When stopping at a turnpike rest stop a couple weeks ago, I was overwhelmed by three busloads of New Jersey Tea Party activists returning from the September 12th “anti-Obama-care” rally in DC. To say I was caught off guard wearing my Kentucky Jobs with Justice t-shirt in the Nathan’s hot-dog line would be an understatement. No one can escape their steady onslaught of “anti-Obama-care” criticisms, claiming for one that the public option is a disguised attempt at socialized medicine.
The Tea Party Movement, supported by the large insurance companies and other sectors of finance capital and the ultra right, offers simplistic (albeit misleading) solutions to otherwise complex problems.
But just like most union activists, the “Tea-baggers” are often working-class individuals who are facing job loss, housing foreclosure, cuts in social services, etc. Just like other working people, these extreme conservatives are angered by the negative impact on their lives of global finance capitalism in the form of factory closings or increased gas prices.
Yet, unlike us they blame the public sector, are persuaded by racism, and live in constant fear that the federal government, President Obama in particular, is going to take away their freedom…
• the freedom to not have healthcare
• the freedom to not have a job
• the freedom to not have a house.
The tricksters on Wall Street and in the pharmaceutical/insurance industries are preying on these legitimately frustrated workers to convince them to fight against their own interests by red-baiting the Obama Administration, the Democrats and even a few closeted Republicans who are trying to pass a public option.
De-regulation, private enterprise and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is so entrenched in the American psyche, that the Administration could probably benefit from a more visible attempt by progressives to point out the huge difference between a public health insurance option and socialized healthcare.
Why not call the Tea Party’s bluff and open up that old iron curtain to discuss what real socialized medicine would actually look like– a system where doctors, pharmacists, and hospital administrators are government employees. We could ask why something as important as health care is left in private hands at all and highlight the public option for the bi-partisan compromise that it is. And because of this, promote how we have to pass it to meet our most basic health care needs.
After all, when you look at the big picture, we (tea-baggers included) will ultimately need much, much more in order to achieve a truly universal healthcare system.
Adapted from an essay originally published by Political Affairs (www.politicalaffairs.net) entitled Will the Real Socialist Medicine Please Stand Up?
