Once again, the New York Times is setting up a false debate over healthcare policy, contrasting White House–style “pragmatism” with left-wing “ideology.” The lead of Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s piece today (12/18/09):
In the great healthcare debate of 2009, President Obama has cast himself as a cold-eyed pragmatist, willing to compromise in exchange for votes. Now ideology—an uprising on the Democratic left—is smacking the pragmatic president in the face.
In this worldview, “ideologues” are those who push for reforms—including single-payer—that they believe will lower costs and offer more comprehensive coverage. “Pragmatists,” meanwhile, are moving in the opposite direction, toward higher costs and less coverage, in order to theoretically win the political support of some conservative lawmakers.
Using language like this doesn’t tell you much about the debate in Washington, but it speaks volumes about where the New York Times is coming from.
And this is, perhaps, part of the reason why the NYT is no longer a believable paper of record.
Isn’t it ironic that Cuba, much hated Cuba, sends thousands of Doctors around the world for free, the world’s the richest country can’t even afford free health care while finding trillions for military occupations and bloodshed all around the world.
From common sense I can conclude profit based system, ie capitalism, doesn’t work… it sucks up the people’s blood, sweat and lives.
Socialism is the solution for the future of the human race. Working people of the world, Unite!, to topple down the evil capital.
Capitalism is not what all it is cracked up to be.
Churchhill is supposed to have said something like: “Capitalism isn’t perfect, but better than the alternatives.” (alternatives too imperfectly explored)
Another more inteli gent Brit, Bertrand Russell, commenting on politicians: “There is no body of men more jealous of their priviledges than the Commons: because they sell them.”
Neither is inherently bad. Ideology guides your choices for what you want to accomplish; pragmatisim shows how to accomplish as much of that desire as possible…under the circumstances. Neither is a “dirty word.”
If the bill had contained the public option, it would not have come this far at all, and you know it. It would be dead in the water. Not because most people didn’t want it, but because politicians by their nature (and because of the structure of our electoral system) have to protect their chances to get reelected. Not everyone is a Dennis Kuchinich, whose base has been good in getting him reelected despite his progressive positions.
We will have something to build on. And if insurance companies start jacking up their rates to compensate for not being able to exclude the most vulnerable (sick or with preexisting conditions), we fight again to contain/restrict them, hopefully with a public option. And more people will understand, through the insurance companies’ inevitable behavior, that they can’t be trusted to do the right thing.
Older progressives like me have seen the big picture in past battles from civil rights to Vietnam, when it took many years to accomplish our goals. Dissing Obama will be cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. You might feel righteous for a minute, but siding with the enemy to cheer for “Obama’s Waterloo” will make you feel a lot worse tomorrow.
a false debate
My reflection on the regression in American politics over the last thirty years leads me to think that television is the heart of the problem.
It has so depoliticized and rendered illiterate our adult population that reasoned political discourse on the national level is impossible.
After the Progressive Era and the New Deal, the top 1% needed a way to reset the minds of America. They found it, too.
The Churchill quote I heard was along the lines of “Democracy is a very bad form of government, but all the others are so much worse.” Despite the claims of its advocates, capitalism doesn’t equal democracy — rather the opposite, as we’re seeing now very forcefully.
The ideologues of the right or left stand firm and resolute on their principles, no compromises.
The pragmatist is willing to surrender or modify a principle in order to gain some other collateral advantages, advantages the opposition is willing to concede to for a surrendered principle. The pragmatist in politics looks for what’s doable and what bill can get the votes
The Health Care debate is profoundly complex. In the end, the pragmatists may win the day in order to get votes on many substantive issues while being willing to defer to another day even a cherished principle. It’s the incremental approach, a painful reality in the real world of politics.
Reminds me when John Kerry said, at a time when there was solid majority support for single-payer, that there was no political support for it. Which means Wall Street didn’t support it. Because for Obama, Kerry, Pelosi, Reid and the rest of the Dems, the GOP, and the capitalist media: Wall Street = USA.
I am certainly no genius when it comes to politics or anything else for that matter. However, saying that a health bill containing a “public obtion” (which is more weak legislation) would be dead in the water not because most politicians dont want it “but because politicians by their nature have to protect their chances to get reelected” is weak at best. It is the responsibility of the constituents to not reelect any politician who disregards whats best for the most people invovled just to get reelected. The office they hold should not be about them. Its about the service they claim to be about providing. They run for office saying how great wonderful and different they are and then when elected its basically the same old “bull.” We shouldnt try to explain away their hypocracy.
