Now I don’t want to overstate the letdown I feel. If this is the only way some health care reform can get done, then fine. Something needs to be done, and the political realities on the ground are obviously quite tricky when you have a slim majority in Congress and even some of the Blue Dogs Democrats are barking like they don’t want to support anything that could increase our deficit.

And unlike getting pregnant, you can get ‘a little reform’ when it comes to health care. I’ll be relatively pleased if a bill passes that takes active measures to limit cost inflation by reducing waste or fraud or increasing efficiencies in the system and includes regulations forbidding insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions or dropping people when they get sick.

But I wonder how many other compromises will find its way into the legislation before it reaches the President’s desk. Already, DF pointed out a blog post that indicated the administration agreed to some fairly serious concessions to the pharma industry in order to get it to agree to close the Medicare doughnut hole in prescription coverage.

When it comes to this nation’s health care system, the patient is very sick and needs a very strong prescription. A placebo won’t do. If and when this plan finally passes, will it have any teeth in it?

Or will it just be another example in a growing list of measures that Obama has either avoided pursuing or gotten passed only after it was strongly watered down. A stimulus bill was passed, but only after its size had been slashed, and several of the more left-leaning initiatives removed. An effort to end military tribunals was abandoned. Energy reform and cap-and-trade (an interesting idea that will likely do far too little to reduce global warming) linger in legislative limbo. Meanwhile, Obama has been silent on immigration reform, avoids changing don’t-ask-don’t-tell, and decides to fight the release of torture photos.

The area where Obama has had his biggest successes has been in the economic arena, yet many of the initiatives there – such as forcing GM into bankruptcy and doling out hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout money to banks and Wall Street institutions – hardly qualify as furthering the liberal agenda.

Why are liberals so friggin afraid of their own ideology? Can you imagine the Bush administration hemming and hawing the way Obama’s team has? They wanted tax cuts, they got it done. They wanted authorization to go to war with Iraq, they got it done. They wanted the Patriot Act passed, they got it done.

Granted, there’s very little on a political level that I want Obama to emulate from the Bush team. As someone who finds strict, unwavering adherence to an ideology a bit disturbing, I like the fact that Obama is open to compromise. Often, many of the most successful initiatives a president will accomplish come by reaching across the aisle in areas not normally associated with their side’s ideology (like Clinton’s welfare reform or Bush’s AIDS relief work).

But look, the folks on the other side had their chance. They messed up, and Americans voted for change. Not just change in process – in how things got done in Washington – but voted for change in policy, too.

Troubling public opinion polls and frequent displays of hostilities at town hall meetings shouldn’t matter much if you think the results of policy change will be successful.

Democrats now control both houses of Congress. There’s no justification for deadlock or watered-down, half-assed measures.

For at least the next three years, the Left has been given the opportunity to lead this country. It’s time they do just that.

“…it is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”

I was livid when I first saw video from the health care town hall meeting that took place last week in my hometown St. Louis.  I had already seen enough similar footage from other cities, but the fact that these were in some ways ‘my folk’ infuriated me.

Ignorant rednecks, I thought, the whole lot of them.

Judging by their age and apparent socioeconomic status (yes, I was stereotyping), I couldn’t help but figure that many of these folks were already receiving a substantial amount of government-financed health care in the form of Medicare and Medicaid. I was convinced many of them were either paid shills of the health-care industry or just sheep lathered up into an unthinking rage by the reactionary talking heads that now populate the airwaves.

These people are the ones who have been chewed up, spit on and totally ignored for years. They have seen their jobs shipped overseas, their communities neglected. They may have a right to be angry but they should be venting their rage at the fat cats on Wall Street, who plundered and pillaged this country for a decade and then received trillions of dollars of our money, bailed out of the damage caused by their own incompetency and malfeasance.

But instead, of all issues, the thing that finally tipped these people over the boiling point was the prospect of trying to find a better way to provide health care for all of our fellow citizens, of trying to fix a broken system that eats up way too much of our GDP, that doesn’t work nearly as well as other less resource-rich countries, and threatens to topple our nation’s already creaky balance sheet.

