From an email sent out by Barack Obama’s group today, Organizing for America, on the health-care debate:
Reports just leaked from a closed-door meeting where insurance industry lobbyists frantically warned Republican members of Congress that it was not in their interest to "ever vote for this thing" and said supporting reform is like "giving comfort to the enemy." USA Today is reporting that groups opposing reform are lobbying at "a record pace" — and the Associated Press notes that they’ve already spent an astounding $32 million on TV ads this year.
This is what we’re up against. President Obama, Vice President Biden, and all of us together through OFA are fighting back — but success depends on having the resources to win.
In this fight, the insurance industry has their war chest and insider lobbyists. We have you. I know who I’m betting on.
Let’s win this thing.
Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America
Yes and after that let’s take on the West Bank colonization program!
What does this mean, Phil? I don’t remember Obama or his flacks telling John Q Publ
ic that we need to get rid of the Health Insurance Industry’s exemption from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. In the same vein, I don’t see Obama getting rid of the
special relationship and it’s similar stranglehold on American foreign policy.
Pingback: Lesson for Democrats: substitute ‘Israel’ for ‘insurance industry’ | JewPI
Put your weight into stopping the settlement expansion, particularly around Jerusalem.
How about sanctions, then? Israel has shown with their punitive blockade of Gaza that the easiest way to prevent construction (well, and reconstruction, apparently) is to completely prevent the importation of construction materials.
Looks like Israel’s set a really good example to the rest of the world how we should deal with them.
RW is afraid that sanctions will weaken Israel to the point where it ceases to exist. As if uncle sam will ever let that happen.
For someone who has been to Israel only twice during his entire life, on short visits, he sure worries and cares a lot for it, doesn’t he? I bet if he became homeless (not that I wish that on anyone, not even a schmuck like him) he’d be out panhandling for Israel.
Now that’s religious dedication. I’m sure he’ll find friends among Hamas members. Heck, they might even reject HIM for being so religiously radical. There has got to be a point where ideology crosses the line into becoming a form of religious devotion.
And their talks and conventions are being disrupted much as Ehud Olmert’s are.
The Zionist Power Structure is much more far-reaching and powerful than insurance industry lobbyists (and that’s saying something, obviously). Much of its membership is part of the Democratic Party itself. While there is a revolving door between industry and government, industry people usually get jobs in the executive, not as the pols themselves. The ZPS has people everywhere: influential jobs within the executive, as senators, and as reps, particularly in the most important districts.
And while PACS are used by all lobbies to support candidates, the most effective way of supporting a candidate now (and the reason we so desperately need campaign finance reform) is through individual donations by wealthy donors to the party itself, which then doles out the money to the candidates. Phil just wrote the other day that over half the money for the Democratic Party came from Jews. While Jews are incredibly politically active, they are small in number: the $100 to $1000 donations of everyday Jewish donors would not add up to a fraction of all the money that makes up more than 1/2 of Democratic financing: the bulk of it came from incredibly wealthy Zionists (with Sheldon Adelson and others pumping money to the Republican side). The insurance industry evidently doesn’t boast enough wealthy billionaires to play the game this way, or else hasn’t figured out how to.
Actually, I imagine one reason why the politicians haven’t completely sold out to the insurance lobby is becasue of all the public support for an alternative. There is not yet that degree of public support for changing policy towards Israel. It would help if the media, from Fox to NPR and all the print media, would present some truth about the I/P issue. Which leads to another difference between the ZPS and the insurance lobby (or any other lobby): sure, the insurance lobby can, and does, buy ad time and can influence a network or newspaper that way, but they don’t OWN the network or paper, or have high-placed editors within the media who can dictate the narrative.
The insurance industry, as powerful as it is, is a pittance compared to the mechanisms of support Israel has in this country. Substituting “Israel” for “insurance industry” doesn’t work. If only it did, our job would be much easier.
If only it did, our job would be much easier.
I didn’t mean to imply that it would be easy, though. Obviously, fighting the insurance industry is not at all easy.
Watch what happens with health care reform this year. See if any bill passes that
includes putting the insurance industry in the grasp of the Sherman Anti-trust Act.
(About as likely as resurrecting the Chinese wall between commerical and investment banking). The difference in public perception is that the Israel Lobby is even more
powerful than the private insurance lobby. In both cases, the average American
gets milked like a cow, and like cows, they don’t even know it.
About as likely as resurrecting the Chinese wall between commerical and investment banking
Instead of just resurrecting Glass-Steagall, which worked for decades, they’re going to create an oversight board or some nonsense. No law, mind you, rather another government agency, another layer of bureacracy, with no legal power behind it. That should satisfy the sheeple.
Actually, there’s a lot of pressure coming on down them now, not just from the lower tiers, but from upper middle classes as well. People “in the know” in the financial sector and on Wall Street are starting to wake up to what’s going on. Ron Paul’s bills to audit the Fed have a lot of cosponsors from both sides of the aisle, including some names I was surprised to see. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens going forward. Schiff’s going crazy telling everybody to get the hell out of the dollar and into stocks or foreign currencies. PCR has essentially said the dollar is dead going forward, and doesn’t really offer any advice on what to do.
There’s an ethnic angle to financial deregulation too. Only a few decades ago, commercial banking was a fairly staid, WASPy “relationship” business. The changes culminated in the once-venerable First National City Bank (Citigroup) falling into the hands of Sandy Weill, and soon thereafter there was the Jack Grubman scandal and they also got mixed up in laundering money for the Russian-Jewish mafia. Then came the subprime mess…
AF, I find these ethnic angles fascinating. So does Phil. So does Mooser. Any links you could provide for more detailed information on what you alluded to above? Thanks.
Obama still playing an outsider? Learning from Reagan?
Also:
Watch for the next job Mitch “parachutes” into. I’m pretty sure he’s already won.
An interesting fact – only about half of US voters now admit to identifying with either of the two political cesspits, R or D. Half of the electorate would be happy to see a plague on both their houses, lobbyists and all.
I’ve officially reached that point myself. I refuse from now on, categorically, to vote for Democratic (or Republican, though that kind of goes without saying) Senators and Presidential candidates. The Democratic Party has officially past the boiling point and is now corrupt enough that they are part of the problem and never part of the solution.
May Jehovah strike me dumb for saying this, but there has been reported a tie between anti-health-reform efforts and Zionists. I think, if my memory serves, MJ Rosenberg mentioned it, but I’m not sure. At any rate, the effort to defeat or frustrate Obama in both areas (health reform and settlement expansion) is co-ordinated. I’m not sure where that went, or if it turned out to be significant, but wow, what chutzpah, and what complete disdain for average Americans! Not good, not good at all.