Dec 06 2009

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste

Previously on Health Care Reform…

The Senate Will Not Change Without A Crisis

By: Jon Walker, Firedog Lake

Friday December 4, 2009 5:15 pm

This is the perfect moment for the progressives to force the crisis needed to change how the Senate works.

Health care is a huge party issue with massive support among the base. The public option is extremely popular and has become a rallying call. It can’t pass the completely made-up 60-vote threshold, but it can get the constitutionally required simple majority.

If we can’t break the unconstitutional and disfucntional Senate rules on this issue, I don’t see how progressives will ever be able to.

Failing to create the crisis now, will pretty much guarantee not a single piece of really progressive legislation is passed during Obama’s presidency.

Given the broken state of the Senate and the massive increase in filibuster use, it is not a matter of if there will be a crisis, but simply when. If progressives can’t force a Democratically controlled Senate to fix this nonsense, I can promise you when the Republicans take back the Senate, the right-wing base will.

Capitulating now for bread crumbs would be admitting progressive change is impossible. You don’t get change by saying, “pretty please, but if don’t, that is ok.” You only will see change if you demand it.

2 comments

  1. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but one whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.  My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light.

    Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.

    I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.

    There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one.  There are persons too who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful.

    It is the madness of folly to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice.  Even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war.

    He is mercifully inviting you to barbarous destruction, and men must be either rogues or fools that will not see it.  I dwell not upon the vapors of imagination, I bring reason to your ears and, in language as plain as A B C, hold up truth to your eyes.

    I thank God, that I fear not.  I see no real cause for fear.  I know our situation well, and can see the way out of it.

    By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils-

    • a ravaged country
    • a depopulated city
    • habitations without safety
    • and slavery without hope

    Our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for whose fathers we shall doubt of.

    Look on this picture and weep over it!  And if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.

    • dkmich on December 6, 2009 at 19:12
    • #

    No matter the issue or the argument, it all requires the resolve to win at any cost. As the man said, pretty please doesn’t work and pointing a gun at someone better mean you’re willing to pull the trigger.  We have not been very good at that.  From OpenLeft and FDL, I get the sense that people are finally getting there.  It is heartening to know that there are more and more who see the problem and are trying to figure out a way to fix it.

    Until then, the least we can do is try to take them down with us.  After threatening all these years, I have finally resolved to use my future votes to punish Democrats.  

    I have low expectations, however.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  

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