Dave Lindorff Sees Obama With a Narrow Window of Opportunity: Here's His Advice for Bold Action
BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
By Dave Lindorff
The way I see it, President Obama has a couple of months to turn his failing
administration around.
The war in Afghanistan is going south, and within a couple of weeks,
his General William Westmoreland, Gen. Stanley McCrystal, will be
coming to him asking for more troops. Things are getting hairier in
Iraq too.
His signature health care initiative is foundering, with Republicans working
in lockstep to see to it that it fails.
Pressure is mounting for an honest probe into the criminality of the
prior administration in its authorization and promotion of torture
against captives--most of them innocent--in the Bush/Cheney "war" on
terror.
The stock market, which by climbing back 50% from its collapse and
the bottom it hit on March 9, gave the president a breather, is showing
signs of exhaustion, and is likely to start sinking again, as investors
realize that there is no end in sight for the recession in the real
economy.
If all this continues into December, which is after all only a
couple of months away, Congress will go into recess, and when it
returns, it will be an election year, with all House seats up for
grabs, and a third of the Senate also facing re-election. Republicans
will be in an all-out campaign to reduce the Democratic majorities in
both houses, with history on their side (in almost every off-year
election, the party of new presidents lose support both houses of
Congress).
So, what's the president got to do?
First, he needs to announce a bold peace initiative in Afghanistan.
He should reject the call for more troops, and instead call for a
regional peace conference--one that would include all the neighboring
countries around Afghanistan, and most significantly, the Taliban. At
such a conference, he should arrange for a new government of national
unity that includes the Taliban, and then get the hell out of the
country. Obama can declare victory if he wants, but the main thing is
to get out. Ditto for Iraq, where the US is still viewed as an occupier
and is going to be forced out eventually. There is no reason to stay
another day.
Second, he should declare the disfunctional and industry-polluted
health reform plans in Congress dead and simply announce that by
executive order, he is lowering the age for Medicare to 55, and is
switching all Medicaid patients in the country over to Medicare (with
the intention of lowering that age by five years ever year until all
are covered), and shutting down the Medicaid program. He should then
submit a bill to Congress establishing a government-owned insurance
company, open to all, with no restrictions on its ability to set
pricing and reimbursement rates or to negotiate discounts from
hospitals, doctors and pharmacy companies. Or alternatively, the bill
could enable anyone to simply buy into Medicare. He should tell
Democrats and Republicans alike that any member of Congress who votes
against that bill will not see any bill with her or his name on it get
his signature in his remaining years in office. The government company
would be phased out once Medicare covered everyone.
Finally, the president needs to announce that he is sickened by the
information he has received about the prior administration's torture
program, and that he is encouraging his attorney general to fully
investigate it, and to prosecute to the full extent of the law anyone,
no matter how high up in the military or in government, who authorized
torture or who covered it up.
Congress could be expected to howl at the use of an executive order
to expand Medicare, but the president could declare a national health
emergency as justification, saying the recession had thrown too many
people off of health insurance, and that as well, states were in dire
fiscal shape and laying off workers because of the increased Medicaid
burden.
Removing older workers from employers' health insurance plans would
be a huge shot in the arm for struggling companies, as they are the
biggest users of health care. Lifting the $400 billion cost of Medicare
from state governments would free up money to prevent the layoff of
state and local employees, which is threatening to stifle economic
recovery.
Republicans can be expected to denounce the president for going
after the Bush/Cheney administration on torture, but most Americans at
this point are becoming aware of the damage that the policy has caused
to the country's international reputation, and to the soldiers in the
field.
Many people would also howl about bringing the troops home from
Afghanistan, and Iraq, but the truth is that the vast majority of
Americans are sick of both wars and would welcome an end to them.
The key to all these moves, however, is that Obama needs to explain
them not in terms of saving money, but as being the right thing to do.
Health care reform has to be presented as a moral imperative, not as a
money saver (even though covering everyone with Medicare would be a
huge net savings for everyone in the country). Ending America's foreign
wars would be a huge savings, but the real reason to do it is that the
US has no business being a global cop and imperialist occupier. And
prosecuting torture is essential if the US is to be a nation of laws.
You wouldn't know it to listen to the jaded pundits in the corporate
media, but in my experience, most Americans are basically decent
people, and would like to be citizens of a country that did decent
things, not just things that could be justified as making "economic
sense."
I'm not expecting any of this to happen, of course. This president
has shown repeatedly and convincingly that he is a creature of the
Establishment, not given to any bold initiatives or to challenges to
the status quo. I'm just saying that these are steps that could salvage
his presidency--a presidency that is seeming increasingly doomed. The
corollary is that if he doesn't do these things, he will find himself
with a diminished majority in November, 2010, a reinvigorated
Republican opposition, a tanked economy, an angry electorate (including
a lot of pissed off former supporters), and, basically, nothing to show
for his whole presidency come 2012.
