Exactly
Let’s cue up the circular firing squad. John Cole nails exactly what I’m feeling right now:
About health care reform is that it is a primer for Banking and Financial Regulation. We get to look forward to watching the House bill get neutered down by the conservadems, the GOP will be aligned in unison with industry against, and then when the final bill is not up to Howard Dean’s standards, the progressives can sink it because it isn’t good enough, and noted liberals like Tom Harkin, Ron Wyden, and Russ Feingold will be labeled sellouts to the cause just like they were with health care. Also, I’m sure this will all be Rahm’s fault.
Then we can stand around and masturbate each other about how, unlike Republicans, progressives stuck to their principles and refused to pass a bad bill. FAP FAP FAP. Then we can get wiped out in 2010 and 2012, and we are back to where we really like to be- in the minority, bitching about the Republicans, raising lots of money for our PACS, while Sarah Palin cuts the top marginal rate to 4% and invades Iran.
Victory!
Listen, just because I think we should try to salvage what we can out of the remaining health care bill doesn’t mean I don’t share your deep disappointment with losing the public option. Starting over isn’t really an option – we still have the same people in the coalition and we are facing a worse atmosphere for passing legislation. If we do nothing, those 45 million people still won’t have insurance. No matter what happens now, the insurance companies still win. They win with the status quo and they win with the reform. They would still win with the public option, which had been almost completely neutered and watered down before it finally died.
Disengaging and doing nothing does not make progressive legislation more likely to pass. It makes it less likely. I’m with everyone when I say I don’t really see a difference if Blanche Lincoln, Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson were replaced with Republicans. But majority matters. Being an opposition party is a lot different than being a governing party. Democrats need to learn how to govern and they need to look competent while doing it.
I do think we’ve learned some things from the fight:
1) don’t pre-compromise your position. How different would it be if single payer was the progressive line in the sand? Would everyone be sighing a sigh of relief that they were unhappy about a public option?
2) public relations is important. I think we all have a legitimate case that the Democrats and the administration was asleep in the summer. But what about us? Where were we making asses of ourselves at townhall meetings in the summer? I know the media is mostly conservative-run, but where is our media outlet? Where are out obnoxious talk show yellers?
3) put pressure on Democratic leaders. Jane Hamsher did a great job with her whip project on the progressive caucus in the House. What was the effort in the Senate? There is also another issue to be addressed – the dysfunctionality of the Senate. If we want progressive legislation passed, we need to put a lot of passion and effort into affecting how legislation moves in the Senate.
“2) public relations is important. I think we all have a legitimate case that the Democrats and the administration was asleep in the summer. But what about us? Where were we making asses of ourselves at townhall meetings in the summer? I know the media is mostly conservative-run, but where is our media outlet? Where are out obnoxious talk show yellers?”
are we going to sink the teabagger level next time? i really hope the way to accomplish goals in this country is not through jackassery… then the American Taliban wins.
And what about Keith and Rachel? I agree with everything else you said though. It seems the one thing Obama has been dead wrong about is that he can change the way washington works. The republicans found an opponent who was willing to fight fair and decided to fight even dirtier than ever. Whatever the next piece of legislation is, they deserve NO place at the table. Write it all without them and give it a name like the Patriot Act so they can be attacked as anti american if they vote against it.
Yes, I think Progressives need “to sink” to the levels of the ‘Baggers. Being nice has produced the current situation, this is war and we have not fought back.I hope Obama wakes up but I am not convinced.
Great summation U.I. I’ve been sitting here thinking about this and I agree, we’ve learned a lot about the legislative process. Doing something about it is going to take years and years of hard work on our part but it is certainly worth the effort. The Senate has been changed in the past — heck the plebes didn’t even have a direct vote for our Senators when we started all this. Clearly they have amassed too much power into too few hands and hence it is too easy to buy our government at the moment. The insurance companies romped through this legislative season with impunity. The Senate rules and the Republican Caucus made that possible.
