Cyrus Roberts Vance, Lieutenant, United States Navy - Public Official
This, in a nutshell, was the unself-conscious voice of the establishment - the one that Jimmy Carter ran against so vigorously that his campaign manager, Hamilton Jordan, once said: "If, after the inauguration, you find a Cy Vance as secretary of state and Zbigniew Brzezinski as head of national security, then I would say we failed. And I'd quit.''Mr. Vance was Mr. Carter's first appointee, followed soon after by Mr. Brzezinski. Mr. Jordan did not quit.
I remember that. I learned a big and important lesson about American politics.
If you didn't figure out then that the "outsider" and "independent" candidates are set up, or you aren't old enough to remember Jimmie Carter's election, figure it out now. Obama was never the revolutionary (much less the Marxist or Muslim terrorist) the Republican party tried to portray him as. He was never going to remake the entire system.
You can get some change in the system. You can't overthrow the system. Nor should you. Few people really won when the Western Roman Empire fell. Not even most of the barbarians.
You get a choice of two candidates, and some protest votes, in most US elections. You have to choose the lesser evil. Obama was the lesser evil last time, not the Second Coming. And not the anti-Christ, either.
If you want to get angry about something, get angry about having your choice revoked.
McCain proffered an insurance mandate with no public option. That's the bogus plan they got in Massachusetts that they are rebelling against.
Obama proffered a public option with no mandate.
So what are we about to get if we don't get active? What we voted against.
Anyone else remember 1964? We voted for a candidate who promised not to bomb North Vietnam over a candidate who promised to bomb.
What did we get? Carpet bombing, and a massive antiwar movement, and massive disgust with the government that lasted decades, from the credibility gap to Watergate to today's anti-government militants.
Don't let them take the public option away!! It's too important, not just for itself, but for democracy.
Write your Senators and demand a public option by reconciliation. NOW!