Barrickman Wrote:
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> The Democratic debates this week offered a new
> episode in the race for the nomination. If the
> first round of debates was marked by camaraderie
> and cautious avoidance of open confrontations,
> this time, and particularly on Wednesday, we saw
> candidates increasingly attacking each other.
>
> Whereas on Tuesday, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
> Warren formed a sort of “progressive united
> front,” taking hits and defending themselves and
> each other from the attacks of their more
> conservative opponents, on Wednesday, Joe Biden
> was the preferred target of everyone on stage. He
> was repeatedly called out for his sexism and
> racism, remnants of his past record that are
> becoming an unbearable weight for the 76-year-old.
> What appeared to be his main asset—his role as
> President Obama’s VP—is also his main
> liability. When Bill de Blasio cornered him,
> asking whether he had opposed Obama’s
> deportations, he went on a tangent and failed to
> respond. Cory Booker took up the opportunity and
> fired: “Mr. Vice President, you can’t have it
> both ways. You invoke President Obama more than
> anybody in this campaign. You can’t do it when
> it’s convenient and then dodge it when it’s
> not.”
>
> The fact is, the times are changing fast in the
> United States, and the status quo—from the
> health care debacle to the country’s massive
> student debt to the criminal justice crisis—is
> untenable for most Americans. Trump’s election
> should have been enough proof of this, but Biden
> and the establishment Democrats are taking longer
> to get used to this new reality.
>
> Yet, Booker and De Blasio also had their moment of
> reckoning. Biden himself accused Booker of hiring
> a “Rudy Giuliani guy” and ramping up
> stop-and-frisk when he was mayor of Newark. And
> Julian Castro, in turn, called out De Blasio for
> having failed to fire NYPD officer Daniel
> Pantaleo, who five years ago murdered Eric Garner
> using an illegal chokehold.
>
> The cross fire did not end there. Tulsi Gabbard
> took aim at Kamala Harris, exposing her record as
> California prosecutor—not a “reformer,” as
> she tries to portray herself, but as a
> tough-on-crime conservative, increasing penalties
> and the persecution of black and brown
> communities.
>
> “There are too many examples to cite,” said
> Gabbard, “but she put over 1,500 people in jail
> for marijuana violations and then laughed about it
> when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.
> She blocked evidence that would have freed an
> innocent man from death row until the courts
> forced her to do so. She kept people in prison
> beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor
> for the state of California.”
>
> You may be interested in A Background Check on
> Kamala Harris
>
> If anything, this was the beauty of the debate:
> All the credible candidates have right-wing track
> records, so when they criticized Biden from the
> left, they exposed a weak flank for their
> opponents to attack. Biden may have served as a
> punching bag for all the candidates, but almost no
> one left the staged unscathed.
>
> Health Care at the Center of the Debate
> Given the abysmal state of U.S. health care, it is
> no wonder that it took center stage in both the
> Democratic debates so far. Three of the candidates
> propose a credible fix, which includes expanding
> Medicare to all citizens (some would allegedly
> extend it to undocumented immigrants) and
> eliminating private insurance plans: These are
> Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and De Blasio.
> All the rest, who claim to support Medicare for
> all but want to keep private insurance companies,
> are merely latching on to a brand that attracts
> votes while emptying it of its real meaning.
> Although Biden, Harris, Castro and others strive
> to emphasize that, under their programs, everyone
> would have the chance to choose a “public
> option,” the truth is that keeping the insurance
> sector defeats the purpose of Medicare for all.
> The key for such a plan to succeed is, precisely,
> that everyone—not only those who don’t have an
> employer-provided health care plan—be included
> in the same health care system. This would
> guarantee a certain level of coverage and quality.
> Keeping the private insurance sector alive leaves
> the door open for dramatic inequalities in health
> care access: The public option will be severely
> underfunded, and the insurance sector will lobby
> for subsidies and tax breaks, offering much better
> service to those who can afford it and who, in
> addition, tend to be healthier.
