On Big Ed: Jane Hamsher Just Declared A Devastating Blow to the Progressive Movement

[berni_mccoy]

She just said the passing of the Senate HCR bill is a crumbling of the infrastructure of the progressive movement. She also said the movement will be lead by people who call themselves progressives but will rubber stamp everything corporate America wants. She basically said the movement is dead if they don't stand up to the bill.

This is the same question I've been asking. Why are progressives getting behind this bill? Why are they not fighting it?

[babylonsister]

1. I think the sky has fallen one too many times according to Jane. nt

[bobbolink]

24. Another cheerleader attack.

Winning friends and influencing new voters are not done with dmismissive attacks.

[KittyWampus]

38. "cheerleader attack"? Are you five years old and unable to do anything else but name-call?

[FLAprogressive]

47. it's okay to call people "silly cows" then?

[Warpy]

66. It is when they are.

[bobbolink]

51. Thank you so much for proving my point.

I appreciate it.

Those viewing this have seen this clearly now.

Again, thanks.

[Warpy]

28. It has. What the silly cow doesn't realize is that conservatism

as a movement has about run its course. The elders and most powerful voices are all dying off. What's left is a threadbare imitation that has degenerated into petulance. Their ideas have failed and, considering what makes up the average conservative, they are incapable of developing anything new.

That doesn't mean it won't stick around as a minority position to bedevil us and try to poison pill everything to death the way they did up until the end of the 60s. It just means that their day in the sun is long over, even if they don't realize it yet.

The rest of the country has moved on. Majority positions now were considered loony left just a decade ago.

Jane needs to wake up and smell the change in the air.

[debbierlus]

2. The movement won't be dead. It will mean a whole new fight

[berni_mccoy]

10. ...Abandoned by it's current leadership according to Hamsher

[Skidmore]

11. Sanders had it right.

You lay the ground work, regroup, and start pushing forward again. Spinning your wheels only digs you in deeper and doesn't move you forward.

[mmonk]

3. I recognize it too.

It's hard to go against the leadership of one's party.

[Cetacea]

4. I'm not giving up. nt

[jaxx]

5. It has nothing to do with corporate America, it has to do with people having health care.

That's the trouble with all these bloggers, they are so full of themselves and the bullshit that can be used in any category that they have lost sight of the real problem. No access to health care for millions of people. That's the problem. The solution is 30 million more will have that health care. Not good enough? Ask the 30 million and get back to me.

[Tansy_Gold]

20. 30,000,000 more will have health INSURANCE

That does not mean they will have health CARE.

They may not be able to afford the care after they've paid the premiums.

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. +1000

[phasma ex machina]

62. +1 +29,999,999 actually. LOL. nt

[valerief]

35. And they may get their claims denied when they try to use the insurance. nt

[leftofcool]

39. Or get a shit policy for the money they shell out

[Carolina]

58. excellent point

as many of us know from first hand experience, health insurance does not mean health care.

[dflprincess]

67. Exactly

and, by 2019, there will still be 23 million who don't even have insurance. http://www.startribune.com/business/79720077.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU

Meanwhile, more and more of us will join the ranks of the underinsured and won't have access to healthcare either.

[Ignis]

71. No matter how many times you say this, it doesn't seem to sink in.

Insurance is not care. :banghead:

[bobbolink]

25. Access, schmacess.

It's been explained so many times.

Maybe you're so busy formulating snarky responses that you aren't listening.

[Missy Vixen]

40. Oh, really?

>That's the trouble with all these bloggers, they are so full of themselves and the bullshit that can be used in any category that they have lost sight of the real problem.<

I'm a blogger. I write about politics, and my blog has been recognized multiple times now by mass media and other bloggers as being one of the best blogs on the Web. Frankly, I'm burned out. I face the same issues that Jane Hamsher does. Actually, hers are worse: As a three-time cancer survivor, I can't even imagine how much her health insurance premiums are per month. We have no health insurance right now. We lost ours when my husband lost his job. Both DH and I have pre-existing conditions, so we can't make it through underwriting.

Full of myself? Yeah, right. I face the problem every DAY now. I live it. What do you do?

Don't tell me that I've "lost sight of the real problem". I'm one of those fifty million uninsured. Jane Hamsher is one of the estimated 100 million who have insurance, but may find herself recissioned out of a policy any minute now.

This bill isn't going to fix a goddamn thing for anyone but the insurance companies.

