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TechnoratiKucinich's Brave Health Vote Vs. Obama's Failed Promise
There were plenty of cowardly votes in the House last night but there was only one truly brave one. The unsung hero of the night was Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich. Despite enormous pressure to support H.R. 3962, Rep. Kucinich did the right thing and voted 'no'. Unlike the Blue Dog votes against the bill, he did it for all the right reasons.
In a principled and practical statement, Rep. Kucinich said what a growing number of progressives have realized as we've watched real health care reform be compromised again and again.
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.
Personally, I supported President Obama in the primaries and the election but do not support him on this corporate giveaway built on broken campaign promises. I voted for the Barack Obama who opposed the individual mandate, who said the negotiations would be televised on C-SPAN and who campaigned against backroom deals with PhARMA.
Conservatives have expressed outrage for months about the way the health care bill was handled. Their anti-government anger is misplaced because the lets the insurances and drug companies who really helped drive this bill off the hook. But I understand their sense that this bill was passed despite the people.
Progressives should be every bit as upset that President Obama lied to us to get his historic health bill. The citizens of this country did not have a seat at the table. Proponents of the Single Payer didn't have a seat at the table. Under the guise of health care reform, we watched as the insurance industry got a bill passed that entrenches and enriches them.
Don't let anyone fool you that this bill is a good start. It's got a poison pill "Public Option" that is designed to fail. As the brilliant RJ Eskow wrote recently about the House bill's public option,
The plan will have low enrollment and little power to negotiate, causing the CBO to state as fact what I've long considered possible: That the public option could become a dumping ground where private plans jettison sicker people, while lacking the efficiencies of scale or negotiating power to get better rates or administer itself more economically.As a result, says the CBO, a public plan's premiums might be higher than private insurance. While the CBO's word isn't gospel, it's entirely possible that they're underestimating the cost of any "public option" we're likely to see this year. The likeliest political outcome, once the House and Senate bills are combined, is a non-robust "public option" with a state-by-state opt out. The CBO didn't consider the opt-out when it came up with its shocking (to some) estimate.
Even if it passes in its weak form, this Public Option will be the target of the GOP for years and they won't rest until it is dead. As the Public Option kicks into gear, they will find stories of 'rationing' and denial of care they can highlight, true or not. They will use the higher costs as proof of the Public Option's folly. They will grind away at the Public Option relentlessly but they will leave the Individual Mandate alone. If anything, once the Mandate is in place, the Republicans will make sure the insurance industry is 'free to compete' and unrestricted.
The corporate interests that spend millions to influence the media and both political parties want you to ignore Congressman Kucinich. Too many Democrats unwittingly help them. Don't be a patsy.
People like Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader and Michael Moore have been made pariahs by establishment Democrats. They have all been marginalized and made fun of...but check their records. They have been considered 'fringe' because they are telling us the truth about corporate abuses of power long before most of the rest of us catch up to the reality of what's happened.
If enough of us stand with Dennis Kucinich, maybe we'll actually get real health care reform. If we don't, maybe we don't deserve that reform.
83 Comments so far
Show AllIf not for Dennis Kucinich, I would have no example of what it truly means to be brave, courageous, and to stand up for your values and for the people in this world. We all owe him our sincere gratitude for fighting this fight FOR YOU AND ME every day.
"Truth is above harmony. Those who fear disorder more than injustice invariably produce more of both". -- William Sloane Coffin
Are we LAZY or just easily BRAINWASHED?
Reading these comments, I see supporters of Dennis Kucinich being persuaded to take back their support when confronted by AGENT PROVOCATEURS?
This is THE problem with the world today.
Most people want to back a winner. They want it EASY.
They want a GUARANTEE.
THERE are NO GUARANTEES that Dennis Kucinich will win.
UNLESS, we stop being bullied by certain people.
We are NOT the minority.
Those of us who want single-payer health care.
Those of us who want an end to imperialist war.
Those of us who want free public college.
Those of us who want an end to NAFTA and WTO.
Those of us who want an end to welfare for the rich.
Those of us who want environmental and corporate regulations.
Those of us who want public works and green jobs.
PLEASE do not let agent provocateurs make you believe this is not possible.
WE have to work for it. Fight for it. This is war.
The elitists have declared war on US.
Where was the waffling in backing Obama or Dean or Kerry?
And look where that got us. Back to the Bush years.
Dennis Kucinich HAS been fighting for US. We keep making excuses for why we will not fight for HIM.
IS THIS THE BEST WE CAN DO?
There may never be public financing so if you are looking for luxury accomodations in your campaigning experience, people, then you WILL get another Obama.
NO MORE millionaires, NO MORE Harvard graduates, NO MORE lawyers
NO MORE agent provocateurs.....
What are you babbling on about?
Ralph Nader is a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School.
Would you care to provide a list of which colleges the alumni of which you would support for president?
It sounds to me like you are the agent provocateur--a paid flack for the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America.
Anyone who, like Kucinich, keeps telling people to vote for ALL the representative of this corporate kleptocratic class is an accomplice in their crimes.
