Thom Hartmann: The difference between Republicans and Democrats depends on you

Run time: 05:22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vscqfRzL1EI   Posted on YouTube: February 02, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 10   Posted on DU: February 02, 2011 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 433

 
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The question is how do we get our democracy back. What worked for the Republicans 40 years ago will not work for the Democrats today. The Republicans were working within a system that was essentially democratic. We are not working within a democratic system today. Yes, we can vote; but who we vote for is largely controlled by an unconstrained corporate media and corporate money. Whoever gets elected gets coopted, or they are denied any voice.

Yes, the Democrats passed a healthcare bill. But, even if we accept your numbers about how many more people are going to be insured by for-profit corporate insurance, that only tells us how much more profitable those insurance companies are going to be. Not a big surprise that the bill addresses profitablility issues for the insurance companies rather that critical healthcare issues for the American people, as those companies got first shot at crafting the bill. The critical healthcare problem is insuring that every American can get needed medical care. This insurance company bill does not address that critical problem.

We have to force a change in the system before we can rely on electoral politics to get us what we need. The real question is, how do we force that original change to the system?