Fucking uncaring, unthinking, rude, selfish idiots. That was what I thought of these people.

But now I realize that by thinking this way, I was engaging in their game, letting my emotions get the best of me. I was demonizing them just as they were demonizing Obama and The Other that frightens them so much.

Because here’s the truth: I have bought into The Politics of Anger. How could I not? It is now in full force. Everywhere. We should just call it ImPolitics.

We can’t have a rational debate anymore about anything without feeling the anger, letting it seep into our thoughts and words to the point where we no longer are listening to each other but shouting at each other. And when the issue at stake is something as important and as personal as health care, the tempers run even higher and hotter.

And while the extreme right may practice this form of politics with much more enthusiasm and effectiveness than most, they don’t have a monopoly on it.

Admit it, you think the religious right are a bunch of hypocritical assholes. You thought Bush and Cheney were evil. You’ve compared them to Hitler and the Nazis once or twice, at least in your thoughts. And this was before they abused the power of their office, led us into a war on false pretenses, and took away a number of our personal liberties. Perhaps you felt this way as soon as they were elected, when they clearly stole the election, using their mob tactics in Florida (some of those scenes in the election offices in Miami-Dade County certainly do have an eerie resemblance to the rage we’re seeing now).

I’d like to think I’m better. I have a sensitive soul and an open mind, after all. I appreciate fine art and literature and film and music. I can appreciate nuance, see things in colors other than black and white. I am enlightened. I know and appreciate how precious and short life is, and how we too often get distracted by issues that don’t truly matter.  For whatever we may think lies beyond, if anything, we should at least agree that we would make our temporal lives a lot more pleasant if we tried to understand the common humanity that links us all, binds us to the same shared fate.

But then I see the terrifying rage at these meetings, and it makes me wonder.

I know it’s the insult of the day to throw out the term Hitler and raise the specter of  Nazism whenever you disagree with your opponent. Both sides do it, and the inappropriateness of the metaphor has rendered it all but impotent.

But I wonder if the rage you see at these meetings doesn’t indeed spring from the same place that led us to a world where such a thing as the Holocaust – and all the other holocausts, the Rwandas, the Cambodias, the Bosnias, the Darfurs, etc. etc. – became possible, perhaps even inevitable. That perhaps the rage at these meetings, and the rage that rises in me as I watch, is the true realization of the common humanity of which I speak, and of which binds us to the same shared fate.

And then my rage dissipates, and is instead replaced by a deep sadness. It is much less fulfilling. I hope it is just as inappropriate.

Are you kidding me? $2.4 billion in losses in 3 months?? Are you sure the USPS isn’t making cars or selling subprime mortgages?

I know the economy is tough, and more and more people are communicating digitally nowadays, but there’s no excuse for this kind of performance. FedEx and UPS are still making money, after all.

If the USPS was a normal private company, changes would be made pronto to get its fiscal house in order. But because we’re talking about the government here, our lovely elected officials can seemingly do nothing but berate the Postmaster General John Potter for the agency’s performance while hemming and hawing over the implementation of some of the common sense changes he’s asking for – like the elimination of Saturday service, closure of hundreds of offices, and changes in retiree pay. Even certain Republicans – like Missouri congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson – are worried about cutting back too much. They’ve got constituents to think about, after all.

Of course, the union thinks Congress is already going too far and ‘declaring war’ on the postal workers. I’ve known a couple of people who work for the postal office and like most government workers, they have some of the most secure, cushy jobs out there. Anything that threatens the status quo is anathema to the postal union.

In the end, however, the union may have to accept certain changes, like the end of Saturday delivery. Meanwhile, I wonder if we even need residential 5-day delivery anymore? Why doesn’t the USPS do like the garbage folks and stop by two or three days a week. I know that 90-plus percent of the mail I get nowadays is either junk or not particularly time-sensitive. The rare items that I want to get as soon as possible – Netflix movies, magazines – could probably be delivered through one of the private couriers.

Don’t get me wrong. In many ways, I’m impressed by how well the postal service works. Sure, going to the post office and getting service is a nightmare, but when you think about the millions of pieces of mail that get delivered on time and to the right address every day, it’s a remarkable system.

