On Mar 27, 2007, at 1:23 PM, Jim Straub wrote:
> But it is an intellectual cop out to imagine he pursues these goals
> because of stupidity. I challenge you: if he is stupid, and you
> and other leftists are smart, than illustrate this to me by
> describing an organization of those smart leftists whose results
> today speak for themselves.
He's clearly not stupid - that's really not the issue. In fact, what's sad about Stern is that he seems thoughtful in interviews, and then embarks on this weird frolic with Wal-Mart. Check out the American Prospect interview:
<http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww? section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12587>
> [Stern] "But here's the real life facts: If you put Wal-Mart and
> ourselves and AARP and a bunch of Democrats and Republicans in a
> room, I think we could solve this health care problem in America."
That really is a stupid statement. There are fundamental
disagreements here, not some disharmonies on the details that can be
worked out by technocrats. That's why I said it was Perot-like in its
idiocy; I think back on Perot's homey metaphors about rolling up our
sleeves and looking under the hood. Later, Stern responds to a very
good question with an answer that should embarrass the hell out of him:
> [Q] How do I know Wal-Mart isn't saying that they're going support
> high-deductible health care for all, so we'll all have to pay
> $6,000 when we get sick, and it'll be universal coverage because
> the law will mandate that we all purchase it?
>
> [A] I haven't had that level of specificity [with them]
Stern himself is vague on what he wants in a health care plan, though he praised Arnie's in that same interview ("I think people are now looking at what Governor Schwarzenegger is doing and say hey, it's a real deal"), and earlier dismissed "Canadian imports" as inappropriate to our great nation. ArnieCare, like MittCare, is shit.
Later, Stern says: "I think the left and progressives spend way to much time trying to create policy priorities and policy proposals rather than trying to make change. And the civil rights movement didn't write bills in lunch rooms." But it didn't write bills in board rooms either, which is what Stern is doing on this issue. Why not get all these workers, so magnificently organized by SEIU, out in the streets to push for a real health care scheme and not some crap that Lee Scott is going to come up with?
Jim, what you're saying boils down to Stern being the latest iteration of business unionism - only he's really emphasizing the business part. That's the kind of consciousness that promises the disappearance of organized labor in the US in about 30 years on current trends. For all SEIU's alleged organizing success, it's not showing up in the annual union density numbers. And Change To Win has proved to be a total flop. So even on the hard-headed, real-world metrics you like to cite, success is proving elusive.
Doug