Tweet
I’d like to talk for a minute about why There was an abortion amendment, but why Weiner and the single payer amendment got canned. It boils down to one basic truth.
Despite all the claims, all the threatening, and even the signed letter, the Progressives were never going to vote no.
All month long us here at FDL and other sites thought we finally had our "ace in the hole". The Progressives were finally getting serious. They would vote against any bill without the robust PO in it. I don’t remember the exact amount we raised here, but it wasn’t a small number.
And yet when we started getting down to the wire, we started hearing more and more Progressives going back on their words. Opt-out would be OK with Weiner we heard on Countdown. Grijalva was OK with negotiated rates and not Medicare +5%, and so on and so forth.
Leadership knew that despite the letter, the Progressives were spineless and would never vote no. I don’t think I truly believe that Weiner dropped the single payer amendment because he was afraid of hurting single payer momentum. All it would do is make each and every Democrat state his position on this most important of issues.
And that was why I’m betting they made him drop it. No one actually wants Democrats to be accountable. Leadership says "drop it or you get no support from us", and Weiner with all of his ambitions caved.
So where does that leave us?
We’ve just proven that even if we get more progressive members it won’t matter because they will never stand firm on their convictions. Even if we had 200 Progressives, they would cave on everything.
So what can we do? Revolution. If there’s ever been a show as to how corrupt and stagnant our system is, I show you the health care debate. I suggest we make FDL no longer a hub to get progressive policies that have no chance of passing due to weak willed politicians, and change it to reforming government itself.
Because as long as there is a leadership, Progressives will cave to it. And we can no longer afford to invent so much into people with so weak a will.
20 Comments
For the most part it’s corruption of course but in the case of the progressive block, so-called, I think it has more to do with the spinelessness of the progressive base. To a large extent the progressive base itself remains locked in the “veal pen” and uneducated about things.
I just wrote a comment challenging feminists about why it’s partly their fault about the country going majority pro-life for the first time ever and the comment was censored. Never posted as I am “on moderation” because of comments I made challenging progressives about their attitude towards US troops. (I assume — the moderation policy is completely non-transparent and unaccountable)
So the message I am getting from the FDL mods — always indirectly since they don’t have decency to say anything publicly or to me privately — is don’t get too uppity here. Don’t post anything out of step. Don’t be controversial. Don’t push at the edges of things. Don’t be a challenge. Don’t stick your head up above the rest or you’ll get it cut off.
I was put on moderation for my political views after about a week here. [modnote: for behavior, not views.]
And that’s about typical of the rest of the blogosphere btw. It’s neither good nor bad compared to peer blogs out there.
You know some of us have been around ten years or so, a little less, whatever the age of the blogosphere is now, (although many were here as I was for ten years before that on what came before blogs) and you know ten years is a long time. But what has really changed in the way the people are educated?
Unlike some I don’t see these boards as a lot of wasted effort. There’s a great opportunity here to combat the mountain of propaganda and “manufacturing of consent” as Chomsky puts it. It’s rare but sometimes you can persuade, sometimes you can educate. But the people doing so are few and far between and the system tries to prevent them doing so. We’re in the veal pen here. The fake opposition. The status quo. The opposition that is non-threatening and will never change anything because it’s not even allowed to think independent thoughts.
Weiner didn’t just drop it. He dropped it and then told us it was gold. Then the headline at Huffington Post was “compromise” but I looked in vain for anything he won for it. A capitulation not a compromise then. All happy faces smiling now for the health care bill. Even at FDL where the money was raised to try and hold the so-called progressive block to their promise to vote down this bill, the main front page posters seems to be gradually forgetting that ever happened.
How long before those of us who do remember, get that little message, “Your comment is awaiting moderator approval“
Sign me up. I posted something about my fathers involvement in the anti-vietnam movement and the civil rights movement. We are as correct as they were then, we have as many supporters as they did then, we have as much at stake as they did then. The difference, we type and donate, they marched. Noone could ignore them because they were always there. I was at the march for womens rights and it felt good to be steps away from the decision makers with tens of thousands of people all saying the same thing. We can change things, we just need to step it up. Peaceful, constant pressure and a very visible presence.
