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A Wake Up Call from Massachussetts
How could the health care issue have turned from a reform that was going to make Barack Obama ten feet tall into a poison pill for Democratic senators? Whether or not Martha Coakley squeaks through in Massachusetts on Tuesday, the health bill has already done incalculable political damage and will likely do more. Polls show that the public now opposes it by margins averaging ten to fifteen points, and widening. It is hard to know which will be the worse political defeat -- losing the bill and looking weak, or passing it and leaving it as a piñata for Republicans to attack between now and November.
The measure is so unpopular that Republican State Senator Scott Brown has built his entire surge against Coakley around his promise to be the 41st senator to block the bill -- this in Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts. He must be pretty confident that the bill has become politically radioactive, and he's right.
It has already brought down Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, a fighter for health care and other reforms far more progressive than President Obama's. Dorgan championed Americans' right to re-import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, a popular provision that the White House blocked. Dorgan, who is one of the Senate's great populists, began the year more than twenty points ahead in the polls of his most likely challenger, North Dakota Governor John Hoeven. By the time he decided to call it a day, Dorgan was running more than twenty points behind. The difference was the health bill, which North Dakotans oppose by nearly two to one. The fact that Dorgan's own views were much better than the Administration's cut little ice. He was fatally associated with an unpopular bill.
So, how did Democrats get saddled with this bill? Begin with Rahm Emanuel. The White House chief of staff, who was once Bill Clinton's political director, drew three lessons from the defeat of Clinton-care. All three were wrong. First, get it done early (Clinton's task force had dithered.) Second, leave the details to Congress (Clinton had presented Congress with a fully-baked cake.) Third, don't get on the wrong side of the insurance and drug industries (The insurers' fictitious couple, Harry and Louise, had cleaned Clinton's clock.)
But as I wrote in Obama's Challenge, in August 2008, it would be a huge mistake to try to get health care done right out of the box. Obama first needed to get his sea-legs, and focus like a laser on economic recovery. If he got the economy back on track, he would then have earned the chops to undertake more difficult structural reforms like health care.
Deferring to the House and Senate was fine up to a point, but this was an issue where the president needed to lead as only presidents can -- in order to frame the debate and define the stakes.
Cutting a deal with the insurers and drug companies, who are not exactly candidates to win popularity contests, associated Obama with profoundly resented interest groups. This was exactly the wrong framing. This battle should have been the president and the people versus the interests. Instead more and more voters concluded that it was the president and the interests versus the people.
As policy, the interest-group strategy made it impossible to put on the table more fundamental and popular reforms, such as using Federal bargaining power to negotiate cheaper drug prices, or having a true public option like Medicare-for-all. Instead, a bill that served the drug and insurance industries was almost guaranteed to have unpopular core elements.
The politics got horribly muddled. By embracing a deal that required the government to come up with a trillion dollars of subsidy for the insurance industry, Obama was forced to pursue policies that were justifiably unpopular -- such as taxing premiums of people with decent insurance; or compelling people to buy policies that they often couldn't afford, or diverting money from Medicare. He managed to scare silly the single most satisfied clientele of our one island of efficient single-payer health insurance -- senior citizens -- and to alienate one of his most loyal constituencies, trade unionists.
The bill helped about two-thirds of America's uninsured, but did almost nothing for the 85 percent of Americans with insurance that is becoming more costly and unreliable by the day -- except frighten them into believing that what little they have is at increased risk of being taken away.
All of this made things easier for the right, and left people to take seriously even preposterous allegations such as the nonsense about death panels. It got so ass-backwards that the other day Ben Nelson, who successfully held out for anti-abortion language and a sweetheart deal for Nebraska's Medicaid as the price of his vote, found himself facing a wholesale voter backlash.
Nelson began running TV spots assuring Nebraska voters that the Obama health plan is "not run by the government." That's one hell of a slogan for a party that relies on democratically elected government to offset the insecurity, inequality and insanity generated by private commercial forces. If not-run-by-government is the Democrats' credo, why bother?
