Why is the White House killing the public option?

Ignoring support from its constituency? Polling indicates public support is overwhelming. What the fuck is going on here? I'm tired.

Most people tend to think that it is we the people. But as has been the case for the past thirty plus years, the president's real constituency are his corporate masters, the ones with the money.

This is why we need publicly financed elections for all.

:thumbsup:

I'm finding myself asking that very same question several times a day.

Obama dropped the Public option in exchange for a couple of GOP votes for (cloture on) the senate jobs bill.

Senator Snowe said herself she changed her mind about the cloture after a phone call from Obama. Maybe she wasn't the only one. And maybe the (dropping of) the Public Option was Obama's bait of choice.

Take it off the table so that it doesn't become a focal point that the repugs can hang their hat on and see if they can get behind a reasonable policy. You and I both know that they won't. He gets to say he tried and congress gets to put it back in.
Wishful thinking? Probably.

He's playing rope-a-dope. Hope we're right.

No legit, organized resistance fighting on the side of justice/morality.

It never was a full blown policy change that they seriously wanted to push for.

I think public support this strong for a publicly funded system has taken them by surprise.

then serve the corporate masters.

Nothing sucks more then daring to HOPE and believing in someone, only to get fucking kicked in the stomach for it. I am SO ANGRY. Torch and Pitchfork ANGRY!

had a tiny inking of hope that I was wrong. The moment he selected Rahm as COS, I knew we were royally fucked.

I had the same doubts.

:thumbsup:

on before Obama even took his oath of office. You know, we wouldn't want to get it wrong.

:mad:

diabetes, high blood pressure and enjoy the very same medical treatment they would deny us.

Ain't that a kicker?

:mad:

:sarcasm:

voting machines..then the national DNC told us to shut up about the voting machines..and we kept fighting to get them removed from our state..and low and behold ..we got them removed from our state..the only state in the nation to do so..and how did we get paid back?????? The dems stole our vote in the primary!!

that is what it was all about in a nutshell..although the dems and the media never told you that..and who was behind the scenes in it all..Rahm.

meetings?? And don't miss the fact that Jebbie was with him..Why did the two Bushes meet with Obama ? as a so called social visit..just after Obama slapped down the repigs?????

That may be a starting point ...

Maybe Obama doesn't want a dem congress after Nov??????????????????

who knows..but I have just given you a starting point ??

also my heart. I can't for the life of me understand this line of thinking. It seems like it's a betrayal of everything he talked about. I REALLY wish the Demos would grow a pair. I am sick and tired of this namby-pamby attitude and talk of "bipartisanship". Bipartisanship is DEAD, as evidenced by the evisceration of Brown right now just for allowing a vote to come to the floor. He didn't even vote for the bill! If he's going to get attacked for something as mousy as a bill consisting mostly of tax cuts for small businesses and municipal bond stuff, then we need to cut the crap and shove them out of the way and do what we want to do.

Sheesh. :mad:

Diane

Anishnabe in MI

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

I know, I too have written so many times, but this time I told them I've had it. Count me out of any future fund raising, organizing voter drives, canvassing, phone banking etc (and I provided some relevant info show show I was really active) unless they start putting the people who put them in office over their corporate masters.

contacting the very people we have elected to represent us? If that is the case then we sould be electing repigs..we didn't ...I spent upward to 8 years contacting congress and the senate when we had a repig pres and a repig congress..enough is enough damn it..I want to have a life besides phone calls to congress on a daily basis and the White House..when my money..my feet and my time have worked so hard to get democrats into office to support my principles and values..and damn it they are not doing so..but i will be damned if I am going to spend all my time contacting them begging them to do what is right..

I might as well sit home in Nov..and that is exactly what i will do if they put through this senate and white house bill as it stand with no PublicOption..fuckem ..and we are all fucked if we have to spend our days begging democrats to stand for Democratic values and to act like democrats.

And they will have seen the last of me and my money ..and they can kiss my sweet arse if i have to beg...them to do the right thing.

