The commentary excerpted below is fascinating. Russell Mokhiber draws the lesson that we must fight for single payer on our own, "dumping the Democrats." I agree.
But the writer builds his case using analysis by Don Bechler. Unfortunately, Bechler's analysis verges on childish. See my remarks after the excerpt:
Single Payer Later
By Russell Mokhiber
Single Payer Action, September 7, 2010
What’s happening in California is the best argument to dump the Democrats.
Forever.
And start anew.
It’s the only option.
The state legislature in California has twice passed the California single payer bill.
And twice, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed it.
Earlier this year, the Senate passed it for a third time.
And the Assembly was about to pass it for a third time.
But the Democratic Speaker of the Assembly pulled the bill at the last minute.
...
“The Democrats should have put it up for a vote in the Assembly,” said Don Bechler of Single Payer Now. “California has been the wind in the sails of the single payer movement. Each time the legislature passes it, we get stronger. We have more people in our movement than ever before. Passing it for a third time would have built the momentum.”
“The California legislature has twice before said that they are for having a universal health care system minus the insurance companies,” Bechler says. “We can be proud of winning that little battle.”
...
Full item at http://www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=2562
Bechler claims, "The California legislature has twice before said that they are for having a universal health care system minus the insurance companies." They said it, but it was an open secret that a good number of California legislators from progressive districts voted for the single payer bill knowing the governor would veto it. The vote was a credential on a legislator's lapel, nothing more.
Bechler further claims, "Each time the legislature passes it, we get stronger. We have more people in our movement than ever before."
Don's mailing list has grown. That's great. But Bechler does not give evidence that the legislature's staged votes were the cause. If I drink too much beer in the evening, I need to urinate around five in the morning. Sure enough, an hour later the sun rises. Gee, my urine makes the sun rise.
Every day more people experience the fact health care sold as a commodity is health care denied, health care sold at an extortionate price, health care done wrong. That experience - and as much agitation as we can do about it - is why more people than ever before believe health care must be provided as needed, as a program we all have equal rights to, guaranteed no matter what. Most of these people do not know about the Potemkin votes of the legislature in past years.
Reading the sum of Bechler's comments as reported by Mokhiber, it almost sounds as though Bechler wants to throw out a lifeline to the California Democratic Party: You guys better do some damage control, or rank and file supporters of single payer are going to take Mokhiber's advice: Dump the Democrats.
The California Democratic Party's stab in the back of single payer has made many people reconsider the entire politics of winning such a big reform. It is important to draw lessons based on facts.
Can we ever get Equal Care for All? I discussed that problem on MRZine at
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/andrews260110.html
Sincerely,
Charles Andrews
P.S.: And there is larger analysis of major reforms in my book No Rich, No Poor. See
http://www.amazon.com/NO-RICH-POOR-CHARLES-ANDREWS/dp/096799053X
Nicely written and unable to get out of its own way.
ReplyDeleteWhat "courage" to dismiss Don Bechler - for the implausible reason that he seems "almost" a friend of the Democrats. (!)
Wait a minute - Bechler's grassroots, mass moblization orientation finds few equals in the single payer movement. So to try turn his little quote into a straw man is silly - or worse, disingenuous.
One hopes that few readers here will think that this represents some kind of "wisdom"...
But what is that "wisdom" ?
That the Democratic Party has taken the cause of health and justice and stabbed it in the back?
When did this important news break? Was it ...1963? ...1935? ...1916?
... Or were we waiting for Mokhiber to interpret the recent events in Sacramento? (Criminy!)
But never mind all of that, the larger point is what Marxist-Leninists used to call dialectics - or at least dialectical thinking.
Andrews asserts, accurately, that everyday experience - together with "as much agitation as we can do about it" - have led "more people than ever before believe health care must be provided as needed, as a program we all have equal rights to, guaranteed no matter what." He adds: "Most of these people do not know about the Potemkin votes of the legislature in past years." True enough.
While his specific issue is the California Democrats, we should point out that there have been many many many more symbolic votes and endorsements of single payer - over many many years.
