,or otherwise known as the, "Hey Shizzy, it's ok!" diary.
I have similar thoughts. Many of them appear in this diary, posted over the weekend where I had some time to do it.
Somehow, tonight I am finding the time to comment on what we can control and what we can't, and how that relates to ownership, and what that means going forward.
Right now, I do not believe we can actually kill the bill. If one is to use the train wreck analogy, it's gonna happen. The train is in motion, the brick wall within sight, and there is just too much inertia in play for anything other than a crash to happen. Killing it is moot, and besides, there is some good in it, and what I have to say below can make up for having to deal with it.
Honestly, that's how I feel about it. The bill sucks. It only sucks less, if we get the PO, and maybe the Grayson bill, but that's about it.
Good HCR, that a Progressive can take a look at, own, and feel good about is largely off the table. That's done, and was done a long time ago, and it's not even all that important to think through how it was done, other than to identify a few core realities:
- The real politics in this nation are not Democratic Party vs Republican Party. They are Corporations vs the People.
- The only body of politicians who are in the People's corner happen to be the Progressives, and Bernie Sanders. The rest are corporate, and that is a cold, hard fact that's not easy to live with, but something we must begin to learn to live with, if we are to actually move forward in a way that's not like the cyclic Democrats get elected huge, deliver tepid results, Republicans own Congress, scandals, and we all know the story there, and it's not good.
- Some core things have got to change.
Instead of a Democratic Party Surge, I think we should start a Progressive Purge. Take a few pages right out of the Religious Right playbook, and post up good challengers, not a lot of challengers, but just really good ones, and post them up on Coin Operated Democrats, and weak Republicans. We will win a few of those races, and when we do, we can point to that, tell the people WE Progressives are gonna fight when nobody else will, here are the spoils from the last battle, and will you join us? ...and then do it again, and again.
- Progressives must become the Democratic party. I know that's divisive, I know that's going to piss a ton of people off, but in my own heart, when I ask that ugly question everybody is going to be asking after this passes; namely, "What good are Democrats?", the only realistic answer I have is Progressive Democrats, because of how the corporate vs people politics are playing out right now.
- We won't get anything but tepid legislation, until we begin to organize Progressives into the political force they now are. Some would argue this is not the case, but I point back to just how many times the PO was declared dead, only to see our efforts bring it back. I would point to the House Progressives, who have essentially gone to the mat, in an attempt to get even a minimal amount of Progressive legislation into what is otherwise a bill aimed at bailing out private insurers, currently being squeezed by job losses that reduce overall subscriber rates, and large companies seeing the ugly mess for what it is and choosing to self insure.
I believe those Private insurers NEED the subsidies to keep operating at even a sane level, and without them, they will seriously escalate into an unworkable business model, that only a small number of Americans can actually afford to be a part of.
This is, of course, why I love the Grayson bill, and why I love the PO, because both of those things give people a place to go, and deny private insurers that bailout they so desperately need to keep those fat 'n happy OPERATING margins of 30 percent alive and well.
You all do know the corporate jet is listed as an expense right along with the CEO gross (literally) compensation package don't you? You all know that the actual profit on the books, once all the largess has been deducted from gross revenue, is on par with the total operating costs Medicare has, don't you?
That's a 10x burden multiplier that makes private insurance unsustainable, which is why we've got this mess we do!
So, I hate the bill. I don't own this bill, and neither does anybody who went to the mat to improve it. That's me, you, anybody that did their calls, the House Progressives, and basically everybody who wanted a better bill, and got after getting a better bill.
That's not something we own, and that's important to realize, and why I'm writing this diary. Shizzy doesn't want to own that bill. I believe the expression of kill the bill is all about making damn sure one can wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and know for sure that they didn't somehow agree to grant such a gross corporate give away.
If that's true, well, I'm there too. If the Progressives had even a fraction of their way, private insurers could still be making money, though they would have to work really hard at trimming the fat to do so, while the nation moved forward with better health care insurance, with a lot fewer worries. That didn't happen, and it didn't happen because most of Washington is in it for the corporations first, and frankly is probably scared shitless over the implications of Citizens United, just hoping they can keep their seat.
Let the Purge begin! Those of us that don't own this train wreck, are best served by doing a few things:
- The bill is gonna pass. That's something out of all of our hands now. It's over, done. Either own it, or not, and move on.
