====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 11:17 AM, Fred Feldman <[email protected]> wrote: > I think the very small and powerless far left in this country went way off > the deep end in calling for the defeat of the health care bill. . . . This statement seems to me to be simply a logical or hypothetical proposition and a tautological provocation or set-up: 'the far left is stupid for being ultraleft'. I don't think it has much traction in political reality. I'm not aware that any far left organization *campaigned* for the defeat of the health care bill (that has just been signed by Obama). Maybe none of them suffered from the illusion that they could muster a significant campaign... The Socialist Worker (the only organization Fred referred to) did hold up voting against Obamacare as preferable to supporting it but within a context primarily dedicated to political education about the capitalist political system, "liberals" and the Democrat Party. And consider this phrase in Alan Maass's lead article in Socialist Worker on the 'reform' bill as passed: "Even the small steps forward in the health care legislation are mixed--the new regulations on the insurance company practices are outweighed by provisions that give the medical-pharmaceutical-insurance complex more power than ever over the fate of ordinary people." http://socialistworker.org/2010/03/24/cause-for-celebration The higher profile individuals and groups that called for the defeat of 'Obamacare' (afaik) were liberals like Howard Dean, PDA, DSA, Green Party - such calls peaking at the end of last year as debate about alternative legislative proposals was concluding. I suspect that (like Kucinich, or Stupak on the right of the DP), most of them were on board in supporting the actual final bill when it came down to the conclusive voting. The serious explicit supporters of single-payer, like Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and Labor Campaign for Single-Payer (LCS-P), simply continued to explain and support single-payer as the needed systemic health care reform, while criticizing the 'Obamacare' reform legislation. I'm not aware that they put any effort into calling on congresspeople to vote against 'Obamacare.' http://www.healthcare-now.org/diary-of-a-wimpy-health-care-bill/ www.pnhp.org/news/2010/march/pro-single-payer-doctors-health-bill-leaves-23-million-uninsured I call Obamacare a "capitalist reform" which isn't worth working class support. We should continue to explain and support single-payer, or medicare for all, as a reform that is in the interest of working people. Dayne ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