With representative government the model, ultimately it comes down to a vote at the ballot box. Politicians are reelected by people who believe they are better served by the incumbent than they would be by a newcomer. The electorate does not care that their representative disregarded what was best for most people. In fact, I’m not sure the job of the representative *is* to do what is best for most people. The job is to represent, and a non-representing representative would be derelict. (While I disagree that Nebraska should get special favors, for example, I believe that Senator Nelson did exactly what his constituents expected of him: represent.) Nevertheless, when the people who vote are happy with their representative, they reelect. This focuses the representative on making his electorate happy, thus you might say, on getting reelected. Or, just as important, vice versa.
I think the debate arises from perceptions of what the governments job and capabilities are and limiting the debate to two sides that agree on the biggest issue sets up a straw man debate where when either side wins the public loses.
Cuba sends many doctors overseas but Americans send Millions in aid and billions in charitable donations as well as thousands of doctors through non governmental organizations. The main crux is that generally Americans get satisfaction from giving time and money charitably, a satisfaction that is somewhat removed when some dictator forces you to do so through taxation or “volunteering”.
Those that think the government should take over healthcare should ask themselves what the government does both well and efficiently? The one thing the government does well is the military and it can’t do that efficiently so why would you want these people in charge of your healthcare? If the Government would get out of the way and allow free market competition to regulate itself we might achieve a more balanced system. And for those of you who think that a Government run healthcare system will even the playing field between healthcare for the rich and poor ask yourself why the president, senators and congressional leaders are exempt from every proposed plan to revamp the system.
PROMETHIUS, CHICAGO STYLE
I hate to break up these confabs by intruding with business kids but there it is. The light we need does not come from the fire of a political campaign or from a burning issue. I can’t blame some of you young wippersnappers who never saw troops on the corner when you woke up or knew for real what we are up against after the only leader post war US ever had was assassinated in Memphis. We thought we had our eyes on the prize back then but the light was directly in front of us in the bonfires of revolution.
Not that these are not historic times, but they aren’t historic enough, by far.
We’ve been reamed, steamed and dry cleaned. Most of you are shell shocked and don’t really know how to react to a person who has betrayed you. Like when LBJ looked into our eyes and lied about V.N. and we knew it that second. What can you say? Nuthin’, that’s the pisser. He was a Democrat. And for the most part, he did what Dems. are supposed to do. Compromise. Then, he accommodated. Sound familiar? Welcome to the famously false assumption of the â┚¬Ã‹Å“real world’.
I thought the rhetoric of change superseded the campaign promises that BO made in order to get votes. I was wrong that BO did also. Nevertheless, I’ve had my heart broken so many times that I can do the five stages of grief in 48 hours flat. I’d rather go through that than yield to cynicism which I fear, many of you will do.
There is nothing special about this, except to me. Others perfect their craft, do their shtick, pay their dues, seal their fate, break a nail, bust their knuckles and then say dumb shit. Then, based on that, I make unfair judgments about them. I see that sometimes people get to a certain point and believe that there is nothing else to know, learn or see. That is when the old pot head in me comes out and says, ”Like, I don’t know man. Wow, this is bullshit.” Why is that?
I have found in my own experience of striving to come to grips with doing my thinking with words, be those words of emotion, of sensation or words expressing my imagination, that my choice of using words is action. That freedom means being free to think, which is the same as being free to be human. Anything less is slavery. Not exactly wage slavery but close.
In America, the conservative movement and corporate interests attempt to restrict the freedom to be human by massively displacing thought with propaganda and junk narratives. This does not represent a marketplace of ideas but an emporium of tourist schlock. As has been eloquently expressed, â┚¬Ã‚ÂThere is a hog in the stream of life, and that hog-uh, is-uh pollutin’ that stream.â┚¬Ã‚Â
All recently broadcast political strategizing on health reform, finance reform, civil rights for gays, climate change and energy independence is an acceptance of the status quo. The so-called real world. Behind this is the idea that politics solves these issues in a hurricane of deals and words, a storm front that somehow happens and that vaguely involves pro forma elections. Politics is not treated like a tool that can be used by individuals to improve humanity but that is how the story is told, stupidly, slavishly, everywhere.
It is pretty clear from the partial discussion (debate? I don’t think so.) of health reform, that the effects of voting is a farce. It has taken since the presidential election of 2000 to confirm this for me. I have never wanted to believe that. I thought that was a cynical point of view but it is only cynical if I supported a cynical process and I do not.
Widespread resistance to progress by conservatives prevents a just American political balance. (After all, Ronald Reagan was never feted by the right for having abolished totalitarianism or cronyism or for working to establish social justice and fairness, quite the opposite. He wanted to abolish social security but it was not politically feasible, even for an easy ridin’ pop hero. He was only one of a long line of mediocre hacks to take that office. Now, it appears Obama has sadly and more dramatically, followed suit).
Towards the end of his life, Dr. King began to work to change the social and economic iniquities that go beyond race. These iniquities were present at the founding of the country. The widespread support for MLK awakened people to their humanity.
