Some thoughts.
Politics Not Personal Devils Rule I
Michael: Where does it say that you can't kill a cop?...I'm talking about a cop that's mixed up in drugs. I'm talking about a dishonest cop and a crooked cop who got mixed up in the rackets and got what was coming to him. That'd make a helluva story. Now we got people in the newspapers, right Tom? They might like a story like that.
Tom Hagen: They might; they just might.
Michael: [to Sonny] It's not personal. It's strictly business.
Source
These words while coming from a fictionalized story do have a good message none the less. You see in the grand scheme things the idea of "people powered" politics is ideally a noble concept, the premise sounds good I suppose if you’re a progressive.
The fact remains though that Washington D.C. has seen its share of reformers, and has a long history of breaking reformers or alternatively seducing them. Either way the premise is simple, the old standards remain the same.
Most often idealism comes a rumbling to the Capital City, and is quickly dispersed with by a machine that has had almost two hundred years to fine tune its methods. So in the face of this, what exactly can people wanting to push a progressive agenda do?
I would suggest you turn to the ancient masters of politics, from Machiavelli to the Caesars. The concept hasn’t changed much, even if it’s often argued that we’ve civilized the process.
I think to often history has judged people like Machiavelli with undue harshness, without placing proper historical context to his views. He was just one of the few people to expose the often brutal reality of politics, and not the widely inaccurate view favored by humanists.
Still this doesn’t change a good question you might have.
Aren’t we better then that?
No one likes to be accused of engaging in Machiavellian type politics, it really doesn’t go good with the colors of a "people powered" movement. Still there is a reason that any decent political candidate has spin doctors, PR people, and whatever else fix it people they can.
Because this business has rules established long before the very founding of this country, and are basically the same to this very day. You’ve seen the Republicans use them effectively in the last eight years, and only by the strategic blundering of the war in Iraq has cost them.
Does anyone here honestly believe that people would be questioning the legitimacy of the Iraq invasion if everything had gone smoother? I highly doubt it, I will defer to JFK on this issue, because like many things he put it so eloquently.
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. -John F. Kennedy
Still I will move along to the point of this first diary.
When Bill Clinton setup the Task Force on National Health Care Reform in 94, he appointed his wife Hillary Clinton to head it. The details of what happen are well known, but by a series of aggressive steps by the medical insurance industry, conservatives, libertarians and others they effectively killed any chance of universal health care for a long time.
I would suggest three mistakes were made by Bill Clinton
- The bill itself was extremely complex and over a 1,000 pages
Naturally such a complex issue is going to require such complex legislation, but since the average American very rarely deeply analyzes pending bills before Congress in such detail.
Casting something as overly complex is an easy, effective, and usable tactic. Humans have a well documented history of when not understanding something, they get frustrated and that leads to anger and remember what Yoda says.
"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." –Yoda
The enemies of this legislation used the media to effectively scare the crap out of the average American.
- There is well documented evidence about the lack of compromise on the issue; the Democrats themselves fell into disarray and instead of presenting a united front. They basically destroyed any strength they had.
When the barbarians are at the gates, it’s generally not a good idea to fall into disarray. The Democrats needed to present a unified face on this issue, and instead allowed political infighting to destroy the entire thing.
If there is one thing I admire about netroots, its ability to generate commotion on something and to stay united on it. There is power and strength in that virtue, something I don’t observe in the conservative side of the internet.
- The political consequences of this bill are arguable, but it seems to me that it was severe blow to the Clinton Administration and it allowed the Republicans a platform to engineer their famous sweep in 94.
Bill Clinton should have considered better the effect this bill would have, and the possible consequences politically. His actions effectively killed the issue till about now, and I remain very skeptical that anything will change.
So what is my point you’re asking?
This universal coverage might have been personally important to millions of Americans, but in the end that meant nothing. Corporations saw their interest being compromised, and acted accordingly to protect them.
I doubt the boards of those companies actually were interested in inflicting large scale suffering; their primary motivation was to protect their interest.
It wasn’t personal, just politics.
That is going to strike a lot of people as callous, because there are real people who suffered behind all those actions.
Who cares?
Corporations got what they want, and the Republicans got what they want. The average suffering of a nameless person you know absolutely nothing about means little to most humans in the grand scheme of things.
This is where you come in.
No one will ever accuse the netroots of lacking passion, or caring. The question though is can you translate that view into something tangible. Because the same enemies of this piece of legislation haven’t gone away, and there not going to be awed by a movement claiming to by "the average American".
They’ve heard it all, and they have a business to run.
It will require the netroots to continue to become a political force, one that can give politicians the soldiers, organization, and money needed to pursue the agenda you want.
Whoever holds the lead rope is going to lead the horse.
A politician is an animal of self; he will do whatever is best for the self. Make it worth their interests to follow your agenda, and you get what you want. Because I promise that no amount of reform will dilute the influence over politicians, cracks will always appear and the best way around this is to ensure that you’re the one controlling the resources to make the issue redundant.
I like these quotes when asked about my view of politics.
All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field. ~Albert Einstein
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
If I haven’t managed to send you running into the night with my views, I would like to make one last point.
Politics has proved a thousand times over that in general it has no interest in helping the little guy; the entire concept is more a series of actions to gain power. While this might be morally repugnant, it does provide you with an avenue of change.
If the netroots were to actually mobilize itself to help pass Universal Health Care legislation, how many people will weep for corporations?
Remember though that you will not go through unscathed, politics is often the art of bending normal morality to do something that needs to be done. Peoples lives are going to be destroyed no matter who wins, but if you choose to accept these scars, I wish you all the best.
The netroots represent an interesting dynamic for politics, and I shall enjoy watching it unfold.