Speaking as an RN who nearly worked that strike (don't have a PA license) - I am pro union and support the RNs striking. I am a leftist. I am also desperate to have work. You will find that many if not most of the RNs working a strike are broke, are single parents, maybe have lost their houses, and are desperate for work. I am on unemployment because I cannot get hired - I feel now it's age discrimination (over 50 yrs). So please don't demonize RNs who work a strike. It is hard as hell to walk into a new facility and have to hit the ground running. Do you all also hate travel RNs? Some of us can barely get by and will take work whereever we can get it. We also support you and would love to have a great benefitted union job, ourselves.

It seems the nurses are going to be key now in moving the national discussion back into single payer, and what everyone knows should have been on the table, but wasn't, because the insurance ghouls.

"Truthout" huh, how about the TRUTH abOUT the vote in Brewster MA, last OCT,390 mna members out of 23000 voted at an distant site on a thursday afternoon to affiliate with NNU! 1.9% of voting members nevermind the fact
that most MNA members on a thusday afternoon are at WORK. YUP no mail in ballots you Had to be IN BREWSTER!.maybe if "TRUTHOUT" did real 'JOURNALISM" instead of echo chamber rah-rah interviews with one of the masterminds of the vote( crime) last year we (MNA NURSES) would have more respect for a clearly left wing site with an agenda which i would bet most MNA nurses find alien( see Scott Brown election). Tom Adams RN for 27 yrs, MNA, 22 yrs( still at bedside)

14:34, I sympathize with your sense of hopelessness, but I don't think what you propose is going to get anything except the Republicans back for another round. I think the best course of action is to keep trying to get better candidates out there at the local level, do the best with what we've got, one compared to the other, and strategize where Americans really do have power. Not so much at the polls, but with their pocketbooks as consumers. Let's face it, health care is, in a way, a civil war. Elections are, for the most part, bullshit. The more people deal with that directly, the more they'll have to decide whether they're willing to put down their lives or not, and drop their effing insurance or refuse to pay these bills or stop going for medical care. People are going to keep dying anyway. The point is whether or not their death is going to mean anything or get our society overall, further on, as a result of that. That, I am beginning to think, is the true spirit of "revolution." You don't have to literally pick up a gun or be violent. But you have to be willing to lay your life down. No one else can do it for you. No ones else can tell you to do it. But as far as voting is concerned, this is the big mistake of the progressive movement today. They think we can fix things if just enough people can elect a third party candidate. Or punish the 1st party by sending in the second party. Or they get so frustrated because they can't steam up the ship, so to speak. It's much easier and much less costly, believe it or not, to do it the way I am suggesting -- and mind you, I can't make anyone else do anything stupid or smart. They have to decide for themselves. Can you imagine if Americans were really seized with the fervor of the Founding Fathers? At this point, the last thing, IMV, they would do, is think about the voting polls. Did George listen when Ben Franklin went over, as a representation?

14:34, In conclusion (since your comment obviously sparked some thoughts for me .. :) ) .. Health care reform is so unforthcoming, at this point, and even if it passes, with the economy as it is, still unforthcoming -- I simply accept that I will die if something critical happens and I can't get care in time, or, I can't get care at all. So, I think more people have to face this. Not the polls. But the fact that they MAY lose their life. They MAY lose their home. So let people vote whatever the way they want. But REALIZE that this is not the road to change. Don't get riled up about the voting. Organize where change can really be effected. Die on their effing doorsteps. Dump the bodies at the door. Show up the hospitals en mass, anonymous, demanding health care as your effing right as an American without the gd health insurance companies! Don't pay your bills! Make it mean something, and do it together. Thank you for listening if you're there. Peace.