http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/05/17/news/state/27-activists.txt
Gist of the geography: Baucus IS feeling heat all over the state in some REALLY tiny places.
Y'all can Google local coverage in the "big cities" like Missoula, Helena, Bozeman, Butte, Great Falls your own dang selves. Here is a selection of stuff from smaller burgs.
http://www.ravallirepublic.com/articles/2009/05/27/news/news33.txt
The search http://www.ravallirepublic.com/shared-content/search/?req=search&q=Baucus+health+care
I'll have to finish poking around later. Baucus is feeling the heat at home; would be nice for there to be synergy with pressure from elsewhere.
My sense: social welfare IS reformist but it tends to happen at key moments when things are broken or desparate on a colossal scale.
Plus, despite the one doctor's claim in Hamilton, the US does NOT have the best healthcare system in the world. In terms of both costs and outcomes we are PATHETIC.
Rant off.
DC
On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:15 AM, Wojtek Sokolowski <swsokolowski at yahoo.com>wrote:
>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 6/3/09, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> > From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
> > Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Baucus to Meet with Single-Payer Advocates
> > To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> > Date: Wednesday, June 3, 2009, 7:28 PM
> > Michael Pollak wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > This is guy is a study in how little public opinion
> > matters on this
> > > issue.
> >
> > Or on any other issue - until the public opinion takes to
> > the streets -
> > continuously and in not too orderly a fashion.
> >
> > That is the reason that a _serious_ movement concentrates
> > on reaching
> > and raising the level of activity of those already on its
> > side, rather
> > than on fussing around trying to 'persuade' public
> > opinion.
> >
>
>
> [WS:] I do not there is a shred of historical evidence that social
> programs - in this country and elsewhere - were enacted as a result of
> social movement, let alone street protest. In most cases, they were brought
> by reformers in the government itself. This is true even of countries that
> have much stronger labor movement and pro-labor politics, e.g. Sweden (H.
> Heclo, _Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden_ New Haven, CT: Yale
> University Press, 1974.)
>
> The problem in the US is not just the insurance companies, but the entire
> political system, especially the bipartisan monopoly and the enormous power
> of the judiciary that is on balance more sympathetic to business interests
> than to public goods.
>
> I do not think we are going to have any health reform worth its name in our
> life time for the very same reason we have not had one for the past 605 or
> so years - the political and judiciary establishment will simply kill any
> attempt to seriously change the status quo. Baucus is just the proverbial
> canary in the coal mine. Public opinion or even protest will not change
> that as it has not done so during the past 65 years. That is a pretty safe
> bet.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
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>