Liberal Anatomy (1)

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The gushing has begun…

Michael Moore: The Great Thing About the Health Care Law That Has Passed? It Will Save Republican Lives, Too…Please, my Republican friends, if you can, take a quiet moment away from your AM radio and cable news network this morning and be happy for your country. We’re doing better. And we’re doing it for you, too.

Paul Begala: Hallelujah! I have been working for Democratic and progressive causes for 29 years, and I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder than today. When David Obey swung that gavel, it made a joyful noise unto the Lord.

Editor’s Note: [print_link] On many occasions we have tried to warn our readers about the notorious unreliability of liberals in the struggle to build a new society; the unstable commitment of those who mouth what sounds like sensible, progressive rhetoric but whose actions (and recommendations) remain firmly anchored within the boundaries of what is acceptable and permissible to the system they pretend to oppose. This is not the place to go into a long discussion of liberalism, but let’s say the following: By and large liberals are bourgeois creatures, even when they define themselves as “socialist” (i.e., social democrats). Their “solutions” to the abuses and crimes of capitalism, therefore, are never “systemic” or structural and usually devolve into mere cosmetics, alleviating symptoms but not stamping out the sources of the disease.  Consistent with their high perch on the social pyramid, this well-heeled liberal tribe enjoys plenty of access to the establishment media but it never uses it to go against the core values and dynamics of what makes the capitalist system a deeply hierarchic, and criminally exploitative arrangement. They never dare to question in a consistent and persistent way the sanctity of the lopsided “social relations” that constitute capitalism. The aforementioned is not to draw an absolutistic line in the sand. Many will argue that some liberal reforms are worth fighting for, and we agree.  But it’s a question of relative content and direction—chiefly we must ask: where are the reforms leading? On balance, was the reform a distraction, a fig leaf, or a material concession likely to grow into a victory for the average citizen?

FDR’s (and later LBJ’s) social security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, public education supports, civil rights, etc. enacted —it must be noted—during periods of widespread mobilization at the grassroots level—showed that the masses were better off with some protections from the Darwinian jungle of capitalism as opposed to none. But these reforms had some teeth, and were, despite their shortcomings and plenty of dilutions since, proto-socialist islands in the vaster, always threatening toxic capitalist ocean, providing a model for where society could and should go.  Today, after decades of ideological attacks by the right these islands, though battered, remain enormously popular, and therefore immune against serious rollback (although lies, as usual, endanger them, for example the notion that we need to privatize social security to make it solvent). Obama’s much ballyhooed healthcare reform is no such thing. It is essentially a highly deficient, impossibly complicated (by design) piece of legislation (some have aptly compared it to a Rube Goldberg machine) and whose squalid usefulness and popularity have been amply demonstrated in Massachussets.

As elaborated elsewhere on this website by many capable authors, the Obama healthcare plan remains a gigantic giveaway conceded without a real fight to a group of criminal industries that have ruthlessly ripped off the American people for generations. (Considering how Wall Street looks at social legislation, you have to wonder why the Dow Jones shot up upon hearing the news that the bill had passed). Private insurance and Big Pharma naturally stand out in this disgusting parade of unfettered greed and self-interest, but big for profit hospitals and reactionary physicians share in the blame for buttressing a system where the profit motive remains the chief and central criterion dictating access for most citizens instead of a secondary consideration, if allowed at all.  With the signing of this bill, the “courtier liberals”, the “progressive celebs”, and the Beltway Democratic party insiders, are coming out in force to break out the champagne to toast this supposedly magnificent achievement. Well, thanks for nothing, pal. Too little too late. Keep your bloody champagne. Meanwhile by their gushes you will recognize them. It’s obvious that, ahistorical as they are, liberals continue to believe in illusions, thereby deluding themselves and others. Below we reproduce in toto a typical salvo by Beltway liberal, Robert Kuttner crowing that Obama has finally found his true lodestar as a courageous, progressive leader. It ran on The Huffington Post, where I suspect we’ll be seeing more of these ludicrous exhibitions. One thing I can say for sure: I wish we could believe in fairytales, as so many liberals do. And I do hope, for the sake of this country, that I’m proven 100% wrong.—Patrice Greanville

Defining Moment

BY Robert Kuttner

Co-Founder and Co-Editor of The American Prospect

Posted: March 21, 2010 11:14 PM

We have just witnessed what could be a turning point in the Obama presidency. In many respects we can thank Scott Brown. For it took the humiliating loss of Ted Kennedy’s senate seat, and the even deeper incipient humiliation of lost health reform, for Obama to be reborn as a fighter. It remains to be seen whether he will match the resolve that he finally summoned on health reform with comparable leadership on all of the other challenges he yet faces.

