Take our country back? (0.00 / 0)

How so ....... by writing the very senators and congressmen who are tied to big business and the wealthy?

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by: wjbill @ Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 13:37:20 PM UTC

What's especially galling here (0.00 / 0)

is that the Republicans, who are more tied than the Democrats to the corporations that are making a hash out of this country, are better able to tap into the populist anger that should be falling on them.

That tea-bagger fellow in Upstate New York who was yelling at Steny Hoyer yesterday said "I know you're lying - I may not have the sophisticated language, but I can tell you're lying" may have been wrong about the details but he wasn't wrong about the larger issue.

Almost twenty years ago, William Greider asked in a book "Who will tell the people" and for twenty years NO ONE has leveled with the people.  Offshoring of manufacturing and even high-tech jobs, and nothing but pabulum about retraining.  Health Insurance providers who lie at you from every turn, take your money until you're sick.  Government which in too many places is viewed as an insider hustle (Take Illinois, please!)

While the Republicans are for the most part out and out kleptocrats, the Democrats are also far too compromised by their ties to the kleptocracy to ever take a clean shot at it.  That's why we have to place our hopes in a watered down public option that, at best, offers a far off road to possible improvement.  Our side promises so much and delivers so little.  Their side promises nothing, and delivers it.  Which is worse?  It should be clearer but the Democrats can't make it so.

I think it is significant that Democrats have now been forced to target the insurance industry as the villain here, instead of the previous fiction that they were responsible negotiating partners.  That is the only way we can come out of this fight in a position that's any better than when we started.

But this is one messy battle.  If you've ever been in a strike, you realize that the esprit de corps you come out of it with is more important than the economic gains you made or losses you avoided.  That is the case here and things won't get better soon, if at all, but we can't avoid the fight.

 

sTiVo's rule: Just because YOU "wouldn't put it past 'em" doesn't prove that THEY did it.

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by: sTiVo @ Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 14:59:54 PM UTC

The game of political chess was going to be won by the party (0.00 / 0)

who cements an alliance with the libertarians.

The Obama Democrats had a chance but have spent the last 7 months dissing libertarians, left and right.

Why on earth would they not tilt back towards the GOP just to humble the Democrats?

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by: Paul Goodman @ Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 15:06:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Purge the Glibertarians and we can talk (4.00 / 1)

Libertarians have allowed their public face to be represented by corporate shills and 2nd Amendment absolutists and people willing to subordinate themselves to the National Security regime.

I am sure you can find some principled exceptions but I don't remember some huge pushback from self-identified public libertarians on the Patriot Act or to  claims to unlimited wartime powers by the Arbitrary Executive.

How do you cement an alliance with a group that collectively seem to believe that the highest form of patriotism is Tax Resistance? And seemingly disdain the whole idea that we have a Social Compact?

"Don't Tread on Me!! Unless you're AT&T!!! (then its okay)"

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by: Bruce Webb @ Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 16:37:10 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This is just plainly on the money. (0.00 / 0)

How do you cement an alliance with a group that collectively seem to believe that the highest form of patriotism is Tax Resistance?

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

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by: HousesofProgress @ Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 17:39:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Buckley sent the Birchers to the back of the bus (0.00 / 0)

and built an effective intellectual platform for conservatism.

What we have now is making Buckley spin in his grave.

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by: Paul Goodman @ Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 15:02:41 PM UTC

But he kept the States' Rights people up front (4.00 / 1)

Buckley allowed his conservatism to mold itself around the concept of white privilege and in defense of maintaining religion at the core ('God and Man at Yale'). In doing so he aligned himself quite explicitly on the side of Burke and against Voltaire and so a conscious agent on the behalf of Reaction which was explicitly organized around the slogan of "King and Church".

That Buckley intellectually banished the Birchers impresses me no more that Hitler's suppression of the SA during the Night of the Long Knives. While initially key to gaining power, after a while the Brownshirts just got embarrassing.

We are seeing some of that same dynamic with the Birthers today. Like the Birchers and the SA before them they are becoming obstacles to Conservative desires to gain or in this case regain power.

