By blogging on a certain website, we help to legitimize its viewpoint. We generate advertising revenue for the site through our own hits and through hits that are a result of responses to our posts from others. We contribute to any reputation the site may have for being especially renowned and important. We contribute to the personal reputation of its editors and founders and help their voice extend further and sound louder than it might if we stayed away. In exchange, we get a place to share our views and learn about others.
I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that the views being presented right now on health care at Daily Kos are, at least at this time, doing more harm than good in the fight for reform. First among my concerns is the total failure by the editors to promote any kind of national health care system, which could but does not necessarily have to be Medicare for All. Given public opinion polling showing that a majority of the public probably would favor Medicare for All given the choice, the current monotone focus on the public option is simply a red herring that does more to hurt the fight for real reform than to help it. Secondly, even this focus is not what it claims to be. As Kip Sullivan has said, it's a "bait and switch."
Raise your glass to the hard working people
Let's drink to the uncounted heads
Let's think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead.
--"Salt of the Earth," The Rolling Stones
America is starving for leadership, but we're getting leaderliness instead. Two excellent recent Quick Hits by John Halle serve to highlight this problem, which deserves a wider discussion of the broader failure involved. The first was "Kos on Protests"
Kos on Protest (John Halle)
Wondering why there are no protests?
Here's one reason: Kos say he doesn't like 'em.
"They bring out the wackos" spake the pwog blog guru.
Thus further insuring that Obama's presidency continues its trajectory towards abject failure.
The second was "Change vs. Changiness", citing an excellent diary at A Tiny Revolution, "What A President With Genuine Courage Looks Like", that vividly contrasts the leadership styles and substantinve intentions of Bolivia's Evo Morales and Barack Obama. Morales recently undertook a five-day hunger strike to pressure the Bolivian legislature to pass legislation giving greater electoral power to Bolivia's underclass.
Even though our Great Orange Overlord says Ugh to Dennis, we know better! It's not a rebellious streak. It's that we've looked at what Dennis is about!
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