So we went from a politics in which government is necessary to provide secure health insurance -- because the private insurance industry skims off outrageous middlemen fees and discriminates against sick people -- to a politics in which Democrats, as a matter of survival, feel they have to apologize for government. Thank you, Rahm Emanuel.
The budget-obsessives around Obama also insisted that most of the bill not take effect until 2013, so that all of the scary stuff gets three years to fester before most people see any benefit. Call it political malpractice.
Finally, the health insurance battle sucked out all the oxygen. When Obama made time to work the phones personally, it wasn't to enact serious financial reform (this was left to the tender mercies of Tim Geithner) or to fight for a real jobs program (deficit hawks Peter Orszag and Larry Summers got to blunt that one). No -- Obama got on the phone and met with legislators to round up the last vote or two for a sketchy health reform that crowded out far more urgent issues.
As a resident of Massachusetts, in the last two days I've gotten robo calls from Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Martha Coakley, and Angela Menino, the wife of Boston's mayor -- everyone but the sainted Ted Kennedy. In Obama's call, he advised me that he needed Martha Coakley in the Senate, "because I'm fighting to curb the abuses of a health insurance industry that routinely denies care." Let's see, would that be the same insurance industry that Rahm was cutting inside deals with all spring and summer? The same insurance industry that spent tens of millions on TV spots backing Obama's bill as sensible reform?
If voters are wondering which side this guy is on, he has given them good reason.
Looking forward, one can imagine several possibilities. Suppose Coakley loses. Obama and the House leadership may then decide that their one shot to salvage health reform after all this effort is for the House to just pass the Senate-approved bill and send it to the president's desk. They can fix its deficiencies later. This is an easy parliamentary move. But the bill passed the House by only five votes; many House members are dead set against some of the more objectionable provisions of the Senate bill; a Coakley loss would make the bill that much more politically toxic; there will be Republican catcalls that Congress is using dubious means to pass a bill that has just been politically repudiated; and the House votes just may not be there this time.
Alternatively, let's say Coakley narrowly wins, the Democrats have a near death experience, and the House and Senate stop squabbling and pass the damned bill.
Either way, the Massachusetts surprise should be a wake-up call of the most fundamental kind. Obama needs to stop playing inside games with bankers and insurance lobbyists, and start being a fighter for regular Americans. Otherwise, he can kiss it all goodbye.
- Posted in
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Show All"We believe that every person living today has an obligation to those not yet born."
D Hudson
Nothing to see here folks. It's all part of the show. You couldn't expect the Dems to retain a majority could you? If they did they would be accountable for results. The Democrats are desperate to lose the majority status and lose it they shall. Never again shall I waste my time voting for a Democrat.
"You could have been heroes." (Democratic Party's epitaph)
"We believe that every person living today has an obligation to those not yet born."
What have they ever done for me?
Perfect GOP counterpoint. You should run for office. Lots of Dem seats going poof this fall.
So, if I said, "We believe that every person living today has an obligation to feed their children"
Would you reply: "What have they ever done for me?"
How badly does Rahm Emmanuel have to screw things up before Obama fires him?
He needs to clean house. Fire Rahm Emmanuel, fire little Timmy, fire fat Larry, fire Robert Rubin.
How many knives will Joe Lieberman stick in the Democrats' backs before he loses his chairmanship?
Maybe a huge economic and military disaster is needed to knock some sense into Obama. We'll find out, because it's coming.
Obama without his seven insiders would be like Snow White without her seven dwarfs...ain't gonna happen.
Obama and his seven insiders made deals with the drug and insurance industries that they will keep AT ANY COST. If you think the current Obamacare bill is bad wait until you see how mauch worse it gets when push comes to shove.
"We believe that every person living today has an obligation to those not yet born." D Hudson
"Maybe a huge economic and military disaster is needed to knock some sense into Obama. We'll find out, because it's coming."
You mean another one?
Sorry DF, this was only the 1st Wave. The 2nd and 3rd waves will trigger social chaos and the intended Demographic Collapse of the US (see: Larry Summers). These are the good old days, when there was enough food, when seniors got SSI checks and Medicare, when we didn't have 40% infant mortality before the age of ten, when ordinary people didn't die (on average) before 50. Yes, dearest Mr. Summers is waiting as I write to put on his special shoes and dance his Steel Toe Flamenco, the Dance of Death on the face of America.
