(To disclosure, I'm also an army infantry vet: Sgt/E-5; June 22, 1964 - June 21, 1967; RA 16 805 398. And I receive excellent health care, free of charge via the VA. But, as I've intoned loudly, previously relative to health care reform: IT AIN'T ABOUT ME!)
September 29, 2009. This afternoon, to the Senate Finance Committee's markup of its version of health care reform, Senator Jay Rockefeller IV offered a public option amendment.
Everyone knew the Republicans were going to be unanimous and vote "No." Despite hoping almost against all hope, most of us also strongly suspected that several Democrats on the committee might also turn their backs on the voters who put the party in the majority, regardless that every recent poll indicated their own constituents favor a public option.
The backstabbing Dems include
Max Baucus, committee chairman from Montana,
Tom Carper of Delaware,
Kent Conrad of North Dakota,
Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and
Bill Nelson of Florida.
But to top this excreta-laden cake, staff from Majority Leader Harry Reid's office stated that when the Health and Finance Committees' versions arrive for combination for a final combined version, there will be no public option.
What all the above Democrats must be counting on, relative to those who voted them into majority status, is the rhetorical proposition, "Where they gonna go?"
Lem-me tell ya where I'm going, if a public option gets lost in the legislative desert.
For starters, just a little about me: In January I'll be 64, the very first election in which I was old enough to vote occurred in 1968, and since then I have voted in every election; general and off-year. In 2004, 2006, and in 2008, stuffed past the gagging point with the Bush-GOP deprecations and economic predations, I volunteered to do whatever I could to throw the bums out, to install Democratic candidates I believed to be genuine progressives.
No, I am not going to vote for a Republican. Here's my vow: For the first time since I could, I simply will not vote. The Dems are bound and determined to take the progressive vote for granted, are more than prepared to stab us in the back and to stick it to us lower down our torsos. Well, let's see how well you do without our contributions and volunteer efforts. Let's just see.
Harry just declared war on those who made him majority leader. Interestingly, almost at the same time as his staff was releasing the news of his abominable betrayal, his office was emailing me for a contribution. I demanded I be removed from his mailing list, and also suggested he take all further requests for support and insert them where the rays of neither sunlight nor Searchlight (Searchlight, NV: Harry's hometown.) shines.
Now, for those who yet retain Republican-voting associates whom they, under some perverse, obscene delusion, refer to as "friends," I counsel going on a scavenger hunt for some modicum of self respect. Clearly that's a trait that's sorely missing from their character makeup. Republican voters, in the words of Chairman Barney Frank, "it's like talking to a dining room table."
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