Reply #96: The reactionaries are lost, leaderless, babbling in the corner, and we STILL we suck up to them [View All]

[PurityOfEssence]

and only timidly ask for the meekest of slight encroachment on the "rights" of the corporations and the monied elites. Hell, if they weren't totally routed and in complete disarray, they'd be whipping us six ways from sunday, wouldn't they?

Why do we beseech them for the merest of crumbs when they're so defeated? Why don't we flatly go for full-on single-payer and settle for some kind of seriously controlled private system with a healthy public option? Don't we know ANYTHING about negotiation?

This is all silly philippics, though, because the truth is quite clear: this administration is NOT on the side of the individual. It has been given the most glowing, golden opportunity and it didn't even really TRY. There's a reason for that, and that is that Barack Obama is not what many here seem to think he is; he's a slightly right-of-center ultramoderate, virtually with virtually the same political pH number as Bill Clinton. This shouldn't be a surprise, and we can certainly live with this kind of smiling, glad-handing corporatism, but this is NOT shinola, and I'm sick of being cajoled and demanded to say that it is.

My ire really doesn't matter; I've been singing this identical tune since he first crossed my radar, and it was driven home when he actively courted Religion Incorporated. What DOES matter is the outrage of those who believed in him; THOSE people will cause serious damage to the Democratic Party, and much as it deserves it after this deplorable episode (that is far from over, lest we forget) I hate to see it happen. The Democratic Party is the only realistic engine for decency for our future, and the prospect of seeing its ranks thinned by a feeling of betrayal is not a very pleasant thing to have in the offing.

Your premise is that they will actually fight the good fight, and I don't think they have the least inclination to do anything of the sort. They want to SEEM like it, but even that's a bit open to question with this irritating and endless craving for bipartisanship that drives them to such depths of appeasement.