It’s foolish to think we can hold onto a majority by playing it safe and not getting anything done.  There is a whole lot of room to move between playing it safe and being crazy single-minded drones like Republicans.  No one is saying we should copy their MO, just a little of their conviction.

When we lose seats in 2010, as is highly likely, then we’ll all take to the blogs whining about how the Republicans are ramming stuff down our throats that we don’t like.  What the fuck are we doing now?

Ugh…you know, the truth is that though Democrats are supposed to be the liberal party, the party of opposition, they are not.  They truly are a hodgepodge of people who don’t like the modern Republican Party.  That doesn’t necessarily equal liberal or progressive.

So we have one party and a bunch of people who don’t like that party.  That’s it.

There are two things this brings to mind for me.  The first is the interview Bill Maher did with Bill Moyer a few weeks ago, where Moyer said that the reason Democrats can’t seem to accomplish things that have large public support (like meaningful health care reform) is because America is actually not a two-party democracy, it’s a one-party corporatocracy.  While we think we’re sending our representatives to Washington with our votes, our representatives think (correctly) that they’re actually being sent to Washington by the money they’ve raised from various corporations.  And because Democrats and Republicans get their money from the same corporations, they basically have the same non-progressive, status quo agenda once voted in, regardless of how they frame it in speeches.

Republicans are less hypocritical in this respect because conservatism by definition is keeping things as is, and Republicans are great at getting that done (hence their exclusion from the title of this post).  Democrats, on the other hand, have the extra hurdle of keeping things as is while making it look like they’re delivering on the change they promised.  Of course, there are always social issues that will genuinely get the support of one party over another; and for that reason alone our votes are still worth something.  But if the issue involves some large corporation’s bottom line– even for issues as grave as war– it’s almost always going to go whichever way Wall Street pushes it.

The other thing tigger500’s post brings to mind is a post by Matthew Yglesias a few weeks ago about how the prevailing moral value in Washington is cynical self-interest.  Yglesias writes:

For example, Senators who genuinely do believe that carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to a global climate crisis seem to think nothing of nevertheless taking actions that endanger the welfare of billions of people on the grounds that acting otherwise would be politically problematic in their state. In other words, they don’t want to do the right thing because their self-interest points them toward doing something bad. But it’s impossible to imagine these same Senators stabbing a homeless person in a dark DC alley to steal his shoes. And what’s more, the entire political class would be (rightly!) shocked and appalled by the specter of a Senator murdering someone for personal gain. Yet it’s actually taken for granted that “my selfish desires dictate that I do x” constitutes a legitimate reason to do the wrong thing on important legislation.

So basically you have a lot of politicians, Democrat and Republican, whose primary guiding value on every issue is whatever will help them get reelected.  Voting for health care reform may be a godsend to the millions of their constituents who are uninsured and underinsured and the millions more who are vulnerable to health-care-induced bankruptcy.  But if that means opening themselves up to attack in 2010 from a primary challenger who might run commercials labeling them a socialist or might put their picture up next to a potentially unpopular Obama, they won’t do it.

And if there’s any doubt that self-interest is the prevailing value in Washington, consider that 90% to 98% of House incumbents get reelected every term, which is among the highest incumbency rates in the world (over the last 20 years, the Senate has been between 75% and 96%).  There simply is nothing else that gets accomplished by Congress with that kind of bipartisan consistency.

With that said, Obama will get some version of health care reform passed this year, if for no other reason than because he’s gotten the insurance companies on board.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that he’s gotten the insurance companies on board, which no doubt means that somewhere there’s been a tradeoff where the American people are getting screwed at the expense of higher profits.  If Matt Taibbi’s enlightening and devastating Rolling Stone article is any indication, our government is currently fixing our broken health care system by putting lipstick on the pig and then forcing everyone to buy into it (two things Obama vehemently opposed during the campaign).

The public option has already been watered down because Republicans argued against it, saying it would provide Americans with better coverage at lower cost and thus force insurance companies to improve their services or go out of business.  Let me say that again.  The argument against the public option is that it would provide Americans with better coverage at lower cost.  Is there any question who our politicians really work for?