Anyone, like you, who keeps blindly supporting Democratic Party loyalists like Kucinic--and urging others to do so--is therefore also an accomplice in those very corporate crimes.
QED
"Anyone who, like Kucinich, keeps telling people to vote for ALL the representative of this corporate kleptocratic class is an accomplice in their crimes."
For Kucinich, then, it is not 'Truth above harmony,' or even Truth above party.
I question whether it's worth weighing in on this debate; usually I conclude it isn't.
But out of the disappointment of this fiasco, perhaps the progressive community will consider changing tactics. The points made above re: "Capitalism" have the heart of the matter. This is an evil system, and nothing is going to bring it under a modicum of control, much less displace it, except force. Not violence, but force.
What we need in this country is a General Strike. "The cash register rings no more until we get a true single payer option (or public campaign financing, or an investigation into 9-11, insert here your version of the most egregious travesty of the past 30 years). No trucks move, no trains or planes, stores stay empty," etc. etc. If we had done this when Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, we might still have some influence in "our" own country.
I know. It can't be done.
"The decision doesn't have to be logical; it was unanimous."
--The Discordians
Is he drink sea water?
Apparel
What a bizarre irony--that the last, best hope for progressives might be Joe Liebermann. :O
Even Golum had his purpose in destroying the One Ring.
hey,
did you all see the GOP health reform plan?
here it is..
Daily News Wash Bureau
"Elderly and Ill will pay more under GOP health Care Reform Bill"
by
Michael Mcauliff
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/11/06/2009-11-06_on_sick_list_elderly_and_the_ill_pay_mo...
ta-dah...anybody here suprised?
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.
The "center" (Leiberman and the Clintons) has been pushed so far to the right, that anyone who makes any sense at all has been labeled a "radical left winger".
I consider Kucinich to be a _very_ sensible, rational man and not a radical extremist in any way. The people who try to make him out to be a left-wing radical are _way_ out in right field.
I am so glad that I voted for Cynthia McKinney in 2008 and not Barack "Bought-Off" Obama. It was clear all along to many of us that the real intent of this so-called "health care reform" was just to pass a law that forces people to buy a service (health insurance) from private, for-profit companies. Once this "individual mandate" is in place, the companies will be free to jack up prices and screw us all.
Don't fall for the lies those reactionary clowns ever again, vote Green in 2010.
http://www.gp.org/
I was ready to vote for Kucinich in the primary, but he withdrew by the time the Oregon primary came around. We didn't have any choice besides Obama. McCain certainly wasn't a choice in November.
There were other choices on the Oregon ballot. To say that you were forced to vote for Obama because the *only* other choice was McCain is a lie.
I guess Obama turned out not to be a "choice" either.
This "least worst" game is a sure path to doom as the planet and the economy teeter on the brink of disaster. "Least worst" is just not equal to the urgency of the moment.
You need to snap out of your complacency--the idea that you have done some service to humanity merely by not having voted for a Republican or having voted for a Democrat.
You haven't.
Whether or not we are Progressive Democrats hoping to direct a ruling class party in a progressive direction or someone outside that mindset we can keep our eyes on the prize of single payer. Obama's legislation, if passed, doesn't even kick in until the next presidential term so it could all be repealed or modified before that time comes. We just need to remain rational and keep the heat on our latter day LBJ-type realizing he will probably not be the Progressive leader we thought he was.
Of course if the campaign for single payer is controlled by Obama or Congressional Democrats and those who have bought and sold them then there will never be single payer. This is not the end of the struggle for single payer nor is it even the beginning of the end but perhaps it is the end of the beginning.
Of course I would like to see some purported progressive try to make the case, like the old CPUSA perhaps would have done in such a situation, to support the Obama health care program. Such an account cannot ignore the way the insurance industry functions as a service delivery denial mechanism rather than as a more efficient way of delivering health care.
I have supported Dennis Kucinich for 6 years, as a _reasonable_ and modest man who has a lot of GOOD ideas for America. His pre-invasion peace initiative is what first attracted me.
He is NOT the "radical" that the right slanting media wants to make him out to be. The "center" has been pushed so far to the right that anyone with a practical idea is a "radical". There aren't very many real radicals in politics today.
Barack Obama Bush is his real name.
I often read comments such as this one published here: "How can Dennis Kucinich be helped when people such as this author didn't support Dennis Kucinich back in the primaries where it counted?"
I can tell you as one who was for a period involved in his campaign, it was horribly disorganizeed and chaotic. One could not look at it closely and honestly say he was ever interested in being a serious candidate. He enjoys the role of idealogical gadfly, but had neither stomach nor talent for mounting a real campaign. I decided reluctantly it was not an honest effort.
WmCobbett, thank you for trying to answer that question but the answer you gave sounds lame and like conforming to Democrat Party apologist talk. If the campaign was horribly disorganized and chaotic, you should have considered trying to get people involved in that campaign to think with their hearts and minds on the issues and see deep down why Kucinich was better than Hillary or Obama. Your last two sentences tell me that you didn't have the heart or mind to take progressive values seriously. Try opening your heart and mind to the issues and you'll eventually understand why we're upset and fed up with this administration as much as we were of Dubya's administration.
