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Democrat Gives Up Single-Payer Measure to Back Party Leaders
WASHINGTON - Representative Anthony D. Weiner, Democrat of New York, a fierce champion in Congress of a single-payer health system that would be fully run by the government, said Friday that he had agreed not to insist on a vote on that issue, in an effort to help Democratic leaders pass their plan.
US Rep. Anthony D. Weiner Previously, Mr. Weiner had obtained a commitment from Speaker Nancy Pelosi to allow a vote on a proposal to create a single-payer system like the one used by Canada and many countries in Europe, including England, France and Spain.
Single-payer supporters form a large bloc among liberal Democrats, although there has not been enough broader backing to make the idea politically viable. So Mr. Weiner's proposal would almost certainly have been defeated, although it would have enabled those liberal Democrats to demonstrate their continuing support for a single-payer system.
But as House Democratic leaders struggle to round up the votes they need to pass their health care legislation, Mr. Weiner said in an interview that it was clear that forcing a vote on the single-payer issue would be counterproductive and could endanger support for the bill at a critical juncture.
Mr. Weiner's decision to sacrifice the measure also signaled that Democratic leaders may be struggling even harder behind the scenes than they have acknowledged to win votes for the health care legislation. Another sign was a decision to postpone a visit by President Obama to Capitol Hill until Saturday, allowing his personal appeal to have maximum impact on lawmakers as close to the actual vote as possible.
The Democrats' legislation, which is supported by Mr. Obama, relies on continuing the existing system of mostly employer-sponsored health benefits. The bill seeks to cover 36 million uninsured Americans by expanding Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor, and by providing government subsidies to moderate-income Americans to help them buy insurance. The subsidies could be used for government-approved private health plans or for a new government-run insurance plan - the so-called public option - that would complete with private insurers.
"I feel very strongly that the employer-based model is not the way to go and single-payer is the better way," Mr. Weiner said in an interview. "But I never wanted it to be the situation where we literally let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
He added, "As disappointed as I am, the higher imperative, I think, is making sure that the big bill got passed."
While Mr. Weiner said he recognized that his decision would disappoint legions of single-payer advocates, he said the danger to the larger bill was too great.
Forcing a vote on single-payer could be particularly problematic for lawmakers who represent districts that split heavily between liberal and more moderate or conservative voters. A vote against the single-payer issue would anger constituents on the left, while emboldening opponents on the right, making it more difficult to support the larger bill. Avoiding a vote on the issue, in turn, could allow centrist Democrats to take a tough vote in favor of the larger bill.
Mr. Weiner said that the debate around the public option had helped the cause of single-payer supporters.
"There's an old saying in the single-payer movement, God supports the single payer, just not now," he said. "I think that the public option debate has to some degree advanced the cause of single payer because, in fact, both the proponents and opponents of the public option are in a way stipulating to the point that government-run health care would be more efficient and would be chosen by citizens if it were offered."
Mr. Obama and Congressional leaders had long ago taken the single-payer issue off the table, saying that it would be too destabilizing to completely change the nation's health care system. Adopting a single-payer program would require a sweeping overhaul of the tax code, as well as of the compensation and benefits packages of virtually every employer in the United States.
"There is some disappointment," Mr. Weiner said. "And I would be lying to you if I said I wasn't disappointed."
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82 Comments so far
Show AllSingle payer was the only part of the health care reform bill that could possibly reduce costs. It's now gone!So we're left with a bill that will reduce Medicare payments and send more customers over to the bloated, greedy health care industry--AARP included! This is not reform! Seniors will not like this bill. Insurance companies will.
Maybe Obama, et.al. can do better with a jobs program.
(actually Obama is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street. Depend on him for nada.)
Single payer was never part of the health care reform bill. It was taken off the table before the whole mess started. It only continued to exist as a possible amendment to be left up to individual states. The public option stuff was the compromise made in lieu of real health "care" reform and even that has gone more or less missing as our congress critters give away the farm to the insurance companies and force everyone to pay into health extortion.
