Not to lightly dismiss Health Care Reform (HCR) as the primary issue, but government reform is probably going to supersede it as a priority. And the economy and additional jobs stimulus are also going to come to the fore right now.
The Supreme court ruling has marked the start of true class warfare in these United States. And while labor unions will be a force in combating the corporations they are a paltry insult hurled at an ocean. There is going to be a class war between what I will refer to as the "producer class" and the "owner class". The "owner class" (owners) includes the "rentier class", and the "financial class" while the "producer class" (common people), encompasses the "working class", and the "entrepreneurial class".
Perhaps I am wrong in my classifications, but I think not. And I will, henceforth employ the terms to refer to the waring factions. Which class do we/you/I support? To which class do we/you/I belong?
No matter what we do, the lines are not ever distinct to any particular individual and most people have some exposure and commitment on both side of the battle lines. The association of left and right with producer and owner respectively is not an equality. But the producer class is the mostly associated with left and the owner class is mostly associated with the right.
Republicans are cheering the Supreme court screw up and the Democrats are denouncing it and that most certainly seems to place the producer class in the camp of the Democratic party. There will always be much more democracy in the Democratic party and a lot less goose stepping to the tune of Der Fuhrer. But the left is going to have to coalesce into a much more concerted effort than it has during th last 30 years. All the Clinton bashing should probably be directed toward decisions concerning "free" trade and financial deregulation. The point to be made here is that it was NAFTA/Free-Trade and financial deregulation that were the problems. And the impetus came from the Republican party and Newt Gingrich. Clinton was incapable of uniting the Democratic party in opposition and the effort would have failed anyway. The American people were simply enthralled by tax cuts and trickle down supply side tap dancing.
The financial bubble and its implosion are a very strong refutation of these policies of unregulated trade and unregulated finance and it is these policies that must be attacked by and repealed by the producer class as a united front. But in order to create enough unity it will be necessary for many on the left to again place their compassionate and emotional positions on hold in the current crises. This is NOT a plea to "cave in" to LIEberman on health care. It is much the opposite. It is an appeal to write Kucinich a letter telling him to support a reasonable compromise for the nonce. We have made major gains in the regulation of insurance companies and we need to put those gains in the bank (make it the law), while pursuing further gains.
The bigger issues at this point (and it includes HCR) all have to do with our economy and with helping the producer class. The issue of helping the poor as a direct REASON and justification for HCR and other initiatives must be abandoned because the producer class is simply too damned strapped to pay anything for the cause. And this is true across the board. Environment is painted as a job killer. Illegal immigration is painted the same color. And whether this is correct or right or fair is irrelevant because the Republicans are able to make that paint stick and they will kick ass in the elections unless the Democratic party can rise up and take the offense on the economy (and I mean jobs and wages, not bank profits) even while sacrificing some left wing compassion.
Immigration reform and free trade reform are good examples of where the producer class economy can be dramatically improved by agreeing with those on the right that want American sovereignty, states rights, and the keeping of more of what the producers EARN. The producer class, as a united group, must insist on enforced borders and enforced laws concerning both trade and immigration. This means enforcement of work place safety laws AND documentation and heavy fines for those who hire undocumented workers. It need not mean rounding up all the illegals and deporting them. But it also means placing limitations on amnesty and path to citizenship as was the case with the first shot at comprehensive immigration reform. It means enforcing the laws and basing immigration quotas on the metric of median wages. We simply cannot continue to hemorrhage jobs and wages with such hemorrhage tied to illegals. In such a political environment standing up for open boarders and unlimited amnesty is a death wish. It is an exercise in progressive foot shooting that will simply hand control of this country to the Republican fascists and the owner class. This is no longer an issue of compassion. It is an issue of political survival for the middle class. WE MUST REPRESENT THE PRODUCERS and the middle class regardless of how red their neck might be and regardless of their prejudices. If not, then we lose to the Republicans. The same applies to trade and import tariffs. We need to raise tariffs on all goods coming into this country from places outside North America; an across the board percentage. The NAFTA deal has to be honored to some degree but that is the end of it. Buy American can be modified to embrace Canada and Mexico. The proceeds of this tax must benefit the middle class directly as in the form of a quarterly stimulus check. These funds are NOT to be used to help the poor. The funds MUST be returned to the people who will now buy stuff at Costco as opposed to Wall Mart. The objective is to stimulate AMERICAN PRODUCTION as opposed to any direct help for the poor or foe unions or for the compassionate or for the fascists. The poor will benefit in an improved economy. We MUST focus on the producer class.