Does it really follow - from the events in Sacramento - that symbolic votes (and endorsements) have somehow hurt the effort to win the single payer demand? (No.)
It is a very good thing to be disgusted by - and to publicly denounce - the recent maneuvers of the California Democratic Party.
But how confused to conclude that therefore we should also dismiss the vigorous agitation of single payer activists like Bechler.
As Andrews can explain with some eloquence, there is no greater threat to the existing order - especially to the Democratic Party - than a grassroots mass mobilization. This is exactly what Bechler, like Andrews, is after - and why Bechler's agitation and his remarks should be considered, not dismissed.
Of course the Democratic Party will not do it for us.
Pressuring elected officials gives us a focus - and through that struggle the power relationships of the society are laid bare. Even "Potemkin votes" put the ball where we want it - back in our court, - and, as Bechler suggests, we should greet the opportunity with the full courage of our convictions.
The victory of single payer legislation would mark a colossal shift in the relationship of forces in the class struggle and Andrews is correct to explain that such a shift is not upon us.
There is a marvelous political contradiction in the fact that genuine health care reform can be designed and ratified within the existing order.
A political posture that gives our class enemies the permission to do the right thing for health, the right thing for the people holds genuine wisdom. We should seek to call their bluff and exploit the contradictions - relentlessly.
To instead call upon advocates and activists for single payer to abandon agitation around legislation is to propose hopping on one foot instead of marching ahead.
Nicely written and unable to get out of its own way.
ReplyDeleteWhat "courage" to dismiss Don Bechler - for the implausible reason that he seems "almost" a friend of the Democrats. (!)
Wait a minute - Bechler's grassroots, mass moblization orientation finds few equals in the single payer movement. So to try turn his little quote into a straw man is silly - or worse, disingenuous.
One hopes that few readers here will think that this represents some kind of "wisdom"...
But what is that "wisdom" ?
That the Democratic Party has taken the cause of health and justice and stabbed it in the back?
When did this important news break? Was it ...1963? ...1935? ...1916?
... Or were we waiting for Mokhiber to interpret the recent events in Sacramento? (Criminy!)
But never mind all of that, the larger point is what Marxist-Leninists used to call dialectics - or at least dialectical thinking.
Andrews asserts, accurately, that everyday experience - together with "as much agitation as we can do about it" - have led "more people than ever before believe health care must be provided as needed, as a program we all have equal rights to, guaranteed no matter what." He adds: "Most of these people do not know about the Potemkin votes of the legislature in past years." True enough.
While his specific issue is the California Democrats, we should point out that there have been many many many more symbolic votes and endorsements of single payer - over many many years.
Does it really follow - from the events in Sacramento - that symbolic votes (and endorsements) have somehow hurt the effort to win the single payer demand? (No.)
It is a very good thing to be disgusted by - and to publicly denounce - the recent maneuvers of the California Democratic Party.
But how confused to conclude that therefore we should also dismiss the vigorous agitation of single payer activists like Bechler.
As Andrews can explain with some eloquence, there is no greater threat to the existing order - especially to the Democratic Party - than a grassroots mass mobilization. This is exactly what Bechler, like Andrews, is after - and why Bechler's agitation and his remarks should be considered, not dismissed.
Of course the Democratic Party will not do it for us.
Pressuring elected officials gives us a focus - and through that struggle the power relationships of the society are laid bare. Even "Potemkin votes" put the ball where we want it - back in our court, - and, as Bechler suggests, we should greet the opportunity with the full courage of our convictions.
The victory of single payer legislation would mark a colossal shift in the relationship of forces in the class struggle and Andrews is correct to explain that such a shift is not upon us.
There is a marvelous political contradiction in the fact that genuine health care reform can be designed and ratified within the existing order.
A political posture that gives our class enemies the permission to do the right thing for health, the right thing for the people holds genuine wisdom. We should seek to call their bluff and exploit the contradictions - relentlessly.
