The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    oleeb's picture

    When Your Strategy Is Going Nowhere, More Of The Same Is Not The Answer

    I am astounded at the news that keeps leaking out in dribs and drabs that the new tack the Obama administration is going to take after the disastrous 7 month search for the mythical bipartisan Shangri-La is to double down on begging the Republicans to support something, anything on healthcare.  Making it all the more appalling, these little leaks and reports indicate they are apparently willing to give away what is left of the healthcare reform store by pinning their hopes on being able to beg the support of one milque toast Republican Senator from Maine.  If it weren't so serious I would think this is a pathetic joke.

    After getting their asses handed to them on this issue for months precisely because of the never-ending snipe hunt for a bipartisan healthcare reform bill and then throughout August being publicly bullied, taunted, bitch slapped and manipulated while staring like a deer into the headlights it seems the oh so smart corporate Democrats running the show in DC have learned absolutely nothing.  How can this be?  What can those people be thinking if the answer they've come up with is essentially more of the same?  How can they conclude that what we need is more capitulation, further retreat and finally sacrificing real healthcare reform for an insurance company subsidy program that will fatten those malevolent interests even more than they are, that costs far too much, and returns far too little to the common people?  Do they know how weak they are making themselves look in the eyes of the American people as they insist on playing the submissive role to the Republicans' and how it demonstrates anything but leadership as they keep the sworn enemies of any healthcare reform in the driver's seat even though the legislative and executive branches are controlled by Democrats?

    It is embarrassing and shocking really to come to grips with just how isolated and out of touch the DC Democrats are on this issue (excepting of course the relative handful of committed progressives who have been vocal in their opposition to further capitulation).  From day one the corporate DC Dems have played the obsequious handmaidens of the parasitical special interests on healthcare and to their allies, the congressional Republicans, who openly declare not only that they are against reform but that the President is a foreigner hell bent on imposing Soviet style totalitarianism on America combined with Nazi style euthanasia policies and taking the guns from crazy white people everywhere.  They handed control of the message to the Republicans from day one too, making the fundamental question one of cost instead of whether or not healthcare will no longer be a privilege in America but a right that every citizen is entitled to in this country just as citizens are in all the other industrialized countries on earth.

    When will it occur to them, and what will it take at long last, for the DC Dems to understand that they cannot represent the corporate interests and the interests of the common people of this nation on healthcare not to mention most other important issues facing the nation?  When, at long last will they understand that the situation has become so acute and out of balance that the Washington game of buying off corporate support with massive giveaways to special interests and throwing a bone or two to the people is no longer acceptable?  When will they realize that healthcare for all is not an academic mind tease or a parlor game but a life and death issue for 18,000 Americans annually and that it is the difference between keeping their lives together and bankruptcy for a million families every year now?  Establishing a viable healthcare system worth having and that serves every citizen is a moral question, not a question of cost.  How the lack of healthcare, skyrocketing costs for premiums and deductibles, the lack of good insurance and the denial of benefits are harming human beings are the fundamental issues at stake when you get right down to it, not the cost of covering everyone for the benefit of the for profit insurance industry.  And when oh when will the ever so smart minds of the DC Dems realize that the costliest possible approach is the one they seem to want to foist upon us which is one that does not cover everyone, keeps our grotesque and broken system in tact while enriching the insurance companies yet only tinkering at the margins of reform?  Providing massive subsidies for people to pay for rotten insurance policies is not a solution to anything and it isn't acceptable.  If that's what we get in the end it's hard to imagine what it is we've won other than a pig in a poke for the common American citizen and his or her family.

    The bottom line is that sometimes you simply have to fight for what you really believe in and let the chips fall where they may.  Yes, you risk losing but winning isn't the only thing that matters.  It matters what you win too.  If you fight for what is right, but lose, at least you have done so with some honor and the whole world knows what side you are on.  To whimper and whine and capitulate to the greediest and most parasitical special interests only to "win" a bill that is no longer worth having can be worse than losing.

