Pick Your Target

Freeze it, personlize it, polarize it. This is Saul Alinsky's rule #11, established in his book, Rules for Radicals. It is basically a manifesto for the socialist movement in America.

President Obama is a student of Alinsky. His (Obama's) healthcare issues are not going favorably for him a this time, so what does he do? He falls back on what he knows best: polarizing his target. This time it is the insurance companies that he is demonizing.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8600691

Since the democrats are unable to get their healthcare passed by its own merits, they have chosen a more devious path: making the insurance companies into the fall guys for them. What they are seeking are documents from the insurance companies regarding pay, bonuses, travel, premiums, etc. One can only assime that they are going to paint these companies as evil AIG types that are living the high life at the expense of the peope they are paid to insure. Instead of congress making consessions to the insurance companies such as allowing them to sell healthcare across state lines, they are attacking them as evil capitalist entities tha are interested in nothing but the bottom line.

The democrats seem to be so rigid in their stance on healthcare reform that they are unwilling to listen to anyone- their constituency or their republican counterparts- with an opposing point of view, that they are now willing to risk the nuclear option. They may decide to use the reconciliation rule to get this hideous healthcare program passed. All they need is 51 votes, which they already have, in order to pass healthcare reform in its current state.

Make no mistake, this attempt at garnering information from the insurance companies is an Alinskyesque move. President Obama may not have asked Waxman to do it, but he has undoubtedly, over the past few days, changed his tune to one of disdain for the insurance companies. Small wonder that a few democrats took the ball and are running with it. These politicians know how to use this tactic to their advantage. In the next couple of weeks, the insurance compnaies are going to begin to squirm as the democrats continue to add pressure on them.

I can't wait until November, 2010!