I was not surprised but I was disappointed Weiner et al. wouldn’t even let our cowardly Dem leadership go on the record for rejecting the most fiscally sane and affordable way to go. It sickens me.
Corporate media reports on the corporate framed thinking. So it ignores what is threatening to corporations. And our politicians are so beholding to media and to corporations for money. And the military machine keeps on killing and our leadership doesn’t even debate astounding sums of money for bases and killing, and nickles and dimes citizens for health care.
The gunman at Ft. Hood was a member of the military who was freaking out and even hiring a lawyer not to deploy and surprise, surprise … the leadership in the military, as the leadership in this country is totally DEAF to the genuine needs of the citizenry. And the war on empathy goes on and on and on. So as more crises will continue, and our leadership escalates its denial and gets even more cowardly, the frustration and acting out will continue.
When Grayson objected to 45,000 dying each year prematurely he was labeled an “iconoclast” Dear God. That made him an iconoclast? It made him a sane citizen reacting to a horrifying statistic. And the rest of the authoritarian followers in Congress are morally deaf and dead by the minimization of that reality. So Grayson to me illuminated them, more than him being so striking.
Now I understand the story of Diogenes seeking an honest man (person). What a rare breed.
No, you people aren’t anywhere close to the people involved in the anti-vietnam movement and the civil rights movement. You think too highly of yourselves.
Today’s progressives are just socialists wearing lipstick and wanting everything to be an entitlement.
This post is spot-on. As long as we have two corporate-owned parties, differences between them will be basically cosmetic and/or on the margins.
Dems are following the conservative (corporate) playbook – obfuscate the issues and claim great successes while selling out the public. The pitiful excuse for a public option is already being touted as “robust.” Orwellian.
Inquisitr, I like this diary a lot and particularly your conclusion. I have a problem only with one thing.
We can’t conclude that greater numbers wouldn’t improve their backbones. For one thing, more numbers may, and especially as many as 200 may change the culture of the House in such a way, that the range of proposals that are viewed as acceptable would move much further to the left. For another, there would be many more voices advocating things like Medicare for All from the beginning who would be unwilling to compromise. Right now there’s only one Kucinich. With many more progressives there might be a bloc of 10 or so pulling the Overton Window much more to the left.
Having said all that, if FDL were to move further toward issues involving reforming Government, I think that would be very good. Certainly, getting corporate money out of politics is an imperative. Secondly getting rid of Seniority systems and the filibuster are critical in restoring majority rule in both Houses and getting them to reflect the needs of the American people more.
Changing Government so that the capacities of the Presidency to make law and accountability a dead letter, and to get us into wars by lying to Congress are far less than they are today is critical to saving our democracy.
It would be nice if the voters put in more progressives to at least give it a try.
It also would be nice if the Conservatives were not only seen for what they are, but called out on it.
Like I say, The country and it’s people have made our problems by continuing to elect the people who are our problems. Can that be blamed on the elected people, or the people who elected them.
For my part, progressives deserve huge credit for delivering us a public option in the House. Because of the progressive caucus, there was never any serious talk of triggers, co-ops, or opt-outs in the House, and it’ll be a much bigger lift for them to get added in conference because that line in drawn. In fact, I give the climate in the House a lot of credit for giving us the public option in the Senate bill.
That is no small victory.
The public option in the House bill is a sham and a fraud that will cover almost no one, will cost more than private insurance and will do next to nothing to keep private insurance companies from continuing to jack up their rights when the federal government mandates that the uninsured must buy their junk insurance policies. See “The Public Option is Now a Sham. Who Cares if Lieberman Kills It?” It doesn’t meet any of the criteria either of the Progressive Caucus itself, or of HCAN, for a “robust” public option. 60 House Progressive Caucus members signed a letter pledging to vote against any bill that didn’t at least let the public option pay Medicare rates plus 5% which would have saved $85 billion. 58 of these 60 “progressive” house members broke this pledge, which shows that House “progressives” are paper tigers who’s word can’t be believed. These “progressives” have lost all power to impact other important legislation like climate change and financial regulation in a progressive direction. Anti-abortion and blue dog democrats make threats to block legislation if they don’t get their way and follow through. Progressives cave at the slightest pressure. Worthless. (And they’re enabled by “progressive” organizations like HCAN that let them continue to lie that the public option is “robust” or meaningful.)
