But there have been times in the past that our family has indeed been touched by one or another of our members not having health insurance and going through serious health crises; this is very real to us, and to me.

I dare say if you interview just about any family in this country you would find the same thing to be true.

HOw on earth you took those comments to mean that I did not care for people with cancer, diabetes, or who had lost their homes is a bit mystifying to me, however. You assume a great deal. You assume, for example, that I have had no illness in my own family--perhaps if you'd read the post, you'd have seen that my daughter does not have health insurance.

You are assuming that our family has not been touched by the combination of illness plus no health insurance.

You would be wrong. Now who is being condescending?

I've been plowing through the comments, wondering for a time there how we got off onto the Emancipation Proclamation, and then wondering how it is that the comment section somehow turned into an entire blogpost on the Obama presidency itself, re torture, the war in Afghanistan, domestic spying, and so on...and then we meander on back to the topic at hand, and the debate is stimulating, but predictable in many ways, and then you come along.

Of all the comments I've read, not just here, but over at my own blog, Blue Inkblots (http://deaniemlls.com) and on FaceBook and other places where this post is showing up, I'm told, this is the most thorough and informative, because you went straight to the source.

Consequently, you really made my case for me, in that, yes, it may be flawed, but OMG--LOOK WHAT WE HAVE GOT anyway!

This IS a major achievement, flaws and all.

It is not that I don't feel the anguish of progressives everywhere--do I not have the heart of a progressive myself? Geez, I wish we had a FRENCH health care system for Chrissake! I saw Michael Moore's movie! My daughter lived in London for a year, and when she got sick, she saw a doctor, no problem, even though she was not a British citizen, and it cost her nothing. OF COURSE I wish we could have that here!!!

But what we have is appalling, and this is the closest we've come in 70 years to having anything better. This is the sad, pragmatic truth of it.

If we kill this thing now because it is not all we'd hoped, it will not be resurrected again for an entire generation, I guarantee that, and everyone here on this comment section who is so bound and determined to fight for perfection would, I guarantee also, live to regret that we lost our only chance for something, somehow, that would have made at least a small difference.

I know this because of what Paul Begala and Hillary Clinton and all the rest have said.

They lived to regret it.

We cannot do so again.

But that's okay. Some people prefer their bitter blindfolds to truth, any day of the week.

Health care reform, flawed though it may be, on DAY ONE, would protect people from being rejected for preexisting conditions, would protect people from having caps put on their lifetime coverage, would protect people from losing their health insurance because they lose their jobs, would enable young people to remain on their parents' policies until the age of 27--a terribly important aspect in this shakey economy--ALL OF THESE WOULD TAKE EFFECT ON DAY ONE; and all of these are CRUCIAL REFORMS, but that's okay, they don't matter because they don't fit into a liberal diatribe.

Me, I'm a pragmatist, and I have a daughter who could, pragmatically, benefit by more than one of those provisions, on day one, and THAT, my friend, matters to ME, and that is what health care reform is all about.

It's PERSONAL, it is not ideological.

It warms my little Cherokee heart. ;-D

Thank you, moat!

Perfect.

I encourage any and all opinions, and Lord knows, when it comes to war, progressives get whipped up pretty quick.

But in this case, my motivation was to reach out to those readers who may have veterans in their families, neighborhoods or among their friends; who may not have military backgrounds, who may not know how to reach out to them, who may even wonder if what they see on the news and in the movies tells the whole picture of what goes on in the minds of vets.

I wanted to reach out to them and say, hey, they're not so scary. Just be their friend. You can help them adjust just by reaching out to them.

This was all I was trying to do with this blogpost.

I do not argue with the point that ending war would end the need to even worry about having veterans; but I have to deal with the reality we have before us, which is that we do have two ongoing wars, right now. That is our reality.

And of course I think there is ALWAYS more our government can do to help our returning vets, and don't even get me started on what I think about the fact that Walter Reed seemed to think it was a good idea to have a man counseling vets with PTSD who did not want to be in the army, who opposed both wars, who had poor performance evaluations, and who was showing severe signs of stress in his own life.

