I am very worried about the tactics being put forward by Jane Hamsher and now Cenk. My concerns are far from personal; I know neither of these people in the least.
And, if you choose to read and comment on the analysis I’m going to attempt to make in this diary regarding these tactics, I respectfully ask that you try to put the personal aside. I understand that emotions are running high, and we need to ratchet that down and think carefully, very carefully right now.
I’ll begin by sharing that I get it that the HCR efforts have been frustrating, and that I too wanted a single payer solution. I also spent the last half year calling and writing to support the public option, and even as a pacifist, I wouldn’t have minded getting a dart board with Stupak’s, Nelson’s and Lieberman’s images for Christmas. But the question for me is: What did we learn from this experience, and where do we go from here?
FWIW: below the fold, I’d like to share my problem solving process/ reflections on this situation.
There seems to be 3 approaches being put forward for next steps. I’ll first list them and then, try to examine what are the possible outcomes and attendant risks associated with each, as well as the underlying assumptions and root causes associated with each.
- Do nothing. This reaction and resulting non-action is sometimes expressed as the, "I’m so disgusted and disillusioned from this whole experience that I’m going to just quit helping the Dems, not donate anymore, and sit out 2010. That will show the bums that they can’t take me for granted. Maybe next time they will learn to listen to their base."
- Accept the bill. This reaction and resulting action is sometimes expressed as the, "I don’t like this bill, but I recognize that it gives us a foot in the door to build on. Most legislation of this ilk has started out looking like an ugly baby and been made incrementally better over time. I’m going to hold my nose and support it while still pushing for incremental improvements during the committee process. Then, I’m going to get busy targeting Blue Dogs and trying to get more progressive Senators elected in 2010 and/ or working to get the filibuster rule busted. " The 3 underlying assumptions are: 1) The reason why the public option failed was because there were not enough votes to over ride a threatened filibuster In other words, the key problem is within the Legislative Branch for this and other progress legislation. 2) AND reconciliation was not preferred because of the 10 year sunset clause on legislation that takes this approach.
- Kill the bill. This reaction has been expressed as:
The Senate health care bill is an ungodly mess of errors, loopholes, and massive giveaways. When the American people find out what's actually in this bill, they will revolt. With a list of reasons why this faction thinks that people will revolt, which is readily available at the FDL War Room, where I presume anyone here would know how to find it without me posting a link to it.
The actions put forward so far to achieve this goal include:
- A petition drive to kill the bill
- Targeting Bernie Sanders with negative ads in his district
- Forming an alliance with Grover Norquist to create a bipartisan effort with tea partiers to kill the bill
- Creating a Nebraska calling drive to Democrats to target Harry Reid
- Jane Hamsher of FDL appearing on Fox News to attack the bill
- A petition drive calling for AG Eric Holder to investigate Rahm Emanuel regarding Freddie Mac co-signed by Grover Norquist Note: This last item may or not be directly related to the Kill the Bill movement; however, a recent statement by Cenk Uygur being hailed at FDL certainly does pair them up as an effort to "move the island left"
The underlying assumptions of the Kill the Bill approach are: 1) The bill causes so much more harm than good that if it dies and nothing gets done, then that is better than what this bill could do; 2) However, there is a much better chance for better if we start from scratch in 2010; 3) The problem is within the Executive Branch, primarily due to Rahm Emanual being a corporatist, and President Obama being a nice but typical pol, who will become more of a liberal lion without Rahm’s influence and if we can push the DC "island" left; 4) There is a very high likelihood of Rahm being guilty of criminal behavior involving Fannie Mac; 5) purging bad guys on our side makes us stronger; 6) the resulting investigation on the COS will not have a seriously negative effects on anyone other than Rahm 7) A bipartisan alliance with Norquist will get attention and be more helpful than potentially harmful since Grover, the tea partiers, and Fox and the MSM can be managed and manipulated to push the island left without much collateral effects.
Whew. If you’re still with me, sorry for the long lead in, but I think it is critically important to begin with a root cause and underlying assumptions analysis before embarking on making any kind of tactical decisions to solve "the problem."
Why? Problem Solving 101
If you’re wrong about the root causes, then your chosen reactions will have almost no chance of solving the problem and have more than a little chance of causing even more problems. This is why getting the root problem nailed is a critical success factor in any problem solving effort. Secondly, since almost all problem solving situations involve incomplete knowledge, people make assumptions that shape the solution (strategy and tactics). The more important the problem, the more critical it is to carefully examine the assumptions underlying possible reactions in terms of how likely are they to be true.
Okay, I know this may be too anal retentive for some. ☺ But HCR, as well as future legislative efforts on issues like global warming, are quite frankly life and death issues. So, while it may be emotionally satisfying to go with the gut and get aggressive, I decided to get out a yellow legal pad with all those recommended Problem Solving 101 steps winning out.
Which required another step, namely answering the question: What is the goal?
That may seem like a stupid question, and if it is, great! It should be far easier for a majority of us to reach an agreement. However, I’m not entirely certain that we all share a clear, shared vision at the moment.
• Single payer, now? What does that mean? Only that is acceptable, with nothing being preferable for how long? Ever? or is incremental progress over decades not liked, but acceptable?
