Battered Party Syndrome

Photo credit: blondieb38 from morguefile.com

I have to admit that I'm a somewhat reluctant Democrat. In order to vote in certain elections in Kentucky you had to be a Democrat or Republican so I switched from Independent. When Barack Obama was elected I held out a somewhat naive hope that Democrats would finally return to what are supposed to be the core beliefs of their party instead of kowtowing to every hot-headed Republican who could scream their lies loud enough. But it's looking like I was sadly mistaken.

Why, when Democrats have majorities in the House and Senate and control the White House, is Obama so insistent about reaching across the aisle and compromising with the Republicans? They don't want to compromise, they want to win. Nothing would make them happier than to shove you down and rub your face in the dirt. But I think I know what the answer is, Democrats are suffering from Battered Party Syndrome.

The last president to successfully fight for liberal values was Lyndon Johnson and ever since Jimmy Carter the Republicans have mostly succeeded in making liberal a dirty word. After years of abuse, Democrats just cave in and go back to cowering in the corner every time a Republican screams some asinine comment in their face. It's looking like Obama's trying to emulate Bill Clinton and actually identify with his abusers. Clinton gave us NAFTA, deregulation of the banking industry and the welfare reform act. With friends like that who needs enemies?

The real problem is that both parties are now controlled by huge corporations who don't care about anything but profits. I'm afraid we're headed back to start of the twentieth century when coal mining companies would refuse to send mules into the most dangerous parts of the mine because they could always replace a man but mules cost money. Compassion is what Obama needs to be stressing in the healthcare debate but after I found about the bargains he's made with drug companies, I figured we were fucked.

He's already starting to crawdaddy on the public option just like he did with end of life counseling. The bill we're probably going to end up with is going to be so watered down and wishy-washy that it's not going to do a goddamned thing for people who need it most. Just like closing Guantanamo Bay, Obama's going to give lip service to it but when it comes to real action, he's nowhere to be found. What he should say next Wednesday is that your bank account shouldn't determine if you live or die and an insurance company shouldn't be able to decide that since you didn't report an infected hangnail in 1975 they aren't going to pay for your heart attack. But since cutting into the profits of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries would also cut into the Democrat's campaign contributions, I think we all know what the outcome's going to be.