Breaking News! A People Person Discovered in Congress!

It's the morning of the Day After Weiner Socks it to Congress, calling the Republicans a "wholly-owned subsidiary of the insurance industry", and the video is going viral--I can only hope.  I'm going to do my part today to pester everybody in America about it, and I'd better not be the only one.  I'm asking--no, begging--everyone who cares about putting an end to the corporate takeover of our once-great country to join forces with the good congressman from New York.  (Okay, it's New York.  I know, I know. . .we here in the hinterlands don't CARE how they do it in New York.  But this guy gets us.  He cares about us.  He actually is--dare I say?--one of us.)

Rep. Anthony Weiner (Big D-NY) has been one of my heroes for a long time now.   His passion, his outrage over corporate excesses and governmental indifference is inspiring and always entertaining.


He is smart and funny and absolutely sure of his positions on everything.  He wants Single Payer and he makes no bones about it.  Medicare for All.  But he's open to a Public Option, if that's what they're going to settle for.  As long as it leads to Single Payer.  What he's totally, rabidly against is Business as Usual.  Oh,  how he's railed against it.  Sometimes he gets close to looking like Jimmy Stewart at the end of that long filibuster scene in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", and I suffer with him.  Life can be hard for defenders of the people these days.

But my man Anthony rose above even himself yesterday, and today I celebrate and revel in his outrageously over-the-top outrage.  It's about time.  I love that man!

So in this clip are my two favorite people's people:  Anthony Weiner and Rachel Maddow.  The very nature of this video ensures hate mobs going after it with a vengeance.  Who cares?   This is for US:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Health Care - A Condition, not a Commodity

Let's get on with it, Mr. President. We're up the proverbial creek with spaghetti as our paddle. This health care thing could have been the crossing of the Delaware, the turning point in the next American Revolution — the moment we put the mercenaries to rout, as General Washington did the Hessians at Trenton. We could have stamped our victory "Made in the USA." We could have said to the world, "Look what we did!" And we could have turned to each other and said, "Thank you."
As it is, we're about to get health care reform that measures human beings only in corporate terms of a cost-benefit analysis. I mean this is topsy-turvy — we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.
 Bill Moyers, September 5, 2009

This is Saturday night on the Labor Day weekend, and I have no illusions about anybody stopping whatever they're doing to read this, so I won't take long.

Bill Moyers has been tireless in his efforts to get through to the President the importance of universal, equitable health care.  This isn't something he--or we--can afford to put off.  Millions are without health care, millions are without jobs, millions are without homes, millions are without money.  If this isn't the time to push for health care as an inalienable right for all Americans, I don't know when that will be.

I wrote a letter to President Obama asking him to read the transcript and/or watch Bill Moyers' clip:

I have talked about labor issues and health care on my own blog, as have thousands of others, but I'm writing this today to beg you to watch and read what Bill Moyers said on his program last night.


http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2009/09/bill_moyers_on_obamas_moment.html#c259311

President Obama, we need at LEAST a public option. Please stop letting the insurance providers set our health care policy. They've bamboozled and defrauded us long enough. Why on earth would you even think of rewarding them yet again?


You made promises about health care that encouraged millions of us to trust you, to vote for you, to work for you. With so many millions underpaid or out of work, we cannot afford to make weak compromises on the health issue. You need to be strong now, and you need to know that we're with you. People are suffering and you can make it right. Remember that when you give your speech on Wednesday night.

Not exactly Moyers quality, but I figure if each of us lets him know in our own words how we feel about the coming health care compromises he'll know it's not all teabaggers and townhallers out there letting their voices be heard.

Write him here and do it before Wednesday:  (I know it's a holiday, but it's a holiday commemorating and celebrating the American work force, past and present.  Do this for them  Please)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Ramona

(Cross-posted at Talking Points Memo here.)