The Disparity Between Progressives on Health Care Reform

When Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) flipped his position and agreed to vote in favor of the current health care legislation earlier this week, many progressive activists from around the country felt as if they had been kicked in the gut.

Kucinich has long been a Democratic hold-out, voicing his staunch opposition to any health care legislation that did not include a public option. The fact that this legislation does not include a public option has caused a rift between those on the Left who feel that passing the current legislation is an important means to an end and those who feel that legislation without a public option is simply a giveaway to the insurance companies.

This disparity between progressive positions was on display during a very interesting and constructive conversation on today's Democracy Now!. The guests were none other than Rep. Kucinich and Ralph Nadar. While lengthy, the whole segment is worth watching and I have included it at the bottom, but here are a few highlights from the transcript that illustrate perfectly the difference in position.

AMY GOODMAN: Have you ever received as much pressure as you’re getting right now, as you have gotten right now, right down to your flight on Air Force One with President Obama?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: The pressure doesn’t really come so much from the outside. I mean, I had people who are for this and against it with equal intensity. What the pressure comes from, being told that you might be singularly responsible for the passage or failure of an initiative and having to live with the implications of that.

Amy, I did not want to be in the House on Sunday night with my voting card, you know, and a finger in the wind about what to do. And looking at the bigger picture here, I’m hopeful that in making this decision to switch in favor of voting for the bill, that we can use this opportunity to, down the road, push for the kind of health reform that I am for, that I stand for, that I’ve worked my life for. But it’s not going to happen in this bill. And there’s a point at which you just have to maturely look at the situation as it is and say, no matter what I do, it’s not going to change this bill. And I’ve tried harder than anyone, but, you know, it’s just not going to happen.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Ralph Nader, what about this issue of the seventy-seven other members of Congress who pledged not to support this bill? We’ve had quite a few of them on this show—Raul Grijalva, Anthony Weiner. What about the others who also have gradually agreed to support this bill?

RALPH NADER: They’ve all caved. They’ve all been put into line by the majority rulers in the House. So that’s not going to change, Juan.

What—I think Dennis Kucinich has been known as the great dissenter in the Democratic Party—against the criminal wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, for impeaching Bush and Cheney, for single payer, on and on. His subcommittee hearings, which are almost never covered by the press, provide a standard for what House subcommittees should be investigating all over the country. But I think he owes an explanation to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of progressive Americans, many of whom who watch this show, who have clinged to Dennis Kucinich as the great dissenter, as the principled person, as the person who will hold the banner high. “The Star-Spangled Banner” has this phrase, “And the flag was still there.” But for the progressives in this country, they want to keep saying, “And Dennis Kucinich was still there.” So I would like him to go all over the country, after this malicious vote by the Democrats in the House, and address audiences all over, starting a complete new wave for full Medicare for all before this bill kicks in in 2014, so all the members running for reelection in 2010 are going to have to face it.

And I hope people will visit the videos that are on singlepayeraciton.org to show how many of his colleagues react when they’re confronted with a reporter asking the question, “The majority of the American people, doctors and nurses want this system. They want free choice of doctor and hospital. They want the insurance companies displaced with full single payer. Why aren’t you for it?” You look at their faces as they try to squirm out of that. That’s the moral position. They know it. But they’re caving into the enormous lobbying power of the drug and insurance companies, which are deploying over 2,000 full-time lobbyists on Capitol Hill as we speak.

AMY GOODMAN: Dennis Kucinich, your response? And also to Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake, who asked if you were going to be giving back the money to people who gave to you all over the country because you said you would not support healthcare reform without a public option?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: First of all, with respect to Jane Hamsher, I talked to her yesterday, and I also indicated through my campaign early yesterday that anybody who contributed, you know, with the hopes that I was going to vote against the legislation unless it had a public option, that of course they’re going to get their money back, because I changed my position.

Now, with respect to what Ralph Nader just said about the need to keep a strong public—a strong single-payer campaign going, absolutely. I mean, you know, I haven’t changed my position one bit on single payer. I’m not suddenly saying, “Oh, gee, this for-profit model is something we ought to consider.” I don’t like it. I just want to make sure that everyone understands that the minute this bill is done, reforms within the context of a for-profit system, we have to accelerate that, and at the same time, a parallel track of continuing to pursue single payer. I agree with Ralph Nader on that.

Dorgan and Dodd Will Not Seek Re-election, Nader Ponders Entering Senate Race

Democratic Senators are dropping like flies over the last few days. Both Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) are retiring from the Senate and will not seek re-election bids in 2010. In an election year that is already said to be tight for Democrats, these announcements put a big question mark on if these Senate seats will be able to remain blue.

