the way the country has been ruled, the economic crisis is making them hate that more by the minute, and the country has been dominated by Republican rule for the last eight years -- at least. It's just this simple:And the reality is even more imbalanced than that graph illustrates: between (1) the tiny margins the Democrats have had when controlling the Senate, (2) the true functional majority of "GOP + Blue Dogs" in the House, (3) the extraordinary centralization of power in the White House, and (4) Democratic complicity and fear, it is GOP policy which ends up prevailing in virtually every instance of alleged "bipartisanship" even during those tiny slivers of ostensible Democratic control.
The overarching reality of the country is that we've lived under unchallenged Republican rule and the country has virtually collapsed on every level. No matter how dumb Rich Lowry and David Brooks fantasize The Regular People to be, those facts are far too glaring to suppress.
TIME's Michael Scherer: September 29, 2008 3:37
"Nearly every major political leader in America supported the bailout bill. The President of the United States. The Vice President. The Treasury Secretary. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Democratic and Republican nominees for president. The Democratic and Republican leadership of the House and the Senate. All of them said the same thing. Vote yes."
<snip>
"Now those bad feelings have manifested themselves in the starkest of terms. Not enough of the American people believed their leaders. And so the politicians that were most exposed ran for cover."
Glenn Greenwald hits the nail on the head today (emphasis mine):
"Can anyone even remember the last time this happened, where the nation's corporate interests and their establishment spokespeople were insistently demanding government action but were impeded -- defeated -- by nothing more than popular opinion? Perhaps the failure of George Bush's Social Security schemes in 2005 would be an example, but one is hard-pressed to think of any other meaningful ones. We're a "democracy" in which nothing is less important in how our government functions than public opinion. Yesterday was an exceedingly rare though intense departure from that framework -- the kind of citizen defiance of, an "uprising" against, a rotted ruling elite described by David Sirota in his book, "Uprising." On the citizenry level, the backlash was defined not by "Republican v. Democrat" or "Left v. Right," but by "people v. ruling class." As Johnston argues, yesterday's events should be celebrated for that reason alone."
As a kid growing up in Bethlehem PA and Sparta NJ I, as many Americans probably did, thought the world was a better place because of the United States, and that my country wanted everyone in the world to have what I had, and designed its foreign policy to care for the world and lend a helping hand.
At age 11 I left Bethlehem and moved overseas - Ethiopia to be exact - with my parents, my sister, our three dogs and a cat; we would leave no member of our family behind.
My first suspicion that the world was not entirely as I was taught at Rosemont Elementary came when I learned that Ethiopia, our ally, was a feudal society with an all-powerful dictator. Benevolent though he appeared to much of the world to be, Haile Selassie's first and foremost need for the American guns and other weapons of mass destruction Ethiopia obtained aplenty, was the suppression of his people and the retaining of his power.
Nonetheless I enjoyed the distinction and honor of being an American abroad, and I was both amazed and somewhat humbled that in a country where the average annual income was then about $50 I could meet meet a young boy tending a flock of goats in an area with no TVs and only one national radio station who was excited to meet a boy his own age from "Amereeka!!" and show he could recite the story of George Washington and the apple tree, and knew that Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery. Such was the legend of America the Brave in the world at large in 1970.
What has gone wrong? Why do we not win the hearts and minds of the world today? I believe it's because we try to solve problems by pointing fingers and guns, and we build walls between ourselves and between ourselves and the world.
On a day when the most encouraging man with the most uplifting ideas that we have seen in our great country in many years has come out strongly against rewarding the negligent guardians of our trust and engineers of our once strong nation's near collapse for their self-serving crimes against We the People and the once admiring people of the world we share, I want my fellow Americans to see and hear, from their own lips, the results of our attempts to "liberate" the Iraqi people using bombs, war and walls.
I'm much happoer this morning. I'd like to know more about the details as we all probably would. I'd like to know he's talking with Dodd and Leahy and most of all I'd like Obama to know he doesn't have to pander to the weak Democrats in Congress this time. If he's seen as "slowing things down"McCain will abuse it and spin it. Americans need to be reminded why the crooks and liars who started this mess may not be allowed to be the ones to fix it --- not with a blank cheque.
• No Golden Parachutes -- Taxpayer dollars should not be used to reward the irresponsible Wall Street executives who helmed this disaster.• Main Street, Not Just Wall Street -- Any bailout plan must include a payback strategy for taxpayers who are footing the bill and aid to innocent homeowners who are facing foreclosure.• Bipartisan Oversight -- The staggering amount of taxpayer money involved demands a bipartisan board to ensure accountability and oversight.
Excellent. Let's do it!
