The problem is that there is no set Obama Plan...it is still in the planning stages.  Obama is listening and learning and analyzing the optons...he has not yet came out with a formal plan.  This is why it is necessary for the public to call their reps and let them know what we want in a health care reform.  Do we want just a glorified private insurance run health program or do we want a public option that is independant of the insurance companies?  What I would like to see is a government paid for option instead of the insurance company paid for opton.  Let both compete.  We can have both and let people decide which one they want to choose.  That would be the American way, in my humble opiniion. 

Call your reps, write your reps, email your reps, email the White House.  Let your leaders know what kind of health care reform you want them to support. 

I support the single payer health care reform option that was written by
Senator Conyers and Representative Kucinich.  It is the only one that does
not favor the current insurance run health care that is currently
available to us in the United States of America.  Let the people decide if
they want to continue to support the status quo of the current insurance
run health care system or the new single payer public option known as
HR676. 

The people voted for President Obama because he promised them change. 
Let's see the change.  It is time to stop listening to the other party and
time to start keeping the campaign promises that were made.  We, the
people, are counting on you to do what is right...provide health care for
all. 

I tried to watch the MSNBC video that Max included with his video and just could not stand to see what I knew would happen with the organized efforts of the Palin/republican/insurance industry emotional terrorism. That is what it is.  I had to listen to the use of that word for the last 8 years, and now I can say that is clearly applies to them. 

I just got off the phone with my elderly, blind, widowed mother. She has been a Democrat her whole life. Church going, pro-choice, pro gay marriage, live and let live, never missed an election, loves Obama. In a quivering voice, she talked about the "granny death penalty" as "wrong" and as "Nazi". She is really smart. She knows the tactics, knows history, and if she is afraid, there are a lot of elderly not sleeping well. How dare they do this, and how dare we not stand up to it.

Debbie

Being bullied to death, should this be a crime? 

Maybe it's not first-degree murder, but it is in my opinion, a definable aspect of homocide.

Language is a powerful tool.  The Bush-Palin crowd knows this, which is why Bush named his imperialistic, fascist Patriot Act just that, The Patriot Act, instead of calling it what it really is, The Silencing the Public through Covert Domestic Terrorism and Psych-Ops Act. In other words, COINTELPRO on a bucket of steriord...'cause that's all it is.

But back now to the subject of language.

I get paid for my language, as a writer to a national arts magazine.  So, I fully understand the power of words.  Words equal money--having also a direct effect on what people see when they look in the mirror.

Therefore, in language is abused, say in the same way sex is abused (as in rape) shouldn't it be considered a crime?

It is in Canada and other places, which is why, for instance, hate media smucks like Limbaugh and Oreilly are prohibited from syndication.

I'm not sure how the courts define, in lawyer language, verbal-emotional abuse, but whatever they call it, it is not tolerated.  It is not considered a deserving aspect of civil society.

I'm with them on that, and I have to agree with Debbie when whe calls the kind of scare tactics that the Palin-Bush-Rove crowd has been using to molest the healthcare debate, emotional terrorism.  Because that's exactly what it is.

Bullying--emotional terrorism--is evil, and it causes harm.  We prosecute for sexual harassment, why don't we prosecute for mental abuse and emotional terrorism; politically motivated or otherwise?

Here's a link to just one of many stories about a person, in this case a child, who was emotionally terrorized to death.  And below is a bit of commentary from Dr. Mercola, who if you haven't heard of him, you definitely need to get hip to his site.  Dr. Mercola says that emotional trauma is public enemy #1 when it comes to health.  And let me just say, Mercola is not a psychiatrist, he's a nutritionist--physician.

He says:

"Any traumatic experience has the potential to linger in your mind for a lifetime. Once there, these memories can cause you to withdraw from others, feel helpless, have flashbacks … in other words they can completely control and overtake your life.

Call it

And perhaps even more so.

You see, you can have the perfect diet, the perfect exercise schedule and an ideal life; but if you have lingering unresolved emotional conflicts, you can still become very sick."

The entire article can be found here.

Okay...there it is.  And too, to look at this is a very straight-forward way, ask yourself.  If one of your neighbors poisoned the neighborhood water supply with a arscenic (not all at once, but slowly over a couple of years) and it caused people to get sick, but not necessarily die right away, would that be a crime?

Yes, it would and is.

Sure, the people drank the water willingly, but not because they intended to get poisoned; because they needed the water to survive.  They may have put the glass to their lips, but someone else, the person who put the poison in the water, is the responsible party; to be held accountable by law.

And just a final word about sexual harassment, you don't have to be physically touched to be sexually harassed.  It can, and often is, all verbal--emotional--mental.  And, it's a serious crime.  Why, because it causes harm, just as mind-twisting, non-sexual harassment does too.