| Congressmen Bill Pascrell, Rush Holt, Donald Payne and Albio Sires deserve a standing ovation.
Before the Congressional recess, I started a series about calling our Representatives about the public option. And as fast as things were moving, our goal changed as quickly as we started - for a number of reasons. For starters, we wanted to have our Reps. commit to vote against any health care bill without a public option. And at the time, there were 2 (Holt and Payne) who committed to do so - Holt even did it on Blue Jersey Radio.
As bills passed the various House committees and the teabagging restarted, both Pascrell and Sires joined Holt and Payne in Taking the Pledge. So now, we are here, and we have a bit of a different take on things:
Instead of using a stick and "whipping the public option", a netroots-wide initiative is underway to use "carrots, not sticks", and thank those who have taken the "pledge" in the form of online donations to all members in the House who have taken the pledge.
For starters, here is the ActBlue page called They Took the Pledge that you can click on to show our 4 Reps. some love. I just donated $20 to each of them.
As my good friend, David Atkins (thereisnospoon) said the other day: A new initiative organized by Howie Klein, Jane Hamsher, my brother Dante and myself to verbally and financially reward Congressmembers who pledge to vote down any healthcare bill that does not include the public option is catching fire. The objective is to use carrots as well as sticks to achieve progressive goals. As I said in the diary kicking off this intiative at DailyKos:
Human beings are psychologically predictable creatures, much like Pavlov's famous canine. We do respond well to punishment, but we respond just as well if not better to positive reinforcement. Do nothing but beat a dog with a stick, and the dog is likelier to be aggressive than lovingly loyal. Do nothing but scream at a child, and the child will eventually fail to respond to her abusive parent. Senators and Representatives, no matter how elevated, are still just people: the rules of psychological conditioning still apply. If all we can do is scream at people who don't do what we want, eventually no one will listen to us at all.
From this initiative, one that started 3 days ago, there is already $250,000 raised from over 4,000 donors - all to show that we have the backs of those who have ours.
The media is catching on to this, as there have been a number of articles recently as well. If you care about real reform, please click here and donate whatever you can and show our 4 Reps. who have stood up for us some love. |