The bottom line is that there are certain very serious crises– like health care and global warming– that involve deeply entrenched corporate interests, and our government in its current state cannot fix them.  The inmates will never regulate the asylum (as we saw illustrated by last year’s financial collapse), especially if it means getting back in their cells and handing the keys over to the warden.

The maddeningly simple solution to all this is two-fold: campaign finance reform and congressional term limits. Campaign finance reform, if done properly, will take the corporate money out of politics.  It will ensure that our health care legislation will not be written by politicians whose campaigns are dependent upon funding from Aetna, Blue Cross, and Kaiser Permanente.  It will ensure that our global warming legislation is not sponsored by the good people at Exxon Mobil.  And it will ensure that our leaders in Washington don’t dedicate half their time and resources to raising money.

Congressional term limits will put a big dent in the plague of Washington self-interest.  It will ensure that all 535 members of Congress aren’t at all times facing a future reelection bid.  It will ensure that there are no nine-term 91-year-old U.S. Senators who are faced with the choice of getting reelected and rejoining lifelong colleagues back in Washington to work for another six years or going back home to West Virginia to die.  And it will ensure that things like morality and the greater good have a bigger say in our government, and that every decision Congress makes isn’t solely dependent on the individual fortunes of those voting.

Will campaign finance reform and congressional term limits solve all our government’s problems?  No.  We’ll think of new ones.  But the fact is, our political system is broken; it works reliably and efficiently for those in it, but not for the people it’s meant to serve.  Simply put, corporate money and unlimited term limits are cancers that infect everything our government does.  Unless we cut them out completely, the concerns of ordinary Americans will continue to be a distant third on Washington’s list of priorities.

POSTSCRIPT: Right now, in a case that has received very little media attention (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission), the Supreme Court is in the process of lifting the current restrictions on corporate spending in political elections.  Needless to say, this would pour gasoline on every single issue our country faces.  The corporate personhood argument being made by conservative justices is based on the belief that our founding fathers intended for corporations to have the same rights and privileges– including contributing to political campaigns– as individuals.  First, this entire argument is based not on any prior court decision or anything our founding fathers ever said, but on an off-the-record comment made by Chief Justice Morrison Waite in 1886.  Second, this is a case where legal theory pales in comparison to the stark reality of what a Biblical flood of special-interest money would do to our government.  Meanwhile, Justice Sonia Sotomayor– in one of her first significant actions on the Court– is challenging the entire foundation of corporate personhood law.  Unfortunately, she appears to be outnumbered.

Related posts:

1. On Politics and the Sorry State of Affairs (or, you know, the Democrats)
2. Confused by the Health Care Debate?
3. How Facebook taught me to fear and loathe Sarah Palin

Part of it is that life gets in the way and a brotha ain’t always got time to sit down and take stock of everything that is happening.   And part of it is that I’m losing faith that we liberals always taking to the innanets is even effective.

But this was a big week, folks.  Big education speech.  Big health care speech.  White folks still freakin’ out about the fact that the president got some melanin.  And one of the tried and true liberal visionaries lost his job, leaving Obama with pretty much no one on the Left with which to work.

Time to say something.

But what do I say that I haven’t said already?  I wrote a few months ago about my frustration with the Democrats?  But I wanna take it a step further:

I do not believe there is a progressive movement in this country, which is why I think the Democrats are so ineffectual.

To wit:  Brilliant reporting on how the Democrats fucked up health care from jump.

To wit:

I identify completely with Maher’s core message, which is that Obama and the Democrats won the last two elections and that gives them some license to do what they think is right.

Who is standing up for the millions of Americans who do want health care reform?  Who is standing up for the millions of Americans who want to address global warming, mandatory minimum sentencing, our crumbling infrastructure, and the sorry state of our schools?

Or, to put it the other way, who is holding their feet to the fire so that they can do these things?

