(cross-posted at vastleft.com)
A comment subject-line at Open Left:
Chris: Is there any way to include the public option via reconciliation after this bill passes?
Sadly, such questions persist. Ordinarily sensible bloggers across the leftysphere are ruing the demise of "the" "public option" -- as if it were ever anything other than a cipher of a policy that served as a roach motel for progressive energies.
Spoiler alert: "Public Option" was George and Martha's son in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf."
As Glenn Greenwald said, it was designed to "placate" progressives. And it did, it did!
I don't doubt that Chris Bowers meant well by pushing for it, and he certainly worked very, very hard on it.
Yet, the simple and obvious fact is that "public option" never meant any fixed set of policies, and hence even the most basic questions about it were met with crickets or raised middle-fingers.
Of late, some leading bloggers have even argued that we need to pass something, anything called "public option" because we need a symbol of victory, in lieu of an actual victory.
I'm not sure why enthusiasm for the "public option" placebo necessitated letting slide Obama's, Baucus's, Daschle's, and company's lies about conducting an open and transparent process that considered all options. But the two were somehow inextricably linked. Perhaps it was because "PO" couldn't stand up to being juxtaposed with a meaningful plan that would have garnered attention had the Dems' corrupt process been exposed... and had the buried stories about gutsy citizen action on behalf of single-payer been "given oxygen."
A striking feature of the "PO" strategy was marginalizing and abusing single-payer advocates, who have been painted as pony-seeking purists (and worse) for even wanting a fair hearing for the proven virtues of that approach, if only to establish a meaningful set of goals and Overton Window
momentum ahead of whatever compromise might have been in the cards.
It will be convenient to blame this legislative meltdown on Joe Lieberman or Rahm Emanuel or Olympia Snowe. But the journey of a thousand miles starts with facing in the right goddamn direction, and progressives didn't do that.
As John Wooden said, "don't mistake activity for achievement." It's a lesson that "movement" progressives sorely need to learn... and almost certainly won't.
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"the journey of a thousand miles starts with facing in the right
goddamn direction"—that's a keeper.
A blast from the past
http://susiemadrak.com/2009/07/22/22/10/...
*Bait and switch: How the “public option” was sold
**Kip Sullivan
What color was the stripe, then?
I think I know. And you could tell an awful lot about how the room was going to end up from that stripe....
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Ah yes. "Fixed in committee" (or in conference)
It's the new "your check is in the mail."
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
I found it curious that in the linked post...
... Susie dismisses Kip Sullivan as a blue-sky idealist policy wonk, yet Hacker's school paper (and the hash it's been endlessly adulterated down to) is, apparently, not to be questioned.
I've been trying for months to get Susie to come to grips with
the meaninglessness of "public option."
I do it because I think she's sincere in her liberal populism. But it seems that once Howard Dean and so many bloggers she trusts fell in line for "public option," it became simply unthinkable to her (and to so many others) that there's no there there. And it is a bitter pill to swallow, since so much has to be rethought if one recognizes that the A-list and big activist groups all completely munsoned this generational opportunity for health reform.
Most recently, her response (hard to be 100% sure it was directed to me, because her comments aren't threaded) was that only a revolution would change anything. The possibility of an in-between step, like not falling for -- and dropping a dime on -- a groupthink policy FAIL is off the table. Maybe not here, but there and everywhere else.
susie has very serious health problems
and congresses FAILure to extend COBRA subsidies really really really hits her hard. She is unemployed and is trying to get everything done while she can still pay for it. Under such circumstances anyone would grasp at what they believe to be the low hanging political fruit even it is shriviled.
I will be interested to learn what happens at the capitiol hill rally that will commence in another 10 minutes, I have to be in the other end of town in an hour, so cannot go.
I read Susie regularly, which provides a glimpse into...
... her circumstances.
I think it's quite awful how the needs of so many have been abused and neglected by this process.
Health care isn't fun and games, so trading in the opportunity for real reform for symbolic "reform" and other empty and -- for some -- self-aggrandizing -- purposes is a most terrible enterprise. And not for the first time in recent memory, are faith and hope being cruelly misused.
vastleft, this kinda says it all
Indeed. Cruel beyond description.
And I do see how Susie's circumstances can influence her take on the shit sausage passing through Congress. Heck, even I have days on which I try to convince myself it won't be as bad as I think, for some reason that just hasn't occurred to me yet. I wish I could believe in the magic effect of Conference! (But stupid me, I spent all summer asking people to come up with just one example of a bill that had actually become more progressive in conference, and... crickets.)
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
Thanks all above
for the added information insight about Susie, which helps me understand the desperation such might feel. Torn between hope and despair.
And, Vast, you are so correct:
And all the rest you said.
Thank you
Now, speaking for me only (if BTD will let me borrow his pet caveat), I don't like the idea of people presuming that my politics and judgment are simply functions of my personal circumstances, as opposed to being rooted -- at least substantially -- in values, knowledge, reasoning, etc.
Naturally, many factors influence us -- and we're not robots. But I don't want to presume that Susie is biased or uniquely vulnerable to the "public option" scam. It's quite reasonable for DCB to bring up her personal health and economic circumstances, since Susie has been forthcoming about such matters, and it's good for folks to be sensitive to it.
That said, part of sensitivity to others is not to let our knowledge of their race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, age, income, health circumstances, etc. lead us to making conclusions about their thought processes and values.
Again, that's just how I look at it....
just read your links
Your comments were great.
It looks like she's still in the "yes but" thinking mode as a defense. Yes, but....
And, your point above ~~~The possibility of an in-between step, like not falling for -- and dropping a dime on -- a groupthink policy FAIL is off the table.~~ Is excellent.
Seems like it's new and rather creative variant of "yes but...". "Yes, but we can't do it without a revolution".
Reply to critics of “Bait and switch: How the ‘public option’ was sold”
Snippets from above linked article by Kip Sullivan:
jason watch
re: " the simple and obvious fact is that "public option" never meant any fixed set of policies"
sorta related: the hcan "principles" and what jason said about them: then and now.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/189...
No fair asking the access question!
If we all clap our hands loud enough and ignore the fact that no one will answer how many people would have access to the "public option," everything will just be fine!
[a|the] [strong|robust|triggered] public [health insurance]?...
... [option|plan] seems to have been right on the money. As it were.
Ask him if his boss will ever let him post on single payer. I think that's what got me thrown off. Haw.
The thing that really bugs me is that Jason sucks so bad as a lobbyist; he doesn't even bother to pretend. It's just one big "Fuck
you, do what I say" from beginning to end.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
jason is not a lobbyist
he's propagandist.
Well said, Hipp
And, well, what else could I add?
I'm sure you can imagine. ;)
Oh, p.s. "well said, Selise" ! I'm sure you would have no trouble imagining what I might add re: Jason. OLS.
Think lovely thoughts...
.
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
so well said--thanks, vastleft
really loved the George and Martha son reference...
and pointing in the right direction and don't confuse activity with achievement.
public option pragmatic tunnel vision began to remind me of Alec Guinness behavior in Bridge on the River Kwai ... great for morale for a while, then to be used by the enemy! myopic tree awareness, not forest.
I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. (Ralph Nader)