The teabaggers learned their techniques from the left. In particular, Code Pink. I don’t think we have to sink to their level but we certainly needed to be out there making our case in a way that got attention.
I think we were all a bit naive about how hard change was going to be.
There’s a really great diary on dkos right now – “No One Is Going To Save You Fools.” It’s about how if you want to get things done, they have to be afraid of you. The RNC is afraid of the teabaggers because they can raise money and because they are running candidates against them.
Teabaggers are supporting conservatives. They pump up fundraising and turnout across the board, and in the end they all vote Republican anyway. The RNC has nothing to fear from them until they start voting Democratic.
The DSCC, on the other hand, needs to worry about Dem voter apathy.
The dKos diary says Dems need to be afraid of us. Well, they won’t be afraid as long as we keep supporting them.
Myself, I am ready to vote for Republican opponents of conservadems out of sheer frustration with their obstruction. I don’t see any other way to break them. I’d rather try to beat them with a real Dem next cycle, than live with them for another term. In 2006 I wrote in Karen Peterson against Tom Carper, because I wasn’t ready to give my vote to a Republican. Now Tom Carper has made me ready. If I lived in Connecticut or Nevada I’d do the same.
UI, code pink is a joke. even i am opposed to them because they protest the wrong people and look like jackasses who hurt the cause. I hate to say it, but these teabaggers found how to be jackasses and have it work. I dont think they are smarter than us, it was probably an accident, or that they ALWAYS go right to “we love god and america more than the people who disagree with us” line. Maybe we need to hijack God from the conservatives. wouldn’t THAT be cool.
“God Hates ‘Bags”
What we don’t realize is that our country has already drifted so far off track that it is going to take hard work and a long time to reform to our satisfaction. Therefore, we progressives need to choose our priorities and focus on achieving incremental successes. Moreover, we cannot ignore political realities, like the upcoming 2010 elections.
Obama used his campaign rhetoric to create expectations that are impossible to meet in a four year term, let alone leading up to the 2010 elections. The Repubs exploit this situation by opposing everything, leaving the incomplete agenda of the Dems to appear as failure.
To counter this, Dems need to focus on the priorities of the American people, and take credit for incremental gains on these issues.
Jobs is that top priority issue, the one on which we have to show more progress by next summer.
Secondly, on health care reform, we need to wrap that up in January, and turn our focus on the job issue.
Moreover, we need to make progress on lending to small businesses and on mortgage restructuring.
As important an issue as climate change is, we need to get through the 2010 elections first, while focusing on initiatives aimed at combating climate change, but with related job creation foremost on this issue.
It is up to Obama to set the priorities and the direction to accomplish these short range objectives, which is why his State of the Union address is going to be one more critical speech for him and for us progressives.
A.,
I don’t think we should be like the teabaggers, with obnoxious interruption and misspelled signs. I also think Code Pink was rather ineffective. Maybe the teabaggers got attention because the media wasn’t used to these kind of antics from the right, only the left. My point is that we need to find some way to show passion, to break through the media embargo of our issues and to communicate directly with the American people.
I think they are on to something as far as roasting politicians. They do it in a very disrespectful way, but… and i cant find the link, if anyone else remembers, please help out.. every so often a smart person (non conservative) asked some pretty on the spot questions of members of the Bush administration… Karl Rove comes to mind.
I think it is time we make it so the Carpers of the world cant go out in public without being asked about his whorishness to the the insurance-scams with some sort of recording device present. “Guerrilla Journalism!” that way when Leiberman and Carper and the like sequester themselves in undisclosed locations it will open the door for someone to run as “the people’s candidate” who is actually seen in public.
that said.. look for me with the sign
“God Hates ‘Bags” (im kinda proud of that one at 900 am before coffee)
a,price “I hate to say it, but these teabaggers found how to be jackasses and have it work.”
The success of the teabaggers so far is their two key issues: Being against Big Government and being against Wall Street.
