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Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel's Health Care Speech
Not to be too much of a downer, but I found Obama's speech tonight a big O-bummer. Really, other than his very important reminder that "we're all in this together," it was disappointing (although that's probably not the right word, because it implies I expected something more). And remember, while I have at times been critical of Obama, I've been very supportive of him on health care...up until tonight. Here's a list of my basic problems:
- Why do Republican presidents and politicians never bash "The Right," but President Obama uses a joint session speech to bash "The Left?"
- Obama felt the need to tell the country that he's devoted to making sure the wildly unpopular private insurance industry at the heart of the health care meltdown remains profitable. He also made sure to forget that Americans love Medicare and hate private insurance when he went out of his way to reiterate his support for "market" economics (shocker - this was the line both parties stood up and gave a thundering round of applause). Awesome.
- Completely unclear why Obama promised to "call out lies," and then proceeded to embrace the Right's most dishonest narrative about tort reform being a major vehicle to fix health care (not surprisingly, the "don't negotiate with legislative terrorists" lesson was reinforced when the GOP response called Obama's bluff and pushed to work with him on tort reform).
- The wavering on the public option would be hilarious if it wasn't so serious. Really - his insistence that he supports it but might also support removing it reminded me of a Saturday Night Live skit parodying wavering and waffling Democrats. Obviously he just had to listen to pundits insisting he must abandon the public option, when a huge majority of Americans continue to support it, and he has a huge legislative majority in Congress. He obviosuly just HAS to compromise on it because...well...just because - and he certainly can't use reconciliation like President Bush did because...well, again, just because. And, of course, those of us who don't expect him to compromise away an already compromised yet still wildly popular public option are obviously on the radical fringe regardless of polling data. Obviously!
- Though he didn't draw a direct equivalence, he implied there was one between the progressive push for single payer and the ultra-conservative push to destroy the entire health care system. Sick.
In sum, when you couple this with the speech's fawning praise for lunatics like John McCain and Chuck Grassley and add to it the news that the White House is holding closed-door compromise meetings with corporate Democrats tomorrow, I felt like I was listening to a parsed screed by President Rahm Emanuel, not a call to arms from the Barack Obama who actually ran for president. There was lots of passionate talk about the problem, and little courage to demand a serious solution.
I mean, I seem to remember an election just a few months ago that resulted in a Democratic president, and huge Democratic majorities in Congress - and I seem to remember there was a Barack Obama who only a short while ago said geting those electoral results was the only obstacle to a full-on single payer health care system, much less a weakened public option. But again, I guess it's just too bad that after that election, President Emanuel now rules America.
54 Comments so far
Show AllI'm glad I am not the only progressive who felt duly chastised by the president.
So exactly how is the president's proposal different from the Baucus plan? The government is going to force 45 million people into private insurance by a threat of... Obama didn't mention what... and five million will go into this quasi-public/private coop that will cost about 900 billion (incidentally the same price tag as Baucus' plan).
His discussion of morality was inspirational, but I don't see how this proposal is moral... Oh yea, I remember our moral imperative is "greed is good." I keep forgetting that.
All is right with the world. Guess I just need to get with the program.
...a-greed, buy insurance co stock now and get in on the windfall swindle.
It's not Rahm Emanuel that rules America, it is the banks, big insurance and pharmaceuticals, oil and weapons producers. Obama is a mild reformer but he ultimately represents the corporatocracy. The fascist right is useful in the process by playing the "bad cop" role "limiting" what the "good cop" can provide in spite of massive public support for (at very least) a public option.
Rahm and Obomb will be much more comfortable after the 2010 elections when the Republicans control both houses of Congress again.
As long as the Democrats control both houses, Obomb needs to pile the bullshit deep to come up with excuses why he is such a fascist.
