The trouble with the public option is that it provides options for the public. The illusion of democracy is being perpetuated upon a willing nation by a bought and sold congress even as technology has rendered their tools of deception less effective. And so it goes.
Update
I would just add to that it is not cynical to speak the truth, rather it is cynical to know the truth and refuse to acknowledge it. Thanks for the conversation as always.
Update II
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic senators say they have a tentative deal to drop a government-run insurance option from health care legislation. No further details were immediately available.
But liberals and moderates have been discussing an alternative, including a private insurance arrangement to be supervised by the federal agency that oversees the system through which lawmakers purchase coverage. Additionally, talks centered on opening up Medicare to uninsured Americans beginning at age 55, a significant expansion of the large government health care program that currently serves the over-65 population.
Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa told reporters he didn't like the agreement but would support it to the hilt in an attempt to pass health care legislation.
The trouble with the public option is that it provides options for the public. And therein lays the root of all evil in the American body politic these days. When corporate interests are pitted against the public good, with the sole arbiter of the discussion being corporate politicians, those bought and sold like hot car stereos, the public will always end up on the bottom rail.
Sir John Harrington once wrote: "Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason." And yet treason is what most often passes as democracy in action in these so-called United States today.
Whereas hope once reigned a little more year ago, little hope resides today, as the debate on health care reform drags on and on with little progress to be seen. In the past it was often remarked that the Senate was where good legislation went to die. A more apropos statement today would be; the Senate is where the illusion of democracy still presides. The illusion won’t last forever however. Even a poorly constructed third act comes to a merciful end to the tremendous relief of its audience.
I use the words "still presides" earlier because unless you haven’t been paying attention recently, and by recently I really mean the last two decades or so, the illusion of democracy is simply that; an illusion. There are those that will surely remark that these United States have endured trying times before, or that well-entrenched interests have always maintained an inordinate amount of wealth and power, and thus such talk is nothing new. And in general I would find some agreement with that remark.
However, what is new to this equation is technology. Today, the flow of information is such that it is increasingly difficult for power to pull the proverbial wool over the people’s eyes. And even when power succeeds in the grand game of deception, technology has made the deception harder to maintain ex post facto.
The military industrial complex may have fooled a nation into a feckless war in Iraq, but the deception did not last forever. And only the most naïve observer would still maintain this unnecessary war was once necessary and therefore legitimate. Thus technology, and its rapid transmission, has made the deception of the public slightly more difficult today. Slightly.
And so here we stand, more than six months into the health care debate, with the debate once again hung up on a sandbar thanks in part to Queen Snowe and Lord Nelson. Admittedly, I am a simpleton, not terribly informed when it applies to policy expertise on all things related to health care.
But what I do understand is this; a sizeable majority of Americans are unhappy with the state of health care in this country and want it fixed. That’s it, a problem exists and a solution is desired. Hope.
Thanks to the size and reach of the health and insurance lobby’s however, this nation seems quite determined to shave off its nose to spite its face. Oh be joyful.
In addition to being an admitted simpleton, some have at times accused me of being slightly mad, perhaps crazy even. And yet if I didn’t know better, and in spite of the temporary madness that sometimes overcomes me, I would swear on the King James Bible itself that we had a national debate on such matters a little than a year ago. In that contest, two similar but nevertheless opposing forces were presented before the classroom, one wanted change, the other more of the same. The "Change" marketing plan won the clients over. And so it goes.
Yet here we sit little more than a year later, as the war machine continues marching to the sound of gunfire while health care reform languishes in that esteemed body, the US Senate. Those who are still unconvinced that these wars will end anytime soon are fools, not worth meriting further discussion. Change.
And just as health care reform languishes, so does the idea of democracy in these United States. The only choice it seems we really have is whether to buy bleach, or color safe bleach, Del Taco for dinner, or Taco Bell, whether to purchase that new flat screen at Best Buy, or Good Guys, the gold or the platinum card. Choices.
The absence of change, in the light of so many choices already made, specifically those decided upon last November, is telling. I believe the president to be an honest man with honest intentions, intentions now largely snared in a web of deception and being perpetuated on a nation by powerful forces. Nevertheless, its time someone calls it for what it is. Treason has prospered too long.