Reply #144: That has been my problem for a long time too. When progressive action becomes the most pragmatic [View All]

[Overseas]

once again, such as after the Bush Crash and Bush Bailouts, after the Bush Gang torture and war profiteering, I get excited to have a 21st century FDR candidate. Progressive and pragmatic are the same thing and can be argued from solid democratic economic grounds.
-- Using bailout money to strengthen the majority is economically beneficial to all, not just the bonus grubbers. Even a cursory review of the Bush Gang years would indicate their neglect of our national infrastructure. Millions of jobs rebuilding, right off the bat, could have been pragmatically defended-- the income will allow our people to pay their mortgages and keep their homes.
-- Medicare for All as the bottom line safety net would have been easy to defend. Especially after the Bush Bailouts were foisted upon the new administration. They bailed out big finance-- we need to help our people. We all knew way back then that private health insurance had blown the triggers of decency off their hinges ages ago, since stomping out national health insurance back in the 90's. I could picture a Ross Perot style-- "They told us they could do better. Leave it to the wisdom of the private sector. Well lookie here-- what did they do-- Increase their premiums and Reduce their Coverage and Increase their Profits."
-- And it would have sent a very pragmatic message-- corporations can no longer so brazenly rip off millions of our citizens. There is a place for regulation in a "free market" system, especially after the triggers of decency have been blown off their hinges and our fellow citizens are going bankrupt paying for medical emergencies. I thought it would be very pragmatic to just take a clear look right off the bat. "One Sixth of the Economy!" = What percentage of the American people are suffering? Clearly dieing early. 37th in the world for national health security.
-- With the planet clearly suffering from the effects of industrial pollution, and those effects crossing national boundaries, how we handle our own greening becomes a national security issue, part of our national defense to reduce international antagonism in a world of increasingly limited resources and destabilized climatic systems. Therefore, naive me assumed adding millions of greening, retrofitting, public transit and regional micro-farming to the infrastructure jobs would have been doubly pragmatic-- Our president goes to Copenhagen with millions of greening jobs underway, demonstrating our commitment to reducing our national carbon footprint, and we have millions of desperate fellow citizens back to work and spending their money in local communities, keeping those towns alive.

But I was going Grand Pragmatic -- what would be best for the nation and the most of us.

Forgot about the immediately pragmatic need of every elected official for more campaign funds. We saw glaring examples of votes lining up with the cash, and didn't have enough national dialogue centered on that fact. In spite of the months and months of pulling effective cost controls out of the bill to "make it appeal to Republicans" and get a 1% bipartisan vote. That interval could have been more productive if we had a more robust free press, but ours is dominated by privatizing conservatives who have profited handsomely from the status quo. And we knew that already too.

By taking the time for the Bipartisan Gestures, we allowed fellow citizens' desperation to be swept up into a right wing fever, instead of catching them right off the bat with a clear examination of the country our democratic president had inherited, and a no-holds barred bailout like Medicare for All to demonstrate our democratic pragmatism immediately. Emergency bailout with a determined rollout by summer of 2010. We could have preempted the fear-mongering experts whose handiwork we'd already seen in the McCain Palin Country First rallies.

We allowed the Democratic party to be seen as desperately negotiating with the 29% Party. The GOP Grand Obstructionist Plutocrats who had driven the country into a ditch already. Pretending they were the party of fiscal discipline when they hadn't been since Reagan's soaring deficits and Bush's Reconciled Tax Cuts for the ultra-rich in a time of war. Couldn't even have a Used to Be discussion-- Republicans Used To Be interested in fiscal discipline but we're coming off of Bush Gang rule and Cheney who said Deficits Don't Matter.

Republican popularity was very very low. I called them The 29% Party for a while last spring. That also affirmed my view that millions had voted Democratic Party because they wanted change that benefited more than the top 5%. So I was ready for Single Payer, and millions more green jobs-- that would unite the young and older in our party. And conscientious greening would also be a way to rebuild our international stature after the disgraceful abuses of power of the Bush Gang.

So I was hoping we'd grab the democratic agenda more proudly, after it had been systematically crushed, defunded and culturally depopularized for decades, and prove its practicality in the doing.

So I feel like I've had a year of naive dreams being crushed one by one.

And the deeper political understanding that a lot of what those friends whose views seemed too extreme at the time were saying has actually come to pass.