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TechnoratiWhy I Voted NO
Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.
But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies - a bailout under a blue cross.
By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress' blog, Think Progress, states, 'since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.' Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that 'money will start flowing in again' to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.
During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.
Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks' hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy - in which most Americans live - the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.
This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America's manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.
Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America's businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.
211 Comments so far
Show AllI know what it is. Vanmungo's jealous of Kucinich because he has a hot wife.
Sorry. :P
http://www.indypendent.org/2009/11/12/you-must-go-to-jail/
I think Nader and Dennis can work together if they really want real change.
But not in the Democratic Party, for reasons already belabored to death.
You think Dennis is a "phoney and a hack", and I think he is one of the best and we need more like him and like Bernie Sanders and about 10 percent of the elected Dems in congress who have courage to vote against the War Lobby.
Dennis is a good congressman, and he would not have gotten elected as a Green or any 3rd party, just like Nader cannot get elected.
The winner take all system that needs big bucks just to get a candidate name known is reality. For president you need 50 million votes just to have a chance. This is power politics of big money.
I don't like it, but it is reality.
You don't address the key point:
Aside from whatever personal advantages you impute to Kucinich, he consistently advocates voting the straight Democratic line. This means electing candidates who are consistently opposed--in practce--to nearly every progressive proposal he claims to champion.
In what sane universe is this conisered effective or pragmatic? It's like trying to promote atheism by voting for a faith-based party, or trying to promote equality for African Americans by voting for an avowed racist.
We will NEVER achieve single payer, public financing of elections, reduced military spending, nonimperialist foreign policy, etc., by voting for candidates WHO ARE AVOWEDLY OPPOSED TO ALL THE FOREGOING.
This is why Kucinich is a hack--he prized party loyalty above pushing--in reality, in practice--for the progressive planks he blathers on about. If he were serious about that program, he would not call for people to vote for candidates who are certain to crush it.
I already did address your key point.
We have a difference of opinion on that.
I don't see him like you do at all and I see him as one of our best as this article shows.
REALITY was my point that you don't address and I am not in charge of finding a universe that is sane for you, so good luck.
As is usual with a progressive who professes to be full of high morals and ideals, when your shoddy logic is shot down, you turn surly and nasty as a snake.
First of all, you say that Kucinich is a "good" Congressman. What has all his fawning before the mainstream Democrats won in the way of progressive legislation? Name one piece of progressive legislation that has been passed as a result of all his unprincipled support for mainstream Democrats. One. Now. No evasions. See? You can't name one. So what good is Kucinich--other than to the Democrats, keeping progressives corralled within the prison of the Democratic Party?
Your "reality" is that in order to get elected in the current system, you have to play the game of big-money politics. But the big money comes from big corporations which then dictate your agenda--or you don't get the money. That's why Kucinich's primary runs are always doomed.
So your "reality" is to knuckle under to these interests just to attain office, at which point you become a pawn of these interests.
If that universe is sane for you, then you are morally insane and should get treatment as soon as possible--because the very definition of insanity is to think that you're going to achieve your goals by campaigning for and endorsing people who relentlessly oppose them.
It is certainly not a practical way to achieve progressive change. You need to break with that whole paradigm. But you're too lazy, morally and intellectually, to conjure with those realities and how to overcome them. You'd rather just preach the same old tired rationalizations for marching in lockstep to the status quo--another drone among drones.
I'm with thegreatrockyhill.
I also do not give a shit what anyone says about Dennis Kucinich. One is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
I do not give a shit what VANMUNGO says, as he clearly is an agent provocateur.
Vanmungo is like a dog with a bone who just won't let go.
No one can have an opinion when vanmungo is lurking about.
I support Dennis Kucinich for President.
Dennis Kucinich has earned the right to run for President. He was Mayor and is now Congressman for Cleveland.
What government office has Ralph Nader held or run for?
Ralph Nader admitted to accepting Republican Party contributions in the states that would interfere with John Kerry's winning. When I heard this, I had to agree that he was a spoiler.
Nader can not be trusted. If we keep electing individuals that take money from the dark side, we will continue getting the dark side.
NO MORE millionaires, NO MORE Harvard graduates, NO MORE lawyers.
"I would rather vote for what I want and not get it than vote for what I don't want and get it." -- Eugene Debs
Fetch, vanmungo.
You can have your opinions, groupie, but you had better be prepared to back them up with facts.
So far you have not done so--all you've got are desperate smear tactics.
You don't care to discuss--only endlessly reiterate your starstruck drivel about Kucinich.
You quote Eugene Debs--a principled socialist radical who NEVER supported or voted for a Democrat in his life.
Contrast this with Kucinich, who not only runs within the corrupt, corporate-owned Democratic Party, but urges ALL OTHERS to vote the STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC LINE in every election.
So you agree with Debs that you would rather vote for what you want and not get it than vote for what you don't want and get it. Great! You should relay this quotation to your demigod Kucinich, who preaches JUST THIS LESSER-EVILISM during every election campaign, when he counsels everyone to vote for the likes of Kerry, Obama, and Pelosi.
And what's this with "no more Harvard graduates"? Do you regard intelligence as a stigma? Evidently so, judging by your hysterical, irrational, fact- and logic-free mode of discourse. Ralph Nader graduated from Harvard Law School--is that a reason not to vote for him, dunderhead?
And then you spout a paragraph of discredited DNC disinformation about Nader, lies that were tossed around by the Democrats to discredit one of the country's great Americans in order to elect the prowar corporate whore John Kerry? You've thoroughly discredited yourself with that junk.
Moreover, even if you don't trust Nader, that's no argument for keeping people trapped inside the corrupt, procorporate Democratic Party, as Kucinich stupidly advises everyone to do every election.
You could vote for the Green candidate or one of the Socialist candidates. But you're too corrupt and unprincipled to consider that--you and Dennis are all about promoting Dennis, not advancing a true progressive agenda.
Boy--are you ever confused. And vicious. And deranged.
If Kucinich could see your posts, even he'd be embarrassed.
Fetch that, groupie.
i'd just like to enter this discussion:
What is it that you think you have the place to discourage Kucinich or any of his supporters? Because you voted Green or Red? Really? You think that holding leftist ideals and voting makes you progressive? Let me guess, you think because you can recite some deranged historical bit, ahistorical at best, about Eugene Debs never supporting a Dem, (while forgetting the Party realignments that have occurred since Debs' time in the spotlight), that you live outside of the loop of American politics as usual?
Kucinich works within the bounds of the American state. Is it the best possible alternative? That's debatable. Is just going to the Green Party or the Socialist Party the best alternative? Certainly not. When was the last time anyone actually went out and canvassed for either party?
Building a truly progressive movement means working with what we have to get better. It's pretty simple logic that's common to any contract fight during collective bargaining.
Unless of course you're so far Left and progressive of us all that you've already started preparing for the revolution and stocked your house with Marx and Lenin tracts, while the rest of the country submerges further and further into the spiraling agony of economic depression and uninsured death.
Your post is incoherent, ad hominem babble.
Stick to the main line of argument.
Kucinich is not merely working within the bounds of the American state, as you put it. He is working within the bounds of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is not the state--you can't even keep your concepts straight.
How have party alignments changed since the time of Debs? If anything, the mainstream Democratic Party is farther to the right now than it was then, yet Debs would never support a candidate of that more-progressive version of the Dems. Yet you imagine that he would support one of the current, farther-right Dems? Where did you learn your logic--from Professor Irwin Corey?
What is this party realignment you speak of? There were two major parties then--both representing the interests of big business with minor tactical differences--just as there are now.
Your references to Marx and Lenin are just stupefying red herrings. No one is talking about revolution or radical socialism. We are talking about effective advocacy for such minimally civilized measures as Medicare for all, living wage, repeal of antiunion laws, cutting military spending to fund urgent social needs, and so on. The Democratic Party--and all of its candidates, who are endorsed by Kucinich--is opposed to all those measures.
