I fear it will change the game, but for the worse in an awful example of the law of unintended consequences. The individual mandate in the Health Care Bill will be seized on by Republicans and you will hear a non-stop drumbeat of "The government is FORCING you to buy health insurance!" The lethal combination of being dictated by Washington plus the very real financial pain inflicted by premiums the current HCR bill does nothing to control will hand the country back to the Republicans in 2012. I wish it weren't so, but I fear in his zeal to solve a huge national problem, Obama will inflict fatal damage on the Democratic party. Why do polls show a majority in favor of health care reform? Because most of those polled have no idea this is going to cost them money they can't afford. Once they realize that, the Democrats and Obama are toast.

We use parts of virus's to carry medicine to act in otherwise impossible tasks , could a stepford republican be infected with logic and empathy to carry a Sesame Street level blueprint of civilization ?

Bull Shit. Democrats are tryin to play liberals like Republicans play the religious right.

"Keep voting for us! Someday you'll get what you want... suckers."

Good luck with that "meta-challenge" Mr. President,

What with the policies in place for
• the Afghanistan War,
• Bankster Bonus Support?Foreclosure Is a Personal Problem, and
• the "it sez right here on the package 'health care reform', welp, i guess that's what it is..." (scratches head...)

Somehow, "government is your friend" isn't exactly the first thing that comes to mind from those signature efforts...

(and with Rahm, the Stepford economists, and now The Cass Sunstein Show...I don't think we're seeing the light at the end of the Bush-Cheney lower digestive tract)

The problem with your country, beyond the fact of having a financial system who root principle is CORPORATE PROFITS that creates a casino economy, is the average intelligence of your citizens. And that average intelligence equals total stupidity. Thus, the corporations that control every facet of your lives in able to convince the majority of your citizens to even vote against their own self interests. That, indeed, in called stupidity.

This will require a lot of time because it will require replacing many of the Democrats currently in Congress with Democrats whose initial, knee-jerk response to any criticism is not to apologize for seeming too progressive.

But health care reform, at a minimum, offers a chance to change the game. If it fails, the prospect of policymakers doing anything of value anytime soon all but disappears.

Which means that either Democrats have to pass a bill that actually improves health care for people in a meaningful and obvious way. Any "compromise" (capitulation) bill that will pass under the current mindset is not going to do that. So Obama and the Democrats have to suck it up and pass a bill that will make the health care system appreciably better or force the Republicans (including Lieberman, Baucus, et al) to kill it.

The other big mindset that the Democrats need to overcome is the misguided belief that the corporate-controlled media is not biased against them. There may be some journalists who still hold true to the journalistic principles that they learned in school, but those people are trying to hang on to jobs and aren't going to rock the boat.

Democrats need to do what the Republicans did. Republicans never refer to "the media", but only to the "liberal media". Democrats need to refer to the "corporate media" (including public radio and television), and through repetition force journalists to defend themselves.

The irony is that the Republican caucus, as currently constituted, is far more extreme than the group that threatened the "nuclear option" in 2006. Is there any doubt that *this* group of GOP Senators would eliminate the filibuster if we could rewind to the Bush years and put them in charge? I don't think so.

At some point we have to simply come to grips with the fact that race -- and the natural desire to live with people of our own kind, however that is defined -- is at the center of the country's drift to conservatism since the 1960s. I am not calling conservatives racists. I am simply saying that the liberal consensus and the New Deal coalition collapsed when LBJ tried to extend its benefits to blacks and other minorities during the civil right era and through the Great Society.

Remember that Social Security only passed in 1935 when Southern reactionaries were able to insist upon restictions that kept benefits from going to agricultural workers, which meant in practice black tenant farmers in the Deep South.

A whole cottage industry has developed around the idea that the Great Society "did not work" because it was too expensive or too over-reaching. But the underlying reason conservatives have been able to exploit the "overreaching" of the Great Society is that it overreached in its attempt to extend the benefits of the New Deal and the liberal activist government to minorities.

