I’ll have more to say on this soon, but one notable thing about Netroots Nation was the split between people who are trying to get the Progressives to stand firm and torpedo any health care bill that isn’t good enough and the people who are arguing that we need to get a foot in the door and pass something because the worst outcome is total failure.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Apropos the previous post: Were you at the polling panel at NN on Thursday?
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No, I did not make it to that panel.
Dear God, can’t people just stop worrying about how every detail will be? It’s not, for regular peeps, at this moment, as important to decide on the smallest details of what it will be, as it is to actually convince media of public support for constructive health reform (guess how) to the point that their tone changes. Anything else, I think, is part deluding oneself into believing oneself all-powerful, another part deluding oneself into believing oneself so powerless that one does nothing to actually make it happen. This my humble perspective from abroad, dear Americans.
If Obama signs into law a health care bill that actually makes the situation worse — which is quite possible, see Bush’s Medicare “reform” — then the setback will be worse than where we’d stand from not passing anything. The voters put their trust in Democrats to get this right. There’s only one chance for that.
Thanks for reading. Yeah, I agree – it needs to be done right. Then who knows what other good could happen in a second term, with other economics? What looks worrying to me (admittedly all through the net and media) is the risk that people be demoralized rather than making their support/confidence/demands for reform (in that order) known, and convincing others about the realism of doing what Obama proposes right and relatively honestly.
Good politics, my thinking goes, is keeping politicians honest, and it’s done through mobilizing public support for politicians, so that the public become their biggest asset, not big money. Otherwise they will become dependent on big money instead, which basically have every reason to fear a public that gives its trust to the president (and of course would withdraw it if betrayed). I think we can agree that Obama started out great by getting his votes with lots of small-donors and enormous efforts by regular people?
I think you can leave the doubting to the opposition – and cynicism about politicians/Obama is basically a self-fulfilling prophecy that risks pushing him into bad deals, because involved parties (then) correctly perceive his position as weakening.
Alas, in the US it may be far too late for what you define as ‘good politics’.
This particular democratic experiment seems to have failed & will not improve for as long as the process of elections stays the same.
That’s pretty much it. A democracy requires a healthy press, an informed electorate (see: healthy press), and a functional electoral system. We have none of those.
With the possible exception of some portions of western Europe and other isolated cases here and there, democracy has largely failed. Which is not to say that anyone has come up with anything better or that the basic principle of democracy is fundamentally flawed. But we have failed to address any number of major problems with the current system — hell, we’ve failed to acknowledge that they’re problems in the first place. Chief among these are the corrupting influence of wealth, the inherent inequities of capitalism, the stupefying influence of religion, the cyclical rise and fall of destabilizing radical groups, nationalism/tribalism in all its forms, and the environmental impact of modern industry.
Of course, several of those problems came well after the foundations of modern democracy were laid, and some of them, while pre-existing, had not yet been thoroughly discredited yet, so the revolutionaries of the 18th century are blameless there. We moderns, on the other hand, have largely acted as if the status quo represents the best that can ever be achieved, and as a result, progress has stopped — all the while the enemies of democracy and social justice have continued to adapt at a feverish pace.
If some people are a little impatient with efforts to adjust the window dressing, it may be because the house is on fire.
For reform, pure and simple, whether in global warming, world peace, or health care for all the citizenry (and aliens too) get the god damn money out of the electoral process. End legalized prostitution among our national legislators by banning, yes banning, any financial contributions by anyone to the election coffers of any of our politicians at the federal level. Let the national government provide all the financing of campaigns for federal office.
Will this be done? Hardly, government is no fun if you can’t buy those who govern. But, if the republic is to survive and corruption to be reasonably controlled, the universal solvent, called money, must be kept out of our legislative campaigns. Perhaps, we should start by lynching a number of lobbyists; better this than the dissolution of the United States. This is my particular fantasy on this sweltering day in central NY.
I’m not sure we have to go to a public funding model — though I have no objection to the idea — but we could probably get by just as well if we simply limited campaign contributions to $25 per person, where “person” is construed as a voting-age citizen, and not a corporation or a PAC.
Until we decentralize the press, I’m not sure how much good campaign reform will do. Regardless of where the funding comes from, if the bulk of the population is getting its information from a handful of large corporations beholden to their own interests and those of their major advertisers, real reform is impossible.
I would say instead of trying to get the money out of the electoral process (kind of like trying to shovel the manure back into the cow) allow all money into the process, along with complete reporting of all money donated and spent. The interests of the people of Detroit are best served if the interests of the UAW and GM/Ford/Chrysler are served, so there would be no conflict if Conyers or Dingel or Stabenow received a ton of cash from those entities. However, there could be a conflict if they received a ton of money from Chase or State Farm, or not. I say let the politicians take whatever money from whomever – and report every penny that they receive and spend – then let the people decide whether they want their representative backing those particular interests.
It gets us to the same place, just by a different route.
count me among those that say torpedo anything that isn’t true reform. i don’t give a shit about any democrat, including Obama, being able to say that the ‘ passed something’, if that something isn’t worth spit.
If they pass a so-called reform bill that has no public option in it such reform will fail to improve the situation at all and it will enable the wingnuts and the ignorati to lay the failure directly at the feet of the Obama administration and Democrats and ‘liberals. If for no other reason than to prevent this shifting of blame from the fat cats to the Dems, this is a perfect example why sometimes ‘half a loaf’ is actually worse that ‘no loaf at all”; why sometimes the ‘cure is worse than the disease’. This is what the screeching nutcases want. Dick Armey & Co will be popping champagne corks all over the place and the poor ignorant fools Armey and Limbaugh and the rest of the maniacs duped into acting directly against their own best interests will have no idea how badly they’ve been had.
Right now the most effective weapon in the rightwing arsenal against actual health care reform is the pathetic establishment media. For the media, what’s true and what’s good for the country always comes in second to what’s good for their own ratings. In congress, ambition traditionally leaves precious little room for principle to flourish and dominate.
I’ve said it before here and elsewhere; there will not be any meanngful health care reform in this country in my lifetime. As a California resident I’ve already seen my own access to health care diminished significantly because of cutbacks by the state.
Health care ‘reform’ that does not neutralize the rapaciousness of the insurance and pharma industries will make things worse for almost everyone.
“If they pass a so-called reform bill that has no public option in it such reform will fail to improve the situation at all and it will enable the wingnuts and the ignorati to lay the failure directly at the feet of the Obama administration and Democrats and ‘liberals”
which is exactly where it belongs…see my diary bandaids on a broken back…there’s no leadership, no commitment, no fighting for anything except for the profits of the oligarchy of the corporate players.
frankly, l’d prefer to see the progressive caucus stick to their pledge and kill the damn thing if this is all that that we can expect.
at this point l really don’t think it’s [public option] going to happen.