Pandey writes: "According to wildlife expert Alan Wright, the early emergence from hibernation isn't good for the bears or humans."
A bear. (photo: Getty Images)
Why Bears Are Coming Out of Hibernation Early
16 March 20
rom Russia and Finland to Canada and the US, there's been multiple sightings of bears around the world.
That might not sound too weird - but bears aren't normally spotted this early in the year, which makes this pretty unusual.�
They usually stay in hibernation - which is like a deep sleep that helps them to save energy - and survive the winter without eating much.
But Europe has just had its hottest ever winter - and the US also experienced warmer temperatures in December and January - which has been linked to climate change.
All of which has caused bears to be on the prowl a bit earlier than normal.�
According to wildlife expert Alan Wright, the early emergence from hibernation isn't good for the bears or humans.
What's the impact on bears?
Alan, who works at the Lancashire Wildlife Trust, says the big issue for bears is around the availability of food.
"They'll be looking for it and there won't be a lot around - because a lot of the plants and smaller animals might not be there to feed them."
Bears need food quickly after coming out from hibernation because soon, it'll be breeding season.�
He says there'll be "a lot of cubs" that will be born with parents who won't be strong enough to feed them "the right kind of food".
"They could definitely suffer," he adds. "It means a lot of cubs might not make it through spring."
That could have knock-on effects like greater bear and human interaction, which would be potentially bad news for humans too.
"Normally a bear will not want to engage with humanity, they just want to do their own thing," Alan says.
But if there isn't enough food, they'll look further afield - which means getting closer to humans.
"They'll be going into areas where humans have food and they'll try to get that food."
"You hear of bears trying to break into cars in some areas - and if they're hungry, they'll go out looking a bit more."
Alan says that only happens if the bears become "really desperate" - which comes from hunger and the need to feed their young.
Last year, a Russian region declared a state of emergency over dozens of polar bears looking for food in areas where humans live and attacking them.
"Bears should really only be in zoos and obviously wildlife areas where humans are a good distance away."
The bears in the Moscow Zoo emerged from hibernation early but officials had been expecting it - and had measures in place to make sure they could cope with the early exit.�
Female bears with cubs usually don't emerge until after April.
'It's scary - but sad and desperate'
Alan says if humans come into contact with bears, they should stay away.�
"They won't be looking to attack humans unless the humans actually get in the way."�
The best thing to do is get out of the way and call the relevant authorities. The National Park Service in America also suggest keeping bear spray as a deterrent and staying calm.�
"I certainly wouldn't advise anybody getting too close to them because they're fearsome."
But for Alan, people should be more worried about the bears than themselves.
"I wouldn't want people to be too frightened of bears coming out of hibernation. It's scary but also very sad and desperate too.
"I think what we should do is understand why they're doing that and the kind of situations they face."
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I've heard that, too. I'm not 100 percent sure it's true, but if it is, it's one more example of Obama leading his party on only to leave it in the lurch.
Plainly this is a man whose feet have to be kept to the fire if he's to deliver on the soaring promises he makes.
But, as I posted elsewhere in this thread, that any bill passed in a miracle. I do agree that Obama should have fought for the public option and single-payer more; but, in the end, I just don't see how anything other than the ACA passes. That's especially even more so after Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.
The bottom line is that American opinions toward government are going to have to significantly change. Right now too many Americans don't have a positive view of the government and think that it can do nothing right. Until those opinions change the public option, let alone the public option, are nonstarters politically.
I agree that the ACA is imperfect and wasn't the best bill, but it was much better than the alternative--al lowing the current system to stay. And someone who lost a relative who didn't have insurance, while some of you complain about the ACA, it is a big deal to me.
You can get angry, complain, and blame anyone and everyone under the sun for that fact. What some people here continue to ignore is that all previous efforts at getting ANY universal healthcare bill had failed up until the ACA passed. That ANY bill ended up passing is a miracle.
I will agree that the messaging and the negotiating strategy were poor. No disagreement from me on that point. But at the end of the day, given where the politics on that issue were at the time, I just really don't see how anything else could have emerged.
For some reason, President Obama (the 3-dimensional chess player) is so stupid that he had to become president to have this understanding.
