The Health Care Reform Debacle: Meandering from Persuaders to Kabuki to What Comes Next

Two thought-provoking posts about how we got to this dreadful place in terms of the Senate health insurance reform bill, and what might help get us out of here, if that's possible. I'm not sure I entirely agree with either of these analyses, but I definitely think they provide pieces of the puzzle.

• No One Is Going To Save You Fools, thereisnospoon, Daily Kos
• The Kabuki Theater of Health Reform (Or, Kill the Bill), The Frankfurter School

I've been out and about among numerous Dems today and it was a stunning experience to learn that, almost to a person, they were devastated (more than angry) -- and almost speechless in an odd sort of way -- at the spectacle played out over the past couple weeks in Washington regarding the decades-old, signature issue of Democrats everywhere.

The people I chatted with ran the array - from chose authorities, to party individuals, to activists, from genuinely direct sorts to lefties. It didn't make a difference. It resembled somebody had kicked them in the stomach, or they had awoken from a fantasy, or somebody had passed on. It jumped out at me that what truly had kicked the bucket was confide in our administration, confide in our Democratic President, confide in the political procedure, confide in our foundations. This most recent disillusionment resembles the inconvenience that makes the whole situation too much to bear.

We feel lied to and spun and used and ignored. We feel disrespected and confused. We feel more than a little lost. At some level, we can't believe it's happening -- even if, at some level, a little voice kept whispering it was coming all the time. This betrayal. It's hard to gin up hope after a long string of defeats and disappointments, so when folks manage to do it, it's hard to give up on. It's hard to let go of. It's hard to admit the hope was mostly in vain. But we feel it in our bones.

There is so very much at stake, so much at risk, so many problems swirling around us like a perfect storm. The very lives of our friends and family, the very lives of the poor and the working poor, the very life of the planet -- all are hanging in the balance. We need boldness and paradigm-strength changes and creativity, compassion, unity.

But over the past few weeks it dawned on many of us that mostly we'll be getting more of the same, more of the way things are, more of the powers that be that are gaining in wealth and power on a national and global scale. More of the kissing up to the owners of the casino. More of the profit before humans. More of the very behavior that brought us to this dangerous place where human beings -- really, all living things -- are viewed as mere widgets, perfect for buying and selling, for using and discarding, for polluting and destroying, for manipulating and abusing.

All so a class of people at the very top can pile up so much capital there's no place to put it. So they invent derivatives and faux everything to keep their "investments" growing beyond any shred of intrinsic value. It's madness. It's sick. And now we fear there is no stopping it, not even with Mr. Change We Can Believe In in the driver's seat. No matter what we do.

It's very difficult to admit and accept that this President, while undoubtedly much better than Bush, is another corporatist at heart, in his mind, in his soul. At the very least he will give in to the demands of the corporate cabals. At the very worst he will fight on their behalf while having his messengers mock those who fight against the tide of greed and dishonesty. We are shocked. We are drifting. Even though we knew better. Even though we knew the score. It still hurts, regardless.

So, yes, we must regroup, find unity and purpose within ourselves, and carry on. Change our expectations and change our tactics. Change our givens and change our focus. He wasn't the one we were waiting for. We are the ones we were waiting for. And we have to start acting the part.

We have to push against this President just as hard as we pushed against the last. He is no longer one of us, if he ever really was. He's been absorbed, willingly or not, into the vortex of the very beasts he should be slaying. He is becoming one of them. Or, at least that's how it feels today to a great many of us. And to me.

I hope I'm wrong.