[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
As a single-payer kinda liberal I never liked the basic paradigm of health for profit industry, so I find myself in the very uncomfortable position of peeing on the exultant healthcare legislation parade so magnificently on display in the media and pockets of blogtopia. It’s not me, I’m a small person who should be serving in a fairly united effort with my Party, and I’ll be vastly relieved when other Party efforts are more aligned with my political objectives and I can be in the proper place with my people again.
Irrespective of the pure policy merits all can agree that the basic political thrust of the effort was an abstract, esoteric messaging on cost, another tactic that left me feeling lost in the wilderness. 000.1% of the population are political junkies who get into a public option alternative tied into Medicare rates, otherwise absolutely guaranteed to confuse and put to sleep the rest of the country. Had a total assault on the evils of the insurance companies been waged, replete with their often criminal behavior I daresay the legislation would have been passed last summer, our sometimes-odious brothers and sisters in the Republican Party ruthlessly forced to shut up from fusillades of daily shame.
By the way, another reason I will always be a little people liberal Democrat is that if my people sometimes leave me feeling lost they would never, ever horrify me to a level that would leave me running for the hills with their sickening overt racism, vituperative evergreen anger and vicious, unfeeling cruelty that leaves our people and country utterly broken. I don’t spend much time precisely criticizing Republicans, I think it’s utterly obvious who they are and what they’ve done and it is no place to perch my soul every week, but from time to time it’s very well to vividly remind us all—like this reaction to very mild and accommodating healthcare reform—what can happen to America again if Republicans are put in charge.
Now then. Today is March 23, the election is in November and any political junkie will tell you that expecting anything more out of Congress with real teeth and daring is to wish for the sex drive of youth, never cleaning the oven or always remembering your password, a fantasy that seems so tantalizingly real in its modest plea for accomplishment but so never, ever to happen. Politicians in the very best of environments are extremely cautious, ingratiating people-pleasers, loathe to offend and cause anger, eager to obfuscate and lock in campaign cash, an election roughly seven months out is no time to attempt herding our spooked political cats in DC into performing anything useful, not at all.
This year of our Lord 2010 has sown extremely strong political winds to blow away this usual election pattern, other midterm elections never faced a history of massive bailout to financial industry that left leviathan fat cats bloated with criminal cash while the little people got lashed with a 10% unemployment rate.
"It is unconscionable that the fate of the world economy should be so closely tied to the fortunes of a relatively small number of giant financial firms," Bernanke said today in a speech in Orlando, Florida. "If we achieve nothing else in the wake of the crisis, we must ensure that we never again face such a situation."
America needs financial reform like it needs Liz Cheney to shut up. Not only that, after healthcare reform politics and a 10% unemployment rate the Democratic Party desperately needs a political message and results that show little people matter, that we have shouldered massively painful and destructive burdens in our financial sector bailout and general economy.
Americans need to know precisely how our "unconscionable" swaggering Mr. Federal Reserve spent our freaking dough in an audit. We need to make sure our children don’t have go through propping up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to a searing $411 billion dollar bill again, baby Jesus and baseball save us. We need a real little people consumer protection agency to shield us from the smooth crooks on the Street.
Betting the 2010 midterms on healthcare accomplishment is a risk we should never, ever let our reps in DC take, not this year, not with 10% unemployment and the Street bloated on bonuses again. If Massachusetts and Scott Brown should have told us anything is that this year, 2010, is full of voter anger that can be very unpredictable, ignoring financial reform for the rest of the year isn’t an option.