Sirota is still listening to speeches by professional liars and thieves then he's sooo upset by what he hears. BHO is an Overseer on Master's Plantation called the USA. Overseers don't have a 'race' or a 'gender', they have a job description: Transfer all wealth to the top 1/4 of 1% by hook or by crook; and degrade and debase the general population into compliance, conformity, and obedience. That's it. The rest is merely the transformation of the US into a low-wage third world slum. "You're doin' a heckofa job, Brownie." Health care? What health care? Health care is only for the top 20%. 80% are going to get NOTHING. It works like "Insulated White Privilege". You convince a group of people that "they're special, they're ok" while the rest of the population is thrown under the bus. Then when everybody else is buried in the bandini, Master takes out the onetime "Insulated" group. Same here. No difference. End game is the same. Everybody but Master and his Overseers are in the bandini.
"The rest is merely the transformation of the US into a low-wage third world slum."
Bingo! I was saying this 15+ years ago. Hence the three-decade-long transfer of wealth from the poor and working class to the ultra-rich, the military's new training for situations of urban unrest, and all the mechanisms of a police state put in place under the aegis of the Wars on Drugs and Terror. We the people are hosed.
So what do we do about it? General strike?
We need a new political party. Howard Dean has the organization to do it.
Actually, we need a new constitution, before the country comes apart at the seams.
But the only way that will ever happen is if we remove the current crop of rascals, and close off the bottomless pit of aspiring rascals who slither in wait.
What an age to be an American! I feel robbed. But I guess it is our lot to deal with it.
The Green Party supports single payer and a host of other progressive reforms that the Demublicans have either abandoned or never embraced in the 1st place.
In another article on Common Dreams about composting in SF, someone pointed out that Germany's had it for more than a decade...thanks to their Green Party.
The difference is that Germany (and most other Western European countries) has a proportional representation system where parties get representation in the parliament (Bundestag) in proportion to the % of votes they get. Germany's system is a little more complicated, but that's basically it.
The upshot is that parties that represent minority views can and do get into parliaments and even into ruling coalitions. In Germany, the Green Party has about 8% of the Bundestag's representatives and part of a ruling coalition with the Social Democrats from 1998 to 2005.
Re null September 10th, 2009 10:53 am
Howard Dean, M.D., came out in opposition to single-payer in advance of his primary run in 2004. Don't pin too much HOPE on him to CHANGE.
Exactly. Every time someone pushes Dean, I remember him sitting there waffling like hell on every issue as he tried to figure out what he should pretend to stand for. Pure opportunist.
Unlike DK.
We're gonna get that new constitution, although not the one you're thinking of, once our activist ultra-fascist supreme court equates corporate financing of elections with Freedom of Speech. That will tear down the thin curtain that remains to keep us from seeing that corporations actually are the government, the very definition of fascism.
Most people who stop in here want single-payer, but as Sirota says, Obama drew a near direct equivalence in his speech with s-p and the lunatic far right's idea of getting rid of ALL health care, making people individually purchase insurance. Both these plans, to Obama, are equally misguided. So much for all our bellyaching over single-payer. To Obama, it's just as crazy as destroying the whole system. Because it would be just that, since for him health care has EVERYTHING to do with keeping the insurance industry robust and profitable.
It exactly parallels his "vision" of economic prosperity. He bailed out and obscenely rewarded the criminals who wrecked this economy and is proud of it, utterly heedless of the millions without jobs, who can't pay bills or get enough decent food and have no health insurance. All he cares about is whether Wall Street banksters are happy with his "stimulus". Same with his health plan. If it makes the insurance industry and Big Pharma happy, it's a resounding success! No doubt this does reflect Rahm Emanuel's values, but it's got Obama written all over it as well.
Well said.
Seconded.
Which reveals the joke that we need to get behind and aid Obama.
That is why there is no counter movement.
The majority is opposed to Obama's general drift, but there is this you-are-either with-us-or-against-us mentality of associating non-support of Obama's policies as exclusively the reactionary territory of the Right. I don't like him because his policies meet more with their general approval despite the fact that they cast him as a socialist.
And you guys voted for Democrats instead of people who are in favour of the "radical" single payer system that cuts your taxes in half and provides services to everyone, why?
...well, again, just because
Don't look at me. I've voted Green in every election I could vote in since I turned 18.
