In a post reviewing President Obama’s new economic proposals, Ezra Klein also goes after the idea that the Obama administraiton is somehow “anti-business”. He sums it up this way: The various stimulus measures have been designed to directly support businesses or indirectly support the people who those businesses rely on. It’s just a variation on […]
And let’s throw in a fourth “freedom” for good measure. If liberals and progressives want to have any chance of creating long-term and significant change, we need a new approach to our rhetoric, and a great place to start is to reclaim the word “freedom”. Freedom is fundamental to the American identity and elicits a […]
Over at the Nation, Christopher Hayes has a good piece identifying what’s going wrong in the country: There’s a word for a governing philosophy that fuses the power of government and large corporations as a means of providing services and keeping the wheels of industry greased, and it’s a word that has begun to pop […]
I today declare that I will not take a self-described “conservative” politician seriously on health care until they introduce a bill to abolish Medicare. Period. Even if the bill doesn’t get taken up, they can still introduce it. Go ahead. Make my day. See Bob Cesca over at Huffington Post for more on that. At […]
I have some recommended reading: “The Future of Liberalism” by Boston College professor Alan Wolfe. Liberalism – and by extension its politics, politicians, and causes – have been on the defensive for decades now. I believe we liberals and progressives should shoulder much of the blame for that. We’ve been unable, and maybe unwilling, to […]
I have to admit: I never really was a big fan of the public option in health care reform, especially because of the countless ways in which it was so constrained and complex. That’s why I’m more encouraged by what seems to be a compromise coming out the U.S. Senate – a limited form of […]
I’ll admit. I had to look that word up. It is not a disease. From the reading I’ve done about other country’s health care systems so far, I’m sure about this – it’s incredibly difficult to understand exactly what they’re like without having lived there. Acknowledging that right up front, I’ll say this: Canada’s health […]
Nobody – not even medical personnel – are immune to our screwball health care system. First of all, we have the story from the Peoria Journal Star about how OSF Healthcare is cutting compensation for its employees because of the swelling ranks of unemployed – and therefore uninsured – patients using its emergency room. And […]
Stories matter. We tell ourselves and one another stories all the time. They are the lenses through which we see the world. So, along that line, I found this post from libertarian Arnold Kling interesting. He lays out a breakdown of the big stories – narratives – that are being told about the economic crisis. […]
Bill Poorman 