So who are so-called "winners" and "losers" of these decisions? Glenn Thrush of Politico has some ideas:

Winners:

1. Joe Lieberman. Let's see, we started the year with a posse of Dems looking to pants the Connecticut Independent for demeaning Barack Obama from the podium of the Republican National Convention. Then Harry Reid and Obama intervened to save his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee -- and he rewarded them by single-handedly scuttling the public option and expansion of Medicare.

Now a new gift for the independent who already has everything. Dodd's departure removes Connecticut AG Dick Blumenthal from the 2012 race, removing the gravest threat to Lieberman yet -- and explaining, perhaps, why Lieberman's Cheshire grin is especially wide these days.

3. Wall Street, Ben Bernanke and Barney Frank. Still a huge open question, but Dodd's exit throws the fast-evolving bipartisan -- yes, bipartisan -- Wall Street regulation effort into semi-disarray. It would be going too far to say that Dodd's bill will be derailed, but financial industry lobbyists and their defenders on the Hill now have an excuse to slow walk the entire process. On the other hand, voters are demanding some payback for the financial crisis and bailouts -- and want some kind of reg reform, Dodd or no Dodd.

On to the details... Dodd's bill would strip bank oversight from the Fed. Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, favors vesting that power with Fed boss Ben Bernanke, despite the Fed's poor oversight in the years leading up to the meltdown. Having Dodd on the way out might strengthen the Frank/Bernanke hand.

Losers.

3. Rob Simmons and Linda McMahon. Alas, it was too good too last. Blumenthal is as popular as any Democrat in Connecticut right now, with sky-high name recognition and a decades-long rep as a corruption fighter. The NRSC and the state party had been pulling their punches for weeks in hopes that Dodd would retain enough of a pulse to stay, wounded and ripe, in the race. That's over. While Dodd and GOP Gov. Jodi Rell tanked over the summer with below-40 percent approval ratings, Blumenthal happy number was hovering around 80 (!) percent.

That's unsustainable. But Democrats are heaving a huge sigh of relief this morning that Blumenthal is now their candidate instead of Dodd -- regardless of all the "Black Tuesday" headlines.

7. Liberals. This time next year, the Senate will have lost its two leading veteran progressives -- Ted Kennedy and Dodd. Moreover, Dodd's perceived crony relationship with Wall Street -- Angelo's List, AIG, etc. -- turned him into something of a populist crusader on credit cards and other financial regulatory matters over the last 12 months. Blumenthal has similar liberal/populist views -- even though he opposes same-sex marriage -- but he's far less connected, forceful or charismatic a liberal standard-bearer than Dodd.

The news about Chris Dodd is also interesting because the Green Party of Connecticut is strongly pushing consumer advocate and former Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader to run for a Senate seat out of Connecticut later this year. There is a Facebook Group created to this affect that has over 2,100 members that is also encouraging citizens from all over the country to call his offices and encourage him to run.

Nader has thus-far been non-committal saying that he wants to gauge the level of grassroots support before making an announcement and it is unclear how Dodd's retirement will affect Nader's decision.

2010 election buzz is heating up, so I am sure this will only get more interesting as we go along.

Nader and Klein Blast Obama

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader and journalist Naomi Klein both had articles yesterday that blasted President Obama for not pushing hard for change on various issues.

I respect both of these figures and I think that their criticisms are worth reading in full. In the meantime, here are a couple of snippets from each.

Ralph Nader:

Given all the burgeoning crises in the United States and the world, the only global military and economic superpower (albeit in serious deficit straits) needs a transforming leader, when, at best, it has a transactional leader in the White House.

I say "at best," because President Obama displays an uncanny inability to deal. He is not even anywhere near Lyndon Baines Johnson in that regard. This lack is due more to his personality than to his character.

His is a concessionary demeanor, an aversion to conflict and to taking on entrenched power, a devotee of harmony ideology not because he doesn't believe in necessary re-directions, but because he does not project the strength of his beliefs and willingness to draw the line-here and no further-as did Ronald Reagan or FDR.

In the shark tank known as the federal Washington, D.C. Obama's personality projects weakness as someone who does not take a stand and fight, as someone inclined to rely on his rhetoric to explain his withdrawals, retreats and reversals.

Naomi Klein:

Contrary to countless reports, the debacle in Copenhagen was not everyone's fault. It did not happen because human beings are incapable of agreeing, or are inherently self-destructive. Nor was it all was China's fault, or the fault of the hapless UN.

There's plenty of blame to go around, but there was one country that possessed unique power to change the game. It didn't use it. If Barack Obama had come to Copenhagen with a transformative and inspiring commitment to getting the U.S. economy off fossil fuels, all the other major emitters would have stepped up. The EU, Japan, China and India had all indicated that they were willing to increase their levels of commitment, but only if the U.S. took the lead. Instead of leading, Obama arrived with embarrassingly low targets and the heavy emitters of the world took their cue from him.

