As reported yesterday on TPM, Democracy Corps released a report that outlines a case to be made that the GOP base is "being motivated by a fundamentally different worldview than folks in the middle or on the Dem side."

This report is particularly helpful in getting the discussion about teabaggers and other right wing "activists" past simple attributions of racism and ignorance and other uni-dimensional explanations for the extreme hatred, fear, contempt and outright whackiness we seem to encounter from the Glen Beck/Michael Steele/Congressional Leadership Wing of the GOP Party. (Did I miss anyone?)

I'm not quite ready to accept the report's premise, however, that this anger and degree of incivility in GOP politics is an aberration. Whereas it is indeed a serious threat to our democracy if allowed to fester and burst forth from its present attitude, we act at our peril if we now attempt to simply de-legitimize the anger, fear and contempt expressed by this "persecuted minority" that we see showing up at various corporate-sponsored "teabag" events.

We best understand that there is a genuine foundation beneath this "angry, persecuted mob" that needs be addressed. In many ways, they share the same feelings of powerlessness that the Left rails about regarding the debilitating corruption in Wall Street and Washington; the ever-increasing economic injustice within our system; the lack of any sense of community that a healthy democracy (dare I say socialism?) offers in terms of an ability to have effect on one's own environment.

In essence, what I am saying is that in observing some of the "tea bag" activities and rallies and rhetoric, I found myself uncomfortably looking into the eyes of what might be considered my bastard brothers and sisters. Their anger is too painfully legitimate to be ignored. Yet they are perversely set upon by demagogues like Beck and Dobbs and other corporate "sponsors" and handlers who encourage them to identify the very tools of self-determination and class empowerment that would improve their situation (i.e. anything "guvmint" or "socialist") as the source of their oppression. Like mad dogs on a leash, they lash out in every direction to which their handlers project them - an exercise that conveniently keeps them occupied in a way that precludes any risk of having them turn on their handlers and at last slip their leash to good (albeit perhaps bloody) effect.

Ultimately, and without trying to go all meta, I have to say there is a real whiff of revolution in the air unlike anything I've felt in my years. This report offers nothing to diminish that sense of foreboding, but it does clarify a perverse opportunity for such a "revolution" to go horribly wrong in institutionalizing the very injustices that it seeks to remedy. The threat presented by this "persecuted minority" in the GOP base, after all, does not arise from the source of their anger and their fears but instead in the way these are being dangerously manipulated in effort to actually preserve an unsustainably unjust status quo. This is the most alarming aspect of the political landscape outlined in the Democracy Corps report. 

Indeed, my biggest fear as I look into the eyes of these "bastard brothers" comes not from so keenly understanding the pain looking back, but instead in a realization that they lay beyond any effective remediation of that pain for so long as they are encouraged to seek the revenge offered by fascism as their preferred treatment. If we are to truly reach out and diminish this threat as we must, we need to more effectively identify the source of the pain we all feel in today's political reality. We must then encourage justice for ALL as the salve that can ameliorate this pain that we so commonly share with one another.

But guess what? Even we progressives have little to offer at present in terms of effectively countering the oppressive interests that rein over the middle class. Nearly 20 years of Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) style triangulation and compromise has installed a "liberal" elite more interested in political expedience than democratic rule. We need an aggressive populist movement that strongly and unremittingly challenges the incredible abuses perpetrated by Wall Street over Main Street; that finds wholly unacceptable - illegal, even - the democracy-defeating pay-to-play politics that allows legislative goaltenders like Baucus, for example, to stand in the way of any legitimate health care or other reform efforts; and that disallows even a popular Obama from perpetuating the overall Washington corruption and all other manner of unacceptable injustices that are now too often accepted as simply the way business is done.

We need, ourselves, to at last determine that we are going to take no prisoners in our OWN search for justice. And then we need to invite these "bastard brothers" to at last join with us in a political showdown that finally pits the "good guys against the bad" in an alignment where justice has at least a chance to prevail.

Yes, if you want peace, work for justice. It really is as simple as that.

And every bit as difficult, as well.

