It is true - slinkerwink and Nyceve are being paid for their work on healthcare. You can read the horrifying truth right here.
Can you imagine anything more shameful? To take money to passionately advocate for a cause you believe in? Clearly these women need to be punished, belittled, called out for this transgression.
I really hate the purity bullshit of calling out people for being paid. My God, all of my life I have wanted to be paid for what I love to do, for what I passionately believe in. I have not yet been lucky enough to do so. Why do progressives always turn on those who are fortunate enough to get paid to be progressive?
The right wing has no problem paying those who passionately believe in their causes. No problem at all – you can earn a great living as a right wing activist. Left wing, not so much.
Oh, yeah – I forgot, they are not being paid by some corporation, union or organization. The only money they get is from donors who make the personal, individual choice to donate to fund the work that FireDogLake is doing on healthcare.
It’s none of my business, but I am curious how much slinkerwink and nyceve are earning for their work. Because I’d bet $100 to the progressive cause of choice that they are not even earning minimum wage when you break it out. It’s funny how important their opinions on healthcare are important when it is a product of their own passion and then they become "lobbyists" or worse when they get paid a pittance to work on the topic.
Yes, we should support and donate to the politicians who are Health Care Heroes. But shouldn’t we also support the people who spend hours and days working on this stuff?
If you agree with me, maybe I can get you to take a minute to Donate to help fund the FDL work on healthcare.
Full disclosure – I don’t get a dime from FDL. But if I ever got a hug from any of these women – Nyceve, Slinkerwink or Jane Hamsher – it would make my day. Hell, it would probably make my month.
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I am going to take a minute to talk about tactics as well. Slinkerwink, Nyceve and Jane Hamsher are also in for a whole bunch of criticism for their calling out of progressives from safe democratic districts who have not drawn a line in the sand in support of the public option.
I’m a little torn by this because I have always been a carrot person. I’m also not sure how effective this particular stick will be – I can imagine some of these reps saying hey, what the hell? I’m always voting with you and you want to cut my head off because I won’t sign a pledge? What kind of allies are you guys anyway?
But the flip side of this deal is that if you are from a safe district, you should be willing to stick your neck out for us occasionally. And Health Care is one of those core issues – I don’t know if you can be progressive without supporting affordable, comprehensive healthcare for everyone. Maybe you should have to pay a price for claiming to be a progressive but not loudly championing the public option – which is the only way to achieve affordable, comprehensive healthcare for everyone currently under discussion.
Also, there is room for more than one tactical approach. Disagree with FDL? Fine, get involved with another organization for health care reform. It’s not like we’re lacking in other organizations supporting other approaches.
Here are a couple of them...
OFA
HCAN
You can list others in the comments; I’m writing this on lunch hour so I can’t do much research.
Get involved where you are comfortable to support health care reform. Me? I’m with Slinkerwink, Nyceve and Jane Hamsher. I just don’t see the harm in researching publically available information to find out who has donated to these Democrats in safe districts who stay silent on healthcare.
To get involved the FDL way, you can read Slinkerwink’s daily diary right here.
Thanks for reading, hope you a have a great day.
UPDATE: I also support disclosure but thought they had done enough by linking to the FDL post stating they were being paid.
Thanks to those who have donated to the cause.
and I really hope Slinkerwink is a woman since I somehow got that impression and diaried as if S/he were one...