By endorsing those Democrats, Kucinich is undermining in practice--in deeds--the progressive agenda he purports to uphold in his campaign speeches. In short, he is a fraud and hypocrite.
You can snarl and red-bait all you want, just like an aspiring Roy Cohn or Joe McCarthy. That doesn't justify your hypocrisy and self-defeating illusions, or those of the hypocrite-in-chief--Kucinich--you so mindlessly and viciously troll for on this list.
wow
of course i was attacking you; you were busy showing off how radical and eruditty you are. you deserve a ticket to come back to earth with the rest of us. you come off arrogant.
thanks for waving those statistics in our face...i'm glad to see that nader is busy working for pro-union legislation, as you put it, while simultaneously crushing staff unions at Multinational Monitor and Public Citizen. can one be pro-union and follow the same patterns as employers you supposedly oppose?
just because a candidate is third-party doesn't make them outside of the loop of washington politics. the dixiecrat party is a pretty quick dismissal of that. and because kucinich urges others to vote democrat he's a unfit for leading the country to more progressive key issues? that's like saying he's putting a gun to anyone's head to vote in the grand scheme of significance. i don't know if you've ever organized anything, really ever, but when you are trying to build power, you have to make sacrifices to gain support. great straw-man argument.
red-bait? you wish i was. do i think that all of these issues, healthcare, labor law, etc. reflect relations of production in the capital market? yes and YES! do i think we have to build from where we are? of course. your shallow and immature understanding of politics and power is emblematic of the faults of the CP in the South during the 1930s. please annoy others who you might actually have a chance to build power with so you can flaunt how intelligent and left you are. note, i'm not making an attack on intelligence, just smart asses. i'm glad you have these ideas, but guess what, do you think the electorate is ready to vote for these big changes right now? do you ACTUALLY think that VOTING for nader will even change the economic relations of oppression? get real. if you're going to talk about making big changes, it ain't coming from a political party. you can take that self-righteous ballot and stick it where the sun don't shine.
You scummy liar.
Public Citizen and Multinational Monitor are nonprofit, public-service organizations that rely on volunteers and self-sacrificing idealists who are interested in propagating a progressive agenda. They are not profit-making, exploitative enterprises. Anyone seeking to disrupt and bankrupt those groups by trying to squeeze money out of them for careerist purposes is not a unionist, but a right-wing agent.
There has been no more tireless campaigner for union rights than Nader--he has made the repeal of Taft-Hartley a linchpin of every one of his presidential campaigns, a measure opposed by all the Democrats whom Kucinich endorses for election every year.
You ungrammatical, run-on, scattershot observations are strictly from Pluto. You don't answer points--you dodge them.
You mention the CPUSA--in the South, for some reason; but the CPUSA has been notorious for precisely the same pro-Democratic Party lesser-evilism that is pushed by your hero, the phony careerist and Democratic cheerleader Kucinich, who pushes for the election of Democrats who, he knows full well, will annul every plank of the progressive agenda he falsely claims to uphold.
It's not voting for any one man that will break the chains of oppression--it's breaking from the institutional machinery that forges those chains, which includes the corporate-financed and -controlled Democratic Party in which Kucinich wants to keep progressives trapped.
You've been exposed as a liar, an illiterate, and a hack. Other than that, you're just great!
ha! you are so petty as to attack my grammar! those organizations that attempted to organize did have paid staffers, which nader has commented on. in fact, there is a letter from one of the staffers: http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/sixties-l/1288.html
i mention the cp, because you are as ignorant/arrogant as they were.
as to organizing, you obviously are just as patronizing as nader in that account. people, all workers, have the right to demand better working conditions, and working conditions are more than pay. you are like my former managers at SEIU. please twist the language of workers' rights to exclude staff and we'll see your actual position on worker power. at the end of the day, organizing is about power, and not just money.
kucinich accepts money from businesses, wow! would you persecute huey newton for his support of capitalism as a means of building up the apparatus to shatter the market?
either way, i'll deal with your comments more closely: you are angry that kucinich has accepted money, while publicly opposing the public option as presented in the bill, fighting the buildup of the MIC, etc. i was merely exposing the fact that nader has a darker past than you would lead the rest of us to believe. you mean there are grey areas? yes!
As usual, you ignore all the relevant points.
Susan--you're too stupid to understand the difference between a nonprofit organization that must rely on self-sacrificing idealistsand for-profit one that seeks to squeeze workers who are seeking to build careers and support families.
These are nonprofit organizations that rely on dedicated staffers--not people seeking to launch careers or start a family or buy a house. People who want to make that kind of money go into the private corporate sector, which does indeed need unionizing. People seeking to squeeze big bucks out of public-service nonprofit groups like Public Citizen are most likely disruptive right-wing saboteur. People need to unionize the private sector, which seeks to exploit workers, not public intereste nonprofits that are trying to help them and run on a shoestring.
You can cite all the letters you want from malcontents--these issues have all been addressed. Public Citizen and Multinational Monitor remain two of the most respected and effective independent, NONPROFIT public-advocacy groups. The fact that you applaud the efforts of paid saboteurs to break them financially is curious indeed.
You know nothing about the history of the CP. They have nearly ALWAYS supported the Democratic candidates as the lesser evil, even when they have run their own candidates. Leave it to you to cite a discredited, Stalinist, authoritarian joke of a group as an example of left politics.
There is no truth or documentation to this junk about Nader's "dark past." By citing this, you give yourself away as another of the sock puppet identities of "Sue," which you ineptly attempt to disguise by going to lowercase style. Gee--I'm fooled!
Here's the point that you refuse to address in post after post, Sue and your multiple sock puppets:
Kucinich calls on people to vote for the very mainstream Democrats who are responsible for crushing every plank of the progressive agenda: single payer, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, slashing the Pentagon budget to fund social needs, ending the Wall Street bailouts, repealing antiunion legislation, strengthening consumer protections, etc. The Democratic Party is as ruthlessly opposed to these measures as the Republicans--yet Kucinich tells people to vote for these corporate hacks EVERY TIME.
This is destructive and counterproductive. It shows that Kucinich really cares nothing about these issues--because he advises people to vote for the politicians who he knows full well are going to obliterate them.
He's a hack and a phony, and you are his flack.
I can understand paid staffers lying and shillinng on behalf of this pathetic careerist--what's your excuse?
i'm sue? incorrect. just someone confused, nay, befuddled by your patronizing sensibilities.
i brought up the CP because, while they don't share your ideals, they share your political sensibilities, bereft of understanding and maturity. you are quick to jump to a black and white universe. you also, as i've said before, like to annoy those who you might find some sort of power in aligning with. it's obvious to me that you have no interest in actually building change, rather you thrive on tearing others apart in your holier than thou way.
i don't see the parties as much different, but for all intensive purposes, and this is where it gets sticky, there are differences. it's easy enough, and juvenile enough to lump the differences into a single pile and call it all shit, but the world is not that easy. you can fight all you want in government, but when big business endeavors to stop progress it's difficult, i.e. EFCA and healthcare. did the democrat party fail in its attempt to pass working versions of either? yes. did the right mount a powerful campaign, grassroots or not, of involving citizens inflamed by lies to turn out to protest? yes. is the democratic party full of singular thinkers? no.
you don't even know the issues which i address! you can draw conclusion after conclusion, as to my identity, motivations, etc., but you can't dispute the fact that nader is a union-buster himself. like i said, you sound like my managers at SEIU, 'we fight for the working class, so just accept your shitty working conditions.' organizing is a great activity in finding out where people's interests actually lie, whether people put their money where their mouth is. you can say all you want that those who organized were saboteurs, but where are your facts? like hank williams said, 'my buckets got a hole in it.' nothing sums you up better.
do i support nader? yes. do i support kucinich? yes. do i think that everything one or the other does is god walking on water? of course not!
grow up and learn to think more than one-dimensionally.
