The American Left: getting right with FDR

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FDR was such  a great president. He did some amazing things while he was in office. I am definitely a fan of FDR.

This foot-dragging on the part of the American people is not entirely their fault. We are inundated every day with the idea that there is still a debate left to be fought on global warming.

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For goodness' sake, in addition to Dennis Kucinich even Bernie Sanders (now there's my kind of senatorial Democrat -- a socialist) has conceded soft aspirations to hard reality, in the overarching interest of at least some progress.

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For goodness' sake, in addition to Dennis Kucinich even Bernie Sanders (now there's my kind of senatorial Democrat -- a socialist) has conceded soft aspirations to hard reality, in the overarching interest of at least some progress.

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Nice article. I like your passion. I'd like to add one of my favorite Franklin D Roosevelt quotes: "A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward."

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As has been stated in other posts, I don't believe it had to happen this way. I don't believe HCR had to be this corporatist in nature to pass. But we'll never know now, will we.

Let's walk ourselves thru this slowly so we can better understand...

Obama cut seperate deals with Big Hospital and Big Pharma many moons ago dealing away the public option and drug reimporatation. This is an undisputed fact that the White House does not and cannot dispute (and Carp will still not acknowledge). Why?

I will be as fair to Obama on this as I know how. I believe he did not have faith that he could get the bill passed with those Big Health entities fighting him and congress. So instead of fighting these entities he decided to "co-opt" them by getting them on board with his plan. And in so doing that he unfortunately had to give up the store, so to speak, by requiring individual mandates to buy coverage from the hated insurances companies with no choice for consumers and no price controls by promising them there would be no public option or drug reimportation.

Only God knows how this is going to turn out.

(And BTW, what does it say about Obama's character that he cut these deals and flat out LIED to democrats all summer about supporting the PO? Anything? Certainly Carp is not troubled by it.)

But what we really learned from all this is that Obama is an incredibly conservative (in the old sense of the word), cautious, tepid politician. He is not a fighter; he is a co-opter. The Hillary supporters warning Obama supporters (like me) about this were right about his nature and I was wrong.

There is no corporate entity this president is willing to fight, not in a truly transformative way, certainly not in an FDR-like way. When the rubber hits the road he takes the easy way out. He has no confidence in his ability to get real change done with the people at his back. And worse, perhaps he never planned to do it at all because in too many ways he is one of them. 

As far as liberals "growing up" the Carp way, compromise=retreat. The only congressional entity forced to compromise the Obama/Carp way were (and are) progressives.

To show you just how far gone the democrats are, they refuse to raise taxes on the rich to pay for HCR, but instead, Obama has hauled Richard Trumpka's ass back up to the White House to inform him that the unions have to make yet another concession on the excise tax.

Rinse. Repeat.

So while I am in the "pass the bill" camp on HCR this time--breaking with my beloved Firedoglake--in the future they have the right solution. Progressives have to be willing to kill bills they do not support in order to extract REAL CONCESSIONS, just the way the Bluedogs do it. Hear that Mr. Obama?

At some point the Prog. Caucus must find a leader who can galvanize support and stand by promisory letters they sign and not crumble in the face of intense lobbying by the White House. Because the segment on Countdown was right. "Progressives are the "Boy that cried wolf." They are not respected. Nor feared. Nor even listened to.

That is a fact as real as the backroom corporatist deals Obama cut with healthcare corporations. 

Until this unfortunate fact changes and progressive learn to think strategically and play political hardball like the Bluedogs, Obama and Rahm and Carp will continue to offer faint praise for our "pragmatism" in public while laughing their collective corporatist asses off behind our backs.

Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat.  He has always run as an independent though he does caucus with the Democrats.

OK, here's the thing.  For eight long years the Bush Administration had things pretty much their own way.  They gave it their best shot and flamed out spectacularly.  As a result, their policies, largely unadulterated by compromise, have plunged the country into two expensive, unnecessary and just plain wrong, wars from which we seem unable to extricate ourselves.  Torture is the law of the land.  Any American deemed a terrorist can be arrested and detained indefinitely.  Our civil liberties, with the exception of "gun totin'" are in shreds.  Oh, and the cherry on the top of this, ...uh....sundae, is that our economy is in shreds as well.  Not Wall Street, of course, but everything else.  Our infrastructure which Pres. Clinton promised to overhaul, but got caught up, way back then, in endless wrangling from Newt Gingrich and the Republican Revolution, is disintegrating and the taxpayers just have to watch because, after the crash and the Wall Street bailout, there's no money left for such frivolities.  And speaking of Pres. Clinton, whom I used to describe as out-Republicaning the Republicans, he was doing so on a scope far greater than I imagined.  His economic team continued the tearing down of FDR Era financial regulations begun under Reagan culminating in the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act's prohibitions on speculation in 1999, only leaving in place the Fed. Dep. Insur. Corp.

