tsdek;

Reading your comments reminds me of the same debate I have had with friends on the left for decades. Articulating the ideal dream landscape does not even mow the lawn in the fight for justice. As one song says: the water is dirty but it's getting a little cleaner everyday. We havve to fight everyday for change and build on that change, year after year. In this country, revolution is for poets.

We live in a society that permits and will permit great forces of profit and conservatism to prevail so long as we on the left behave the way these interests hope and predict we will. If we demand a ten but after bloody battle can only get a five, our choice is limited to five or zero. It does no good to keep lamenting over our loss of perfection -- which we never had!

The insurance industry counts on the left to remain unwilling to create consensus because it knows that hardened positions result in zero change.

You said it all when you wrote: "On my core issues, the wars and the economy and the deficits and the debt, I see no difference. I refer to Obama as "Beige Bush."

Notwithstanding the stupid skin color reference, you have made yourself and your views irrelevant in the health care debate if you see no difference between Bush and Obama. If that is true, your true calling is to become a hermit and I hope you know that hermits don't vote. What's the use? If you can't have it all, you'll take your marbles and go back to your cave.

John