That said--this wasn't about any of those things.

This was about men and women like my son and my husband, who came home from wars feeling the same way Odysseus must have felt thousands of years ago, and who appreciated small acts of kindness offered them by strangers.

Veteran's Day is coming up, you know.

(heaving gigantic sigh)

OF COURSE NOT

All I am saying is that, we, as civilians who would like to reach out to our veterans but who may not know exactly how to go about it, who may not have a military background and who may feel awkward in their presence...

Just read the post again, my dear. I am not implying that the government should not do its due diligence to the veterans, not by any means.

I'm simply addressing those of us who would like to reach out to veterans in our neighbohorhoods or families and might not know how.

Geez.

Sorry.

I'm discussing the men and women who have fought bravely, returned home, and are striving to live their lives quietly and successfully with their families, and what we can do to help them do that.

If you want to argue the war in Afghanistan, I have written other posts on that subject; by all means, go find my other posts on the war, and I'll argue with you there.

This is about the warriors, not the war, and it is about how we can help them adjust, regardless of how we feel about the war itself.

I'm sorry if you somehow missed that point, because it means that somehow I failed to make it.

At no point did I mention "winning" or "losing" the war; simply helping our men and women adjust to civilian life once they transition out of the armed forces.

Again, find another post on the war to re-fight it.

Besides that, the tribal complexities are such that, if you take Afghan army or police into areas of opposing tribes, they consider them to be an occupying force as if they were Americans, and so they have to recruit more members from those tribes, and so on and so on.

This situation is deeply, deeply complex, and I find much of the arguments on the right to be highly simplistic.

What you talk about is to basically build an entire country from scratch, and don't forget, we not only have to train their forces, but uniform them, house them, feed them, and pay them--indefinitely as well. We have to basically support that whole country, plus build schools for them and hospitals and roads, etc., while fighting the Taliban for them.

The American people are in no mood, and the president must weigh this along with the general's request.

Please don't think that I disagree that these troops are needed. I have a military mindset, and I have spent 8 years GRIEVING for those guys out there who have been left to ROT on rocky isolated mountains, sometimes without even enough WATER.

But NOW, after eight years...see, in order to secure this country, we have to HOLD our gains, and that means, hold them maybe for decades.

And in order to do that in a way that is going to be palatable and affordable as well to the American people, and do it in a way that, frankly, the military can tolerate without just flat-out winding up broken after 8 years of war in two lands without a draft--we are going to have to make some tough compromises and some tough choices.

Even McChrystal knows that. This is why we may have to hold our noses and make some deals with some less odious tribes of the Taliban. This is why we may have to pull back from the countryside and give up some of the small villages in order to secure, say, Kandahar.

We just don't have enough to go around anymore, and that is the stark truth. Tough choices have to be made, and many of the president's harshest critics on the right wing seem to suffer from an alarming case of amnesia--they seem to be forgetting all about the previous eight years.

Perhaps one point I neglected to make and should have is that SF people tend to think, not in YEARS, but in DECADES. Once you send in 40,000 troops to take a certain area or whatever, those troops will be there to stay indefinitely to hold that area, as you point out...for how long?

Two years? Ten years? Twenty years?

How long can we afford it? How long can our troops, some of whom have already done multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan already, continue to stay?

It's not as easy as it sounds.

I'll check that out, and pass on your comment to folks on my e-mail list, as well, who I think would appreciate it as well.

I wasn't familiar with Franklin's work, but will be soon, thanks to you.

Deanie

I mean, if they'd just THINK for a minute...

(Not that thought has anything to do with it...)

To allowe the discussion to get TOO sidetracked onto racism and off of health care so that health care gets derailed would hurt those who are already the most hurt BY racism. That's why it's important that we not lose focus.

That said, it doesn't mean that we should remain silent.

Dickday--my heart aches for your daughter, and I know the pressure--first-hand--that she felt (not from my in-laws, tho). Getting up and walking from the room was probably the loudest--and bravest--thing she could have said.