Your post is incoherent.
The CPUSA has never fought for political independence from the Democrats. In this sense, they are just like Kucinich.
The Democrats ALWAYS take a dive on issues like EFCA and single payer. They are full of excuses--it's those Blue Dogs, the Blue Dogs ate my homework, etc.
But the bottom line is this: the Democrats control the White House and the Congress, and they have killed single payer and EFCA, have bailed out Wall Street, have escalated the war in Afghanistan, show no signs of withdrawing from Iraq--in short, the third Bush II administration.
Get a clue and stop treating politics as though you're promoting a constestant on American Idol.
You like Kucinnich? Fine. That's a statement of subjective personal preference. It's not a rational political argument.
ugggggh, apparently it was incoherent, or you're a dolt. i never said that the CP asked or didn't ask for independence from the democrats. i was drawing similarities between your supposed political activities as a blogger, your politics of difference for the sake of i don't know what, and that of the way that CP members treated those they were 'organizing.' john gaventa gives a pretty good analysis of people like yourself in his work, 'power and powerlessness.'
you like nader? accept the bad as well as the good. blindly believing in him is as stupid as blindly believing in kucinich. your argument is as irrational as theirs.
did i ever say that there weren't democrats who have let down constituents? no. you won't find me saying that. you refuse to acknowledge and take on the fact that kucinich has to play house to an extent with other democrats to push things he wants as well.
He has to play house? To get what? Single payer? Nope. EFCA? Nix. Withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan? Nu-uh.
All Kucinich gets from his prostration before the Dems is the blessing of the party hacks he endorses and hence re-election.
So Kucinich is all about advancing his career, not the issues.
You have yet to coherently explain your point about the CPUSA or how it applies to this discussion. Exactly how did the CP treat those they were organizing? Do tell, Mr. Historian. You evidently have no clue what you're talking about, and certainly can't explain it in coherent, grammatical English sentences.
I don't blindly believe in Nader--I just demonstrate the ways in which your attempts to slander him are based on falsehoods.
Now--please explain the main point: how one is supposed to advance progressive policies by calling for the election of people who oppose them. And please explain precisely which progressive policy Kucinich has advanced by following this patently self-defeating, opportunist stance.
Try using standard English in your explanation.
your position on people who do non-profit work is also riddled with problems: have you ever thought that people could do this work because they are good at it, or are you just happy telling them what they're supposed to want?
ugggh, you are honestly the most arrogant twit i have had the displeasure of debating with: the CP approached those in the south as backwards for being pro-american, christian, etc. by automatically treating them as children and not 'intelligent,' they alienated the workers they were organizing. this set the ground for management to easily run their boss campaigns based on 'outsiders.' you speak to us all in that same manner. charlatan.
slander? hah! slander means i have to be lying, and you have yet to come up with a basis to contradict his union-busting, you just suggest, "Anyone seeking to disrupt and bankrupt those groups by trying to squeeze money out of them for careerist purposes is not a unionist, but a right-wing agent"...where are you facts to support that they are in fact, saboteurs? when you can't disprove this, you resort to the union-busting, progressive model, "These are nonprofit organizations that rely on dedicated staffers--not people seeking to launch careers or start a family or buy a house." game, set, match. you obviously know nothing about labor organizing, or the trials that people who actually do progressive work go through. walk a day in my shoes, then continue to tell me that we all have to sacrifice our lives day in and day out.
as to the point about kucinich, he has supported EFCA along with barney frank. http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1409/show two democrats who are not the D's you talk about. part of supporting others in your party is to build allegiances. you help me, i help you.
you don't think that kucinich is critical of the party members internally, or do you read his mind, too? or has his open letter not met your ears because you don't want to hear him?
I am not trying to organize anyone politically.
I am trying to expose Kucinich windup dolls like you as the destructive force that you are. I don't care if I win you over--you're too stupid and dishonest to understand certain basic truths anyway. For example:
If you can't distinguish between left-wing public-interest groups that run on a shoestring and for-profit capitalist enterprises, and the sharply differing motivations that are likely to attract workers to one vs. the other, then you're simply retarded.
How do you know Kucinich has criticized the party hacks internally? Seems like you're the one with ESP if you claim unsourced knowledge about that.
The main point is that Kucinich routinely calls for the election of people who oppose EFCA, single payer, withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, etc.--which is the vast majority of the corporate-financed and -controlled Democratic Party.
Hence Kucinich in PRACTICE supports the institutional machinery of oppression that he hypocritically denounces on the campaign trail.
Don't by hypnotized by the words--look at his deeds. Follow the $2 million plus he has sucked in from the corporate sector.
Or stay a gullible fool.
Your choice.
it just occurred to me that you have no self-reflection in your vitriol: so kucinich supports them, these are just words as well, but he does in fact VOTE in the House his wishes. it appears that these are his actions, and his 'support,' whatever that may even mean is only words. unless of course he's in the ballot box with me forcing my hand on the lever.
there are what's known as working conditions, you might have heard of them. they extend beyond salary, benefits, etc. it covers respect, power, and control. if you can't understand that, then your mouth is better left shut about such things. the motivations that drive people to do certain work is their prerogative and you have NO place telling them what they should and shouldn't want. workers are workers are workers. if you portend to know what they want better than them, then you are no better than the corporations these non-profits supposedly oppose. you create a false dichotomy between yourself and this magical word/concept, 'worker.' i guess you're more content thinking you are better than them and you're 'helping' them.
You've been reduced to psychotic babble--I defy anyone to know what you're saying here, with your bizarre jumble of ideas and fractured syntax. I "portend to know" something--don't you mean "pretend to know"? What a mentally disabled, snarling little dog you are!
You're so dumb you can't write a coherent English sentence or perform a simple mental task, such as:
1. Explain to me exactly which major piece of progressive legislation Kucinich has won by privately compromising and consorting with the mainstream Democrats. Name one. Now. No more evasions.
2. Then explain how you are going to achieve a progressive agenda by chronically supporting and calling on people to support mainstream Democrats who systematically oppose and crush that agenda.
Now instead of mangling the English language again in a fury of diversionary babble, just address those two simple points, in coherent, transparent English--if you can. If you can't, please go hire someone to wipe your tuchis, because if you can't answer those two questions, you probably can't perform that elementary task either.
so, you've been proven wrong that kucinich does nothing more, than in words, declare his support for fellow party candidates, and you somehow, through whatever sleight of hand, reduce, err, rather, inflate that to mean that he is a hypocrite, unfit to work for progress. then you go on to say, what has he pushed through?...that's like saying nader doesn't deserve to run because he can't get elected to x, y, and z office. there are a number of reasons that nader doesn't get elected, and his succeeding is no reason to say he's unfit to run.
you can look to see what he's supported, from efca and beyond. what has nader passed as a politician? i believe that kucinich, in the least had called for the impeachment of bush. to remove him on the basis of war crimes, when only one other was declaring for this to happen within the government. it's easy enough to pull those tricks as an armchair political blogger like yourself, van mungo, but this is real world politics. kucinich has cajones.
then answer me, how are you going to win a progressive agenda by consistently calling on me to support someone who has no power base? kucinich has the existing platform, as a member of the party, a somewhat feasible place, to demand and work for progress.
you can spit your own version of pseudo-erudite psychobabble my way, but it's obvious you have yourself caught in your own linguistic trap.
you can download off of wikipedia all of the lists you want of organizations nader has had a hand in creating, but does that mean he somehow manages them all, and is leading the uprising himself? i think not. you surely, as a sane person, can't believe so either.
now, are you going to account for nader's union busting, or are you going to evade that some more? it's obvious, and i refrained from stating that your response would be typical of the liberal progressive at first, but then you went and DIDN'T surprise me. any more of your boss tactic lies you want to spread?
