MoveOn Pressures Undecided Lawmakers On Health Care: 'Which Side Of History Will You Be On?'

MoveOn.org launched a new pro-health care reform television spot on Monday encouraging voters to call their representatives and ask them "which side of history will you be on?"

"Throughout history, America has been blessed with heroic leaders -- individuals who helped us to navigate between right and wrong," the ad says. "We need our leaders to fight for what's right. Call Congress today and ask them: Which side of history will you be on?"

Coupled with images of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., FDR and LBJ, the ad appears to liken the current legislative battle in Congress to other momentous decisions throughout history.

The ad accompanies an aggressive email sent out by MoveOn Monday that lays out a new strategy to change the minds of anti-reform Democrats. The email asks members to pledge money to support progressive challengers and says that "conservative Democrats need to know the stakes if they choose to side with Big Insurance over the voters on health care reform."

Watch the ad:

Comments

[Nonamnesiac]

09:01 PM on 03/16/2010

It's funny that just a week or two ago so-called progressives like Move-On and health industry troll Daily Kos were pushing to run primaries against Democrats who opposed a public option. Now they are threatening to run primaries against progressive Democrats who won't vote for a Obama's sellout trillion dollar, no reform health insurance bill that doesn't minimally include a robust, well-funded public option providing high quality, inexpensive health care to all based on progressive taxation instead of taxing Chevrolet workers' benefit plans and dishonestly call those Chevy plans "Cadillac" plans.

We are now seeing bullied labor leaders, purchased so-called progressive media pundits like Maddow, Schultz, O'Donnell, Press and Miller threatening progressives and pro-choice Democrats with primary opponents if they don't vote for the sellout Bill.

Progressives should stick to their promise to oppose any health insurance bill that doesn't include a strong public option and Defeat Obamahealthinsurercare. MoveOn, Daily Kos, Miller, Maddow, Schultz, O'Donnell and Press are all simply shills and employees of the Democratic Party and in the end, despite some criticism along the way to keep progressives interested, will do whatever the Party tells them to do, no matter how harmful their actions are to working and poor people.

[zc91377]

08:43 PM on 03/16/2010

what if this bill is passed and it raises costs instead of making hc more affordable? what if the governments cost of implementing this bill skyrockets through the roof? what if the medicare cuts to this bill go so deep that the life expectancy of people in this nation drop? will they be so proud of their sham then?

[Findley]

11:26 AM on 03/16/2010

Why are ins. companies fighting tooth-nail-and wallet against HCRt? Boomers. Think of the hit the insurance companies will take when the boomers go to Medicare. That's why the big fight!!!
Doom HCR and then the ins. companies will go after Medicare. Short-sighted Tea Party dupes have no idea what's going on.

[GoonieGooGoo]

07:45 PM on 03/16/2010

Look, when the government MANDATES that everyone BUY insurance, that is a problem. When the mandate cannot be met by the individual, then the government will fine YOU, that is an even bigger problem.

And if Health Care Reform is so GOOD for us, WHY, TELL ME WHY all the cooked up deals from the Louisiana Purchase, the Corn-Husker Kickback, the Union Cadillac exemption to name a few. If you can HONESTLY give me an answer I would go out right now and root for the plan.

But you know what, you wont be able too. So your pathetic attempt to slander the insurance company's is just that, pathetic.

[zc91377]

08:45 PM on 03/16/2010

yes pathetic, but you will not wake anyone up in this forum. there may be some parts of this bill that are good, but the amount of garbage in it out weighs the good. its a shame people here are too blind to see.

[Findley]

11:20 AM on 03/16/2010

This Dem is concerned that if HCR (as imperfect as this bill is) doesn't pass.. it will so weaken Obama that the GOP will take back the WH and Congress in 2012. Think about what will happen to the Supreme Court THEN.......all ready the corporatists are swaying things their way.

I urge you to call the Dems who are "no" or wavering to urge a "yes" vote. If the bill doesn't pass we can't fix it...and get people to see that it's possible to have a public-private option like Germany or the Swiss do. And re: abortion. T.R. REID (Wash. Post. journalist and author HEALING AMERICA) studied various HC systems in all industrialized nations...found that there is less abortion when women have health services provided for her and child.

[rain33]

08:57 AM on 03/16/2010

i like the ad plus i am donating to grayson and progressive group too!

[rain33]

08:56 AM on 03/16/2010

we need to elect new representatives who aren't thinking bout constituents but themselves coz we are FREAKING TIRED OF THESE RETARDS!

[Chise67]

07:11 AM on 03/16/2010

Ads like this only work on people who's marality doesn't co-habitate with greed, so that eliminates the ones they want to reach already!