    It is long past time for the President to come out in his speech to Congress next week strongly in favor of real healthcare reform: not merely insurance reform.  It's time for the President to lead by fighting for what he said he believes in on healthcare reform and not to turn tail and run on the public option and instead hide behind weak euphemisms like "choice" and "competition" which means the score at the end of the game will be 100-0 in favor of the interests of the insurance companies vs the interests of the nation, our people and our businesses.  If the President fails to do this but instead tries to sell the nation on a watered down, pale imitation of reform that isn't really worth having then why should the common people waste their time supporting it?  If people are rational and act according to their interests there would be no reason for the people, in that case, to waste their time and energy.  I hope the reports are wrong and the President is going to really change his strategy.  I hope that instead of what is being reported, the President comes out of the gate next week no longer burdened by the bipartisan fantasy of what never was and never will be and instead comes out swinging as he should have been doing all along.  If he does that the people will support him.  Anything less and the people will turn away with a sour taste in their mouths because the DC Dems once again decided that being weak was smarter than being strong and fighting for the interests of the common people.

     

    Comments


    Well, from your mouth to God's ears.

    Can you cross-post this to 20 other blogs, please?


    Thanks!

    I don't really do that cross posting as a general rule but if you'd like to do so feel free.


    Hope this goes well next week. Propaganda sure works.

    We need it to work FOR US.


    Intimidation and threats of violence have worked marvelously. Expect them to continue. After all, they have no opposition.


    Well, Nancy seemed to show a strong hand today.


    Good maybe she'll insist we can get our toe nails clipped? Then call it reform.
    Since the teeth have already been extracted.


    PAY ATTENTION:

    Pelosi SAID that a bill WITHOUT the public option WILL NOT PASS THE HOUSE.


    In case you missed it, Nancy Pelosi says a lot of things, most of which nobody believes. Not sure why you believe her. But at least she can say she was on record supporting a public option when it doesn't get included in the bill.


    Honestly I think they're testing the waters, one more time, to see if any Republicans will support them against the hippies, because the truth is the Obama administration doesn't really want to do a public option.

    However, they'll go with whoever has the most votes. So think of this week as them counting votes, one last time, before they formulate their policy on the side most likely to win. The progressives in the house say no bill without a public option, and the conservatives in the senate say no bill with a public option. Earlier Obama was signalling his willingness to go it alone with a public option, to see if the conservatives would dig in and oppose it. This week they are finding out if we will throw up our hands and walk away in disgust, or if we will load the torpedo tubes and threaten to sink the whole bill.

    This weekend they'll weigh the numbers and see which side looks weakest. Obama's only goal in this process is to win. He doesn't care what he wins, so long as whatever he backs doesn't get voted down before it can reach his desk, because that would be a political disaster, according to his handlers who still think this is 1994.


    To finish my thought -

    I don't think today's news is a complete disaster. It's just part of the game. Our role is to scream really loud and stamp our feet, so he can then react to that according to the script. If we don't scream and stamp, he'll react to that, too. So by all means, scream and stamp, clutch our pearls and reach for the fainting couch. The audience is watching.


    Excellent analysis! (And since you gave permission, I will cross-post to my site).

    At this point, I don't know what Obama believes in. We, the people, desperately need healthcare to be a right and not a privilege. We need to radically reduce the cost (no matter who/how we pay) of healthcare, and we need to get it out of the for-profit sphere. We need to push for what is best for us with all we've got.

    Obama (or Rahm Emanuel and the corporatist/centrist Democrats) have already fenced three sides of the field - agreement with pharma, agreement with insurers to not "displace" them, and not to push for the most efficient solution - single payer. They have already hinted at providing a guaranteed consumer base by mandating everyone "get" insurance rather than everyone "have" access. Personally, I think the whole "bi-partisan" thing is a ploy to blame the give-aways on the Republicans. Why else would the Democrats let Bacchus turn a majority into a draw?

    Obama NEEDS to stand up, WE need him to stand up and be a clear voice with a clear policy statement that reflects the people's needs. However, even if he meets our highest expectations, it will still take more than Obama. If we want this, then we will have to carry the ball. We will need to talk to our neighbors. We will need to let our representatives know in no uncertain terms that we get a GOOD reform or it will be the end of their political careers (yes Republicans too).


    Wow! scream all you want. Tell me what is in the Public Option, that you're so excited about?

    Or is it ever changing, and when it's all said and done, it will have been a token of what could have been.