I see myself now as a progressive NOT a Dem and will no longer vote for Dems just because there's a D after their names. Give me a good candidate from another party and I'll consider what they offer.

well i am damn sick of the form letters filling my mailbox..discussing anything and everything ..i didn't contact them about..oh and then don't forget you get the hundreds of emails and letters asking for funds to fund their election ..don'tcha know!

why resolve things, when you can string them out endlessly? makes for great ratings!

How many people will be allowed to use it, and under what terms?

Obama, when he was for it, said it would be less than 1 in 20 Americans (and likely, the least profitable ones for Big Insurance, eh?).

How is that supposed to accomplish anything?

We need single-payer Medicare for All or socialized medicine.

Everything else is just a diversion.

They had us coming and going -- rooting for fake policy and not even giving us that.

We were lied to. By the Senate, by the Congress and by the administration.

Just get us the Majority- We can do so much! - done

Just get us a super majority THEN we can do so much! -done

Just get us the White House, THEN WE CAN REALLY do so much! - done

MY response now, to the senate, the congress and to this President and his staff is "fuck you, not one more dime, I refuse to fall for your line of shit a 4th time, you egotistical, arrogant, greedy, power hungry motherfuckers".

:applause:

.. such a low point, tired would be an improvement.

emphasis on PO? Let's get an exchange, maybe a national one with the House and the very popular Medicare at 55. This is a structure we can start with, after the summit show. Maybe the option will get discussed, along with both bills.

support a PO, then maybe we'd get 50 votes for a PO in reconciliation.
Imagine what the upcoming "bipartisan summit" would look like if the potus had included a PO in his plan.

You think we spend time, money and energy getting these people elected and then assume we don't fucking contact them?

Please.

10 days ..50 days ..365 DAYS?

HOW ABOUT YEARS AND YEARS WORTH??????

well i have spent most of the 8 years i have been retired calling..and writing ..and writing letters to editors..and calling the White House , and each and every congress person...hell many of them recognize my voice now..and what ?? they cut us off..or send us to their voice mails..and then we get form letters about shit we could care less about..and then we get the form letters requesting $$$$$$$$$..hell i even ran and was elected as a delegate for my state..spent a fortune being a delegate..I worked for 4+ years as a first responder for the national DNC..I housed field reps for Preidential candidates..I helped run a National office for presidential campaign..I went to Iowa to be a co-captain of a caucus..( on my own dime) ..I worked all Volunteers in my county ..the anchor of the I-4 Corridor in Fla..I cleared everyone through the Secret service..I fed all the field reps sent from Washington..My kitchen table and my home were the headquarters until DC dem party spent the money to open a huge office donated by the eletrical union..I worked phone lines to union reps nationwide..I spent huge amounts of money..huge..

I was one of 5 people that tested the voting machines in my county only to see the machines swap votes..all documented....I worked 24/7 to get the voting machines removed from my state through our legislators..only to see the dems steal our votes because of that process during the primaries..I have seen the head of the FDP taking money ( salary) from Repig lobbists..and DC did nothing about it..and still has done nothing about it.

I saw cheating in the worst way as a co-captain of a huge caucus in Iowa and when i called in the report and wrote a report to the national DNC, I and others were told to stay quiet about it..

I wrote a by-weekly newspaper article for 4 years supporting the values and principles of the democratic party..

hell ..I became a poll watcher at large...( one of only two in my large Fl. county) .so i could be sent to any polls to protect people's votes...and their right to vote..and I was subject to abusvie behavior and numerous times had to call lawyers into the polling places...to protect myself and voters.

so where has that gotten us?????or me??? and my democratic values and principles and yours???..shit on that is where!!

shit all over..and laughed at in back rooms..and still told..be quiet..and still getting emails and letters in the mail begging for funds and funding of democrats that never stand up for my democratic values and principles...Liberal values..even moderate liberal values..but what do we get? shit on a shingle!

I have seen wonderful democrats run for office only to see the national and state Dem party give money to "fake democrats" ..republicans that switched parties for primaries against great democrats...who got zero support from the state and national Party.


I am done..not one more call..not one more dime from me..not one more day of my life spent fighting for this shit!..because it is shit!

One thing i learned and cried over it for weeks ..in Iowa..there is no two parties anymore..that is an illusion..fed to us by these bastards...it is a kabukki dance of fake fucks...there is but one party with one big money pot in the middle..and you and I are not invited to the party they are having at our expense!


