politically unrealistic (4.00 / 2)

Noam Chomsky has written extensively on how the PR industry creates and limits expectations through nebulous terms like "politically unrealistic." The idea is that if you can create a conventional wisdom that makes something "politically unrealistic," that conventional wisdom becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - even though that prophecy hinges on those making the prophecy deliberately making it a reality.

yep.

and why i was so pissed off to be told over and over again this past year, by progressive bloggers no less (unlike previous years), single payer was not "politically unrealistic."

nothing, not a public option (whatever that means) and not single payer, is "politically unrealistic" until we've given it our best shot and failed.

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by: selise @ Thu Sep 03, 2009 at 21:59:59 PM UTC

Agreed. (0.00 / 0)

Which is why it's so frustrating to have to constantly read Mr. Bowers' entries pushing for something that won't help anyone instead of organizing the left to push for single-payer.  He's bought into the notion of "politically unrealistic" as much as Krugman has over climate change legislation, and given how intelligent both men are, it's dismaying.

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by: Michael Kwiatkowski @ Thu Sep 03, 2009 at 22:17:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

different tactics.. (4.00 / 2)

different people want to work on different stuff. that's their choice. i just didn't appreciate the lectures about political feasibility -- especially when there are thousands of grass roots activists who have been organizing around single payer for years.

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by: selise @ Thu Sep 03, 2009 at 22:56:02 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

If it had been that... (0.00 / 0)

If it had been Mr. Bowers' and others' honest position about the so-called public option that it was what they like and want, that would be one thing.  But from the beginning, it was made clear that it's something far less than what America needs to help those who cannot help themselves.  The tone has always been, "well, we want single-payer, but it'll never be allowed to pass, so we'll push for what we think we can get and hope it's enough."

The problems with this are at least three, and probably more, but I'll explain the Big Ones.

The first has to do with justifying what alleged progressives say they want against what they actually push for.  It makes absolutely no sense to want one thing yet never make even a token effort to try to obtain it.  On no issue has the GOP ever shied away from going all out to get what it wants: zero taxes on the wealthy, wars, torture, police-state fascism, destruction of any and every regulation that limits what the powerful can get away with, creating a national attitude of depraved indifference to the sufferings of the poor,  and so forth.  On every issue that matters to the far right, that movement has fought tooth and nail to get what it wants and, even though blocked at times by setbacks, has enjoyed humongous successes in shaping events in America.  By contrast, self-proclaimed progressives say they want things like equal rights, environmental protection, an end to war, and so on, but how many actually fight as the right-wingers have?  How many have stood up to powerful interests to demand something and refused to take "no" for an answer?  Hell, the left has perfected the art of accepting "no" for an answer on virtually everything - to the point now where no one in a position to push for things like single-payer even bothers to seriously consider such a thing.  This is but one contradiction that must be addressed.

The second problem with the mentality infecting the left is that it does not help Americans, especially those of us who desperately need it.  Buying into the enemy's rhetoric and telling us that it's pointless to even try to make sweeping changes in the system only serves to demoralize us; it does not galvanize.

Finally, the third big problem inherent in this "we can't do any better, so we must take what we can get" is that it in direct contrast to history.  No person or movement has ever made history by adopting such an attitude.  America would not even exist were it not for the persistence of an ambitious explorer looking to make a name for himself by finding an alternate route to India and China.  No one would have dared set foot on the lunar surface, or tried to obtain equal rights for Blacks and other minorities.  Nor would any of the Progressive or the New Deal era's reforms have been passed, if we had accepted this notion.

As David Sirota points out in his latest column, the progressive movement should not and must not be about one political party.  When we make it so, we fail, and we on the left have for too long refused to learn that lesson.  That failure has led us to ask for crumbs and hope we don't lose more, instead of demanding the whole bloody loaf and taking back what we've lost, had stolen, or given up out of fear.  Worse, it makes genuine left-wingers wonder just who is really on our side when people like Mr. Bowers or Moulitsas or O'Connor tell us in so many words to shut up and do as we're told, not for the good of the public, but for the good of one bought-out political party.  Just the other day, in response to a question I put forth, Mr. Bowers snidely asked a question he already knew the answer to: how do we push for single-payer?  He knew for a fact that the answer was the same thing he's been doing to promote what he must know to be a weak and ineffectual "public option."  He doesn't explain his reasons for promoting something he knows is insufficient and doomed to failure, except to trot out the old excuse of, "well, we can't have this now so we have to take what we can get."  Never mind that he has yet to explain why he and others refuse to even try before declaring such efforts doomed.  What other conclusions are we supposed to draw but the most obvious: these people who join the enemy in telling us what we can't have are not on our side, and their goals and intentions do not represent ours.

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by: Michael Kwiatkowski @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 18:43:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

re: progressive bloggers (4.00 / 2)

progressive bloggers aren't committee chairmen

when baucus says 'I support a public option but it won't pass' that means 'I'll try to kill it using some excuse if I can'. do you have any doubt that if there was no house supporting the PO and white house not saying 'we'll kill it', and baucus could freely use his excuse, he wouldn't have killed the PO already?

but as I said there is a house and that changes the situation. and the PO has a real chance. that's why chris talks about the public option. we all want single payer. do you think there are 50 votes in the senate or 218 votes in the house? if there were chris wouldn't be talking about the public option.

baucus is a hypocrite because he doesn't really mean what he says. chris pushes the best that's possible.

