Same here Amike. Good post and good catch.

C

Thanks, all. I'm waiting to see if AP or any other news service picks this up. McClatchey should. I have their RSS feed on my My Yahoo page. The Washington Post caught it. What about the New York Times? Anyone know? And how to get the networks to carry the story? Or maybe The Daily Show? I bet bet Jon Stewart could have some fun with this. I know it is kind of preaching to the choir, OG, but the choir needs preaching to, occasionally, for the company, if for no other reason.

And it's nice to know that maybe a million are on our side--now if we could only add GB as a 51st state.

2280 more tweets since I caught this. Wowsers.

Anyhow. I went to the appropriate Twitter discussion (are those called twits?) and there's a vigorous defense of the National Health System...punctuated by the same kind of trolls we bear around here from time to time.

No...TWITS are those that engage in that sort of drivel.
Your typical twit. http://sillyoldtwit.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/jlo0065h1.jpg

C

The most astonishing crime here is that the MSM is NOT featuring the people with health care issues in their coverage of this. One would think they could easily find personal stories, like Gumbun et al, who are eager to tell the world how they have been kicked to the curb. We have the numbers of recisions, that's the one that needs to be repeated. That's the number who have been screwed! Nothing makes the ragemakers appear more foolish then fighting against those people screwed by insurance.

These people HAD insurance, they paid for coverage, and they were ignored after the companies took their money. Do the ragemakers object to that? Do they deny it exists?

Why are we not seeing the stories about the bankruptcies. How many of those happen every year related to medical reasons and why are we not seeing those stories every day? There are thousands. Do the ragemakers agree with that? The ragemakers have created this vision of what they oppose that, very generously, is 80% fabrication. We ought to be talking about the 80% part and not the 20%.

As for what the rest of the world is saying, that should be a story too. We should be hearing all about what the rest of the world has to say about their systems because, we are not going to win against the ragemakers. We win, as always, in the middle and those are the people who need to be reached and activated! We need them to attend a rally and we need rallies!

Where **IS** my zip 94708 ( near Berkeley, California) health care reform rally?

Ellen Tauscher, a rather Blue sort, was my Rep. She has been appointed Undersecretary of something, the special election to replace her to be held on 1 September.

We are pretty dang liberal in my district, but shouldn't we be voicing stuff to Congress? Feinstein's office complained of an overwhelming number of visits o her office- aww!- but that is across the Bay. What about Berkeley, and specifically Kensington?

There are only crickets here!

This is a distraction. HR 3200 and the rest of the reform bills are nothing like the British government run hospital system. Right now Repubs are scaring old folks and indies into thinking we're bringing socialist government rationing to the USA and despite how much Brits like their system you're playing right into their hands.

Please get off this distraction and sell HR 3200 to your neighbors or we're screwed. Read my blog Selling HR 3200 to see how.

Regardless of whether it's like or unlike the NHS, it is being painted as if it were like the NHS, One can say it's nothing like the NHS till one is blue in the face, but the end the paint will still be there. There's a logical reason for this: proving the negative is next to impossible. And proving "nothing like" may totally so. In my mind, it is useful to provide evidence that even if it were like the national health service in some way or other, that wouldn't be an entirely bad thing. If Fox is going to demonize the NHS, someone has to un-demonize it.

Amen to most of what has been said here, and congratulations to amike for a good idea. This is an excellent example of what I call "widening the circle." (I think I recall amike saying somewhere that he was a communications teacher - it's possible he's forgotten more about this than I know).

Anyway, here's how it goes: If this issue is decided ONLY by how many red-faced opponents can get their few seconds of TV fame, we're beat. We can't compete with that (and really, who honestly would want to try?).

What we CAN do is make sure the game is played on the largest possible field - this dilutes the effect of what we're seeing on TV, and places it into a more proper proportion. For one excellent example: What do the BRITISH people think about the NHS?

The more of this we can do, the better this complicated issue comes into full focus, and the less that small, narrow, telegenic interest groups can dominate the discussion.