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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsVan Jones: Let's Stop Trying to Please Republicans
"Insurance is what you buy when you don't know if something bad is going to happen. Maybe I'll crash my car. Maybe I won't. I don't know. So I'm going to get car insurance just in case. Everybody's going to get sick and die, so you know every single person's going to need health insurance. That's not something you can provide insurance for, that's called a service."
Full Transcript -
So my view, single-payer. The Republicans always said, no, that's too much government. So we came back and said, okay, no single-payer. How about a public option? So you'd a public program, everybody could join Medicare or compete with the private companies, too much government. We want individual responsibility. So we said, fine, you win. We'll do it your way, individual mandate. And then, they say that is a socialist government takeover. Well, hold on a second now. You're now a part of the pro-moocher caucus? You're saying it's okay for people to just dive bomb their way into the emergency room? Yeah, don't worry about it. Don't get any insurance. The government will pay for it. Now, you're like the pro-freeloader party?
This Republican Party, from my point of view, has taken the posture that any idea, even their own ideas, if they're championed by this president, they will oppose. And I think that discredits them. It's like chasing a bunny on the old dog track. They have a mechanical bunny. If you've ever been to a dog track, I'm from Tennessee, if you ever go to Memphis, they have a dog track and they have a mechanical bunny. And they open the gates and the dogs just go and try and chase that mechanical bunny. And I think those dogs probably think someday they're going to catch that bunny. They're never going to catch that bunny because the bunny keeps moving.
You're trying to chase the right to try to convince them to agree with you. They will run away from their own ideas if they think a Democrat embraces them. It was a Republican idea to have cap and trade, a market-based, business-friendly solution for carbon and climate problems. That was the Heritage Foundation that came up with cap and trade. We were saying carbon tax. To chase them, we moved to cap and trade and they moved on to don't do anything. Climate change isn't even real.
On health care, it was their idea to have an individual mandate and personal responsibility and don't have a big government single-payer system. We moved from single-payer through public option to individual mandate trying to catch them and now they say that the individual mandate is socialism. You will never catch this bunny. You will never, so what you need to do is stand for what you believe in and bring a majority around your own ideas and govern. And it's the biggest fallacy on the part of liberals is that that little hound dog running around that track is ever going to catch that bunny and that we will ever be able to compromise enough to appease the right wing in this country so they'll actually govern with us in a responsible way. They have to be defeated at the ballot box by a stable governing majority that can implement the changes that we need in this country, whether they want to participate or not.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)sheshe2
(83,860 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)back where we were so they could steal billions more in bailouts when they crash it all again.
Snake Plissken
(4,103 posts)Van Jones knows that unless he's an angry old White man, he might as well be speaking like the teachers on Charlie Brown because the Tea Baggers who run the GOP will not listen to a single word he has to say. So what exactly is the point of trying to appease them?
DissidentVoice
(813 posts)Not unless his name is Grover Norquist, ends with "Koch," Rush Limbaugh or Rupert Murdoch.
Blue Owl
(50,488 posts)gopiscrap
(23,763 posts)russspeakeasy
(6,539 posts)RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)I just piss them off, every chance I get. AND LIKE IT!
polichick
(37,152 posts)RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)polichick
(37,152 posts)gopiscrap
(23,763 posts)let them ceased to exit and go straight to hell!!!
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)It's what they're best at.
Skittles
(153,180 posts)INCLUDING Obama
frylock
(34,825 posts)Change has come
(2,372 posts)ColumbusLib
(158 posts)He is 200% right. That is all.
ffr
(22,671 posts)And with the goofs in my barely blue state, you can believe I'm on the offensive speaking my mind, just not quite so even toned.
K&R
TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)Nay
(12,051 posts)reason is that they are all in cahoots on the looting, and they are just playing games with us.
arthritisR_US
(7,291 posts)hobbit709
(41,694 posts)RandiFan1290
(6,239 posts)sendero
(28,552 posts)... finally some logical analysis that stand up to bullshit.
Democrats should be summarizing this ad nauseum at every opportunity.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)while the Obama administration told us Republicans are our partners, friends we must please, that compromise was more important than excellence.
I have never wanted to please Republicans. Speak for yourselves, Centrists.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)Where have they been? Like it is some giant fucking secret. Morphing into Reaganites wasn't the right call? Duh!
YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)bullwinkle428
(20,629 posts)should have been enough of an indication of how they intended to "deal" with PBO.
Keep in mind that the stimulus was LOADED WITH TAX CUTS and all kinds of MONEY THAT WENT DIRECTLY TO BUSINESSES!! If a Repuke president came up with this, they couldn't have voted for it to go into effect fast enough.
northoftheborder
(7,572 posts)K & R
We really need more loud mouthed liberal progressives to balance things out.
Edit: I just reread my post and it sounds rude. I just mean we need more liberal shouters!!!! Really. Not being sarcastic.
libodem
(19,288 posts)Somebody might block that gravytrain of human suffering, so cashing in on misery and death, might be more difficult. Macabre vultures.
tavalon
(27,985 posts)I think he's a smart cookie. I think we should listen to him more. If he has the President's ear, I definitely think our President should listen to him a lot.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)He resigned from his position--"green jobs' advisor"--in the Obama administration because of a Glenn-Beck-inspired uproar about past activism. Just another one of many that this administration sacrificed on the Altar of Bi-partisanship. IMO he was nothing but window-dressing anyway, which may be why he didn't fight to stay.
But yes, definitely a smart cookie.
tavalon
(27,985 posts)I hope so.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)of like-minded individuals. The fact that he was apparently willing to nominate Larry Summers for Fed chair is indication enough for me that his world view doesn't agree with mine and that he is slow to let go of old beliefs/assumptions, even after they have proved unworkable.
I am grateful that he is apparently now aware that the Tea Partiers are crazy and are running the show in the House.
polichick
(37,152 posts)runfastandwin
(5 posts)If Michelle Obama would start a deep-breathing is good for you crusade, they'd come out against breathing. Hopefully then at least some of them would drown in their own bile.
yourout
(7,532 posts)Mosaic
(1,451 posts)Democrat and Democratic Socialist in the 21st century should, and must become the new 2 party system.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)When the president tossed Jones under the bus, I knew the republicans were going to kick his ass every time.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)bvar22
(39,909 posts)....but circle the wagons to protect conservatives like Liar Clapper.
James Clapper: Obama stands by intelligence chief as criticism mounts
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/12/james-clapper-intelligence-chief-criticism
What a waste of all that dry powder.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)What he didn't say is that if you keep moving the goal posts so that you continually undermine your own positions, eventually you have nothing left to stand on. That is why so many people are fleeing the party right now. How can you believe in "nothing"? It's a lesson for both sides to learn. We need to learn to stop chasing the rabbit, and they need to learn that a strategy of evasion is not a strategy at all.
dorkzilla
(5,141 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,405 posts)Thanks for the thread, babylonsister.
OldRedneck
(1,397 posts)February 1974, Nixon's proposal for national health insurance.
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/September/03/nixon-proposal.aspx
DO NOT tell your GOP friends about this . . . could lead to their heads exploding, mass suicides . . .
DissidentVoice
(813 posts)The Democratic Party has far, far, far too long been trying to please Republicans (who cannot be pleased anyway) and becoming "GOP-Lite" and "GOPMEtoo" thanks to the infiltration of the DLC.
leftstreet
(36,111 posts)Beautifully stated!
Thanks for posting this