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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Obama - Clinton 2012 Nonsense

Robert Reich is making the latest of many predictions-slash-wishfulfillment fantasies that Biden and Clinton might switch places on the 2012 ticket (I indulged in this very speculation myself, way back on November 15, 2008, as it happens). I think this sort of provocation is harmless enough, rather like watching funny YouTube clips at work when there's nothing else to do. Reich's between terms and wants a little attention now that he doesn't have office hours to hold. The Republicans have been such a loud garish technicolor atrocity exhibition, it's easy to see Dem wonks want to have a little fun, too, blow off some steam.

But, really, people, this is not serious speculation. Why on earth would Obama signal weakness going in to 2012 with such a dramatic shift? Why feed the inevitable White House in disarray narrative, especially when one of Obama's strengths is that the GOP is so palpably... in disarray? But beyond all that... people, people! All the Obama - Biden 2012 swag is already printed up. The buttons, the t-shirts, the stickers, the letter head, the coffee mugs, the baby unitards, the whole nine. That stuff didn't roll out as some clever head fake to set the stage for a Democratic Convention stunner. That's boredom talking. Focus, people. Obama's gonna win, but we've got a Senate to hold and a House to re-take. There's work to do.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

I wish someone would overturn Obama care. Focus on that

Dale Carrico said...

You wish for profit insurance companies could deny actually sick people coverage? You wish accident-prone young people by the millions had no coverage through their parents' insurance? You wish premiums could rise without end to fatten corporate accounts and pay for advertizing budgets and fund sexy profitable cosmetic procedures rather than effective but unprofitable prevention medicine and blown on prestigious but wasteful duplication of services that don't heal anybody? You wish the cost-curve for healthcare in general would bend ever higher as a result of an uncoordinated system filled with corporate bureaucratic red-tape, pointless redundancies, incentives not to expensively heal but to profitably refrain from treating illness, making healthcare inaccessible to majorities in a country with the greatest wealth and technical sophistication on the planet? You wish that people would continue to get their health care from emergency rooms when it is most expensive and least effective?

What I wish for is that the bare beginnings of reform represented by the Health Care Reform Act would be amplified by providing Medicare buy-in for non retired people, or a single-payer Medicare for All system, leaving for-profit healthcare to nibble profitably around the specialized and elite edges, so that the health care costs which are the single largest source of runaway budgets would be under control at last while also providing healthcare for every citizen therefore eliminating the threat of neglected treatable illness and ruinous bankrupting debts imposed by unaccountable inefficient for-profit healthcare as a permanent way of keeping the rabble in line and rich asshole elites in control.

I also wish that right-wing media outlets peddling lies faced criminal penalties and crippling social stigmas so that more Americans would vote in ways that actually reflect their best interests. I wish someone named "Diane" would think much more deeply about this issue!

Unknown said...

For all the good you point out, a lot of that stuff will not happen. For all the good you point out the taxes we are going to paying to insure others is going to financially damage those on the edge now. For all the good you point out there is going to be increased government and corruption. It's a flawed plan.

Dale Carrico said...

Care to specify the "stuff" you think will not happen?

The good (if flawed) provisions I mentioned are actually existing parts of the Health Care Reform Act, many are already actually happening, others are being implemented precisely on schedule.

If the stuff you mean is that we might not be able to get Medicare buy-in or Medicare for All, you are definitely right about that. Those good outcomes will take real struggles (California is on the cutting edge of those struggles by the way).

But it isn't clear to me that you even want us to accomplish those future goals if you disapprove even of the modest reforms that have been passed.

Healthcare reform is indeed flawed -- all legislation is flawed -- but it was needed reform correcting an even more flawed prior condition. You declare the plan "flawed" but are you proposing a better alternative? The GOP barks "repeal and replace" but they never have a lot to say about what "replace" would look like or how it would come about or work -- though they do have a lot to say about how they would like to voucherize Medicare and restrict access to Social Security so that they could give more tax cuts to the already rich at the expense of the old and poor and vulnerable. They are evil stupid assholes, Diane.

"Increased government" isn't an inherently negative state of affairs -- what is wanted is increased good government and decreased lawlessness and unaccountable government. For-private healthcare provision is also corrupt -- and there are checks on corruption of public administered systems (check out the VA, for example) while the whole problem with private healthcare is its failure precisely because of corruption and waste. Any comment about that? That's what you want to return to? A system in which we pay more than anybody else in the industrialized for least equitable and most limited healthcare outcomes? Gosh, that's smart.

You complain about taxes, but taxes are the price we pay for civilization. As the right wing nuts say -- but inevitably deny through their hypocritical actions -- there ain't no such thing as a free lunch: if you want civilization you have to pay for it, you can't have a government of laws and eat it too.

So many people are on the edge now because right wing zealots have dismantled or resisted the creation of systems of support and protections for people who work for a living.

You need to decide what side you're on. Those who hate government, civilization, and the duty of citizens to support them should just move to Somalia and enjoy the disease and violence of the lawless utopia they find there.

erickingsley said...

Here is another Libertopia but sadly for Diane it is gone now.

http://www.tofu-magazine.net/newVersion/pages/KWC.html

Unknown said...

Ah Yes when all else fails be immature and state something like move to another country and enjoy the disease.

All that I was saying was that I and many others don't want to pay 50-60% taxes knowing already that there is major corruption going on. The big cats should pay more and us little cats should not have to pay more than what we are paying already. And in regards to that free lunch thing it is all the people who are now going to get healthcare that will be getting the free lunch for which I will be paying for as I stand out in the soup kitchen line. So none of you have the right to bully me with your immature wisecarcks. The totality of this mess should not be reduced to either one of you guys bulling others and dismissing anyones opinion just because it defers from your own.

I just don't think I can respond to this any longer due to its negative undertones.

Dale Carrico said...

I agree that rather than responding you would be better off learning more so that you no longer believe false things that will yield outcomes the opposite of the ones you want. I do indeed believe that everybody in this country should have easy affordable reliable healthcare as a basic right and I think people who don't believe this and who paint paranoid fantasies about how they will be reduced to penury if everybody has healthcare have absolutely no business whining about other people being "bullies" or being "immature." What could be more bullying and immature than peddling murderous lies from a place of ignorant selfish greed? Hold whatever opinions you want, but don't expect decent intelligent people to congratulate you for them when they suck.

erickingsley said...

The right to state one's opinions does not include immunity to criticism of those opinions from others.

Diane, anything humans are involved in is going to have corruption. Government is not unique in this. Businesses/markets are just as prone to corruption.

Also, if you make enough money for a 50% tax rate, you are not going to be in any soup kitchen line, ever, unless it is for a People Magazine PR shoot.