Public Option, Banks, Energy: Act Up Or Lose
I read Dean Baker's People Power Matters and I don't agree that People Power got us what we want. I agree it got us a facade of a public option, and I fell for it, I admit it. We've been directed to focus on the public option and all we got was this lousy t-shirt/facade. Almost no one gets to choose the public option (in all the bills, it's only for the uninsured), and while we were busy demanding something we didn't define for ourselves, banks have been challenged with nothing but rules not break-ups, the energy companies de-fanged cap-and-trade with congress giving away 85% of the credits to polluters, and the stock options dealers are planning the next bubble from selling carbon credits, for pity's sake. The People have no power if we're uninformed and only follow-the-DNC-lead. That's glaringly obvious looking at these five health care bills with no real choice.
We are being led around to follow our Great Leader by even our progressive organizations (read Tuesdays with Rahm). This is not People Power, it is co-optation. I fell into it when Obama for America became Organizing for America, and all the lists we built up from donors and volunteers - as volunteers ourselves - were sold for millions to the DNC. Disclosure: I volunteered for Obama in three states for two years, was elected at-large delegate. And I'm angry that I hobbled on my cane so much for so long for this.
We have been directed by OFA to one task and one task only: support the President's health care plan. There was no plan, just a broad set of ideas, but we have spent the past six months pushing them, not our own ideas or our own demands.
We've been directed to call our two senators and one representative. OFA bragged about 300,000+ calls made in one day. All we got for that and all the work that led up to that successful day is the public-option-only-for-the-uninsured policy that we are now supposed to beg for.
These are the fundraisers behind the power of the Dems who keep selling us out: The DNC (202-863-8000, ask to speak to the Chair, you'll get his assistant) and DSCC (Democratic Senate Campaign Committee 202-224-2447) and DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee 202-863-1500). They must be made part of the call-ins. Put those phone numbers on your speed-dial, and text them to your liberal friends.
We have to break their money flow, or be stuck with the SOS. We have to stop feeding the beasts. We either take over Dem clubs at the local and county level, or form our own, or settle for the status quo. Too much work? Then just call the DNC, DSCC and DCCC every time you read news about our sold-out legislators that makes you mad, and say "I will only donate to and volunteer for real representatives of we the people, not to any Dem funds for any and all Democrats."
Money talks. Actually, it whispers behind our backs until we make it speak for us. Notice OFA hasn't called for voter registration drives? They're keeping the money flow within the loyalist local and county clubs, which most often have agreements to get paid $1 per Democratic voter registration by the DNC.
When Obama's millions of donors, voters and volunteers list was sold for millions of dollars to the DNC under OFA, it was not until after VA Gov Kaine was installed to replace Howard Dean. Why? Because Rahm hates Dean, the true grassroots activist with the true 50-state strategy. Rahm wants a Dem majority alright, even if the majority is made with 40 Democratic congressional representatives who are against a woman's right to choose (how many Dem senators are anti-choice? impossible to find on an online search), against single-payer, against breaking up the banks, and for war-for-profit and for Wall St and K Street. Hell, maybe because that majority is made up of all those things.
If we donate to the DNC, it's the SOS. If we volunteer for OFA only, it's the SOS. If we keep spending all our time for a maimed public option only available to 10% of Americans at most, it's the SOS. If we don't demand they break up the banks, forget the regulations-only tactic, it's the SOS. If we go along with whatever energy/environment cap-and-trade bill they tell us to (so far 85% of cap-and-trade credits are being given away to corporations), it's the SOS.
We've gotta learn how the system works - then sabotage it. We have to stay independent. We're as PO'd at the too-big-to-fail banks as the teabaggers are. So why are we gonna settle for "regulations" that keep corporate lawyers earning fat bonuses for undermining those regulations? Call all those players and demand: Break Them Up.
Demand real choice, demand no taxes on comprehensive health insurance. Tell them you'll only donate to senators like OR Dem Wyden, who keeps telling us and demanding in the senate that the public option must be open to every American. And to reps like FL Dem Graystone, who tells it like it is.
You/We are among the most powerful voters, activists and volunteers in the most powerful nation in the world. It's time we act like it.
We are being led around to follow our Great Leader by even our progressive organizations (read Tuesdays with Rahm). This is not People Power, it is co-optation. I fell into it when Obama for America became Organizing for America, and all the lists we built up from donors and volunteers - as volunteers ourselves - were sold for millions to the DNC. Disclosure: I volunteered for Obama in three states for two years, was elected at-large delegate. And I'm angry that I hobbled on my cane so much for so long for this.
We have been directed by OFA to one task and one task only: support the President's health care plan. There was no plan, just a broad set of ideas, but we have spent the past six months pushing them, not our own ideas or our own demands.
We've been directed to call our two senators and one representative. OFA bragged about 300,000+ calls made in one day. All we got for that and all the work that led up to that successful day is the public-option-only-for-the-uninsured policy that we are now supposed to beg for.