I'm sorry, but I don't disrespect the president's intelligence as much as you do.
At the end of the day, where did the votes come from? Republicans?
Politics isn't the art of doing the easy. The ACA wasn't easy. Repugs still haven't given up on destroying it (by the way, they "don't have the votes" to destroy it, but they're still trying).
Politics is the art of LEADING.
If he didn't have the votes, why did he promise it on the campaign trail? No matter how many times you avoid that fact, it won't go away.
Once again, you have to answer. Is he an idiot, or a liar?
I also think that Obama was woefully idealist in his approach to governing. I think that part of him believed "that he could change Washington".
I guess that, when it comes to the ACA, I view it from the prism of someone who lost a relative who didn't have insurance. And I'm grateful that it passed so that other people might avoid that fate.
Yes I wanted the perfect like you did, but I'll gladly accept the good--or just the good enough.
When you say, "where were you going to find the votes for it", be honest. You're not talking about Republicans voting against it. You're talking about Democrats.
And you're absolutely right. We have the ACA, instead of actually fixing our health care problems, because too many Democrats are also in bed with the insurance industry.
No Republicans cooperated on the ACA and they were never going to. I think Obama wasted precious months trying to convince both Senators Grassley and Snowe to support healthcare reform. From the beginning it was clear they were going to be no votes.
Again, if you want single-payer, you're going to have to significantly change Americans' opinions of the government. Most Americans don't have a positive opinion of the government or think it can do anything right. Today single-payer evokes cries "socialized medicine", "healthcare rationing", and "losing the right to pick your own doctor".
I wanted single-payer. I support single-payer but enough other Americans don't right now. Maybe in 15-20 that might change. I've listed the reasons in another post in this thread.
I pretty much agree with your posts on this issue, Rain17. As for changing opinions of the gov't, the only way that's going to happen is with major campaign finance reform. We'd be fools to trust gov't now, when practically everybody in it is up for grabs by whoever gives them the most money. There was already too much money in politics, and then CU came along and made the whole problem infinitely worse. Trust gov't? Yeah, when pigs fly! Or when campaign finance reform removes the piles of cash from the process. And yes, the Dems are in hock to their benefactors too, though probably not to as great a degree. Republicans are flagrant in their ideology, policies and messaging -- it is perfectly clear they either really agree or adopt their positions to please their puppet-masters. Dems not quite so openly, and they don't receive as much support, but they still get too much to make really big waves that might actually accomplish some of their stated goals.
We have a rotten system, and until we get the big bucks out of it, I don't see how anything can really change.
But the right was much better at "arousing their constituency". Soon after the inauguration their groups were already airing commercials. They were better organized.
Good thing for Republicans and their brand, Reagan didn't follow your timid advice.
By 1980-1981 the right had successfully spent more than a decade arguing against government and higher taxes. They had won the messaging war. On top of that a majority of Americans blamed Carter and the Democrats for the economic malaise of the time. Coupled with the Iran Hostage crisis and inflation, Carter was perceived as such a failure that Reagan had a significant mandate.
Either make the case that "we didn't have the votes"
OR
say "the problem is messaging".
You can't have it both ways. If Obama's problem is "messaging", then you admit there's a lot more to it than the temporary appearance of how many votes "you can get".
If the votes are either there or they aren't, then messaging isn't an issue. If messaging matters at all, that means, by definition, that it IS possible to get something done and that the votes CAN be there if you're willing to fight for them.
Obama DID have the votes needed to get elected, didn't he. AND those votes were largely supplied by voters who are generally too apathetic to bother, because "finally we had a true liberal who seemed willing to fight".
The widespread viral anger directed at him from the left, comes from the fact that he campaigned FOR OUR VOTES in 2008. He didn't campaign as a grand-deal betrayer who's interested in making preemptive concessions, moving the bargaining chips 90% of the way toward Republican end goals.
He didn't bother to tell us that. He told us he'd fight. He lied.
I do agree with you that Obama has handled negotiations poorly on various issues. He handled the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations horribly. And he is wrong to continue to push for the "Grand Bargain". On both of those issues I agree with you.
Again, if you want more liberal policies, the key areas to work on are messaging and local politics. I've repeated myself several times, but the local level is often the farm team for higher offices. And it's much easier to enact policies at the local level than it is at the federal level. Also again the left would fare better if it learned effective PR techniques and messaging.
