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i've read alot of thousand page texts. it's not that hard. it's not that daunting. it just takes a bit of time.
but the place i agree with you--and this may be a shock that a sentence i write begins with that---is that the debate should have in a sense skipped over this step and been shaped around a range of clearly articulated alternatives and a clear presentation of the various systemic problems with the existing system--which would have required that commercial interests be kept out of the process. there are academics. they can do this sort of thing. for example.
but instead, there's a strangely vaporous set of vaporous proposals strung along behind the not-terribly shocking statement that something should be done.
and the right is playing to the news cycle.
to do that, they're stage managing the anxieties of what's left of their constituency.
and they must be desperate because they're letting in the fringes, allowing them to become the public face of contemporary conservatism.
once they did that, then for the right the Goal became: generate an impression of having Stopped Something.
this isn't about health care. this is about the news cycle, the dynamics of infotainment. on the actual issues, the right's got nothing.
so in a sense, they've put themselves in a very bad spot, the right has---what if they loose? their image is fucked now.
and i think they're in considerable trouble already, tactically.
but it's too early---more tactical blunders from the administration could allow the right to save itself from itself.
in that event, not only would there be no meaningful debate about a very important national political question, but we'd have to put up with the right trying to rebuild itself on this basis. you know, by moving even further to the right.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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