Closing Time: An Historic Confirmation of Corporate Power
It looks like heaven but it feels like death;
It's something in between, I guess:
It's closing time.
-- Leonard Cohen
Official transcript of remarks by President Barack Obama after the March 21 vote in the House of Representatives on H.R.3590: Motion to Concur in Senate Amendments to Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:
My fellow Americans. As many of our more serious commentators have noted, Democrats and progressives have sought genuine reform of our broken, bloated, unjust health care system for almost a hundred years. Today, I am proud to say that we have brought that century-long struggle to a close. Together with our visionary partners in the House and the Senate, we have finally killed genuine health care reform for many years to come -- perhaps even for another century!
The struggle is over, the deal is done, the fix is in, and corporate power -- unbridled, unchallenged, coddled, protected, and larded with the endless pork of government-guaranteed profit -- has triumphed at last. This is an historic achievement. This is a mighty legacy we will bequeath to future generations.
This, my friends, is what change looks like.
Now, you know and I know that such change never comes easily. It never comes without opposition. It never comes without controversy. Even in this hour of victory, we know that the doom-sayers will be out in force.