Jennifer, I wouldn't impute the same reason as Cobbett does, but I must agree that Dennis's campaign organisation was -at best- poorly organised and ineffective. I'm willing to presume good-hearted incompetence in most cases, but I saw some things even from a distance that would best be explained by malice.
Part of the problem, I think, is that he's not a good manager in the conventional sense. He's a charismatic leader, but he needs a second who can do all the dirty-fingernails work of getting the makers into the best position to use their skills, isolating the fakers so that they're not in a critical path, and getting rid of the takers altogether. He couldn't afford to hire such a person, so his campaign was filled with leeches, power-trippers, and whatever incompetents wafted in through the windows.
I made the mistake of going to a local "organising meeting" during the 2004 campaign and was appalled by the mix of naked ambition, self-interest, and foggy thinking on display. Ugh! I knew then that, unless that group was anomalous, the campaign was doomed. From talking with other people after the dust settled, they'd had similar experiences in other states: the takers came out from under their rocks, the fakers clogged the communications channels, and nothing good got done. Sic transiant Dennis's chances and our hopes.
Sic transiant?
Back to Latin 101.
If you want to start a Kucinich cult, you're in the wrong place.
This is a forum for critical thinkers, not groupies.
Sure. Whatever you say.
"Sure whatever you say."
English translation: I have no counterpoints, and I am obviously a mindless Kucinich groupie who can't think through and debate the issues.
Jennifer
It Kucinich himself was not attempting to run a serious campaign, WmCobbett could not have turned that around by himself.
It certainly would be edifying if WmCobbett had given more detailed and comprehensive information to support his assertions, and I would welcome further elaboration.
That said, unless there's a history that's not apparent, I don't see why you're jumping all over him, JenniferBedingfield.
Kucinich is OK with me, but it's not exactly scandalous to observe that Dennis may be playing his own game, and has it well in hand. His enigmatic aura isn't necessarily phony, but it's definitely self-conscious.
That is, Kucinich may have long ago pragmatically concluded that by remaining within the Democratic Party, he can achieve "real", if modest, results that advance his progressive beliefs. It's inconceivable, though, that he's not fully aware that many progressives view him as being cruelly disrespected, marginalized, and martyred by the Democratic Party establishment. And let's say that he doesn't disabuse or discourage this sympathetic progressive constituency.
Regardless of whether Kucinich cultivated the status of Party Cinderella or has allowed it to be thrust upon him, now that it's persisted over several electoral cycles, it strikes me as eminently fair to question his bona fides as a presidential candidate.
Kucinich maintains an ambivalent stance that combines principled disagreement with party leaders, candidates, and positions with a habit of ultimately supporting the Party establishment; i.e., when push comes to shove, Kucinich invariably endorses and supports the party and its candidates. Kucinich ALWAYS comes around in the end.
I haven't been able to track it down on Google, but there's a fish I've seen in nature documentaries that's a clear-cut example of a "lingual lure". It has a tongue, or maybe an appendage mounted on a tongue, that looks exactly like a wriggling little worm.
It's a lingual lure! Smaller fish swim up, see the wiggly little worm just dancing there, begging to be eaten, and they go for it. Except that THEY'RE the ones getting swallowed; it turns out that THEY'RE the meal.
Sorry, but I do wonder if Kucinich is a Democratic Party lingual lure, and existing evidence doesn't despositively exclude the possibility. If so, it wouldn't be a shock to find that his presidential campaigns were merely a feint to prop up his reputation as the Outsider on the Inside.
It WOULD be a disappointment, and damning to his reputation as a sincere, straightforward political figure, though. Is that why WmCobbett seems to have rubbed you the wrong way?
· Yr Obd't Servant
vanmungo and OS,
Sometimes, I don't know what to make of Dennis Kucinich. His efforts on trying to put single payer on the health care are remarkable but I admit that his failures and giving up nature in the past trouble me as well. I was upset at the way he suddenly dropped out of the primaries in 2004 and helped John Edwards and then John Kerry instead of Ralph Nader. In 2008, I was upset again that he endorsed Obama instead of Ralph Nader or Cynthia Mckinney. I discussed more about my take on Kucinich under today's other article by DK himself "Why I Voted NO" and why I would have still voted Nader.
I don't know the details between what went on between WmCobbett and the Kucinich team. I just thought he gave up because he was getting to be like some who just give up but I do apologize if I sounded too hard on WC. Now that I finally put it together a little better, I cannot deny the possibility that Kucinich lacks the heart and mind to be a braveheart and just leave the Democratic Party and be his real self. The one thing that is still a mystery is for this campaign and I have a question on is this. Did Dennis Kucinich first give up, did his team give up first, or was it all staged? I would like some more details from WC about his brief campaigning for Kucinich.
