That little get together was limited to 210 people. The purpose was to plot how to put the White House back under their control after the 2012 election.
To all the folks who tried desperately to assure us that incrementalism would work the best for health insurance and Wall St legislation; that since they ran ads supporting tiny pieces of legislation, President Obama won a great battle, what do you have to say about this? The folks invited from those industries weren’t there advocating for average Americans’ well being. They weren’t trying to figure out how to deliver better health care to more people. They weren’t trying to figure out how to limit the kinds of financial instruments they could package, sell, then bet short on. They were there trying to figure out how to make more and more and more profit – enriching themselves and to hell with the rest of us.
Firms who want to limit “climate change alarmism” were also there. Would the incrementalists like to refresh our memories regarding how well their grand strategy worked with respect to a climate and energy bill? Oh yes, I forgot, we don’t even have one of those, and we’re not going to get one any year soon. In the meantime, the Earth continues to warm, corals continue to be bleached, extreme weather events get more common. Our species existence will be on the line within a matter of decades. It won’t matter then what kind of health insurance plan people can buy or what the financial giants can and can’t do.
The other side is playing for keeps. The sooner rank-and-file Democrats figure that out, the sooner we’ll see the action we so desperately need from them.
