Part I: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Kevin Garnett
I grew up loving the Boston Celtics. I loved everything about them. Their teamwork, their style of play, their attitude, their ugliness -- everything. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I was an average sized white kid who had no hops, but loved basketball, and instead of relying on talent, had to rely on a bruising, physical game in order to survive. Whatever the reason, I lived and died with Boston Celtics basketball.
The Celtics went 22 years between NBA championships. The years between 1986 and 2008 were beset with tragedy (the deaths of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis) and mediocrity. Many of the Celtics teams scraped the bottom of the barrell, rarely winning and often times being an embarrassment to themselves and their fans. During the same time the game changed for the worse. The NBA no longer relied on quick, smart passing, elaborate teamwork, and superior shooting, but was a one-on-one up and down the floor style with brick after brick being thrown up. It was boring and almost unwatchable.
But, prior to the 2007-08 season, the Celtics signed two superstars -- Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen -- to supplement their resident all-star forward Paul Pierce and instantly became a contender for the NBA crown. They reached the 2008 finals against the hated Los Angeles Lakers, and there I was again, living and dying with each game rooting on my beloved Celtics.
So, why did I suddenly care? There was certainly no connection between the team that featured Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge, Bill Walton, Robert Parrish, Dennis Johnson and a host of various scrubs, and this sleek athletic showtime Celtics team chock full of superstars. I was certainly far removed from the teenager that obsessed over every statistic in every game all season long.
What it comes down to that we as Americans root for uniforms. If we grew up rooting for the Yankees, even though Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield and Graig Nettles have long since retired, chances are we will still root for the Yankees, or Celtics, or Cowboys or what have you. This is the same if our team suddenly trades for a player we hated when he played for our rival team. He has our uniform now, so suddenly we love him today when we hated him yesterday. Our loyalty is not to the players or even the franchise, our loyalty is to the brand. There is something truly Capitalist about that, and the fact that brands can have such an influential effect on our behavior.
When this is related to sports teams, it really doesn't have a huge impact on our society. However, when it relates to politics and policies, this type of behavior is much more serious.
Part II: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love ObamaCare
The American political system for better or for worse (oh, ok, for worse) is divided into two main parties -- Democrat and Republican. Those who maintain their allegience to one of these parties really do see substantive differences between the two, and sometimes there are. However, it amazes me how the positions of these parties can morph almost imperceptably overnight and take their millions of loyalists along for the ride.
One example of this is the years long fight over ObamaCare.
When he was elected in 2008, and took office in 2009 as our nation's first African-American President, Barack Obama decided, whether wisely or unwisely, to make the push for a national health insurance system his number one domestic policy initiative. The policy that he introduced would mandate most citizens to purchase private health insurance, would make reforms to the private health care insurance system such as banning denials based upon pre-existing conditions, would set up health insurance exchanges similar to risk pools where individuals could shop for the lowest cost plans, and would penalize those who did not purchase insurance by making them pay a penalty or tax.
This plan was nothing new. It had been implemented in Massachusetts by then Republican governor Mitt Romney. But, the plan was much older than that. In fact it was the exact plan that had been hatched by the ultra conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation and floated as the Republican alternative to Bill Clinton's auspicious but ultimately failed universal national healthcare plan in 1993. I know this because I was standing outside the press conference where all of the Republican Senators announced their plan back then, handing out press releases to all of the reporters trying to get them to cover a press conference later that afternoon put forth by the Health Care Coalition, a conglomerate of labor leaders and other progressive groups pushing to support the Clinton plan.
The Republican plan in 1993 was roundly criticized by Democrats of all stripes as a boondoggle and a sell out to the insurance industry, falling fall short of the goal of universal coverage that was touted by the Clintons. As it turned out, nothing was passed and we were left with a system which became more and more expensive, leaving any kind of adequate health coverage beyond the reach of more and more Americans.
So, having a Democrat touting a plan which had been hatched by the most conservative parts of the Republican party and had been implemented by a self-described severely conservative governor to pretty good success, you would think that passage would be fairly easy. Of course, the opposite was the case. Republicans viciously attacked Obama's health care plan, alleging it limited freedom, was socialized medicine, would lead to rationed care, and would establish death panels who would decide when to kill your grandma. None of these were remotely true, of course, but their vehement opposition to the Affordable Care Act probably helped the GOP take over the House of Representatives and gain seats in the Senate in 2010, while at the same time costing them the Presidency in 2012.