I don't see Obama as a "betrayer" because I didn't make him out into something he wasn't. I didn't see him as a Bernie Sanders or a Dennis Kuchinich. Apparently you did. And that's where the disappointment comes form.
It's far too easy to assign blame to a single personality rather than a corrupt system. I have grown weary of arguing facts with poorly informed andbitter vitriolic relatives and friends who seem to obtain ALL their information from cable news and tabloid press. It's easier to demonize all mainstreamTV news at this point. Anyone who makes vital decisions based on political ads and cable news is likely to be misinformed. Too bad so few have the spine to cast a vote for an independent candidate. At present, only a mere handful of representatives appear to be acting as populist free agents: among them, Sens. Warren and Saunders, Reps. Kuzinich and Lee. No doubt there are numerous others but their voices are drowned out by the chorus of political machine voices.
That's why messaging matters. Republicans and conservatives know how to appeal to voters like that. Democrats and liberals don't.
By May of 2009, after months of these ads running, I knew the healthcare bill was in deep trouble. By the summer, when the media focused on "death panels" and armed Tea Party supporters showing up at town hall meetings, it was clear that the bill was on life support. The right-wing groups had successfully shifted the narrative on their terms.
Where were the left-wing groups? Where were the commercials about people who couldn't get insurance, the ones who suffered financial ruination, others who died because they couldn't afford treatment, people who had their policies canceled retroactively, and so forth? Where were the ads with THEIR stories? I didn't see them.
And I don't want to hear the often-said liberal excuse that "there wasn't any money". Yes money is an issue but it's not everything. One or two decently-produc ed ads could have made a significant difference. But the pro-reform side didn't even start running ads until the summer, when it was too late.
This post from DKos epitomizes my view on the issue:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/16/815429/-No-One-Is-Going-To-Save-You-Fools
(And it's one that many people here on this site should read).
The bottom line is that the right is much better at messaging and persuasion. The left sucks at it royally. What the right can say in one or two short, brief, and to-the-point sentences, the left takes paragraphs. What's sorely missing is someone who actually understands marketing, messaging, and public relations. Most Democratic consults and liberals just don't and suck at it.
Maybe if the pro-reform side had started a messaging effort soon after the inauguration that stressed:
1) That healthcare should be a fundamental right for all Americans
2) That the insurance companies are the death panels
3) The stories of insurance company abuses
4) What the public option would have offered
Maybe the final outcome might have been different. Instead all we heard about were "death panels" and "the government takeover of healthcare".
From an excellent article by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, MD. entitled "Obamacare: The Biggest Insurance Scam in History" http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19692-obamacare-the-biggest-insurance-scam-in-history (Btw, you should have them on your show):
"What most people did not understand at that point was that the public option was not only a non-solution to the health care crisis but that it was not even destined to be in the final legislation. Senator Max Baucus reported in March 2009 that it was a "bargaining chip" to get health insurers to accept regulations. Glenn Greenwald exposed this more fully when the Democratic leadership in the Senate actively worked to keep the public option from being included in the Senate health bill. The public option was just part of the con."
I agree that the ACA isn't perfect by far, but it's probably the best that we could do given our current political system. Read my post later in the thread. I've said it a million times in threads about healthcare reform, but too many Americans are hostile to the idea of "single-payer" for the reasons I listed below. American opinions toward the government are going to have to significantly change before single-payer, let alone, the public option becomes politically viable.
The key factor here is persuasion. Right-wing groups have spent decades convincing Americans, including many liberals, that their assumptions on various public policy issues are correct. If single-payer is ever going to have a realistic chance of becoming reality an aggressive persuasion effort over the next 5-10 is going to have to take place. But in the short to medium term, given the attitudes in our current society, it is politically a nonstarter with just too many people.
As for the public option, maybe it can only be had at the state level - then grow from there. Vermont is already trying to get the ball rolling.
Daughter # 3 is in VT, Daughter #2 is in Canada, and Daughter # 1 is in France - So we know the excellent services offered, but few Americans know these experiences and the media has not been curious enough to do articles with facts - just sensations supporting biases.
