this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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chapotraphouse

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It's from a 2006 article by David Sirota.

Mr. Obama Goes to Washington | The Nation

The quotation in context

Obama has a remarkable ability to convince you that his positions are motivated purely by principles, not tactical considerations. This skill is so subtle and impressive, it resembles Luke Skywalker's mastery of the Force. It's a powerful tool for a Democratic Party that often emanates calculation rather than conviction. "I don't think in ideological terms. I never have," Obama said, continuing on the healthcare theme. "Everybody who supports single-payer healthcare says, 'Look at all this money we would be saving from insurance and paperwork.' That represents 1 million, 2 million, 3 million jobs of people who are working at Blue Cross Blue Shield or Kaiser or other places. What are we doing with them? Where are we employing them?"

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Even if you took that as factual concern it's obviously a bullshit defence because;

A) if you require that many make work jobs then it's more productive to have them work in some other administrative department or even just sweep the streets than in a role that only destroys wealth, keeps people sick (and unworking if you only care about employment stats), or kills them

B) the fucking companies outsourced most of those jobs first and now use AI anyway, so you didn't save shit

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 month ago

Whenever anybody tries to scold over jobs lost, I ask them if there is anything in their city ir county that they see that needs improvement. Every problem and desire is a potential job if we simply prioritize it

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah as Sirota implies though Obama likely doesn’t see things this way, it’s just a rhetorical device to justify his devotion to the status quo

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

I mean, I agree. It's just so shallow and intellectually lazy - really shows how little work they feel they had to put in to defend it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Its just crazy to see people defend paper-pushing jobs one minute, then whining about how we have a nursing shortage the next.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What are we going to do with those 3 million people? Well most of them will probably start working for the single payer system that is going to require a lot of people to run as smooth as possible.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Don’t be ridiculous the government can’t just make jobs!

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 month ago

I forgor 💀

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 month ago (2 children)

IT WOULD BE MORE ECONOMICALLY BENEFICIAL TO PAY THEM TO DO NOTHING THAN FOR THEM TO CONTINUE IN INSURANCE

oooh we can't switch to solar, what about all the JOBS in coal and petrol?????

PAY THEM TO NOT WORK IN COAL OR PETROL

like fuck you have the money printer for the global standard currency, don't act like it's somehow impossible when it's a pittance compared to billions the pentagon looses when the wallet they all share goes through the washing machine. You can even do your precious means testing to make sure it's actually going to someone who's worked in insurance or coal mining or whatever for more than a year

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

oooh we can’t switch to solar, what about all the JOBS in coal and petrol???

Legit my country's arguments about why we can't invest in renewables, despite being one of the best places on the planet for solar.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Never see them oppose AI because jobs. Never see them put pressure on porky to not have skeleton crews to maximize profits for the sake of jobs.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

Right. They’d miss the income, not the job.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Every single public outcry for social progress is treated like some childish, naive demand for an undeserved treat. I wonder if he bothered to consider that a one time event of a million or so people losing their jobs is a much smaller catastrophe than the cumulative immiseration and murder perpetuated by allowing the health insurance industry to continue existing.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago

Where are we going to put the people working for the baby killing machine???! Won’t ANYONE think of baby killing machine industry employment??V

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I think it was pete who said "Medicare for all who want it" that's my generations version of this line I feel.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago

When he found out most people wanted it he dropped it from his platform.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago

It was. One of us (collectively) mentioned it and I was 95% sure it was a joke. But I googled it anyway and then I couldn't believe he actually said it. I had to laugh at him and myself too. Of course he'd come up with that kind of shit.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago

“Look I know I promised you lasagna but you can’t expect me to make that. I’d have to go out and harvest grain, mill it into flour, create the dough, press the noodles, cook them, and all that before we even get to the cheese and meat! Anyway, here’s some ketchup and raw spaghetti, you’re welcome.”

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago

3 million jobs of people who are working at Blue Cross Blue Shield or Kaiser or other places. What are we doing with them?

How about the barbara-pit ?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago

i mean that was always his pitch for the rich i guess, like a reagan that didn't need a hand up its ass the whole time

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

all I ever wanted to do in this life was push paperwork for a capital formation so it could accumulate more wealth by denying people coverage they paid for.

and Obama sees me and cares about me, the little guy in a bureaucratic, kafka-esque nightmare fueled by death and pain.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I gotta wonder what happens, in another five or ten years, when all those mid-level claims denial jobs are just done by the big Insurance AI that spits out a thousand pages of legalese under the heading "No Coverage For You".

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

those are just efficiencies being found.

when jobs are lost to increase investor profit, that's the unfathomable mystery of sector efficiency improving itself and it is a sacrifice the working class must accept for a better world.

when jobs are lost due to restructuring institutions to improve everyone's lives, that is an unstoppable catastrophe that requires infinite circumspection so it can be avoided.

this is totally not ideological. you can tell because Obama says it isn't.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago

How come we don't have

:obama-drink

Name a greater top 10 anime betrayal than that

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago

Put them to work building public housing, fixing streets, public transit drivers, post office always has only one or two overworked people at the counter, installing road calming devices to prevent child death/ encourage biking/

Shit have em read to seniors at the old folks home or kiddos in the PICU

ANYTHING ELSE BUT GIVING INSURANCE A WORK FORCE

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

But what about the employees of the baby crushing machine, huh? Ever think about them?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh sure, NOW make-work jobs are important!

How about let’s continue that attitude and make sure porky is required to make a whole bunch of entry-level jobs. Sure, it’s inefficient but these are people’s JOBS!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Looking forward to my new job as elevator attendant.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

If contributors paid e.g. $2,000/year instead of $10,000, the 'spare' $8,000 doesn't disappear, it gets spent elsewhere, driving employment, potentially in less parasitic industries. This is before we get to the fact that the example $2k/each more than pays for those 3 million jobs because you've taken out the parasite that takes the $8k for themselves. So in fact, you don't lose 3 million jobs but keep those and still have the extra employment or increased wages and allow for some of it to be slurped up as profit from the spare $8k.

Obama:

I don't think ~~in ideological terms~~…

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago

graeber talks about this as the smoking gun for bullshit jobs and honestly, every time I see it it's like, yeah, you're right.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

There's genuinely a lot of people working those overhead fake jobs, I remember Bernie didn't talk a lot about that which if you're uncharitable means he wasn't serious about doing single payer, and if you are charitable he means he recognized it as a huge political problem that there was more benefit in ignoring until you actually got the power to do something about it.

Basically "I'm not gonna talk about how so many of you will need to get real jobs, with my help of course, until I actually can do something about it"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

Wouldn't at least some of those jobs be replaced by roles in the new "national health administration" or whatever we'd call it? Besides that, someone should show Obama a trolley meme. Liberals love that, apparently.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Oh I have a few ideas... gulag