Having followed the discussion over the last several months on Daily Kos about the various health care bills and what they include or don't include has made me frankly very depressed. Depending on which post I read this is either the greatest advance in health care reform in many decades, the best we could get given the circumstances, or a total capitulation to the insurance industry.
There is also a lot of whining....about how bad Obama has turned out to be, how bought off the congressional Democrats are, how bad the Senate Bill is, how the Republicans are capturing the messaging and we are helpless...all magnified by the Brown victory in Massachsetts.
Words, I think, are important...and sometimes simple words help provide a platform for the development of more complex ideas.Sometimes you have to hold two concepts in your head at the same time even if they appear contradictory. Such is the case with two concepts: Defend and Challenge.
Two words I want to present here that provide a framework for moving forward
Defend. We elected Barack Obama...We defend Barack Obama. We don't undermine the President because he is not as pure as some of us think he should be. There is an old virtue called loyalty and we must stay loyal to our President.
Challenge. At the same time we also need to seek continuous improvement. We can't check our critical thinking at the door. If our nation is going to advance we need to challenge the President and the administration to do better.
Case in point(non HCR): The Administration's program to get banks to restructure mortgages in foreclosure. It isn't working like people hoped. There needs to be more critical thinking on this to challenge the Administration's assumptions on why they thought this would work,what's happening on the ground, and how this effort can be improved. Note: This could be a separate diary but this diary is about something more general.
Challenging is not criticizing, it's not whining, it's not blaming. It assumes good intentions but recognizes that could intentions have to interact with a range of self interests in the real world. Nobody's fault ...it's just the way it is.
So what do we do now? We defend and challenge. We are loyal and disciplined in our loyalty but we want the products that are produced to be the best that are feasible.
Naive? Over-simplified? I really don't think so. Defend and challenge needs to be the new mantra...the operative words that frame strategy.
Go ahead beat me up.