> For a start, I'd like organized labor to sign onto single-
> payer and throw serious resources into it. Finance ballot
> provisions, extend or withhold endorsements (and cash),
> staff phone banks, mobilize the membership, etc.
I think this discussion is getting somewhere, but I still don't think you've answered my thornier questions. What do you think of the starkly different strategic choices I posed in my previous post? Union strategy on health care -- and movement strategy on health care -- could roughly conform to one of those strategic choices or the other.
I differ with some of Nathan's emphases in this discussion, e.g., his contention that single-payor arguments are being used by the right. But I think that he is reacting to your lack of specificity, and you in turn are unfairly interpreting some of the things he says as provocations. (Not to mention the fact that I think your primary purpose throughout this discussion has been to defend your own right to kvetch and to out-left everyone else, while rarely suggesting specific solutions to movement problems.) But when he asks you which campaigns unions should pull back on in order to pour millions into a single-payor "campaign" that you readily admit has no prospect of short-term success, that is a legitimate question, and it is not one that you have answered.
Refer to my previous post for my more general, Marvin Gandall-style observations on the dynamics of social movements (and perhaps it should go without saying that I think Marvin is right).
- - - - - - - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
Tell no lies, claim no easy victories