We’re in a very high pressure situation at the moment and we need more ideas and concepts and plans to iterate through, so people can really soak it in and eventually settle in on the thing they feel will be acceptable change for the better.

There is a danger they’ll simply be overwhelmed and reject the discussion altogether. That’s where some leadership (over the discussion, not the outcome) is useful.

Where the issue begins to be resolved is when a lot of people begin to agree on what ideas are useful and good or bad. Somewhat after that a concept is likely to emerge/crystalize. At that point somebody will shout Eureka and claim they invented something new and wonderful.

It’s an odd psychological phenomena, but a big idea or concept usually emerges from the foundation of many ideas and experiences, but we somehow conceive of the big idea as the inspiration and foundation for what follows.

A caveat is that having the big idea isn’t and shouldn’t be seen as *the end*. Even from that point of structure one can have more ideas and experiences which lead to another later big idea that’s even better.

Don’t let your ideas own you, use them like tools … keep sharpening the axe.

BTW, did y’all hear they have found traces of cocaine in Hong Kong produced Red Bull?

Heh

HCAN deliberately censors news on single payer, despite the progressive orientation of many of the groups that — prematurely and hopefully now to their regret — signed on to the coalition and, more to the point, despite the fact that single payer is making genuine news.

Scroll through the archives of HCAN’s “news blog” if you don’t believe me. On May 5 and then again on May 12, doctors, nurses, and other advocates were dragged out of Baucus’s Finance Committee health care hearings in handcuffs. Not a single item on this on HCAN’s “news blog.”

On May 22, Bill Moyers devoted an entire hour to single payer. Plug “Moyers” into HCAN’s search engine and you find…nothing! A coalition of supposedly progressive organizations blows off BILL MOYERS, for chrissakes! What goddamn nerve.

This week’s hearing of the House HELP subcommittee, the first hearing ever devoted to consideration of the HR 676 single payer bill with 80 cosponsors, evaded mention entirely on the HCAN’s “news blog.”

Also this week, in countering AMA’s resistance to reform, Rosenbaum notes that a “significant minority” of AMA’s membership supports single payer, which he calls a “more radical version of reform” than the one HCAN supports. In fact, he neglects to note that the very report he cites regarding the significant minority of AMA members also notes that 59% of physicians overall support single payer.

The problem with HCAN treating single payer like an embarrassing pothead uncle nobody wants to talk about is that this leaves the right wing and insurance apologists free to demonize single payer. Giving single payer the Sister Souljah treatment allows HCAN to position itself to “centrists” and Rethugs as representing the “reasonable” voice of reform. This despite of, really in contempt of, the widespread support for single payer among its coalition’s constituent groups.

HCAN’s response (expressed in some comments Rosenbaum has made in Oxdown comment threads) mirrors that of the Organizing for America dude I wrote about here and is always some variant of, “Hey, we’re with you. We support single payer too, but we’re just being pragmatic about what’s achievable. Why are you mad at us?”

And my response is, Fuck you. Stop marginalizing us. Stop ignoring us. Stop distancing yourselves from us to placate centrists and right-wingers. Follow the more honest approach of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which says forthrightly, We support single payer whole-heartedly and without embarrassment, but if we can’t get it now, we’re pushing for the most robust, single-payer-like public option we can possibly get, with an eye toward transitioning to full single-payer, or something like it, down the road.

DrSteveB: Strong Public Option: 100% Coverage & Cost Control

Namaste

think i’m going to post drsteveb’s diary on stark’s public option proposal, and then hit the sack….