Richard
Tonight on alledged journalist Lou Dobbs's prime time op-ed he said (ranting and spitting venom, as usual) what every American who has reached into his or her pocket to donate hard-earned cash in the name of Hope and Change (not me -- but I almost did, before the FISA capitulation) is expecting to hear from Barack Obama (and oh, so much more eloquently) -- "What's in it for Main St.?"
Why, in 21st century America, do the bad guys always seem to win?
Give the $700,000,000,000 back to the People and let us (not me ...I rent) decide which firms to bail out. I'm sure Obama would have said that... before he got the nomination.
Anyone who credits The Surge as the main factor in the reduction of violence in Iraq (or Ronald Reagan with the end of the Soviet Union for that matter) is doing themselves and the world a great disservice by perpetuating ignorance. The Republicans intend to keep Americans ignorant, and Palin made it clear in her only interview that all they offer on the foreign policy front is a return to the Cold War -- theirs is truly a platform of more wars, fewer jobs.
Around the country and the world supporters of John McCain and his celebrity VP pick with the credibility problem have suggested that Al-Qaeda would support Barack Obama, but the exact opposite is more likely true. Al-Qaeda recruitment has been made so much easier by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and every chance the United States or NATO creates to provide us another opportunity to bomb inoccent women and children, however unintentionally, plays right into their hands. Just ask them, as the BBC has done and CNN will probably never do:
Al-Qaeda's Internal Debate
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John McCain is unfit to be president. His heroic resistance to torture has been amply awarded with more medals than he ever flew missions and the fact remains he lost 5 aircraft and graduated 5th from the bottom of his class at Annapolis.
About Sarah Palin: A Letter From Anne Kilkenny is a must read. I've added her entire CLAIM VS FACT section in the extended post.
The Mudflats blog supports just about everything Anne states about her early history, and also reveals that “in 2006, when Sarah Palin ran for Governor of Alaska, the Democrats (unlike the Republicans of 2008) vetted her.” (63 page .pdf)
Here in Canada we're about to announce, campaign, and carry out an election that will quite likely be over and done by the time Americans choose Obama to be the next president of the U.S. The Canadian Liberal Party leader, a Quebecer named Stéphane Dion, is running on a campaign that may be somewhat similar to Obama's. He's challenging the Conservative and anti-environment Steven Harper, from Alberta, the oil rich province sometimes referred to as Texas North. Just as in the U.S., the Harper pre-campaign campaign is all about demonizing alternative energy and fear-mongering about lost jobs.
The facts, as Robert Kennedy Jr. commented on CNN, are very different indeed. you might like to read Robert Kennedy Jr.'s commentary on CNN. Barack's idea is a proven winner. Don't be persuaded otherwise.Excerpt:
...Growth rates climbed and the heavily taxed Swedish economy is now the world's eighth richest by gross domestic product.Iceland was 80 percent dependent on imported coal and oil in the 1970s and was among the poorest economies in Europe. Today, Iceland is 100 percent energy independent, and according to the International Monetary Fund is now the fourth most affluent nation on Earth.There are many other examples: Brazil's efforts to de-carbonize its transportation system has resulted in the largest and most robust economic expansion in its history.The United States has far greater domestic energy resources than Iceland or Sweden. We sit atop the second-largest geothermal resources in the world. The American Midwest is the Saudi Arabia of wind. Solar installations across just 19 percent of the most barren desert land in the Southwest could supply nearly all of our nation's electricity needs even if every American owned an electric car.Obama's vision of de-carbonizing our economy begins with a market-based carbon cap-and-trade system designed to put downward pressure on carbon emissions. He will invest billions to revamp the nation's antiquated high-voltage power transmission system and press for cost-saving building and appliance standards that would cut our energy demand by half.For a tiny fraction of the projected cost of the Iraq war, we could completely wean the country from carbon.By Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
As an American who has lived abroad for over 30 years I am especially disturbed by the U.S.'s decline in the eyes of the rest of the world, which I believe is due to a short-sighted foreign policy that has most recently been defined by arrogance and propelled by a profound ignorance of anything and everyone beyond U.S. borders. Bush and McCain personify, promote and encourage both the arrogance and the ignorance (the latter is especially fundamental to maintaining their support, which explains why fear and lies have been the hallmark and mainstay of their utterances).For year's I've noted and respected Senator Biden's take on the world in general. He is informed, fair, and has no underlying belief in his own superiority that would allow him to be owned by Putin, as Bush has been. He displays a respect for himself, humanity and life in general that would never permit such callous, base and embarrassing displays as McCain's "Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran" for just one example.Welcome Joe! I believe you will be an exceptional Vice President.
