Ground Control To Major Rahm . . .

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Ground Control to Major Rahm . . .

Ground Control to Major Rahm . . .

Take your profane pills and put your helmet on,

Commencing countdown, engines on . . .

The White House has the bill it really always wanted.  They have their deals with PhRMA, AHIP, and the Hospitals more or less unbroken . . . they have their real goal in sight.  

The White House has their individual mandate–a law that will require those without coverage to buy from private health insurers under pain of penalty enforced by the IRS–they have their restrictions on drug reciprocation and direct drug price negotiation intact, and they have kept their word on the handshake deal that they made last spring with the medical industrial complex: no public option.

This is Ground Control,

to Major Rahm,

You’ve really made the grade . . .

In hiring Emanuel, Obama avoided the mistakes of his Democratic predecessors, who first gave the chief of staff job to besotted loyalists. Obama’s first year fell apart in large part because he didn’t follow his chief of staff’s advice on crucial matters.  Arguably, Emanuel is the only person keeping Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter.  Obama’s greatest mistake was failing to listen to Emanuel on health care.  He opposed the public option as a needless distraction. Had it gone Emanuel’s way, a politically popular health-care bill would have passed long ago, leaving plenty of time for other attractive priorities.

Like awarding Dana Milbank a Medal of Freedom, for example.  

But as Spaceship Rahm heads into the Black Hole of November at Warp Factor Nine, some earthbound observers have offered some advice in the hope of saving everyone aboard from annihilation . . .

The only way Democrats may be able to salvage November, according to Michael Moore, is to “find their courage” this week, add a public option back to the health care bill and start passing as much liberal legislation as possible.

“I can only sit here and imagine how they’re gonna run,” he said. “They were handed the ball and couldn’t take it 10 yards down the field. They’re in for a huge ass-whooping.”

Can you hear him, Major Rahm?

Apparently not . . .

This is Major Rahm to Ground Control,

I’m stepping through the door,

And I’m floating,

In a most peculiar way,

And the stars look very different today.

But I think my spaceship knows which way to go . . .

That’s a nice galaxy you’re floating through, Major Rahm.  Which one is it?

Ground Control to Major Rahm

Your circuit’s dead,

there’s something wrong . . .

Can you hear me, Major Rahm?

Can you hear me, Major Rahm?

Can you hear me, Major Rahm?

There he is,

Sitting in a tin can,

Far above us all,

Planet Earth is through,

And there’s nothing he will do.

But as Congressman Kucinich reminds us, there’s something we can do . . .

“Keep standing up for what you believe in. We should not let this moment pass without demanding more of our system, that we reject the kind of minimalism that doesn’t lead forward. It leads backwards.

We have to find the greatness, not just in each one of us, but in ourselves to call ourselves to a higher set of responsibilities and a higher degree of accountability for creating our future.  And we are selling ourselves short so often, and are enabling this system, which is so retrograde, with so much force and power and effect on our lives  

We are forgetting who we are.  

We are forgetting that this system was created by our own hands.

And by our own hands we can refashion the system to make it work for us.