I have completely lost faith in "our" government. What was supposedly creaated to protect the public from the predators have gone full circle. Now the fucking government protects the predators from we the people even trying to protect ourselves. The health insurance companies, banking/corporate complex is free to kill as many people as desired to achieve maximum profit. But let someone try to take on a CEO...well, you know the outcome.
Precisely
The government never supported the people. From when they were killing indians, to supporting slavery, to not allowing women and people of color to vote, they always sided with the power elite.
I think that when the Declaration of independence starts off with 'We the people' and it is signed by the 56 people, they were declaring that they were the people and everyone else can go to hell.
The government is the great enabler of all the injustices carried out. The power elite use the cloak of the government to carry out their selfish destructive plans.
It never was fair, still isn't fair, and as long as the people continue to support the status quo (voting for democrats and republicans) it will continue to be unjust.
Government rarely does anything that the power elite don't want it to. Witness the war, the majority of people want it to end, but corporation want it to continue. So it continues.
Single payer or single term.
Public option is not an option.
Well, this in light of Conyers and Kucinich's request to not demand a vote on single payer just yet pretty much clinches it for now. Whatever passes, if it passes, will be so awful that single payer will be "on the table." Hopefully soon.
God supports single payer because it is a sign of human compassion and willingness to care for one another--you know the golden rule don't you? Do onto others as you would like them to do onto you. Congress has a different golden rule. They do not support single payer because they lack human compassion and would allow ill people to suffer illness and death while assuring their paymasters get big profits.
The pockets of these selfish and greedy elected officials are filled with campaign funds (bribes) from big Pharma and the insurance companies. Their selfishness is demonstrated by how quickly they disregard the voices of their constituents. This also exposes the fact that they have no ethics. It is their job is to represent the people of their district. The people want single payer, Medicare for all, and our corrupt Congress is standing in the way. The current members of Congress, nearly the whole damn bunch, deserve to be thrown out of Congress.
The position of the Democratic party on this issue should clearly show the people that this party is no better than the other one. Forget that 'lesser of two evils' nonsence, and don't vote for any of these people again. They won't vote for health care for the people but they very quickly voted to give the banksters trillions of dollars and they voted to spend more of our tax funds on the ongoing and illegal wars of agression and occupation.
Ethics!! Hell, there are none of those on the hill in Washington D.C.
Now, not a single DEM profile in courage among 'em; so it's SINGLE TERM for all of DEM and the miserepublicans, as wel... uh, sicko!
Over reacting a bit? Generalizing? Kucinich and Weiner and others would NEVER give in for anything short of Single-Payer. A strategy is in the works; be patient.
That's what Richard Nixon told the nation in 1968 when he was running for president: he had a "secret" plan to end the war in Vietnam. Couldn't tell us what it was till after he became president. Then, when he became president he still couldn't tell us, and the war didn't end for another six years.
So, don't hand us that B.S. What's the single-payer strategy?
I got a strategy for you. Send me your money, and I'll take care of it. But I can't tell you what I'm going to do, be patient.
By the way, why did Kucinich withdraw from the 2004 presidential primary right before the convention? Because he put party ahead of principles. He really hurt the anti-war movement when he suddenly dropped out.
While he comes close to what is needed in Washington, he doesn't hit the mark. If he would drop out of the democratic party and become a green or independent, that would give him some credibility with me.
Until people stop supporting corrupted processes, candidates, and policies, nothing will change. The wars will continue, the corporate bailouts will continue, and the health care fiasco will continue.
so it goes
Why should I believe that? This is a serious question. Or are you being facetious?
Joe
Just like any other facility run by the government, every medical facility should be owned and equipped by the taxpayer so that it is NOT included in the final bill.
Let's get employers out of the business of providing health care. Everybody is cover already.
Let's combine Workman's Comp. and Medicare into Single-Payer.
One program will cover it all!