First of all, Nader has never busted a union. Let's be clear about that.
Second, Kucinich has no more power base than you or me. By remaining in the Democratic Party, he is allied with an institution that OPPOSES everything he claims to stand for.
He has achieved ZERO progressive legislation. All you have pointed to is his copious mouthing off about progressive positions, which he then routinely betrays by calling on people to vote for the Democrats who oppose them.
Nader has helped found all those organizations and helped to pass all that key legislation precisely by not being tied to the apron strings of the procorporate Democratic Party. This major point seems to escape you--all the major social progress in this country--union rights, women's voting rights, civil rights and voting for African Americans, the abolition of slavery--have come from independent mass action, not from supplication to and support for the institutions of oppression, which is Kucinich's "strategy"--a strategy that accomplishes nothing but keeping him in a well-paid job with all the perks office. Kucinich has not helped to pass a single piece of progressive legislation with all his sucking up to the mainstream Democrats. To the contrary--he has retarded the achievement of progress on those issues precisely by keeping dumbass progressives like you trapped in the swamp of the Democratic Party instead of hitting the streets and forming independent organs of people's power.
You are a moron, and Kucinich is a hypocrite. You deserve each other.
apparently kucinich does have a power base to get re-elected, time and again. but i won't hold that against you. i find that it's much easier to appreciate simpletons if you just let their shoddy logic be.
you have the cited evidence of union busting. re-read the link posted so many posts above.
i always found in my time as a labor organizer, you know, as you put it, 'hitting the streets,' that it went well to correct people's grammar because it certainly increases your ability to dialogue with them. by the way, what is it that YOU have done? i'm not expecting much, so i'll get further into my diatribe.
you never read anything of me saying that power doesn't originate from direct action by the working class or in general, a mass public action. but you bring out your own bias, in creating whatever straw man argument you constantly cling to to make attacks on me, by bringing the subject up. i also never, mind you, said that i think kucinich is going to change the world. i merely brought up that i applaud him for his positions on various issues, the one most in question being healthcare. if you are worried about 'people's power,' do you think it's going to be from the green party? unlike the greenies, the obama campaign ran a spectacular campaign of getting people involved in changing something. has it led to much? well, it's a little less than a year into his presidency, so time will tell, but it has yet to materialize. nonetheless, unlike the green party, under obama's visage, you had unprecedented numbers of people of color participating in an election, some for their first time. this is a starting point, much as the election of JFK and LBJ led to unmatched student and radicalized labor action since the 1930's, under similar political conditions.
apparently, attacking nader for his union busting has struck a chord. do i support his platform? yes. does that mean YOU have to defend every action as either slander or conspiracy? NO. you need to grow up and learn that not everyone is perfect, even your prettyboy nader.
and since i am in fact a historian, i'll remind you that those changes occurred under liberalized governments. i'm not saying that it was dependent on them, far from that, but to ensure that those changes cemented, they were written into law by someone. you build power where you can get it.
i'll end on a sour note: whatever internal dialogue you are having with yourself in my image is poor at best, and delusional at worst.
"And then you spout a paragraph of discredited DNC disinformation about Nader, lies that were tossed around by the Democrats to discredit one of the country's great Americans in order to elect the prowar corporate whore John Kerry? You've thoroughly discredited yourself with that junk." -- Vanmungo
I am not anti-Nader; I voted for him in 2008.
My concern is that Nader has exhibited that he is capable of compromising the people's needs to serve his ego.
Dennis Kucinich has consistently served the people as Mayor of Cleveland, saving Muni Light and as Congressman voting for the people, not uniformly with the party.
Dennis did not compromise with power as Mayor and he does not compromise with power as Congressman.
Nader has, and therefore, we have reason to not completely trust him or that he will always represent the people's best interests over his ego.
Nader also accepted the assistance of the same state's attorney that represented Bush in the Florida recall of 2000.
"Nearly one in 10 of Nader's major donors -- those writing checks of $1,000 or more -- have given in recent months to the Bush-Cheney campaign, the latest documents show. GOP fund-raisers also have "bundled" contributions -- gathering hefty donations for maximum effect to help Nader, who has criticized the practice in the past.
"We have no indication that the Republicans are trying to maneuver support for us,'' Nader said at a recent press conference. "There are three or four major Republican donors who have contributed to my campaign."
But the financial records show that $23,000 in checks of $1,000 or more have come from loyal Republicans.
All have donated the maximum $2,000 to Nader's campaign since April, records show.
With just under four months left to the election, Nader has yet to qualify for a single state ballot."
Friday, July 9, 2004
SF Gate
You voted for Nader in 2008? Kucinich campaigned for Obama the corporate puppet. Are you quite proud of him for that?
There were lots of left media--Kerry drones--who tried to pass of this garbage in 2004, which you now recycle here, much to your shame.
No campaign can control or identify the source of every dollar that flows into its coffers. These were contributions from individuals--not PACS or bundled contributions--that amounted to about $23,000 out of several million the Nader campaign raised in that campaign. And any donations that were identified as being made for ideological reasons were returned.
Compare this to Kucinich, who has line his pockets with nearly $200,000 in pro-business PAC money during his Congressional career, along with the following from various corporate sources:
Misc Business $273,407
Health Professionals $242,790
TV/Movies/Music $199,644
Real Estate $192,080
Printing & Publishing $151,951
Business Services $142,655
Computers/Internet $116,192
Other $95,946
Hospitals/Nursing Homes $72,242
Misc Finance $71,143
That's a couple of MILLION dollars that have poured into Kucinich's campaign pockets over the course of his career from various corporate sources. And you have the nerve to call out the Nader campaign for receiving a miniscule $23,000 from self-identified Republicans in 2004? Did it ever occur to you that these might be libertarian Republicans who were genuinely opposed to the Patriot Act and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Plenty of them were! And Nader, unlike Kucinich, has NEVER accepted a single dollar from a business PAC, much less millions from corporate sources, as Kucinich has.
As for who has contributed more to the progressive political heritage of this country, it is strictly no contest. Here's a list of Nader's achievements:
Instrumental in the passing of the following legislation:
* Clean Air Act
* Clean Water Act
* Consumer credit disclosure law
* Consumer Product Safety Act
* Co-Op Bank Bill
* Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act
* Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
* Freedom of Information Act
* Funeral home cost disclosure law
* Law establishing Environmental Protection Agency
* Medical Devices safety
* Mine Health and Safety Act
* Mobile home safety
* National Automobile and Highway Traffic Safety Act
* National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act
* Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act
* Nuclear power safety
* Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA)
* Pension protection law
* Safe Water Drinking Act
* Tire safety & grading disclosure law
* Whistleblower Protection Act
* Wholesome Meat Act
* Wholesome Poultry Product Act
Just some of the organizations Ralph Nader founded or helped start:
* American Antitrust Institute
* Appleseed Foundation
* Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest
* Aviation Consumer Action Project
* Buyers Up
* Capitol Hill News Service
* Center for Auto Safety
* Center for Insurance Research
* Center for Justice and Democracy
* Center for Science in the Public Interest
* Center for Study of Responsive Law
* Center for Women Policy Studies
* Citizen Action Group
* Citizen Advocacy Center
* Citizen Utility Boards
* Citizen Works
* Clean Water Action Project
* Congress Project
* Congress Watch
* Connecticut Citizen Action Group
* Corporate Accountability Research Group
* Critical Mass Energy Project
* Democracy Rising
* Disability Rights Center
* Equal Justice Foundation
* Essential Information
* FANS (Fight to Advance the Nation's Sports)
* Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights
* Freedom of Information Clearinghouse
* Georgia Legal Watch
* Global Trade Watch
* Health Research Group
* Litigation Group
* Multinational Monitor
* National Citizen's Coalition for Nursing Home Reform
* National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest
* National Insurance Consumer Organization
* Ohio Public Interest Action Group
* Organization for Competitive Markets
* Pension Rights Center
* Princeton Project 55
* PROD - truck safety
* Public Citizen
* Retired Professionals Action Group
* Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest
* Student Public Interest Research Groups nationwide
* Tax Reform Research Group
* Telecommunications Research and Action Center
* The Visitor's Center
* Trial Lawyers for Public Justice
Nader vs. Kucinich? That's Superman vs. a pathetic, buzzing gnat.