I think his run for presidency is similar to Ralph Nader's, more a form of activism than a true desire to win. I think this is why Nader and Kucinich are given more attention by the parties and the media rather than real left parties, even the Green Party when they decided to dump him. They know these 2 are playing a game of activism and don't have the serious desire to actually be president (at least taking it seriously enough). Kucinich has the tendency to line up for his party in the end. Had the vote been a bit closer, I am doubtful Kucinich would have voted against it. He does vote against weak Democratic bills, but usally when it's safe to do so and still have them pass. He votes with the party 85% of the time. That said, he pushes the hardest within the party. The other progressives caved in sooner. The media darling Grayson was quick to support and defend this bill despite all the dramatic hoopla he was creating at the end of the process.
Anyway, lesson to learn here is if a politician has declared themselves a member of a party, expect them to support the party at the very end if things get close. Ron Paul does the same on the Republican side.
I think his run for presidency is similar to Ralph Nader's, more a form of activism than a true desire to win.
------------------------------------
In 2008 maybe, but not 2004.
I was one of the tens of thousands who mailed him after his 'Prayer' speech, begging him to stand for election. And he did. And then everybody bought into the anti-Establishment image the MSM created for Dean --a wealthy, conservative member of the Establishment with much less political experience-- and abandoned Dennis. Dean got the credit that belonged to Dennis and, amazingly, is still getting it. People are doing *exactly* what Hitler described: even when the Big Lie (in this case Dean's faux veneer of progressivism) is exposed as a lie (most recently by Dean's support of this health-insurance giveaway), people refuse to believe it and invent other explanations out of whole cloth.
In Cleveland, Dennis had kept his campaign promise and saved Muny Light. I think he expected the voters to remember that at the polls, but instead they fell for the corporate 'hate Dennis' spin and turned him out of office. He was, in short, betrayed by the people for keeping his promise to them! If he'd sold out, I'm quite sure he'd at least be one of Ohio's senators today, like Voinovich who succeeded him and did sell out. But, dopey Dennis, he played it straight and got his head handed to him as a reward instead.
Then, years later, he finally struggled back up out of the political graveyard and got elected to Congress. He opposed the Iraq invasion (anyone else remember how shamelessly Dean woffled from hawk to dove and back on the subject, trying to find the position that would give him the best public reaction?), gave that rousing speech, got the flood of mails and phonecalls, responded to them, and then...was betrayed *again*!
CD is a microcosm of the larger political world: big talk, no action. Small wonder if Dennis is unwilling to abandon the Dems for leftist "support".
"CD is a microcosm of the larger political world: big talk, no action."
That may look true on the surface but I don't see it that way. Were it not for the internet, how else would we be able to re-enlighten ourselves and each other ? Yes, it's for people to say all talk and no action but sometimes, discussing and planning for a better future is important and that is why I love this site and Alternet.
"Suspect" and Mairead, Nader ran so many times for president and I love what he has done and tried to do for this country in the last 40+ years. His actions and thinking strongly influenced my thinking and my ability to stay bold and not be in tears for feeling dejected and left out. Until this year, I never realized how much I voted with my heart and mind when I picked a candidate by the issues on local, state, and federal elections. We may never really know why in each election Nader chose to run, activism or to win, but here's one special trait I admire of Nader from the bottom of my heart as I do of Mckinney and most progressive third party candidates. Nader made no bones about what he stood for and he placed quality governing over quantity vote getting. Nader and to some extent, Kucinich, aren't the losers. The real losers are the people who voted Hillary/Obama and Mccain in the primaries and finally Obama or Mccain in the general election.
I understand the importance of running a well organized campaign but I still believe the real organization comes when more people answer what their hearts and minds seek and stop allowing the corporate media to seduce them into blindly "accepting" mediocre leadership.
Were it not for the internet, how else would we be able to re-enlighten ourselves and each other ? Yes, it's for people to say all talk and no action but sometimes, discussing and planning for a better future is important
-----------------------------------
I can't completely disagree with you, Jennifer, but I have to wonder whether there's anything *after* the 're-enlightenment'. In what way is enlightenment important if it's never put to use?
Kucinich is more interested in maintaining his career than in advancing the progressive agenda.
When the chips are down, he ALWAYS tells people to vote for the mainstream Democrats who he knows full well will crush the progressive ideas to which he gives lip service.
Strictly a time-serving hypocrite, a tool of corporate interests.
I disagree. Strongly.
It doesn't matter whether you disagree--strongly--if you don't cite any facts to counter someone else's arguments.
In fact, Kucinich DOES ALWAYS endorse ALL the mainstream Democrats running for office and thereby helps to ensure the election of people who will trample everything he claims to advocate.
This is a cynical game of bait and switch designed to corral progressives into the dead end of the Democratic Party.
Now what do you disagree with? That Kucinich supports the straight Democratic ticket every year and urges people to vote for it? Sorry, but that's a FACT, not an opinion. You can't disagree with a fact if you're sane (as opposed to psychotic).
So exactly what is it that you disagree with?
I disagree with your *interpretation* (not fact) that he puts his career first.