And to top it off, for failing to prosecute Bush/Cheney torture, he
could well find himself subject to arrest abroad should he decide to
travel a bit once he is ousted from office in January 2013.
_________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-area journalist. His latest book
is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is
available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
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The hourglass
An excellent program, one that Obama could have pushed through with a powerful movement behind him when he first took office. Then came Rahm Emanuel and all the others. Nowhere a signal of any real change when it seemed the new administration began with its back against the wall on so many issues. However, now it may be too late. At first I thought he missed the bus but perhaps he never intented to take it because there was a limo waiting around the corner.
I hope your are right that there is still a window of opportunity for Americans instead of the banks and corporate bosses.
Wow. a terrific commentary...
Wow. What a terrific commentary, Mr. Lindorff. As you point out (and as Thom Hartmann has been advocating), President Obama could BYPASS all the insurance lobbyists & industry hit-men, and just EXPAND MEDICARE.
Sadly, Mr. Obama is NOT EVEN TRYING to point out that:
#1. almost ALL seniors shouting their ire about "Socialized health care" ARE ON Social Security & Medicare! They, as members of "The Greatest Generation" are THE BIGGEST BENEFICIARIES of the whole raft of Roosevelt NEW DEAL, and Johnson "Great Society" programs, including Social Security and Medicare!
#2. Back on the campaign Trail candidate Obama was relentlessly pointing out just how the CURRENT "health care" system (actually, a for-profit medical CARE DENIAL system) was CRIPPLING not just American families driven to bankruptcy by medical bills... but SMALL (and big) BUSINESS everywhere in America, too! How can Mr. Obama be SURRENDERING the AIR WAVES to the Righty Shock Jocks on this NIGHTMARE issue facing so many American businesses? Where was he when the Righties orchestrated the impeachment of the Clinton White House, the theft of election 2000, and the march-to-wars?
Well, we all know why. Because Pres. Obama is in thrall to his Golddamn-Sachs bankers, and Golddamn-Sachs is a RIGHT-WING big financial institution CLOSELY ALLIED WITH uber-Right-Wing Republicans PHIL GRAMM, Jim Leach Tom Bliley (of the infamous, Gramm-Leach-Bliley finance deregulation bill), Dick Armey, "Enron Ken" Lay, Tom DeLay, etc. Former Goldman Sachs CHAIRMAN Robert Rubin (and his Treasury Dept. proteges, Lawrence Summers & Timmy Geithner) all SUPPORTED Gramm-Leach-Bliley and the Commidity Futures 'Modernization' (Deregulation) Act of 2000, and Bush's last Secretary of Treasury, Hank Paulson (who presided over the economic collapse of 2008, and the bailouts which hid the structural frauds & failures behind them) was also a Goldman-Sachs Chairman.
FAR from advertising himself as the "GOLDMAN SACHS candidate" in 2008, Senator Obama most certainly ran as a LEFT-of-center candidate - without doubt, Obama ran TO THE LEFT of Hillary Clinton, whom the Obama campaign carefully but relentlessly painted as a DC insider. But President Obama is RULING as RIGHT-WING REPUBLICAN DC insider, moderated only in that extremism by (for example) his USSC nominee Sotomayer, who is not as "burn 'em at the stake" Taliban fundamentalist crazy as Antonin Scalia, not quite as "corporations own the Constitution" as Roberts, not as blatantly "original intent of the founders" insane as Clarence Thomas - who seems to forget (HELLO?) that the founders crafted the Constitution with a provision to COUNT SLAVES as "3/5ths of a man" for the SOLE benefit of the plantation lords, no protections or rights afforded the men & women forced by violence & murder into slavery for the profit & benefit of others.
We Are At Last In The Same Chapter Of The Book
I like many of the proposals you listed in your post. My only complaint about them is with Obama, who doesn't have the gonads to stand up to the vested interests whose representatives staff his administration. As he has already done, so he will certainly do: collapse before he is truly challenged. Hoping for change from a compromised compromiser is not a strategy. Thus, I believe that we can expect that the GOP will successfully recapture the Congress next year and make Obama the earliest lame duck/one-termer in recent history. Would that it weren't to be so!
One more thing to get back on track: hammer Wall St. HARD
Probably the most crippling self-inflicted wound of Obama's so far is continuing the Bush-initiated, essentially no-strings-attached bailout of Wall Street sociopaths who intentionally moved tens of millions of Americans from the middle class to the working poor by outsourcing their jobs, then destroyed their dream of home ownership with carefully designed mortgage scams. What they have done to other countries is far worse.