Empathy was a good thing when the federal government was taking care of the interests of the white working classes. Compassion is something that comes easy when directed at members of our own group, and so empathy formed the basis of the liberal consensus that lasted mor than 40 years. But empathy became a dirty word in the recent Sotomayor hearings because empathy means putting yourself in the shoes of groups different from you in order to broaden your perspective, while today's polarized politics, especially on the right, aims at strengthening group solidarity and cohension by accentuating resentments and grievances caused by those outside the family, clan and tribe.

In such a polarized climate, where any kind of good faith effort to overcome differences is simply not possible, rules like the filibuster that require supermajority support to accomplish anything will doom our democracy to deadlock. And a deadlocked democracy is an invitation to a more radical and authoritarian brand of politics that can break through the stalement by extra-legal or extra-constitutional means to get things done. And replacing pluralist democracy with a more uniform and authoritarian kind of political regime has been the aim of the far right all along.

Obama can't do this, because he can't bring himself to call out the other side as dishonest, etc.

Steve, that's one theory. Another is that people are voting for reform, and so Democrats have decided to relabel the status quo "reform" while blowing smoke up our collective asses.

Progressives or the "left of the left" is culpable in why they don't have more influence. Instead of working to organize, raise money, and develop persuasive strategy, they just complain. "Oh, they're taking us for granted!!"

Soulite's comment above is an example. It's pure victimhood. Well, go out there and increase your ranks. Maybe then you'll have some power.

It will also require convincing voters of something too few of them believe already: That government action can be make a difference in their lives.

And that, friends, was the real Reagan Revolution.

"and Democrats still feel compelled to pretend government intervention is something else entirely."

This conventional wisdom is incoherent. The government has long ago "intervened" for a host of reasons including co-option of the government by the health care industry and Senator (Vested Interest Party) Nelson and Lieberman illustrate. The current health care market is a product of enormous government "intervention."

Perhaps on occasion the writer of this incoherent cliche about big government has an immune system that "inteferes" with his body or a brain that "intereres" with his stomach or a stomach that "interferes" with his brain.

There is a reason "liberals" get their asses regularly handed to them by know nothing Republican right wingers. But what the hell, go on worshipping your false dichotomites and gods and the resulting incoherent cluster fuck will make a good show for those who love black humor. I am starting to have some sympathy for Seven High Rahm and the problem he faces from his own kind.

I agree with Roddy that the real Reagan revolution was implementation of the Republicans strategic Catch 22: Define government as the problem; govern catastrophically -- which not only proves the point but leave Democrats with a cluster&*() to unwind -- and then obstruct to ensure Democratic governing failure! Heads they win; tails we lose. The majority of the American people are too stupid to call it and Democratic leadership is too gutless to call it for what it is.

The filibuster threat is a temporary problem; when the Democrats find themselves again in the minority, it will rarely ever be used.

The Democrats would have some crediblity of believing that the government can do good things if they did not send their own children to private schools, use private security to protect themselves, use private car services to move around, and use boutique hospitals for their health care.

What the Democratic Party really governs by is the belief that the government can be used to rob Peter to pay Paul and it is the governments job to maximize the Pauls and minimize the Peters.

The right made a long term investment in the repetition of the message that government is always the problem, never competent, never able to help. A lot of people believe this, and correcting it will be a long term process -- hopefully beginning with meaningful health care reform.

Democrats, liberals and progressives, by failing to counter this repetition in a meaningful (long-term) way, have lost the ability to use the government for "greater good" services to the public (sometimes called comforting the afflicted).

How convenient (if you're a republican) that this worldview frees up government resources for "comforting the comfortable".

Three Headed, sure it is bub. Keep pissing in our faces and tell us its our fault we're getting rained on. That's going to go a long way towards keeping this coalition together.

That's really the problem with your kind of scum, Thre Headed Monkey. You think you can do whatever you want, and when someone fights back, you scream and shout and piss and moan that people dared to stand up for themselves.

Go fuck yourself in the ass with a rusty nail.

The free market paradigm has failed, or at least reached the end of its tether.

That's the thing that they hope everyone is afraid to talk about.

Whoever grows a pair and continuously points out the fact the free market does truly suck at delivering certain services will break the feedback loop we are now in.

As with the limits of a government supplied "great society" we are now seeing the limits and the failures of "the ownership society".

Greed and profit eventually undercuts the national interest and right now those business interests (banks, health insurance) make certain that congress looks first at the industries profit interest rather than what is good for the country in the long run.