The author did not pay attention to the fact that Obama voiced his opposition to single payer and that his "public option" support was for Big Insurance. I'm glad that the author realizes that this "public option" is completely flawed and that the Republicans will attack it anyway. How can Dennis Kucinich be helped when people such as this author didn't support Dennis Kucinich back in the primaries where it counted? And this author almost made my blood boil when he barely mentioned Ralph Nader who he did not support in the general election either. Thanks for recognizing Kucinich's bravery but you allowed him to be persecuted and marginalized all along like this and now we are stuck with a crappy Congress and White House that weilds the power to sludge us !
Eric Massa from NY was at least one more that voted no for the right reason
Yes. He was among the signers of the CPC letter insisting on a robust public option tied to Medicare rates, and available to anyone. Bravo. Also, Brian Baird, (my rep) a Democrat, voted no because the bill actually was not studied long enough to measure its economic impact if passed. I think his reasons are sound.
A Funny Thing Happened on the way to a simple extension of Medicare for all. We were hijacked by the greedy cleptocracy. Good old honest Dennis, I'm glad I sent money for hie re-election.
I have no way of proving this, but I would bet the house that if the House had been evenly split and Kucinich's vote was the tie-breaker, he would have closed ranks with the Democratic Party hacks for whom he urges everyone to vote during every election cycle.
His vote was not needed, so he could afford to indulge in some "principled" speechifying.
Granted, this is a mere hypothesis, but there is ample evidence for it in his inexorable calls for people to vote the straight Democratic line, even though he knows those Democrats will trample everything he claims to stand for.
If he places party loyalty above political principle during EVERY election cycle, he would probably do so in a crunch like this.
But his vote was not critical--so he can continue to play the role of the Democratic Party's "useful progressive idiot."
I have no way of proving this....
If he places party loyalty...
And I have no way of proving that you might lose if you would place a bet.
Yes, there is the question why Dennis does not ever run as an independent.
Was this a recorded vote? Did Kucinich vote before or after the Dems got their 218?
Any counterfactual proposition must rely on likely evidence--there can never be any outright proof. I don't win or lose the "bet"--it's a matter of likelihood.
I presented strong evidence that he places party loyalty above principle--that that is his basic modus operandi. You, of course, conveniently elided that part of the post.
The outcome of the vote is known in advance, through back-room caucusing.
Kucinich statement sez: "Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies."
***
Ayuh.
Now in possession of all of your dollars, the Wealth Care Industry will use the conference committee 'negotiations' to extract the dimes, nickels and pennies. And stamp out the few stray embers of competition that have not already been doused.
If you think the current system is bad ...
Well done Mr. Kucinich and the 38 others who voted no. Those need to stay. All the rest need to go in 2010.
The great majority of the Democrats who voted against the bill are members of the conservative Blue Dog coalition. They voted against the bill not because they deemed it too conservative but because they deemed it too liberal.
You think those 24 "need to stay"?
And how about the additional 7 that voted against it because they are in "close" districts--you think that those members, who are pandering to the rightm "need to stay" also?
Do tell.
Here's the breakdown on the Democrats who voted against the bill:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/08/us/politics/1108-health-care-vote.html
The Blue Dogs need to stay???
If, as vanmungo said, we have been gamed, then we are truly fucked and we can't even trust the progressive block. I had assumed that the 35 or so profressives that fought for single payer would vote no and the blue dogs, because the bill further abets insurance corpo larceny, would vote yes.
I apologize for trying to apply logic to a corrupt congress.
FUBAR
So long as the corporate oligarchs and their political frontmen/puppets run the show, the US will never have any substantive change or progress toward a more humane society. The oligarchs have only two all consuming major agendas: continuing the finance capital schemes of Wall Street with bankster/gangsters in strategic positions ala Summers and Geithner, and the attempt at global military domination as some sort of Pax Americana which involves endless wars further impoverishing the general population and enriching the military industrial congressional complex. Until this system collapses of its own internal corruptions--too bad the near miss of 2008 didn't do the job--or is replaced by a people's revolution, there will be no domestic policies to serve and uplift the people via national universal healthcare, or a rational rail mass transit system, or the funding of needed upkeep and repairs to basic infrastructure, or action on global warming/climate change, or other actions on behalf of the deteriorating environment.
Amid sustained applause for the announcement of the House action in passing the fraudulent healthcare bill, a few of sat on our hands at the local UU church this morning. Until activists on many issues from healthcare to the environment, from education reform to infrastructure rebuilding, from transit activists to food/nutrition educators---only when all these people and the groups they work in come to see the corporate capitalist system as at the heart of every major problem facing us, and that the empire of Pax Americana is spiritually, financially, politically, environmentally destroying everything will we have what must change in focus.. Nothing substantive will happen through expending vast quantities of energy thinking that the current system will grant the changes we need. They are doing fine with the system they have created and rule over. To this point they will perform some bits of political theater for the distracted public and do the real stuff behind closed doors and then present us with inaction ala climate change or a healthcare plan benefiting the drug/insurance/hospital chain criminals, not the people. But over and over, liberals and Democrats resist linking their issues to capitalism and empire and hang on to the hope that somewhere, somehow, sometime they can wheedle the powers that be to grant just a bit of what they want, always avoiding facing the reality that the capitalist empire system is the problem, not the solution.
courtjester -
RE "capitalism" (which doesn't exist in the US today, just corporatism controlling government to consolidate power and control for select (insolvent) business entities like goldman sachs -- what do you say about this carbon tax, which is going to further deindustrialize the US, sending more manufacturing jobs overseas to locales that aren't under the same carbon controls the US is, and which will actually BOOST carbon emissions overall. Have you looked far enough behind the curtain to see that?
the answer to corporatism is not more of the same (like the obama/bush flavored fascism we see), but actual capitalism where failures are allowed to fail -- and where fraud and ineptitude have negative consequences -- unlike what we have seen with 9/11 and the Banking Crisis where no one has been charged or disciplined. Everything going according to plan?