This bill was destined to be a big fat nothing from the word go. With so many politicians getting their pockets lined by the very companies that would lose profit if real universal health care were implemented, is it really that big of a surprise? These fanciful notions of bipartisanship and compromise don't exactly provide compensation for those in urgent need of medical aid. This is just one more example in a long line of spineless politicians who will not take a metaphorical bullet for the principles they claim to have.
I have to laugh (and cry) every time I see the teabaggers protesting this, though. They have no idea that it's exactly the sort of thing they want.
"I have to laugh (and cry) every time I see the teabaggers protesting this, though. They have no idea that it's exactly the sort of thing they want."
Incoherent as it is, they want the government to keep its hands off of their Medicare.
So, why should anyone respect or support the Democratic party? From the Beige Bush to nearly every member of Congress (Donna Edwards, DK, Keith Ellison, Barbara Lee, Marcy Kaptor, and Zoe Lofgren, excepted) the whole bunch of them, ar a bunch of lying, hypocritical, unprincipled, scoundrels who stand for nothing and fall for everything. Blind fools!
Poet
You have a good point, except that you present it in a racist manner like an idiot.
Though you change your on-screen name Sabrina, your hypocritical, alchoholic, and self-loathing self remains. I wish you a better hand than life has dealt you so far.
Vaya con Dios--
Poet
Geez, it seems like only yesterday that I wrote:
_________________________
The Gorgon Pelosi has already lifted her hind leg, and not in a good way, over the poor little Weiner dog.
Pelosi silenced his yapping by jingling the car keys at him, and now he's not even going to get a ride.
In the Democratic Party spirit of "keeping the powder dry", I'll save further comment for the inevitable sequel: the Gorgon opening the car door, getting in, then slamming the door right in the face of the little guy.
_________________________
Oh, wait! It WAS yesterday!
And way back in August-- August 1st, 2009, to be precise, a CommonDreams news article [http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/01-1] included this; my response follows:
"Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) offered a single-payer amendment in the Energy and Commerce Committee on Friday, but withdrew it after Waxman said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had promised a floor vote.
Dear Editor:
Please insert the following correction into the above article:
Rep. Charlie Brown (D-N.Y.) offered to free-kick a football in the Energy and Commerce Committee on Friday, but withdrew the proposal after Linus said House Speaker Lucy Van Pelt (D-Calif.) had promised to personally hold the football on the floor and allow Brown to kick it.
_________________________
I hope the little Weiner dude wasn't too surprised, because I sure wasn't!
· Yr Obd't Servant
what entertainment...to watch folks pretend so hard to be one thing while they're trying equally hard to keep you from seeing they're another...to listen to their words as they dodge and pirouette, trying to balance these opposing positions...what a riot...
The Democrats do not and will not the U. S. citizen they serve their party and the party serves the corporate masters.
You want change?
It will not come from a vote!
It will come from millions of civil and uncivil protests.
Only then will you see change.
The sooner we realize this the sooner true change will come.
Single payer was never a 'universal' health insurance policy.
It is simply a policy that sets up a govt-regulated 'public utility' to serve health insurance policies to its members. And what distinguishes a 'public utility'? Its a local monopoly, whose members, once entering into contract, CANNOT get out of (likewise, the monopoly cannot exit the contract if you get sick). Single payer implies a lifetime commitment to buy health insurance from a 'single payer'. You cannot exit your single payer, and THEY cannot exit YOU. This lifetime commitment to insurance takes a major uncertainty out of the equation (the uncertainty about just how healthy you really ARE during your life) and, in CLASSIC capitalist economics, when you lower RISK, you raise REWARD. In this case, BOTH the insurer and the insured benefit from the lower risk of a lifetime commitment, and this translates into lower PREMIUMS. In addition, the regulated nature of the single payer insurer means they are limited as to the profit margins they can seek (as with ANY gov't utility), and they are directed to use their bargaining power to seek lower costs from healthcare providers, including doctors, healthcare lawyers and especially, DRUG COMPANIES. The lower risk of single payer leads to the lower COST of single payer leads to its USE in other countries to PAY for a universal healthcare adoption without breaking the healthcare bank. BUT THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT SINGLE PAYER THAT REQUIRES UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE!!! They are separate items, completely. Single payer merely implies a lifetime commitment between the insured and the insurer. THAT IS ALL.