To get single-payer American attitudes toward government are going to have to significantly change. You have too many Americans who believe:
1) The uninsured are all minorities and white trash on welfare who, were it not for their "irresponsible choices", such as having fancy cell phones, flat-screen TVs, laptops, and IPads, could easily otherwise afford insurance.
2) Anyway they can easily qualify for Medicaid, SSDI, food stamps, and other welfare benefits that one can get within minutes of reporting to a government office.
3) If all else fails they can go to the emergency room, which is free and where they don't have to pay.
4) I'll lose the right to pick my own doctor!
5) I'll have to wait six months for that knee replacement I desperately need.
6) Government bureaucrats, not doctors, will make all medical decisions!
7) I'll lose the right to pick my own doctor!
8) Illegals will get all the benefit at my expense!
9) I'll pay higher taxes for a program that won't benefit me.
Believe me, as someone who works in a conservative industry, I've heard these statements thousands of times. And I've even heard them from moderates.
Don't worry though. Right-wing looney politicians are perfectly happy to fill in the void and provide "leadership" of their own. The Twit Party is not "grass roots". It is a Republican ploy. In other words, even the stupidest people in American CAN be lead, if someone is willing to have ideas.
Which brings us to the Democrats, and Obama in particular...
I'm sure that if most of the lemmings decided it was not ok to jump off a cliff, Obama would be right there to agree with them.
Otherwise, I wouldn't expect him to make waves by actually trying to stop them.
Believe me, since you work in one of those conservative industries, you're unaware of the depth and level of anger toward conservative ideology that is seething through American culture right now. People in conservative enclaves always think liberals and liberal ideas don't stand a chance.
This is why we need politicians who are willing to fight for what's right, and we don't have any in this administration.
Put in comparison to Nixon. Nixon wasn't really able to do much to advance the right-wing agenda in comparison to later Republican Presidents. It wasn't really until Reagan and the first President Bush that they were able to really start pushing their ideas forward.
If you really want more "liberal ideas" the place to start is probably at the very local level. The Christian Right took over the GOP by starting off small. They won school boards, county boards, mayors offices, city council seats, county clerk offices, and dogcatcher. And it's easier to effect change at the local level.
Again it's going to take a multi-decade effort to change opinions. It took several decades to get here. It'll take just as long to change it around.
You can't honestly complain about liberals not voting for the Democratic Party, without at least acknowledging the fact that they have a very legitimate grievance against the Democratic Party.
If you want to see the Democratic Party fractured into 2 minor parties, neither of which can stand up to the Republican Party, keep burying your head in the sand and pretending there's nothing wrong.
I don't see the Democratic Party splitting in two because most left-leaning voters acknowledge that this is a two-party system that is winner-take-all . The US system is not conducive to third parties.
The brutal truth is that the liberalism advocated by most posters here at RSN is hard-sell electorally in many parts of the country. Is it always going to be like that? I don't know; but, at this point in time, it is.
The point that I've been arguing over and over again is that the solution is to organize. If you want more liberal policies the key is to lay the groundwork for them at the local level. The other key is to begin persuasion efforts using effective marketing techniques.
The point I've been making over and over is that, THAT is why Democrats NEVER get anything substantial done, unless it's basically a light version of a Republican idea.
If you want to discuss local politics, fine. But this isn't a discussion of local politics. This is about the President of the United States and Congress. Your argument that liberalism isn't allowed on the national stage is getting tiresome.
And yes the local level matters A LOT. Quietly the right took over many state legislatures, where they are aggressively implementing the ALEC agenda. And at the state level many ideas that eventually become popular nationally start there.
Local politics matters a lot because candidates who win obscure municipal offices usually run for Congress or Senate eventually. If you want more liberals elect4ed, creating a "farm team" is important.
At this point in time you are not going to get a more liberal president. You just aren't. Maybe the much-beloved Senator Warren could run for President or maybe even be in the #2 slot. But Dennis Kuchinich or Bernie Sanders aren't going to be elected president anytime soon.
I guess that I could say that someone running on an RSN-style agenda could win elections outside of places like San Francisco and other dark blue areas, but I'd be lying. At this point in time the most "liberal" Democrats you will get is someone like Obama or Clinton unless a dark horse emerges who can actually win the general election. Maybe Sherrod Brown could be competitive.
