|
There's a conventional wisdom that presupposes an 'independent' or 'moderate' political alignment that has a platform something like the following: abortion and gays are icky, corporations are the bestest, investor profits are society's highest priority, pollution is awesome, public infrastructure sucks and btw, offshore these jobs now, we don't f*in' need 'em.
It's a crazy mess of aristocratic investors' priorities and backlash angst that represents no large or cohesive group. Indeed, if this non-platform were ever explicitly put forward as such, rather than just implied, its silliness would be self-evident.
Not only are many of these positions often held by non-overlapping portions of society or most likely to be held by people whose political affiliation is obviously Republican or conservative, several of them are extreme minority positions that have significant bipartisan opposition among the public.
And yet, votes along those lines are routinely touted as the proper response to a need to seem moderate, prove independence, or deal with a tough district, in spite of the fact that they can provably depress turnout and support to the detriment of Democrats. The problem is, every time a Democrat has to decide on a tough vote, this gleaming ideal of virtuous moderation is presented to them from all sides. Even progressives who think this imaginary 'moderate' platform is crap still describe it in terms of inevitability and reasonableness.
Which is why the reproductive rights organizations' strategy for health care reform was bound to lose. From Robin Marty at RHRealityCheck:
... In recapping the action that occurred over the weekend by the advancement of the amendment, [President Sarah Stoesz of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota] shared the betrayal pro-choice advocates faced on Saturday. "Health care reform was promised as not being a vehicle to advance any abortion rights agenda," she stated. Pro-choice advocates had agreed in advance not to use the opportunity to force any changes to the Hyde Amendment in exchange for anti-choice factions also agreeing not to use the bill to not attempt to errode abortion rights. "We weren't happy about it, but we thought we had this agreement. We weren't happy about it, but we did it anyway. We obviously care about abortion rights, but we also care about health care for our country." ...
David Waldman outlined today the abject failure of this strategy. A strategy that I'm now being told was the result of Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi directly requesting that no outside organizing be done, while she stood firm for the status quo in the House.
The reproductive rights groups obeyed Pelosi, trusting up until apparently the very day of the vote that the Stupak language would never make it to the floor. It was always the case that Stupak's amendment would win a floor vote, and he was apparently so emboldened by the process that the final language he submitted was much broader than his starting negotiating position, to where it will prevent treatment for incomplete miscarriages.
(Hey, is that allowed!? For someone to get more out of a negotiation than they started off asking for? The nerve! From what everybody's been telling me about my issues, this practically violates basic physics.)
It's time to face facts: the Democratic Party's interest in women stops at our use as bargaining chips. Sort of like how patriarchal societies have always viewed women as chattel that can be negotiated away in marriage alliances to smooth over relations between groups of men.
If women's rights are going to move forward, we need to stop accepting movement leadership acting like the pliant, marriageable daughters of the Democratic Party. Because all that leads to is a loveless marriage with some dusty old dude that you don't even like.
|
STATE BLOGS