That's just bassackward.

Humans are creatures of familiarity. Flem Snopes votes the way his Pap and Gramps did, alway will. It's why he still lives on Tobacco Road.

And why,in New England, the descendants of Thoreau and Jane Adams still call themselves "Progressive".

How long have we been talking about taking back our country from the corporations ? Thirty, forty years ? How long has the government of the United States been dysfunctional ? Thirty, forty years ?
From where I sit, we're kicking the proverbial dead horse. How realistic is it, even in an age of communication, for a country of three hundred million to organize themselves in a coherent way to - yes - take the country back from its corporate owners ? I just cannot see it, as much as I'd like to. Given the attention span and average IQ of the eligible voters, we're talking about brainwashing/propagandizing on a scale to make Stalin and Hitler proud. Just how is this great transformation to be accomplished ? What people are discussing here, getting maybe another 15 senators who will vote consistently for progressive causes, is a mammoth undertaking. If it weren't it would have happened some time ago, because god knows there are enough frustrated people out there, but you've got to get them to vote and you've got to get the right people to run. I just don't think we can fix it from the inside.
I'm reminded of Ken Kesey's comment about the war when he came to Berkeley: "Just say Fuck It and go home".
I'm not a republican. In fact, if I had my way, we'd be overwhelmingly socialist at the government level (truth in advertising for me), but sincerely, I believe that it's broke and you can't fix it.

Many, many good points, rbe1!

a modest step forward will come when Obama names two (three? Be still, my beating heart!) new SCOTUS justices in the next 7 years.

And, somewhere down the road, they will overturn the decision to call corporations "persons", with all the rights that go with personhood.

Like bribing, er, lobbying congress. . .

At this risk of making a self-interested argument, may I suggest that a good strategy for your cause would be to attract people like me who generally are in favor of small government but also accept that pragmatically, in some special cases (such as the present health care crisis), government can provide a last-resort impetus toward a solution?

I get that this puts me at odds with 99% of the readership of this blog who philosophically believe gov't action makes a good first resort. No matter. The magnitude of the current crisis drives me to work with those whose ideology I reject, and to work against those totally impractical libertarian types whose ideology I would in happier times buy into.

I'd be interested in establishing a broader dialogue along these lines in an appropriate forum. Any ideas?

When congress continues to choose executives over the American people it is not hard for the people to distrust government. That is the incestuous alliance that needs to be broken before the people have real representation in government.

The Dems have failed to make headway because too many of them are part of the problem. They choose corporations over the people much like the republicans.

Beneath the title of "government" what the people fear is that it is their fellow American with power and money actively trying to kill and/or destroy them. Government puts some distance about the reality.

Equal Opportunity:
I don't believe that most who visit this blog are first resorters. Many of us go to government when the profit motive of for profit insurance decides to gut the coverage of average Americans. Government is normally a last resort, but in our presently constituted society, for profit businesses have a choke hold on many services that many civilized countries regard as being properly in the public interest and in the public domain.

blue said:

"...the corporations that control every facet of your lives [are] able to convince the majority of your citizens to ... vote against their own self interests. That [is] called stupidity."

It's better called "false consciousness," blue. The hard question is why intelligent people get fooled repeatedly and vote their delusions.

A government for the rich and nothing but the rich so help us god.

The very fabric of DC is threaded with corporate interests.

To think/believe otherwise is to live in fantasy land.

The republicans want us to lose faith in government.

The democrats manage to make us lose faith in government.

We fool ourselves to think DC "works."

rbe1: I agree with you about the choke hold, which is why I gave up being a staunch libertarian. Also agree with your comments upthread.

The real question is, beyond a few cynical comments on a blog somewhere, how to we organize to start changing things?

As impractical as I find my libertarian friends on most issues, I do have to admire the Free State Project.

The real question is, how do we (as progressives) send a message to our fickle representatives? Voting seems to suggest that we like the status quo, but not voting will simply result in more Republicans, who are even more conservative than usual. Ideally, I would prefer an option that does not involve pouring gasoline and setting fire to ourselves.

Also remember that it was a Democratic president who declared that the era of big government was over.