Like many in this country, I truly thought that in choosing Obama as our President, we had at last elected a credible leader capable of pursuing legitimate change in the way business is taken care of in Washington. The dire state of our economy and the global situation including two hot wars intensified the need - and, thus, the opportunity - for a populist leader to assume the Presidency. With things in such disarray, such a populist leader would be given wide latitude in doing the people's work instead of kow-towing to the corporate lobbyists who have corrupted nearly every notion of democracy ("of the people") that supports this Republic.

Instead, it seems we have once again been bamboozled by the same old DLC type creampuff casper milquetoast know-nothings who try to legislate from within the cesspool that is Washington pay-to-play politics and end up with little more than their pants around their ankles and a wtf look on their face.

Once upon a time in this Obama campaign and Administration, there was opportunity to pursue principle over politics, and it was in building a populist campaign for health care reform that this could most strongly have been realized. We could have been proud of at last taking a victory from the lobbyists and the corporations who own Washington, and maybe we could have learned a few things that would lead to actual political reform as well.

It is in hope of such an opportunity being realized that I truly thought we were getting "Change We Can Believe In" when I cast my vote for Obama. Instead, it's looking like we got some hick from Illinois who thought he could win at the Washington lobbyists version of three card monty, and we are all the greater fools because of it. 

What a buzz kill!

Actually, we can't quite say we couldn't see THIS coming.

At the very start of this latest effort to reform our health care system, the Obama Team made it very clear that the number one priority was to make certain that the big players in the industry kept a seat at the table and that nothing would be allowed to come between them and their profits. A side deal was made with Big Pharma and the health providers. The Insurance Industry was assured there would be no substantial move toward anything like a single-payer system, even though this is an important feature of nearly every other universal health care plan in other industrialized countries; plans that provide health care in nearly every instance at a much less cost per capita and with better health outcomes for their citizens than our present system.

Until now, everyone in the health insurance industry has been playing nice in this effort to pursue this wonderful exercise that might best be described as "Impact Free Health Care Reform." They've even managed to play by the Washington rules - hell, Max Baucus alone has received millions of dollars in health insurance industry funds (OUR health care dollars at work!) to wear the uniform of the insurance lobbyists' goalkeeper throughout this game.

Through it all, however, there has been a surprisingly persistent chatter from a public who understands that reform doesn't come without changes being made. (What a concept!) These people have no particular affiliation with the insurance industry and most certainly do not receive benefit of the corporate profits that are skimmed from their health care dollars paid as "premiums." These people can quite logically look at the present system and see it is broken and unsustainable. They also see a need for competition in the industry of the kind that can only be provided by a government managed health care program.

Whereas it became necessary for the reformists to compromise away any discussion of a single-payer plan, the "common sense" nature of a public option has been so pervasive and resilient that reformists have persisted in declaring the plan to be dead without it. It has appropriately become a line in the sand between a sliver of true reform and a virtual "Health Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Improvement Act," and it remains very much in play as this effort moves toward resolution in Congress.

The good news is that the release of this report and the follow-up campaign to scuttle the entire bill shows that the insurance industry considers the public option to be very much alive in the negotiations. The bad news is that the status quo works quite well for them, and so they've apparently decided to pack up and go home with their golden goose firmly held within their hands and to leave for a later date another effort at "reform" that will provide to them at no cost an additional 50 million customers. And so we now have this effort apparently underway to sucker-punch Obama and cast their lot with the GOP "Party of NO!" in preserving the status quo.

The strategic commissioning and release of the insurance industry report at this time is designed to stick a stake into the heart of the present health reform movement, such as it exists after surviving the assault over months perpetrated by forces much better financed (Again, by OUR health care dollars!) than they.

"Game's over!" declares the owners and arbiters of our health. "Stick a fork in it! We're going home."

Yeah, we should have seen it coming. Many did, in fact.

Remember all this talk about how we reform advocates just didn't understand that it was important to lay down and play dead at the feet of the insurance industry if we were to ever achieve health care reform? Remember we were told that Obama knew EXACTLY what he was doing when he was getting so intimately in bed with the health care industry parasites who cause so much of our present problem in the first place? There was always that talk that we were unworthy participants in the discussion who were "playing checkers while Obama was playing chess."

Well, don't look now, but it seems that Obama just took a direct hit from a soccer ball to the face in his game of chess!

"GOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL!!!" sayeth the health insurance industry.

Yeah, you shoulda' seen it coming, even as there's so little satisfaction in being able to say I told you so.