"People don't eat every year or two, they eat every day" --FDR

[Odin2005]

This is what so angers me about the "IT'S ONLY BEEN A YEAR" and "WE CAN FIX IT LATER" squakers. Prople need help NOW, people need income NOW, they need a job NOW, they need treatment for cancer NOW. How many more people can we afford to be thrown out onto the street? How many more people have to DIE form lack of health coverage? How many are allowed to be "sacrificed" while we "fix it later"?

Economically minded people with their numbers seem to forget that their abstractions pertain to flesh and blood people, an economy is composed of HUMAN BEINGS that need food, shelter, healthcare, education, and personal safety. They are not comparable to cogs in a machine.

[katandmoon]

1. No fucking shit! Look how fast they threw money at Wall Street!

[bvar22]

34. Less than a week.

No "incrementalism" there.
No "it takes a long time to turn the ship" bullshit.

Congress CAN move quick as a rattlesnake when their chestnuts are in the fire.

[KakistocracyHater]

2. yes & the more Americans that are on the street, the poorer we are as a

nation, same with jobs.

[PSzymeczek]

3. Thank you, Odin.

K&R

[Odin2005]

26. You're welcome!

[Mimosa]

4. FDR was a hero!

Odin, how nice of you to remind us. I think FDR was so empathetic to the sufferings of real people because of his own and because of his many stays in Warm Springs GA.

Have you ever seen the HBO movie "Warm Springs" in which Kenneth Branagh portrayed Franklin? Cynthia Nixon played Eleanor. It was excellent!

IMDB listing for Warm Springs:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423510/

[JI7]

5. the ones who want to wait until later are those who focus on challenging Obama

in a primary.

the rest want what we can try to get now and continue trying to get improvements.

there are too many who don't understand how government works.

[Hello_Kitty]

11. And there are just as many that don't understand how politics works.

If the GOP picks up seats (and they will) because everything the public liked was stripped out of this bill, then those improvements are not going to happen.

[JI7]

15. republicans support those things you claim people want in the bill ?

[Hello_Kitty]

21. You really don't get it.

There are many, many, seats up for reelection in Congress where we MUST get independent votes. Independents don't like this HCR.

[JI7]

23. so independents will vote republicans because what independents want

is what republicans are proposing ?

[Hello_Kitty]

29. It's happened before. Remember 1994?

2010 won't be as bad for us because the demographics of the electorate have improved for Dems. But if this HCR is unpopular in November and there hasn't been a substantial improvement in the economy we are going to lose seats.

[JI7]

31. so we should put a bill that the Republicans want ?

[Hello_Kitty]

35. We should put the things back in that the public wants.

A Dem or independent not showing up at the polls to vote for the Dem is a vote going to the Republican.

Of course, this is all academic because President Lieberman and Vice President Nelson are never going to let a decent bill pass.

[JI7]

36. so these people care so much about this that they are just not going to vote

even if it means republicans coming to power ?

[anonymous171]

37. People vote for politicians that represent them.

If no one represents them, then they won't vote.

[JI7]

39. yes, so if a Republican wins it's because that candidate represented the people

[Hello_Kitty]

40. Republicans win because Republican voters are obedient and vote as they are told.

And look, I know you think you're engaging in a clever little dialog here but I actually work on campaigns and I do a lot of canvassing and phone banking. Average voters =/= DUers. The people I'm talking to in my community hate this HCR bill and think it won't help them personally and that it hurts the middle class. Those are the people who vote in mid-terms.

[JI7]

50. earlier you said it was independent voters that we need to worry about

[Hello_Kitty]

53. If they don't bother to show up at the polls to vote for us, we do.

It's handing votes to Republicans. Again, you're playing cutesy rhetorical games when I'm trying to figure out how we can hold on to Democratic seats at the national, state, and local levels.

Glad you have the luxury of being so sanguine.

[JI7]

55. they don't have views or opinions on any other issue ?

[Raineyb]

58. And if the Democrats don't seem to be any better than a Republican

how are you going to convince people that their vote means something?

If people see crap that the Republicans would pass being passed by Democrats they're not going to see any difference between the parties and they will stay home. No one is going to go out of their way to vote for politicians that won't represent them and this health insurance "reform" isn't representing what people want.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. So how exactly is killing the health care bill supposed to put food in people's mouths?

[Odin2005]

10. This bill is WORSE than status quo, it's FASCISM.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. You've joined the woo woos.

[anonymous171]

22. He is actually right. Fascism is the partnership between business and the State. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. That's an insult to all the victims who've ever suffered from Fascism.

This is ridiculous.

[Odin2005]

32. You obviously don't understand what Fascism is.

Fascism is when Corporations control the government.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

38. No, you obviously don't understand what Fascism is.

Woo woo.

[Hidden Stillness]

63. Hi, Odin--Here are a Couple of Pretty Good Definitions of Fascism

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling power." FDR, proposing a commission to investigate corporate monopolies; 1938

The American Heritage Dictionary, definition for "fascism": "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with a belligerent nationalism."