VegasDroneOperator,
The goal of any true capitalist is to eliminate the competition and corner the market for his product in order to be able to dictate the going price (see John D. Rockefeller). Competion is anathema to capitalism. What we have now is the logical product of centuries of competition crushing and market cornering.
The happy talk about capitalism is hype. The reality is buy em' or bop em'. But hey, you're in Vegas so you know all about that.
AGG -
So we need Goldman Sachs running our govt? Is that the solution you speak of?
Of course we need anti-trust laws and some other limited govt interventions to keep the playing field fair and corporations honest. Capitalism, socialism, fascism, etc: I don't care about what name we give it. What I want to see is transparency, and elected officials who are accountable to the people -- two things we lack at present.
Audit the Fed! Support HR 1207! Call your reps today!
PS. I think Kucinich's vote against the Health Care bill was mostly cosmetic. He tows the line for the dems.
courtjester,
Well said.
The so-called enlightened self interest at the core of capitalism is nothing but elitist greed conspiring to perpetuate the oligarchy. Wasn't it Madison that claimed the government should defend the rich minority from the tyranny of the majority? Yes it was. And from the violent Shays rebellion put down to modern wall street, the government has done a thorough job of it.
Madame Defarge is sorely needed.
Would Dennis Kucinich introduce a bill to get money out of politics and get to the heart of the matter, if only to bring this most important issue to the forefront?
"In response to the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) to limit contributions to candidates for federal office. FECA was immediately challenged as an infringement on first amendment rights; the plaintiffs argued that "limiting the use of money for political purposes constitute[d] a restriction on communication violative of the First Amendment, since virtually all meaningful political communications in the modern setting involve the expenditure of money."
In BUCKLEY V. VALEO, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the FECA law, thus saying in effect that pumping private money into elections is a form of free speech. This decision has allowed the wealthy to positively shout in elections, drowning out the voices of the majority of Americans --a situation clearly not consistent with our one-person-one-vote democracy."
http://www.ejnet.org/rachel/rehw427.htm
This is an issue we could all get behind and put the con Supremes on the spot.
Voting with conservatives can't possibly be a good strategy.
Would DK state that con Dems taking over the Party is the real problem and that they should be voted out?
Sounds like a good idea and Kucinich may be the best bet to get it done. You might run it by the Ron Paul camp as well, though. And we want to look to local referenda for this one. Congress will not pass it.
Imagine: every single lobby organization will squawk.
However, almost the entire population is against big $$ in elections. A fair percentage thinks that it's the left that buys elections, and the libertarians might bring some of those folks to the table.
Thanks bard. But if we hear nary a squeak about getting money out of politics from progressive pols, we hear nothing at all about the best solution, referendums. The only things heard, seen or written about these are bad. Like with Chomsky, some things are just too dangerous to the oligarchy for them to let us hear.
You need to include Erik Massa of New York's 29th district alongside Kucinich. And the retired Naval Commander from Corning did not hem and haw over it until the last minute, either.
Obama is a fraud. The insurance industry has no place in health care. Since 1970 200% increase in number of physicians, 3000% increase in administrators. How can the US have health care when we have no tax base? Support Audit the Fed HR 1207 without the Watt amendment to gut HR 1207's provisions to audit Central Bank transactions and domestic monetary policy. Goldman Sachs bet on mortgage values tanking even as they sold $1.5 quadrillion of derivative filth backed by those very same mortgages. Aerospace moving to Mexico in 2010, Seattle to be the next Detroit. Next fraud to come: The Carbon bubble. Gore is the first carbon billionaire, whose carbon credit (indulgences) scheme was cooked up by Enron's Ken Lay (now residing in Paraguay, most likely). Check out 31,000 real scientists who deny the conclusiveness of Gore's assertions, including that there is consensus on carbon dioxide being the main driver of climate change (as opposed to solar cycles). The so-called consensus is among the 2000 or so UN affiliated scientists who are mostly nonpracticing bureaucrats. http://www.oism.org/pproject/. The planet is cooling now, and Gore's next video is about carbon-control being more a religion/cult than an activity based on solid science. All of the above is about centralized / govt control that WILL lead to increased authoritarianism, limitations on health options, and even limitations on movement (bad carbon footprint). Who killed the electric car? The very same people pushing this crap. Who started the American Cancer Institute? The Rockefeller foundation because they owned the chemo patents. Illness and death are more profitable and enjoyable for the higher ups.
