Obacare and the Death of the Social Provision

The Affordable Care Act boggles my mind. Only in America could the supposedly 'left-wing' party take ownership of a legislative measure that refuses to lay a legitimate social provision for healthcare. The ACA does very little more than stuff the pockets of the insurance companies with what will likely amount to billions of federal government dollars. A flood of new customers are now required by law to purchase the services of these companies on federally mandated exchanges.

How is this a good thing? The concessions made by the insurance companies are pitiful. If I was a negotiator trying to make a deal with the government to boost my own profits, I don't know if I could even suggest something so unprecedented and extreme as an individual mandate plus an individual subsidy with a straight face. And if I did have the balls to suggest the government do me that big of a favor, I would probably be willing to pony up a lot more in return.

Honestly what's as terrifying as anything else is how bald the lie is and how wholeheartedly the Democratic Party base is willing to swallow the lie and defend their leadership for selling them out. The official, stated purpose of the law is to "give more Americans access to quality, affordable health insurance."  Health insurance! Health insurance is a consumer product that big corporations are getting rich selling. Health insurance is not the same thing as health care. 

Private corporate health insurance is the kind of 'market based' solution I would expect from the Republican Party. Which once again blows my mind, as the supposedly 'right-wing' party is opposed to what is essentially a wealth redistribution system of big business subsidies disguised as health care. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that they are just so damned stubborn they will betray decades of their own ideology to make the president wrong. The Republican party seems to be willing to reverse reality, saying night is day, black is white, privatization is socialism. 

Where are the champions of health care - not health insurance - as a human right? Where are the advocates for public hospitals? For pharmaceutical patent reform? For limiting unethical and lucrative drug marketing practices that result in a glut of unnecessary treatments and ineffective prescriptions?  Why is no one interested in examining the most important aspect of the ACA - that it is not real healthcare reform?

Sometimes I honestly wish I could see this from a different perspective. But no matter how many times I try to look at the ACA, from every angle it looks the same. It looks like yet another government-corporate partnership designed to concentrate wealth and power, denying regular citizens even the most basic human dignity when it comes to their health and personal security, and then asking them to be thankful for the favor.

I've called for an end to the madness on this blog before - both of these awful political parties need to be abandoned, publicly shamed, and buried forever if this country is ever going to move forward towards something that just a little less resembles corporate fascism. This seems as true as ever in the face of the whole Obamacare debacle.

The Powerlessness of Organizing

I signed up for a free training program for potential organizers at Community Colleges across the United States.  I admit, I am a terrible students.  I attend the webinars infrequently.  I don't participate in the forums.  I don't do my reading.  It's like undergrad all over again.

I did manage to learn something, though, from my limited participation in the program.  I learned a little bit about the history of organized movements.  This framed the conversation about organizing basics.  What is organizing?  What is power?  How does organizing work?  How do we successfully organize around the issues of the day, having learned the lessons of the past?

If I understand the talented and dedicated folks who took on the role of teachers in this online program, they were explaining that an organization or movement comprises a group of people who want something specific to happen.  They define themselves according to what they want to see happen and who can make it happen.  The people who can make it happen have the power.  The people organizing do not have the power - otherwise they would just make the thing happen themselves.

This was an insight I had months ago, but it took time for my thoughts and feelings on this point to metastasize.  Organizers put pressure on those in power.  They use what means they have to influence those in power - to coerce, entice, threaten, or otherwise persuade in any way they can.  Historically, however, organizers and their respective movements don't challenge structures of authority in a way that might result in more meaningful and permanent shifts in power.  This I see as problematic.

If I'm understanding what I was supposed to learn correctly, a 'successful' movement is one that ends with those in power making whatever concession for which the people in the movement were petitioning.  My problem with that is that those in power retain the power to decide whether or not the people get what they want.  They retain their monopoly on the ability to make things happen.

The women's suffrage movement was given as an example.  The organizers wanted something very specific - that women [edit: *white* women] should have the right to vote.  So they employed a number of tactics in order to put pressure on those who had the power to decide whether or not someone should be allowed to vote.  Ultimately those in power were persuaded - but they retained all of the power they had to begin with!

The way I see it, there has to be an alternative response to a systemic injustice.  The response I've been describing (and I apologize to any self-identified organizers or movements that do not take this tack) amounts to trying to correct the injustice without changing the system.  I think at this particular moment in history the time has come to challenge authority itself.  I believe very strongly that the institutions that house our collective social power - economic power, military and police power, power over information and communications - are fundamentally unjust and undeserving of our sanction.

Basically, I'm tired of seeing so much time and energy go into efforts to appeal to people who operate within those power structures to use their powers for good instead of ill.  I'm tired of working within the power structure myself, tired of helping to perpetuate it, and tired of trying to reform it without upsetting its base.

It is a pernicious myth, in my opinion - that we would all be fine and live in a happy peaceful world if only those in power within our systems were virtuous and benevolent.  I think we would all be fine and live in a happy peaceful world, to the greatest extent such a reality is possible, when we shift our perspective away from reform and towards revolution.

I am disappointed in the organizing education program I signed up for because I was looking for an answer to the question of how to disrupt the system - or how to build a society that is constantly challenging, disrupting, and demanding real change. What I got instead was a lesson in how to get people in positions of power to do what you want, without rocking the boat too much.

Noam Chomsky gave the most excellent description of anarchy I've ever heard - a rallying cry I can get behind.  Anarchy is not really the absence of government, but rather it means to constantly challenge the legitimacy of power and authority, and to swiftly dismantle and replace any system found to be unjust, whether it be social, corporate, or state.  That's the society I want to live in!

Are We Not the 99%? We Are Not the 99%

I've been thinking about the good 'ol days of Occupy and the original idea that maybe, just maybe, an overwhelming majority of Americans might find some common ground, then find the political will to make some much needed changes.

We never did find that common ground, did we?  I am certainly guilty myself of the same 'mission drift' that took the Occupy movement. That original encampment and everything it represented was ultimately transformed into a series of largely partisan efforts to address issues of relatively narrow interest. I, in turn, shifted my focus towards particular issues and ideas, away from the tasks of building solidarity across partisan lines and increasing the collective impetus to act.

This is both wonderful and tragic.  Being partisan and lacking broad appeal makes an issue no less important. I have nothing but utmost respect for the people who believe in their causes enough to sweat their lives away working towards their noble political goals. I see that so many have been spurred on by Occupy, and for that I am grateful.

It's just, that's not why I personally got excited about Occupy in the first place.  I saw potential for a truly broad based movement of people willing to find common ground.  I saw potential to create collective political willpower and drive where there was only apathy before. When I saw that fail, I lost hope.

I will, perhaps for the rest of my life, be on the look out for something to come along where I can again feel like I'm part of a movement towards that goal.  Maybe it never will.  Maybe it's impossible, for reasons that can't be changed in my lifetime.  But I doubt I'll ever stop looking.

I put up a facebook page today, in an attempt to try to define and recapture some of what I really wanted to see come out of the Occupy movement.  Perhaps no one will see it and nothing will come of it (likely).  Perhaps it will evolve to become the new name and face of the movement I once loved (highly unlikely).  Either way, here it is!

All I know is, we can't keep calling ourselves the 99%, because 47% of Americans will hear that phrase and instantly write us off as left-wing radicals.  The other 53% will just sigh and lament the death of the original movement the way I do.  If the 99% is real, if we really exist, and if there is any shred of hope left that we can find the political willpower to work collectively towards change, we'll have to regroup.

And if I'm completely wrong, and the effort I want to be a part of is under way, please feel free to point me in the right direction!