The operation of Government for only the benefit of the big-business corporate interests, the forcing of policy against the will of the people--(Wall St. bailouts, no prosecution of criminals, complete secrecy of the process; no help on unemployment, debt, foreclosures, price-gouging, etc., and falsified figures for unemployment rate; forced commercial buys, of digital TV equipment, commercial insurance now, etc.; never addressing the issues people want addressed; law-changes that allow downsizing/mergers, outsourcing, that hurts the country but benefits individual corporations at our expense; tax cuts for rich people and corporations, and tax shifts to he middle class and poor, etc.; the "experts" and agents of Government policy being now exclusively from the corporate world; no anti-trust legislation enacted or mergers/takeovers stopped at all anymore, etc. Other than the old "belligerent nationalism," which they do not want because now they are Globally unified, and do not want sovereign Nations with boundaries at all anymore--their new structure is different, so that is dispensible--I don't know how much clearer it could be. Corporations own Government, and operate it to their benefit, at the horrible expense of all the rest of us, and we have no influence anymore, under this system--ONLY corporate money does.

[Skittles]

54. it's not ridiculous

read up on fascism

[Odin2005]

25. No, I just beleive making people buy a product from a corporation is wrong.

It's Fascist economics, using government power to force people to give money to corporate elites.

[Hello_Kitty]

14. How is not killing it going to put food in people's mouths?

If you don't have a job you can't eat Medicaid.

[anonymous171]

7. FDR was a great man.

He would be horrified by what his party has become.

[Hello_Kitty]

8. People are not a lagging indicator.

Every time I hear "well we know employment lags the stock market" I want to chuck an anvil at the person who said it. High unemployment is tolerated in this country because rich sociopaths and sick fuck ECONOMISTS spout bullshit about how we NEED a certain level of unemployment.

There is shit that needs to be done in this country. Coincidentally, many unemployed people have the skill to do it. Put them to work, goddammit.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. So you're saying employment is not a lagging indicator?

Is it a leading indicator?

[Hello_Kitty]

16. Does it have to be a lagging indicator?

Or could the government become a massive employer as it did under FDR?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. You mean back when the unemployment was three times higher than it is now?

[Hello_Kitty]

24. Oh okay. So we have to wait until then. eom

[Odin2005]

19. Back in the 50s and 60s economists were talking about the need for full employment.

Then comes Paul Volcker, who used the inflation of the 70s, which would have stabilized anyway, as an excuse to end the ideal of full employment in the name of "inflation reduction", which in reality was a euphemism for "stopping wage growth". when economists talk about central banks raising interest rates to "curb inflation in an overheating economy" they really mean "we need to increase unemployment in order to keep wages down".

[Hello_Kitty]

33. Japan had practically 0 unemployment throughout the 90s and inflation was NOT a problem for them

They had the opposite problem.

Supply side economics is pure bullshit and it's unbelievable how many DUers embrace it.

[Mimosa]

48. Supply side economics is pure bullshit: it's unbelievable how many DUers embrace it.

Hello_Kitty, I agree. I read so many posts which support the corporate/big banker solutions, the ones which leave the poorer people in the USA uneducated, sometimes jobless and prone to become criminals. Then they can be incarverated in privately owned JAILS.

[Odin2005]

52. It's insane, the Corporatist path we are going down.

Our leadership is fill of sociopaths and charmed patsies of sociopaths.

[happy_liberal]

9. K&R

nt

[Goldstein1984]

18. "Are there no prisons?....

...Are there no work houses?" *Dickens*

From Percy Bysshe Shelley's, "The Mask of Anarchy"

"And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.

And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few."

[niyad]

20. thank you--but to the powers that be, all we are is cogs

[Drunken Irishman]

28. "Is FDR gonna have to choke a bitch?" - FDR

[Starbucks Anarchist]

30. Speaking of FDR, Social Security was not in its current form when it was originally passed.

So it actually was fixed later.

[Hello_Kitty]

42. Yeah but it began as a government program

It didn't start out as workers being mandated to contribute to 401ks.

[dflprincess]

49. It wasn't "fixed"

The basics of Social Security and the way it works remain the same, it was expanded to cover more people because it worked so well. (Until Reagan came along and cut coverage for some groups.)

Passing a bill as badly flawed as the Insurance Profit Protection act is and claiming it will be "fixed" later is not comparable.

BTW - how are those "fixes" to NAFTA and NCLB working for you?

[SammyWinstonJack]

51. +1

:applause:

[varelse]

41. Thank you (nt)

[pansypoo53219]

43. FDR

didn't have gnews or fux gnews.

[anonymous171]

46. The rich owned the media back then too. FDR was not afraid to fight them though

[pansypoo53219]

44. FDR didn't have

teevee gnews. and the people were behind him.

[pansypoo53219]

45. FDR didn't have

teevee gnews.

[OhioChick]

47. K&R n/t

[krawhitham]

56. This is what so angers me

People think the President can snap his fingers and can fix everything all at once, but he chooses not to


It is all or nothing and give it to me immediately with 95% of the people here

[Odin2005]

59. It's not solely a criticism of the president, it's more a criticism of Congress.

[DisgustedInMN]

60. Immediately?

It's been a year, my friend, and VERY little has changed, except that many of us are even closer than going under or have already gone.

Let me guess..

... you have a decent paying job and aren't facing being homeless.

[DisgustedInMN]

57. I'm hard pressed...

.. to see much change I can believe.

FDR was the real deal, these jellyfish? Not so much.

[cdsilv]

61. The new HIPPA

Health Insurance Profit Protection Act - share your medical records among insurers so that they can collude (w/no fear of anti-trust enforcement) to only offer you the most expensive plan that will keep you just above the poverty line.

Among other egregious gutting of the middle class.....

[Petrushka]

62. - - -

:kick:

[Odin2005]

64. Thank you!

[Petrushka]

65. You're welcome!

:patriot: