Desperate wishful thinking. That's all I can think of to say after reading this diary which offers this speculation on Obama's abandonment of us and our causes:
I see this as a massive "head fake".
I would assume that this was the product of our very least astute and least experienced political thinker (after all, someone has to be at the bottom), but for the fact that it made the rec list!!! Yes, that is so shocking it deserves three exclamation points.
My god, people, WAKE UP. Hollywood is a long, long way from Washington. If Obama wanted the Public Option, he is doing everything wrong and is an inept politician. The news today does not presage some secret, master plan to hand us the public option at the last minute, thereby showing leftist progressive critics like me what fools we are for doubting him.
The time has come to take the fight to Obama.
Obama has broken his promise to fight for a medicare-type health care plan for all Americans. We all must accept this: Obama has, according to ALL signs, abandoned us.
I'll repeat: Obama has abandoned us.
He abandoned repealing warrantless wiretaps. He is issuing signing statements, clinging to the unitary executive. He abandoned us in the economic bailout and gave all the money to Wall Street. He abandoned us on even ATTEMPTING to bring Single Payer into the national discussion on health care reform. Why didn't all of us get the hint then?
He never unequivocally stated that the Public Option must be included when he started his campaign for health care reform. He always pulled his punches. He has refused to lead.
He is making demands of US! Are you getting that? He is saying that WE must compromise! We, the majority, the people who elected him.
We must tell Obama that we are NOT willing to compromise after eight years of absolute Republican tyranny. We have already compromised enough when we "accepted" that we were not going to get single payer.
If we were going to lose, we should have lost better than this. We should have lost because we faced a minority of Republicans who are nothing but corporate tools, combined with so many Democrats who were clearly doing nothing more than voting the way they were bribed to vote. Instead, we are stabbed in the back by a weak president and weak Democratic leadership who have no clue what's really going on in the political landscape of this country.
The public option, as well as almost any of our progressive goals, should have been easy. And if not, they were still imminently doable. And if not doable, then loosing would simply have inspired the majority to fight harder for our leaders next time, and vote even more Republican senators out who stand in our way.
We must accept that this is what happened. We must accept that Obama is no better than Harry Reid, all the more so because he was elected on OUR backs, our sweat, our dollars. We must now take the fight to Obama.
We may have lost health care again. But we must never stop fighting, and we must always direct our fight right where it will do the most good, and right now we must fight Obama.
Call the White House:
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500-0004
(202) 456-1414
Go visit your Senator's office; this is much more effective. Call and tell them you're coming, tell them you'd like to speak to someone about this, and then just go. Don't let them tell you you can't come. Just go.
Find your senator:
http://www.visi.com/...
Do the same thing with your Representative.
Only if you truly can't go their office, then call.
Everyone write a letter to all the above, and your local newspaper, too.
If there is a local town hall, go to it! Tell them what YOU think, don't let them offer pathetic rationalizations. Make a lot of noise, because apparently that's the way to get taken seriously.
Tell them you are ANGRY. Tell them you are PISSED! Tell them we will march in the streets!
(Is it time to march in the streets NOW, Markos???)