There are 59 Democrats in the Senate.  There is a solid Democratic majority in the House.  And the President is a Democrat.

President Barack Obama, flanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. on Capitol Hill in Washington Jan. 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Can we get something done?

You know, I read the liberal and mainstream blogs and there is passion to spare.  I just don’t know why it doesn’t seem to make it to the Halls of Congress.  Maybe Democratic members of Congress really don’t give a shit about their constituents and so our passion falls on deaf ears.  Maybe our passion is misdirected.  We get outraged at the other side’s racism, but when it looks a bit like something we’d do or say ourselves, we are a lot less quiet.

When are we going to take the Republicans as seriously as they take us?

There is a real, palpable fear of the most powerful man in the world being a Black man and it continues to be the driving force behind the Republican party’s MO. What that means in practical terms is hard to describe.  And because it is hard to describe, so many of us think that means it’s probably not a big deal, it’s probably just the (mis)perception of old school black politicians and black nationalists who hate Whitey, and it’ll die out because “the demographic trends are in our favor.”

And while we take the “wait it out” approach, The Second Reconstruction is ending.

We are gutting the Voting Rights Act, ruling that if you have to choose between discriminating against black folks or leveling the playing field for everyone (which, actually means that everyone has about the same chance of getting screwed), eh, go for the discriminating against black folks.

We haven’t given voting rights to D.C. residents, we haven’t passed a bill to keep people in their homes (which, by the by, wouldn’t cost the taxpayer anything), and we are screwing up the health care and energy bills.  Oh – also we have them 59 votes in the Senate, but the Republicans are holding up many of Obama’s executive branch and judicial nominees, like Tom Perez and Dawn Johnsen.

Oh but we do something.  As Bill said, the other side whines and cries or outright lies about something and Democrats capitulate.   Van Jones should not have resigned.  Single payer should never have been off the table.  We should be investigating the extent to which torture was sanctioned and take it all the way to the top.

Why?  Because we have to stand for something.

It’s foolish to think we can hold onto a majority by playing it safe and not getting anything done.  There is a whole lot of room to move between playing it safe and being crazy single-minded drones like Republicans.  No one is saying we should copy their MO, just a little of their conviction.

When we lose seats in 2010, as is highly likely, then we’ll all take to the blogs whining about how the Republicans are ramming stuff down our throats that we don’t like.  What the fuck are we doing now?

Ugh…you know, the truth is that though Democrats are supposed to be the liberal party, the party of opposition, they are not.  They truly are a hodgepodge of people who don’t like the modern Republican Party.  That doesn’t necessarily equal liberal or progressive.

So we have one party and a bunch of people who don’t like that party.  That’s it.

I like diversity as much as the next guy. But it seems to me that every group within the Democratic rank and file likes having different folks around, long as those folks don’t get in the way of what they want.  So teachers’ unions can hold up education reform.  And Blue Dogs can hold up anything that isn’t “fiscally responsible.”

But this is what you get when the only thing your party can agree on is that you don’t like the old White guys across the aisle.

It really is enough to make you want to disengage.  I like to listen to the president speak.  I’m even moved, mostly.  But I really think the time for speeches is over.

I think its time to govern.

Related posts:

1. Money and self-interest: Why the Democrats can’t get anything done
2. Confused by the Health Care Debate?
3. Van Jones Resigns

So you know how there’s all this chatter about the health care debate and you have no idea what anyone is talking about?

Curious which proposal will actually cover the 50 milllion uninsured? Which one will give White Republican men heart attacks by raising taxes? Which one might actually improve the health care you already got?

Right. Me too.

Well the Kaiser Family Foundation has created a new tool on its website that allows you to compare what the various health care proposals would actually do.

Word of warning – it’s still written in slight jargon.

Enjoy!

Compare Health Care Proposals.

Related posts:

1. How Facebook taught me to fear and loathe Sarah Palin
2. Money and self-interest: Why the Democrats can’t get anything done
3. On Politics and the Sorry State of Affairs (or, you know, the Democrats)