Environmental reforms are also at issue. And I will begin by saying that the deterioration of the world economy has already addressed SOME of the critical aspects of atmospheric carbon. And we can make headway on the issue while not going for the big bonanza. And we can make further contributions to this effort without loss of sovereignty and without harming the economy and the middle class. This is done by using tax and rebate systems (as in the rebates of import taxes above) as opposed to creating another group of "taxi medallions" (cap and trade). There is no difference between carbon permits and taxi medallions in that they both suffer the same economic perversion. In either case, the owners of these assets are loath to see any deterioration in their value. The medallion owners are against public transit and the carbon permit owners are against alternative energy. A tax and rebate system does not suffer that problem. Such a system charges the coal people for the carbon being mined and sends the proceeds of the tax into the economy as a quarterly stimulus check. People react to this buy using less coal fired electricity and spending their money on other things such as new shoes. The morons will use the rebates to pay the higher electricity bills, but the intelligent people won't. The entrepreneurial sector reacts by doing more biofuel and more wind and solar as the price of the carbon based stuff rises. This is a MACRO economic adjustment that lets the MARKET decide what the alternatives will be. This is a big dent in the wallet of the people that OWN the coal, the oil, and the natural gas. It is not a harm to the producers who will change their productive activity to suit the situation. People are mobile. Coal deposits aren't. But any attempt to address any sort of "environmental investment" DIRECTLY will go down in flames. It is possible, as in the case of the stimulus, to phase out the rebates at higher income levels. But the producer class must NOT be sacrificed to the environmentalists (greenies). That will be the kiss of death at the polls. Again, I want to stress that the market WILL create windmills and solar. No heavy handed government is needed.
States rights is a politically viable safe harbor in the war against the national and multinational corporations who run America, and who will run America even more due to the latest Supreme Court ruling. Corporations do not represent the American people, nor do they represent the people of Arkansas or Texas or California. The problem manifests itself most clearly in the US Senate. Although Corporations can be state based wherein the people of the state are served by the corporation, this is not normally the case. Corporations are owned by people outside the state being represented by the senators. To declare a corporation to be a "resident" if a state is fallacious. And though this is not the direct declaration it is an indirect declaration. It is that "persons" are inhabitants of both a state and a congressional district. The Supreme court has utterly failed in this regard.
The 17th amendment can now be viewed as the worst act of progressive foot shooting the world has ever seen. While state wide elections sound very democratic and are a tribute to populism, I ask you to consider the recent example of Massachusetts. I can think of no better example to illustrate why allowing money from outside the state (or outside the sovereignty of the USA) to run political campaigns is a death sentence for representative government. Most lefties react to the words "states rights" as though such a thing is an attack on women's rights and the return of lynchings. But the movement to get the overbearing national government out of state sovereignties is just as valid as the need we all now have to get the WORLD out of the internal affairs of the USA. The left may not like "states rights" and the left may like the idea of funding the elections in Montana to get a Democrat in place, but this sword cuts both ways. The bottom line is that the Senators from Montana and Massachusetts should represent the state of Montana and Massachusetts and not the knee jerk popular will as bought and paid for by big money mass media campaigning. Grab this as "states rights" and sing it. At present the effort for campaign finance reform at the state level is just as dead as the national effort. The Supremes have stopped that too. It is a lot more difficult to run a campaign to "buy" an entire state legislature than it is to "buy" a single state wide election. Populism has its place, but the elections of Senators is not it. We need to turn this into a war on the OWNERS (the foreign interests especially) in support of the PRODUCERS, and "states rights" is a means to that end.
It should be possible to LEGISLATE rules concerning which corporations can mess with the internal politics of the United States. It should be possible to use fear of world government (to enlist the tea bags) to severely limit campaign activities of corporations by stipulating that only American corporations can spend on political advertising and then by very narrowly defining what an American corporation would be. How much of the stock of the corporation must be owned by Americans in order to qualify this corporation as an American "person" with political rights. We only allow Citizens to vote and we can only allow citizen's to politically proselytize in the USA. The other test is that in order to have political proselytizing rights in the USA ALL of the corporate profit must be realized in the United States and all of the income taxes paid in the United States. That is true for citizens and it should be true for "persons" called corporations. And in this way we restrict campaigning by "corporate persons". No representation without taxation. It may be possible to extend this into the states.
It matters not whether such legislation will be found to be "unconstitutional" in the future. Because just like McCain Feingold, once signed by Obama it is the law until the Supremes overrule it. And I'm not real sure that Obama, in his role as commander in chief, can't protect the political boundaries of the nation by executive order until such time as congress can act or until such time as the Supreme court overrules the order. The rules I have hinted at should be done by executive order right now. The legislature would be FORCED thereby to act and to define the rules in legislation. The executive order of the president should be overruled by the congress (an interesting take on the war powers act). The people need to know where their representatives stand on this.
Given the point that taxes must be paid in the USA and foreign ownership must be limited, it is humorous that the Supremes have just said that Obama Motors (GM) can proselytize on behalf of Democratic candidates. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!