A few Republicans are probably just as
sincere about their own beliefs--"free" markets, "free" trade,
limited government, and so on. Most Republicans, however, don't
believe any such thing. Any candid observer can see that, because
their actions speak much louder than their words. If they really
did believe their own P.R., they'd fight "big government" by
opposing the biggest, costliest armed forces in the world. They'd
support an international free market in labor, allowing workers to
cross international borders as easily as corporations do. And
they'd be honest about their assessment of Obamacare and give up
the ludicrous charge that it's "socialism."
The Affordable Care Act is not, as the
Republicans pretend to believe, a government take-over of the
health insurance industry. It's a health insurance industry
take-over of the government. It's not socialism. It's
fascism.
It's very instructive to look at how the insurance companies reacted when the ACA was passed. I cannot find a transcript or audio of the interview I heard on NPR the morning after Congress passed the Act, but I do recall the NPR reporter suggesting that this legislation represented a "windfall" for the insurance industry. Did the industry spokesperson respond indignantly and complain about how much money the big insurance companies stood to lose from the enactment of the ACA? No, not at all. She calmly went into an explanation of how the ACA was going to work. And she certainly did not deny that the Act was going to lead to windfall profits for insurance companies.
The name Liz Fowler hasn't come up much in the few days since October 1, but that name draws over 20,000 hits on Google and 14,000 on Bing, mostly in stories from 2010 and 2012. Take, for instance, a story by progressive stalwart Bill Moyers (with copious quotes from the man who brought us the Edward Snowden revelations on the NSA, Glenn Greenwald; see http://billmoyers.com/2012/12/13/washington%E2%80%99s-revolving-door-is-hazardous-to-our-health/). The story notes that Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee (yes, the same committee at whose hearings the "Baucus 8" caused such a ruckus and got arrested for it), is a big fan of Fowler's. "After Obamacare passed," Moyers writes, "Senator Baucus himself, one of the biggest recipients in Congress of campaign cash from the health care industry, boasted that the architect of the legislation was none other than Liz Fowler." Moyers also informs us that Fowler once worked for WellPoint, the largest health insurance company in America. She then had her brief but momentous stint working for the Obama administration. Where does she work now? Johnson & Johnson.
All this chicanery cries out for action. Yes, we have to keep digging on important issues like health insurance in America, in order to separate the truth from the propaganda. But there comes a time when you have to take action.
The time has come, it seems to me, to go
beyond merely "speaking truth to power." The time has come to
simply take the power away from the people who have abused it. This
can be done legally, constitutionally, and non-violently. People
who support the Medicare for All idea must run for public office.
They only need to speak truth not to the powerful, but to the
voters.
The voters have gotten so used to being
lied to that, at first, they will blow the raspberries and wave
these new candidates away. But after awhile they'll begin to see
that these candidates are really telling the truth. Finally, some
of those voters will say to themselves: Hey, what have I got to
lose? I think I'll vote for one of those Single-Payer advocates.
Soon the idea will catch on. Hey, you can vote for a decent,
honorable person instead of a scoundrel. And you have a shot at
sweeping the scoundrel out of office in the process!
It can work. It does mean actually
competing with the Democrats and Republicans--not cozying up to
them. It means conflict. But, once again: it's legal, it's
constitutional, and it's non-violent. And it's probably the only
thing that's going to work. We must give it a serious try as soon
as possible.
1 Senator Dick Durbin must have
startled quite a few of his colleagues when he said, "Frankly, the
banks run this place."
2 Some of the instances of
give-aways to the big corporations and the upper-bracket "earners"
include:
--Barack Obama's refusal to let the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich sunset late in 2010, when he still had a chance to get it passed while the Democrats ostensibly controlled Congress. (See click here) Naturally Obama could have let taxes go up on the wealthy and negotiated for preventing them from going up on middle-income taxpayers, but he chose not to do that. If the Democrats--including, of course, the President--can't deliver on one of their progressive promises even when they have the opportunity to do so, then it's pretty clear there's no meaningful difference between the two major parties. And, once again, take note who the real winners were: the fat cats. They did just as well with a Democrat in the White House as they did with a Republican.
--The Financial Services Modernization Act
of 1999. The bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by
Democrat Bill Clinton, and overturned the Glass-Steagall separation
of investment and commercial banking that had worked so well since
it was established by Congress in 1933. The FSMA led to a giddy
celebration among the Wall Street bankers--and to the Crash of 2008
a few years later.
--The Obama campaign's promise to end the Iraq war in 16 months.
May 2010 came and went seemingly without a soul even whispering
about the Democratic President's obvious failure to do anything to
end the occupation of Iraq. Instead, Obama & Co. kept the war
going until the end of 2011, exactly as the Republican George W.
Bush had arranged, and no doubt pleasing the contractors and
mercenaries who got another year-and-a-half to do business in that
ruined country.
--The big bank bail-out of 2008. Congress at first rejected the
Bush administration's proposal to gift-wrap $700 billion and send
it to the very Wall Street bankers who had caused the crisis. (It's
interesting to note that more Democrats than Republicans in the
House voted with a Republican President on the bill. Party lines?
What party lines? See http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/04/business/fi-bailout4
) But within minutes of the vote in the House being announced, the
market took a nose-dive and ended the day almost 800 points down.
Suddenly both parties got the message. Within a few days the Senate
passed, in effect, another version of the bill that the House had
already rejected (which may not even have been constitutional,
since appropriations bills are supposed to start in the House, not
in the Senate; see Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution) and
the House dutifully passed it in short order. You've hardly ever
had a better example of the tail wagging the dog--the tail being
the Wall Street gang and the dog being their loyal puppies in the
U.S. Congress.
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