[Skittles]

45. MISSY VIXEN SPEAKS THE TRUTH

YES INDEED

[Missy Vixen]

74. It's time to tell it like it is

Skittles, you are an ass-kicker extraordinaire. Your services are desperately needed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

:hug:

[Mojorabbit]

49. +100 nt

[Tansy_Gold]

52. Absofuckinglutely! n/t

[PassingFair]

72. Oh shut up and get with the program. Progressivism is DEAD.

Corporatism is the NEW Progressivism.


:sarcasm:


And sorry for your all too common predicament.
I'm glad you can tell a band aid from a scalpel.

[Missy Vixen]

73. PassingFair, I never thought I'd see a President

so bent on his own legacy that he will bite the hands that wrote the checks, knocked on the doors, had their neighbors over to talk about health care, and put him in the White House to pass legislation that ultimately, won't work.

In the meantime, :hug:
We all need to stick together now.

[Skittles]

43. do you really not just understand?

having health insurance is NOT THE SAME as having health care - LOTS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE INSURED CANNOT AFFORD TO ACTUALLY USE IT and NOTHING in this bill addresses that

[jaxx]

60. This is to all those who replied..........I was out and not able to respond

Yes I know ins isn't health care, but it's the means we have to use to get it. Like it or not, it's reality. Personally I want single payer, I've wanted single payer since before it was on and off the table, but that's a pipe dream at the moment.

If you are a blogger good for you, but please don't expect everyone to go along with all your ideals. Same with JH, she's getting a lot of tv time right now, it doesn't make her my spokesperson.

To the snark. LOL Life's a bitch when people don't agree.

[DJ13]

6. Its the Iraq War Resolution all over again

The stench that permeates those who until now have claimed to be progressive will taint them from here on out.

[jaxx]

12. Ohhhhh now we get the test?

Who's progressive enough to meet the standards?

[DJ13]

15. ....people who dont vote to enslave citizens to corporations?

Dont ask if you dont want an answer.

[laughingliberal]

29. yes, a very good test. thank you.nt

[frazzled]

7. Because JH doesn't know what she's talking about?

The dope's here, and it's fact, not fiction. Read it if you want some education on the matter. Don't read it if you just want to keep believing JH's misleading scare tactics and untruths:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/jane_hamshers_10_reaons_to_kil.html#more

[jaysunb]

8. They (we) are getting behind it because

we realize that every great social legislation began w/ a flawed or bad bill that was incrementally improved.

Check the history of social security, civil rights, medicare and others, and you'll find the same dilemma was present at those times.

We can only wish for a magic wand....:shrug:

[laughingliberal]

36. Social Security and Medicare started with incremental steps in the right direction

This bill is going further down the path of putting our health care system in the hands of for-profit corporations. The corporatists made sure anything that could effectively threaten that was stripped completely out of this bill. I guess the only good thing is if they make changes it would be hard to make it any worse but I hesitate to say that, even.

[dflprincess]

68. Social Security was created to fill a need where no program existed

It was new, it was innovative and it worked. That's why it grew as time went on. Though Reagan pared it back and give the DLC time, they want to privatize it as much as the Republicans do.

This insurance bill is designed to prop up a system that has already failed. It breaks no new ground (except to force us to send money to private companies) and has nothing to do with reform or improving access to care.

[dave29]

9. She is Naderizing herself

That works well... not

:(

[mmonk]

14. Or the party is Naderizing people depending on how one wants

to look at it.

[laughingliberal]

37. that would be my take on it nt

[quiller4]

27. You are absolutely right.

[HughMoran]

32. I thought he was also teabagging herself?

[Barack_America]

13. I doubt it. The Conservadems and Lieberman are too convenient a scapegoat.

Who is really going to lay the blame for this at Sanders's feet over Lieberman's?

Not likely.

[The_Casual_Observer]

16. What's so "progressive" about wanting to do nothing?

[babylonsister]

18. That's a great line!

:thumbsup:

[mmonk]

30. That's what those of us who want a real public option, single payer,

or something that changes things are trying to do.

[laughingliberal]

41. A false dichotomy, that. There were a lot of choices between nothing and this bill

This pretty much took the worst of the proposals and made sure they made it in and any redeeming value was taken out. There were many steps which could have been taken that would have offered small improvements that could have been expanded later without doing the damage this does.

[zbdent]

17. does anybody think that the media would allow even the tiniest victory

for a "progressive" movement?

I mean, come on ... when the Repugs gained control in November 1994, compared to the Dems winning in 2006, you had this difference:

1994: 2006:

(special thanks to Hissyspit for the link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2705629)

and remember, it was a bigger win in 2006 than the Repugs had in 1994 ...