In fact, when people have complained that a government-run health care plan would be a total disaster, the USPS was one of the examples I would give of government doing a big job pretty effectively.

Unfortunately, I’m not so sure anymore. Perhaps the naysayers have a point.

Although there aren’t many specifics in the article about what those disincentives would be or exactly how the government would define ‘too big’, this is a much-needed step back on the road to financial sobriety. We should never as an economy or a country be held hostage to the failings of one single entity.

As deeply as I hated all of the bailouts we’ve been throwing around to woefully (borderline criminally, in my opinion) mismanaged institutions like Citigroup and AIG, I do believe their balance sheets may have been so enormous, their footprints and obligations so intertwined in the world economy, that their failure could have crippled the entire foundation of our credit-based system and brought it to its knees.

Yet don’t be fooled – our problems didn’t lie with any one or two entities, but with the entire system. What we had instead was a complete failure by the market as a whole – and even more damning, by the regulators in charge of watching those markets – to recognize the emerging credit/debt/mortgage bubbles whose eventual bursting forced this country to its day of reckoning.

A law breaking up large financial institutions or disincentivizing them from forming in the first place will help make future problems easier to spot and solve, perhaps, but it won’t by itself save us from our own worst behavior.

And it will do very little if anything to impact our current situation and economic crisis.

In fact, the most ironic thing about the Obama plan is that the entity which may now be most accurately considered ‘too big to fail’ is our own U.S. government, which through actions taken by the Fed and the Treasury has taken on much of the bad debt and obligations (and added a bunch of new ones) that will be stifling our economy for years to come.

We can only hope that the Chinese and other foreign governments continue to agree that the U.S. government is indeed too big to fail and allow us the time to work through our issues and restore some amount of fiscal and monetary discipline without cutting off their support in one fell swoop.

All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart or whether we commit ourselves to an effort, a sustained effort to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

It’s easier to start wars than to end them. It’s easier to blame others than to look inward. It’s easier to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There is one rule that lies at the heart of every religion, that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

The truth of matter is, if we’re going to point fingers at anyone, Genghis is really the one to blame because it was partly due to his move to Philadelphia that our weekly NYC poker game, which has been going on regularly for more than eight years, has become very hit-and-miss, and I can’t have that. I need my cards fix.

So I decided to take the plunge and join Pokerstars, which easily earns the award for this week’s My One Favorite Thing. This isn’t the first time I played poker online – A few years ago I was on PartyPoker before that company decided to give up the U.S. market when Congress passed a law banning banks and other financial institutions from funding customer deposits.

The whole issue of the legality of online poker remains in flux, which is a complete joke considering the haphazard nature of this country’s gambling laws (yeah, state lottos and ‘riverboat’ casinos that aren’t even on the water, I’m talking to you) and considering that poker is a skill game enjoyed by millions and millions of Americans.

Indeed, poker is as American an institution as apple pie, and I’m pretty convinced now that the Democrats and card-loving Barney Frank are in charge that it’s only a matter of time before online poker becomes a fully regulated, fully taxed, fully legal activity. In the meantime, I had no qualms about rekindling my little addiction by joining Pokerstars, which along with a couple of other companies decided to take the risk and continue operating in the US.

As far as the site goes, it’s pretty good, very reminiscent of the PartyPoker look and feel. While Texas Hold ‘Em is far and away the most active game on the site, PokerStars offers up enough variety for a non-specialist like me to keep entertained, and I probably most enjoy playing Omaha Hi-Lo and 8-Game (which is eight different games that switch every 5 minutes or so).

And also like PartyPoker, I am convinced that the card distribution on PokerStars isn’t totally random – there are just way too many runner-runner flush suck outs that I see the bigger stacks hit. (This won’t make sense to you unless you know poker, but it basically means that the site’s algorithm seemingly has a mysterious way of moving games along – which if true makes the site a lot more money – by enticing people with few chips to call, only to nail them later in the hand. However, it’s possible it only seems that this happens a lot because you see so many hands playing online – I generally have three games going on at any one time).