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by: The Big Hurt @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 04:02:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Where's the push from us? (0.00 / 0)

We need fifty-one votes in the Senate to pass a single-payer bill, and sixty of them to overcome a filibuster.  With the Congressional progressive Caucus drawing its line in the sand, do you really think it would be all that much effort for the White House (or, for that matter, what passes for a progressive movement in America) to join in efforts to get the needed votes?  Do you really think that, given that most of the public now wants single-payer or something very close to it, we haven't got plenty of support to make the necessary push?  Sixty people cannot stand up against tens or hundreds of millions.  Mr. Bowers is as much a hypocrite as Baucus, and he is so because, like Baucus, he is telling us something we know to be false.  The weak and ineffectual "public option" is not now, nor has it ever been, the practical or achievable piece of legislation.  No argument has been made for explaining why efforts now being wasted on crumbs couldn't or shouldn't be expended on single-payer.

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by: Michael Kwiatkowski @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 18:59:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

re: single-payer (0.00 / 0)

do you really think it would be all that much effort for the White House (or, for that matter, what passes for a progressive movement in America) to join in efforts to get the needed votes?

I don't know how much effort it would need but I know it is not gonna happen at this point

Do you really think that, given that most of the public now wants single-payer or something very close to it, we haven't got plenty of support to make the necessary push?  

unfortunately yes, I don't think we have the necessary support

that's the reason I support the PO. I think single-payer is the superior system but no-way the current bastards pass it

Mr. Bowers is as much a hypocrite as Baucus, and he is so because, like Baucus, he is telling us something we know to be false.  

what is that thing that chris tells us?
that there's not the necessary support for single-payer?
I think that's the truth

No argument has been made for explaining why efforts now being wasted on crumbs couldn't or shouldn't be expended on single-payer.

http://www.openleft.com/diary/...

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by: The Big Hurt @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 22:26:10 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

But you don't know if you never try. (0.00 / 0)

No serious effort has been made to move H.R. 676 forward in Congress, and no serious effort has been made to push members of Congress to move it.  What pressure has existed has been geared toward pushing a bill that was never intended to generate actual reform and which is unlikely even to pass intact.  Yes, we might try to push single-payer and fail, but at least we'll have tried, and sometimes that is all the public asks.  No one expects or asks for perfection, but people do expect and demand that Democrats try to do something good - and they're not seeing it.

Mr. Bowers' assertions do not hold up to scrutiny, and they do not satisfactorily explain why we shouldn't have tried to push single-payer instead of the weak bill now under consideration.

the leading force behind a public option are the 57 members of the House who have stated they will vote against any health care bill that does not include a public option.

This does not contradict the accusation that Democrats folded on health care reform before the "fight" was even begun.  The public option IS the compromise, and by drawing a line in the sand for THAT instead of single-payer, support for H.R. 676 was undermined by the very people who should have been fighting tooth and nail on its behalf.

No amount of netroots activism would have resulted in single-payer.

Mr. Bowers has no way of knowing this because no serious effort in the netroots was made to push single-payer.  Again, one cannot know the success or failure of a project if one never tries to tackle it.  Granted, no member of the GOP was ever going to vote for it, but that political party isn't in control of Congress.  The House, with pressure enough from the left, could have passed H.R. 676 if it had tried.  Instead, right-wing Democrats joined with Republicans to prevent even a debate on it, and what passes for the left in this country refused to force the issue.  At no point have I ever read anything by Mr. Bowers or his contemporaries any posts laying out efforts to push single-payer, or how and why those efforts failed.  That's because none were made.

Passing single-payer would be a transformative change to the American economic system, shifting up to 5% of GDP the private sector to public. It will require going up against some of the most powerful moneyed interests in the country, and would require virtually all of the political energies of the American left and center-left. It can be done, but it requires a concerted, long-term campaign cognizant of the huge obstacles standing in its path.

Yes, we know that.  What Mr. Bowers is doing is using this as an excuse to discourage us from directing efforts toward single-payer, and instead urging us to back a bill that won't provide health care to those who need it most and which is unlikely to pass intact even in its current weak state.

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by: Michael Kwiatkowski @ Sat Sep 05, 2009 at 00:05:07 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

re: excuse (0.00 / 0)

I don't think I can convince you that it is not an excuse so I'll not try.

which is unlikely to pass intact even in its current weak state.

I'll just focus on your last sentence. If you say that even the current PO is unlikely to pass, what makes you think that single-payer will have a better chance? chris didn't write that "It will require going up against some of the most powerful moneyed interests in the country" just to fill up space. Single-payer would wipe these interests out (which I would very much welcome). Can't you imagine the fight they would put up?

