Glenn: "The administration has substantial leverage ... on those issues ... actually important to them"

glenn greenwald has been engaged in a lengthy online and highly public debate with other so-called liberals and progressives (i would call them obama "apologists") who insist that obama isn't or can't fulfill much of his promised agenda because he is crippled by the essential powerlessness of the presidency... i happen to be in complete agreement with glenn... talkin' the talk without walkin' the walk is bad enough but when you're doing neither, it's inexcusable...

from time immemorial, people have been able to deduce one's real intentions and motivations from the behavior the person displays... as glenn so rightly points out, what are we hearing about closing guantánamo, about a genuine effort to restore human rights to detainees, about accountability for 4th amendment constitutional violations, about REAL - as opposed to cosmetic - financial reform, about the serious development of alternative energy resources, about a dedicated effort to get our country back from the corporations...? damn little... and what does that tell you...? it can only be one thing... the obama administration has chosen not to exert any effort in those directions whether or not they could be successful in influencing them...

The administration has substantial leverage to influence what Congress does, but they use it only on those issues that are actually important to them. And in those White House actions, one finds their actual priorities. The White House applied vast pressure on Congress to get what it wanted by having a war-funding bill enacted without conditions, demanding progressive provisions be stripped out of the financial reform bill, preventing drug re-importation from being enacted in order to please the pharmaceutical industry, negotiating the public option away with industry interests, and (to their credit) blocking funding for obsolete fighter jets. They exerted great influence over Congress because those were important priorities for Obama. By contrast, they do nothing on a whole slew of issues which they claim they support and which were at heart of the Obama campaign -- such as closing Guantanamo -- thus conveying to Democrats in Congress that they do not really care about such measures (or even oppose them) despite their public assurances to their base that they continue to support them.

at this point, as far as i'm concerned, there is no defense anyone can mount on behalf of the obama administration... actions have always spoken louder than words... much, MUCH louder, in fact, and i've re-learned a lesson i've re-learned so many times in my life as to be downright embarrassing: only pay attention to what a person says when and if it's backed up by congruent action...

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Billionaires for Wealthcare - Public Option Annie

great stuff...

AHIP is the powerful insurance lobby that spends 5 million dollars a week trying to kill health care reform. Billionaires for Wealthcare is a grassroots network looking to stop them - with song.

• AHIP and other insurance and HMO interests spend nearly $5 million per week undermining real health care reform, including a public option.

• AHIP has resorted to out-right lying and scare tactics to block health care reform. They sent letters that lie to seniors about what health care reform means for Medicare, and they issued a report on the costs of health care reform legislation that is so misleading even the reports embarrassed authors distanced themselves from the way AHIP used their work.

• Every year, 45,000 people die because they cant get access to the health care they need. Yet AHIP continues to stand in the way of health care reform that would provide coverage to millions of Americans because the industry is more concerned with protecting profits than saving lives.

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Dear Senator Reid

Dear Senator Reid,

This communication is prompted by the recent Senate rejection of the public option in the health care reform bill, but it also expresses my profound frustration and outright disgust with both you and the rest of our country's so-called representative leadership in any sort of viable domestic policy.

Furthermore, I am writing you from a vantage point nearly 10,000 miles away in Kabul, Afghanistan, where I witness daily the abject failure of my country's foreign policy.

The United States was founded on the principle of honoring, protecting and ensuring the common good, not only for U.S. citizens but also, in whatever constructive and peaceful means we might have at our disposal, the common good of the rest of the world.

Senator Reid, the United States, on a daily basis, systematically demonstrates its complete and total rejection of that founding principle. What the United States honors, protects and ensures is the health and welfare of those who can pay the most for it. It is not democracy, it is capitalism run amok.

And it is not just you, sir. It is all of your Senate and House colleagues who have made it clear, time and again, that you do not have my interests nor the interests of any of the great body of your constituents at heart.

Do the honorable thing, sir. Admit you have forsaken your sacred duty to the country you purport to serve and step down. If there is indeed a god, perhaps your colleagues will follow your example.

Sincerely,

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The health care public option for dummies

i just ran across this on daily kos...

thanks to engio and andy lubershane at youtube via tunesmith at daily kos...

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