I have often been proud of Congresswoman Barbara Lee as my representative in Congress, but I have joined the Greens in protest of this rotten piece of pork, which shows so conclusively what Ralph Nader has said for so long-- the two parties represent the same corporate interests. Go to Bill Moyers' site and watch the interview with Matt Taibbi for clarity on this.
Barbara Lee, you can't rescue this bill to save the president. This bill is so thoroughly corrupt that it can't be repaired, and you will lose your job if you continue to believe that if we keep begging Obama to change he will somehow become the leader we need and not the corporate tool that he is.

REGARDING A NATIONAL STRIKE

Try this, everyone who is feeling anger and despair over corporate control of our government:

1.)Post the following message (or one of your own) on at least one other forum:

It's time to institute a NATIONAL STRIKE to protest the corrupt legislation being touted as health care reform. Would you be willing to take action on the day this legislation passes the House, such as calling in sick to work, refusing to buy any goods or services, gathering at noon in your town or city to protest (even with others who may differ with you on other issues) the inherent corruption of this bill and corporate control of our system, or to meet in consensus forums to work with others to devise solutions? Please reply with any positive suggestions or ideas on this forum or in the Comments section following relevant articles on CommonDreams.org.
Please don't bother posting depressing hypotheses about how the "sheeple" will not respond to this call to action--that in itself is the kind of mainstream media-manufactured sheeple response that the corporate elites are Banking on.

2.) Ask at least five people each day if they are aware of the ramifications of this bill and if they would be willing to consider participating in such an action, or if they have any other ideas to bring to this discussion. Ask, invite, discuss. See if you can find key points of agreement--this is the holiday season and lots of us will be spending time with family members who have different political views but this can be a great unifying moment in taking back our country.

Make these two actions your homework assignment for the day and I guarantee your feelings of alienation and despair will abate, and that will bring the energy for the next step.

I like Barbara Lee's verve and tenacity, but there is a big problem in all this that nobody (other than my self on Air America radio, that I have heard) is talking about. The biggest problem is the that we don't have a Health Care System to reform, expand, or work off of.

What we have now is an antiquated, ignorant, corrupt, non-fundamental, toxic, late-stage, symptom-targeting, wealth-developing (for high-paid specialists and big industries) but health depleting (for most)---disease management, maintenance, and manipulation system.

Doctors don't even study health, they concentrate on disease, diagnosis, and drugging the symptoms. Medicine today is based on the widespread use of convenient 'science', ignoring unfavorable studies, hiding adverse results, using biased sample populations, lies, industry-employed 'experts' testifying at FDA hearings (54%), pharmaceutically-funded medical education, recruitment of younger and younger doctors, buying out politicians, and just plain fraud to base the distribution of often fairly-very harmful pharmaceuticals.

The drugging of America under the guise of medicine is leveraged by the suppression of healthy alternatives such as nutritional medicine, chiropractic, herbal, essential oils, vibrational medicine, and other proven, healthy, natural, body-centered and true healing-based therapies.

Statistics from the Institute of Medicine show that 18,000 people die every year from 'lack of health insurance' whereas 2 or 3 articles in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) have admitted that over 100,000 people per year (presumably with health insurance) in the U.S. are dying due to 'adverse drug reactions'.

With 55 million uninsured and 245 million insured, the above statistics demonstrate that uninsured people are better off statistically. Of course this is a simple statistical comparison (for demonstration purposes), but with over 100,000 deaths yearly from 'properly prescribed medications', we should be looking to replace such a bad bet on conventional medicine & psychiatry with the more healthy, sound, and effective nutritional medicine/orthomolecular psychiatry and other alternative practices.

Nutritional medicine
1) is far superior in terms of results with almost
any illness (routinely claiming 80% success
in removing symptoms; treating underlying
imbalances; and/or improving baseline health)
2) is 10,000's of times safer (almost non-existent
fatalities reported, probably due to
contaminants, not the nutrients themselves)
3) Costs a small fraction of pHARMaceutical-based
medicine & psychiatry while
4) stimulating healthier food production, processing,
and selling via local groceries/coops and
5) rewarding quality nutritional/herbal supplement
producers and sellers whose products are found to
be reputable, research-backed, and certified or
potency-tested and produced and sold in a free
market atmosphere.