[1murillo]

05:30 AM on 03/16/2010

Good on you MoveOn! Moving to support this bill as it comes to a vote is the best way to spend resources. I'm glad to have you around. The success of the Republicans, some Progressives, and insurance companies to instill fear is high, yet fortunately there are groups like MoveOn and we have a stong Speaker in Pelosi. We'll succeed, but the last legislative hurdle hasn't been crossed.

[PresidentRobertBooth]

04:33 AM on 03/16/2010

Conservatives, as per usual, will be on the wrong side of history and social change.

[doubleaseven]

03:10 AM on 03/16/2010

I know which side of the history MoveOn has chosen to be. The dark and despicable one. And they are pressuring others to follow suit.

The gall. After collecting huge sums in the name for crusading for PO they drop their pants for Rahmobama Mafia. They have decided to join OFA to be the second mouthpiece. Such is the power of lies, fear-mongering and corruption.

MOVEON, IF YOU HAVE ANY HONOR, PLEASE RETURN ALL DONATION STOLEN IN THE NAME OF THE PUBLIC OPTION.

[Wupta]

10:11 AM on 03/16/2010

I helped lead a few local MoveOn rallies. It was great to see others of like mind join us on the streets carry placards for the Public Option. I even got together with a local OFA organizer to get our organizations working together. I wanted bolder actions and large marches that would have more of an impact as opposed to the many local actions, so did many other Council organizers When Obama started speaking of "Insurance reform" instead of health care reform, I knew we were sold out. I was even more fired up to get these rallies to generate some energy for change. During weekly Moveon phone conferences with other council coordinators we wanted to aggressively pursue large public actions the moderator of the discussions listened to us and that was the end of the ideas.

The end of it for me with MoveOn was when I realized they weren't going to risk any political currency by bold actions I became disillusioned and quite the Organization. I was a member of this organization from the start is's inception during the Clinton era. Moveon with this endorsement can claim relevance and still maintain it's standing to me it's just a farce. Another political group playing a strategy of self interest.

[wattnot]

03:07 AM on 03/16/2010

You know, you can be a non-American and you can find yourself holding back tears at the heroism of the effort to try to curb corporate power that is going on in America's attempt to reform health care services.
Coming from a place that has had publicly funded health care for everyone, with no premiums, all my life, I have some idea of how liberating that is, not just for me, who has really never needed them, but for people who could never, in a thousand years, buy those services in a "market". Good luck America: I think with your unbelievably good president in charge it is finally going to happen, and he knows, even if the idiots don't, that if it doesn't happen America is finito, as a first world economy...

[Jim Pasterczyk]

01:40 AM on 03/16/2010

That's a very good question. Ask it of Chief Justice Roberts next time you see him on the street.

[FoonTheElder]

12:35 AM on 03/16/2010

Don't ask questions where you don't want to see the real answer.

Congress has already made it's choice. 95% of them are siding with the big corporate money regardless of whether they vote yes or no on health care.

If health care, as it stands is passed, It is a huge gift to insurance companies and other health care price gougers who just gained 30 million or so mandatory customers with no real control on what they charge.

If health care doesn't pass the same insurance companies and other health care price gougers continue on as they have for decades, passing on bloated costs to Americans and making good profits off a disfunctional health care system.

Heads they win, tails you lose.

[AlexNYC]

06:31 PM on 03/16/2010

Thank you, I've also been seeing this as a lose/lose proposition. We have 2 choices are they are both wrong. Many supporters claim that we need to pass the reform bill even if it is imperfect and fix it later. Does anybody really believe that congress is going to revisit reform again make it stronger later, or add a public option, or reel in costs? Whether Obama actually knew this all along or he was suckered into it is anybody's guess. But the end result sucks.

[InLosAngeles]

12:02 AM on 03/16/2010

Such compelling political theater. This bill solves just about nothing. It doesn't address the 70 (or whatever) people dying daily for almost 5 years, so that was never a priority. I kind of agree w/ Michael Moore on this one. Forget about whether or not you're for abortion, this bill is an abortion. This weekend can't come fast enough. Get your popcorn ready.

[busterbrownthefirst]

01:14 AM on 03/16/2010

I also saw Moore tonight, and thought his comments were immensely measured and sad. He really is a great American.

[IDIOTA]

11:46 PM on 03/15/2010

With the recent SCOTUS decision that opens the floodgates to corporate "speech", we now live in a Plutocratic Republic. So, MoveOn can threaten all it wants, but it will be of no use because there's just too much money on the other side.