Now--please explain the following: how does it help to advance the progressive agenda in this country by putting party loyalty ahead of political principle, as Kucinich does every year by telling people to vote the straight Democratic line in all contests, local, state, and national, knowing full well that these Democrats will crush everything he claims to stand for?
Kucinich is a phony, and you are a mindless groupie. Still quite proud of yourself?
Dennis Kucinich has done more for working and poor people than anyone posting in this thread. I guarantee it. Kucinich, whether he's right or wrong in this regard, feels that he can instigate change from within the Democratic party. Maybe he can, maybe he cannot. If he defected to an existing or newly created 3rd party, his fear would probably be that he would lose what little clout he has as a Democrat and end up being marginalized further.
Regardless, he's a good man. I don't give a shit what people think of him. Lord knows he gets kicked around enough by Republicans as a left-wing "kook" and within his own party.
Yes, I know the Democrats suck ass also by and large. It's why I voted for Nader, a guy who is also marginalized and dismissed along with his supporters.
Kucinich has done good for working and poor people by helping to keep them trapped in the machinery of oppression that keeps them where they are?
This is inverted logic, and a mangling of the truth.
Anyone who fosters illusions about the Democratic Party--as Kucinich does by calling on everyone to vote the straight Democratic ticket in every election--is complicit in the crimes of these corporate lackeys.
And anyone who rationalizes Kucinich's apologetics for these knaves is, in turn, complicit as well.
The poster above writes, "Kucinich, whether he's right or wrong in this regard, feels that he can instigate change from within the Democratic party."
But THE WHOLE POINT is to debate whether he's right or wrong. This is like saying, "Bush, whether he's right or wrong in this regard, feels that he can enforce U.S. hegemony in the world and control the supply of oil by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis." So I guess there's no debating whether Bush actually is right or wrong because of the depth of his conviction. Is this what you try to pass off as coherent discussion?
It is of the utmost importance for the left to understand that Kucinich precisely IS WRONG and is undoing everything he claims to stand for by calling on people to vote for the very Democrats who, he knows full well, will crush his professed agenda.
This is not effective advocacy for the oppressed--this is hypocritical, self-promoting duplicity and hypocrisy, a willingness to serve as the left-flank pawn in a cynical shell game designed to deceive and gull the American people.
But--if Dennis thinks he's right, then we all ought to just shut up and let him proceed unruffled in this destructive course. Is that your point--that just because you happen to like this guy, everyone should shut down their critical faculties and worship him as uncritically as you do?
Single payer? Robust public option?
Homeland Gestapo Police State
Likud Joe Lieberman and Bibi
Backlash Neocon AIPAC
Projection much?
I think 'none of the above' will eventually happen. In my opinion, the United States is too large (305 million people and counting) and way too diverse (culturally, politically, you name it) to ever fly with a single payer plan. That said, the current legislation (or doing nothing) are not going to work either.
What will work is to start thinking outside these boxes in the first place. I say 'size matters' and that the current theory that 'more is better' in the insurance industry is a fallacy. More members in a group (whether an entire nation or policy holders of an insurance company) only help up to a point. After that the larger the group, the reverse returns. Why? Well because individuals have the capacity to care about each other, when given the opportunity, but the larger the group, the more that aspect of our humanity is buried in the numbers, yielding a "let the insurance pay for it" attitude. And doctors are just as guilty of this as we patients!
So think smaller. Think decentralized rather than centralized. Think responsibility rather than abdication. Think states. Think municipalities. Think even further outside the box. Look at small groups who are 'self ensured' with insurance only as a backup for major high cost medical needs (such groups already exist!) Think about all the things by which we stay healthy that fall outside our medical system, that we would do well to encourage (rather than take all the money for medical care alone). What about nutrition? What about stress and emotion? What about spiritual aspects of this? What about real health, not just medicine? How can we build that?
Come on! We're smarter than this (current legislation and two party bickering). Let's get going!
A Single payer system makes the most sense for many reasons but especially for improving the patient's Healthcare.
The "Healthcare Reform Bill" was largely started to address issues with our current For-Profit Health Insurance system, all of which would disappear with single payer.
But if Americans have to have a For-Profit system, we could change how Healthcare dollars were collected and paid out. To do this we would have to change how the Companies involved were paid so that Patient outcomes would bring them profit. They could be rewarded for preventive medicine and patient lifestyle improvements for instance. Then capitalism would work powerfully and would benefit patients. Any extra needs the Companies had could be provided for by a fixed fee or percentage of the Healthcare dollars.
Americans do not have to have a for-profit system. To imply that they do is to surrender to the healty lobby.
As long as largely unregulated, unlimited profiteering dominates the main sector of health-care financing, the major incentive will be to limit or deny any kind of care, preventive or otherwise. Providing care is deemed by insurance companies to be a "loss" and is something they strenously try to avoid, to the limits of our very lax laws, which will receive only cosmetic alteration with the current bill.
"As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care."
This is a non-sequitur because the money for health care has to come from somewhere and therefore either general or specific taxes will be higher and will impact upon the general economy. No, the real advantage of all the 'Single Payer' equivalents in advanced countries is the fact that they are much cheaper (so long as the bureaucracies are kept in check).
I agree that Dennis Kucinich should break away from the Democratic party. As I've stated before, I'm only a registered Democrat so I can vote in the primaries, and Kucinich is the reason for that.
I'd rather save my venom for the Republicans and the mild Republicans calling themselves Democrats. Kucinich isn't one of them. I can't dump on someone who has the courage to dissent and go against the grain of his own party.
omg you're saving your venom for the mild Republicans calling themselves Democrats? You know that's 85% of the Democratic Party at best, don't you? You'll need a lot of venom.
And for heavens' sakes just HOW does Kucinich have the "courage to dissent and go against the grain of his own party"? By writing pretty articles and making nice speeches? Is he really exposing Obama for committing the same war crimes Bush committed for 8 years? Is he exposing the Democrats and demanding long-overdue investigations of all the illegal wiretapping, no-bid contracts, 9/11, Katrina, Valerie Plame, bailouts and now the giveaway to health insurers that Democrats have either allowed and/or perpetrated in the last 9 years? Don't make me laugh, Kucinich's a joke and this article's the punchline.
blah, blah, blah,...yawn. oh, sorry_uncle_charlie, were your saying something significant?
sierra7
Bravo! Dennis K!!
1012: Dennis K. for President; Bernie Sanders for Vice.
Our country is thoroughly corrupt. If we can't reign in a war-mongering idiot like Shrub Bush, how can we expect a fair, un-industrialized health care system?
What if we treated "health care" like a "sport"?
Or as a "WAR"?
The Pentagon gets all its wants to feet its vicious maw.....with almost no accountability.
A two party system promises anything but a democracy.
It was inherent from the beginning that the "monied and inherited wealth" would lead and control the country.
Without the Bill of Rights we would already live in a totally fascist state, instead of beginning to live in one.
Progressives genuflect to the "regular" democrats who reflexively genuflect to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!!
End of story.
The problem is institutional.
The Democratic Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America.
