Silence Isn't Golden: Keep Demanding Healthcare. Loudly.

By Nicole Belle

I spent a lot of time thinking about the metrics behind the article last week that Obama was upset at Democratic activists fighting for the public option. And there were two things that occurred to me: 1) first and foremost, any lede generated via Ceci Connolly should be taken with a grain of salt; and 2) we're getting under the skin of the congresscritters and making them very uncomfortable.

Think about it.

Here's the scenario as I see it: some moderate Democratic congressperson who has been trying to placate the special interests in their district--be it health insurance companies or lobbyists--complains to Obama that the calls they've been fielding are just not nice--after all, a huge majority of Americans want minimally a public option and are getting pretty testy at the corporatist response of the Dems. Obama pats the congressperson on the shoulder and commiserates, "Yes, I wish you didn't have to deal with those calls," without really addressing the substance of the calls. Constituents being nasty on the phone are a pain to deal with, even if their complaints are completely valid. That congressperson (or his/her aides) go running to the very eager Ceci Connolly to spin it that Obama wishes that these activists would leave the Beltway Bubble residents alone and voila! We have an article that claims Obama is irked by those pushing for Universal Health Care.

So what should our response be? I know what MoveOn, SEIU and Change Congress/PCCC have no intentions of cutting their ad buys pushing for a vibrant public option. Nor does Blue America. And you shouldn't stop demanding it either.

Courtesy of Lee Stranahan:

As inspiring as it was to watch Iranian citizens risk their lives and use new media like Twitter and YouTube to fight for better lives for themselves, it was also impossible not to have a sense that of self-consciousness about how lax and lazy we are in America about our own lives and political system. We’re not afraid of getting shot for expressing our opinions - we just have other stuff to do.

That’s exactly how the corporate owned media and lobbyist funded politicians want it, of course. They don’t actually want us too involved in the political system on issues. If we all have a general sense of helplessness and cynicism, we won’t bother to make phone calls to politicians…even on an issue as vital as health care.[..]

All of this hit me last week and I decided to do something about it. In the course of about seven days, I made 10 short videos about health care reform. I wasn’t hired to do it, I wasn’t asked to do it. I just did it because the issue is important to me personally, to my family and to my country. And I did it because I could.

More videos here.

Don't stop demanding that Washington listen to us. We ARE having an impact, even if they don't want us to know we are. We will not get what we want by remaining silent.

Source: Crooks and Liars

Keep making those phone calls!