Peace
Here is a lucid, thorough explanation of the reasons that this bill SUCKS:
http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/11/05/health-care-reform-2009-no-bill-is-better-than-a-bad-bill/
More and more I have come to admire Dennis Kucinich for his courage, honesty and moral backbone.
I have no way of proving this, but I would bet the house that if the House had been evenly split and Kucinich's vote was the tie-breaker, he would have closed ranks with the Democratic Party hacks for whom he urges everyone to vote during every election cycle.
His vote was not needed, so he could afford to indulge in some "principled" speechifying.
Granted, this is a mere hypothesis, but there is ample evidence for it in his inexorable calls for people to vote the straight Democratic line, even though he knows those Democrats will trample everything he claims to stand for.
If he places party loyalty above political principle during EVERY election cycle, he would probably do so in a crunch like this.
But his vote was not critical--so he can continue to play the role of the Democratic Party's "useful progressive idiot."
Bring America Back !!!!
***We Progs really knew Team Obama would cave-in to Big AMA and Big MED, just as they did to all their other campaign promises., which turned out to be outright lies !! INstead of reforming and changing the culture of corruption in DC, they have become part and parcel of it.
Dennis Kucinich for President !! Dump Team Obama.
***When Obama threw Single Payer Healthcare under his Bus,
he pitched 45 million uninsured Americans under it too !
Let's hope every one of them are registered voters.
The author wrote:
"I voted for the Barack Obama who opposed the individual mandate, who said the negotiations would be televised on C-SPAN and who campaigned against backroom deals with PhARMA."
That Obama was a fake. You and anyone who supports this charlatan has been royally duped. A little research and less wishful thinking would have prevented this.
Are you going to continue to be duped, or just keep on wishing? Obama is a fake through and through, including his not being constitutionally qualified to even BE president. Barry isn't a natural born citizen, hence his crack team of lawyers hiding his birth certificate and school papers.
It would be simple - but not easy - to get this stooge out of office. Demand that he prove his natural born citizenship. He cannot! Why? His father was a British citizen. The corporate powers that be, though, wanted this particular puppet in the highest office in the world. Why? I think the answer is obvious. If not, read your article again.
It is even worse than you say: I heard Obama was secretly a space-alien who is signalling his fellow spacemen to invade and take over the earth. Any day a major invasion will occur and we will all be enslaved by green little people from outer space. I am so scared I can't come out from under my bed.
I've always had my suspicions. Can I join you under your bed?
Dennis Kucinich has respect for the Constitution and providing simple legislation such as HR 676 to solve the insurance crisis of health care while at the same time telling government to get out of people's health affairs but instead pay them the dues that they paid government in taxes in full faith. Obama has never promised anything on health care reform other than allowing the meddlesome Congress to take bribes from insurance and drug giants before making judgments. Some people hate libertarians but this libertarian follows the principled platform of NO CORPORATE WELFARE ! Until government can stop meddling for the corporate interests, it must be abolished and rebuilt.
Big Whoop----
Did it matter? Really now.
The Democratic Party have become WORTHLESS!!!!
This is why I wrote Dennis Kucinich in for Prez in 2008 and shall do so again in 2012
White Smoke,
I did this same thing!:
_________________________________________________________________________
"This is why I wrote Dennis Kucinich in for Prez in 2008 and shall do so again in 2012."
_________________________________________________________________________
And I would do it again! (Only next time, I will photograph it before I leave the booth, just for posterity.)
Thank you for letting me know at least one other person out there "gets it."
True Patriot
That's why I voted for Mckinney. Like Dennis K. she had no chance of winning, yet I voted for her anyway because I agree with her policy platforms.
The voting system is rigged, the two-party system that results is rigged, no one that is not pre-approved by the Oligarchy can win the Presidency or a Senate seat for that matter. It is not impossible but the formal structural barriers and informal ones make it extremely difficult.
We go on decade after decade, ignoring election fraud, rigged rules, media propaganda and monopoly over political discourse etc. etc. and still believe that the sytem works.
Why put a new paint job without fixing a broken down 59 pickup. It is still a broken down old 59 pickup despite the shiny new exterior.
"The Best Democracy Money Can Buy"
"The Best Democracy Money Can Buy"
----------------------------------
The best government maybe, but democracy it is not.
One of the FEARLESS! Thank you. I hope we won't have to write Dennis in next time. If he gets to debate Obama, the Prez will look like the schmuck that he really is. Wrongly-used intelligence, "Charisma", and HEIGHT do not a President make!!!
Another Liberal "lite" from the Huffington Post crowd duped by the fraud in the White House. And Michael Moore is still hoping that Obama will somehow magically become a progressive???
Never was going to happen, never will happen.......
Mr. Stranahan, couldn't you see this coming? Obama continually supported the War in Afghanistan "before" the election, and what about his about face on FISA........
Did you ever see Obama give a speech on the poor?
His silence during the massacre in Gaza?
Were these the actions of a Progressive?
It's over for this Presidency and the sad reality is that this country will veer EVEN FURTHER to the RIGHT as a result of this charade......