Any candidacy for national office inside that party that spurns corporate support is doomed.
Any candidacy that accepts corporate support will betray the people.
Calling for support for Democrats is, therefore, a recipe for doom and / or treachery.
It's time to break with the Democratic Party.
Many if not most congressmen from Both Parties put Corporate desires above constituents, philosophy or party goals.
This has been going on for over 100 years.
It might not even be possible to change the situation since it short circuits the political process!
You implicitly identify "the political process" with the two-party duopoly.
We can and must forge a political process outside that doomed, corrupt paradigm.
If this were only a vote for principles, I would agree to voting no. The reality is that people are dying every day because of our current for-profit system. The longer we delay waiting for an ideal solution, the more people die or lose their life savings and then die. My biggest objection to the current bill is that the public option will take too long to be available. However, many will be saved by the reforms that may take place soon because they will be able to buy insurance even with their pre-existing conditions. The reality is that progress is often made in steps and sometimes you end up taking a step backward for every two steps forward, but you eventually get there. Single payer is the goal and the House bill is definitely a step toward that. To demand going there directly is ignoring the political reality of our current corrupt system.
The breadth and scope of the corruption is as apparent as it has ever been.
The most empowering actions any citizen can do is to remove any financial support of the government (taxes), multi national corporations (boycott all of them which means no more credit cards, bank accounts, airline flights, cell phones, cable TV, and eating food locally grown as well as using public transit or bicycle) and stop wasting your time running or helping others win elected office.
Kucinich would do much more good announcing himself a Socialist Democrat and going around organizing civil disobedience across the U.S. to shut down this plutocracy and military empire. He could likely keep his fat salary to boot while he doing it. Well for at least 2 years anyway.
Kucinich maybe the one politician where the old wise man quote doesn't apply,
"I have never known a politician I would save from drowning." Maybe the same saying applies to Bankers too?
"stop wasting your time running or helping others win elected office."
Right. We should leave that to the Republicans and the corporate, DLC Democrats, since they're doing such a bang up job. Good advice.
Mr. Kucinich,
Why did you call off the vote on single-payer?
Single-payer is favored by two out of every three Americans. Poll after poll has proven that.
If we could get the names of our elected representatives who voted against single-payer, we could use that unpopular vote to challenge and defeat them in coming elections.
Since there was no vote, you've allowed insurance-industry shills to say "I would have voted for single-payer, but it never came up for a vote." And no one can prove otherwise.
You could have forced them to go on record, but you didn't. That didn't help us get to single-payer. It's a missed opportunity that may not come again for a long time.
Would you and the others posting that it was Kucinich who called off the vote on the single-payer amendment just stop it, please?
At least get your story straight when bashing the guy. It was Pelosi and the Dem "leadership" that stripped it and prevented it from getting out of committee.
Kucinich and Conyers asked Pelosi to NOT allow a vote on single-payer. They asked US to call our legislators and ask them to not allow the vote. That's according to Kucinich and Conyers themselves. They published their "Dear Friends" letter November 6 here on CD.
Read it yourself here. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/06-8
They did this because they knew that most of the CPC would have to vote against it, and they didn't want their colleagues to be forced on the record as opposing single payer.
These people just play the most cynical games all the time.
This whole sorry episode shows that there is not a single Democrat in Congress who can be trusted.
What do yo mean "most of the CPC would HAVE to vote against it?" That makes no sense. Congress persons can vote as they choose.
Any Democrat who chooses to vote against single-payer -- which two out of three Americans want -- knows he or she would be challenged by a more progressive candidate in the next election.
That's the beauty of forcing a vote on something as popular as single-payer. You either vote the way your constituents want you to vote, or you get replaced.
The only way to continue the status quo is ask that there be no vote. And, that's what Kucinich and Conyers did.
They would have to vote against it for the same reason that, early on--as early as last July--they abandoned the "strong" version of the public option originally envisioned by its creator, Jacob Hacker of Berkeley: they are all on the payroll of the health lobby. Look up the numbers at www.opensecrets.org.
Their support for single payer was strictly for campaign speechifying, to mollify their left base. When the chips were down, they folded like cheap suits, because that's the game in Washington. Follow the money. Get a clue. Watch what people DO IN THE END, not what they say during campaigns.
You started out by suggesting that Kucinich and Conyers were justified in asking that no vote be taken on single-payer because "they didn't want their colleagues to be forced on the record as opposing single payer."
I asked how anyone could be forced to vote against single-payer.
In response you say no one is forced; they've simply been bought off by insurance companies.
So, you've come full circle. You're agreeing with me that Kucinich and Conyers' request that no vote be taken on single-payer was NOT justified. It was NOT part of some strategy to get to single-payer down the road. It was a sell out.
And that was my original point! You have a strange way of agreeing with me.
I guess I was not clear about your original point.
If you're arguing that Kucinich and Conyers were trying to sabotage single payer, I agree. In retrospect, I don't think Conyers was ever sincere in his advocacy. He was just playing the old placate-the-gullible-progressives game, keep dangling false hopes and then insert the dagger at the last moment.
My only point is that most of the CPC is de facto forced to vote against single payer in the end--or to dodge it--as payback to their health-lobby donors.
These Democrats are full of these cynical tricks. Kucinich's long march through the States amendment was another stratagem to sucker progressives into supporting a lousy bill.
There isn't a single completely honest, fully progressive member of Congress. The Democratic Party in general and the CPC in particular is a swamp of petty careerism.
I guess we're beating a dead horse now.
Your point would have been far more clear if you had not said "they did this because they knew that most of the CPC would have to vote against it, and they didn't want their colleagues to be forced on the record as opposing single payer," and instead said "they did this because they did not want to reveal which members of the CPC are insincere in their stated support for single-payer."
I'd still like to hear Kucinich's answer to my original question. You may be right in your analysis, but I would think Kucinich would not be a party to such a cover up. He did vote no on the bill, after all, so why would he cover for insincere colleagues rather than exposing them on the record? For every insincere "progressive" Democrat, there's a sincere progressive waiting to challenge and defeat him/her in coming elections. If Kucinich wants success with his progressive agenda, he needs sincerely progressive colleagues.
I have no idea what you're talking about at this point, other than playing petty games of "gotcha" and contorting yourself into a pretzel to shill for Kucinich.
Here's the bottom line: EVERY election cycle this guy tells people to vote for the mainstream Democrats--the whole ticket--that he knows full well will trample the progressive agenda he gives such pretty speeches about. Then, after the speeches are over, he instructs his followers to ensure the destruction of that agenda by voting the straight Democratic ticket.
They guy is a phony and opportunist who places party loyatly above any concern about really advancing the progressive agenda--if he were really concerned about that, he wouldn't keep steering progressives into the black hole of the corporate-run and -financed Democratic Party.
Exactly what is it about all this that you don't understand?
The only way Kucinich could possibly be taken seriously is if he left his corrupt party and ran as an Independent. The Democratic Party is rotten to the core as much as the Republicans and Kucinich is a tool designed to keep the left from leaving the Democratic Party.
So Kucinich is a willing sham. He knows he will win nothing and at the end he'll support a pro-war corporatist Democrat like he did in 2000 or 2004 or 2008. His clueless supporters follow him and vote for whoever Democrats nominate.
"he Democratic Party is rotten to the core as much as the Republicans and Kucinich is a tool designed to keep the left from leaving the Democratic Party."
Yeah, where have I seen this before? Oh, I remember now: Henry Waxman. Old Waxman used to slip around on the floor of the house pretending to discover crimes by bush, knowing full well nothing was ever going to come of it. And Polosi: "Bush is going to pay". And Obomber: "Change you can believe in".
Well I sorta believed in all these Dem Charlatans of so-called "reform". Right up to the point where they sold me down the river.
Are we going to fall for it again?