"The bill that ultimately repealed the Act was introduced in the Senate by Phil Gramm (Republican of Texas) and in the House of Representatives by Jim Leach (R-Iowa) in 1999. The bills were passed by a Republican majority, basically following party lines by a 54–44 vote in the Senate^[12] and by a bi-partisan 343–86 vote in the House of Representatives.^[13] After passing both the Senate and House the bill was moved to a conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. The final bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90–8 (one not voting) and in the House: 362–57 (15 not voting). The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999.[14]" (Wikipedia, Glass-Steagall Act)

So with the deck stacked in it's favor, Wall Street began its disastrous for Americans, but highly lucrative for the surviving institutions, decade of so-called unfettered capitalism, all the time decrying the shreds of regulations still left in place.  Reaganomics, once dubbed "voodoo economics" by the man who later became Reagan's vice-president, held sway in America.  We are living with the result today, although Wall Street's financial geniuses are not.  They continue to reward themselves with bonuses at taxpayer expense while lobbying Congress against the reinstitution of any regulations while the FDIC picks up the check by cleaning up the mess at too-small-to-live failed bank after failed bank.

So compromise tore down the last barriers to unbridled speculation leaving not just the country, but the world, open to financial ruin, with the exception of the afore mentioned Wall Street bankers.  Which brings us the health care.

When Pres. Clinton attempted it Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich, began obstructing until Americans became disenchanted with Congress and gave Republicans more of what they were after:  power.  They killed health care legislation through obstruction and a massive PR campaign.  Congress flipped to the Republicans in the mid-term elections.

Apparently the Obama Administration has concluded that the only way to get what is now dubbed "health reform," formerly "health care reform," and before that "universal health care" was to make massive concessions privately to the "industries" (in a supposedly humanitarian field, yet!) involved, while "compromising" publically and promising OFA volunteers that dead-on-arrival single-payer's weaker sibling, the public option, was still "on the table."  It now seems obvious that the public option was never meant to be part of the final bill by Obama Administration strategists, but was a sop for the "radical left."

Which brings us to "the radical left."  How radical is it to try strategies which have been proven to work for the country, although not for special interests?  Surely by now we have evidence that Republican policy is a dismal failure on many fronts.  Is it really so radical to go in another direction?  Hasn't government run health insurance proven itself through Medicare?  Even as the Tea Party movement has decried any attempt at health care reform they have ironically screamed that government should keep its hands off of government run Medicare!  My Republican grandmother, who was unisurable due to pre-existing conditions before Medicare was passed, LOVED Medicare until the day she died in 1993 at 85.

I consider myself a very pragmatic person.  I would NEVER throw the baby out with the bath water.  I would carefully remove the baby, dry, diaper and swaddle it.  But folks, this bill is pretty much ALL bathwater, with nary a baby in sight.  The baby never made it into the bath in the first place.

And I have never considered myself a radical leftist either.  I have always considered myself to be just a nano-hair to the left of center.  I like compromise and discussion, but the national dialogue had been dominated by people who are completely unwilling to compromise.  When Democratic members of Congress have attempted to incorporate programs that Republicans had previously advocated, the Republicans suddenly became against them.  They have used delaying tactics, harping on starting over.  They don't want compromise; they want power!  And they will be uncompromising with that power.

So here's the thing.  Obama and the Democrats had a small window of overwhelming popularity after the election to institute policies that would be good for all Americans rather than the special interests who have dominated the discussion, but they sacrificed that popularity on the altar of compromise.  The Republicans have made one word, "NO!" their rallying cry, and amazingly it has worked.  "No," is not a word of compromise, and anyone who believes otherwise is sadly deluded.

I am a little uncomfortable with the comparison of Obama to FDR.  Although I surely felt differently in the 2008 run up to the election.  At that time Obama did sound the populist trumpet; hope, change and all that.  Why, I think he even mentioned a strong public option once or twice.  I seem to recall some rumblings about holding Wall St. accountable.  Even helping Main St. popped out on occaison.  Then I may have felt that comparing Obama to FDR was OK.  Oh, I know that FDR, like any politician made compromises.  Still, it seems to me that FDR grudgingly made those compromises and then only after he had won concessions from the other side.  Had Obama approached the situation in that manner your comparison might be valid.  Clearly, that is not the case.  FDR took the public's side and fought for them.  FDR rallied them, Obama, his current whirlwind schedule notwithstanding, laid back, cut deals with the 'other side', sloughed the hard work off to Congress, let Congressional bullies reign, kept the fox watching the henhouse, bailed the criminals out and in general did nothing to help the people who put him in office.  FDR never let his opposition forget that the people were on his side; Obama never let his opposition forget that his party was always ready to do business with the establishment; in this case Wall St. criminals and the Health Care Insurance-Pharmaceutical-Care Giver Corporate trinity.  Only now, when the store has already been looted is he out on the hustings rousing the rabble as though he is fighting the good fight for us.  Obama coming into office had the power of the people behind him and could have laid waste to the money changers in the temple of our democracy.  He had the power of the bully pulpit at his beck and call but chose instead to deliver the 'change we could believe in' over to the dancing monkeys of the corporate lobbyists; the Nelsons, Baucuses, et al who owe their souls to the corporate $$master.  No, let's not compare this sorry ass debacle to anything FDR accomplished.