The People are going to be offered a Shit taco called Reform at the end of the day. They won't even be given the option to take it ot leave though. Instead, the clueless political tone deaf Dinocrats are going to essentially stick a gun in all of our faces with their assine Forced mandate. YWe are all going to be forced to either BUY the lousy monopoly products offered to us or else pay IRS imposed fines. The Dems. IMO are committing political hari kari with this stupid ill thought out bill and it's only going to get far worse in the Senate. In the Senate my guess is the weak PO will be striped out and replaces with some kind of trigger to make Olympia Snowe (R) maine happy so the Dems. can past the 39 Gopers and Liberswine's votes to filibueter the bill. In the end of this whole process will be something so watered down and so Pro-Big Health mafia that it won't even beable to call itself Reform. It will be aan almost total sell-out of the people who voted for Obama and the Dems. It's nothing more even now then a tax payer financed give away to the same thieving Big Corps. already sucking us all dry.
Dear Barack Hussein Obama and most of the United States Congress: DRINK SEAWATER!
Drinking seawater would only make him vomit. He's already shit on the people who supported him. What more do you want?
q
On July 30th of this year, 57 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said this about health care reform:
"Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, for a public option with reimbursement rates based on Medicare rates -not negotiated rates -is unacceptable. It would ensure higher costs for the public plan, and would do nothing to achieve the goal of"keeping insurance companies honest," and their rates down."
Incredibly, in a display of mass cowardice before corporate power, only two of the 57 kept their commitment, Dennis Kucinich and Eric Massa.
The other 55, the cowardly, lying 55, broke their word to the American progressive citizenry.
My only hope for them is when the final bill comes back from conference committee, surely in even less-progressive condition, that they will re-examine their consciences and vote no. But based on this betrayal of their written commitment of July 30, I have no hope that they will. They have no spines. No courage. No commitment to anything they say. They caved. They are worse than the conservatives who at least have the courage of their corporate convictions.
Here are the 55 traitor:
Lynn Woolsey
Raul Grijalva
Carolyn Kilpatrick
Jerry Nadler
Phil Hare
Lucille Roybal-Allard
Keith Ellison
Earl Blumenauer
Mel Watts
Donna Edwards
John Olver
Dennis Kucinich x
Laura Richardson
Maxine Waters
John Conyers
Judy Chu
Maurice Hinchey
Hank Johnson
Diane Watson
Jackie Speier
Bill Pascrell
Lloyd Doggett
Marcy Kaptur
Mazie Hirono
Bob Filner
Linda Sanchez
Marcia Fudge
Barbara Lee
Andre Carson
Sheila Jackson Lee
Michael Honda
Jim McDermott
William Lacy Clay
Jim McGovern
Yvette Clarke
Chellie Pingree
Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Elijah Cummings
Bennie Thompson
Gwen Moore
Donald Payne
Fortney "Pete" Stark
Ed Towns
Corrine Brown
Alcee Hastings
Nydia Valezquez
Luis Gutierrez
Grace Napolitano
Albio Sires
John Tierney
Mike Capuano
Chaka Fattah
Jose Serrano
Sam Farr
Bill Delahunt
Eddie Bernice Johnson
I personally will never again trust what these individuals say, only what they do. They have violated the trust of progressives with their cowardly caving to corporate power. They are liars all.
It's over. People get to congress and then don't keep their word.
There is no democratic recourse left for us.
Madame Defarge will make her appearance soon. The imbeciles in congress and the white house are making us easy pickings for a foreign government takeover. What a pack of traitors!
The D party knows that liberals/progressives etc. have nowhere to go. As Bill Clinton said during his tenure: "What are they going to do, vote Republican?
Non Duopoly candidates are censored from the media, so very few even know who they are, then the winner takes all system stacks the deck against them. Yet no one can figure this out except for a few blacklisted people like Howard Zinn or Nader.
Yet so many progresives still believe there is nothing wrong with the system and by voting for a Duopoly corporate sponsored candidate will make a difference.
People have such short memories. This just keeps happening decade after decade and we forget decade after decade.
The system wouldn't let me remove Kucinich's name in the editing process. It has an "x" beside it indicating he didn't vote for the bill.
I end my statement saying this:
Here is the e-mail address of the Congressional Progressive Caucus for sending a message urging them to grow spines for the final vote:
progressive@mail.house.gov
Amen!
But Mr. Stranahan, candidate Obama was, in the primaries, in favor of excluding candidates Kucinich and Gravel from the candidate debates. Wasn't this what we might call "a clue?"
Yes, kudos to Kucinich for a principled stand, but shame on the reflexive supporters of a party who react with surprise and indignation when the same old betrayals occur in the same old way for the umpteenth time. The big secret here is that reflexive support enables exactly that surprise and indignation that will happen again.
And again.
"The big secret here is that reflexive support enables exactly that surprise and indignation that will happen again."
It appears crystal clear to me. I'm not a powerful person, therefore I feel free to offer up this prophecy: the two-party will manage another coup in 2012 and one of the two corporate parties will win.
"Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true." -Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)