[...]

Imagine if these three huge economic engines -- the banks, the auto companies, the stimulus bill -- had been harnessed to a common green vision. If that had happened, demand for a complementary energy bill would have been part of a coherent transformative agenda.

Whether the bill had passed or not, by the time Copenhagen had rolled around, the U.S. would already have been well on its way to dramatically cutting emissions, poised to inspire, rather than disappoint, the rest of the world.

There are very few U.S. Presidents who have squandered as many once-in-a-generation opportunities as Barack Obama. More than anyone else, the Copenhagen failure belongs to him.

Ralph Nader and Bill Moyers Weigh in on Health Care

As the debate over health care rages on, there are a couple of items that I wanted to point your attention to.

Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader has a new piece over at CommonDreams.org which discusses the efforts of six physicians from Oregon. They have embarked on a cross-country journey in a Winnebago to 30 cities to discuss health care, debate critics, and push for a single-payer health care system that would cover all Americans.

The tour is called the "Mad as Hell Doctors" and they plan on arriving in Washington D.C. on October 1st. They have requested a meeting with President Obama, but the White House has turned them down. From Nader's piece:

The White House turned them down flat, not even leaving the door open for reconsideration. Mr. Obama has met countless times with the CEOs of large corporations, whose greed and callousness causes so much of this crisis. Though he believes in single payer "if we started from scratch," he has yet to meet with any single payer delegation.

The White House has shown that it lacks smarts. The formless, waffling Obama health insurance proposal is being shattered by the Republican cluster of Limbaugh-driven lies and the Blue Dog renegades in the Democratic Party, who are busy cashing mounds of campaign checks from the so-called health business. By ignoring and excluding the majority-supported single payer approach, the White House stifles any kind of insurance reform worthy of the name.

[...]

As with war, truth is the first casualty when it comes to the health care debate. The Democratically-controlled Congress, on its return after Labor Day, needs a wide-ranging personal, evidence-based series of public House and Senate hearings to again publicize the compelling story of avoidable suffering, fraud, waste, egregious profiteering and top executive self-enrichment - all subsidized by taxpayers.

Journalist and television host of The Bill Moyers Journal, Bill Moyers, was on Bill Maher's program the other evening discussing health care and other various issues. The three videos of his 30-min. long interview are below and are well worth your time:







Locally, Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) is having another public meeting on health care this evening at 7PM at the 20th Century Theater in Oakley. As I have reported, both of his previous meetings have brought out protesters against health care reform, supporters of reform, and protesters who are in support of a single-payer system. It is expected that tonight will bring out many of the same sentiments. I will be there to get reactions from outside the meeting.

I will take this opportunity to mention two items that are somewhat related. First, while I will be shooting video at tonight's event, my editing software has been giving me all kinds of fits. I have ordered new software which should alleviate the problem, but it is not yet in my possession. Hopefully I will be able to post some of the material that I will shoot later this evening, but as I have learned, no guarantees. Secondly, I will be travelling beginning on Thursday and will be back in town on Monday. Blogging will be little to non-existent over this time period, but please take the time to still visit and catch up on many of the videos that I have posted that you may not have had the time to watch.

9/11/01: Seven Years Later Where Do We Stand?

As I sat in Memorial Hall this past Monday and listened to Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader address the crowd on various issues, my mind began to wander through all that has happened in this country since September 11, 2001. We often hear that it was the "day that changed everything" and our current leaders often accuse critics of thinking in a "pre-9/11 mindset", but with so much of this rhetoric used in order to achieve political gain we often find ourselves in discussions that are empty of substance. It is simply unproductive and intellectually dishonest to operate under the mindset that a second time-line of historical events began on 9/11/01. While it is certainly true that the events which transpired on that day radically altered the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, these attacks and the subsequent policy decisions implemented by our country's leadership must continue to be understood within the broader context of history and examined with a critical eye.

Immediately following 9/11 the Bush Administration and the leadership in Congress embarked upon a foreign policy that has resulted in an occupation of two countries, a crackdown on civil liberties at home, and the expansion of economic forces into areas of the world that are of strategic importance to so-called "American interests". This expansion of economic forces has led to a rapid increase in the corporate influence over war and occupation. It was first reported in the Los Angeles Times in July, 2007 that the number of private contractors in Iraq exceeded the number of U.S. troops. The private contractors in Iraq do everything from providing oil services to guarding high level diplomats:

The most controversial contractors are those working for private security companies, including Blackwater, Triple Canopy and Erinys. They guard sensitive sites and provide protection to U.S. and Iraqi government officials and businessmen.
Security contractors draw some of the sharpest criticism, much of it from military policy experts who say their jobs should be done by the military. On several occasions, heavily armed private contractors have engaged in firefights when attacked by Iraqi insurgents.
Others worry that the private security contractors lack accountability. Although scores of troops have been prosecuted for serious crimes, only a handful of private security contractors have faced legal charges.