- Push like hell for those things we know to make things better, for me that's losing the ugly abortion language, mostly because I can't look at the fine women in my life and do that to them, ditch the excise tax, incorporate the best PO possible, and for bonus points, at least get the Grayson bill up for a vote!
That's a lot of calls, postcards, e-mails, and advocacy. No reason to stop any of that until the thing is law. I'm not going to stop doing that, and I've got one really selfish reason, above and beyond all the rational ones that justify this effort:
I don't want to own that fucking bill! I hate it. It's wrong! So, I'm not going to do that, right along with all the other Progressives who are working to fix the thing. We don't own that. I don't own that, and none of you, if you did the work to try and stop the train wreck, own it either.
That's a corporate bill, written by corporate politicians, and it's going to pass under a corporate majority, and there isn't a damn thing we can do about that.
- But what we can do is realize where we are, who owns what, who our allies are, who our friends are, and what it's going to take to avoid that next train wreck, and that's going to take more Progressives in office than we have Coin Operated Democrats, and the sooner we start that effort, the sooner we might actually pass something that puts people first, instead of giving them the scraps left over from the greedy corporations, only interested in carving this nation up into little fiefdoms, while reporting the spoils to Wall Street.
When ordinary people go to ask those questions, and you know they are, we get to tell them about the real politics, that Progressives are the only game in town and in their camp, and that we tried as hard as we could to move things to a place where there was some real relief.
Now, we might actually get the PO, I'm not giving up on it, and neither should any of you. If we do, we point to that, and say, "See? See what we can have? Join us.", and we do that as relentlessly as the religious right did to the Republican party.
Those people are going to look at an arguably tepid stimulus, bank bill, HCR, financial reform, and when they step back to take a material look at the difference in their lives, their opportunities for jobs, what those jobs pay, what their risk is, by and large it's just not going to match the expectations set in the election. It's not going to match those Progressive ideas that Democrats were happy to run on to get a nice trifecta, either.
They will ask who, why, how. And we can point to this issue, IMHO, unique among issues in that this bill will pass with NO Republican support AT All. Maybe one token Republican, hell, maybe two! But everybody knows Republicans are the party of "NO", and that means THEY DON'T OWN THIS BILL EITHER.
That's ugly, but true.
Who does own it? Corporate Democrats, that's who. And if we don't stand up right now, while it's damn clear just who is who, and differentiate Progressive Democrats, from Coin Operated ones, and then run on that for all it's worth, we deserve to live with the product of this legislation, and all that comes out of this Congress, until we can do that.
That's what the implications of ownership really are. I don't own it. You don't own it, if you busted your ass trying to fix it, and the Progressive Democrats don't own it, but we do own what happens after this train wrecks proper.
Will we press on to leverage the win, grow our numbers, and give the people a clear alternative to the corporate politicians that Citizens United will bring them, or do we bottle this stuff up, "get back to business" and own our own failure to stand up as who we are, tell the people why it matters, and not give up who we are for a photo op, or because corporate politics would mandate we sit down, STFU, and play the game, lest the people actually find out about it and cause a "ruckus"?
I can't do corporate politics. I just can't do it. I see where that leads, and where it has brought us, and that's not me. I'm a Progressive, and I know lots of other Progressives, who all believe down deep, beneath the selling points, that this bill is a total crock of shit.
That's all I have to say. I believe this bill will pass. Frankly, I'm hoping it passes with a PO and the Grayson bill, and the abortion gaffe gone, and excise tax gone. It may just pass as the Senate bill with a few warm fuzzy tweaks too.
Fine, let it pass!
Then, instead of ending a huge debate, only to "get back to business", or translated: continue playing the rope a dope game, we mark this clusterfuck as the day Progressives said, "fuck it" and started to become a political force, instead of a passionate issue movement.
My wallet will be open for this. I will find time to be a part of this, because I can't own the corporate politics. That means the only alternative is growing the body of people, who are for the people, by the people, and who will work to get the business of the people done!
That I can do.
I won't go forward, pretending that this is some great victory and that "we won". It's a political victory, and I'll take that, but it's not a material victory, given the corporate largess at stake, the state of our economy, and the clear drain that Health Care Insurance is on every small business we need to grow to replace the jobs corporate politicians shipped away. It's not a victory to lock in corporate largess as our only means to reach health care services, and it sure as hell isn't a victory to watch, what I thought was my party, fight between it's corporate factions, and Progressive factions, not on the best that could be done, but the least to be done and still keep their damn seats!
That's it, I'm done.