I found this in my email today from Mitch Stewart, Director of Organizing for America.
A few days ago, President Obama told a story about an OFA supporter in St. Louis who had volunteered during the campaign and organized her community for health reform, but recently succumbed to breast cancer.
She didn't have quality insurance, so she put off crucial exams and didn't catch it early enough. And while she fought cancer, she also spent her final months fighting for a chance at health reform so others wouldn't go through the same thing.
The President told this story to remind Congress, the nation, and us: We can't tell her family we're giving up on reform because it's too hard, or too risky.
I'd feel a lot more inclined to take this seriously if the President hadn't let the whole freakin' year go by in a futile effort to give away real reform in exchange for 'bipartisanship' and the approval of the interests who are the reason why we need reform in the first place.
Don't get me wrong. The tools here look good. I'm just tired and angry that this effort by OFA is arriving so after the fact.
Single payer got shut out before negotiations even started. Medicare For All proponents get arrested and dragged away, rather than getting to speak at a Congressional hearing or meeting with the President. But Big Pharma had no trouble getting through - and didn't even have to do it in public. The Public Option is history - or maybe not - but want to bet the insurance industry will still get all those new mandated enrollees whatever happens?
(And don't even ask me about reports the Democrats are going to give the GOP big tax cuts in order to try to get some kind of jobs bill passed. Something about only having 59 votes in the Senate...)
Stewart notes in his email that:
Many of our senators and representatives are working overtime to gather support for a final bill and pass reform, and they should know we're standing with them. And the rest need to understand their constituents still demand action.
Ya think?
And then there's a pitch for donations.
Look, I'd like to see Health Care Reform pass. I'm just sick that IT is sick and reported on its death bed, because it didn't have to be that way. I'm tired of this continuing appeal for bipartisanship. I do not think that word means what the Democrats seem to think it means. (And the column linked to was written over a year ago. That's not a learning curve we can believe in.)
You want my money OFA? Fine. Here's what I want:
Tell the President to get out there and make it happen. He spent a whole year waiting for a supposedly Democratic majority in the House and Senate to get the job done. He sat back while the bold goals were all trimmed back and abandoned - and tacitly approved that. He tried to buy off the insurance companies and big pharma with sweet heart deals that crippled real reform. He's now settling for watering down what's left in the hope that the Republicans might finally stop yanking the football away and let the Democrats kick it over the goal line. Ain't gonna happen.
You want my money? Give me results. Or call me when Rahm Emanuel is no longer around to call us progressives retards and replace him with Howard Dean who gets it. How about getting Steny Hoyer out and Alan Grayson in? How about letting "Give 'em Heck, Harry" Reid retire into the obscurity he's earned?
I'm waiting for the President and the party to lead. I'm out here pushing, but I'm damned if I have to do the heavy lifting while they marginalize themselves at the drop of a hat, a frown from the media, or a whine from the GOP losers.
I didn't vote for bipartisan failure; I want results and I don't care how partisan it is.
I'll make the phone calls - but if I don't see comparable effort by the White House and the Congressional Democrats...
I swear, I am getting so tired of The Seccond Coming, where:
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.