26 March 2010
Radical Center
I didn’t come up with the term “Radical Center.” That belongs to Tom Friedman, and bless him for it. We need some sanity here.
He noted that President Obama’s recent success is “both exhilarating and sobering.” I agree it is certainly it is a historic achievement, but what had to be done to achieve it is politics at the worst. Critical foreign policy issues took a back seat; corporate pork and every conceivable side deal was dickered to just barely make it happen. Of course there are some awful and unfair things in the bill. There was not a single Republican vote for the bill at the key junctures, and there is something overheated in the rhetoric in the wake of the massive health reform bill that makes me deeply uncomfortable.
The Dems are likely to lose seats in the mid-terms, and that is only going to make the gridlock on the Hill worse. Friedman says he wants his own Tea Party- one that is placed in the radical center.
I completely agree. Personally, I have thought that some sort of single payer system is long overdue. It didn't happen because of Wartime restrictions on pay in key industries. Health Care was not regulated, and hence, where the industries could not compete for people with pay, they could add fringes like health. And so we emerged from the war with the system that has grown insane and completely arbitrary.
I also agree with Tom Ryan of Wisconsin, when he observed that the fiscal arguments the were endorsed by the Congressional Budget Office were never true. The claim that the program will reduce the deficit while expanding coverage for more than 30 million uninsured citizens and subsidizing others is absurd.
Ryan says that “Even after accounting for the $569 billion in tax increases and $523 billion in Medicare cuts, the true costs of this legislation — concealed by timing gimmicks, hidden spending and double-counting — will make the deficit explode, plunging us deeper into debt.”
We have got to do something about that, or health care is irrelevant. We will all be sick.
But with the Republicans likely to pick up seats, we are going to be right at the “status whoa.”
The lines are so stark and so deep.
They said some pretty awful things about W when he was in charge, so the rhetorical problem is not the exclusive province of the right. That is why I am an independent and both ends of the spectrum make me sick at heart.
My pal Pete wrote me about it. He is a retired Spook, too, and not a nervous Nelly. He says “that what bothers me too; it's not the coo-coos, I expect it from them. I am getting unbelievable stuff from the normal, reasonable, nice people. If some one says to me, I am opposed to the Heath Bill because I do not think we can afford it or that there are far to many entitlements already. We can discuss the positions rationally. But the black and white world that some see is something I have decried all my adult life. I do not like the way George W Bush handled the WOT but he was not evil nor wrong all the time and, damn it, he was the President of the United States. Now Mr. Obama is and we must hope he'll get some of the things right too.”
Some of the stuff I get from otherwise very nice people is quite appalling. I got one from a good friend that included an amusing song about the President that used the term "reneger," as in someone who has reneged on a promise for transparency in the Health Care debate. It was clear to me that what the song actually was doing was using the Slur-that-cannot-be-uttered.
Jeeze Luoise.
Friedman recommended the big chunk of us who despise the extremes of both parties should get together and do something. The first thing he wants to do is copy the Californaia initiative that “Breaks the oligopoly of our two-party system. The recent grass-roots initiative took the power to design Congressional districts away from the state legislature and put it in the hands of an independent, politically neutral, Citizens Redistricting Commission.
That will rewicker the districts that the two parties have crafted into safe seats for the incumbents. More will be competitive, and that will stimulate the center, rather than enabling the well entrenched politician to play to his safe gallery.
We also know that people are afraid to vote for third party candidates, since the practical effect of a H. Ross Perot or Ralph Nader is to elect your worst nightmare. In Australia, you can vote by preference, first, second or third in a three-party race.
In that system, if the independent does not win, your vote is immediately transferred to your second choice.
We have got to wake up and do something to make this government work. I have always been of the school that said the government that did nothing did best. But things are out of control now and we are $76 trillion in debt and entitling ourselves into disaster.
It is past time to act. We need to move to the center and deal with some tough problems.
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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