Most importantly, these private contractors who perform functions usually designated to the military, are not beholden to any public interest but to a bottom line. Companies like Blackwater, have already had their contracts renewed in Iraq and are expanding their services domestically (which I will discuss in a moment).
Like the foreign policy decisions implemented since 9/11/01, domestic policy has been passed which has done little for the advancement of Democracy. The PATRIOT ACT was passed a little over a month after the attacks on the World Trade Center and has only aided in the crackdown on civil liberties and dissent within the United States. The most recent example of this was in St. Paul, Minnesota for the Republican National Convention. This Convention saw preemptive police raids on media groups and journalists arrested for doing their job. The city of St. Paul with the help of Federal officials worked to stamp out dissenting voices using police intimidation and force. 8 members of the RNC Welcoming Committee were arrested in one of the preemptive house raids and have been charged with "furthering terrorism" under a Minnesota law that is similar to the PATRIOT Act. This is explained in a recent piece authored by Nat Perry and posted on consortiumnews.com:

The language of the Minnesota law is eerily similar to the original Patriot Act, passed hastily in the aftermath of 9/11. Section 802 of the Patriot Act defines domestic terrorism as "activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or any state; (B) appear to be intended (i) to influence policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (ii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. ..."
Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Bar Association have long objected to this definition, particularly the provision of (B)(i). The prohibition against seeking to influence government policy by "intimidation" is so vague and so subjective that virtually any act of civil disobedience or confrontational protest could fit under the definition, the critics have said.

In addition to vague legislation which is being used to clamp down and even criminalize dissent, we are now seeing the domestic expansion of private contracting firms. Blackwater is notorious for their actions in Iraq and most notably for their involvement in the Nissour Square Massacre, but a recent article in the Los Angeles Times by reporter Jeremy Scahill makes it clear that private contracting firms see the United States as an open market as well:

Blackwater is also winning at home. The company recently fought back widespread local opposition to its plans for a new warfare training center in San Diego. When residents and local officials tried to block it, Blackwater sued the city. A federal judge, appointed by President Bush's father, ordered San Diego to stand down. Now the company is entrenched, guns a blazin', in San Diego and is well positioned to cash in on the increasingly privatized border-patrol industry.
Blackwater's California expansion is just one of several ventures that reveal how Blackwater is growing. Among the others:
* Prince's private spy agency, Total Intelligence Solutions, is now open for business. Run by three veteran CIA operatives, the company offers "CIA-type services" to governments and Fortune 1000 companies.
* Blackwater was asked by the Pentagon to bid for a share of a whopping $15-billion contract to "fight terrorists with drug-trade ties" in countries such as Colombia, Bolivia, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Analysts say it could be the company's "biggest job" ever.
* Blackwater is wrapping up work on its own armored vehicle, the Grizzly, as well as its Polar Airship 400, a surveillance blimp Blackwater wants to market for use in monitoring the U.S.-Mexico border.

Given the accountability concerns that were discussed earlier in this piece as well as the overall concerns over a corporation performing these types of services, I decided to ask Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader about this issue during his recent discussion at Memorial Hall. I asked Nader if he would speak to the significance of the growing influence of private contracting firms with tasks that have traditionally been run by the government. Nader stated that this is "another step towards fascism" in today's society. "There should be a group whose purpose it is to put Blackwater out of business," Nader continued, "There have got to be indicators when a society is on their way to fascism...these are the indicators."

So here we are, seven years after the attacks that have led to a war on a feeling, the occupation of countries, the suppression of rights and liberties at home, and the failure to have an honest discourse on exactly what is happening to this country. It should have been an indication to the path we were on when President Bush had to be pushed into even having an investigation into the 9/11 attacks by the family members of those killed. Critical thinking and transparency have been sacrificed in the name of fear and security and those who stand up to defend the Constitution are now labeled as "soft on terror" and caught in the "pre 9/11 mindset". While the attacks on 9/11/01 were a defining moment in the eyes of many Americans we simply can not let ourselves be caught up in the rhetoric that so often surrounds that day. We must view 9/11 in its historical context and examine the events that have happened since that day by utilizing a full historical timeline. Violations of the Constitution should not be acceptable simply because "we were attacked" and detainees shouldn't be tortured because "there are people who want to kill us." The path on which this country finds itself is unacceptable and we must stand up and demand that it change. Let us use this seventh anniversary of these attacks to mourn those who were lost that day, mourn those who have become casualties of imperialist policies since that day, and declare that all of this madness has gone far enough.

This article can also be found at: http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com