August 2009 Archives

When is a health care reform debate just a debate? Just about all the time, though the likelihood of something actually happening in this post-millennial moment are high enough to drive people to town-hall meetings where they passionately defend their American right to once again do nothing.

I know much of this passion is straight political theater--unconvincing theater, at that--scripted by business interests and the right wing. But just below all the antics is a genuine though unfortunate uneasiness on the part of Joe the Plumber about the prospect of everybody--black, white, brown, working, nonworking, whatever--having access to something we've all come to equate with a nice McMansion and two cars in the garage. Politicians can insist all they want that health care is a right and a necessity; we all know that it's something you buy, like a good education, right? Which means that only certain people are supposed to have it. Deserving people, people who work full-time, people in neighborhood associations whose elected officials actually listen to them on a regular basis; everybody else can go hang. That's the real American way, this divvying up of privileges and status that almost always fall along lines of color, class and credit history. Democracy and equal outcomes and all that jazz run a distant second.

More

My 30-year reunion wasn't what I expected. In some ways it was entirely opposite of the high school experience I had gone to the Long Beach Hilton to celebrate, which in my particular case was satisfying, encouraging and about as optimistic a time in my life as I've ever had.

More