Having become so disgusted and hopeless about the Democrats, I signed up last week to receive emails from the state Green Party. I had to sign up through YahooGroups. The Greens (at least in my state) are not even in a position to run their own website and email lists independently, so I question their ability to get elected to major office. Seems like party building/ movement building is what is really needed.
The only hope I can see for voting our way out of this is maybe primary challenges against do nothing, Republican light Democrats.
The country is getting another vivid lesson that the organized greed and power of the rich and corporations will outmaneuver and overpower the disorganized citizens. Unless and until we the people organize ourselves in unions, parties, and other clear agendaed structures, the rich elites will continue their vulture capitalism right down to our bones. And then the capitalist hyenas will show up to chew up our bones--for profit. Luckylefty (above) tags Obama very clearly as current Overseer of the corporate master's plantation. Obama and other carefully selected and vetted front men and women for the capitalist oligarchy know their roles. And are well rewarded via bribes, termed campaign contributions. Perhaps the ongoing descent we are experiencing will spark a people's movement for change.
Hereabouts, I already hear the "liberal" healthcare advocates refusing to see the clear structures of power, corruption and control operating and instead claiming that the loss is due to not calling, writing and e-mailing "our" representatives enough. They carry a grade school text book view of how US politics operates as a framework and they cling to it tenaciously. Doubters are regarded as nasties who want to take away a child's notion of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. What does it take to snap them out of their trance?
Hey what do I care--I'll soon be 65 and get edicare. These reforms will not even start till 2013 will not blow up till after 2016 and by 2020 I should be dead. I got what you want, too bad for the rest of you. Does this prove I am a good enough American. Just love that Obama administration
Before you gloat too much, you better read Baucus's proposed bill since it represents the first of many massive cuts in Medicare funding.
Dear Mr. Sirota,
Your ideology does not take into account that 60 senators must sign on for anything at all to pass. Even if, for argument’s sake, the only thing passed is an end to insurance company discrimination, that, alone, would be the first positive change since Medicare. (Of course, you and I both know that much more than that is going to pass.) You demand the entire galaxy; it is not enough for you to start by saving the planet. Would you rather it all be doomed? No longer support Obama? Why don’t you vote for Romney or Pawlenty, or just stay home?
If you must find fault for finding fault's sake, then call out the Blue Dogs? That is the real problem. Obama will get done all or most of what is POSSIBLE to get done given what he has to work with.
Finally, to those who shout, "We must hold Obama's feet to the fire." Fine, I agree. But is it beneath your ideology to mention even one positive thing he said? There is no need to be so selfish when some praise is deserved.
Here is someting Obama has that you don't: Wisdom
Sounds like the same shit the Canadian was posting yesterday.
Much, much more would be "possible" if Barack Obama behaved like an actual Democrat with actual balls, instead of like a whipped, spayed poodle with a happy smile and a bow in his nappy head, standing on his back legs, begging his master for a piece of kibble.
LBJ took these recalcitrant bastards behind closed doors and told them in crude and certain terms that the Democratic party machine and money pipeline to them and their paltry districts would be cut off cold if they didn't vote with him. Then they all posed smiling before the cameras with talk of party unity, etc.
Obama instead bolts, yapping like, well, as I said, a whipped dog, every time Rush and the Repubs and the useless hacks in his own party even raise the whip. They don't even have to swing it. This smiling, hoops-shooting, glad-handing clown owes his political life to the people who benefit most by the regime put in place by reactionaries from Reagan to Cheney/Bush. Obama's first and foremost job is to protect their prerogatives by continuing to simply deny and ignore what is obvious to all the rest of us, including the most casual observer. Obama has the White House, both houses of congress and control of the appointments to the 3rd branch. He has Dem governors and Dem statehouse control in many states. He had widepsread revulsion at the Cheney/Bush catastrophe and 70+% approval ratings. He has systematically pissed it all away for a pat on the head from Mitch McConnell which he will never receive and another one from the people represented by Rahm Emmanuel. A pat on the head from Rahm may simply mean that a hit is called off. Hard to say with those people; they have hired themselves out as murderers around the world for 40 years. Why stop at US borders?