You CANNOT trust the Democratic Party.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
About a week ago Kucinich wrote, in an article that is here on CD, that maybe it's time to rethink the two-party system. Whether he has expressed this thought before I don't know, maybe others who have followed him closer over the years can enlighten on this. Maybe his supporters, so disgusted with what is going on, can urge him in this direction. Time to put pen to paper, folks, and ask him directly.
Articles and words mean nothing, Kucinich is a politician, he'll act according to what's beneficial to Kucinich and Kucinich alone. Don't be fooled by rhetoric.
Good post! And the most fooling rhetoric ever would be if college republicans crusade for progressives to Vote Third Party! :>
uncle_charlie, Congressman Kucinich is real. Your bitterness is baseless.
Oh yes I know he's very real. A real tool of Pelosi and Reid to keep fools "on the left" like you voting Democratic.
Sorry, uncle_charlie, you've overgeneralized your position and the fool stares back from your mirror. As your busy schedule permits, wiki DKs' wife and bite your tongue till it bleeds.
Here's my Common Dream.
Mr. Kucinich I don’t much care if you run for President in 2012, though in fact I hope you don’t. It will just have the usual result of dividing progressives, liberals and moderate democrats into a variety of separate camps that will grow more and more disillusioned as the election nears and as the general population won’t buy into them in sufficient numbers. This will kill liberal momentum and that will make it all that much easier for the RIGHT WING to complete its domination of the Republican Party.
Besides the real issue is 2010. Does anyone need to be convinced about how important the 2010 elections are? This President is unable to slam dunk single payer health care because the system is designed to move slowly. (See Federalist Papers, Constitution of the USA, etc.) It’s being stopped and stripped in the Congress. Those people are the key. Had anyone ever heard of Max Bauchus ☹ or Alan Grayson ☺ before? Fill the Congress with more Progressive Democrats and there wouldn’t have to be all these compromises on the basic principles of the Obama [sic] Democratic plan.
We have to get serious about this democracy and realize what it is and how it works. We are still so hung up on the cult of personality whether it is you Mr. Kucinich or Nader or Obama (or on the Right Bush or Palin), when our government is designed specifically to halt the momentum of a strong personality. You and none of them are or have proved to be the answer, yet the answer is right there in front of you: We the people.
Like Nader did back in the 70’s, we need to create a movement. Not of people who’ll show up at rallies and pose for the media and (God help us) make speeches. We need people who will run for office and support those candidates and get them elected. And you Mr. Kucinich and Mr. Nader and others can be the spokespersons that appeal to your considerable followings to stop treating this government like a consumer product that delivers candidates prepackaged and according to our liking, but is a process that requires hard work, commitment, productive compromise and leadership at all levels to create those candidates.
Just please don’t run for office. If you do, you make it about you and it is absolutely about us. If the American people can’t be moved to support single -payer or something like it in this economy, it’s WE who will go down in history … as the worst progressive movement in American history.
A few points:
• Our current government has proven itself incapable of solving this dilemma. Too may of them are compromised by special interests (It’s an ethics issue)
• People with insurance are underserved (It’s a value for money issue)
• We are less competitive globally against all countries that don’t have to put the cost of health care into their products. (It’s a jobs issue)
• Our system is unprepared for an epidemic like swine flu (It’s as security issue)
• Our Fellow Americans are dying for lack of care (It’s moral issue)
You have 50 million uninsured that cross all party lines that you can build your base from. How many pay too much? How many get dropped for preexisting conditions or because they’ve used up a lifetime allowance? Despite what’s in the House Bill, none of this will get resolved before 2010. That’s where our opportunity lies.
Want to kill the conservative argument? Tell Americans how the costs of this will NOT put their grandchildren into poverty. That is ALL they need to hear.
And please let’s not take ourselves down the garden path of a third party. The third party idea is a non-starter. First there won’t BE a third party, there will be 30. If we start a progressive one, it will be matched by a pro-gun party and pro-life party an anti-immigration party and a Wiccan party; and dozens more on the Left. It will cripple consensus and in the end the two major parties will woo them and we’ll be back where we started. Besides it will be too hard, cost too much and take too long.
Why not just take over the Democratic Party instead? We’re half way there. Only half the Congress are millionaires. Let’s take them all out first. How hard will it be to convince people who are down to scraps that a millionaire is not their best choice for a representative?
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/07-4
I know this will incur lots of dismissals but instead wouldn’t it be nice if our leadership came form below? Wouldn’t it be … democratic?
No one here (least of all Kucinich) is "dividing progressives." Obama and his administrative corporate cronies did that at every turn. The fact is, you are nothing more than a lip-service progressive and token liberal spewing obfuscations. Feel free to stay-put in the do-nothing fold of the apologetic wing of the Democrat Party and avoid lecturing the REAL Left little one.
I agree elohim, these types are apologists for the Duopoly and cannot see the forrest for the trees. They want to limit our democratic choice and continue the phony charade that voters have meaningful choice. The system we have now is a de-facto ONE PARTY STATE.
At Daily Kos, Diarists are trumpeting "Historic health care reform!" with this legislation.
Say what?!
The House Democrats put lipstick on a pig and they're calling it health care reform. It should be called "Health insurance bonanza".
Our family health insurance rates are scheduled to rise by 10% in 2010; that's the good news. It could be worse. Our insurance rates have climbed every year for 20 years, with less coverage and higher deductibles.
I'm with Dennis on this one.
This is how the Green Party will finally burst out of its cocoon and grow into a major party, by addressing nonsense legislation like the Democrats are pushing while the Repubs are only interested in protecting the status quo.
"During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back."
... to put it mildly.
Yes folks, this House bill is a poison pill.
By the single device of forbidding MediCare type payments to providers, Pelosi's bill requires that the 'public option' pays all the country's providers through contract negotiations. She has doomed true competition against the insurance giants, for the following reasons:
(1) Pelosi prohibits MediCare computers from paying providers as it has done successfully for decades. Instead, with the 'public option' bureaucrats must negotiate contracts with hundreds of thousands of providers, large and small, in thousands of locales, for varying rates and terms. This is a function only a private contractor can perform, not Medicare bureaucrats in Washington. So we are likely looking at costly private contracting, and a very slow start.
(2) A slow start means low customer count for providers. So why should providers lower their rates for the 'public option', as compared with what they charge Aetna, for example? Another potential competitive advantage is eliminated.
(3) The insurance giants often pay providers a set amount each month for every insured person, sick or not. This means that providers can profit greatly if they don't have to perform many services. Pelosi's 'public option' cannot pay providers this way, which means fewer providers would be interested in contracting with it.
(4) For the same reason as (1), (2) and (3), it will take longer, if ever, to establish a full provider network for every corner of the country. This means less incentive for you and I to pick the 'public option', as opposed to, say, Wellpoint.
Yes, by the simple device of prohibiting Medicare type payments, Pelosi has doomed the 'public option' from the start.
This, while poll after poll shows that Americans, by 2 to 1, want a 'Medicare type' public option. Pelosi's bill is night and day from 'Medicare type'. She is either very naive, or thinks we are.
We are a country that has been propelled so far right that even a "Progressive" president is giving in to the interests of the wealthy barons of big business. Obama had a real oppurtunity to have an FDR type of legacy when he took office and he has already failed in so many ways. When it's all said and done, his legacy may be as bad if not worse than Hoover or W. Bush. Unchecked capitalism is destroying our country and we are beginning to experience the effects of it under Obama's watch. He's proving to be a spineless empty leader.
Congressman Kucinich, I voted for you last year in the Democratic primaries and I will cast my vote for you once again should you run in 2012. You are one of the very few outstanding progressive Democrats who needs no pressuring from constituents to get a job done right as a Congressman. I wished everyone in Congress could be like you. Maybe that dream will someday come to pass. Until then, you and the few who voted against this monstosity are heros.
