(I apologize in advance for anyone offended by the snarky title!)
If you're like me, you stayed glued to your computer Sunday watching every last hurled insult and suspenseful motion to recommit. You had trouble understanding why a faceless Republican (who was eventually discovered to be Randy Neugebauer from Lubbock, TX) called Stupak a "baby killer" and why Dems seemed happy Stupak's motion had passed.
If you were like me, you were engaged in life's other duties for several hours, didn't know Stupak had reached an agreement with the President and had no idea that his motion to recommit (or whatever) was actually a motion to bring HCR to the floor for a vote.
You eventually exulted with the Democrats and thumbed your noses at sulking Repubs without being quite sure exactly what had happened. Parliamentary procedure is a labyrinthian sport.
Sunday was historic. The bill that eventually passed without a single Republican vote was a Republican bill in many ways, modeled after Mitt Romney's public-private Massachusetts hybrid. It was not the government takeover I had hoped for. In fact, as many have noted, the bill mandates that all Americans purchase private policies without providing us the option of publicly offered insurance. So why are some packs of teabaggers waving signs threatening Representatives with gun violence over health care reform while others hurl racial or homophobic epithets at Congressmen?
The fight over this legislation was as much about civil rights as health care. The "birther" movement stoked by Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, Malkin, King and Bachmann is composed mainly of people whose America precludes the possibility of an African-American president, or of genuinely equal opportunities for women, gays or people of color. The fight is not over budget deficits which blossomed under Bush. It is about equitable distribution of opportunity and resources.
America's historical dialectic between capitalism and capitalists on the one hand, and democracy on the other, has been with us since the Revolution. Daily Kos blogger, goinsouth, posted an excellent historical overview of America's struggles for civil and workers' rights: Right Wing Violence Is An American Tradition. S/he argues convincingly that right wing thugs have frequently been used by the holders of capital to secure access to cheap (or slave) labor through massacres of entire towns and even through a plot to overthrow Roosevelt hatched by the likes of Rene DuPont and Prescott Bush (Yep, the Patriotic scions of "Dubya" plotted a coup in the 1930s...I guess that episode won't be covered in the newly redacted American history texts emerging from the Lone Star State...).
Nancy Pelosi summed up matters succinctly when she stated, glowing with well-deserved pride, that being a woman would no longer be considered "a pre-existing condition."
One of the most interesting (and widely discussed) commentaries in the wake of this weekend's historic vote was an article entitledWaterloo by conservative journalist and former Bush 41 speechwriter David Frum. One of the few conservatives to engage in constructive, epithet-free web-based dialogue with bloggers engaged in other political lifestyles, Frum argues that the passage of HCR was a crushing defeat for Republicans who lost future ability to shape government for decades because they refused to negotiate with Obama. Frum believes it will prove impossible to repeal the bill even if Republicans win huge majorities in the House and Senate in November because nobody will be willing to re-establish the infamous Medicare donut hole, pre-existing conditions, recision, etc., and good luck trying to remove young adults from their parents' insurance!
Frum states:
I've been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters - but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say - but what is equally true - is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed - if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office - Rush's listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.
Even the Republican party has been harmed by the hegemony of their capitalist backers.
A few days before the vote, in the hours after Dennis Kucinich bit the bullet to support this bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he would bring the Public Option to the floor. Now that the Dems have found their sea-legs, we should look for a series of bills improving upon this health care legislation.
These are a few health care fixes I think we may see coming down the pike in coming months: Public Option or Medicare Expansion; equitable regional reimbursement rates for Medicare; Medicaid or other bail-outs for states.
I, for one, am not as worried about the November elections as I was Sunday morning. Let's hope this important victory boosts Democratic morale, enabling them to take on other needed reforms including an overhaul of our banking industry.
And now, I'm going to listen my favorite rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus conducted by Ted Kennedy's ghost, and performed by the Left Blogistan Progressive Choir.