>
> On this question, as with others, Democrats
> overall have shifted to more progressive
> positions. Except for Biden—and maybe some other
> Republican-lite Democrat like Steve Bullock—all
> the candidates recognize the urgency of fixing the
> U.S. health care system. But tellingly, most
> candidates choose a middle-of-the-road approach.
>
> The loudest applause both days of the debate,
> however, came when candidates said they favored
> Medicare for all and denounced the parasitic
> character of insurance companies. The writing is
> on the wall: The vast majority of people in this
> country want Medicare for all, and they want the
> insurance companies out. But centrist Democrats
> want it both ways: They want both the votes for
> supporting Medicare for all and the bucks from the
> health insurance companies for proposing to keep
> them.
>
> Legitimacy and Class Interests
> On practically all issues discussed in the
> debates, there is a position—sometimes voiced by
> a candidate—that reflects working-class
> interests. All other proposals represent the
> interests of capital, some more bluntly, some with
> a relatively “progressive” veneer. On health
> care, for example, Medicare for all represents in
> a distorted way the need for a universal health
> care system. Having guaranteed access to health
> care would no doubt strengthen the working class,
> allow workers to organize more freely at their
> workplaces and fight their bosses with their main
> weapon, the strike, without the fear of losing
> their health insurance if they were fired. But a
> more comprehensive working-class program for
> health care would go much further: It would
> nationalize the whole health care system under the
> management of workers and patients, nationalize
> the pharmaceutical industry and eliminate all
> profits reaped at the expense of people’s
> disease. Furthermore, it would take into account
> the social determinants of health, eliminating
> food deserts, banning harmful working conditions
> and so on. In sum, to achieve the best health
> possible as human beings, we need to transform
> society so that profits are no longer its driving
> force.
>
> On other topics, Democratic candidates are even
> further away from a working-class program: On
> border and immigration, no matter how progressive,
> all candidates agree on “strong border
> security.” As James Hoff explains, working-class
> interests can be represented only in the demand
> for open borders, which none of the candidates is
> putting forward. Similarly, foreign policy is
> expressed only in nationalistic terms. Whether it
> is about beating China in the race for
> technological supremacy, about trade agreements or
> the U.S. relations with the UN, the terms of the
> conversation are always from the perspective of
> what’s best for the United States, without ever
> mentioning its imperialist character. Notably,
> U.S. financial and military support for Israel
> goes unquestioned. The bottom line is that, with a
> more or less progressive outlook, these are all
> positions that represent the interests of
> capital.
>
> The Democratic Party is in flux. Trump’s victory
> in 2016 shook the foundations of the party and
> forced many to grapple with the need of abandoning
> openly neoliberal policies in favor of more
> progressive ones. The generational change and the
> disillusionment of millions in the politics of
> establishment Democrats are pushing the agenda to
> the left. But the natural tendency for Democratic
> politicians is to gravitate toward the center. As
> a result, candidates are pulled in two directions:
> Big donors pressure them to maintain a
> conservative approach, while the crisis of
> legitimacy pushes them to incorporate elements of
> a progressive agenda. One after another, most have
> embraced Medicare for all (at least in name), some
> version of tuition-free college and some cosmetic
> version of criminal justice reform. Warren is the
> most radical example of this trend: Forced by a
> profound dip in the polls after the “Native
> American” misstep, she adopted most of
> Sanders’ program and even outflanked him on
> reparations for descendants of slavery.
>
> But the Democratic Party continues to represent
> the interests of capital. The fact that its
> candidates are forced to take up some
> working-class issues like universal health care or
> tuition-free college shows that U.S. politics is
> undergoing a major shift. The rising popularity of
> “socialism” as a vague idea but, concurrently,
> a bold challenge to capitalism, shapes the
> political conversation. The Democrats are intent
> on harnessing that mighty social force to tame it,
> use it and pillory it. The viability of today’s
> renewed socialist movement hinges on, precisely,
> its capacity to break free from the Democratic
> Party.
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