Back from YearlyKos, feeling the drumbeat of excitement over all the possibilities that unfolded there, though also feeling a bit overwhelmed and unfocused about what to do next. But I'm sure that will pass.
And there was certainly the bitter disappointment over the passage of the FISA bill. My feeling of still being SO FAR from a true progressive agenda despite our genuine progress in getting Dems elected was heightened by by Matt Miller's commentary Phoney Populist Fears Have Gripped America in today's Financial Times. Here's the money quote:
Over three decades, America’s conservative movement has so deftly shifted the boundaries of debate to the right that even modest adjustments to the market system can be cast as the second coming of Marx without anyone blushing. Today’s phony populist fears also remind us that the real problem with the media is not ideology but stenography. If official sources call something "populist" often enough, it is.
More below...
Miller mostly used John Edward's positions to compare with actual policy in place under the most conservative years in Great Britain under Margaret Thatcher. Here are some of his examples:
Margaret Thatcher would have been chased from office in the UK if she had proposed a health plan as radically conservative as Mr Edwards’ – under which private doctors would supply the medicine, and years would still pass with millions of Americans uncovered....
Mr Edwards’ ambition would leave low income work less generously compensated than the minimum wage and subsidy blend enacted by Britain’s New Labourites Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – arrangements Conservative party leader David Cameron says suit him just fine....
On taxes, Mr Edwards wants to return marginal rates for high earners from 35 per cent to the 39.6 per cent level that existed under Bill Clinton – rates slightly lower than those in force after Mrs Thatcher got through cutting them....
Mr Edwards’ plans for college aid would still leave American graduates far deeper in debt than anything conservative parties across Europe would tolerate.
Please understand that this is NOT meant as criticism of John Edward's policy positions, nor did Matt Miller intend them as such. (I personally was underwhelmed by Edward's performance in the YKos Presidential Leadership Forum, but was wowed by him in the breakout session, and continue to lean his way in my preference.)
Still, it just reminds me of how far away we are in this country from a true progressive agenda. Health care, education, economic policy, environmental policy...most of the proposals by our candidates across the board are so painfully incremental that in truth they amount to little more than bandaids, or as a holding action against any further plundering on the part of our economic and political elites.
At my most pessimistic, I worry that we don't have time for such incrementalism. Global warming is bringing so many frightening possibilities of disaster ever closer. The economy is developing, as bonddad puts it, a serious "undertow." The health system is beginning to crack. As another article in today's Financial Times puts it:
Bad debts at hospitals from unpaid patient bills are triggering deep and growing problems within the US healthcare system as up-front costs are increasingly passed on to consumers and growing numbers of people are opting out of health insurance....
Paul Mango, healthcare expert at consultancy McKinsey & Company, said the situation showed that the healthcare system was compounding its own sustainability problems. "Are we at an inflection point? That would be a reasonable question. Probably yes," he said....
Bad debts are increasingly driving a little-discussed vicious circle. Hospitals seeing more debt from insured patients can react by pushing insurers to help them offset it. This in turn can push insurers to charge higher premiums to employers, which can force employers to place more of the risk of healthcare costs on to their employees.
David Bachman, analyst at Longbow Research, said: "If you keep passing the cost around it does just spiral into a worse situation where -people have even less coverage, bigger balances, and it gets out of hand."
Our infrastructure is deteriorating. Our foreign policy is wreaking havoc around the planet.
And it is so galling that our policies are so behind the curve of so many other countries.
Do we have time for such incrementalism? Well, I hope so, because it will get really ugly in this country if too many systems break down at the same time, and I truly hope that doesn't happen.
Several of the workshops I attended at YearlyKos had to do with how to properly frame issues, and I truly believe that people feel in their guts this gnawing sense of worry, and truly understand at some level how unfair and how out-of-whack things are now. It's our vitally important challenge to help voters understand how Republican policies are creating those fears, and to offer some hope that things can be better.
Still, at the moment I'm trying to choke back my pessimism and my impatience. I think my pessimism stems from the exhaustion and over-stimulation of YearlyKos, and soon the tremendous amount of positive energy we experienced there will begin to take hold again.