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. Bipartisanship

And yes, that sucks.

[cally]

21. All of us have leaders we trust, and Krugman

is the intellectual that I rely on. I appreciate JH's passion and conviction but I often disagree with her. She doesn't speak for me.

[babylonsister]

23. rethug feeney now agreeing with Jane Hamsher. That's

not a good thing imo.

[autorank]

26. It's affiliation politics

Lets take Bernie Sanders (D-VT). He had single payer slotted to come up and threatened a roll call vote. Then, as if by magic, he changed his position and now supports the Senate bill. He got a very nice deal for his State Medicaid program and also for public health centers in the form a $10 bil increase over five years for these centers, which serve low income folks in areas with low medical care options.

That's why he supports it. If Bernie is a regular pol, ultimately, then why be surprised by those professional progressives closest to the flame and the benefits that flow from access to power. It's not that they were bought off, Sanders or the progressives benefiting from the Democratic power structure, it's a rational choice by people who are pragmatic rather than ideological.

It's what drives you. We don't have a strong vision for the progressive movement. That's why you run into progressives who don't understand unions, the history of the labor movement, or the importance of supporting unions. It's vexing but an entirely new focus needs to emerge based on morality and ultimately what's best for the nation as a whole. Until that time, we're victims of the revolving doors of power and money.

Other than that, it's all good.

[HughMoran]

31. This is your chance - get out into the streets!!!

C'mon, you can do it.

[mdmc]

33. Ya gotta serve somebody

You can either serve Obama and the Corporations
or
you can stand for true progressive ideals, and side with the GOP to defeat Obama.

It might be the devil, and it might be the Lord, BUT YOU ARE GONNA HAVE TO SERVE SOMEBODY..

[lib2DaBone]

34. I know one thing...once the Mandatory Purchase Requirement goes into effect...

.. employers are going to dump Health Care like a hot potato.

Corporate America will no longer have to resort to the "38 and 1/2 hours a week is part time" so they can deny coverage... they will now do it with the power of the law behind them.

It's going to be PANDAMONIUM...

BOHICA (bend over.. here it comes again)

[alarimer]

42. Well the Center for American Progress already is once such part of the "progressive" movement.

Apparently they care more about winning elections than actual principles. Now they are simply a pro-Obama mouthpiece. But hardly progressive.

I guess the bill might be better than nothing but I am of the opinion that it will actually make things worse. Maybe a total collapse of the health care system will have to occur before we get the change we really need (which is either a single payer system-Medicare for all- or a severely regulated private insurance industry like Switzerland). We are in crisis now, but most people still have insurance, such as it might be. The crisis is apparently not bad enough for most people to get off their fat asses and fight for this change.

[laughingliberal]

44. I don't see any hope for the progressives to enact progressive legislation, now

They seem to have no leverage of any kind despite having a larger majority in both houses of Congress. It is humiliating to see our progressives who tried to stand for us and all the people of this country who do not fall into the top 1% have to completely compromise on every single point. This is not even compromise. It's rape. Rahm has thoroughly defanged every Senator and Representative who is not falling in line with the corporate wing of the Democratic party-a phrase which would have been considered an oxymoron just a few years ago.

[HuckleB]

46. BS...

Politics for entertainment is all Hamsher is offering. It's time to understand that.

[Jane Austin]

48. I suspect Ms. Hamsher overreached herself.

Who appointed her spokesperson for the progressive movement?

[ipaint]

50. She's right.

The industry is being significantly weakened without reform.

"The industry's real trouble begins in 2011, when 79 million baby boomers begin turning 65. Health insurers stand to lose a huge slice of their commercially insured enrollment (estimated at 162 million to 172 million people) over the next two decades to Medicare, the government-funded health insurance program for seniors.

"The rate of aging far and away exceeds the birth rate," said Sheryl Skolnick, a CRT Capital Group healthcare investment analyst. "That's got to be very scary. . . . This is the biggest fight for survival managed care has ever faced, at least since they went bankrupt in the late '80s."

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/07/business/fi-healthcare7?pg=2

The reform saves them not us. WE ARE SAVING THEM.
Not only that the shitty reform we are settling for gives up our only bargaining tool for future improvements- the mandate.

How absolutely naively stupid can people be.


I'm poor and uninsured and I'm insulted by this piece of crap of a bill. Throw 20 million poor on medicaid...problem solved according to so-called progressives. Right.


This is about neo-liberals co-opting the left. It grew too big as a result of bush. It needed to be culled.

