<br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">The Pen</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:activist.thepen@gmail.com">activist.thepen@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 4:35 AM<br>Subject: The Great American Stupid Test, And Why We Must Build Our Own Base<br>To: <a href="mailto:jbw292002@gmail.com">jbw292002@gmail.com</a><br><br><br><br>A quick program note: After this will get back to the regular action<br>
alerts, pick up the Supreme Court terrible decision analysis where we<br>left off, etc. But there is still more more to say about the health<br>care bill debacle. And the new Facebook resource already has over<br>2,000 fans. When we hit 5,000 we will all vote on what the founding<br>
principles of the resource will be, so please participate so it will<br>be as progressive as possible.<br><br>Once in a while, actually quite frequently lately, a politician will<br>say something so idiotic on its face that it becomes a test of the<br>
national credulity.<br><br>Harry Reid made such a statement a couple days ago. But first, there<br>is an amazing conversation on the policy merits going on over at the<br>new "Independent Voters" page, especially on the Discussions tab. The<br>
current disapproval rating of Congress is 83%, including both<br>Democrats AND Republicans. If independents coordinate and assemble<br>themselves into a organized base, 2010 WILL be the year of the<br>independents.<br><br>
This is an opportunity for you to get in on the conceptual ground<br>floor of this coming political tsunami on this new Facebook page.<br><br>Independent Voters Resource Page:<br><a href="http://www.facebook.com/Independent.Voters" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/Independent.Voters</a><br>
<br>You do NOT have to be a Facebook user to follow the dialog. And if<br>you want to participate in the discussion all you need is a Facebook<br>ID, even if you do nothing else on the Facebook site.<br><br>OK, here is what Harry Reid said, in defense of the fact that NO vote<br>
on any kind of public option was being allowed in the reconciliation<br>bill for health care reform.<br><br>"I will work to ensure that we are able to vote on the public option<br>in the coming months."<br><br>And when exactly would that be, Harry, AFTER the Senate goes back to<br>
requiring 60 votes to pass anything? Let us be clear, 51 senators<br>WERE on the record that they supported a public option, even if it<br>were only as weak as the one passed by the House. All they had to do<br>was take a vote on it NOW, and it would have been the law of the<br>
land.<br><br>How stupid do they think we are?<br><br>Do they think they can chalk up 50 plus votes sometime later when it<br>won't actually count at all and expect us to believe they really<br>wanted to do it? NO!!! If they really wanted to do it they would have<br>
done it when they had not only the votes but the procedural path<br>(reconciliation only needing 51 votes) to do it. All else is just a<br>patently duplicitous fraud.<br><br>The argument we've been hearing from so many progressives who should<br>
know better was that this health care bill was "better than nothing".<br>How much better than nothing? Barely? Hardly much? Did all of you<br>work your buns off getting a new President and Congress elected to be<br>
told the best we can do is "better than nothing"?<br><br>The fact is the Democrats COULD have put real structural reform in<br>place, instead of just throwing a couple colored sprinkles as selling<br>points on top of this massive pile of corporate corruption being<br>
passed off as a health care bill. Instead of just a couple community<br>health centers to sell our policy soul for we could have gotten what<br>the compelling majority of the American people WANTED, which was a<br>robust public option.<br>
<br>It could have been an expansion of the low overhead existing Medicare<br>program. It could have been some other form of a single payer system.<br>It could have provided for real competition for drug prices by<br>allowing reimportation or government bargaining. It could have freed<br>
the states from the oppression of industry law suits through ERISA to<br>stop them from caring for their own citizens. It could have done any<br>of these things if just ONE member of Congress had put their foot<br>down, and KEPT it down, demanding any of these things.<br>
<br>In short, we could have had a health care bill that would have been<br>wildly popular with the American people, instead of a rallying flag<br>for its own repeal, which is what we've got.<br><br>How stupid do they think we are?<br>
<br>Predictably, we got an email from the President, and if you are one<br>of the other 13 million hopers on his mailing list we are sure you<br>got yours too, talking about "This is what change looks like." Sorry,<br>
but no. This is what dyed in the wool corruption looks like. This is<br>what legislation looks like that has been manipulated every step of<br>the way by corporate special interests. This is what it looks like<br>for the American people to have been entirely shut out of the debate<br>
for their own health care future.<br><br>Yes we can? Do they mean that as some kind of sick joke? Yes we COULD<br>have gotten real reform. But tragically, for the Democrats and all<br>their supporters, and especially their progressive supporters, NO WE<br>
DID NOT!!! If real change could ever happen under their "leadership"<br>this was the moment and the opportunity to do it. If they ever had<br>any intention of putting real reform in place, and not just a couple<br>
cosmetic talking points, this was when it would have happened.<br><br>And it will not stand. Despite all the paper thin "hooray for our<br>team", rah-rah partisan talk of the moment, the individual mandate is<br>
going down. At least 38 states are going to fight this to the death.<br>And if you consider yourself a Democrat this should be especially sad<br>for you, because it's going to take down the entire Democratic party<br>
with it.<br><br>There is now NO safe Democratic seat in Congress in the coming<br>general election. If the Kennedy Senate seat was not safe, having now<br>gone even further to perversely defy the will of the American people,<br>
how is that not even more the case now with them all.<br><br>Independent Voters Resource Page:<br><a href="http://www.facebook.com/Independent.Voters" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/Independent.Voters</a><br><br>
Forget the Republicans. The American people at large like them if<br>anything even less than the Democrats. The 83% of us who disapprove<br>of Congress must organize ourselves into an independent base. We must<br>preemptively select and rally behind one and ONLY one independent<br>
challenger for each political office in the country. Because when the<br>Democrats go down, there must be some other alternative meaningful<br>choice for the American people. And the link above is the site which<br>will make it all possible, if only you will join in the discussion<br>
there now.<br><br>So mark our words. And take careful note of any person who is telling<br>you now that we needed to vote for this bill as it was. Any such<br>person who has said such a thing is forever marked as someone whose<br>
judgment CANNOT trusted on an important policy matter in the future.<br>Any person who tries to sell you that this was a good deal, or even<br>an acceptable deal, is at the end of the day nothing more than a<br>corporate collaborator, whether witting or unwitting. Without<br>
exception they are either a coward, corrupt, or a corrupt coward. And<br>you tell them we said so.<br><br>How stupid do they think we really are?<br><br>Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed<br>
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.<br><br>If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at<br><a href="http://www.millionfaxmarch.com/in.htm" target="_blank">http://www.millionfaxmarch.com/in.htm</a><br>
<br>Or if you want to cease receiving our messages, just use the function<br>at <a href="http://www.millionfaxmarch.com/out.htm" target="_blank">http://www.millionfaxmarch.com/out.htm</a><br><br></div>
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