I can't support broadening the toxification of Americans' bodies and brains under the current drug supply system referred to as 'health care'. CAN YOU?

It’s like expanding the use of big, expensive, gas guzzling, and/or pollution-spewing Buicks, outdated Ramblers, high-tech Ferraris, and Edsels on the road while preventing Hondas, Toyotas, electric cars, and bicycles from gaining purchase and becoming the rational majority in a sane, modern marketplace.

Time to put up or shut up! Single payer public option, and let their votes be counted, so people can see exactly where their representatives stand. Then, if the rift raft get voted back into office in the coming elections the people will only need to look in the mirror to see where the problem is. This is about more than health care, this is about who runs the country. Right now it is the for profit fascist corporations that run Congress and the White House.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. - RWE

now is not the time to ask for chairman mao's health plan or for "immaculate conception healthcare"TM;

now is the time to further shame and sabotage the re-election chances of demobliRat senators and representatives, e.g., by comparing W's Medicare reform’s give away to the pharmaceutical industry with the obscene extra trillion dollars about to be thrown by demobliRats at the healthcare leeches;

now is the time to demand that the full brunt of antitrust legislation be imposed on the healthcare industry immediately (so that demobliRat senators and representatives have to defend from competition --in front of the cameras, directly and shamelessly-- the profits of the healthcare leeches );

now it's the time to call for binding legislation to bring down healthcare's share of the GPD to below 10% *before* obama's 1st term will end.

these are hard numbers and measures that demobliRat senators and representatives cannot equivocate around, hard numbers and measures that won't allow the few progressive push-overs (like sanders) or venalo-progressives (like byrd) to hide behind tear-jerking statements like "now we can give healthcare to another 20,001 rural grandmothers" while at the same time voting for the healthcare cartel to increase its share of the GPD to 30%.

obama is not going to commit political suicide just to satisfy blinded-bull leftwing hotheads._ he cannot afford to become a target of the right and of the ultra rich, period._ lefties should go after by-bribe-only senators and representatives._ and no, obie (and the ballet dancer) cannot tell you that directly either !

but ask yourselves now: when before in the history of the usa have by-bribe-only senators and representatives from both parties been compelled to show the nation almost daily how disgustingly venal and callously indifferent to the well-being of the nation they are ?

don't you guys/gals sniff the huge opportunity here that is expanding almost daily ?_ that's the chance that obama's election and presidency are offering the left, i.e., a political and media environment that is propitious for a huge mobilization that can foil the reelection of many, if not most, of the by-bribe-only demobliRat senators and representatives.

but no, armchair-warrior spontaneo-leftist idiots prefer to whine hysterically that their --formely secretly beloved-- daddy obama is not going on TV to wave valiantly his finger and shout very loudly and angrily at the bad guys (and attain nothing).

obama is only at his 1st term and cannot force the reform of anything unless he can hide behind congressmen by saying "i accept this new legislation passed by congress bla bla bla"._ he cannot become the ultra rich's sole problem and so tell them that by eliminating him they would be fine (and they would, since demobliRat senators and representatives wouldn't resign if obama were taken out by some "patriotic" assassin)!

without "change" coming to congress to chase away by-bribe-only senators and representatives, obama must play minimalist and wait for his 2nd term (since as of now the hysterical screeds by blinded-bull hotheadish spontaneo-leftist idiots have not changed the fact that the incumbent president remains heavily favored to win re-election; but please let's not work towards changing this, let's work instead towards screwing by-bribe-only senators and representatives!).

we shall ask more from obama but only after his 2nd term will be a certainty or, before, only after congress is finally cleansed._ there are indeed perhaps only 10 senators who could vote for mildly anti-ultrarich policies right now, certainly not 59.9999 (plus snow, etc., yeah right!).