August 19, 2009
Many on the Left are blaming President Barack Obama and middle-of-the-road Democrats for maneuvering health-care reform into a fast-approaching head-on collision. And some of that criticism is well deserved for foolishly letting Republicans get their hands on the wheel at all.
6 comments:
Robert, once again you hit the nail squarely on the head but will anybody listen?
You are so right about the left's magical thinking. The recent health care debate is a case in point.
A majority of the those whom I call the "ideologically pure left", the gangs over at ZNet, CounterPunch and the further reaches of Leftblogistan, tenured college professors and their students, are fervently for the single payer health care system and will settle for nothing less.
Yet when I have pressed them, in online discussion forums, on how we are going to proceed in getting from Point A, the non-system health care we have now, to Point D, the nirvana of a single payer system, without going through Points B and C I am met with the Internet equivalent of the blank stare.
When I challenge the ideologically pure left, selling a single payer health care system to a guy like me is preaching to the choir; what is needed is selling the concept to the poor, dumb rednecks who hang onto Rush Limbaugh's every word, I'm met with hostility.
I'm coming closer to the conclusion that the ideologically pure left no more wants to get the nation off the snide than the reactionary right.
Thanks for this important article spelling it out! Some of us, in fighting for local progressive media outlets, have hit our heads against the wall over and over again after approaching those with money or influence to help us, only to be turned away again and again and told it's unnecessary! When we asked for help at procuring a local radio outlet they were only interested in the "new, sexy" media... the internet. When we said that the demographic we need to reach doesn't use the internet, it fell on deaf ears! After the '06 elections I sat in my congressperson's office and listened to his top aid tell me "what are you worried about? we have the congress now!" It is magical thinking! Keep writing about this, maybe it will eventually sink in!
No. This is wrong-headed. It's long been proven that polemics, scandal and even big lies are more marketable in big media. True, the truth needs to bet out there. Let's start by blockbusting big media, T. Roosevelt style. Maybe that will open up some possibilities.
Too, Liberals are more individual than Conservatives, just part of our nature.
Well, ya know what, Robert. That was then. This is now. (No matter what the issue is, you dredge up the 1980s, Iran-Contra, blah blah blah. Move into the 21st century and become a part of the solution!)
You're right that the Left often gets it wrong -- one way they get it wrong is that they are disjointed, all going off in different directions, not unified, not standing together, not pooling resources, all the "leaders' wanting to be in the spotlight. The Right, however, stays on message. They stick together.
But...with that said. If there is no meaningful health care reform, I lay it at the feet of Mr. Changey-hopey. He's the one who was successful in getting THAT message out, of hope and change, against great odds.
So, why the hell can't he do it again? He can't because he doesn't want to. He's a corporate tool. He deliberately engages in mixed messages to keep everyone wondering what the hell is going on. Oh, he's being such a smart chess player. He's so clever, he'll out-manuever the opposition. He sank the Clintons! Rah. Rah.
Obama's propaganda worked, too. He's a fake.
Get a clue, Robert.
At last, someone who see it as it is. I've always found it incredible that the republicans can get away with some of its antics. i.e. Calling the media liberal when in reality it is owned by right wing conservatives like Bloomberg and Murdock. Labeling Obama as a nazi when in reality they employ nazi tactics such as disrupting town hall meetings (just like the black boots used to do) thus never allowing the truth to be spoken or even having an honest debate.
This is only a small part of the plutocracy's efforts which began after Roosevelt and then Lyndon Johnson's 2nd wave of social programs "took their wealth" from them.
But it received a head of steam beginning with the Nixon Admin. After Olin, Bradley, Coors, etc. decided that enough was enough, they funded Heritage, CATO and so-called think tanks for policy issue development, employed the brains of Ralph Reed to help organize grassroots, bought the souls of the religious right so they had access to America's Ignorati (not stupid, simply lacking in knowledge and too lazy to seek it out), funded satellite networks coming out of Colorado Springs for the Christian churches, employed the media in all its forms (as noted), linked with corporate America so their CEOs could get closer to the plutocracy's levels of wealth ( a cheap buy), hired the Frank Luntz's of the world to manipulate language for their propaganda machine and disciplined themselves to stay on message. In sum, they got it all with a well thought-out plan and stuck to it while sticking it to intellectuals who just love to meet and talk about everything. And quite frankly, ideology is irrelevant so it makes no difference whether elected officials are democrats or republicans. They all sell their souls for their piece of the pie regardless how small or cheap it may be.
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