It is TIME, for those of us with a LICK OF SENSE, to INSIST ON SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE FOR OURSELVES AND OUR CHILDREN. We aren't asking for universal healthcare (of course, we WANT it, but that is up to the political momentum, which involves Republicans as well as Democrats). We just want the OPTION of purchasing a gov't regulated public utility health insurer, with the understanding that what makes this insurer lower COST, is its lower RISK, which requires our FIDELITY to the insurer, and their FIDELITY to us. We make a lifetime commitment, they make a lifetime commitment, and, in the odd world of insurance, this results in a WIN-WIN for both parties. Quite at odds with the way capitalism NORMALLY works (but, if you haven't noticed, bargaining for your HEALTH doesn't work like bargaining for your drapes).
Those republicans who LIKE plugging the private-insurer slot machines are WELCOME to do so. And any child reaching the age of 25 is given a ONE TIME choice, to choose or deny the single-payer system (note that if you CHOOSE single-payer, you must pay for it for life, but that doesn't stop you from buying supplemental insurance, of course. It is just those who refused it that are prevented- of necessity to lower costs).
We WANT this. We've seen it work in other countries. We're intrigued by the savings to our own purses. We're intrigued by the potential of PAYING for universal healthcare OUT of those savings. But UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE is another matter. As long as our Republican brethren insist that a privatized system is, simply out of philosophy, worth the DOUBLED cost they are paying, universal healthcare is GOING to be expensive. And we see no reason to PAY that cost out of our own generosity.
WE LIBERALS WANT SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE. WE UNDERSTAND ITS A GOVT MONOPOLY, A PUBLIC UTILITY, AND ALL THAT THAT IMPLIES. We STILL want it. And we want it enough to STRIKE for it, for ourselves only. We will STRIKE for the CHOICE, for ourselves.
Next January 15th, we need to simply NOT GO TO WORK. And a month later, if we don't get what we want, we will likewise NOT GO TO WORK on February 15th. And Mar 15. We will do this, because we represent HALF the American people. And we know that this gov't, infested by money though it may be, CANNOT AFFORD TO IGNORE US.
We will KILL the economy if we have to. We HAVE the numbers.
Leave it to the NYTimes to get it wrong. They claim that the vote would have been "on a proposal to create a single-payer system like the one used by Canada and many countries in Europe, including England, France and Spain."
All these countries have UNIVERSAL health care -- where health care is a right -- but the systems vary considerably.
Canada has a single payer system, but I'm not aware of any European country that has it. England has socialized medicine, where the hospitals are owned by the government and doctors are public employees. Other countries have other systems.
The real issue isn't whether to adopt Canada's system, but that the US should join the ranks of civilized countries and provide health care as a RIGHT, with decent health care for everyone from the CEOs and Congress to the homeless.
That the NYT fails to understand single payer is a testament to the shamefully inadequate and biased coverage of this issue by our screwed up MSM. Americans, including reporters, are stunningly unaware of just how out of step the US is on this issue.
I thought it was a right...
LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness...
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
You'd think that'd be it, huh? In Finland, decent internet access is now a right. Just to hammer the point home of how ridiculously backwards the USA is with this.
DFairley
T.R. Reid drives home the point that you accurately make, that not all countries that have a universal health care system are of the single payer type, even more forcefully and in greater depth in his must read book The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.
We appreciate your assistance in drawing this oversight to our attention. We will print a correction of this erroneus information on the front page of next Sunday's edition.
Signed,
The editors of the New York Times
Its all good. Your fragile economy, weighed down by the bloated costs of private health care, corrput politicians for sale, and wars of choice, will soon be the end of you all.
Maybe Mexico will let you become one of their northern states?