• Public Option, now? What does that mean? Only that is acceptable, with nothing being preferable for how long? Ever? or is incremental progress over decades not liked, but acceptable?
• This bill is okay as is, except I’d like to see the Stupid amendment changed and the "union member excise tax" removed ...
And, I’ve probably only scratched the surface on the myriad of nuances, here. But, some goal must be stated to begin the process of examining assumptions and tactics so, for what it’s worth here’s one:
Health Care Reform which includes a strong public option with an opt out on the Stupak amendment, funded by an excise tax on premiums above 23K on individual earners over 100K, and an increased income tax on families with $500K incomes ... within 5 years ... with a roll back in time delays in benefits by 50%, across the board.
And right up front, I need to add an underlying assumption regarding even THIS goal: 1) Single payer is NOT possible now given our current governmental make-up; 2) Incremental change can occur on legislation of this sort. However, I think I’m history supports both these assumptions pretty strongly, so if you’re willing, I’ll go on from here.
Back to the 3 strategic (and associated tactical efforts) I’ve seen most argued, lately:
- Do nothing – Disengage.
- Accept Bill – Begin incremental improvement efforts aimed at changes withing the Legislative Branch
- Kill Bill – Begin revolutionary change efforts aimed at aggressively influencing the Executive Branch
Regarding the Do Nothing approach, examining the probable outcome is pretty easy. With fewer voters and less money, the GOP will pick up more seats in the Legislative Branch in 2010. With fewer votes in the Legislative Branch, even if the Executive Branch shifted radically left and became very much more aggressive, the math would just get worse for not only HCR, but also for a whole range of progressive legislative efforts. I get the emotion behind the reaction, but it does not provide any resolution of the problem. So, for me, this means that I stay in the game.
Regarding #2 and #3, I was immediately struck by the difference at the root cause level.
- Accept the Bill – problem is primarily within the Legislative Branch (the Senate in particular)
- Kill the Bill – problem is primarily within the Executive Branch
So, which was the primary root cause? Did single payer and the public option die as a result of:
#2 Not enough progressive votes in the Senate to override the conserva-Dem numbers which gave Senators Lieberman and Nelson virtual veto power, given the filibuster rule and desire to avoid the reconciliation process due to the sunset scenario and unpredictable nature of it.
#3 A weak Executive Branch will and/or a secretly corporatist POTUS who lied then betrayed us to get elected, paired with a corrupt and possibly criminal COS.
Trying to answer this for myself, I used the old mental technique of playing, "What if?"
Regarding #3 Kill the Bill ... What if President Obama had been a liberal lion and Howard Dean was COS? Would Lieberman and Nelson, and all the other Conserva-Dems, have caved and pushed through a strong public option? Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that, but I’ll admit that I doubt it. It probably would have been dramatic, that’s for sure, but I’m really don’t think it would have worked. Why? History. Power simply does not relinquish power easily, and frankly, that would have been too easy. We just saw this one industry be able to put more money against this than an entire nation invested in a presidential race. That is one tough fortress folks. History shows villagers have better results when they tunnel and chip away at the foundation of the walls than going for an all out frontal assault, especially since we now know that a number of "our" votes in the Legislative Branch and actually "their" votes. And that’s not just us, as noted by diary on the Rec List regarding the French system:
La Sécurité sociale was not created by one single piece of legislation. It was a very protracted process. Initially it concerned only employees in the private sector (1945)), civil servants (1947), agricultural workers (1961), other workers (1966). It became universal only in 1999 (until then part of the population and notably the homeless were not covered). There was a gradual shift as initially, the aim was to protect 'workers and their families', whereas today healthcare is considered as a human right rather than a worker's right. h/t to French imp
Still, I’m wiling to go so far as to give the Executive Branch a subjective 50% of the problem. It’s up to each of us to critically think and decide, what % of the problem do you think was/ is due to the Executive Branch?
Continuing ...
Regarding #2 with the Legislative Branch being the primary problem ... What if we had had 4 more progressives in the Senate? Well, I’m pretty darn sure that Nelson, Lieberman, Snowe, and Collins wouldn’t have been at the top of anyone’s dance list, and they certainly wouldn’t have had a legislative veto power. Going into this whole mess, I’ll admit that I fully believed that 60 was THE magic number. It "should be," shouldn’t it?!? Yes, if we had a Constitution that had not been designed to frustrate rapid, significant change in favor of the status quo, then yep ... the majority would indeed rule. But that is not reality, and 60 was factually not enough. But keeping with the "What if" game ... what if we’d had 4 more progressive Senators in place of any of the following:
Kit Bond of Missouri
Sam Brownback of Kansas
Jim Bunning of Kentucky
Judd Gregg of New Hampshire
George LeMieux of Florida
George Voinovich of Ohio
Richard Shelby of Alabama
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
John McCain of Arizona
Johnny Isakson of Georgia
Mike Crapo of Idaho
Chuck Grassley of Iowa
David Vitter of Louisiana
Richard Burr of North Carolina
Tom Coburn of Oklahoma
Jim DeMint of South Carolina
John Thune of South Dakota
Bob Bennett of Utah
Again, I honestly don’t know if a 64: 56 count would have been THE magic number needed, but I am more confident we’d have gotten a public option with this count. In fact, I’d put my confidence level up to about a 75%, making the Legislative Branch MORE of the problem than the Executive Branch, IMO. Obviously, it is up to each of us to critically think and assign percentages to where the greatest source of the root problem is: Executive or Legislative Branch?
