It is really so simple yet so profound. The entire methodology of the corporate sellout that has become this administration. The signs have been there all along, pointing the way.
UPDATE:
Public backs expansion of Medicare by 30 points
UPDATE II:
Glenn Greenwald Salon, why does obama criticize dean but not lieberman?
It is a really simple concept, so I won't make this very long.
Back in August it became clear that the public option was really a bargaining chip for Rahm Emanuel to get the Pharma, Insurance, and Medical profession to come to the table.
here is the supporting link. Written back then, now it reads like a whodunit novel for the murder of America's hope for change.
The GOP needs the money of PhRMA and other disgruntled businesses to fund its 2010 war chest. Just as it was during the bank bailout, the goal of the White House was clear: more important than saving the financial system was keeping the financial institutions happy and stop them from financing Republicans.
You really must read this article, it clearly shows the timeline of influence and political jockeying that the admin did last summer to attain their goal, their ONE TRUE GOAL of securing money from the industries and away from republicans in 2010.
and they really had to do this, it there was absolutely no chance to have a public option or real reform, nor is there any chance of it in the near future -- and here is why:
if they even tried to go against the industry players, they would get so stomped/starved for campaign donations and all that money funneled to their opposition that the republicans would simply come into power and reverse any meaningful reform before it was enacted.
get it?
it is really simple, you knew it all along, it DOESN'T MATTER WHAT A POLITICIAN'S INTENTIONS ARE, THE POLITICAL REALITY IS THAT WE LIVE IN A PLUTOCRACY.
just like citigroup said.
citigroup plutonomy report
it puts everything back into order, in a way that is completely understandible and simple.
The republican party has its own communication/promotion network of cable, talk show, newspaper and internet news outlets (i.e. drudge). They have this because they take their marching orders from specific big business industries, like banking, medical/insurance, and military-industrial/oil.
The democratic party needed to win back some of the campaign dollars from some of these industries and decided that the only way to do that is to become more republican than the republicans. A total bait and switch that negotiated away republcan financial support and shifted it to the dems.
And that is all it is ever going to be about because any real attempts at reform, (like the clinton health reform) will be met with massive spending for marketing against it and huge swings of monies away from dems and to republicans (like after the clinton health reform when Newt Gingrich era happened after the plutocrats revealed their power in the vast right-wing conspiracy and taught the dems to toe the line).
so the only real answer is a unified push of real democratic forces moving to forward their own personal interests and not those of the plutocrats.
but, like Taibi so clearly said in his article, "Obama's Big Sellout"
I approach a woman named Pat Defillipis from Toms River, New Jersey, and ask her why she's here. "To protest health care," she answers. "And then amnesty. You know, immigration amnesty."
I ask her if she's aware that there's a big hearing going on in the House today, where Barney Frank's committee is marking up a bill to reform the financial regulatory system. She recognizes Frank's name, wincing, but the rest of my question leaves her staring at me like I'm an alien.
"Do you care at all about economic regulation?" I ask. "There was sort of a big economic collapse last year. Do you have any ideas about how that whole deal should be fixed?"
"We got to slow down on spending," she says. "We can't afford it."
"But what do we do about the rules governing Wall Street . . ."
She walks away. She doesn't give a fuck. People like Pat aren't aware of it, but they're the best friends Obama has. They hate him, sure, but they don't hate him for any reasons that make sense. When it comes down to it, most of them hate the president for all the usual reasons they hate "liberals" — because he uses big words, doesn't believe in hell and doesn't flip out at the sight of gay people holding hands. Additionally, of course, he's black, and wasn't born in America, and is married to a woman who secretly hates our country.
These are the kinds of voters whom Obama's gang of Wall Street advisers is counting on: idiots. People whose votes depend not on whether the party in power delivers them jobs or protects them from economic villains, but on what cultural markers the candidate flashes on TV. Finance reform has become to Obama what Iraq War coffins were to Bush: something to be tucked safely out of sight.
The chances of us magically developing an educated, intellectural and activated electorate are about the same as a turtle sucessfully lighting a match in deep space -- and yet, until that happens, there will never be any meaningful reform of any major industry in the United States only a long-running series of negotiated taxpayer bailouts/buyouts in exchange for minimal curtailment of the most egregious predatory business practices. Welcome to the era of protection-money politics, the mob rules.