You accept completely artificial constraints confabulated by hucksters with no reference to reality. What's "possible" was largely up to Barack Obama. He has shown his hand openly and contemptuously. If we have any hand to play we better play it soon. And we better remember that the future of the Dem party is of zero consequence in our calculation. Instead, we should make Barack Obama fear for his job and his career. If we do anything less, we should just do nothing at all, except perhaps leave this worsening nightmare.
the prez has burned his currency with the left and he never had any with the right, there is no middle
rahm emmanuel is an israeli citizen who fought in the first gulf war on the isralei side - most of bush's cabinet was the same (us/israelis), except for the fighting part, most are chickenhawks
everyone, including our foreign allies are well represented in the obama cabinet - everyone except the sheeple that is
when i hear the ignoramouses on the right call obama a lefty it makes me want to puke
he is nwo - blow boy of kissinger, rockefeller and the rothschild banking debt machine
jfk was the last president
clinton was the last elected puppet
and obama is the last caricature in the oval office
we are getting near the end and more and more of us know it
tick tock
we still find it hard to get off our overweight and underfed asses - in no small part because there is nowhere to go
our last best hope was obama (we thought, hoped and desparately prayed for)
24 trillion to the banks, cash cow to pharma/insurance/hmo's called health care reform and the ever expanding never ending wars of empire later we realize (some of us) that we were fucked going in and we are really fucked now
When President Obama said he was "determined to be tha last" in regard to presidents that deal with health care, he may have been right. After him, the head of our nation will be called "Dear Leader", period.
Things still aren't bad enough
Guess not, and it doesn't seem as if the situation ever will be "bad enough" until it becomes so devastatingly bad that it's totally irredeemable -- if it isn't already.
I've been waiting for some kind of citizens' uprising since the so-called "Downing Street Memo" confirmed the strong suspicion that the country had been taken to war based on "fixed" intelligence and outright lies. But Americans just keep right on believing that somehow they'll be saved by the same political system that keeps right on screwing them. "Just wait 'til next time" should be the U.S. motto.
It's hard to believe it's the same country that once initiated an armed rebellion because of a tax on tea.
So what happened to the American spirit of that era? In today's America, roughly 70% of the populace favor some kind of universal health care and a whopping 90% (that's nine zero, no typo) believe that large corporations have too much power and influence over their lives. So neither perceived problems, needs and wants, nor lack of popular support, nor common ground amongst the citizenry appear to be inhibiting factors.
It would seem that either today's corporate/imperial forces have become more intimidating, or today's people have become more easily intimidated, or possibly both. Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, foreigners appear less intimidated when faced with actual U.S. imperial arms and coercion than Americans themselves do merely facing the corporate power potential.
I think you are forgetting that America is very much NOT the "same" country that it was at the time of the Revolution.
We are no longer a nation of small landholders, farm workers, indentured servants, skilled or semi-skilled handcraft industry workers, shippers, merchants, seamen, cottage industry workers, trappers, hunters, and mountain men.
We are no longer a nation of English, Scottish, Scots-Irish, Dutch, and other Germanics with some Irish-Irish and tiny groups of other ethnicities mixed in.
We are no longer a nation of rapidly spreading ruralism and agrarianism confined into 13 colonial States prevented from expanding beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
We are no longer a nation that has a clear scapegoat of controlling and unjust Imperial rulers from outside of our land to blame for our problems.
And lastly, though obviously I could go on, we are no longer a nation where a young adolescent from a frontier family might have superior means (a rifle not a musket) and ability (hunting for his living) with weapons of violence and power than a member of the greatest military force on earth. Colonial militias -CITIZEN militias- even had cannon!
Please note that I am NOT trying to berate you or belittle your posts. I just think that your question really answers itself. We are NOT the same nation we were then, in MANY ways. So it naturally follows that we do not act as we did then.
Just to reinforce the mass of the change, I'd like to point out that though I say "we" in this post when referring to the U.S. as a nation from its inception to the present, it is not really accurate.
Not a SINGLE ancestor of mine was present in the Americas before the 1870's.
Millions of people share this with me.
So, one of the ways that "we" are different then the Revolutionists is that "we" now includes me, and millions of others like me.
-matti.