I didn't leave the democratic party..they left me..it just took me years and years of work ..phone calls....blood sweat and tears..and shit loads of money to figure it out!

They've received and ignored tens of millions of calls, e-mails, faxes, letters...

so have many...they know damned well what the public wants....
They are selling us out anyways.

:rofl:

What the hell happened to the fierce urgency of now? Where is our campaign Obama?

I volunteered for him (something I had NEVER done in the past - I suffer from anxiety and a mild form of agoraphobia), gave money that I could ill afford to give, made signs, went to a couple of events,
wore buttons, slapped bumper stickers on my car, and begged everyone who came within a mile of me to vote for him.

I would be more than willing to be patient, if I just saw him moving in the right direction. All I've seen are half-hearted attempts at health care reform, escalation of war, corporate handouts, Bush appointees, and very little movement on DADT.

If this shit isn't taken care of while we have such large majorities, we will likely be waiting forever. Push though the policies WE VOTED FOR, and stop quivering every time a filibuster is even threatened. MAKE THE repukes filibuster. FUCK THEM. WE WON the fucking election.

Fucking hell.

:mad:

...compared to the mighty forces that oppose reform.

close the door on lobbyists.

Yet perhaps only one of our '08 slate would have dared to try to close the door completely on lobbyists.

I voted for Obama because I wanted change...this is more of the same crap that made this mess in the first place.

Well we got what we deserved when we let good looks and a smooth speech sway us into voting for an empty suit.

I doubt Kucinich or Dean would have let it get to this.

democrats don't care about the American people, just as much as West's remark was true about Republicans.

fuck them.

we were told to hope. Hope was being used as a noun.

Once you understand that, you will then understand that it loses all meaning.

All catch phrases lose there meaning once over used.

It's like "got milk?" Or "Coke adds life!" It's not about the actual meaning, it's all about promotion.

Coming to terms with the Madison Ave manipulation of our emotions is part of the battle. You win that battle by not believing anything an elected official says.

They promise all kinds of things, regardless of party. They only ever, (if ever) deliver on maybe 15%, at most. Of that 15%, only about 2% actually happen, the other 13% happens on paper but never effects us.

The other 85% they promised? Those are usually things that people really care about. But those promises never ever get fulfilled. Why? Because usually, those are things that the average people in the nation want. Which also means, those same things would cut into big businesses interests. That's bad. And since our elections are primarily funded by corporations, who honestly do you think the politicians are going to listen to?

You have to understand something here. Obama promised a lot of things. He delivered a few things right off the bat, but if you step back, and really look at those things he delivered, they really don't effect any corporations bottom line.

Now Health care reform, or the employee equal rights act, etc, you see, those would effect corporations. That's why they are nothing more than pie in the sky promises.

We will always get that "election promise bone" thrown to us. It will be used later on by the glad handers, political wanna-be's, the die-hard supporters, etc, as proof that "look! Look!!! he did some good!!!" But at the end of the day, the good that he does, is nothing more than a bone with a few scraps of meat attached to it that effects nothing in the long run. Aka safe promises.

Health care and workers rights, well, that would do some real good, but it would piss off the corps and really, the politicians know how there bread is buttered. It's buttered with the slave wage earners sweat and the deep pockets of corporations.

I'm on the other side of hope now. When the politicians try and bullshit me with more recycled crap, just packaged in a different box, I mutter, "meh, so what else is new?"

Over the course of the past year, I have seen the HCF go from single payer, to public option, to medicare buy in, to mandates/rebates, to nothing to a resuscitation of the public option to morons throwing shit at each other.

At first I was part of the "start over" crowd, but then I sat back and looked at the whole retarded kabuki show of stumbling idiots and realized, we aren't going to get a damn thing. This whole mess was one cleverly constructed charade.

We still are involved in two wars that are cloaked in a bullshit reason; we still torture people, regardless of how the politicians spin it; we have an ex VP's and lawyers extolling the virtues of torturing people and know nothing will happen to them;, we have an economy that is on life support; we are still losing jobs, yet told that things are improving (how does one crash less into a brick wall?), where does the insane justification for these things stop? It doesn't. That's the answer that no one what's to fess up to.