To show how exactly this was "rooting for uniforms" much like in sports, let's look at what would have likely happened had Mitt Romney bested John McCain for the GOP nomination in 2008 and won the Presidency against Obama (it's less far fetched than you think).
Upon taking office, President Romney would have almost certainly introduced as his main domestic policy initiative, the very same plan which he so successfully implemented as Governor in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts health insurance plan is almost identical to Obama's Affordable Care Act. What would have followed would be almost farcical knowing what happened over the last five years. Immediately, every Republican elected official would line up touting the benefits of the plan. They would almost certainly emphasize that the Romney plan would promote personal responsibility and reward those who had purchased health care all along by lowering their rates and punish those who lazily refused to pay into the system by fining them. The benefits to small businesses by setting up separate exchanges for small business would be shown to be a way to lift up the job creators who up to now had been unable to afford to provide health insurance for their employees even though they had wanted to. Moreover, the Republicans would have responded to criticisms from the Left that unlike socialized medicine or a single payer system that was run by the government, the Romney health care plan kept individual choice and private benefits, keeping the government out of your health care decisions.
The main opposition to President Romney's plan would be led by Nancy Pelosi and probably Senator Obama, pointing out the huge subsidies being paid to the health insurance industry and drug manufacturers. They would call this more corporate welfare. They would lament the huge costs that would be imposed on the poor. You would hear heartbreaking tales of single mothers, or old retirees forced to choose between health insurance and food. These same working poor would end up homeless when forced to pay the penalty for not being able to afford private health insurance. This would be attacked as another tax being imposed on the least fortunate among us, while fat cats and the wealthiest with their Cadillac policies got superior coverage and at the same time were getting huge tax cuts proposed by the same Republicans trying to force this despicable plan on our nation.
Eventually the Democrats would squeeze out some small concessions probably in the form of expanded exchanges, or greater subsidies for lower income individuals, but would in the end go ahead and vote in favor of the Romney plan. This would be hailed by both sides as a huge step forward and much better than the system we had before hand. But you would never hear a peep about how the Romney plan was an attack on individual freedoms, nor anything about death panels or killing grandma. The only people railing about things like this would be considered lunatic libertarian fringe elements and this would never see the inside of any courtroom, much less come down to a breathless 5-4 decision in the Supreme Court.
Part III: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Drones
But nothing shows the outright absurdity of the willingness of Americans to support policies that they would have despised had they been proposed by the "other team" more than President Obama's drone program. When he ran for President in 2008, Senator Barack Obama was overwhelmingly critical (rightfully so, in my opinion) of the foreign policy of then President George W. Bush. He was most outspoken about the use of torture to attempt to obtain information and the prosecution of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Based on the posture of his campaign, one would have been reasonable in expecting that once elected, President Obama would reverse course on these programs, immediately draw down troops, close Guantanamo Bay, end indefinite detention, and in a responsible manner in our dealings around the world.
However, once elected, President Obama continued our troop deployments, increasing our troop levels in Afghanistan, kept Guantanamo open, increased the use of indefinite detention expanding it beyond any levels previously used by the Bush administration, and continued to act aggressively and recklessly in our foreign policy.
But the one policy implemented by Obama that has caused the most consternation world wide is his use of drones to carry out targeted killings across the Middle East. These attacks know no geographic limitations being carried out in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East. We actually know very little about the program, including the rules of engagement and exactly where the drones have been deployed, against whom they have been deployed, or the reasons that any particular individual or group was targeted based on the extreme secrecy the Obama administration has placed over the program.
What little we do know about the program is incredibly disturbing. We know that many of the attacks are so-called "signature" killings, not directed at any particular person or Al-Qaeda leader, but instead executed because the target fits a profile which is indicative of persons who may be terrorists. This has resulted in killings of innocent civilians. When faced with criticisms over the killing of civilians, the administration inexplicably simply re-defined the term combatant to include any male person of military age who is found in a combat zone.
We have learned that the administration does not exempt American citizens from being targeted by drones, as was evident with the assassination of American citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen. Awlaki had been a high priority target of the Obama administration based upon his popularity among young Muslims who were exposed to his militant speeches mostly through You Tube videos, as well as his apparent participation in plots against the U.S. including the supposed underwear bomber on a plane headed for Detroit. Two weeks after his assassination, Awlaki's 16 year-old son, American citizen Abdulrahman Awlaki was killed by a predator drone. We still do not know if the younger Awlaki was targeted since the administration will not release this information, but there appears to be no evidence that Abdulrahman Awlaki had any involvement in Al Qaeda. When pressed to answer about the younger Awlaki's death by We Are Change's Luke Rudkowski, former Obama press secretary and current MSNBC contributor Robert Gibbs stated "I would suggest you should have a far more responsible father."