But from what I see Buckley's distaste for the Bircher's and their later counterparts in movement conservatism was more based on issues of class than fundamental differences in goals. Paleocons were and are just tools to be used and discarded as needed by the King and Church Tories. And Buckley was Tory to the core.

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by: Bruce Webb @ Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 16:59:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Bukre not a fervent supporter of King George (0.00 / 0)

I am not sure it's accurate to say that Burke was a fervent supporter of King George. I thought Burke was a frequent critic of British policies toward the American colonies that led to the Revolution.    

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by: greenwood63 @ Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 17:12:52 PM UTC

Kinda. (0.00 / 0)

He was a critic of some British policies, but not the monarchy itself. And in later years wrote passionate defenses of monarchy and tradition.  

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by: Mike Lux @ Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 21:48:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

So, tell me again, why should progressives, liberals, the Dem "base," etc (0.00 / 0)

...support the for-profiteer healthcare denial -- uh, I mean, "insurance" -- industry through more subsidies (Romneycare-writ-large mandates, "public option" dumping ground for unprofitable clients, etc), and criminalizing single-payer attempts by states, as well as pleasing Big Pharma, Tauzin and Harry&Louise by maintaining the rapacious over-pricing that victimizes Americans?

In other words, what's the Newspeak from the WH and the rest of the D leadership and their apologists that we're supposed to swallow, instead of resisting?

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by: nasrudin @ Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 17:15:24 PM UTC

I'll tell you (4.00 / 1)

if you'll tell me why YOU think there's so much resistance being ginned up to Obama's plan by people opposed to any change of the system?  And don't tell me they're all single-payer devotees.

"Public Option" has not been a good strategy because the Insurance Industry isn't fooled and they are no more interested in a slow death than a fast one.  But that doesn't mean there's no value in even some of the weakest proposals out there.  If we got "no discrimination based on pre-existing conditions" and nothing else, can you tell me that a lot of people wouldn't be helped by that.

I agree with you that pushing for Single Payer would have gotten better results.  I don't agree that you can "sit this one out" waiting for the next wave that's going to finally bring single payer in.  If that was true why didn't we see serious pushes for Single Payer any year between 1995 and 2009?

I didn't create this landscaping.  I just have to live in it.

sTiVo's rule: Just because YOU "wouldn't put it past 'em" doesn't prove that THEY did it.

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by: sTiVo @ Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 19:19:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

"sit this one out"...? (0.00 / 0)

Perhaps I haven't been clear. I actively oppose the current  bill, for the reasons listed, and have no intention of sitting this one out.

I've been a supporter of Physicians for a National Health Program for over 35 years, despite single-payer being a huge compromise for me (socializing ONLY the insurance component, without socializing medical education and training, research, pharmaceuticals, equipment, everything including direct care).

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by: nasrudin @ Thu Aug 06, 2009 at 03:18:21 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

different theories (4.00 / 1)

Those of my fellow progressives who believe single payer is the only answer, and those of us like myself who support the public option, have different theories of change. As far as I can tell, the former's theory of change is to only support the best policy, which is single payer. Those of us in the latter camp believe we are not going to get single payer passed all at once, now or anytime soon, and that the public option approach will both force insurers toward better treatment of people, and gain in popularity over the years, allowing for single payer sooner than just losing again and again, and making no progress at all.
The point by stivo below is important: we have made no progress whatsoever since losing the health care fight in '94. We have made no progress at all on it since it was first introduced by John Dingell's father in the 1940s. We need a different strategy.

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by: Mike Lux @ Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 21:59:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

"...the only answer..." (0.00 / 0)

I don't believe single-payer is the "only" answer -- I believe the best policy is fully socialized medicine, and socializing only the insurance component of the current system is a LONG way from my values. Yet I'm willing to compromise -- even in the voting booth, by voting for capitalist reformers, as I've done many times.

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by: nasrudin @ Thu Aug 06, 2009 at 03:24:42 AM UTC

[ Parent ]