What you don't get is that the right didn't get results overnight. It took decades of hard work, something the left has not done and failed miserably at. The left continues to lose the war of messaging.
These things don't happen slowly and incrementally. They happen quickly, when national politicians MAKE them happen.
While it's true that the repubs used the christianists as boots on the ground, the right wing in general began at the school board level and worked up. At one time most governors and state legislatures were Democratic, but what are they now? And they got that way before W and his minions came along.
The other thing is that, in the state legislatures, a lot of damage is going on. Groups like ALEC quietly invested a lot of money in legislatures while the left was distracted on national issues.
Those local offices may not be sexy, but they are important for the reasons I stated above.
Your unwillingness to accept ANY culpability on the part of the Democratic Party not only defies logic, but also makes it much more difficult for people like me to keep arguing against the 3rd party morons who'd rather see Republicans win everything than soil themselves voting for the lesser of two evils.
If the Democratic Party (and its apologists) continue to be so deaf to very real complaints, and so arrogant that they're willing to just write off and insult their core voting block (actual LIBERALS), I don't expect the Party to win ANYTHING substantive in the next few DECADES while we all wait for your stars to align.
Oh wait!...
That's what's already happening, isn't it?
As for "how many more decades it will take" before we get single-payer I can't answer that. The problem, which you and other people here refuse to even acknowledge, is that it is politically a nonstarter with too many Americans. I've listed the reasons why, every time it has been proposed, it has failed miserably. Yes it polls well; but, when actual policies get proposed, support drops like a rock.
You and a lot of people here at RSN assume that most Democrats think like people here. You are only one part of the "base", not the entire base. Despite what you think, if you look at most polls, the vast majority of Democrats still approve of Obama's performance.
If you want single-payer here is what I suggested in the other threads:
1) Start organizations whose only mission is persuasion.
2) Learn effect market, messaging, and public relations.
3) Work at the very local level.
If you want a "more progressive" Democratic Party I would say that the best place to start is at the very local level. The Christian Right took over the GOP by running for school board, city council, dog catch, and other obscure municipal offices no one cared about. Those are the springboards to higher offices and the places where it is most easy to make changes.
4) stop electing electing Presidents who campaign on single-payer with no intention of actually pursuing it.
I find it strange (for lack of better word) to focus only on Fox's memo running 'public option' into the ground to remove it from the 'echo chamber'. Equally strange: the 'public option compromise' was touted as 'the way to go'. Fox made it a 'straw man' to be rubbed out of our consciousness as being an 'option' at all. The truth is, 'single payer' - which actuaries and physicians and economists all know is most effective and efficient - is not an 'option'! It is civilized, *universal* health care. In civilized, progressive countries (all but the U.S., basically), there is no such name for it. It's just 'health care' - a human right and sign of a civilized society. "Only in America" is it a commodity, not a part of normal daily life but 'merchandise' packaged by insurance companies, skimming the top, like mob 'protection'. We pay 'insurance', not to doctors but to 3rd parties. Not to Government, but to for-profit powerhouses aka insurance companies.
The truth is, 'single payer' means: one's society provides health care (not 'insurance options'). Health care. Period.
The notion of a 'public option' was (imho) step 1 in moving away from single-payer towards keeping the status-quo (insurance profiteering) option. This was early Obama, remember, conceding before even trying to negotiate a better way. For us. We lost. Again.
It is & was disingenuous, IMM, to speak of 'public option'. It must be *universal*.
1) Every American has a right to healthcare.
2) Highlighting the horror stories of Americans losing coverage from recession, retroactive cancellations, illness, and so forth.
3) Stating that the health insurance companies were the death panels.
If we ever go on the attack with progressive ideas and legislation and put the right wing on the defensive we might see some change.
We should learn from them. Reframe the discussion in progressive terms and ram it down their throats, but there is one small problem.
They have 99% of the money.
1) Someone who actually knows the principles of effective marketing, messaging, and public relations
2) Organizations whose only mission is to engage in persuasion. These organizations would be in the business of shaping ideas.