Infant mortality before the age of ten? roflmao!
Independent Candidate Joe L. Kennedy is polled at about 5% in the Senate Race.
Univ of New Hampshire Survey Center (Boston Globe Poll)
This is an opportunity for Massachusetts voters to show the Democrats that the Democratic party can't spit in the voter's faces and receive votes at the same time. Having an independent on the ballot in this case provides the voters with a choice outside the 2 party system and enables them to send a message to both parties, without sitting at home and not voting.
FYI
Joe L Kennedy is no relation to Teddy. Joe L Kennedy is a Ron Paul Libertarian one of whose slogans is "End the welfare state."
Yet he's polling at near 5% for Teddy's seat!
With almost no funding and certainly little awareness of his campaign, no less.
I can think of two options to explain this:
1. 5% of the people polled are either too ignorant or too senile to realize Joseph L. Kennedy is not Teddy's son or cousin or something, so they will vote for him out of Massachusetts Kennedy Worship Reflex/Disease, or,
2. The times they are a changin'.
Also, Ron Paul is still a Repub. This Kennedy fellow is a real Libertarian, but not running as such.
-matti.
LibWingoLibWing. Thx, yeah I realize he isn't relation to Teddy. As far as that goes, I don't think the Kennedy's have done much for the country in the last 20 years considering where the Democratic party is today. My thought is that if there isn't another independent running, such as in the Green Party, then go ahead and vote for a third party to make a statement that independents votes exist. I also realize a bunch of people will vote for Joe, just because they think he is part of the Ted Kennedy family.
A supurb article that defines what these fools have become.
"Begin with Rahm Emanuel" Thats where it began and it should end Rahm before the years out.
"Obama needs to stop playing inside games with bankers and insurance lobbyists, and start being a fighter for regular Americans. Otherwise, he can kiss it all goodbye."
Its far to late for that. He has lost the Seniors and they will not be back. They don't forgive nor forget. He has lost the Independents and they will not be back. Those are the people that elected him. Oops!
Pelosi, Reid and Obama have managed to turn the whole country against them and forego any hope of obtaining any progressive or liberal goals. Now or in the next decade.
"[Obama] has lost the Seniors and they will not be back. They don't forgive nor forget. He has lost the Independents and they will not be back." Being both, I totally agree.
"Pelosi, Reid and Obama have managed to turn the whole country against them and forego any hope of obtaining any progressive or liberal goals. Now or in the next decade."
When did they have "progressive or liberal goals"?
When did they have "progressive or liberal goals"?
Surely at one time in their lives before they became purchased garbage.
Poor Kuttner!
Like a faithful old retainer refusing to leave a wealthy family that has become bankrupt and impoverished, Kuttner loyally mends, patches, and scrubs the threadbare linen and polishes the termite-infesting wainscoting.
When the Master brought home a rank and festering corporation bailout labelled "health insurance reform" for dinner, Kuttner loyally pronounced it agreeable, if not sumptuous-- plenty good enough for a starving family.
Now the fumes from the basting carcass are giving Kuttner coughing fits that even a perfume-soaked hanky wedged into his nostrils can't stop.
So he must be forgiven for finally expressing impatient dismay, and urging his Master to make more prudent use of his dwindling windfall of good fortune.
Still, I reckon that if things go as it seems they will, and Kuttner is eventually cast adrift to fend for himself in street or alleyway, he will still blame the family's misfortune on his Master's evil and designing associates, and not the noble Master himself.
· Yr Obd't Servant
You don't disagree with his analysis of Obama's screw ups do you? Such as losing the Seniors?
They are making the point that Kuttner seems desperate to find an explanation for this Administration's "screw ups" that does not involve the OBVIOUS concluson:
That it is Obama, as chief Executive, who is behind these "screw ups", and that this means that it is Obama, not one of his subordinates, that we should blame. "The buck stops here", y'know?
