i don't have much to say re the primary wars, as i was not too keen on either clinton or obama and so after awhile tried to avoid the whole thing.

the discussion re 911 however was, if true, a helpful way for me to understand my own experience in 2001. i'd recently moved from texas to massachusetts and was, i confess, looking forward to living in a more tolerant community. but that was not my experience post 911. the overt racism, blood lust, desire for revenge, hatred of the "other," the response to those few who argued against the war or participated in peace vigils, etc i witnessed in MA were as bad or worse than anything i'd seen in TX. i thought the whole place had gone bat-shit crazy. but maybe it was only a temporary transformation to authoritarianism.

i look forward to reading the book and further posts and related discussions.

p.s. i will echo earlier comment on the disparity loudness between the speakers makes listening to the interview a bit difficult. just an fyi for glenn in case it's something easy to adjust.

However, on a few occasions in recent months I've cited Feingold's May "Democracy Now" appearance, during which Amy Goodman probed Feingold on Congress' intransigence in considering single-payer health care.

Poor Russ could only look down and all but nervously scrape his shoe-tip back and forth on the carpet as he stammered that it just wasn't possible to get through Congress, and everybody in Congress knew it. (I paraphrase.)

Of course, he coughed up a couple of rationalizations, but didn't even attempt a response based on principles, or merits.

And he certainly didn't venture the plain truth that our Elected Misrepresentatives are obliged, first and foremost, to serve their true Master-- Mammon, manifested as corporations and vested interests-- despite the fantasy that Congress derives its power and authority from the people.

To Feingold's credit, he didn't express the motivation the bemused Max Baucus has been stating matter-of-factly: to give Obama the big "Win" he tasked Congressional Democrats to obtain.

I think Feingold remains fundamentally decent enough to suffer anguish and shame, and it showed during that interview.

good for feingold. i wasn't as surprised by the dems in congress as i was by progressives who last summer took a top down decision to precompromise single payer universal healthcare (by far the progressive policy of choice) in favor of the dem platform (public option in a multi payer system) -- even going so far as to refuse to discuss single payer and ignoring those progressive organizations (pnhp and cna for example with many thousands of doctors and the biggest and most progressive nurses union) which continue to support the genuine grass roots organizing efforts (including multiple acts of civil disobedience involving arrest). honest disagreements are one thing, it's quite another to be shut out of the debate. reminds me of the run up to the iraq war and trying to get MSM coverage for our anti-war organizing.

anyway, i recently heard sara robinson interviewed on ian masters and she spoke to this issue. here's a rough transcription of the relevant bit:

sara: ...he [obama] went to left wing activists and said, "don't you push for single payer and don't go leaning on the blue dogs. and if you do, we're going to go to your funders and have your funding cut. he went to all the liberal think tanks and media outlets and they said we hold your purse strings and if you cross us on this, if you don't come over to the center with us on this, we're going to cut your funding. that was horrifying, i work for couple of those left wing think tanks.

but it was a sign that rather than let their left flank take the edge of the window and drag it all the way over and talk about really radical things like single payer. and then obama could cut a deal that was somewhat to the right of that but not very far and get a lot more. we were a strong negotiating thing that he had going on and they cut us off on at the face [i'm not sure about this sentence, hard to hear --s]. jane hamsher has written about this.

ian: i was going to say just to follow up on the fdr analogy, fdr said to the liberal activists, "make me do it."

sara: obama says, "get out of my way."

so, looks like it wasn't just the blue dogs progressives were told not to go after, it was also policy.

makes me wonder what else is on or off the table based on the administration's say so.

... the problem with the health care debate is that those hardened Leftist ideologues cling childishly and petulantly to their little "public option" fetish and their refusal to give it up is jeopardizing enactment of a reform bill.

That's why there's such fervent demands for a "public option" -- because it's the only thing that can keep costs low and thus prevent this bill from being nothing more than a glorified bailout of the insurance and drug industries, which is exactly what will happen if 50 million people are forced by law to buy their products with no cost-control mechanism but ample government subsidies.

... if only the Leftist crazies would stay quiet and give up on their radical ideology, everything would go smoothly

watching (and participating in) the so called debates on healthcare reform this past year, it's impossible not to notice that the complaints now being made about public option advocates are some of the very same kind of complaints the public option advocates have spent the past year making about single payer advocates. just substitute "single payer" for "public option."

it would be funny if so many lives weren't at stake.