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Right on, Mark. But I think Obama himself was (and is) in the pocket of the so-called health insurance industry. All of it mighty gag-inducing, given the impact these issues have on people's lives. This is what happens when lobbyists, and the interests they serve, call the shots. We don't vote for them, and they're sure-as-shit not there to serve us.
I'm sure activism had a key role in the XL pipeline veto. Many members of my union, The UA, could have been employed as welders on the pipeline. Because people need jobs is not a good reason to do something stupid, like build a pipeline that adds to global warming and the eventual destruction of life on earth. We should always look at the big picture.
As others have said, we need to keep up the activism, and tell the President and congress that we don't want any trade agreements unless the main beneficiaries are the American workers who will get a lot of high paying jobs with great benefits. Otherwise we do not need any trade agreements.
Let's keep up the activism. Today, Keystone, tomorrow, SHAFTA, then whatever is next.
"Activism works!" ..... but why not polls too? When clear vast majority sentiment on economic issues gets expressed in national polls, why are the Democrats so damn timid about fighting for these issues, stuff that almost everyone wants? Why Debbie Wasserman Schultz???????
The Teapublican Party is loud about not wanting this stuff, stuff that means economic prosperity for the vast majority. C'mon, it's a no-brainer platform. Polls show that the vast majority supports a single- payer system for health care, minimum wage hikes, lifting the cap on wages taxed for Social Security, The Employee Free Choice Act, raising the taxes on the very wealthy, etc.
Why the hell won't the Democrats just go on offense and keep repeating they want to do all of these things but the Teapublicans, representing only billionaires, keep blocking them.....just keep repeating it to the voting public...over and over and over and over....it really is that simple. Tell the voters they can have these things if they pay attention to who is for and who is against the will of the vast majority.
Keep the communication direct and simple.....nobody has time or attention span for wordy and complicated explanations. The Teapublicans sure realize this little fact to be true, and look how well it works for them. Words like, government takeover, Benghazi, entitlement programs, communists, shrink big government, Obamacare, etc., All simple distractions from the truth, it doesn't take much!
No, this isn't a victory. This was only the opening salvo along another front. Big business wants this and its governmential lackies need it and together they will do whatever is required, no matter who they have to buy, bully, or bump off. The Internet is too powerful; too influential; and therefore, too dangerious not to control. Anything which allows for a free flow of ideas and thoughts cannot be permitted if the corporate elite is to thrive and fascism is to spread throughout the world.
Yes I am here Marc but I hate to ruin your little party but Obama didn't say no to Keystone he sent it back for more studies. There are several reasons for this. First is rejecting Keystone is just plain stupid.. The oil it would replace is getting to Texas via tanker through the Gulf which is far more dangerous than piping it. You should also know that delaying Keystone is a violation of NAFTA that's why Obama can't say no to it he can only delay it due to some made up concerns. Because there are no environmental concerns TransCanada has addressed them all. He would have to cancel the NAFTA agreement which we all probaly wouldn't mind. Well I guess it would hurt Mexico. The pipeline would also bring oil from the Dakota's to the US refineries which would replace oil from the Middle East but what do Democrats care about the mid west they vote the wrong way besides rather that create income from developing New business it is much easier to tax the middle class more. Most important for you to understand is because of the Keystone delay there is about 400,000 more barrels of oil per day being shipped rail. I am sure you would all agree that is much better than a pipeline what could go wrong there. You should also know who owns the rail company that ships all that oil is Warren Buffett I guess that would only seem a little fishy if Mr Buffett donated to Obama's campaign.
I personally wish Obama would flat out reject it then we could more on. America went to Europe and defeated the Germans faster then it took to make a decession on Keystone.
The Dems weren't gonna go outright for single payer, they thought the insurance lobby was too strong, so they made it all a gift to the insurance providers to forstall a big fight with them but they were ready to slide single payer in there by way of the public option. Liebermann, the insurance industry's guy, wouldn't vote for that and they couldn't do it without.
This is a good article about what to continue doing about Keystone.
However there are TWO OTHER PIPELINES coming down through the native rice fields and salmon spawning lands, and once again the NATIVE people are protecting their lands and activists must raise consciousness about this.
Now we need reed to pushk Obama into cancelling the Transpacific Trade Agreement and any other trade agreement that takes jobs away from the U.S. Two bad things Clinton did was thke dropo theBanking act of 1933 which stopped gambling with depositor's funds. The secton was the trade agreement with Mexico and Canada which took jobs away for thke U.S.. We should stop that one also.
I think it's fair to say that if the oil went to the US, reducing prices for the middle class, there would have been virtuallty no oppositiion to the pipeline.
Kend ~ Are you out there? I don't want to gloat; but.......
If Canada wants to export that crap, let them build a pipeline across their own country.