I would also like to apologize to all members of CD for my arguing too far that we must make Congress do what we want. After the sudden vote in Congress to deny funding for female patients needing abortion for emergency, I am finally done with trying to pressure Congress to listen to us. I didn't want to give up and had hoped that more pressure could be put on Congress to get anything right but most people just don't want to go through with this and I understand their tough schedules. Let the campaigning begin and let's get that new progressive party out there by 2012 just in case Dennis Kucinich can't make it.
Peace
Kucinich has always called on people to vote for the very mainstream hack Democrats who he knows full well will crush the progressive agenda he yaks about. He always places party loyalty above political principle. He is, at bottom, just another party hack with the specific assignment of sucking progressives into the black hole of the Democratic Party.
His no vote is a purely symbolic gesture that came only after he knew that the bill would pass by a safe margin.
do you have the name of a representative that does better? Kucinich pushed for his single payer bill right up to the end. is there someone out there that's done better than that? i haven't heard of them. give respect where its due and its due for Kucinich.
No--there is no representative that does better. And what Kucinich is doing--breeding illusions about the country's major institutional enforcer of corporate rule (the Democratic Party)--is not very good at all.
So we agree--Kucinich, basically a Democratic Party hack whose deeds belie his words, is the best the Democratic Party has to offer. There is no one better. You have just advanced the strongest possible argument for breaking with the Democratic Party.
Thank you veddy much.
Good Comment! Here's another one:
"Look under there."
"Under where?"
"Haha I made you say UNDERWEAR!"
Debaters rule! :D
English translation of Bennifer's post:
"I, Bennifer, am a rabid troll who cannot rationally think and argue. So I dance and twirl like a circus monkey."
There is, of course, a serious point to be addressed here: if a waffling, two-timing hack like Kucinich is the best the Democrats have to offer--and he probably is--then it's time to dump the Dems and forge an independent progressive party--one that is consistently serious--unlike the Green Party--about taking on the Democrats.
Well said! This plan will work out just fine for Karl Rove and his republican flying monkeys! :}
English translation: "I, Bennifer, cannot discuss issues. I am a loopy Democratic Party hack/troll. If I can't answer an argument, I trundle out Karl Rove, whether it makes sense or not. Furthermore, I cannot conceive of the American people actually every voting in their own interests--so I will continue to join Dennis the Menace in urging them to vote for a party that systematically tramples them and their interests, just like Karl Rove's party!'
"In short, I Bennifer, like Karl Rove, am an agent of the corporate class and proud of it."
What difference does it make if a Democratic politican caved at the outset or on the day of the vote? Kucinich still caved, as did most of the other alleged progressives in Congress. With only three more nays, the progressive caucus could've killed this bill and sent a strong message to the Democratic leadership. Instead, their weak showing proved to everyone that progressives have no influence in the Democratic Party.
Representative Kucinich A Profile in Courage, and the best of explanations of what happened yesterday - "in our name".
Karita and Paul Hummer
At least now the Democrat party is flushed out into the open and we see them for exactly what they are: Just one branch of the corporate party. We live in a corporate empire and when empires over-expand and begin to collapse, the ruling class proceeds to squeeze their own citizens all the tighter to make up for what they have lost abroad.
For the first time in history, the U.S. Government is going to try to force its citizens to purchase a corporate product--an over priced, flawed corporate product at that. This is taxation without representation, the underlying cause of our first Revolution. The class war has been ratcheted up to a new level. At least there can be no more illusions over who in Washington is on the people's side. Dennis Kucinich. Eric Massa. Bernie Sanders, and right now, as far as I can see, nobody else.
No time to despair, no time to simmer and complain. Start working tomorrow on throwing your congress person out of office. It's the only solution.
Briggs Seekins
briggsseekins.wordpress.com
the corporate world is creating the revolution. let's hope we use something besides guns. DDOS is just waiting to be used against those that treat us like cattle.
It is calle SOCIALISM -- USA version:
putting on WELFARE - which suddenly sounds good - the CORPORATIONS....by taking away the WELFARE of People.
USA STYLE has always been about SOCIALIST SUPPORT for the PRIVATE CORPORATIONS at PUBLIC, SOCIAL EXPENSE.
NEVER forget that.
they tell the people "socialism is BAD"
and the people BELIEVE.
then they pass WELFARE PROGRAMS for the corporations after they convince the People "the american people don't NEED Socialism , it is BAD".
and once they've done that - they say "REFORM" - and then take the PUBLIC's MONEY to TRANSFER WELFARE to the CORPORATIONS and CALL IT
"public option".
the OPTION - the ONLY ONE - to CODDLE THE CORPORATIONS.
it's the AMERICAN way.
what americans should demand is SOCIALISM FOR THE PEOPLE - and CUT OUT THE CORPORATIONS entirely. let them wither on their vine of "free-market" and see what good that does them
but of course THAT's NOT the AMERICAN WAY.
so -- there's no way out of it but a COLLAPSE of america. PERIOD. and it would DESERVE IT so well too.
That's right teddy,
Remember the old Republican "What is good for General Motors is good for America."
So now, Don't let GM steal our socialism.
Only the people are too big to fail
You done good Dennis. You are still my congressman, even tho i live on the east coast.
kickapooviking writes:
" ... why do we keep voting for the assholes?"
Who VOTES for 'em? A LOT of Democrats did NOT vote for Obama -- lots of independents and Republicans, and kids who thought He LOOKED cute DID vote for him, but even so He won by not much.
Some say bolt the Democrats for the Greens, or whomever. But it's better to STAY in the Dems, run against "your" Congressman, run for county Central Committee, give these "whore politicians" (as someone refers to them below) a tiny portion of the static they've got coming ... and then, as usual, VOTE for Greens, independents, anybody but these people.
(Anybody who doubts they're whores and mercenaries has only to look to HUD, where the new fresh face in the wings is said -- see the SF Chronicle -- to be ... Art Agnos, AGAIN.) (Remember Art Agnos? Remember Jim Jones?)
Excellent article but the commenters have nailed it better. Listen, I appreciate it that Dennis Kucinich tells us the consequences of putting profits before quality care and I voted for him in the Democratic primaries last year. However, even if he had won, I would have still voted for Ralph Nader because like RichM, vanmungo, and seriousprofessor have boldly and correctly stated, Dennis Kucinich is doing himself no real favors by staying in the Democratic Party and allowing the party to ABUSE him politically so that they can look like they're "progressive" when they aren't. Sometimes, I too question whether people like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich each have a strong mind and heart to just break away from the Republican and Democratic parties and form the basis of a strong progressive independent party with Bernard Sanders. Ok, Paul isn't all progressive but sometimes his values can overlap with the progressives unlike most Democrats or Republicans.
rosemarie jackowski, I still share your anger that this electorate has been too cornfed to vote wisely. Some of these voters are waking up although I still have to keep my fingers crossed until I can be sure that they will open their hearts and minds to progressive independents such as Ralph Nader who can get the issues right and straight from the heart.
Carl Broadway, what do you care about, putting the party before progressive values or putting progressive values first? You sound no different from reckless business leaders who put whole sale volume sale over quality production and stockholders over employees first. Are you telling us that you would rather persecute real progressives/liberals just to save the Democrats playing kissyface with the GOP? You remind me of the Obamabots. None of us like the last 8 years of what Dubya did but Barry is continuing it shamelessly and that makes us even more outraged. At this point, Obama and the Democrats anger me to the point that if I were forced to choose between Sarah Palin and Barry Obama with no other choice, I would angrily punish Barry by voting Sarah ! Thankfully, I'm glad that I don't have to choose between just Democrats and Republicans. I voted proudly for Nader thrice and I will vote for him again or whoever is in his place by 2012 with the way Obama's going.