[Tansy_Gold]

56. +1000. The loss of the boomers is rarely mentioned, because if it

came out in the open, the jig would be up.

Thanks for pointing that out.


Tansy Gold, '48 boomer

[ipaint]

59. Your welcome.

It amazes me we hold all the cards and we fold them without a fight.

[Tansy_Gold]

61. "We" didn't fold. . . .

and some (a few) if us are still fighting.

:hi:

TG

[leftstreet]

65. +1

This is about neo-liberals co-opting the left.

:applause:

[WeDidIt]

53. Jane has sharked the jump. n/t

[libertyvalence]

54. PISSED OFF AT WHO?

12/21/09
I'd like to let myself get pissed off but it is not clear who to get
pissed off at. Obama got in, he played the political game. I thought that the
rhetoric of change was more important than the equivocating statements he
made for example; on Afghanistan. How horrible has that turned out? I thought
he would seek support from his base, unh uh. He went to the power brokers
for a safe place to hide (for now). The HCR bill is a dissappointment, get
pissed off, right?
I hope he's a fast learner. What the hell is he going to say to us in
2012? "I'm going to dump Hillary, Bill Gates, Geitner and Rahm"? That would
get my attention, depending on his new picks. That would tell the story if he
is ready to govern and to lead. It doesn't look that way right now. So far,
the cost of that education, like any education is steep.
FDR knew what not to do because he had governed New York State, a
conservative state, and came from the class that had caused the depression. He
didn't necessarily know what to do. He tried a lot of things, some worked and
some didn't. What did Obama come from? What is in it for him to sell out?
We can fulminate all we want but none of us can predict the future
and it is important for progressives to learn how to wait, see realty (even if
it looks like shit) and choose your battles and alliances as they present
themselves. There is more at stake than health care. This bill is a pile of
crap but the progressive movement is real and we can't let that become a pile
of crap. Getting pissed off only leads to falling for conservative booby
traps.
When dad let me use the car, there were strings attached. It's the
same now with Obama. He is cautious and careful, even timid by nature, just
like dad. That doesn't make him a conservative. Almost everybody is the same
way, Republicans want people to believe that it means people, in general,
are conservative politically. Not so.
Obama made deals behind our backs. Just like dad. Obama is winging
it. Just like dad. We thought that Obama knew what he was doing and we thought
that dad knew what he was doing. Not so, well, we're on to him now.
Getting mad at dad was because I thought I had a right to, that my
anger was justified and that he had to respond. Guess what kids, de ja vu all
over again.
It's not like we don't know what to look for. This is a slow fight,
there isn't an Ali rope-a-dope to spot. If he has gone over to the dark side,
then he's in the place that he belongs but if he hasn't gone over, he in a
dangerous place. That's not politics, that's a war with the conservatives
who have been itching to re-establish feudalism since the end of
reconstruction.
Yes, these are people. Stupid, ignorant, crippled of heart and soul,
pig shit stubborn and incapable of honest self-examination. Does that help
bubbe? I realize that I’m being too generous, but this is the holiday season.
You have to be smart with these assholes. I trust you to figure this
out as it unfolds. Right now, the fight for social justice is being played
out in mock politics but you ain't seen nasty yet.
Only the tea baggers know who they're pissed at with absolute certainty
and righteous indignation, subsidized by the health insurance companies
through front organizations. Real grassroots? NOT. When the subsidies stop and
they have to spend their own money for bus trips and food, how are they
going to pay for ammo also?
If watching them has any lesson to hold, it is that their commitments
are only as thick as their wallets and not to imitate them in any way.
That's my take.
Yes, these are people. Stupid, ignorant, crippled of heart and soul, 
pig shit stubborn and incapable of honest self-examination. Does that help 
bubbe? I realize that I’m being too generous, but this is the holiday season. 
Right now, the fight for social justice is being played 
out in mock politics but you ain't seen nasty yet. Conservatives have been itching to re-establish feudalism since the end of reconstruction.

[CBR]

55. Is it true or not that she is advocating an alliance with the tea party

people?

[Major Hogwash]

57. Something I have noticed is how Democrats abandoned the word liberal in favor of progressive

And I think that it stinks!!

[EFerrari]

63. I hope someone puts the clip up because now you've made me curious. n/t

[saltpoint]

64. That's just Jane, bein' Jane.

[Hamlette]

69. Jane who?

really

[jimlup]

70. because no one in the US senate is actually progressive

with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders they are all pretty mainstream if you get right down to it. HELLO!