Aesop Fables are great teaching tools. I like the one where a father goes to his kids, hands them each a stick and says, “break the stick”. They shrug their shoulders and break the sticks. No big deal. Next day, he hands each of them another stick and says put your sticks together and bind them. Then he says, “Now break this” as he points to the bundle. They shrug their shoulders and try their luck. Not so easy. You can almost hear the dad telling them, “Its’ a lot tougher when you guys stick together, isn’t it.”
If you watch C-Span, you will notice a sculpture on the wall of bound group of sticks to either side of the dais where the Speaker of the House sits. I don’t think that is an accident.
I am irritated. Not at the GOP. I can’t be any more irritated at them as I would a snake I find in my backyard as it tries to bite me. I expect to be injured if I try to handle such a creature.
I am irritated at the Democratic Leadership for a number of things; first, not having the foresight to prepare 2 bills. The first being the, “GOP First Unit” bill. You can think up your own acronym for it. That is the one that has no input from the GOP to essentially say, “This is what we will pass if you don’t play straight with us.” We would have had single payer, or fully funded Medicare for All -- the real Democratic dream bill.
The second bill, would be the one where the GOP can come to the table, if they wish, to offer comment or their input. The Omnibus General Task Health Care Reform Bill (aka TOGETHER). That would have been the one the President would have signed if everybody played nice.
Schedule votes for both bills on the same night. Use pressure from the passage of the first bill, to get TOGETHERness on the second.
The problem is the Democrats in Congress pride themselves in being a bunch of twigs. I don’t know if it is the leadership or the nature of the party, but they lost for everybody. Had they stuck together, as the GOP opposition had, in monolithic fashion we would be looking at what 70% of our citizens were asking for. We would be really looking at a GOP on the ropes and down for the count.
By being too cute by 2, the Democratic Leadership let them up off the mat.
Next reason I am irritated at the party leaders is that they granted passes to a bunch of Congress people. If you hadn’t noticed, the President is getting beaten up in the press lately over health care. He needed to know the Democrats in Congress, many of them there because of the coattails of Barack Obama, needed to back him, AS OUR LEADER.
We needed every one of those votes. Each one that went the other way gave space for the GOP to hammer the Democratic Party. Instead of a win of 220-215 wouldn’t it have been more impressive to the Senate to have a vote of 259-176. How would those talking points have gone on the Sunday Morning Blabfests?
We needed to get the country thinking that the Democratic Party is united; we will work together on our own, because we have the votes to do it. When that image is projected it makes it more difficult for the waffling senators to play games with this thing. The Democratic Leadership in the house needed to get into the heads of the General Public as well as the Senators across the Capitol building. We needed the full bundle of sticks for the aura of fiat accompli.
My next irritant is the 39 soon to be former Congresspeople who have the Audacity of Dope. 2010 will be a replay of 1994. It is because of health care and these Democrats that we will deserve to lose.
I am sure every one of those Congress people were asked what they wanted in the bill. I am sure many of them got provisions they asked for. Once you ask for something and it is included, you cannot turn your back on it and vote against it.
If your Congressperson was voting against this bill to preserve their seat in 2010, I have a newsflash for them, “It was already gone. You weren’t going to win anyway.” Do you really think that the GOP will let up on you? You may as well have cut you leg open in the water and announce to the sharks that you are in the water, it’s lunchtime!
If you live in a county served by one of these people, I would ask that you call your Democratic County Chairperson and committee persons and ask them not to circulate the Congressperson Twig’s nominating petition. This Congressperson has now rendered them self useless and weak as well as clueless.
4% of our people are still out in the cold. 300,000,000 x .04 = 12,000,000 people.
What are the core values for the American People? I keep thinking about Norman Rockwell’s Freedom from Want. I thought the Democratic Party was the best vehicle for serving all of us. The Democratic Leadership asked us, the electorate, to provide them with the tools to support President Obama. They weren’t shy about asking for money on this either.
We did our part. We not only expect, but demand, that heads get banged so we get what we have asked for.