I'd add that these actions are in no way "screw ups" at all. The long-time function and recent purpose of the Dem party is to absorb and deflect populist energy from the "left" (read: social welfare, social justice, internationalist), just as it is the Repubs who do so for the "right" (read: libertarian, traditionalist, imperialist). The Dems and Repubs can now be relied upon to do this effectively so that the real business of re-concentrating wealth -after the upheavals of the Depression, World War II, and post war boom spread it out into the populace- can get done.
Things are getting interesting now because we have reached the point in the process where further concentration would lead -at least- to a re-establishment of "Gilded Age" wealth distribution proportions with a tiny minority on top and everyone else in near- or true-poverty. It is also possible that due to our much different circumstances with regard to REAL ownership of land amongst the People that we may be heading for a WORSE wealth gap than 120 years ago, the least equitable distribution of wealth in U.S. history.
So the game heats up as it almost never has before and it becomes less and less tolerable for Citizens that can see this game in action to read such desperate Obama excuse making by pathetic dupes/cynical hacks like Kuttner.
At least that's my take on it.
-matti.
matti
Frankly I didn't pay much attention to anything but his analysis of how many doofuss mistakes this bunch had made since taking office.
Excuses won't count for Obama or anyone in this bunch. They are one and done. And I mean 1 year, well thats one year ending November 2010.
I fully expect Rahm to jump ship before then. Gov. of Mass. perhaps?
The populist energy right now is coming from the right I believe and I do not think it will be deflected.
Thanks for your take matti.
Your welcome.
But I'm not sure I'm making my clear.
My point is that these are not "mistakes" in the sense that the Obama Administration is attempting to do something that these efforts (like SlaveCare) harm or hinder.
What I am saying is that it is the job of the Obama Admin. (or whichever group is sent up by the Dems) to absorb or CO-OPT all of the "left" disatisfaction that was generated by the Bush II Admin. that went before it. Just as it was the Bush II Admin.'s job to absorb or co-opt all of the "right" dissatisfaction that was generated by the Clinton Admin. before IT. And so on and so forth.
The other job of the Obama Admin. is to deflect or CHANNEL the new dissatisfaction being generated by Government Policy into a "right" slant or casting, so that the process of co-option can be repeated by the Repub Congress post 2010 and Repub Admin post 2012.
This -plus the work that this back-and-forth covers over, which is the real purpose and ongoing, not interrupted- is the game of divide and conquer that has been the "two-party system" as long as I have been alive.
What I was trying to express is that I think this whole scam is running up against the limits of its utility as the background -or true- work reaches its goal of return to pre-Progressive Era distribution of wealth and sets out for unexplored (in the U.S. at least) territory.
So the "mistakes" here are NOT truly the ones that Kuttner sees. But other ones that have to do with the miscalculations/greed of the forces (which are likely not personified or institutionalized) BEHIND both the Obama Admin/Dem Congress leaders AND the Repub "opposition".
Obama should have been cast as the new FDR and act as a pressure release valve on long term "left" dissatisfaction and channel for long term "right" dissatisfaction. But instead it is being attempted to get another whole complete turn of the cycle in before such an "FDR" is played.
I am speculating that one consequence of this greedy, short-term strategy will be the breakdown of the whole "left/right" scam that underlies the "two-party" scam.
Sure-fire bad news for oligarchs but possible good news for democrats (not Dems).
-matti.
yo! matti 6:55 pm Gotcha! On a Slave Plantation there are 3 Classes: Master; Overseers; and Slaves. Overseers (see: POTUS/Chief Overseer) do not have a skin color or a gender, they have a job description:
1) Transfer all wealth into the hands of the top 1/4 of 1% by any means fair or foul.
2) Degrade and debase the "Slaves" into compliance, conformity, and obedience.
3) Design and implement programs for Demographic Collapse and Die-Back of the Slaves in the US (too many of us for Master's 'comfort').