"We are no longer a nation of small landholders, farm workers, indentured servants, skilled or semi-skilled handcraft industry workers, shippers, merchants, seamen, cottage industry workers, trappers, hunters, and mountain men."
You left out SLAVES.
"We are no longer a nation of English, Scottish, Scots-Irish, Dutch, and other Germanics with some Irish-Irish and tiny groups of other ethnicities mixed in."
You left out Africans.
I noticed that. I guess the native americans were also on vacation in Europe in those days.
Now here's the truth:
England stopped coming after us because of France, period. The proof of that is that when France began to have "difficulties" in 1812, the British came over and burned Washington down. I think the message was crystal clear. At the same time, the French were humiliated by a Brilliant Black Haitian General who defeated Napolean's army while keeping the British at bay. Thomas Jefferson and the slave holders in the US were going nuts with the idea of a free, black Haiti. Haiti really did win and Europe and the US have been punishing them ever since. Did you know that the Louisiana purchase was DIRECTLY caused by Napolean getting his ass kicked in Haiti?
We are here because of White privilege, not George Washington's testicles. He was a racist, elitist general who practiced genocide on native americans before and after the revolution. The British could have crushed us any time.
We are humans. Most of us are comfortable. That's the only reason the lid is still on, period. But that is slowly changing.
That seems to me like a much more accurate assessment than most. Even then, the fabled American "revolutionary spirit" seems to have been more an opportunistic exploitation for the benefit of the privileged class than anything else.
I might quarrel slightly with your comment that, in 1812, "the British came over and burned Washington down" as if it were some kind of revolutionary retribution belatedly enabled by French "difficulties" at the time. The attack and burning actually occured in 1814, two years after the U.S. declaration of war and invasion of parts of British North America (Canada) the population of which wasn't very keen, even then, on U.S. "liberation." Quite farsighted in many respects. That's not justification, BTW. Just another perspective.
Also, regarding matti's comment that the "13 colonial states" were prevented from expanding beyond the Appalachian Mountains, that was a British attempt to require its colonials to honor then existing treaties with the native population. Once again, it was obviously in conflict with certain opportunistic aims -- incidentally including the westward land speculation of folks like George Washington who was already PO'd about not getting his much sought after King's Commission as an officer in the British regular army.
Right. I messed up the date of the burning of the capital. But you can see how this whole movement in the US colonies was about LAND, LAND AND MORE LAND. Even the words, Life, liberty and PROPERTY were changed to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to cover up the real power play. No one could vote if they didn't own property. That says it all. But the historical backdrop is so distorted by the myths involved with the American revolution that it's hard for most people (I had a hell of a time) to get a handle on it when they see all the other events going on in South America, the Caribbean and Europe simultaneously. In the late 18th century there was a famine in europe caused by cold summer weather. All the political problems came to the fore. All the revolutions were a result of opportunism. The history of Haiti (it wasn't Haiti yet but all of Hispanola) is pivotal to American triumph and expansion but no history book will credit them because they are black, period. Why can I remember George Washington but I can't remember the name of that Brilliant African General in Haiti that would have eaten Washington's lunch? Because of PR embedded racist attitudes. It's like if the guy is black he doesn't count. It's absolute bullshit. I'm not black and it drives me nuts. I can see how a black person would want to rub everything we owe them in our faces. They are right. And people like Obama working for the "man" is just as sickening to good people of any color.
"Just wait until the next generation, they'll be the ones to fix it."
I can't tell you how much this is implied. My parents, staunch 60s hippies wanted to change things. But instead they sold out, had kids and passed the burden to me. Now, my own generation (I'm 28, btw) is just having children and passing the problem off to the next generation.
What a cop-out.
Well those guys got theirs from the Native Americans, slaves and all the subsequent working class immigrants. Now those guys own it all and have become King George. That is why you need a periodic revolution. I think we are there in terms of need, if not organization.
Joe
Gees, that must've been a different speech than the one, say Katrina from The Nation, was gushing over.
There goes the last shred of her credibility.