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
I am sick and tired of hearing Repubs/conservative/concrete heads complaining and not wanting illegal immigrants to benefit from any of the healthcare reform that we are pretending to accomplish.
How about this... I wonder what these concrete heads think they would be paying for a bag of apples, or lettuce or tomatoes if we didn't have illegal immigrants picking them. I wonder what the upper middle class concete heads think they would be paying for a night out at a good restaurant if we didn't have illegal immigrants working at these restaurants.
I wonder what the middle, middle class concrete heads would think when they could barely afford to eat and the lower middle class concrete heads would be the new poor, not being able to buy decent food.
Then, thoses that are actually poor, would be the new starving masses in this country, because even MacDonald's would be out of their price range.
OR MAYBE WE COULD GO TO THE IDEAS OF DAVID KORTEN.
This is bvased on samll local economies, using what is in season. Small local communities which are self sufficient as much as possible. We could stop shipping a tomatoe 1500 mi. and spewing co2 in the air from our arrogant, concrete headed thinking.
Of course, this is just an example. If you haven't read anything from David Korten and do not know about his ideas, go read about it.
Or we could stick with Agri Business and allow the corporations to further drive us into oblivion.
How about this ...DEATH TO THE CORPORATE CHARTER!!!!!!!
What bullshit.
Will the CBO still score his amendment?
The Democratic Party is a dream killer. Whenever there is a good idea, it gets taken off the table. (No explanation, just "off the table".) Whenever it has a decent elected official, it grinds the soul out of him in the name of practicality, of doing something else, which never gets accomplished anyway.
Weiner was good on this issue but was smothered under a huge slithering pile of corrupt mendacious half-dead colleagues. Perhaps the Democratic progressives in Congress should think about splitting off. They should make the rest of the Democrats court them the way they groveled before Olympia Snowe. The progressives are more in tune with rank and file voters on issues like healthcare and getting out of Afghanistan.
Joe
"The Democratic Party is a dream killer. " –(jclientelle)
–I like this. It is certainly true. A touch of poetry.
But one must also grow to understand that anything that was 'dreamed' through the Democratic Party to begin with was not worthy to be dreamed. They were not insistent enough dreams, not visionary enough, too cautionary to be of any real value.
Perhaps now those dreams can be placed elsewhere and with more vigor, for it is over.
-(Jill Bains)
From the article:
"Mr. Obama and Congressional leaders had long ago taken the single-payer issue off the table, saying that it would be too destabilizing to completely change the nation's health care system. Adopting a single-payer program would require a sweeping overhaul of the tax code, as well as of the compensation and benefits packages of virtually every employer in the United States."
Why is that seen as a bad thing? Those comp and benefits packages are a big part of the reason for the failure of GM and Chrysler, while their guvment bailout forced wage and comp reductions overnight for their union workers.
Screw the middle class, don't tax the rich, and let the poor and elderly freeze to death this winter. It's the American Way. Just be sure to hide the bodies.
"Previously, Mr. Weiner had obtained a commitment from Speaker Nancy Pelosi..." That's an oxymoron.
And Mr. Weeny, "a fierce champion," is now "disappointed." Oh well. Maybe in another decade or so, after gold is at $5,000 an ounce if you can even find any.
Looks to me like, politically, NO BILL is the better option as long as we can keep the Emergency Rooms open. Which itself is no small issue whether this bill passes or not. How's it going in Massachusetts? Mitt Romney for President yet? May an asteroid strike D.C. without warning...
-30-
HEY! I live in DC. :-)
How 'bout, instead, may their police-cordoned, gas-guzzling, stretch-SUV limo motorcades simply peel off Memorial Bridge and into the dark, cold waters of the Potomac (where they should feel quite at home).
"no gods, no masters" --m. sanger
Reasons To Avoid The Democratic Party
1) The Democrats are just a faction of the enemy -- not allies in any sense. They are not the "lesser evil;" they are an auxiliary subdivision of the same evil. They have betrayed us beyond all possible reconciliation, and are more truly allies of the Republicans than they are "friends" of ours.
