Howard Dean, Movement Leader
Gandalf Grey
Howard Dean, Movement Leader
By David Sirota
Created Dec 18 2009 - 1:02pm
I want to take a moment just to recognize what has been recognized before,
but needs to be recognized right here and now one more time: Howard Dean is
a genuine hero.
In coming out against the Lieberman-gutted health insurance "reform" bill,
Dean is leveraging every shred of power he can muster to create the
political space for the final bill -- whether passed now, or later after
going back to the drawing board -- to be better and more progressive. He has
made a compelling case that the bill "would do more harm than good," as he
says in his Washington Post op-ed today [1] -- and in doing that he has made
the power struggle between Joe Lieberman's Palpatinian forces of
insurance/drug industry darkness and the progressive movement far more
symmetrical.
Before Dean's move, the fight was asymmetrical, as Chris Hayes noted in my
interview with him on my radio show yesterday [2]. Before Dean's move,
Lieberman had the upper hand in that he was the only one who didn't seem to
care whether he alone killed the bill by joining with Republicans for a
filibuster. Now, though, Dean has said to progressive members of Congress
that they should be OK killing this bill if that's what taking a stand for a
better bill means. And you see some of them potentially starting to follow
[3].
This is why the White House and the Beltway media is now publicly freaking
out at Dean [4] in a way they never freaked out on corporate Dems
(Lieberman, Baucus, Nelson, etc.) who were previously obstructing the bill:
Because Dean is threatening to change the dynamic that the Beltway was
always counting on -- a dynamic that relied on progressives ultimately
capitulating to the Joe Liebermans, the Rahm Emanuels, the insurance
industry and the drug lobbyists. That dynamic only exists if progressive
members of Congress -- and the larger progressive movement and general
public -- believes passing the bill is more important than killing it to
make it better. If they and we don't believe that, as Howard Dean doesn't
and as new polls show we don't [5], then suddenly progressive members of
Congress and the progressive movement can feel free to be as cutthroat as
Lieberman himself.
We can feel free to risk sending a bad bill down to defeat in the cause of
making it better -- because we know that the bill in its current,
non-improved form is bad. And from that stand, we may get more progressive
concessions before this thing is finally done. Just as the old dynamic was
based on buying Lieberman's vote with insurance/drug industry concessions,
this new Dean dynamic could means progressives forcing the leadership and
the White House to, say, add back a public option back into this final bill
as price for progressive votes.
Of course, there's debate about whether or not we think Dean is right on the
substance -- about whether the bill is good or bad. I happen to think Dean
is right -- I happen to believe that passing this awful bill is not worth it
even if this awful bill has a few good things in it. Why?
Because we have the same president and the same Congress for at least
another year and they will be forced to go back to the drawing board.
There is certainly a substantive rush to pass reform, what with thousands
dying every year for lack of insurance. But there is not the political rush
that seems to be the assumption in DC right now. That's a manufactured
bullshit assumption -- the same one we heard when the very same set of
bought-and-paid-for politicians used a financial crisis to rush through a
Wall Street bailout with the very same "must pass it immediately" rationale.
Now they're trying to use a health care crisis to rush through an insurance
industry bailout.
But here's the thing: It's not like Barack Obama won't be president and
Democrats won't control Congress tomorrow. They can go back to the drawing
board right now and have the same political topography before them when they
come back to the House and Senate floors. And last I checked, when this bill
was in more progressive form (ie. with a public option and Medicare buy-in)
I didn't hear any of these voices in DC say the bill needed to be on a "must
pass immediately" track - only when the bill was gutted are these voices now
screaming for it to be immediately passed...hmm...
All of that said, wherever you come down on the substance of the
Lieberman-gutted bill, it's clear Dean has created a new progressive dynamic
here. He has made it more likely that something better will come out of the
Congress either now or in the near future than the monstrosity Lieberman has
created. How? By doing his part to create the political space and leverage
for us to demand more.
Dean's move, not surprisingly, is being lambasted by the sycophantic
Washington press. As just one example, the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza
[6] -- one of the most perfectly calibrated barometers of Beltway
conventional wisdom -- lashes out at Dean as a "health care reform spoiler"
(Cillizza, of course, never said this about Lieberman, Landrieu, Nelson, or
any of the other conservadems who were threatening to filibuster the bill
over the last few months). And tellingly, Cillizza insists Dean's principled
stand is "entirely in his own self interest" - an attempt to completely
dismiss the substance of Dean's criticism. Of course, if Dean criticizing
the administration was "entirely in his own self interest," he would not
have been cheering on the bill before it was gutted. And so Cillizza's
refrain is yet more proof that in Washington's "Church of the Savvy" [7]
movement participants taking principled stands are seen as selfish,
petulant, stupid and unserious while politicians who exchange votes for
industry campaign contributions (Lieberman, Baucus, etc.) and former
politicians who are literally paid to lobby for Big Money (Tom Daschle, as
an example) are depicted as thoughtful, selfless, "moderate" and "pragmatic"
team players.
I have to say, Dean's multi-year transformation is amazing. I remember when
I worked for Bernie Sanders how Vermont had a DLC-ish governor named Howard
Dean. To look at him now is to stand in awe, because today's Howard Dean is
not that Howard Dean. And I believe his transformation is entirely genuine
because he had absolutely nothing to gain from it in the way we cynically
define "gain" in today's politics. There are many things to "gain" from
shutting up and going corporate -- there is little to "gain" from
championing a progressive cause from a place of authentic conviction. Little
to personally "gain" -- but much to gain for the country.
Here is a person who has decided not to pull the usual post-retirement dance
of worshiping the Establishment and joining The Club. Here is a person whose
motives cannot be attacked and who has built an independent base of power
the old fashioned way - not through Big Money or through insider
connections, but through grassroots organizing, unvarnished policy
credibility, and a willingness to stand for principles before party. Here is
a person going on television to tell sitting Democratic U.S. senators [8]
the cold hard truth to their face: namely that they've sold out. Here is a
guy taking on the same obsequious Professional Democratic Elites in DC [9]
that are saying we must pass any bill, no matter how destructive, just to
give Democrats a political win (the same Professional Democratic Elite that
told us to support the Iraq War and the bailout, by the way).
Here is, in short, a rare movement leader in the age of cynicism showing
what a movement can do -- or at minimum, have a realistic shot to do -- when
it musters a little bit of courage.
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike,
that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in
this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud
of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing
of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to
which we are committed today at home and around the world.
"
-John F. Kennedy, 1961
lorad
It's time to flamethrower the Frankenstein monster of a health bill
that the republicons have created.
Time is just being wasted.. the republicons mutated that health bill
to benefit their corporate masters .. and are still playing political
footbell with it.. saying that they will take their time in passing
it.
Screw it... don't need that pos waste of a bill and time.
Just junk it, and start fresh... rather than pretending that a
healthcare 'win' (for corporate profits) somehow might benefit working
americans.
Padraigh ProAmerica
office?
You paranoid moonbats are a hoot!
"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them
surprise you with their ingenuity."
Gen. George S. Patton