Et Tu Markos?

Markos Moulitsas appeared on Countdown last night to put his boot on Dennis Kucinich’s throat. He said that if Kucinich votes against this bill, he will most likely get a primary challenger. He accused Kucinich of practicing “a very Ralph Nader-esque approach to politics”. And then, he showed off his skills for hyperbole by stating that he’s going to hold people like Dennis Kucinch responsible for the 40,000 people that die each year because they don’t have health insurance.

You’re WRONG Markos.

I get that this health care reform has been a long and tedious process, and I feel Markos’ frustration. I’m exhausted too. I want to put this whole debate behind me as much as the next person. But this bill blows. You know it, I know it, and anyone that has been paying attention knows it. That said, I too have been worn out by this process and think that this crappy bill should pass. I understand that every hope of getting something that will actually work well for the American people has been systematically undermined every step of the way.

But I (unlike you) haven’t forgotten the process that we’ve been through. I haven’t forgotten how this process was undermined, or who undermined it. This entire process has been one of “fuck you, pragmatists” from the beginning (by pragmatist, I mean anyone that has taken an unbiased look at our health insurance system and compared it to those of other countries).

Let’s review.

The first “fuck you” came when we were told that single payer wasn’t even going to be debated. Why not? Countries that have single payer systems are getting much better results at a much lower cost than we are. Isn’t that at least worthy of debate?

While that was going on, we got a “fuck you” from the white house, on the issue of negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies.

The next “fuck you” came when we were told that there weren’t enough votes in the senate for a public option, never mind the fact that a public option is the only way to truly create a competitive marketplace for health insurance.

After that ship sailed, we got the “fuck you” on a medicare buy in, quickly followed by another “fuck you” to lowering the age of eligibility for medicare from 65 to 55.

So now we’re reduced to an exchange that has no visible means of reigning in the audacious insurance companies, who threw in a “fuck you” in the form of 30% – 70% increases for health insurance, just because they can.

This whole process has been a “fuck you” to pragmatists (labeled liberals by the press and everybody else). Every time one of our representatives steps up to do something that would be beneficial to the American people in a demonstrable way, they get a “fuck you” for their troubles.

Why does the right always get their way, even when it’s detrimental to the American people?

Because everyone is telling liberals to shut the fuck up and go along to get along. That’s how we’ve ended up where we are now. It’s because of a systematic “STFU you liberals”, over the past 30 years. Liberals have been told to shut the fuck up by the far right, the middle, and (now) by you.

I understand the desire to have a boot on someone’s throat over this whole health care debate. But you need to recalibrate the GPS on that boot, and point it in the direction of a blue dog democrat that helped to undermine the efficacy of what we all collectively set out to do here.

Dennis Kucinich isn’t wrong here. He’s standing on principle, and that’s good for all of us. We need more principled people to govern us.

I’m ready to hold my nose and jump on the “pass this piece of shit bill” bandwagon because my optimism has been worn down. But I am NOT ready to attack people that are trying to make it better. Go after Stupak or one of his merry band of women haters to make up for Kucinich’s vote.

Going after another liberal and telling him to shut the fuck up is very bad short term thinking, and you should know better.