Katrina vanden Heuvel: Healthcare, History and Kennedy

[babylonsister]

This whole article is good; Ms. vanden Heuvel's dad was great friends with Senator Kennedy, and it starts off with their relationship.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/466759/healthcare_history_and_kennedy

Healthcare, History and Kennedy
posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 08/26/2009 @ 4:55pm


I was writing this column when I heard of Senator Kennedy's death.

I am heartbroken.

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Senator Kennedy was a fighting liberal; a passionate and exuberant lion to the very end -- often among timid cubs. He will be remembered as the best and most effective Senator of the last century. Kennedy helped shape every major piece of legislation, with his powerful commitment to civil rights, labor rights, and women's rights -- always fighting for equality, always standing with the underdog, the poor, the most vulnerable, who he believed deserved lives of dignity.

Kennedy's final fight was for quality, affordable healthcare for all. As recently as July, he called that fight "the cause of my life." In the coming months, President Obama and a Democratic Congress will determine whether that cause is realized.

Whatever one thinks of President Obama's presidency so far, he is one of the few reform presidents in modern history -- a potential Senator Kennedy recognized when he endorsed his candidacy. A reform President takes on the status quo in order to improve the lives of the majority and ensure that America lives up to it's potential and promise. Franklin Roosevelt was the very model of a reform President. Lyndon Johnson, in a sense, was pushed to become a reformer by the turbulence of the times.

When a reform President takes on the status quo he confronts a ferocious, well-organized, reactionary opposition. What we're seeing today -- with rightwing groups comparing Obama to Hitler and healthcare reform to socialism--Roosevelt faced with the American Liberty League calling him a socialist or a fascist (ironic, since it was Roosevelt who led the US into war against fascism). Like Obama, Roosevelt also confronted well-funded business lobbies. And in the Catholic demagogue Father Coughlin, Roosevelt had his Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck in a Roman collar.

snip//

Every President, no matter how popular at the outset, has only so much political capital and must use it wisely and strategically. And if one looks at American political history--as Mike Lux explains in his valuable book The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be -- every so often a window to change opens and the combination of crisis, leadership, and political movement makes big, positive reforms possible.

"That window is open right now," Lux writes, "and President Obama, to his credit, is trying to keep it open" to make changes that will make our nation immeasurably stronger. But if he gives up this fight and caves to lobbyists -- or either the Congressional Democrats or the grassroots fails to deliver the support he needs -- then that window will slam shut, and the next opportunity for reform might not come for another generation.

That would be a real tragedy -- and also no way to honor the Lion of the Senate. Today President Obama said, "The Kennedy name is synonymous with the Democratic Party." Now, for this fight, the Democratic Party must become synonymous with Kennedy.