2) It's just a fallacy to believe that the Democrats can somehow be transformed into a political force defending the interests of the broader public. That's not what they are. That they dare posture as the "party of the people" is an insult to our collective intelligence. In reality, they use this tattered & tired popular image to collude with the rightwing, confuse the public, & sell us out at every turn.
3) I encourage you to rethink your well-intentioned support of Democrats. (The writing of Howard Zinn is useful, in this connection.) The history of the Dem Party is one of deep partnership with Republicans, not of genuine opposition. The ballyhooed "rivalry" is just on the surface -- essentially, just a deception. The Dems were full co-partners in building the military-industrial complex and the national security state; in inflicting criminal wars in SE Asia & Latin America, etc etc. And since 2000, they have outdone themselves in shameless unprincipled collusion.
4) This is a party ready for the dustbin of history. The only "help" we should give them is helping them get there. We should focus on laying the groundwork for a party that genuinely represents our interests, not helping to resurrect a disgraced & decaying enemy.
5) The Kuciniches are different from the Hillary types -- but there are compelling reasons not to get too excited about them, either. First of all, they are used by the party as a "Left decoration," simply to keep potential left defectors in tow. Secondly, the party power brokers will NEVER in a million years let the Kucinich-McKinney faction have any real power.
6) In other words, the progressive Dem faction is cynically used as a marketing tool by the national party. They are dangled before your eyes to make you think that the Dems are still the "lesser evil" (since the Republicans offer no such Left decorations).
7) But the real face of the Democratic Party is revealed, for example, by the way they had police drag people out of the 2004 convention for wearing anti-war tee-shirts. Or by John Kerry, who tried to pretend during the entire campaign that his connection with Vietnam was just that he "served" -- trying to hide the fact that he'd been an outspoken OPPONENT of a criminal war.
8) In other words -- don't be fooled by the existence of a few decent Dems. They make no real difference in the overall alignment of the party, and will never be internally influential. They are a distraction.
9) Taking over" the party is a naive illusion. Both parties are dominated and driven by the interests of huge corporations and plutocrats. Neither gives the slightest hoot about the well-being of the general public -- which, as both of them well know, is utterly defenseless, politically. Both parties regard the public as a lamb to be fleeced on behalf of their (the parties') patrons. This condition is non-negotiable & not subject to alteration by ordinary well-meaning people.
10) Both parties represent little more than the will of giant oil, banking, media and defense corporations. The only way they differ is in marketing strategies, target populations, rhetorical style, & external fluff.
11) There is the oft-cited argument that the Republican Party was "taken over." This is not quite true. The Republicans were always the party of Wall Street & Northern manufacturing. The Democrats were the party of the Southern slaveocracy. When the national Democrats defied southern racism by passing the Civil Rights Acts in the mid '60's, the southern states bolted, destroying the Democratic coalition. The Republicans profited from this by adapting to southern tastes, values, & religious/cultural conceptions.
12) In other words, neither party is particularly virtuous, and both are merely fronts for coalitions of big-money interests. The Republicans weren't virtuous before they merged with the Religious Right out of self-interest, and they aren't virtuous now. The Democrats weren't virtuous when they were allied with Southern racists, and they aren't virtuous now. Virtue has nothing to do with it.
13) Together, the 2 parties form a governing structure that responds only to the needs of American capitalism. If you go to the Dem Party "pooh-bahs" and say, "I have some nice ideas for peace, housing, environment, and education," they'll laugh in your face. If you go and say, "I have a $10 million donation for you from ExxonMobil, if you just relax a wee little regulation about mileage standards," they will say, "Please come into my office. I believe we can do business."
14) The point is that both US parties are big-business parties, responsive ONLY to the needs & desires of corporations. The personnel of both parties are tightly linked to lobbyists. Both parties are stuffed to the gills with consultants, fund-raisers, careerist apparatchiks, connections in the MSM, & so on. All together, this forms an institutional structure that is completely unresponsive to the needs and aspirations of ordinary people.