We learned in a New York Times article that there was a secret kill list, presided over by the President himself, in which it is decided who will be targeted for assassination next. These weekly meetings have been dubbed Terror Tuesdays and the potential targets laid out on cards similar to baseball cards. The term developed for the criteria for which it is decided who lives and who dies is the Orwellian sounding "disposition matrix." In all of these drone strikes, meetings, assassination decisions, there is no judicial oversight and the position of the administration is that having representatives of the various parts of the executive branch alone discuss whether due process has been met is sufficient under the Constitution.
All of this came to a head during the confirmation hearings for CIA director John Brennan who had participated both in the prosecution of the drone program as well as in the previous administration's "enhanced interrogation", i.e. torture program. A couple of Senators, some Republican, some Democrat, pressed the nominee on the issue of drones and whether American citizens in the United States could be the target of drone strikes. It was learned that the Obama administration had failed to respond to multiple inquiries of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding the drone program and had not provided any of the legal memos justifying the extrajudicial assassination program. It was clear that the administration was not only bypassing the judiciary, but the legislative branch as well, ignoring all oversight of its program. The climax of this was a 12 hour filibuster of Brennan's nomination by Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky to draw attention to the administration's abuse of their power and refusal to give answers to the legitimate and reasonable inquiries of the Senate.
There is no doubt that had these policies been carried out by the Bush administration that there would be outrage on the left. It would be the top story every night on MSNBC. Democratic Senators would be lining up demanding answers, calling for hearings and investigations into the abuse of power by the Bush administration. There would be more than one call for the President to be impeached. There would be mass protests in the streets and robust debate over whether or not this activity was even legal under U.S. and international law.
So, what was the reaction from Democrats? Mostly silence. The very same people who vented overwhelming criticism at the previous administration now agreed overwhelmingly with these policies being carried out by Obama. This can best be exemplified in this picture showing the results of a phone in poll on the liberal Ed Show on MSNBC the night of the Brennan hearings:
It is simply inconceivable that the viewership of the Ed Show would be agreeing with a Republican president targeting American citizens for assassination, much less supporting it by a nearly four to one margin. This is probably the most overwhelming example of the American public rooting for uniforms, willing to accept something they previously found distasteful simply because it is proposed by someone they voted for or like.
Conclusion: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Third Parties
So what does this all tell us?
I'm not going to venture a guess as to why the American electorate acts this way, or why those who strongly identify as either Democrats or Republicans are so quick to defend any policy put forth by their party regardless of whether they supported or extremely opposed the same policy previously. That is something for psychologists and sociologists to study.
What I can conclude is that what this does show is that our two-party political system is much less about ideology and much more about gaining and maintaining power. The similarities between Democrats and Republicans are far greater than their differences. But by being able to marshall their party loyalists to support them no matter what and to stick with their parties as their policies shift more often than the wind, both Democrats and Republicans have been able to stave off any serious challenges from parties either on the left or the right.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties exist to maintain a system of corporate governance whereby elected officials adopt legislation which creates the most favorable conditions possible for their large corporate paymasters. As money becomes more and more involved in the political system and politicians rely on large donors to maintain their careers, the entrenchment of this corporatocracy will increase and become permanent.
Of course, as long as people are willing to support their stated political party no matter how far they stray from their stated positions, there will be less and less incentive for them to hold themselves accountable to their non corporate constituents. The parties know this, and as Obama has shown us, the ability to campaign in one way and govern in a completely different way is not only possible, but overwhelmingly successful. This will be the template upon which future Democratic campaigns will be built.
Until people are willing to demand accountability from their leaders, and be willing to walk away from their stated parties, this will not change. I cannot see myself voting for a Presidential candidate from either major party in the future. There will be those who claim to be liberals who will criticize this saying that I am empowering Republicans. But I simply refuse to take part in this grand political Kabuki theater wherein the candidates act out their elaborate roles simply for show, while carrying out policies which completely undercut their promises and stated beliefs.
It is only through more people making this kind of commitment to refuse the current corrupt system of government which controls our nation that we can begin to see real change.
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