The constitution was written for an elite privileged few, mainly to protect their interests. Conservatives at that time supported King George. They had extensive property, bequeathed to them by Royal grants. After the Revolution, they never left their property or gave up their status, they are still with us.
Hamilton himself wanted a monarchy and preferred that to a presidency. Were it not for a Bill of Rights and representative government, how would the colonists have raised an army or tolerated another king? As it was, unpaid volunteers led by obscenely wealthy and privileged officers did the fighting.
As a result, the protection of property, not the protection of people and the use of property, is the basis of our civil and constitutional law.
Political balance does not mean; The words right and left separated from each other by a line and at the center of the line, a fulcrum called the center. That is just stupid.
It is not all we have. This idea is not even incrementally progressive. It is stupid because it only works when one pipe out of hundreds is fixed in the broken political sewer system. The clean water never gets to us and we are not even the underprivileged.
Will people become sophisticated enough to develop a model for balance represented by; The constitution on the one hand and the bill of rights on the other with democracy as the fulcrum? If you want a simplistic, easy to learn paradigm, there it is. I doubt that any conservative will accept it, and certainly not the need for timely rebalancing.
The acceptance of a new political model has not arrived yet, namely that communism is where capitalism in mass society is heading or to state it differently and with its original theoretical intent, that communism is capitalism squared but in the public interest. Oh dear, now I’ve gone and said it and I’m not even part of the Liberal intelligentsia. This is the equivalent of Eliza Doolittle teaching Queen Victoria clitoral stimulation and birth control.
The declaration by the fearful right that Communism is taking over the US may be the one thing that they are correct about, even though their vitriol is misplaced. The political right represent the mirror image of same internal selfish interests that drove down the Soviet Union. They were believers and their received wisdom was Communism, they were crazed with power on the far left and they are at here today as Capitalists on the far right, crazed by money, Dixie driving down The United States. The same, the same, the same.
The elite profiteers on the right will accept social justice in pieces, when forced to and for the same appeasement value that they accepted the bill of rights and representative government.
Currently, the political balance can be described as; On the right, the weight of all memory and imagination representing the passive inertia of six thousand years of civilization and on the left, the weight of the last three hundred years of hard fought progressive achievement. In the conventional model of balance, it is as if an elephant is balancing a mouse which obviously shifts the center/fulcrum right. Impossibly right. That is what conservatives cynically call balance and pundits, right and left, euphemistically call â┚¬Ã‹Å“the real world’.
Life, is what you make it. Then it becomes real. The status quo is entropy and entropy is only part of reality. The part that politicians and pundits rely on to make a living. Apologies to friends. Grow up, people are fighting about God and that is dumb, it is not a human fight. How about Plato? We are all descendants of Western civilization, guess what, existence precedes essence?
The best teachers know that you have to make beauty, not find it. Beautiful things are mistaken for Beauty. Ta-da!
What we are looking at, in The United States today, is a status quo that supports a neo-fascist and corrupt political system. We can begin to address this by demanding laws making the acquisition of power by professional politicians subject to anti-trust laws. Ban powerful committee chairmen from sparsely populated states or having a senate representing disproportionate populations. I’m sure one of you Rhodes scholars can make a positive affirmation out of that. Pardon my pissyness. I apologize, you don’t deserve it. You deserve worse than I an willing to dish out. I have to preserve my strength at my advanced age.
The fight for civil rights is not over. We must amend the Bill Of Rights to include freedom from the tyranny of corporate personhood. Corporations must not be permitted to make or arrange any political contributions in order to stop flagrant profiteering and unfair legislation.
We have a mass society where the Bill of Rights is more relevant today than the constitution. What exactly is a strict constitutional constructionist anyway but a person without a memory of suffering and a hobbled imagination? In other words, heartless, crippled souls.
Conservatives are not the only ones in the way of progressive politics. The cynical faction of the Democratic party has always held down the far Left out of self preservation, helped by the fact that it has been open season on the Left for the last 100 years. Now, the Right is contending with the tea party faction, not as dangerous as the John Birchers or the LaRouchers but virulent in its populism and stupidity. It is catchy but benign.
There are more social justice organizations, big and small than there are cities or houses of worship in The United States . There are more people working for social justice in some way or another than there are Republicans and Democrats. There are more people working for social justice than there are Progressives. All are potential progressive voters.
It was the Progressives that elected Obama and it was Progressives that Obama has jilted in favor of the political center. He doesn’t believe in us but he needs us and we don’t need him.
We must recognize that our progressive movement has to choose a leader from the existing corps of grassroots directors from father Dan in inner city Cleveland to the esteemed Howard Zinn. The Backbone campaign has a roster of cabinet selections. So is there a movement without a leader or a presidential campaign huffing about being hijacked?
That is how I think that we can push the elephant off the see-saw.