Curiously, there are also folks on the Left who think we have "too many people". Of course, they conveniently forget the fact that when women are released from Gender Slavery and allowed full economic and biological self-determination - population growth drops like a stone. No question, no argument, historical fact. They don't want to hear that of course, so I tell them, "Want to control population? Simple, castrate the males." No semen, no babies.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
So the people on the Left who don't want to hear that when women are released from gender slavery and allowed full economic and biological self-determination - population drops like a stone somehow prefer to hear "Want to control population? Simple, castrate the males." ??
The more both sexes are educated in any culture the more the birthrate declines.
Gotcha!
No better way to say it.
Thanks Mr. Kuttner, that was great.
The die is cast, we only await the denoument.
The Republicans have completely outmaneuvered the Dems, the Dem leadership outmaneuvered themselves, and when we are all floating in a sea of money, those that own the sea can quickly and easily outmaneuver all. The fantastic sums spent on outmaneuvering only seem fantastic if you're floating on a dinghy.
The die is cast. Obama's done, stick a fork in him. A lame duck in his second year.
Bryon Dorgan would have made a much better president. If the D Party had been interested in a move to the center, in a populist appeal, they would have gone with him. He had that ability to appeal to more conservative voters with mostly liberal ideas. I liked him quite a bit, and am sorry to see him go. Guess the beltway powers preferred to juggle corporate power from hand to hand rather than acknowledge the grievances of the peasants. Speaking of which, I'm reading a great book called "The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America." It's uncanny the parallels between then and now and how similar the grievances were that eventually brought revolution.
There's no chance that anybody willing and able of even a little bit of challenge to the elite would ever get past their media fire wall, and if he did he'd be killed.
This is a first rate analysis even though I aver that the problems for Mr. Obama and his party began well before his inauguration.
In the spring of 2008 the divisive decision to escalate the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan was already hard on Mr. Obama's menu should he get elected because he was cock-sure that he could get away declaring "escalation against terrorists". During the debates he reiterated this policy numerous times hence there was no justification that voters could later claim "I did not know". At his inauguration he deliberately rejected the sane path of: "we must get out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to rebuild our own country first". That policy would not have automatically reduced unemployment and home foreclosures but it would have generated enthusiasm and "hope" to give him arms with which to fight his opposition and overwhelm the warriors. It was the cause for his and his voters first gigantic blunder.
I totally agree with Mr. Kuttner that the eco-financial situation in January of 2009 should have trumped every other consideration except the de-escalation of the wars. Actually the two were and are still Siamese twins joined at the hips as we all know. I doubt that Mr. Obama could have governed effectively by inviting only proven left-wing persons into his cabinet. Several Democrats would have voted with all Republican Senators to deny their appointments. Mr. Obama should have constructed a coalition government with a few progressive Republicans in the socio-economic secretariats but not with the current crooks who were greatly co-responsible for the great crash of 2008. Once again, acting in this manner would not have turned the nation around immediately but it would have generated enthusiasm and "hope" with which to fight for a later health legislation. Failure to act was the cause of this second gigantic blunder.
There is a third cause but one for which Mr. Obama is not alone responsible. The so-called "Party Platforms" are crazy bouillabaisses not worth the paper they are printed on. Consequently new administrations have no or only frighteningly vague plans of action on day one which is bad with an experienced new pol in the White House and can be a disaster with a novice like Obama.
No matter what happens in Massachusetts tomorrow, that will not be a "wake up call" but will become a swan song for Mr. Obama and taps for his party in the country and Congress.
I'd say your analysis is better than Kuttner's.
>>Actually the two were and are still Siamese twins joined at the hips as we all know.
>>I doubt that Mr. Obama could have governed effectively by inviting only proven
>> left-wing persons into his cabinet.
On the first point, exactly. I would very much like Kuttner to discuss how the economic data supports the idea that the VietNam forced forced Nixon, the last president to balance the federal budget up until Clinton, to abgrogate the Bretton Woods treaty, allowing Greenspan and Bernanke to create the "Alice Down the Rabbit Hole" situation that the middle class has found itself in for the last apx 8 years.
On the second point, I suggest that you be careful buying into the bogus left/right canard. Sound economic policy of any ideological stripe is preferable to corporatocracy, ie the mess we have now. In addition, to quote Bill Maher, the Democrats have moved into the Republican space, and the Republicans have moved into the asylum. Please define "left-wing" :)
In Obama's defence, EVERYBODY, except perhaps the Germans, is destroying their currency.