I’m trying to keep my cardplaying to at least a reasonable minimum, but I have to admit it’s definitely eating into my blogging time, and sleeping time, and eating time. I’m just thankful we have such solid new contributors to keep the site active. I promise eventually I’ll start caring again about the real world – aside from poker and weddings that is. But right now, I have a game to get to.

For much of the past 20 years, they have been the ones in charge of this country. During that time, they have…

… ignored the looming Social Security crisis, which has been simmering for decades and is now apparently coming to a boiling point much quicker than originally estimated.

… ignored the looming health care crisis, fighting alongside the dangerously powerful AARP lobby for small benefits like cheaper drugs while letting the larger issues of increasing system-wide costs and underfunded Medicare obligations spiral out of control.

… ignored the looming global warming crisis, choosing to go to war to maintain their reliance on cheap foreign oil rather than seriously pursue alternative energy sources.

… ignored the looming credit crisis, living further and further beyond their means, indulging in unbridled consumerism and rampant asset speculation.

So is it any surprise, really, that their solution to our country’s current economic crisis has been to saddle future generations of Americans with even more crippling debt, making it even harder for us to solve the numerous other looming disasters we face because of their neglect??

I had strong hopes that the election of Barack Obama – one of the last of the Baby Boomers – would lead to a change in Washington, to a recognition that there was too much at stake to play the same silly political games and to keep ignoring the spreading cracks in the foundation of the American empire. But mostly, it’s been more of the same.

Instead of trying to repent for their profligate and selfish ways, the Baby Boomers have decided to cement their legacy by throwing one last Hail Mary of Irresponsibility, in the form of trillions of dollars of tax cuts and stimulus plans and bailout packages, in hopes of putting off the ultimate day of reckoning a little bit longer.

Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said ‘The Buck Stops Here.’ Unfortunately, I think the Baby Boom generation took that to mean it should then pocket the buck.

It wasn’t always that way. For a while, the Baby Boomers bettered our world. They fought for progress, for peace, for women’s rights, for civil rights. In business and in culture, they created and innovated, producing a tremendous amount of national wealth and prosperity. To be honest, the past 40 years have in many ways been an exciting and fruitful period for America. But somewhere along the way, the Baby Boom generation stopped thinking about the future of the country and started looking out only for its own best interests (Was it a cynicism and selfishness borne out of Watergate and other historical events or just out of normal human nature?)

It’s easy to overgeneralize about a generation, of course, and probably somewhat unfair. These are our moms and dads, after all, and individually it’s tough to fault them for the damage they’ve wrought.

It is in fact quite painful to watch as our parents finally reach the tantalizing edge of retirement only to find that their IRAs and 401Ks have been decimated and that idyllic, restful ride off into the sunset postponed, perhaps indefinitely.

Painful and tragic, perhaps, but also in some ways justified. Collectively, the Baby Boom generation is merely reaping what it has sown.

Unfortunately, for the rest of us, the prospects are even dimmer. The field now lies fallow.

Are you fucking kidding me?!?

Oh yeah, I feel a rant coming on …

Obama’s budget: huge ambitions, huge obstacles (AP)

(PS This dagbuzz is far from my best performance, and you’ll probably notice a couple of rough cuts within the video. I just got caught up playing with Windows Movie Maker and eventually succumbed to fatigue. If you have any idea on how to make those cuts smoother, i’d be all ears. I’m just trying to find a way so that when I mess up, I don’t always have to restart my spiel from the beginning)

I’m starting to feel the economy is like the chimp gone mad yesterday in Connecticut. You know, the one who ripped off the face of his owner’s friend.

“It’s eating us!! Listen to me, you have to shoot it!!”

Today’s economic damage tally:

$22 billion more for the car companies, 50,000+ expected jobs lost anyway.

$75 billion in mortgage relief for irresponsible homebuyers. (BTW, just got done reading through the details of the mortgage relief plan, and it actually looks fairly sensible on first blush. Bravo!)

Thanks again to Yahoo! buzz:

911 tape captures chimp owner’s horror

GM, Chrysler seek billions more, to cut more jobs (AP)

$75 billion mortgage plan

Recession will be worst since 1930s: Greenspan (Reuters)