    But Pelosi said! Said what?


    I have really come to believe that the D's dread getting in power. They are expected by their supporters, and the American people generally speaking, to work on behalf of the American people. Their problem is they stopped working for the American people long ago and serve the same corporate masters as the R's do. So in the end very little changes in terms of policies and the rich get richer.

    Mark my words if the D's don't deliver a single payer/public option health care system they will lose the bulk of the majority in both bodies of Congress in the midterms and fully lose the Congress and Executive branches in 2012. The American people will say "well if we are gonna get republican style pro-corporate government we might as well vote for the real deal".

    If there is no public option/single payer system put in place I will no longer be an independent who always votes democratic...I will become a Green and never stray from my new party's line. I refuse to vote for republican's and their corporate agenda even if it is called democratic.


    You've got a damn good point there Libertine. Can't really argue with your logic.


    It is BS oleeb and it is time to call it what it is. I think they really do prefer to be in the minority...they still get all the corporate $$ and don't have the pressure of having to be in charge. Change we can believe in? I am going to Washington to change the way it works? Unless he delivers on real health care reform he will join a long list of disingenuous politicians who lied through their teeth just to get elected. What change? It is still the same business as usual...and even worse. I am betting short of a public option/single payer this so-called 'health care reform' will be the biggest corporate giveaway EVER. All it will be is trying to force the uninsured to buy insurance on the private market.

    I can see the future now...there will be modest (maybe 5% to 10%) reductions in premiums right from the get go which everybody will laud as the reforrm 'working'. And in 3-5 years premiums will be higher than they are today...except everybody will be mandated to buy private insurance.


    because the truth is the Obama administration doesn't really want to do a public option.

    Thank you. I was beginning to think that I am the only one who sees this. I am so suspicious of Obama right now that I half expect him to even veto a bill with public option.


    It is just bizarre. For 20 months, I listened to a guy tell me he was special because he was not a Washington insider. I was willing to "roll the dice" on Obama because I thought that, while we might get a few more "rookie mistakes", at the very least we would get a different tone and a little more honesty than from a second Clinton administration.

    The instantaneous transformation of Obama into DLC lackey has been nothing short of breathtaking. The eternal optimist in me keeps hoping that, any second now, candidate Obama is going to pick himself off the canvas, like Rocky in the final round, and start whuppin up on Ivan Drago, but even that is flickering out.

    I still can't understand how a guy who was smart enough to whip both the Clintons and the repubs could have lost his way so quickly.


    My bet is that she caves and goes with the "trigger option" such that there's no public option until some later date. That would be a complete cop-out on her part, but I see it coming...


    Exactly. However, I don't expect a reduction in premiums. I just think they'll stop going up for a couple of years.


    Maybe I was being a bit optimistic. I was thinking they would have to show something in terms of savings to keep the sheep happy. And then once the 'furor' is over the premiums will continue their upward march...but you may be right and all that will happen is they go into a holding pattern.


    Well, if we account for 4% inflation, then that's a reduction, right?

    Sigh. This rose-colored glasses crap doesn't work. Still, I'm a bit more optimistic than you that we'll get something. I just hate this bullshit Democrat feeling of defeat when we ought to be taking the f'n ball and running down the field.

    It's just 3rd down and this running game isn't working. We need a zig-zagging receiver running down the field now.


    It's entirely possible that he never was smart enough to whip the Clintons and the repubs. It's entirely possible that we were subjected to a USAID National Endowment for Democracy color revolution. And has been the case in all their other color revolutions, what the people joyfully elect never turns out to be what they thought they were voting for.

    But don't listen to me. I'm just a conspiracy theorist.


    Pelosi obviously meant it when she said, "Impeachment is off the table."

    The reality is that she rarely commits herself publicly; but when she does, it turns out to be her actual position.

    And as she's the House speaker, she directs the tenor of legislation.


    Back up, jackass:

    1. There are FIVE -- 5 -- FIVE proposed bills in the House.

    2. There is one proposed bill in the Senate.

    Until the Five in the House are boiled down to one, we won't know what's in it, let alone what the public option -- it will be in it -- will look like.

    Except for you, of course: you can predict the unknowable future.