3) Experts who, at the drop of hat, can appear on TV shows and repeat well-rehearsed talking points
4) Simple, brief, to-the-point messages that people can understand and remember
That is what is sorely missing. And the "we don't have any money excuse" is BS. The left has sucked at these efforts with the funds they have had. And maybe they would get money from rich liberals if they showed they could be effective.
1) Very long waiting times for medical procedures
2) The government infringing on your right to pick your own doctor
3) Bureaucrats making medical decisions
Who in the Senate would have changed their mind on single-payer, keeping in mind that there was no way in H#ll that Bayh, Conrad, Dorgan, Lieberman, Lincoln, both Nelsons, and Pryor would have supported it? How would you have flipped their votes?
The problem here is that most American don't support "the left" as envisioned by most RSN posters. They just don't.
Think about the recent VA Gubernatorial and Attorney General races. McAuliffe had to significantly outspend one of the craziest Attorney Generals that VA has ever had. The Attorney General's race will likely come down to less 100 votes an Mark Obenshain, who advocated legislation that would have required doctors report miscarriages to the police, and Mark Herring.
Read the post that I wrote upthread. Single-payer is a nonstarter politically for the reasons I wrote above. And until those opinions change it's likely dead on arrival.
PLOT..?
Sure, its a Plot... But a more apt description/tit le would:
The Extreme, In Your Face, 'I-Got-Mine, Screw You and Everybody Else Who is a Lazy, Worthless Piece of Crap Liberal Low Life Who Is Not Like Us and Our Super Wealthy Friends Who Have a Divine Right To Be Greedy Leaders and Rulers Of America You Pathetic, Non-Wealthy-Mis fit Population of Underlings' PLOT to Stop The Public Option and Destroy any Remnants of The New Deal....
Most Americans don't support "the left" as envisioned by most RSN posters because the Democrats never educate Americans on those things or actually push for them. They're playing good cop/bad cop, all the while pushing for a Republican-lite , corporate-frien dly piece if crap that only pleases their biggest financiers - Corporate America. True progressives need to wake up to the fact that the Democratic Party isn't a progressive party - it's a business party, a corporate party.
If they were really a progressive party and they really wanted to pass progressive legislation, they'd be out there educating Americans on progressive ideas, but they don't do that, do they?
Wake up. You're being conned. There are some truly progressive representative in Congress, like Bernie Sanders, but they're far outnumbered by the Democratic corporatists.
Our only hope is through direct action and civil disobedience.
I agree that Obama compromised it away way too early. But let's also be candid about it. EVERY OTHER ATTEMPT TO PASS UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE HAD FAILED. CLINTON TRIED TO DO IT AND THE PLAN NEVER MADE IT OUT OF COMMITTEE. Nixon and Senator Kennedy came very close to doing it but couldn't get it done. Indeed, in his final days, Senator Kennedy regretted his inability to get a deal done.
I agree with you, though, on messaging and informing people. And the Democrats routinely suck at messaging and public relations. But generally the left sucks at messaging.
As for Bernie Sanders I think he's a great Senator. I like a lot of what he stands for, but I'm also realistic that he can't win outside of dark blue areas. And someone running on his platform in many other states would be electorally dead on arrival.
I'm not "being conned". The Democratic Party is far from perfect. But I also know that this is the best we can do right now at this given point in time.
"We are sorry for any difficulties you may be experiencing"
"We ask that you please bear with us".
You have everything going for you, but the hold music.
I guess that people don't remember that Clinton tried to get healthcare reform. THEIR PLAN DIDN'T EVEN GET A VOTE! AND NO PRESIDENT OF EITHER PARTY HAD BEEN ABLE TO GET ANY LEGISLATION PASSED BEFORE OBAMA. I guess that those two facts don't matter. That the ACA passed is a miracle.
And yes I will defend the Democratic Party and Obama here because, Lord knows, we could have easily Presidents McCain and Romney. I think that too many people here just have unrealistic demands that most Democrats, even the much-beloved Senator Warren, could not even come close to meeting.
Maybe, after the Clinton plan had failed, had they spent the next 16 launching a full-court press for single-payer, maybe the politics would have been more favorable by 2009. Where were the efforts at the local and state government levels to push for single-payer? They weren't there either.
