The Nation magazine, seeing its socialized health care dream go up in smoke, is lashing out against the Blue Dog Democrats.
Proving that they live in an impenetrable ideological bubble, their Aug. 12th editorial states here:
The Blue Dogs parade as “fiscal conservatives” and “moderates,” false advertising that the mainstream press mindlessly echoes. In fact, they are the epitome of a Washington captured by moneyed interests. They aren’t working to ensure that healthcare reforms are paid for; they are laboring on behalf of insurance companies to protect their obscene profits. The Blue Dogs are maneuvering on behalf of Big Pharma to make sure the government won’t negotiate reasonable drug prices. They’re doing their best to derail reasonable tax hikes on the affluent, hikes that would make insurance affordable for working- and middle-class families. Even on the Blue Dogs’ signature issue–the “pay-go” rules, which they insist must be passed into law–they exempt reductions in the estate tax on the wealthiest Americans and, of course, the cost of any military adventure whatsoever.
And this is how the Progressives plan to counteract the thousands of average citizens who have come out against their socialized health care dream at town hall meetings.
What the country needs–what Obama needs, whether he realizes it or not–is an independent, mobilized, progressive citizens’ movement that takes on the corporate lobbies, from Big Pharma to Big Oil to Wall Street; challenges the legislators who are in their pockets; and demands affordable national healthcare, renewable energy, empowerment of workers, regulation of Wall Street and more. That movement should go after the conservatives and the compromised in both parties–anyone who stands in the way of reform.
To this I say, fat chance.
To get an eye witness account of the grassroots anger against Obamacare, see Jon Sanders’ report on the NC “Hands Off My Healthcare” bus tour here.
I spoke to thousands upon thousands of my fellow North Carolinians
in small towns and big cities, and in between stops, watched the news
and heard what the president, the Democrat leaders in Congress and
their mouthpieces in the media said about us.
I make them this challenge: Go to the rallies and say that.
You really think attendees were bused in by Big Insurance? Watch them
arrive. Watch senior citizens be helped out of their vehicles and into
their walkers to stand in the hot sun. Dare you call them angry
mobsters? See the veterans who served in Europe, Japan, Korea and
Vietnam walk in on uncertain knees to take yet another stand against
statism. Look them in the eyes and call them Nazis, if you can.
