From page 8 of Taylor Branch's peculiar new book, The Clinton Tapes: "Clinton said Dole spoke of the opposition's job not as making deals but rather making the president fail, so he could be replaced as quickly as possible."
Page 8.
We keep acting as if the game is about policy. It's not. It's about power. It's about who gets paid, and nothing else. We keep asking as if policy matters. It doesn't. All policy amounts to is rearranging the chairs at the table and enabling somebody different to get paid.
We keep acting as if elections and the policy they're theoretically about are about something called Democracy. It's not. Public policy is about propaganda, about advertising, about manipulating the electorate.
And it's a game at which we liberals suck.
I don't fucking care about health care reform. It's a dog and pony show. It doesn't matter. No matter what they do, I'm still screwed. We're all screwed, unless we stay healthy. NOTHING on the table suggests that's going to change in any fundamental way.
OK. I do care about health care reform. I have a young child. I care passionately about the world she will inherit. But I care about FUNDAMENTAL reform, and we're never going to see that because the interests sitting around the table dicing up our dimes and pennies, they're not going to let it happen.
Unless and until we're talking about a national one-payer program which preferences family care over specialized care, and which makes stable family care available to everybody who wants it, I don't think the details of anybody's reform package make a difference. But I'm not an expert, I'm just a guy with a keyboard and a temper. And too much time on his hands.
Side issue: Who the hell thought this was a good time to ram health care reform through? The insurance companies have their back against the wall. They've taken a huge beating this last decade, from 9/11 through Katrina and other disasters, and then got crunched in last season's market crash. Yes, we the people want health care reform, but the politicians could not have picked a worse time to try to make big insurance come to the table as a willing and helpful (yeah, right) participant in the process.
As I typed, health care reform is a dog and pony show. It's a distraction.
The real action is on Fox news, I guess. I don't watch it, but I sure hear enough about it. The real action is on Rush Limbaugh's nationally syndicated radio show.
We liberals, we're supposed to be backed by a liberal media, right? Bullshit.
So quit acting like the media's on our side.
The Tea Parties remind you of anything? Say, the Brownshirts in Munich, circa 1930-something. They bullied everybody in sight, AND IT WORKED. So they'll do it again.
What's our counter move?
Nothing.
Retreat to the center.
Watch Michael Moore movies and bath in the righteousness of our beliefs.
Get over it.
Here's what we're fighting for: We're fighting to preserve this planet against global warming. And we're fighting to develop clean and renewable energy sources. Period. If we don't do those two things, or if we allow other powers (see: China) to do those things, we're screwed. My daughter's screwed. Oh, and we don't break up these huge corporations which are both too big to fail and entitled to spend all they want on elections? Then we're all screwed. Game over.
Everything else is chimera. Nothing else matters, not even health care.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is this: The right wing does better propaganda than we do. We keep complaining about Fox and Limbaugh and all that, and our answer is, what, MSNBC and Air America? Really?
They play dirty. They lie. They convince poor people that it's in their best interests to align themselves with rich people every election cycle, and piss on them the rest of the time.
OK. Fine. Those are the rules. This is about power, it's not about who's right, nor is it about what's best for the country. It's about who gets paid, and who doesn't.
So what are we going to do about it?
One suggestion, bound to fall on deaf ears? Figure out how to win the propaganda battle. Figure out how to fight for our democracy like the desperate minority we really are at this moment, and quit pretending we are a part of the ruling majority.
Barack Obama sold a product. He sold Hope. And he finessed the right wing because the product with which they opposed him sucked, and his tactics were slightly unexpected. And Obama became a celebrity, don't discount that.
I keep reading here that winning is about organizing. Maybe. But it's about organizing money first and foremost. It's about building a trumpet every bit as loud and powerful as the media built up by the right wing over the last two decades.
Remember when Nixon resigned, when the Republican party was in tatters?
Remember Goldwater's debacle, when the Republican party was in tatters?
They understand how to acquire power.
Malcolm X had it a little wrong. It's not the ballott or the bullet. It's the bank account.