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What is being taught here once again is the impossibility of getting freebies without a genuine class movement challenging the rulers (not necessarily around the same issue -- while there was modest and significantg mobilization for Medicare, it was the combination of the civil rights and antiwar movements that put it and much else over the top. Looking back -- and I noted this a couple times earlier though it has certainly been driven home again -- there was never a significant chance of progressive medical-care legislation. It was almost certain that it would become a playground for reactionary operations of various kinds. This one -- the most actively opposed provision of the anti-health care, pro-insurance giants bill -- may not make it. More likely, Nelson and his "centrist" (and ALSO liberal) ally Obama will reach some kind of compromise that the liberals will allow to be forced down their throats for the cause of "health care" paid for by the recipients to the insurance companies. The sweeping abortion restriction instituted here should not be viewed as just another "chipping away." I suspect this would become strong grounds for a Supreme Court majority to argue that Roe v. Wade was not a true precedent, since clearly it has never become the subject of a "consensus" (like the 1954 Supreme Court decision on formal racial segregation in schools -- which even Justices Scalia says was rightly decided) and the authorities feel empowered to attack it by all means at their disposal.+ You don't get something for nothing -- and from the standpoint of power, the labor movement (even broadly defined, as I favor because I believe the working class is the driving, sustaining force in all, to include the Black movement, the immigrant rights movement, the women's movement, and the antiwar efforts) has little or no mobilized, acting POWER in the situation today. When that changes, the debate on this issue will change very radically. Until then, it will not. And no one should imagine that the bill that is being prepared for passage -- and even less its defeat, which would definitely be positive on the whole in anything like its present form -- will settle the question for decades, because of the demoralizing effect of the victory for our enemies that is being registered thus far. A massive struggle of the oppressed and exploited -- of the whole proletariat, in all its varied forms and conditions -- will cut through the bureaucratic red tape being piled up to obstruct progress like a burning knife through butter. This does not mean of course that single-payer activists should not continue their day to day propaganda and activism. This is a necessary aspect of the development of the social conditions for advance. But the vanguard of the activists in this field are going to have to come to terms with the fact that, like it or not, whether the term offends or not, they are a vanguard, and, in the conditions that exist today, so are all the other people who join them in activities. Fred Feldman http://slatest.slate.com/Apps/SlatestApps/toolbar/print.aspx?id=2238985d Slate March 17 Abortion Key Issue for Democrats' Last Health Care Holdout Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson appears to be the sole Democratic holdout on health care reform, keeping Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid one senator shy of a filibuster-proof 60 votes. "[W]ith the Great Health Care Debate of 2009 late in the fourth quarter, the whole game seems to be riding" on Nelson, says the New York Times. Like Joe Lieberman before him, Nelson appears prepared to leverage his status to win concessions, particularly on abortion funding. He told a Nebraska radio station on Thursday that he can't support the bill as it stands because of its language on the thorny issue. "As it is right now, without further modifications, it isn't sufficient," Nelson told the station, though he shied from specifics. Nelson's hesitations may ruin Reid's goal of passing health care reform by Christmas Eve. Read original story in The New York Times | Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009 http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/the-senates-game-changer/? hp ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