There's a lot of people who were gushing over this speech last night that were criticizing him a few days ago. There's still gushing over at HuffPo because the hero Obama called the Blue Dogs and Lieberman to the WH. Baucus not included in the group. I've got to stay away from that site. When the maniacs start letting loose their one-line zingers everybody is fair game. Although they did post this article over there and very few bots showed up. Very few bots showed up for Rep. Weiner's article on single-payer a couple of days ago. The Dems are really that divided.
"...we're all in this together..."
That was the part where I choked up, thinking about how me and Goldman Sachs and BofA and Blue Cross and Pfizer and Halliburton and Blackwater and Cheney and Beck and the 'birthers' and Palin and Citi and the Fed Reserve are 'all in this together.'
Be still my warm, patriotic, broke, unemployed, uninsured heart...
Thanks for the laugh on such a dark day.
Big smile.
Joe
Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel's Health Care Speech
Thank you for this bit of accurate reporting.
Sirota is starting to get it.
Sirota:
"And remember, while I have at times been critical of Obama, I've been very supportive of him (AND THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY) on health care...(WHICH PROTECTS CORPORATE PROFITS AND BLOCKS SINGLE PAYER)"
Sirota, by embracing for-profit healthcare you are advocating letting many low-income people suffer or die in order to allow some CEO to gold-plate his toilette.
We want single payer. Not legislation crafted by the insurance industry.
"I mean, I seem to remember an election just a few months ago that resulted in a Democratic president, and huge Democratic majorities in Congress - and I seem to remember there was a Barack Obama who only a short while ago said geting those electoral results was the only obstacle to a full-on single payer health care system, much less a weakened public option. But again, I guess it's just too bad that after that election, President Emanuel now rules America."
To be clear, Obama only gave lip-service to his support of single payer in 2003 while running for the Senate. But that's it. He quickly abandoned all support for single payer, blocking it from even entering the debate.
I am always amazed by the lengths Obama's supporters will go through to avoid placing any blame on Obama. Does Rahm have a mind control device? Is Obama not "a big boy"?
As often is the case, David Sirota is right on the mark!
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As often is the case, David Sirota is right on the mark!
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DAVID SIROTA:
YOU DO NOT GET IT!!! THE PUBLIC OPTION IS NOT GETTING US CLOSER TO SINGLE PAYER. IT IS WORSE THAN WHAT WE HAVE NOW WHICH IS NOTHING!
STOP SPREADING MISINFORMATION!!
DO YOU NOT HAVE ACCESS TO WHAT DENNIS KUCINICH HAS SAID???
THE PUBLIC OPTION IS A MANDATE FORCING ALL PEOPLE TO BUY INSURANCE. PEOPLE DON'T HAVE INSURANCE BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE THE MONEY TO BUY IT!!! DO YOU GET IT NOW??
THE PUBLIC OPTION IS A GIFT FROM OBAMA TO THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY. HE IS NOT A NICE GUY. HE NEVER WAS.
WE WANT MEDICARE OR HEALTHCARE FOR ALL --SINGLE PAYER!
NO INSURANCE MIDDLE MEN!
THIS IS WHAT CONGRESS AND OBAMA ARE ENJOYING -- WHY IS THE REST OF THE COUNTRY NOT??
SINGLE-PAYER!! CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW???
Obama made a statement that has thus far escaped criticism.
He promised "Tax Credits" to help the poor pay for mandated insurance.
Tax Credits...You did catch it when he said it?
Isn't this direct from the Republican playbook?
There are tens of millions of working poor who pay no taxes.
How is a credit supposed to help them pay for even a bare-bones $400 a month policy?
Most middle or lower class people don't have a couple hundred extra bucks to purchase anything.
If they're forced to buy insurance it'll come at the expense of their house or apartment.
Medicare For All, also known as single-payer health insurance, is favored by a majority of Americans.
How can we convince our Members of Congress to enact what the people want?
Let them know that unless they support Medicare For All, you won't support them.
Take the Medicare For All Voter Pledge:
http://bit.ly/medicareforallpledge
I think I'm going to sleep. I hope my insurance covers that.
Don't count on it, slacker. I think chronic evening drowsiness is a pre-existing condition.