I have tried to express my heartfelt disappointment tonight a few times and have scrapped each attempt.
And yet I cannot put it to bed. I think I can say it best in a series of points. Each attempt at essay style discourse gets weighted down in elaborations.
Givens: I very much like and admire Barack Obama. I prefer Democrats in control of both houses and the White House. I am personally to the left of all that. I think President Bernie Sanders and a Social Democratic Party of the USA would be heartily re-elected if tried once.
I tried the questionnaires during the nomination race, like you did. Apparently Kucinich and Edwards were my closest match. Dodd (?) Obama and Clinton were close behind.
So sadly I jump below the fold.
- In Cleveland Barack Obama spoke with fire and passion in defence of HCR. A thing of beauty and a joy to behold.
http://abcnews.go.com/...
- He employed the narrative of one Natoma Cranfield. It was a moving story. It captured the crowd emotionally and politically.
- The Natoma Cranfield narrative is not the least bit suitable for promoting the HCR bills being refined in Congress.
- When asked after his speech by Jake Tapper what HCR would do for Natoma.. Obama blanched and stuttered. "It could keep her premiums down."
- The Natoma Cranfield story is the kind of story that is told to advocate for single payer universal health care. She is a victim of health insurance for profit that supports health care for profit.
She is a sick human being. She has been bled for her cash. Now she is unwelcome at the well.
- Barack Obama demostrated last night that he could have masterfully built a constituency for single payer universal health care in a series of appearances like this LAST YEAR.
- Barack Obama used this opportunity to put Dennis Kucinich on the spot for withholding his suppport for the HCR formula.
- The Natoma Cranfield narrative is precisely the kind of story that motivates Kucinich's opposition.
- Natoma Cranfield's story got told to the CEO's of health insurance companies by the president himself. ( I hear crickets... they are just waiting for the new mandated clients)
- I would tell the CEO's of the health insurance companies the Natoma Cranfield story in a private meeting explaining to them why I was drafting legislation to provide national healthcare. The kind of meeting Dennis Kucinich would have held.
- President Obama can inspire a national audience to great things. He makes it look so easy. It hurt to watch that sublime skill and rhetoric employed to sell an entrenchment of human health measured in quarterly dividends.
- The MORAL dimension of shared national healthcare improves societies understanding of their humanity. It is more cost efficient as well. Obama's great talents are demeaned when they are dragged out passionatetly to defend corporate greed. I am tired of the backdrop of hand-picked normal people. Obama should have been speaking with that fire and urgency with a neutral bankground and a real health care plan for America.
Natoma Cranfield's story has everthing to do with why Kucinich is not on board.