And then you and others who bash Obama have the gall to blame him for not producing something that the political system simply didn't support at the time. Maybe the final deal could have been better along the margins, but you and I both know that single-payer was not going to happen no matter how loud the President was. You can get angry and bitter, but blame a large section of Americans who continues to resist what they perceive to be "socialized medicine" or "a government takeover of healthcare" to this day. Enough of those people exist to make the public option, let alone single-payer, nonstarters. That is the current reality of our political system, no matter how much you don't to believe it.
Again, had those supporting single-payer spent the next 16 aggressively pushing for their agenda, maybe the politics would have been different by 2009. They weren't. Again that the ACA passed is a miracle because, up until then, no attempt at universal healthcare had passed Congress--even during the New Deal era.
Well, if America has gotten so much more "iiberal", why have the Republicans managed to keep Congress most of the time since then? Why is someone like Bernie Sanders not electable in many parts of this country?
Again, if you were to poll most Democrats, I would guess that more than 80% approve of President Obama. Maybe you're part of that other 20%; but, if they were truly unhappy, his rating among Democrats would be significantly lower. They apparently don't share the same hostility toward him that you do. His rating among Democrats has probably fallen over the last few months admittedly, but that's probably due to the fact that his approval ratings among all groups has fallen.
If the country were as far left as you claim someone running on the RSN agenda would win. And I contend that, outside of places like San Francisco, it would very hard to elect a candidate running on the RSN agenda.
I just want you to think about the fact (that you're incapable of admitting) that CANDIDATE Obama, would have disagreed with your strategic analysis wildly.
What would you do differently going forward?
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/20371-elizabeth-warren-hillary-clintons-worst-nightmare
Read the comments AND GET INVOLVED.
I really need to hear you and "Malcolm" go at each other. I disagree and agree with both of you 50%.
This is like King Kong vs. Godzilla and I'm 10,000 screaming Japanese people.
For what it's worth, I told him what I'd do differently. I've said it many times before over the past 5 years (or so) on these threads.
This is a case where the middle (me) of two extreme opposites (you and Malcolm) is, in no way, "moderate".
Either way, it's an interesting discussion. I don't really have the time to keep up my end of it though. Read what I told him, and you'll get a pretty good summary of what I feel (all in one comment).
And, PLEASE, engage him directly, and as often as possible. You're both the "all-star" players on your own teams. I think I may be the "all-star" of my team as well (since I think I'm the only one on it).
It would do a lot for the general discussion of these threads if the two of you would just tear into each other like Japanese mega-monsters.
Maybe one of you can convince me to come over to your own extreme. Who knows?
When I get a chance, I'll check in and bring popcorn. If I have time, I'll try to keep annoying both of you too, but don't count on it.
Those making excuses for the Democrats refuse to acknowledge that they always give up without a fight.
But now, the 'SELFISH' few with a LOT of Money and Power and 'Lobby Connections' control the Political Discourse, the National Agenda and most Media Outlets in the Country which now shovel their self empowering Bullshit.
Greater Wealth and Power begets Greater Wealth and Power. So, after 30 years of this, now they have so much wealth and power that they have become openly outrageously arrogant about it and wield it evermore like a fist backed up by a tsunami of Propaganda pouring out of their MEDIA EMPIRE HOLDINGS 24/7.
They wear Flag Pins and stand in front of American Flags and spout their Patriotic Bullshit and 'Self-Made Magnificence' while screwing MANY MANY MILLIONS of their Fellow Americans they seem to have utter contempt for.
And so far, those who can see it all for what it is have not come to a point where their humanity and their financial and economic fears are outweighed by their fear of losing our Democracy to this growing, contemptuous Plutocracy.
And of course, there are the millions of (Lemming) Voters who remain conned by Corporate-Pluto cratic Media into believing what Pluto-Greedster s are selling is the pathway to greater freedom, liberty and prosperity for ALL... When of course it is anything but that.
What America is experiencing and now exporting as the Economic Model for the World is perhaps the Greatest Hoodwinking in all of Human History.
Uncivilized?
You took the words right out of my mouth. Bless you.
Liberals allow this to happen by "seeing all sides of an issue" and not realizing that one cannot "reason" with ignorance, big $$$ and power.