Arianna Huffington, White Privilege, Nihilism & Health Reform by mka193
Wed Dec 16, 2009 at 03:51:40 AM PST
I watched the Ed Schultz Show last night in absolute horror. I have finally had enough. No mas! After seeing Arianna Huffington’s segment, I was left seething. Why is she being provided a platform to speak for progressives on cable news? Arianna Huffington DOES NOT speak for me. I listened to her suggest that the Senate bill be "killed" and that the whole process be restarted again! How CAVALIER. Arianna Huffington has nothing to lose but I do.
mka193's diary :: ::
Since February of this year, I have devoted COUNTLESS HOURS organizing around the issue of health care reform. I have knocked on hundreds of doors, made countless phone calls, hosted over a dozen community forums. How DARE Arianna Huffington get on television and suggest that the Senate bill be "killed?" There are lives hanging in the balance waiting for access to health insurance RIGHT NOW. People are DYING every year because they lack coverage – 45,000 a year according to a Harvard University study.
It is a LUXURY for Arianna Huffington to get on cable TV and to suggest that the current health bill in the Senate is not worth passing. After she makes such a statement, she then drives back to her L.A. mansion. The rest of us here in America don’t have mansions to return to. As a woman of color, living in a community of need, I see the ravages of thousands of my fellow neighbors who have NO ACCESS to health insurance. The current Senate bill (as imperfect as it is) provides coverage and subsidies to over 30 million of my fellow citizens. That is not a small thing and I am amazed at how this is constantly being glossed over by the most privileged of people.
How dare so many well-off and middle class progressives (so many of whom seem to also be white) WITH health insurance suggest that covering over 30 million uninsured people is not "reform." How insulting and callous. This bill costs $900 billion because it is SUBSIDIZING insurance for millions of low-income, uninsured, people of color (disproportionately). This is a bad case of (white) middle and upper class privilege being made manifest. For many of the most vociferous progressives on the health care reform issue, unfortunately this has become an analytic and ideological exercise. I live in the real world. I organize and live in a community of great need and therefore I cannot afford to have a callous disregard for the millions of people in need who would benefit from the passing of the Senate Health bill. This is not a God Damned ACADEMIC and IDEOLOGICAL exercise. People are DYING because they can’t access health insurance.
I find it unconscionable to suggest "going back to the drawing board." We have been at the "drawing board" for over a generation and where have we gotten in that time – TO THIS POINT and to THIS BILL. In what universe do these people think that the Democrats in Congress will take up another healthcare bill if this one goes down to defeat? How long will uninsured Americans have to wait for a lifeline? 5 years, 10 years, or 25 years. It is politically naïve at best to suggest that the Democrats (if this current bill fails to pass) will come back for another bite of the apple very soon. In the meantime, people will continue to die. This is NOT acceptable. This is CRIMINAL and IMMORAL. I would like to see more of these privileged progressives on cable news speak to that reality. But they will not. The uninsured are just pawns in a game for them. They are as surely disregarded from that group as they are from those on the rabid right. It is CRIMINAL.
I have NO RESPECT for the Arianna Huffington’s of the world. None. She doesn’t live in the same universe as I do. I am on the ground working as an organizer in communities with thousands of uninsured people of color. I have been fighting for universal coverage for YEARS. I will be damned if I allow Huffington to do VIOLENCE to the members of my community. ENOUGH!
This latest incident has reminded me about the limits of coalition politics among progressives of all races. After over twenty years of organizing, it has become clear to me that many white progressives and progressives of color will be unable to work together on a sustained basis to build power. Our realities are not the same and it seems unlikely that they ever will be. We do not share the same worldview. I care about ending the immorality of the fact that millions of people in this country cannot access insurance. This imperfect Senate bill will provide coverage to millions. This IS a progressive aim. The public option is not and never was an end all be all for me and this does not make me a pawn in the hands of big pharma and the insurance industry. Instead it makes me a humanist because what I care about first and foremost is how to build power in order to save lives. This designation has been hard won from years on the ground organizing for social change and justice. Doing the heavy lifting and fighting countless fights that seemed lost.
I do not want to hear from those who are going to rail against my position as being one of accommodation. It is NOT. It is one of pragmatism with an understanding that social justice is an ongoing fight. I do not plan to abandon the fight to ensure that every single person in this country has access to quality and affordable health care. However I reject the current NIHILISTIC refrain from some progressives to "kill" the bill. NO. That would be CRIMINAL, CALLOUS, and WRONG.
Finally, I am sick and tired of listening to Arianna Huffington speak on TV. She is uninformed and ahistorical. I expected the song "Barack the Magic Negro" to blare out after she was done with her latest rant. As a student of history and someone who actually paid attention in Civics class, I am well aware of the LIMITS OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER. Yes, that's right. Huffington is either completely DUMB or purposely being obtuse when she rails against the President telling him to MANDATE rather than LECTURE. What the HELL? What can the President MANDATE? The Congress legislates and mandates through laws. That is its unique role. It may serve her polemical purposes to ignore that fact but it is true. What the President has is a bully pulpit. That’s what he has been using. Arianna Huffington is an embarrassment but more than that she is DANGEROUS. She is putting the lives of thousands at risk with her cavalier call to kill the Senate bill. I for one soundly REJECT this call. Arianna please put a sock in it -- your privilege is SHOWING.
Note: I just saw this post by Nate Silver who basically more lays out a lucid argument about why progressives would be INSANE to kill the Senate bill... Thank you Nate for this analysis.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/why-progressives-are-batshit-crazy-to.htmlhttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/16/815063/-Arianna-Huffington,-White-Privilege,-NihilismHealth-Reform 
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