Since, my conclusion is that the root problem is primarily the Legislative Branch, I’m going the #2 route. I will be supporting a nose holding acceptance of the bill and looking for other progressive efforts to go after a higher Senatorial count in 2010. Whatever your decision, I hope my reflections on my own decision making process were useful. and I do remain open if anyone sees fallacies in how I’ve arrived where I’m at.
And, as for those deciding to go the #3 route to Kill the Bill, the next step for me involved deciding whether or not to simply wish folks well on this effort or to examine if I thought I needed to take additional action to try to persuade others not to join those efforts. That’s a tough one, since I really hate divisiveness within our movement. Divide and conquer has been such a historically effective way to kill our forward progress over the centuries that, I’m sorry, I'm almost viscerally adverse and distrustful of anything that has a whiff of being divise. And this is especially true for me!
To determine where I stood on this, I returned to the underlying assumptions and the tactics associated with the Kill the Bill efforts.
The underlying assumptions of the Kill the Bill approach are:
- The bill causes so much more harm than good that if it dies and nothing gets done, then that is better than what this bill could do – I’m not sure it does. I’d like to hear more fact based discussion of this.
- However, there is a much better chance for better if we start from scratch in 2010 – I doubt this we will likely have fewer votes after 2010 if we fracture and call our own efforts to date, crap. Therefore this appears to be harmful to solving the root problem.
- The problem is within the Executive Branch, primarily due to Rahm Emanual being a corporatist, and President Obama being a nice but typical pol, who will become more of a liberal lion without Rahm’s influence and if we can push the DC "island" left – Somehow, I don’t think President Obama is going to partner more with folks who took down his COS; he doesn’t seem to have a very fear driven personality to me.
- There is a very high likelihood of Rahm being guilty of criminal behavior involving Fannie Mac – If the GOP admin didn’t find anything, don’t know why a Dem admin would.
- purging bad guys on our side makes us stronger – I don’t think Whitewater made the Clinton admin stronger
- the resulting investigation on the COS will not have a seriously negative effects on anyone other than Rahm – I see real blowback potential here on the African American and Jewish communities, as well. This fits just too well with the nutty meme regarding poor African Americans being responsible for the financial disaster and my stomach knots whenever anyone starts using the words Jewish, bankers, and conspiracy in the same sentence.
- A bipartisan alliance with Norquist will get attention and be more helpful than potentially harmful since Grover, the tea partiers, and Fox and the MSM can be managed and manipulated to push the island left without much collateral effects – This is a big wild card in my book. Norquist is a sociopath IMO and many of the tea partiers are either batty, stupid or both. I don’t trust Fox to tell the truth, and I don’t trust the MSM to know the truth if they ran over it and back up to look at it. This potentially has more ways to go hinky than I typically like to play with, so count me big time skeptical on this one.
All told, I’m pretty skeptical about the assumptions underlying #3, as well. On to the tactics:
- A petition drive to kill the bill – No negatives I can see on this, possibly some positives in pushing against that 50% I gave the Executive Branch.
- Targeting Bernie Sanders with negative ads in his district – Just no! I see NO upside, here, and it frankly pisses me off. There is such a thing as loyalty to friends, and I feel that way toward Bernie. I’ll admit to not being very rational about this point, so this would be a good place to attack my thinking.
- Forming an alliance with Grover Norquist to create a bipartisan effort with tea partiers to kill the bill – See #7 above. A crazy wild card too far for me.
- Creating a Nebraska calling drive to Democrats to target Harry Reid – I’d not do this because it potentially threatens the strategy of gaining MORE dems in the Senate.
- Jane Hamsher of FDL appearing on Fox News to attack the bill – Whatever, here. I don’t think this changes many Independents or Democratic votes, but it does have the potential to ramp up rethug GOTV even more making our work harder in November. So, I wish she wouldn’t but I have no concerns with this.
- A petition drive calling for AG Eric Holder to investigate Rahm Emanuel regarding Freddie Mac co-signed by Grover Norquist Note: This last item may or not be directly related to the Kill the Bill movement; however, a recent statement by Cenk Uygur being hailed at FDL certainly does pair them up as an effort to "move the island left." THIS I find dangerous in that it provides further support and validation for white supremacists’ hatefulness and fig leafs for run of the mill racists and anti-Semitic, and I have a moral problem with doing anything to undermine the African American and Jewish communities, period. No, I am not calling Jane or Cenk racist or anti-Semetic! I’m saying that I, that’s me, and just me, can not and will not join with any group on any means that has those ends in mind.
In conclusion, this was my thought process and why I’m supporting acceptance of the bill, and will be partnering with other progressives trying to get more and better Dems into the Congress in 2010, and will be trying to persuade people not to choose option #3 tactics.