These are the fundraisers behind the power of the Dems who keep selling us out: The DNC (202-863-8000, ask to speak to the Chair, you'll get his assistant) and DSCC (Democratic Senate Campaign Committee 202-224-2447) and DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee 202-863-1500). They must be made part of the call-ins. Put those phone numbers on your speed-dial, and text them to your liberal friends.
We have to break their money flow, or be stuck with the SOS. We have to stop feeding the beasts. We either take over Dem clubs at the local and county level, or form our own, or settle for the status quo. Too much work? Then just call the DNC, DSCC and DCCC every time you read news about our sold-out legislators that makes you mad, and say "I will only donate to and volunteer for real representatives of we the people, not to any Dem funds for any and all Democrats."
Money talks. Actually, it whispers behind our backs until we make it speak for us. Notice OFA hasn't called for voter registration drives? They're keeping the money flow within the loyalist local and county clubs, which most often have agreements to get paid $1 per Democratic voter registration by the DNC.
When Obama's millions of donors, voters and volunteers list was sold for millions of dollars to the DNC under OFA, it was not until after VA Gov Kaine was installed to replace Howard Dean. Why? Because Rahm hates Dean, the true grassroots activist with the true 50-state strategy. Rahm wants a Dem majority alright, even if the majority is made with 40 Democratic congressional representatives who are against a woman's right to choose (how many Dem senators are anti-choice? impossible to find on an online search), against single-payer, against breaking up the banks, and for war-for-profit and for Wall St and K Street. Hell, maybe because that majority is made up of all those things.
If we donate to the DNC, it's the SOS. If we volunteer for OFA only, it's the SOS. If we keep spending all our time for a maimed public option only available to 10% of Americans at most, it's the SOS. If we don't demand they break up the banks, forget the regulations-only tactic, it's the SOS. If we go along with whatever energy/environment cap-and-trade bill they tell us to (so far 85% of cap-and-trade credits are being given away to corporations), it's the SOS.
We've gotta learn how the system works - then sabotage it. We have to stay independent. We're as PO'd at the too-big-to-fail banks as the teabaggers are. So why are we gonna settle for "regulations" that keep corporate lawyers earning fat bonuses for undermining those regulations? Call all those players and demand: Break Them Up.
Demand real choice, demand no taxes on comprehensive health insurance. Tell them you'll only donate to senators like OR Dem Wyden, who keeps telling us and demanding in the senate that the public option must be open to every American. And to reps like FL Dem Graystone, who tells it like it is.
You/We are among the most powerful voters, activists and volunteers in the most powerful nation in the world. It's time we act like it.
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You can smell the stench of coorperate power all over every rep. in the gov. It's not just money that talks in a sense because the banks were literal in the red 30 by about 2 trillion last year yet they got their lives save to the detriment of the rest of us. It's not the money, money is the vehicle of privilege. Money is what the week are always chasing. I'm convinced now there no way progressives can win anything with the rules of the game as they are. We wasting our time being civil with people who no interest in our well being. The US is lost to the plutocrats. Social justice will come from the outside and only as system crashs once the uppers have sucked all the power and privilege out of the system. Their power will increase until even the facade of democracy crumbles. One more Bush would have done the trick. It will just take alittle long now. I give the US 20 more years before it becomes another military dictatorship, which will the be defeated in a 3 World War that it starts for resources it doesn't own. Americans are too cozy to fight these vampires at the top with any zeal.
October 27, 2009 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The proposed public option is not limited to the uninsured. It would also include self-employed individuals who are already insured, employees of small businesses that choose to participate even if they already provide insurance, and insured individuals who lose their insurance in the future.
October 27, 2009 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Truly? Which of the 5 bills has those conditions, please, link? I expect it's from the House (if any), but would love to see exactly which and update that, if that's so. I'd heard all those folks you mention - besides the uninsured - got to join the exchange, but not the public option.
October 27, 2009 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, I found it, it is HR 3200; from fellow blogger, oldengoldendecoy at TPM:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/oldengoldendecoy/2009/10/once-out-of-the-employer-exchange-plan-you-may-elect-to-remain-in-the-private-exchange-even-until-medicare-age.php
So, you must be unemployed or laid off (but not before the public option is in place as part of exchange) then immediately sign up, then you can keep it when you get a new job. Plus as FW says above, small biz: First year, a small biz w/10 employees, 2nd year a small biz w/20 employees, etc. Mother of mercy, that's still really really limited and sad.
Not satisfied. I want more. Medicare for All w/adjustment for rural areas, and that's that. What a bunch of nonsense just so legislators can get millions from lobbyists for this past year, and now can sit back and tell us "So what?" when we deny our support from now on. Our system sux.
October 27, 2009 10:02 PM | Reply | Permalink