I am now fully embracing cynicism. It's just easier. Hope, they way it's currently defined these days, is for suckers.

verb, all verbage. I will not give up hope for this country, but I will never put my hope in another man or what he can or cannot do. Maybe it's time for a woman to get to the top. Now who might that be? Certainly not Hillary or that fuckwad 1/2 governor idiot. I'm looking for a way out of this shit track myself.

nor do I have any hope in anyone that chooses to "serve" the country.

A few years ago, I suggested a lottery. 100 random people would be picked from around the country via their voters registration to serve as a senator. The same would go for reps as well. As to whom would be prez? It would be someone from those two groups, again picked via a lottery. In the event of a tie, there would be a question an answer session. The person who got the most correct answers would become prez. The subjects would vary. And a minimum of 70% correct answers would be required. If no one passed, then the process would go back to the lottery again.

And recently, I suggested a 15 year term limit for the supreme court justices. Their 15 year terms would begin from the point they were sworn in. This would create a staggered appointment process. Granted some presidents would be able to appoint more and others less. And the false logic that knowing that new appointments would skew the election; we already have that now. We all knew when moron* was appointed, that he would end up selecting one or two new people for the bench.

If someone has a better idea, I'm willing to hear it, but I believe, that my system would really represent the people of this nation. Granted, sometimes we would get complete nut jobs via the lottery, but how is that different from some of the current nut jobs in our government?

One guy commented that it would create chaos. No, it wouldn't. Generally speaking, average people are a pretty sensible bunch, it's long term well entrenched congress people who have the agenda's and corporate backing that create the chaos and entropy we are currently experiencing.

Just think of it, no more campaigning, no more stupid political commercials, no more two plus years of grudge match politics for president.

We would have a nation by the people and for the people.

Ahh I can dream. :)

In the mean time, I love my cynicism. :)

They don't give a damn about the people.

I cannot afford my insurance premiums.
But with 2 boys 12 and 9, I cant afford NOT to pay them.
We are getting squeezed out.
If you told me, 10 years ago, that I would be making as much as I am, I would have thoght "great, a new car, a bigger house...
But we are barely ( and I mean BEARLY) keeping our 6 year old car and our house.
I go without my cholesterol meds because we cant afford the co-pay.

Christ, I thought he was gonna help, but I see now I was duped.
Never again, NEVER.

I just tried to email the White House on this but couldn't pass the "captcha" test so couldn't send my email!

What's up with that?

I have no answers.

the answer is obvious. hint: the same reason congress and the media are helping.

c'mon, you can do it!

The president (generic) is not in the White House to serve the people.

The president is there to serve the real rulers, the ultra wealthy.

That crew is tired of making nice to the public, pretending like the government serves the
people, pretending like the politicians care about the people, pretending likek what's going
on is something other than a con job.

They just don't give a shit anymore.

This explains new wars, more Patriot Act fascism, $14 trillion to Wall Street and nothing
for us, etc. etc.

We're not being served and we've not been served since Truman left office. Ike, of the famous
quotation about the military industrial complex, began by tolerating the vulgar defamatory
witch hunt by McCarthy and sat on his hands while Central America became the first target of
corporate based regime change.

The fatal error made by the rulers is acting like it's not an act. That really pisses people
off, to the point of action when times are tough, like now!

is simply a diversion to keep peoples' minds off the bad economy and unemployment and the war. It's just a game, and that's why it doesn't make any sense. Look at how long they've kept people focused on the PO, debating it endlessly, "will we get it or won't we?", and yet it won't be part of whatever we get and they've known that for a long time. Compare the number of posts on Afghanistan and the economy with the number on the PO. They've succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

They listen to the "healthcare" conglomerates. They listen to big pharma, big medicine, etc. They never intended to give us universal health care and what they've done over the last year is a very elaborate Dog and Pony show. Are you entertained yet?

I'll admit I'm sitting this round out. I've played enough rounds and I see how very, very contrived it is. They aren't going to help us unless we have another revolution and another revolution would shed 10 times the amount of blood as the first one, bloody as it was. Welcome to the rock and the hard place. There's plenty of room here. I do wish I could see a way out.

just not the ones made to you.