Many Americans relate to these issues, as they watch the health reform issue playing out in Congress, being reminded every day of the corrupt symbiotic relationship between health insurers and big pharma on the one hand (Wall Street), and key senators on the other (Big Government).
This, together with the disasterous state of the current deficit and overall debt, makes Americans wonder about the competence of their elected leaders, let alone their ability to address energy and global climate issues.
Neither party is perceived to be actively/effectively addressing these issues, therefore the teabaggers are moving in with their appealing idiocy!
The Tea Party Movement as it existed about a year ago (there was one then) is about being against huge government and wall street. but it was hijacked by the American Taliban and American Al-jazzera (fox). It is now a conservative movement who’s ONLY goal is to oppose anything Barack Obama says. The only “issues” they stand for are ones that depitc Obama as a witch doctor, or equate themselves to the Jews killed in Dachau because they may have to help pay for colored folk to get health care. They are a moronic mob with a mic and media moguls. Hence the need for opposition to the insurgency arises. god hates bags
The teabaggers have captured the repubs because their base is so attenutated and their old coalitions are pretty much shattered. For repubs, the teabaggers are close to the only game in town. They’ve been able to raise money and so far their track record is of disrupting elections — not winning them.
And as Code Pink is a joke, so are the teabaggers. The difference between the two is that a major political party in the US pays attention to what the teabaggers say.
teabaggers are only a joke if people aren’t taking them seriously. As you said, they have a political party on their side. If there isn’t an equally powerful left wing movement soon, the ‘Bags ideas will just become accepted mainstream. It will be considered centrists to call the president a Nazi form Kenya… just regular political debate… the leading candidate for the GOP nomination agrees. Americans are SO STUPID you KNOW that could happen.
If a significant number of Americans don’t see the teabaggers for the no-nothing idiots that they are, and oppose them and their kind (the Repubs) at the ballot box next primary and next November by nominating and electing enlightened candidates, than we are farther gone than I ever realized.
These nutjobs have to be actively opposed in the upcoming 2010 election campaign.
Getting disgusted and retreating, refusing to even show up to vote, is not going to work for us or this nation.
Our ability to show incremental progress on the important issues of the day is also critical to 2010 election success.
Are we at some kind of a cusp from which it is all going to be downhill for us from here on? I wonder!
of course we are. Electing Obama was the first step back from the cliff. No one realized that there was so much hate for equality in this country that Fox and the Bags would become so loud and powerful. I hate this health care bill. I hate it because it effects me directly.
Because of medical history, i WILL cost insurance companies money. So, they want to do everything they can to grow their profits by letting me die. (for those of you who care, i DONT have a imminently life threatening illness i was just being dramatic) therefor, and bill that even has the chance of letting them take more money from me then suddenly saying “no, you have to pay for your own blood pressure medicine all by yourself” i wont trust until i actually see it work.
Total bull. No one is saying ‘don’t do anything’. We are saying fight for a bill that won’t sink the DEMs like the current Senate bill is likely to do once people see what is really being served up as reform.
The Senate bill was written by insurance lobbyists and the fine print belies what its defenders claim from Obama on down.
Reconciliation would take a little more time but it is time well spent.
A linkee for some inspiration and direction:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/getting-real-ten-myths-be_b_394772.html
And a linkee for a reality check and a laugh:
http://borowitzreport.com/
A lot of people are saying “kill the bill.”
I definitely think reconciliation is worth the effort. Pass part of the bill through the regular means and pursue reconciliation for the public option and Medicare buy-in. I think that’s a positive use of time and energy. Attacking each other and defeatism is a waste of passion.
You are correct that there are a lot of wasted passionate and personal attacks. Most shockingly coming out of the President’s spokesman about Howard Dean.
I hope the White House calms down and starts to take this push back seriously. Glenn Greenwald did a great post yesterday and linked back to this summer when Rahm Emanuel was cursing at DEMs for ‘disloyalty’. People are starting to post about Rahm being some kind of puppet master for the masters of the universe. In all, there is a stench of monied interests that can’t pull a lever behind a curtain in the voting booth but that can wreak havoc in television and radio ads and supposedly that is how they ‘did DEMs in in 93 HillaryCare and ’94 elections.