See “Calling Out the House Progressive Caucus: Are You Mean and Women, or Are You Mice?”
“We can’t conclude that greater numbers wouldn’t improve their backbones”
Give a coward a big enough gun and he finds courage? Dems have the House, the Senate, and the Presidency (not to mention a majority of the Public) and it’s still not enough to get them to put on big-boy pants. Just how well armed do they have to be before they’ll do what they claim to believe is the “right thing”?
An honest man will stand for his principles even if he’s outnumbered and gonna get his ass kicked. The clowns that the Left has sent to Washington will stand for their “principles” only if (A) they are sure to win, and (B) it doesn’t cost them anything in lost donations.
Everything we dicuss would depend on honorable men being sent to Washington.
If there are any they are few and far between.
Our politics breeds the un- honorable just to get elected, re-elected, and even be there.
Greater numbers of bums, means you have more bums. TRUE.
Let me reierate that the Congress has caused every problem this country has and not fixed one.
When we vote we just refuel the fire, not put the fire out.
We have for decades been changing bums from one party to the other and the results are the same. Lots more bums.
You don’t get rid of the dirt sweeping it under the rug, it’s just out of sight.
“Everything we discuss would depend on honorable men being sent to Washington.”
Yes, and I would work and vote for such candidates regardless of party.
I can think of 2: Dennis Kucinich & Ron Paul. That’s out of over 500.
No, they’re out there. They’re just introverted, opinionated and not particularly diplomatic. These are the sort of people the condescending MSM sees as targets, not heroes.
The main reason this turd of a bill doesn’t kick til 2013 in is because they KNOW it will suck ass, and further enrich the insurance racketeers while driving the rest of us further into poverty… it’s such a slap in the face of the working people of this country that if it kicks in before the 2012 elections, Obama would lose in a landslide.
I rue the days I helped out on his campaign. We are fucked.
My few and far between left room for them. There are good men out there but we don’t get to select them.
Joe blow may be able to run for Mayor, but for congress means either the party is backing them or they are rich, neither of which tends to let good men run.
It wasn’t just the veal pen but fdl with its ties to HCAN and several of its mainpagers pushing the public option that got suckered into this losing fight. The healthcare bill came out of the House just as many of us predicted months ago. It is a dreadful, unworkable bill. The public option was watered down to the point of irrelevance. It does not look like the eventual conference report will be any better. Progressives got almost nothing that they wanted but will be saddled with a disproportionate amount of responsibility for this steaming pile. There is no honest interpretation other than this was a massive defeat.
The lesson that we should be learning from this is that Democrats are not our friends or allies. Outside of Bernie Sanders who isn’t even a Democrat, there is not a progressive in the Senate and there probably aren’t 20 solid progressives in the House. That’s the current reality. People like Jane can put some heat on some of them, but at the end of the day when the votes are counted, we lose. This will continue to happen until we start electing candidates who are beholden only to us, who are of us, not a bunch of PUES, progressive until elected, that we currently see.
“just as many of us predicted months ago”
A hell of a lot of Conservatives predicted it, too. Naturally, we were called racists, corporate serfs, greedy abusers of the working class, dittoheads, murderers, blah, blah, blah.
Thank you SO much for following the usual Dem playbook: run right off a cliff while chasing pie in the sky, and drag the rest of the country with you.
The problem is the conservatives were for something even crazier. Single payer isn’t crazy. It has been tried in many countries and delivers better health outcomes at lower cost. That isn’t running off a cliff. That’s avoiding one.
I didn’t say Single Payer was crazy, and of course we didn’t get that anyway, did we? I said it was easily predictable (inevitable, really) that Congress would produce a piece of crap.
So, did we avoid the cliff, Hugh, or are we falling off it?