I stopped giving to gay groups that promised to work for political change, and started making all my charitable contributions to the local AIDS service house that directly assists the ill. I am giving up on political contributions altogether now. When 60 Democrat votes in the Senate produces the same basic results as a ruthug majority, I can't see any utility in it. When the Democrat president continues a military surge for no good reason that he can articulate other than what the thugs want it, there is no point.

The base is gone in '10. When the Democrats are ruled by Lieberman, it is every man for himself.

candideinnc, I think your math's off if you're counting Lieberman as a Democrat.

Equal Opportunity Cynic, @22:07,

I doubt Candide is saying that Lieberman is a Dem; only Fox could consider him as such, when they need to "balance" their talking heads. I think she's saying he has a disproportionate influence over what Dems can and cannot do, when she says that "Democrats are ruled by Lieberman". In which she is, of course, correct.

The significance of this in the health care debate is obvious. The administration has already shown that an ambitious government response can rescue the country from the economic abyss, and ... .

How droll.

Most people's direct interaction with government is dealing with the DMV....Hence the narrative of government "as the problem". Of course those selling that narrative praise the military--most definitely a government program... hmmm....

The main immediate cost control is the public option, i.e. actual competition with insurance. Therefore it must be killed. The bending of the curve is the studies looking at effective treatments--which is an attack on our freedom to choose ineffective treatments, so it also must be killed. And we must have layers of bureaucracy to make sure no illegal alien buys insurance with their own money so we can complain about the bureaucracy...

But health care reform, at a minimum, offers a chance to change the game. If it fails...

don't look now, but obama and the democrats have already failed the American people badly. They are left trying to convince everyone that they have done something and hoping that no one notices that they've only done what they always do: land another profits windfall into the hands of corporations and the plutocratic overlords at the expense of the average American.

If the corporate media masters think that democrats have done enough for the health service corporations, they may play along and promote the meme that democrats did something. If however, they decide its not enough or they don't like what democrats have done, or that democrats have served their useful purpose, they'll bury them.
.

the slob christi in NJ is what you get when democrats get pissed off enough at democrats that they stay home. Corzine wasn't great, but he could never have been as bad as christi will be. Democrats need to think long and hard about not-voting.

Democrats can be pretty bad, but they seldom come close to being as horrendous as republicans.

And thus inbetween the severely opposed polarities something else arises, looking for a scapegoat.. Don't let it happen again, this is a time that all should be wary. It can already see it in bits and pieces. Just saying.

Gotta say it - this is a foolhardy, unrealistic approach. This is as good as the Dems are going to have it. The problem isn't the Republicans, it's the fact that there is no real party discipline, nobody feels the least bit scared to stand in the way of the President's agenda. Even more than that, though, is the fact that these "rules" in the Senate are just that - rules, not 'laws'. They could easily be voted away and replaced with sensible rules that don't allow for the tyranny of the minority. Oh, but we can't do that, people might say we're "mean" or something, which is of course, much worse than passing totally ineffective legislation and looking like a bunch of idiots.

Of course, now that the *Dems* are power, the filibuster is a bad thing, an undemocratic thing, something which should be eliminated. Oh please. Stop the whining...

Of course, now that the *Dems* are power, the filibuster is a bad thing, an undemocratic thing, something which should be eliminated. Oh please. Stop the whining...

Moron, how Republican Senators are using the filibuster is literally unprecedented. When one party abuses a privilege, it abuses the other party to seriously consider removing that privilege.

I agree with Roddy that the real Reagan revolution was implementation of the Republicans strategic Catch 22: Define government as the problem; govern catastrophically -- which not only proves the point but leave Democrats with a cluster&*() to unwind -- and then obstruct to ensure Democratic governing failure!

And P.J. O'Rourke pegged it back in the '80s -- when Bush the lesser's disastrous Presidency wasn't even a glint in Dick Cheney's jaundiced eye -- when he noted that Republicans complain that government doesn't work, then get elected and prove it.

How droll.

Your evidence that Steve's statement wasn't dead-on accurate is welcome, and sure to be laughable. And no, your childish faith in borrow-and-spend Republicanism that delivers your sweet, sweet tax cuts doesn't count.

Jackass.