In addition to bailing out these parasites, Obama placed some of the architects of their scams and failed policies in key economic positions in his administration, creating the impression that he is owned by the likes of Goldman Sachs.
The way to correct this impression is to take the information they collected during "stress-testing" of various investment banks and use it to prosecute their top executives--not just some lone wolf like Bernie Madoff, but top execs from companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, and any of the other assholes who said they would go under without bailout money then spent all of it on bonuses and parties.
Obama's conciliatory approach is comforting in some way, but when it comes to financial thugs on Wall Street or in insurance companies, Americans need to see him humiliate, punish, and neuter their ability to harm us before we can be sure he is working for us not them.
Professorsmartass.com
Dave Lindorff is so opposed
Dave Lindorff is so opposed to the Public Option that he was up here posting a couple weeks ago, saying that anyone silly enough to listen to him should make common cause with the Conservatives trying to disrupt the town halls. Dave Lindorff said in that article that the more militant the tactics used in common cause with those Conservatives, the better. Dave Lindorff is literally stark raving against the Public Option - he spouts all kind of outright doomsday style lies about how terrible it would be for Americans to get the Public Option. If David Lindorff thinks the sky is falling that's nothing new. All he does is lie, oh most Americans want single payer, oh most Americans are anti-war, yeah yeah yeah. If you're depressed and you take Lindorff serious, then there you are. 100,000,000s of Americans have private insurance and 100,000,000s of Americans like the idea of sending troops over to kill people who don't need to be killed. A treaty with the Taliban is possible and Obama is gonna do it, Bush lied when he said that the Taliban wouldn't negotiate the surrender of Al Qaida leaders - it will go that way. But there wouldnt be this Iraq war if it werent for the 90,000 Bush=Gore Naderites in West Palm Beach Florida - it was the Republicans who dug us into this nonsense not Obama, and if David Lindorff had his way Killer McCain would be out there, what, creating a stark contrast which is supposedly better than Al Gore and John Kerry and Barack Obama's compromising - and in the process Killer McCain would have something going on in Iran that couldnt be put back neatly into the box by any miracle worker whatsoever.
Huh?
Say what?
I think, if I can decipher your rant, that you're suggesting that what I'm proposing here is somehow the public option. Far from it. I'm proposing expanding Medicare and then creating a temporary insurance plan, not circumscribed for just individuals without jobs, bur for anyone, not circumscribed from cutting pricing deals with providers, and that goes away as Medicare gets expanded five-year age cohorts per hear, until everyone is covered under the single-payer plan called Medicare.
That's not what is being called the "public option" by any stretch of the imagination.
As for my view that Americans don't want the war, check out the polls. They all confirm this fact. And it will become increasingly the case as the body count returning to Dover AFB rises.
Get a grip, take a deep breath, and learn to write coherently.
Are you lying? How could
Are you lying? How could you suggest that I said you were in favor of letting Americans have the Public Option? What do you mean huh? You know you have been up here, advocating "the more militantly the better", that people join with the Conservatives and disrupt town halls, because you oppose the Public Option. What are you talking about Americans don't want wars? It is easy to get Americans to go to war, just give some flim-flam excuse and presto. Get a grip? Take a deep breath? What kind of deep breath are you taking before you come out advocating people oppose the Public Option "the more militantly the better"?
Check out Japan
If ever there were a somnolent electorate, it was Japan, which, with the exception of one year, allowed the wholly corrupt and corportately run Liberal Democrats run that country (into the ground) for 64 years. Now they have swept the LDP away, in favor of an opposition coalition featuring LDP defectors, socialists and smaller parties. It's a stunning electoral awakening, and if it can happen there, surely it could happen here.
Dave Lindorff
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Hope you're right...
But I think most Americans are blissfully unaware, and don't want to know anyway, about how their government is totally compromised by the elite class of millionaires, CEOs, investment bankers, etc. that revolve in and out of politics and corporate boardrooms independent of party affiliation. Our politicians have learned that even though they regularly rule against regular people and in favor of their corporate benefactors' continued profits, when it comes election time all they have to do is regurgitate the same lies and rhetoric of whatever party they belong to get re-elected.
One problem
Wish what you outline could actually happen in reality but unfortunately that's not the case. Obama is President only because he was nominated by one of the two ruling political parties. The Democratic party vetted him well and selected him expressly because he was identified as someone who would never endanger the status quo by taking the side of the American people over the corporate moneyed interests that own our government. Obama is not the answer if you are looking for a savior of the people. Another "dream" you might like to entertain is that the electorate of the U.S. would shed their ignorance for a healthy dose of enlightenment and start removing both Democratic and Republican officials from office, excepting of course the very small number of them that actually represent the interests of the people that vote them into office. Until dreams start coming true however, we will be stuck with the current nightmare scenario that enslaves the country in corruption.