go and tell them yourself?

an advertising slogan propaganda.

There, much better.

IF we get through the reconciliation process and there is no honest public option at the end of it. For now? It is a premature attack on a process that has only really started.

I think Hacker's original proposal was a public insurance program first and foremost. I think HR 3200 is a market-based private insurance program with a sliver public option on top. Sorta like a cherry on top of a sundae. You don't buy a sundae for the cherry. No one expects the cherry will at some point emerge larger than the ice cream. That's my problem with this bill. It's a market-based plan(even though the market has failed) with lots of components I don't like, don't trust, and don't know think we know enough about. I think it's odd. Even the public option isn't really about public insurance, it supposed to provide "competition" to bring down costs of private, for-profit insurance, but without market strength, I don't see how it does that. I'd like to see the people who support the public option(that any reasonable person can see will be at best something like the public plan in HR 3200, barring Presidential leadership) explore the rest of the bill, and the deals that have been made in support of the bill, particularly no negotiating drug prices through Medicare.

Relying on the conference committee is at best chicken shit liberalism. I'm proud of this country's liberal heritage and confident in having the majority of the country support liberal proposals, particularly WRT health care (hell, they already do). There's something wrong with chicken shit liberalism given the outcomes of the last two elections. (Dems won governor AND state legislature majorities in addition to the Fed govt, fercrippesake!). I aint no chickenshit liberal. Besides, its a fundamentally dishonest way to legislate. Fuck dishonesty, too.

Krugman yesterdaywrote about why he thinks media reporting is big on the horse race and thin on policy. It's easier to research, easier to write, and safer. The same thing applies to many of the public-option advocates, with the extra problem that they've made themselves one of the horses too. Winning at all is much more important than what's being won.

And as we've seen, it's much, much easier to win without specifics. Whether a candidate or legislation, the minute you assert any sort of detail, the chances increase than someone will oppose you on reasonable or reasonable-sounding grounds. Or you'll lose the enthusiasm of some of your potential supporters. But as long as you fill the empty talking space with passionate pleas for relief and vague promises of feel-goodness, it's very hard for people to disagree.

I'm not sure what the solution is, aside from hammering away. For what it's worth, I've got my mom and other relatives talking Medicare for All and they mostly fall into the distinctly non-creative*-class end of the demographic spectrum. *cough

couldn't resist, your bull terrier remark made me do it.

i think valhalla's got the open lefters and fdl-ers accurately diagnosed:

Krugman yesterdaywrote about why he thinks media reporting is big on the horse race and thin on policy. It's easier to research, easier to write, and safer. The same thing applies to many of the public-option advocates, with the extra problem that they've made themselves one of the horses too. Winning at all is much more important than what's being won.

it's probably true of some [most] of the others too, though i haven't hung out at very many progressive blogs lately. if i'm going to beat my head against an unreasoning wall, it's at least going to be at blogs that are skeptical of obamacare. there's always hope that one more republican will see the light, for instance.

I regularly send email to ofa and dfa saying y'know, this is terrific and all, but i'm not sending you a dime of my money, nor am i going to help you in any way, until you're working exclusively for single payer. i seriously doubt that i'm doing any good, but it costs me little and if several million of us did so... who knows? it might make an impression. or not.

as for reasoning with committed progressives like fdl or open left, i do occasionally [not often, it hurts to bash your head against too many brick walls] take on jame hamsher or slinkerwink or mike lux or chris bowers, not because i expect to change their minds, but because i hope to to plant seeds in the minds of their readers. there's a small but [maybe, i think, i hope] growing voice for single payer at both dkos and fdl.

thank you, gqm, for the pep talk! it really does help to hear/read just plain ol' fire-breathing liberal talk.

i'm with bruce dixon, the baucus 13, et al, time to start shutting things down, the town halls, whatever congress does when it reconvenes in september, a national strike [i think it should coincide with the mad as hell drs arrival in dc], ...

it's pitchfork time.

for starters, in a small way, we can start publicizing the mad as hell doctors tour of the country.

we need lots more ideas than this, and i'm clear out of them right at the moment, but one thing i've decided to NOT do is try to change the minds of the people who are emotionally invested in winning the public option fight.