To instead call upon advocates and activists for single payer to abandon agitation around legislation is to propose hopping on one foot instead of marching ahead.
Nicely written and unable to get out of its own way.
ReplyDeleteWhat "courage" to dismiss Don Bechler - for the implausible reason that he seems "almost" a friend of the Democrats. (!)
Wait a minute - Bechler's grassroots, mass moblization orientation finds few equals in the single payer movement. So to try turn his little quote into a straw man is silly - or worse, disingenuous.
One hopes that few readers here will think that this represents some kind of "wisdom"...
But what is that "wisdom" ?
That the Democratic Party has taken the cause of health and justice and stabbed it in the back?
When did this important news break? Was it ...1963? ...1935? ...1916?
... Or were we waiting for Mokhiber to interpret the recent events in Sacramento? (Criminy!)
But never mind all of that, the larger point is what Marxist-Leninists used to call dialectics - or at least dialectical thinking.
Andrews asserts, accurately, that everyday experience - together with "as much agitation as we can do about it" - have led "more people than ever before believe health care must be provided as needed, as a program we all have equal rights to, guaranteed no matter what." He adds: "Most of these people do not know about the Potemkin votes of the legislature in past years." True enough.
While his specific issue is the California Democrats, we should point out that there have been many many many more symbolic votes and endorsements of single payer - over many many years.
Does it really follow - from the events in Sacramento - that symbolic votes (and endorsements) have somehow hurt the effort to win the single payer demand? (No.)
It is a very good thing to be disgusted by - and to publicly denounce - the recent maneuvers of the California Democratic Party.
But how confused to conclude that therefore we should also dismiss the vigorous agitation of single payer activists like Bechler.
As Andrews can explain with some eloquence, there is no greater threat to the existing order - especially to the Democratic Party - than a grassroots mass mobilization. This is exactly what Bechler, like Andrews, is after - and why Bechler's agitation and his remarks should be considered, not dismissed.
Of course the Democratic Party will not do it for us.
Pressuring elected officials gives us a focus - and through that struggle the power relationships of the society are laid bare. Even "Potemkin votes" put the ball where we want it - back in our court, - and, as Bechler suggests, we should greet the opportunity with the full courage of our convictions.
The victory of single payer legislation would mark a colossal shift in the relationship of forces in the class struggle and Andrews is correct to explain that such a shift is not upon us.
There is a marvelous political contradiction in the fact that genuine health care reform can be designed and ratified within the existing order.
A political posture that gives our class enemies the permission to do the right thing for health, the right thing for the people holds genuine wisdom. We should seek to call their bluff and exploit the contradictions - relentlessly.
To instead call upon advocates and activists for single payer to abandon agitation around legislation is to propose hopping on one foot instead of marching ahead.
Dr. Yun, after apparently agreeing with all the facts stated in the commentary, argues against a straw man. No one made a "call upon advocates and activists for single payer to abandon agitation around legislation."
ReplyDeleteWe should, however, recognize that the strategy of putting the main emphasis on lobbying Democratic legislators is a failure. In California it began in the late 1990s when the goal became getting a legislative mandate that the State study options for universal health care because, we were told, there was no way to evade concluding that a single payer plan is the only way to achieve universal coverage. The legislature did indeed pass a resolution for a study. The State health agency stuffed single payer into a list with a bunch of incremental reforms, issued a biased set of cost-benefit evaluations, and filed it all in the archives.
In admiration of Dr. Yun's spirit of dialectics and ironic parental phrasing, I agree with a "political posture that gives our class enemies the permission to the do the right thing for health" - for its appropriate moment, not "relentlessly."
We suffered a health reform debacle in Washington and now in California a blunt refusal even to vote on a single payer bill (for reasons announcing in effect that the Democratic Party will postpone real progress on equal care for all forever). Some people moan about it, then they confide that they recognize the class nature of the Democratic Party, and then they continue doing the same thing. That is the dialectics of refusing to grapple with the problem of independent political action. Or as Mokhiber put it, dump the Democrats.