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A tour de force, mcoyote!
Superbly done! Oh, and it's funny because it's TRUE!
PS: I see that you've used the film blockbuster "franchise" technique of telegraphing the premise for a sequel.
Because you KNOW that your Zinn reference is going to draw a putative Zinnger from some Defender of the Duopoly "taking you down" by noting that Zinn Himself Endorsed Obama-- or at least recommended that progressives support him.
And just to make sure that you're not still breathing, they may use a second pillow named Chomsky for insurance.
I respect and admire Zinn and Chomsky, but it's pathetic at best when they're cited in comments threads as icons at whose feet all leftish citizens must fall, perhaps clamoring "We're not worthy!", to support lesser-evil "realism".
· Yr Obd't Servant
Zinn and Chomsky, who present evidence to not support the democratic party, and then tacitly endorse them when election time comes around are doing a disservice to creating authentic change.
And include Tom Hayden in that group of people who say one thing and act another. I'm considering adding Amy Goodman.
And also include all the Obama supporters who say they want health care and an end to the war, but then voted for Obama.
It makes it tough for people to support third party candidates when no one is willing to say publicly that the democratic party is so broken that it can't be fixed and the only thing to do is to start building another party. The Green party has issues, and at best all parties do is identity basic positions on policies and issues.
I want a party that puts human rights first and foremost; doesn't condone oppression regardless of the justification; acts in a transparent manner; considers the pros an cons of an issue (not just economics) and supports accountability.
And doesn't solicit (or accept) money from those entities that are contrary to its basic principles.
Excellent, mcoyote!
Much as it hurts, it's good that Weiner has sold out and even Kucinich has given up on his amendment, because it erases any little doubt anyone might have harbored that the Democrats and the Republicans serve the same bloodsucking masters.
Well put mcoyote! Like I have posted before: Congress is almost entirely nothing but Republican and Democratic criminal attorneys who support and represent the corrupt, corportocracy and the MIC,while pulling the wool over the eyes of the sheeple.
You are absolutely correct........
As I travel through the south and listen to radio's bullies.........I can not help but feel nervous....As the bullies cry out, "President Obama did not respond with compassion to the victims at Fort Hood," I could not help but remember George W. Bush sitting in a classroom emotionless as the 9/11 attacks began. Then there was his admission, "I watched as the first plane struck one of the towers before I went into the classroom." Of course there was no live tv shots of the first plane striking and he still went into the classroom......Or, how about, "We got from his confession that explosives were to be placed low enough to prevent people from escaping." Of course there were no investigations and the myth building continues with the USS New York made from the steel of the downed towers.
To the bullies, Obama is a left wing liberal.....to those of us who believe in: human rights, civil rights, constitutional rights, and the rule of law, Obama is nothing but a right wing American Capitalist out to kill those brown, non christian evildoers so that the Oil Pipeline is finished and America's Vital Interests, Oil, are protected for the good of the military industrial complex.
Satan comes in many forms bearing nothing but lies.....2000 pages of worthless healthcare proposals will just enslave more Americans to the Corporate Elite.
"Of course there was no live tv shots of the first plane striking and he still went into the classroom."
Closed circuit television possibly?
Well said and nicely done!
Except for the brief shining hour of 1933-37, when FDR and a handful of determined operatives (including especially Mrs Roosevelt)managed to create a whole series of government aid programs, increase taxation and regulation on big business, finance, and banking, and hold off an attempted military coup-de-tat on the part of the fascist wing of American political thought (and only then because the chosen leader-retired General Smedley Butler, decided to turn in the conspirators instead of collude with them).
After that FDR decided to cut spending, prepare for war, and even dump the one progressive voice that still remained in the person of Henry Wallace as his VP for the 1944 elections, the Democrats remained what you have portrayed.
Poet
Great argument, mcoyote.
I have two comments:
1) Your writing was not quite precise enough to prevent a gratuitous atack against Noam Chomsky. In the future, please be more careful about this.