Thanks for warning me not to buy into the left/right canard. I was merely trying to put myself into the shoes of Obama and ask myself "how can I possibly get out of this eco-financial mess given my wish to preserve capitalism as we know it".
Interestingly that you mention Bretton Woods. You know of course that J. M. Keynes was one of the major, if not the major mover for this treaty which was intended to save international banking capitalism from another meltdown. Yet Keynes is frequently decried as a "socialist" which he was not.
You ask please define 'left wing'. I may have written those words too cavalierly. I was actually comparing in my mind the start of FDR's presidency with that of Obama when I wrote that sentence. I am far from an uncritical admirer of Roosevelt. After all, he too kept on several of the financial advisers from Hoover's disastrous administration. However, the striking difference I think was that FDR at least publicly kept hammering on the theme "our country first" regardless of whether he meant it or not while Obama is mired in foreign adventures at a time when much of our nation thinks that he should 'think of and act for us first'.
I now also think that the Obama administration did not understand the nature of the disruptions of the political meetings in the summer of 2008. They lulled themselves and their followers into sleep by arguing that the disruptions were organized by a small group of plotters. Sure, but the Russian Revolution was successfully plotted, organized, and led by a very small group of Bolsheviks.
Lastly one more comment. Let me define 'working class' as all persons who derive their ability to cope with living by earning salaries. As long as our country does not have a true working class movement/party which is willing to engage openly and consistently in 'class war' nothing, absolutely nothing will change. Anyone who believes that a 'class war' is not on today ought to visit his/her political shrink. Actually the anger at bankers shows to me that much of the public understands that there is a real and vicious 'class war' going on.
At the end of my last sentence I should have added "but have no movement/party to turn to other than the Palin-wing of the Republicans and the "Tea Parties".
I wouldn't call either Keynes or FDR socialists. It has been said by many people that FDR didn't destroy capitalism, he saved it. If you're ever in the Hudson valley, take a tour of Hyde Park, and the Vanderbilt Mansion next door. Returning for a moment to Kuttner's original topic, this is part of Obama's problem. FDR looked at folks like the Vanderbilts as gauche noveau riche, while Obama is owned by them.
FDR kept on several members of the Hoover adminstration. Ok. I did not know that, but I'm guessing that, in todays terms, they would have had more of a Paul Volker role than a TimG role.
I'd be interested hearing why you dislike FDR. So many of the FDR/Keynes era mechanisms designed to ensure the stability of the finance system have been rolled back, for various reasons: pegging the dollar to gold to ensure fiscal and monetary responsibility, separating commercial banking from investment banking, limiting the user of leverage. The SEC has been defunded and defanged.
So far, Obama has been quite indistinguishable from GWB, (both Corporatists) except in terms of the populist group he's pandering to. The left/right canard, again. I can't draw too many parallels with FDR's first year.
The political disruptions of 2009 are best described as "AstroTurf".
I do have to agree about the class war stuff. It has always been so.
In the end, the Obama administration will have accomplished only one thing: breaking the race barrier. The rest of it will continue to go down the tubes. Too bad. Such a lost opportunity. And he turns out to be only an opportunist.
"the president needed to lead as only presidents can"
The guy's never been a leader. He's just a climber and willing puppet.
I love a knife fight in a dark room! What a bunch of fricking Maroons!
Z1
Just out of curiosity why are you referring to the free slave areas in the Islands and the slaves that escaped to them, the "Maroons"? :)
Not to intercede but the term "maroon" ,which I use frequently myself, is a quote from that noted philosopher and judge of people, Bugs Bunny......
Well now, if Bugs says it...its got to be right. Bugs for President at this point!!
>>I love a knife fight in a dark room! What a bunch of fricking Maroons!
I was going to post a comment to the effect that on MLK day, perhaps the operant model for BHO is Muhammed "Rope a Dope" Ali. He's got everyone chasing their tails trying to understand what is going on. Liberal economists like Kuttner valiantly trying to provide value neutral explanations of why the he's failing.
