Nobody gets it....

[catnhatnh]

...Including the top of our party. The campaign has started and even if we win HUGE it is all over for millions. The election is 13 months away and if democrats win the House, Senate, and Presidency we are STILL 6 months from democratic legislation and 1 year before any effect is felt.

2 years is the stroking yourself at midnight dream of when any normal person will get a boost of any kind. I might make it, but I doubt it. I know a bunch of guys hanging on the edge who probably won't. These are real people who right now juggle food and rent and keeping an old car legal and work every minute they can for wages that just don't cover even the basics.

Yesterday a member of congress complained that 400K "left over" was not enough to fund increasing his investment past the 37 Subway shops and multiple UPS locations he operates. He is a fucking idiot. But unfortunately democrats don't get it either. I'm surviving and one lucky bastard.But this month I have to check and see if I have $400 to pay for heating fuel. I think so but I doubt i can afford the whole winter.

Until the first relative of a congressperson freezes or starves they will never get it. And when the first of my friends does so the social contract is void.

[dkf]

1. Exactly. Why people are crowing when Obama is farther away from passing legislation

As he revs up into campaign mode and rallying the troops vs getting at least some crumbs to help the economy is crazy.

Folks he just gave up on improving your lives for the next 16 months.

[hedgehog]

3. Is it better that he should beat his head against a wall for the next 16 months,

or go out and show everyone the wall so they tear it down in 2012?

[dkf]

4. He can do more than beat his head against the wall...

But you wouldn't like what he would need to give up to get it and he knows it. So he isn't even gonna try.

[catnhatnh]

6. I know we must re-elect him...

...but the best case scenario still sees millions driven to levels Steinbeck found appalling. People I scarcely know have slept in my house. I give away food to acquaintances and give away meals at my business. A year from now I may be homeless. I sit at night in New England and wonder where geographically where the best homeless spots are. And I shouldn't have to. Neither should anyone else.

[hedgehog]

2. I've been very glad that several of my kids are still covered by

my health insurance. Another one of my kids may have lost a job in part because she wasn't covered and couldn't afford to buy the prescriptions she needed. Not having her medicine may have effected her job performance. I've been chewing over the problem one of their friends has. He's working for slightly over minimum wage and has no health insurance. He's been given a prescription for medication that costs $1700 a month. He doesn't have the money, and I haven't been able to find any program that he can qualify for to get his prescription paid for. Apparently, as a single adult, he doesn't qualify for Medicaid because his income is too high.

For me this means we all need to work harder to ensure Obama gets re-elected so he can move Health Care Reform forward from the big first step to the next steps.

[ConnorMarc]

5. This Thread Is Proof-Positive Why Obama Needs To Win

If you think you're screwed now with the possibility of Obama winning/not-winning, imagine the REALITY of a Republican in office.

[FrenchieCat]

7. Well, before I throw myself from the Bridge.....let me just say....

Political realities are what they are. First, he tried to pass legislation with a Congress full of Blue dogs, and they said it was his fault the bills weren't progressive enough. So everyone got mad and stayed home. Then he had to compromise with Republicans who won cause everyone stayed home just in order for the US to survive (debt ceiling/Unemployment insurance), and they said it was all his fault and that he shouldn't do that. They said he should use the bully pulpit. Then he used the bully pulpit and folks said he was just talking, and they wanted action. Then they decided that he should just do what he needs to do and stand strong and fuck passing any legislation, since the Republicans will never be reasonable anyways...and now that he's doing that, they say....hey, he ain't gonna pass no legislation which means we're all fucked, so what good is is it that?

In other words.....

[roody]

8. We have to learn to live more simply. Warm weather helps.

[BloomTownie]

9. Hang tight!

Yes it's true things won't get better right away but this is what we signed up for ! I think the campaign will get some great support going after the blood sucking millionaires and billionaires. Yes - not legislation will get passed and our economy may well collapse but after that... dream away ---- free meds, green jobs, solar-powered bullet trains, 30-hour work weeks. This land will be so progressive that the teabaggers may leave! Imagine!

[catnhatnh]

10. Perhaps you have no sarcasm smily available.

And perhaps YOU signed up for friends suffering. Free meds means universal health care and I'm down with that. Green jobs ARE a good thing. Solar powered bullet trains neither exist nor are proposed. And a 32 hour work week was seriously considered during the administration of FDR. I don't want the Tea Baggers to leave, I'd like us to have them restored to sanity instead. They are my fellow Americans...

[BloomTownie]

11. You may be on to something

Perhaps the future could mean mental hospitals and education centers for the Teahaddists! Think of the personnel needed to run those institutions.