Some commentators think Ted Kennedy's passing can reignite President Obama's health care bill. But I think it is likely to fail unless the President begins to defend the democratic principles undergirding the term "public option."What he and the Democrats need to do now, in Kennedy's honor, is tell the American public what it means to speak about them. About the public -- whether in the term "the public good" or "the public square" or the "American re-public" or, yes, in the phrase a "public option" in health care.
With little resistance, the American public and the American President have allowed the term public to be hijacked and turned into a dirty word. In the hands of the hijackers, public is about "them" or "it." It's about bureaucratic bullies trying to do in granny, or about fascist thugs trying to take away our freedom of choice. It's about socialism -- a command economy corporatist state taking health care decisions away from doctors and patients. It's about closet communists who want to put Stalin in charge of emergency room triage.
Well it isn't, and I wish President Obama was out front saying so. Because the public, folks, isn't them, it's us. It's "we the people," it's neighbors united to take care of one another, it's citizens doing together that they can't do alone.
The public square is our common ground. That's why in England they call it "the commons," the shared turf where in a democracy we stand together to overcome what keeps us apart and do together those public things (res-publica) that make us a republic.
Once we allow the word public to be vilified, however, then everything associated with it becomes pejorative. Like paying taxes. See, taxes is how we pool our money to do things in common that can't be done alone. Like building roads or educating the young or fighting wars or taking care of the poor and the sick and those with handicaps. Taxes are the common allowance we give ourselves as a national family so we can pay for the things that make us a family and keep us a family.
The attack on the term public is really an attack on democracy, on citizenship, on our efforts to come together under the banner of we the people to protect our liberties and secure our property and ensure our safety. Because centuries ago we figured out you can't do those things alone, one by one, even if you are strong. Behind the abstract term public stand your neighbors, your fellow citizens, your partners in common pursuits across the land.
Those who attack the public then are attacking you and me insofar as we want to think of ourselves as us. And in health care, us is critical, since the public health is at stake and only a public element can assure us a fair, efficient and cost-effective system.
It's really quite simple: the public option in health care is the public good in health care; and health care constitutes the core meaning of the public good. So let's out those who assail the term public: they are not protecting liberty, they are undermining the common goods and democratic institutions by which liberty is established and preserved.
Follow Benjamin R. Barber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BenjaminRBarber
There is only one way we can win is to shout the conservatives down not just with emotion but facts and figures too.
If we don't get this passed this year and the jobs don't come back soon...
THERE WILL BE HELL FAR WORSE THAN WHAT IS HAPPENING AT TOWN HALL MEETINGS.
http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/bg2301.cfm
You would have gotten a great health care bill if the left wing of the House did not ram through these massive bills without reading them. The train has left the station. The health care bill THAT WILL PASS with be watered down. Progress will come in steps. It wont be another massive spending mess.
Obama needs to win the trust back of the middle or the Dems will be swept next year. that's the reality.
Trouble is that your analogy to Germany is but 80 years too late. We are beginning to resemble the post WW1 Germany. People used their societal acrimony to find others to hate. There was demonization of teachers, artists and yes those darn Communists. Sound familiar.
The Germany which emerged was built of the kind of corporate cronyism and ultimately Fascism.
This nation needs a very large left turn to get back to anything resembling "the middle", given the huge right wing shift that has left us bankrupt. Yes, we already had "socialism." Since Reagan it was socialism for the rich. We privatized the profits and socialized the losses.
Progress for a few is not progress.
I'd like to clue you in on an amazing development: We have another way of pooling our money to do things in common now...it's called capitalism. See, how it works is that investors pool their money into a legal entity called a "corporation". Then that corporation is able to do things which the individual investors could not.
The best part is, you don't have to participate in someone else's corporation if you don't want to, unlike taxes. If I don't like what a company does, I'm free not to patronize it, or pull my investment out of it. If I don't like the war that the government started, well, too bad, because I'm going to pay for it whether I like it or not.
"Public" wouldn't be getting a bad rap if it weren't constantly being twisted by liberals to mean socialism. Stop using the word in an Orwellian manner, and it'll stop getting a bad reputation.
The last thing we need is to create more little power fiefdoms where "I'm in charge and you follow my orders--and if you don't like it, go to some other fiefdom and see if they treat you any differently!"
What you and other "capitalists" want and have had for centuries now is a continuation of the leader/follower myth. In authoritarian systems, leaders/owners do what they want without interference; in democracies, real functioning democracies, all participants have an equal say in how things run.
I think a freedom loving person would prefer a public option whenever possible because that means the institution created is accountable to everyone and amendable at any time-- something that is not true with corporations --operationally, corporations are pure tyrannies.
Let me "clue YOU in on an amazing development." The United States is NOT a political dictatorship--we are a representative republic. Anything "run by the government" or "public"
means it is owned and operated by all citizens of the U.S. -- you and me and everyone else TOGETHER -- and can be changed any time WE want. A person either believes in real democracy or is fearful of sharing power with other people.
"What you and other "capitalists" want and have had for centuries now is a continuation of the leader/follower myth. "
Actually, it appears that you're projecting your own views of how things work onto me. There's no reason that corporate organizations must be "top down", or "not democratic"....in fact, you have totally internalized the anti-entrepreneurial attitude that those in power try so hard to cultivate. You don't have to accept what you're offered; you can always go do it yourself. If you're unhappy with your treatment by any given corporation, you're probably not alone, and that means there's a market for the same service delivered differently.
I actually see the government as far less accountable than any corporation. Look at the past 8 years for countless examples. Bush simply decided that he liked Nixon when he said "When the President does it, that means it's legal.", and he thumbed his nose at the law, evading any punishment for his crimes even to this day.
At least you can sue a corporation for breaking the law. The best you can do for the government is whine to your Congresscritter.
I am not fearful of sharing power, I am fearful of concentrating power in the hands of a few. That is true whether it's a government or a corporation.
Today I listened to Ed Shultz on the radio - he was exasperated by calls from people who think those wanting a public option are free loaders and he didn't understand how they could think that. The right has been very successful, thanks to massive corporate funding, in their propaganda efforts to convince some people that a nation's strength is found in competition for everything, a survival of the fittest ideology. Of course its all a lie since we the people cannot compete with the the rich and corporate power -- all we compete for are the leftovers. Also this view sees we the people as mere consumers - objects - to be exploited, without regulations to protect us, as producers of good and buyers of goods including healthcare. This ideology also ranks "successful" people as inherently better people, not just those who fate has been kind, so far. So some people with health insurance cannot imagine the truth - they could loose it in an instant OR discover it is worthless when they need it.
They are good at hijacking words; another good example is liberal....
See what I mean...?
Maybe some of you can learn something here...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/milljs