Tonight, my loving and lovely wife of close to 43 years told me she was angry. She said it had become just too much for her that both Houses of Congress had “taken single payer off the table.” She knows, of course, that a majority of Americans favor single payer. And she also knows that […]
Entries Tagged as 'Politics'
Anger . . .
July 1st, 2009 · Comments Off on Anger . . .
Tags: Politics
Democratic Myths and Political Reality
June 28th, 2009 · 1 Comment
The Democratic Party will be the first to tell you that it’s the Party of the people, especially working people and the middle class. Change we’re supposed to believe in is change from a society moving in the direction of the wealthy, to one that is clearly moving in a direction to restore the American […]
Tags: Politics
Does It Pay To Trust Obama?
June 25th, 2009 · Comments Off on Does It Pay To Trust Obama?
This one’s addressed to progressives in the United States. OK, we’ve gotten our bright young President, his lovely family and his team of the “best and the brightest” into the White House. We’ve emotionally invested in him. We’ve celebrated with him. And we’ve trusted him during the opening months of his Administration. Now, what do […]
Tags: Politics
Myths of Bipartisanship
June 24th, 2009 · Comments Off on Myths of Bipartisanship
I’ve written in the past on the counter-productiveness of bipartisanship for the President and the Democratic Party. Today, Nancy Cohen offered a nice analytical Huffington Post piece on bipartisanship that adds to the argument. She says: ”The supposed superiority of “bipartisanship” to “partisanship” is premised on three myths about the relationship between the people and […]
Tags: Politics
Lying About the Canadian System
June 15th, 2009 · Comments Off on Lying About the Canadian System
Here’s some counter-testimony to the stories the health industry has been bandying about concerning the supposed problems with the Canadian single payer system. My own view? Stories about Canadian health care being circulated by those who are trying to defend annual CEO compensation running as high as $24 million are just not to be taken […]
Tags: Politics
About That Pattern . . .
June 15th, 2009 · Comments Off on About That Pattern . . .
A few blogs ago I wrote about “breaking the pattern.” Mike Lux writes about it too with special reference to the Clinton Administration and what President Obama needs to do now if he wants to avoid its fate on the big questions. Take a look!
Tags: Politics
Giving the Game Away: Redux
June 13th, 2009 · 2 Comments
Scarecrow provides us a great example of “giving the game away thinking” in a new blog entry. He provides an account of “Democratic Strategist” Steve McMahon’s thinking on what the Democrats ought to do to get a health care reform bill. McMahon’s prescription is perfect for shrinking Democratic majorities in 2010, and for paving the […]
Tags: Politics
Health Care Comparisons Shouldn’t Be Partial
June 12th, 2009 · 3 Comments
Occasionally, articles appear comparing health care in the United States with health care in Canada or other wealthy western countries in terms of health outcomes. Yesterday, Nicholas Kristof, in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, compared the two countries’ health care system through the filter of the experience of a 59 year-old American […]
Tags: Politics
Breaking the Pattern
June 11th, 2009 · 1 Comment
If Progressives and Democrats are going to be successful in the future, they have to solve important problems of middle and working class people, such as stagnant real income, declining wealth, terrible and high risk (i.e. easily disappearing) health insurance, high quality education for all, including opportunities for everyone to get a college education, a […]
Tags: Politics
Giving the Game Away
June 10th, 2009 · 5 Comments
I’ve always been a Democrat and a pretty progressive one at that. But since the Carter Administration, I’ve been pretty dismayed by the tendency of Democrats who have won the Presidency, or gained control of Congress, to give away their ability to produce solutions to problems that serve the interests of their constituencies by adopting […]
Tags: Politics