But you said it so much better.
I wish you luck. Hope everyone is educating people to listen to Thom Hartmann, Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, Bill Press, Norman Golaman, and even if you're up in the middle of the night, I like Jack Rice. Hey in that cold state one has to be very brave to go out of the house between Nov and March.
Go Progressives!
It always amazes me that MN voted in Jessie ventura (wonderful man) and Al Franken (another wonderful man). How do you do it!
Correction: Minnesota voted in a wonderful man (Al Franken) who is well-versed on issues; and a buffoon (Jesse "The Butthead" Ventura) who is now involved in a "reality" show on cable. I'll sleep better tonight!
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I've been noticing the same thing ever since there was some sort of shake-up on the staff of CommonDreams last year. Way too many Dim apologists' screeds trying to "frame" the Dims in mostly 1 of 2 ways: (1) Keep pressuring Congressional Dims on specific issues or (2) Keep pressuring the Dim Party as a whole to reform.
I think the Dims and erstwhile Dim Party "progs" are too easily bought or subverted to waste anymore time pressuring them on specific issues and the Party as a whole is beyond any effective reform attempt at this point. They need to be kicked to the curb while authentic progressives, alienated democrats and the roughly 80 million eligible (mostly poor and minority) voters who very seldom vote are united into something much better.
Only the last three sentences of this article come close to the truth and, even there, Mr. Kuttner sheepishly clings to the totally fraudulent notion that Obama and the majority of democrats are something more than corporate tools.
It is the same old predatory, political, zombie strategizing wherein we are supposed to get all tense and hopeful and worried and forget that we are in the process of being sodomized, AGAIN.
The so-called healthcare bill is a toxic monstrosity. Granted, the republicans aren't satisfied because it is not toxic enough for their perverse sadism, but the democrats can only somewhat redeem themselves by killing this beast of their own creation.
Obama was not forced to do anything. He is a fraud and the longer people like Robert Kuttner fail to see the truth, the worse it will become.
Agree . . . especially --
QUOTE: Obama was not forced to do anything. He is a fraud and the longer people like Robert Kuttner fail to see the truth, the worse it will become.
UNQUOTE
We need someone like George McGovern and some 60's civil rights leaders to start
plucking those like Byron Dorgan and others from the Democratic Party and to begin
a new movement/party. LABOR and WOMEN and NAACP have to have the strength to walk
away from the Democratic Party which has been poisoned by the corporate-DLC and
corporate money.
Anyone who wants to suggest they are a liberal or progressive can no longer feign
a belief in Obama and Democrats. If we stick with this lesser evil -- with the only
competititon for the corporate Democrats being the neo-fascist Republicans, we will
only see more damange, more corporate control.
Btw, Michael Moore has been missing since the news of the Public Option being
dropped -- and that followed his very sincere plea to Obama and Democrats to
not escalate the wars -- and to actually provide meaningful single payer
health care.
Every other nation in the world can do this, but not America?
If the corporates win this one, Social Security and Medicare will be on the
chopping block and nothing left of them.
Let's go America!! -- PLEASE!!!
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
I used to paraphrase Chief Dan George in "Little Big Man":
"Ahh, Little Bush. Not as stupid as Big Bush, true. But just as useless."
Now I'm beginning to think I was wrong. He IS just as stupid (and even more useless).
Anyone who thinks these fascists are "stupid" or "useless"
doesn't understand what is really going on.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
"The health bill has already done incalculable political damage and will likely do more."
In a very short time, the Obama administration has all the makings of a Shakespearean tragedy. It appears that the democratic leadership is asking its members to find swords to fall upon. And, Mr. Kuttner, if I understood you correctly on Bill Moyers Journal, you were willing to fall on Rahm's sword and support the Senate version of the bill.
Are still willing to take the "heroes" way out?
Frankly, I think that this healthcare "reform" bill that's about to pass is not only a disaster waiting to happen, but has added even more opportunities for the GOP and a guy like Scott Brown to move right in, take advantage of this "HCR" Bill and run with it, if you all get the drift.