Wanna Silence Debate? Arrest Your Opponents

Via Democracy Now

Doctors, Activists Confront Senate Panel for Ignoring Single-Payer Healthcare

On Capitol Hill, a group of doctors and activists directly challenged Democratic senators Tuesday for their refusal to discuss single-payer healthcare. The action came at a Senate Finance Committee meeting on healthcare reform. None of the fifteen witnesses called to testify support single payer, and the committee’s chair, Senator Max Baucus of Montana, has dismissed single payer as “off the table.” One by one, eight single-payer advocates stood up to challenge Baucus and call for single payer.

Mark Dudzic: “Unions that have endorsed single payer, why are their voices not being heard? Every healthcare lobbyist in America is at the table. When are the American people going to be heard? We need healthcare now! Put single payer on the table now!”

Adam Schneider: “We need to have to have single payer at the table. I have friends who have died, who don’t have healthcare, whose healthcare did not withstand their personal health emergencies. It’s only when the people that are living in the park and the people that are living on Park Avenue have the same healthcare that everybody will have high-quality healthcare. Single payer now!”

All eight single-payer advocates were arrested. The action was organized by the groups Single Payer Action and Healthcare-NOW!

Now, THAT'S how you handle dissent in the Congress of a democracy, if your constituents embarrass you: Lock the fuckers UP! That'll larn'em...

One theory I have heard as to why the Big Three are now the targets of the united CorpoRat vilification campaign is that, for economic reasons, they had more or less signed on with the Universal Health Care agenda, and were therefore going to be destroyed for their apostasy...

P.S: Jawbone had a piece on this protest/arrest, yesterday up at Corrente, with a vid.