Liberman wasn't the only problem. Max Baucus was another obstacle standing in the way of decent healthcare for everyone. Remember that lame-ass speech Baucus made about boats; the old "Can't turn that boat around" metaphor, and "Go west young man" (gag me) and about us being "uniquely American"?! HaHaHaHaHa. Yep, that was mighty persuasive. Really sold me on the idea of profits being always the #1 priority, even over life itself! Uniquely American, all right. Yep. Now let's all bow to the Golden Calf of BIG MONEY!!!!!
The truth is, Thom, virtually the entire Democratic Party was the problem. And never mind the Republicons.
Sounds good to me! Those Canadians will just have to figure out another way to get their crap to its intended destination. Americans bothering to pay attention are tired of being the doormat of the developed world.
They've already said they're going to try to win an appeal, our fight is far from over....
Mark S -- You must mean filibuster (cloture) proof not veto proof. Are you sure Lieberman was the only problem? The Montana democratic senator had an insurance executive write the ACA. He made sure his county received single payer via the ACA, but no one else. I think that was his condition to vote for the ACA.
Greenthumb, American businesses, e.g., auto manufacturers privately agree with us on that. They, like other businesses in the U.S., are at a competitive disadvantage with those of other parts of the world for there not being national healthcare here. In 2009 it was said that if the U.S. auto industry needed a bailout the best way would be to implement such a system.
These auto executives, however, for pure ideological orthodoxy, will never say so publicly. The fear is, probably, that that would open up to general socialist thinking and policy making.
W W -- If Obama would have tried to enact National Health Care, it would have been the Ted Kennedy story. We would not even have the ACA.
We need 67 dem senators.
cccttt - You forgot to mention no freedom. -c8
In 1989, George H.W. Bush tried to bring in his version of Obamacare. Backed by the Heritage Foundation.
ct, you can't have it both ways. You can't have democracy and a society that disproportionately serves the purposes of the billionaires at the expense of the people's concerns - and a regressive flat tax. Authoritarian dictatorship can sometimes be simple and efficient, can bring low crime and clean air - if the dictator(s) happen to be into that - but is at the expense of far too many much more important values and concerns and not good for the people and society (that that you said sounds a little like the Leninist communist philosophy of the benevolent dictatorship).
China, by the way, has polution problems that are WAY beyond anything.
How about democratic reforms and freedoms? That country functions well for the purposes of billionaires with its obesiant, externally disciplined population but what about the people and their purposes and concerns? They need to let their masters, the billionaires tell them what they want and what's good for them?
Alice, Mark probably edited his comment, which resets the time stamp. I wish they'd keep it from doing that.
RLTOWNSLEY, "Literally"? She was "literally" eaten alive?
Agree with everyone that a Single Payer type system is the most economical and rational way to deliver health care. I also think that Kend's suggestion that we tackle this state by state rather than all at once as a federal program, may be the best way to accomplish this.
What I cannot understand is how American businesses continue to put up with being responsible for their employees' health insurance and the huge expense this adds to their bottom lines. It seems this would put American businesses at a big disadvantage compaired to those in countries that offer Single Payer systems (all of whom deliver better overall health outcomes at nearly half the cost in the US). If we don't want the government and insurance companies between ourselves and our doctors, why would we possibly want to have our employers involved in our health choices either?
Health Care, American Style, has got to be one of the most dysfunctional, unfair, complicated, over administered, poorly delivered systems that a modern, advanced nation can offer.
I have to disagree with you on a few points. Yes it's true that what's called Obama Care has been pushed by both parties over the past forty years to make sure their friends in the private Healthcare Insurance Industry continue to stay in full control.
It's interesting to note that at the end of his life, Ted Kennedy was fully supporting the Romney healthcare system that had become the standard in the state of Massachusetts. A system that was aggressively challenged by citizens groups and prestigious independent medical associations located in Massachusetts, a system that most likely would never have been adopted if it hadn't been for the support from the Kennedy clan.
In addition, Clinton's 1993 support for a proposed single payer plan was luke warm at best and doomed to failure when he handed the whole project over to his wife, someone who had no real political experience playing in the Washington minefield at that time and she was litterly eaten alive by the Right.
The latest attempt to pass a single payer plan was during Obama's first term and it was immediately obvious that he was going to do what ever it took to squash this attempt in it's infancy. The most blatant indication of this sellout was his aggressive attacks against one of his own party's Single Payer Supporters, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. Many people remember the Air Force One trip where Kucinich was essentially told to shut up and get in line behind the president. His continued campaign for Single Payer ended up losing him his long held Ohio Congressional seat as the White House joined with a group of Ohio Republican power brokers to Gerrymander Kucinich's voting district out of existence forcing him to pursue his next election bid against another Democrat in her long held Ohio voting district. These tactics are what ended any and all connections I may have had to the Obama Brand and the George Soros Neo-Liberal facilitators that have been pushing the Democrat party to the extreme Right for twenty five years now !