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by: The Big Hurt @ Sat Sep 05, 2009 at 01:57:58 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

The point is that we try. (0.00 / 0)

The reason the public option is unlikely to pass is because the Republicans won't go for it and more than half the Democrats are content to join them in blocking it.  That does not mean, however, that we can't and shouldn't have tried to get H.R. 676 passed anyway.  Again, the point is that the efforts should have been made from the beginning, with a "public option" floated as a compromise only after efforts to pass single-payer had been exhausted.  That's what any smart, sensible legislature run by Democrats would have tried.  When trying to get any bill passed, you don't start off asking for crumbs and bargaining down from there.  You start out demanding the whole loaf, and settling for more than half.

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by: Michael Kwiatkowski @ Sun Sep 06, 2009 at 18:35:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

yes (0.00 / 0)

Again, the point is that the efforts should have been made from the beginning, with a "public option" floated as a compromise only after efforts to pass single-payer had been exhausted.  That's what any smart, sensible legislature run by Democrats would have tried.  When trying to get any bill passed, you don't start off asking for crumbs and bargaining down from there.  You start out demanding the whole loaf, and settling for more than half.

I agree with this

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by: The Big Hurt @ Tue Sep 08, 2009 at 03:00:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I love to see Baucus lose (4.00 / 2)

his chairmanship. Regardless of how this turns out, he's made his true allegiances plain.

I'm glad to see you are posting more often, David. It is much appreciated.

ec=-8.50 soc=-8.41   (3,967 Watts)

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by: Mark Wallace @ Thu Sep 03, 2009 at 22:29:12 PM UTC

Faux Progressives (4.00 / 2)

A similar scenerio played time and again is when the faux progressives, i.e. those who aren't officially Blue Dogs, pretend to support a bill or a version of a bill that, alas, does not pass.  They may even vote for the bill but often they seem to take turns voting and not voting for bills so that "progressives" may appear to take a firm, if futile, stand only to go down in defeat.  So sorry.  We tried (not).  You see this on labor bills, FISA, defense bills, etc.  

The Republicans enable the lunatics.  The Blue Dogs enable the Republicans.  The faux progressives enable the Blue Dogs.  They just totally play us for fools.  

When are we going to wake up to the fact that it is totally pointless to support a party that never ever passes genuninely progressive legislation.  The excuses may change.  The usual suspects may take turns voting for and against.  The outcome never changes.  And since we never win on any major issue, Americans are either totally clueless about what we stand for (nothing) or have total contempt for our ineffectiveness.

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by: Aliceann @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 00:46:53 AM UTC

good post david! (0.00 / 0)

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by: The Big Hurt @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 03:32:32 AM UTC

Chomsky suggestion? (4.00 / 1)

Would love to read some more articulation of this syndrome - can you point me toward a good place to start within Chomsky on this issue?

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by: rallydemocrat @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 04:04:14 AM UTC

try "manufacturing consent." (0.00 / 0)

http://www.chomsky.info/interv...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler....

there is a movie version in addition to the book.

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by: M.B.S.S. @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 06:46:03 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Chomsky suggestion? (0.00 / 0)

Would love to read some more articulation of this syndrome - can you point me toward a good place to start within Chomsky on this issue?

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by: rallydemocrat @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 04:04:14 AM UTC

Not exactly, but close (4.00 / 2)

I too have found myself in hair-pulling mode listening to their tortured "logic", which initially sounds something like this:

Q: What's your stance on the public option, senator?

A: I support it in principle, but it can't pass.

Q: Why can't it pass?

A: Because there aren't the votes to pass it.

Q: Why aren't there the votes to pass it?

A: Because there aren't enough senators who support it.

Q: Why don't they support it?

A: Because it can't pass.

Q: Why can't it pass?

A: Because there aren't the votes to pass it.
...

Obviously, a syllogism. But that's not QUITE what they're saying. This is just wordplay, to evade really answering the question of why the senators who won't vote for it, won't vote for it. And it's not because there aren't the votes for it, because THEY are the ones whose votes are not there for it. They won't vote for it because they're getting a shitload of money from insurers, drug companies, hospitals and others who don't want a public option, and/or have struck deals with senators who are getting such donations. But, of course, they're not about to say this, because they can't. Just as the administration also can't, for much the same reasons. So they do this little dance that sounds right out of Catch-22.

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton

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by: kovie @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 06:11:58 AM UTC

it's an ouroboros. (4.00 / 1)

You spin me right round, baby
right round like a record, baby
Right round round round
You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round

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by: M.B.S.S. @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 06:48:58 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Outer Boros? (0.00 / 0)

What does this have to do with Queens and the Bronx?

;-)

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton

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by: kovie @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 07:47:24 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

other brothers (0.00 / 0)

from different mothers.

we were split at birth.

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by: M.B.S.S. @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 14:21:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

But, but, what if we give them 80, or 90, or 99 Democratic Senators? (4.00 / 2)

What will be the excuse then?

This is why a lot of Democratic officials hate being in the position of a strong majority.

They love doing what they want to do (a corporate / upperclass / hawk agenda) yet blaming their inability to do anything else on Republicans.

So it's really an achievement on the part of Democratic power centers to come up with brand new reasons why they have to do what they want to do, which is to serve the masters they prefer and screw over the liberals and progressives they despise.

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by: El Cid @ Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 12:13:24 PM UTC