But even those of us who were lukewarm on this bill should savor the moment and honor Obama’s odyssey. His Saturday speech was simply the greatest of his presidency. It reminded us of the inspirational figure in whom so many of us invested such hopes last summer and fall. If you have been on Jupiter and somehow missed the speech, you owe it to yourself to watch it.

At long last, we saw this president leading, as only a president can. And we saw him leading as a progressive Democrat, finally admitting that no common ground with today’s Republicans is possible, narrating stories we all can recognize about the human tragedy that is our current health care system.

We saw him reminding Democratic congressmen and women why progress on health reform is good politics. We saw him using gentle ridicule on the Republicans, who have suddenly become oddly solicitous of the Democrats’ congressional majority.

I noticed that there’s been a lot of friendly advice offered all across town. (Laughter.) Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Karl Rove — they’re all warning you of the horrendous impact if you support this legislation. Now, it could be that they are suddenly having a change of heart and they are deeply concerned about their Democratic friends. (Laughter.) They are giving you the best possible advice in order to assure that Nancy Pelosi remains Speaker and Harry Reid remains Leader and that all of you keep your seats. That’s a possibility. (Laughter.)

But it may also be possible that they realize after health reform passes and I sign that legislation into law, that it’s going to be a little harder to mischaracterize what this effort has been all about.

We watched Obama master the mechanics of legislative politics, cobbling together a majority one vote at a time. And we observed the Republican right reduced to sputtering frustration.

What a splendid shift from the Obama who less than a month ago went imploringly to reason with the House Republican Caucus.

Until very recently, the press treated this battle as a symmetrical stand-off. Now, with the president at last regaining control of the narrative, the Republicans are revealed as pure obstructionists. As the bill takes effect and citizens actually experience benefits (and as Obama said, “Lo and behold, nobody is pulling the plug on Grandma,”) the Republicans will lose both as the party of No, and as a party that tried and failed to block a beneficial reform that citizens will come to value.

It has taken more than fourteen months for Obama to vindicate as president the leadership potential that we saw on the campaign trail; fourteen months to give up on the fantasy of bipartisanship; fourteen months to start truly inspiring ordinary people as he did as a candidate.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deserves to share this moment. She never gave up on this legislation, and she kept after Obama and his aides to be tougher, smarter, and unapologetically partisan. She as much as Obama did the hard work of pulling together a majority, and kept Obama from caving in to Rahm Emanuel’s advice to seek a puny bill that the Republicans might support.

The media is notorious for exaggerating the ups and downs of a president. A few weeks ago, Obama and health reform were doomed and Obama was not up to the job. In the coming days, we will see a jubilant Obama on the cover of newsmagazines. He will be lionized as a giant-killer. His approval ratings will rise, both because more Americans are paying attention to the beneficial features of the bill as opposed to the Republican caricatures and because Americans love a winner.

Whether he continues to earn these accolades depends on what he does next, now that the long distraction of health reform is finally behind us. For this come-from behind victory is only the first step in a long road back to the presidency we thought we were getting when we voted for Barack Obama.

The financial system is setting itself up for a second collapse, as new speculative maneuvers make insiders rich and add risks to the rest of the system. The bill working its way through the Senate is far too weak to fix what is broken. We are inviting new scandals, even before we get to the bottom of what really happened at Lehman Brothers and at AIG.

Mortgage foreclosures continue to increase far faster than the Administration’s feeble program of subsidizing the banks can provide relief to homeowners. Credit is still very tight because of the administration’s strategy of putting Wall Street bank balance sheets ahead of recovery on Main Street.

Last week’s signing ceremony in the Rose Garden for a pitifully small jobs bill was enough to wilt the roses. It was a relic of what we get when we strive for bipartisanship. With the economy short at least eleven million jobs, Obama himself has appointed a bipartisan deficit-reduction commission stacked with members who are almost certain to call for massive cuts in social investment that America needs.

And the health bill itself only begins the long task of wresting control of the health care system from callous insurance and drug companies. We still have to fight for a real public option that is the first step towards national health insurance.

But in the springtime of March 2010, we have seen a president who evidently has learned how to lead, who relishes winning, and who is primed to become a more effective progressive. For that we should be grateful. It should whet his appetite as a fighter — and ours.

Robert Kuttner’s new book is A Presidency in Peril. He is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos.