This is certainly not original, but bears repeating. When Republicans were in charge of Congress and Democrats were the minority, we were told it was impossible to implement a progressive agenda due to sheer numbers. That was accurate, but worse than that, Democrats, possessing more than the forty votes needed to stop the Republican agenda, could not do so because of miscreant conservative members of the party. So they went along with the tax cuts, the wars, appointment of young extremists to the Supreme Court, and a host of other right wing objectives. (They managed to rustle up 40 votes against Sam Alito, but did not use the filibuster. Hmmmm.) There was no meaningful opposition to the Republican agenda.
We were told that we needed a Democratic majority.
2006 gave us that majority, but nothing could be done because Republicans filibustered every move, Bush vetoed at his leisure, and Harry and the Democrats were hamstrung. They said they needed 60 votes and the presidency to get anything done.
Now they have 60 votes, the House and the presidency, and we still can’t get anything done. Obama is in the process of caving on a public health insurance option, the “white” part of the black-white gambit (part of triangulation), and we are going to be hit with insurance company subsidies and mandatory purchases from them.
They can’t even undo the pharmaceutical subsidy under Medicare D, whereby Medicare is not even allowed to negotiate prices. We are that openly corrupt.
And what do you suppose will happen when the tax cuts are due to expire and the Estate Tax due to be reinstated in 2011? Will 60 votes save us? Not very likely.
We don’t have sixty votes. It’s an illusion. We don’t have the presidency. We don’t even have enough votes to filibuster bad legislation.
All of this merely highlights the basic scam behind American democratic rule – that our interests are served by the existence of a far right party, which enforces meaningful policy change, and a weak second party, which incorporates that change into permanent policy and prevents the rise of third parties. We are not a functional democratic country. “Working within the system” is a cruel joke.
It’s heresy to say as much, but our constitution is outdated. It was innovative and different, but did not anticipate the rise of the corporation or the industrial revolution and the massive fortunes that it would build. I will not live long enough to see meaningful change, but our basic premise of government needs to change – we need an avenue for immediate removal of people from office who misbehave. Senator Max Baucus, who is a big player in the sellout to the insurance and pharmaceutical industrious, will not test his approval with the voters for five more years. By that time, his treason will be a distant memory.
If we had meaningful democratic rule, our government would fall in the wake of the Great Health Care Sellout of 2009. Our president would be replaced by a person directly accountable to our congress which would be directly accountable to voters. Congress would once again have a role to play other than to play patsy to the moneyed interests that currently run the presidency and own most elected offices.
Piece of Mindful 