I hate that I have been made to appreciate the GOP. I am a retired single mom (meaning I am now married. I'm not retired from the workforce) with a pre-existing condition who went without insurance for quite some time. And I am now agreeing with Republicans on healthcare?! Me?! I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Can someone PLEASE explain to me what is going on here? Oh wait, TINS already did that in his diary. We ARE fools, and we cannot continue to be fools.
Of course, it is worth noting that I am agreeing with the Republican front goal of defeating the bill (not their end game of pass this piece of crap and hang it on the democrats).
The only appropriate course of action is to invest in the machine at this point. It WILL take 40 years for the non-corporatist side to be as adept at policy making as our enemies. It will never benefit us. We are fucked. But there is a chance we can build a system that our children can leverage to get out from under the thumb of our corporate overlords. Right now all of the toys are in their box. And yes it seems incredibly daunting that no grass roots movement will ever have the billions of dollars needed to pay TINSs colleagues to fight our wars for us. But that doesn't mean we can't learn the skills ourselves, and leverage them as best as possible.
Thinking in the short term will run this country into the ground, of that I am certain. Right now we need to focus on our long game. It is the only option left to us.
The realization that the fix is in and I can't possibly win has done nothing to decrease my ferver for victory. Instead it has galavanized my belief that THERE MUST BE CHANGE. I do not want to see the point in the future where my children come to realize that they are powerless serfs and that they must serve in order to survive. I want better for them. I am not willing to throw in the towel simply because I can't personally benefit.
This begs the question "So what are you gonna do?" My answer? I have no fucking idea. I don't have the slightest clue where to start. Anyone who does, please speak up. Maybe between the thousands of us, we can come up with a game plan.