The month of August has left me feeling deeply chagrined. Not only was it defined by a marked insanity, virulent hostility and lists of lies repeated verbatim so many times that the media came to present them as a legitimate point of view, but it will also be remembered as the month that progressive leadership caved.

Last year during the presidential debates, it seemed that we were going to at least discuss single-payer national health insurance. Quickly sensing that this was beyond the capacity of a nation so bitterly divided between right and left – and loathe to blow all of his political capital on one issue alone while so many remain to be tackled - President Obama soon began to talk of a “public option” as a compromise. By the end of August, it appeared the public option too might be sacrificed on the trifecta altar of bipartisanship, capitalism and right-wing paranoia. By the second week in September, we were on our way to yet another compromise on a compromise: a health insurance exchange in the private market. Like the children’s game of Chutes and Ladders, I’m starting to feel that every two steps forward toward social justice are accompanied by a sudden and debilitating slide backwards. Pretty soon- with the WOOSH of a final compromise- we’ll just be back at square one: Those of you who like your insurance can keep it, and the rest of you can kiss off.

It’s time to ask a serious question: what does it mean to be an American citizen? Are we just taxpayers obligated to fund the interminable “War on Terror” and ballooning Social Security/Medicare programs (for apparently ungrateful seniors who don’t even realize it’s a government program) with our decreasing wages but without the right to press for our own needs? Are we just consumers hunting for the best deal in a never-ending Darwinistic climb to the top of the economic ladder without regard to those whose heads we have to kick to get there? Or, are we a society that is finally prepared to acknowledge our mutual responsibility to one another?

Are we ready to recognize the fact that our capitalist system – while excellent at generating untold wealth for a few and a pretty decent standard of living for most – by its very nature creates cracks through which the most vulnerable fall? That poverty will always go hand in hand with the free market -and that therefore if we want to have this system then we have to provide a safety net? That one’s inability to pay for a disease acquired through no fault of one’s own should not be a death sentence – or a bankruptcy one? That rationing already exists in that we keep our doctors’ office lines artificially short by preventing nearly 50 million people from having access? That the desperate scavenger hunt for decent health insurance skews our life choices and limits our full potential? That the limiting of such potential and the increased burden to provide employee medical benefits are two factors hurting our economy? That when doctors are opting out of health insurance plans (my dentist and eye doctor have already left) that our system isn’t serving anyone but profit-hungry shareholders answerable to no one but themselves? That health care is the most essential of all human rights in that it affects the very right to continue living? And that disease knows no socioeconomic barriers but impacts us all?

Put this way, it seems so obvious. But then, I’m a progressive who believes in social justice and equality for all, so maybe it’s only obvious to me. As such, I thought the first eight years of my adult life – the malignant Bush years- were just a blip. Lately, I’m wondering if that’s the case. Democrats control the executive and legislative branches, and untold millions are suffering as never before due to the recession and medical bankruptcy. If we can’t create real reform now, then WHEN?