2) You accidentally forgot to include the 800 number for PolitiChoice.
Mcoyote, You made a lot of good points. I'll add that during the Democratic party did all it could to shut out the progressives like Kucinich during its Democratic primary debates. It was very uncomfortable for the party to have a debate that fell outside the Democrat/Republican talking points, in other words, a debate based on reality. As you state, they are decoration for the party, to make it appear there is choice, however, they will never be given power (e.g., chairmanships) to influence real decision making and are tolerable as long as they stay in the corner.
Imagine my surprise to see that someone saved my PolitiChoice bit from a few years ago. Thank you.
Excellent!
And I would add, since when is the perfect the enemy of anything? And, the good?
The House bill is good? In what way?
An excellent summary judgement and basic primer on what has always been obvious: There are no 'real' politics in America.
Especially in the living corpse which calls itself the Democratic Party including its erstwhile heroes: Anthony Weiner, Conyers and Kucinich.
But the larger point is why do the same lessons have to be continually re-learned anew and the same discourse be continually reiterated? Why does what is obvious always have to be seen as if it somehow comes as a 'surprise?'
There is nothing remotely new here in mcoyote's magisterial summarizing; this is all immaculate 'boilerplate' all the more useful as it is unassailably true. But its very virtues, ironically confer a growing tedium that lacks sufficient outrage enough to overcome its truths. Here is a situation where the very 'truth's' serve as palliatives and die in the tomb of a received wisdom which is no longer necessary. There is no need for an annunciation.
The fact that these lessons have to be repeatedly re-stated and re- assimilated stymie actionable political thinking. There is no need to state them again. Continuing to do so is wallowing in political juvenilia and confers a terminal immaturity.The scurrilous 'issue' of the Democratic party is like a Panama Canal that all ships must reference or pass through to reach the open sea.That divagation must end. It must be bypassed.
Proceed finally, as if the Democratic Party does not exist by annulling or destroying the ideological shadow it inevitably casts in all subsequent thinking. Destroy the intellectual 'locus' by 'de-centering' it in the discourse and the confining nomenclature. Once and for all by refuse to reference oneself through it. Continuing to critically explain its wretched incoherence serves as a back handed validation of its existence.
Sadly and paradoxically, mcoyote's elementary primer contributes to the continuing incoherence as it refuses to destroy the terms of the game on which it is premised. It continues to 'assume' these premises in the very act of denouncing them. It is not contemptuous enough; it is haunted by the long shadow, which continues to stalk the incipient future, denaturing the emergence of a new politics in advance,
Having said that what, I found important in the posting was not the tedious regurgitation of the boilerplate, but the denouncing of the liberal icon Howard Zinn for his advocacy of the Obama vote. Similarly, Noam Chomsky deserves similar condemnation for refusing to de-reference himself from the Democratic party clap trap. In the expanded context of mcoyote's intervention, new iconic nodes of resonant thought must be found: To wit–
"The dictatorship is necessary because it is a case, not of partial changes, but of the very EXISTENCE of the bourgeoisie. No agreement is possible on this ground. Only force can be the deciding factor" –(Leon Trotsky)
The very EXISTENCE of the Democratic Party? The suppression of the Republican Party?
Certainly one will say objective historical conditions do not exist and will never exist for this citation to be of much value. The value however resides in its intellectual 'resonance' and in its necessary, malleable extremism. It is true not in the certainty or the 'realistic' chances of its materialization, but that it sounds the future.
As Chou En-Lai, Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party said in 1952 when asked about the value of the French Revolution: "It is still too early to tell."
But it is not too early to tell about the future of the Democratic Party: The self immolation is complete. It is after the fact. –(Jill Bains)
Nanoo
Something should be cleared up. It's true Howard Zinn had endorsed Obama prior to the election, but as the time drew near, he changed his mind and voted for Nader. I read that here, on Commondreams.
Nanoo,
Thanks for the correction. I would rather think the best of someone I admire than see a legacy tarnished.–(Jill Bains).
Nice one.