If corporate money has this big of an effect over our sovereign right to elect public SERVANTS then we’d better start somewhere in changing that equation.
A Corporation’a Not A Person and Money’s Not Speech. We need some kind of catchy bumper sticker.
Reconciliation would take a little more time but it is time well spent.
Reconciliation will take alot more time. Because not only does the Senate have to do a redraft of the bill to get the pieces that can be done via reconciliation, so does the House. Reconciliation right now is the Do Over and this Congress won’t do it.
If we could not get the Public Option — and got a couple of votes away from it — why do you think that you’ll get a better outcome with another process? This Congress will not take this back up again any time soon. If you couldn’t bring enough pressure to bear to get a real public option, you won’t bring enough pressure to make them do this over.
I think pressuring legislators to craft a new bill for reconciliation is worth the effort and is a good use of progressive’s time and energy. Pass what we can now and get the Congress to work on a public option/Medicare buy-in bill. That sounds good to me. Much better than scrap the whole thing, start over crowd.
You know what I find ironic? That the Democrats have dropped the most popular parts of the bill – the public option and Medicare buy-in and have kept the most unpopular part, the individual mandate.
And what is interesting about this reconciliation discussion? The public option, medicare buy-in and subsides are perhaps the easiest parts of the thing that get through reconciliation — because you are supposed to do budget stuff via this process. The rest — like stopping the practice of insurance rescission and the other regulatory stuff and the test bed stuff are the items that likely won’t survive it. Reconciliation still is a high-risk strategy though.
That’s exactly right, UI. The mandate without any cost controls, medicare buy-in, or a strong public option is just extortion by the government on behalf of insurance company profits.
I’m not going to support the bill unless they eliminate the anti-trust exemption. Period.
“The mandate without any cost controls, medicare buy-in, or a strong public option is just extortion by the government on behalf of insurance company profits.”
Obviously true for the mandate, but, I just decided that I think you are correct on the other two, since with the medicare buy-in the government would be underwriting the insurance for older people who usually need more and more costly medical care, and for those with preexisting conditions who end up insured under the public option, thus costing the government more money per insured than the private insurers.
This brings us back to single payer or the Swiss system, neither of which were ever considered seriously, neither of which can happen in today’s political climate. We really are screwed!
Then we’re pretty much left with the Senate Bill with the mandate and anti-trust exemption taken out, as about the best we can get at this point in time, with which we don’t even get universal coverage. Wonder how the CBO will cost this version?
Comment by Unstable Isotope on 17 December 2009 at 10:06 am:
A.,
I don’t think we should be like the teabaggers, with obnoxious interruption and misspelled signs. I also think Code Pink was rather ineffective.
Maybe the teabaggers got attention because the media wasn’t used to these kind of antics from the right, only the left.
Wrong, UI. The teabaggers got attention because the “attention dispensers” at FOX, the NY Times and the like, saw to it that they got attention, and the events were heavily promoted on FOX, ensuring sizable turnouts. Remember any anti-war rallies given promos ahead of time on FOX?
My point is that we need to find some way to show passion, to break through the media embargo of our issues and to communicate directly with the American people.
It’s not as easy as saying that the insurance companies win either way. If we go forward with this, the country loses. How does it make sense for the government to pay half the tab? The rates and premiums don’t go down! At all? WFing sense does that even make? The taxpayer loses and we create an insurance bubble that inflates the price of insurance. Then, 10 years from now when insurance rates are too high where are we?
In debt more and screwed worse.
If the bill passes, more people will be able to afford insurance. I’m more concerned with the people suffering now than the insurance companies. Do I wish we could punish them. Hell yes! I just don’t see how killing the bill makes health care in this country any better or how it makes progressive legislation more likely.