Reactions to the House Victory
by: Dave Belden on November 8th, 2009 | 3 Comments »
I am finding I go first these days to Open Left. In a post by Adam Green:
Tonight was the opposite of a “bold progressive” night. With a huge majority in the House, a vote with only 219 Dems should have been because progressives pushed this bill to the limit. Instead, it was watered-down, watered-down, watered-down. And still, only 219 Dems. This is why we fight. We need to change this.
There is a passionate, beautifully written post, Stealing Women’s Lives by Natasha Chart, against the Stupak Amendment. Of the unpaid labor of love that pregnancy and childbirth are, she writes:
And today, a few too many Democrats are coming out to stand with Bart Stupak and basically say that they’re fine with this unpaid labor of love becoming mandatory for women who can’t pay to avoid it, nor have the patience of saints to be abstinent.
This seems to me to be an expression of unimaginable hatred for women, who literally risk their lives every time they decide to carry a child a term, and the poorer a woman is, the less access to medical care and good nutrition she has, the truer that is. It might not be politic to talk about, considering that it can’t be measured in money, but each of us owes a debt to our mother that can never be repaid and it’s a mockery of the sacrifice of every mother to make motherhood a matter of force.
Green says he spent days knocking on doors for in Charlottesville, Virginia, for Tom Perriello, who let him down by voting for the Stupak amendment. Did you have the same experience? So read Targeting Dems in 2010 in which Paul Rosenberg starts laying plans to replace centrist Dems with progressives.
If it sounds counterintuitive to you to imagine, as Tikkun Daily blogggers have argued here and here, that the Dems would do better electorally if they were more progressive, then check out this news about the recent Virginia election for governor, in which Democrat Creigh Deeds lost to a Republican. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee polled 800 voters (400 Democrats and 400 Independents) who voted for Barack Obama for President in 2008 but did not vote in the Nov. 2009 election. The result:
POLL: LARGE MAJORITY OF OBAMA 2008 VIRGINIA VOTERS WHO DID NOT VOTE IN 2009 THOUGHT CREIGH DEEDS “WAS NOT PROGRESSIVE ENOUGH.”
MANY WILL BASE THEIR 2010 VOTE ON WHETHER DEMS PASS PUBLIC OPTION.
So I am disappointed by Stupak and the Dems’ misunderstanding of how to capture the center. But I am also looking forward to Lauren Reichelt’s reactions on this blog to yesterday’s vote and to the legislation we eventually get. Lauren is in the thick of health services delivery to low income people. When she says to those of us who are feeling totally let down by the Democrats that her work has already been hugely improved by the Obama administration, I listen. For those who didn’t see her comment on the Spiritual Wisdom of the Week ten days back, I am reproducing it here:
I run a county health and human services department and have been in my position for fifteen years. For eight years (you can guess which ones) I felt like a member of a secret underground resistance. Any local successes or innovations had to be kept entirely secret, especially from the feds. We worked like hell to raise funds to get ahead but mostly just managed to mitigate damage imposed from above. Hiding in the dark to fight the forces of evil felt like negative spirituality.
Nowadays, we have come out of the closet and admitted that we are actually trying to serve poor people. I don’t have to hide from the feds because (gasp) they are helping us! It’s fun to get together with them and plot ways to make a difference. And I get to meet people from other communities and learn from them. Standing in the sunlight and singing hymns feels like positive spirituality. I like it a lot more. The best part is that the new funds we raise actually improve our health care system. I’m no longer working just to prevent it from being torn down.
Incremental changes in Washington policy can have huge effects in people’s lives. There will be many such from the health bill being passed now. Let’s not let our disappointment about how many more there could have been obscure that fact.
Yes there is much good in the bill the House passed. But my disappointment is not because of “how many more there could have been.” It is the massive step back this bill takes women’s health care and women’s rights. This isn’t about asking for more, this is believing that the status quo–imposed by the Hyde restrictions–is as much as I and other women should have to tolerate.
Wow, Dave, thanks! I have not been posting as frequently as I would like lately because, ironically, several completely unknown administrative changes at the federal level have really changed the playing field in communities. I am utterly overwhelmed with work taking advantage of these changes. I hope to write about them within the next week. One warning however: the vehicle for these changes are some very arcane, complicated regulation changes.
I will also follow the efforts at Firedoglake, Open Left and the PCCC and let readers know how they can help to push for the best possible bill.
I am absolutely thrilled that the House managed to pass something, even if it is not the bill I would have liked. I will try to write something tonight explaining why.
Again, I am so delighted that you are linking to other web-based efforts. I think that the best way we can increase our effectiveness, and hence our relevance, as spiritual progressives, is to jump into the thick of the secular fray.
I understand Lauren’s POV. I have respect for her position and her sincere and genuine efforts to do better than the way things were [not] done. But for those of us who are still left out or still fall through the cracks, we in the lower income brackets who still don’t and cannot get help from the government (government should = community) regardless of the improvements. Incremental changes/improvements that still don’t benefit me, from my POV, still aren’t good enough.
It’s amazing to me that we’ve become so enslaved that we think as long as 3 out of every 10 at the bottom are helped, we should all feel good and not “get down” about the other 7 who are still unhelped, marginalized and silenced. From where I sit, after spending the morning collecting bottles and cans so I can provide my kids lunch for the next two days (because we don’t qualify for free lunch due to the federal poverty being $35K beneath locally adjusted poverty), that’s just not good enough. Do I feel great for the 3 people who are now going to have access to care? Sure. But I’m still left out. And it HURTS to hear people say things like this “reform” bill is good enough. I can only feel offended, further beaten down. Good enough while I’m still left out. Wow. How many people could still be bright-side-ish about such a position?
If I wasn’t in the bottom, I might be one of those who feel this is reform and that this bill will work out in committee and in the Senate. But the track record of getting it right in such cases is abysmal at best. In fact, sifting through my cobwebbed mind I can’t remember the last 1900 page sloppily written private industry giveaway that was fixed to the point of being acceptable by the Senate or in conf. comm. It just hasn’t happened. And I’m not of the sufficiently-incomed group, so I cannot comprehend the whole positive thinking, hope-change, better-than-nothing nonsense. Where I lived it’s nonsense because “better than nothing” is the placation of those that have to those of us who do not have. When a $35 copay is the same as $35 million, nothing is still nothing. But this bill is something to feel positive about?!
Maybe it really does take losing your home to a Countrywide and B of A subprime to comprehend how I feel about this, especially as I cancel yet another PT appointment, an appointment that means the difference between walking without a cane or with one. Under the House bill that was passed, I would remain ineligible for the public option (even if CA approved it) and my HMO premium would increase where I would no longer have the meager food budget I have now, because I’d be forced to pay the premium. Who’s going to feed us? The pantries that turn us away because they have nothing left on the shelves? Will I now have to spend 30-40 hours a week collecting bottles and cans beyond the 10-15 I now spend?
I want the new bottom line. Anything less, especially when “less” and “better than nothing” leaves me in the lurch (again) is just. not. good-enough.