Bernie Sanders’ appearance on The Ed Show, was a sad one for me to see, because he tried to explain his joining the Democrats in voting for cloture on the Senate’s health care reform bill in two ways. First, of course, he waxes enthusiastic about the tremendous good that the measly $10 billion (about 0.1 of one percent of total expenditures under the bill) he secured for funding community health centers would do for the uninsured, clearly implying that it would have a substantial effect on the 45,000 annual fatalities we now see. But second, then he moves right to the false Democratic Party talking points we’ve been seeing from so many Party functionaries this week, and even much earlier in relation to supporting the stronger, but still pathetic House bill.
Bernie claims that the alternative to voting for the Senate’s bill, is to defeat health care reform and wait for five or ten years for another chance at reform while 45,000 annual deaths occur due to lack of insurance. And he also claims that even though he agrees with people who think this bill is a terrible one, that we can go back “the day after” we pass it and fight to improve it. I hesitate to say that Bernie is being dishonest, because I have never known him to be dishonest before. But, I’m afraid I’m in the usual position of those observing politicians of either questioning their honesty, or their intelligence.
Are we really to think that Bernie doesn’t know that community health centers can’t make a major difference in the fatalities, bankruptcies, and foreclosures due to lack of health insurance? Does he really think that these can reduce the expected fatalities, bankruptcies, and foreclosures by even 10%? If he did, why hasn’t he brought forth a health care reform proposal to find 10 times the number of community health care centers for $10 billion annually, since, very clearly, if he believes this, such a program would completely solve these three problems at a cost of only $10 Billion annually, and only $100 Billion over 10 years, without any need for mandates and subsidies for bailing out insurance companies?
Are we also to think that he believes that if he had refused to vote for cloture, the Administration would have walked away from health care reform because it could not get 60 votes, and not taken it up again until well into its next term, or perhaps never? Can the Administration afford to do that, or given the likely press narrative of “Obama fail” isn’t that an unacceptable result, leaving them no choice but to take it up again immediately? Why wouldn’t the Administration and Harry Reid, in that case turn toward reconciliation to pass a bill? And why wouldn’t Bernie Sanders have had a much better chance of helping to get a better bill than the current one under reconciliation? I guess the answers to these questions are just mysteries that we will never get Bernie to enlighten us about.
In addition, are we really to believe Bernie when he says that when the bill passes, the very day after ‘we” can go back and try to make it a better bill? Don’t we all know that if Obama gets a bill labeled health care reform, he will say that it is a great victory and that we now need to move on to other things and wait and see about further reform until we’ve given this “reform” a chance to work? In other words, didn’t Bernie really know that if he gave Obama and Reid, a health care reform bill, their need for further health care reform legislation, and desire to push for it would be gone either for years, or at least until the polls showed that the public thought that what they passed was going to be a miserable failure?
In short, it’s very difficult for me to accept that Bernie is so lacking in intelligence that he doesn’t understand any of the above. So, regretfully, and sadly, I have to conclude that he, like the Senators who officially belong to the Democratic Party, is knowingly giving us a cock and bull story to prevent us from drawing the conclusion that he purely and simply caved to the pressure from his colleagues, Harry Reid, and the President.
Is this Senate so bereft of character, that not a single Senator will stand up for the American people against the corporate juggernaut? Is their not a single Senator who will tell us the truth and nothing but the truth? And are we such a broken people that we won’t rise up and cast out every incumbent in either Party who casts their lot with the corporatists? Are we so far gone that we cannot even slow this march toward plutocracy?
(Also posted at firedoglake.com and Correntewire.com where there may be more comments)
6 responses so far ↓
1 DavidByron // Dec 22, 2009 at 1:08 am
I do think he is lying but it might not be because of corruption. He might be lying because he feels if he told you the truth it would be demoralising (more demoralising than the bill passing).
For example let’s say that Sanders knows that he doesn’t have the power to block the bill even if he voted against cloture. In that case he would have little motivation to pointlessly vote against cloture and lose even the small crumbs he was handed. His remaining choice is to tell the truth about how he can’t make any difference anyway because the whole process was stitched up from the get go, or lie and allow people their (baseless) hope.
It seems to me that politicians and activists often lie to their base in an attempt to keep up morale. That’s because turnout is often dependent upon morale.
At any rate there is a third possible answer to your conundrum.
2 DavidByron // Dec 22, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Here’s a 4th possibility.
Let’s say Sanders is in secret negotiations with the powers that be to try and get what he can from this bill and that part of what the powers that be want that he can refuse them, in addition to his vote on cloture which we know about, is his consent to go along with the happy-happy talk.
In fact his political cover with the happy-happy talk might be by far the biggest thing that he has on the table because the cloture vote might be covered by Snow, making it largely worthless.
This is different from your hypothesis number 2 because Sanders would be agreeing to lie so as to get more benefits for the people, rather than agreeing to lie for his own political benefit.
3 DavidByron // Dec 26, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Would it be fair to say there’s no point in my leaving comments here as this blog is essentially just a repository for your cross-posted diaries?
Unfortunately I can’t reply anywhere you cross-post. I think it is a great shame that the pwoggiesphere has no place where you can actually post something and get feed-back on it. That seems to me to be a FAIL for the whole concept.
4 DavidByron // Dec 27, 2009 at 1:59 pm
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/20901#comment-113675
You must have been reading a different diary than men then. My comments on the POS are here:
http://www.pffugeecamp.com/diary/504/#11317
5 Joe // Dec 27, 2009 at 11:42 pm
David, It’s fair for today. I’ve been a bit pre-occupied with personal stuff and have also been more ocncerned to comment on the other blog sites because more people see the comments. I am usually fastidious about replying to comments here, and hope to be able to once again do so shortly.
In the meantime thanks for your attempts at beginning discussion here.
6 DavidByron // Dec 28, 2009 at 3:06 am
Yes I see a lot of people cross-posting at many different places and it must be hard to keep up. This all seems very inefficient to me. I don’t agree about having – what did lambert say before he banned me? – 100 boards with 1000 readers. The attitude is every man has his own little fiefdom and censors people out of personal pique. It’s ridiculous. It multiplies work.