To quote Jon Stewart: "And so, on the 18th of March, 2008 at 11:45AM, a Presidential candidate talked to us about an issue as though we were adults." Initially, I was ambivalent between Obama and Edwards. I leaned Obama, but once Edwards dropped out I started putting my energy and volunteerism behind Obama. After this speech, though, I know I made the right choice.

Now that Obama's nomination is on the verge of being locked up and McCain's war machine is mobilizing for the general election, it is time for us to start thinking strategically about the months to come.
Paul Krugman, in his infamous "Cult of Personality" screed was right about one thing. The media, in many cases, had an Anti-Clinton bias and was leaning towards Obama and in those cases where they were not, they were being uncharacteristically fair about him; this is a courtesy they do not often extend to Democrats.
But we can now see the right-wing vanguard on the horizon and I don't think we can count on favorable, or even fair media coverage from now on.

More after the flip.

I came into the primary season relatively ambivalent between the three major front-runners. Like most folks in their early 20s I had a soft-spot for Obama. My utter disdain for the political culture of the 1990s left me wary of Hillary, but after seeing a few debates I decided I could tolerate a Hillary Presidency. Edwards, however, was a strange case. He said all the right things and hit all the right notes, but his Senate record didn’t really show much and for that I couldn’t bring myself to trust anything he was saying.
I leaned very strongly for Obama as the campaign wore on, but I did some reflecting on the current status of the race today and decided that Edwards really is the best call we can make.

Paul Krugman's op-ed about the GOP's thinly veiled racism got me thinking.
It's sort of conventional wisdom that the black community always votes Democratic, and it has often been said that their monolithic vote in favor of the Dems kind of allows the Democrats to take them for granted. Since the vote is taken for granted the Dems don't fight as hard for their causes as they could be.

The Black community probably voted Democratic more out of the knowledge that we'll leave them be while the GOPers will outright ream them.

But I realized it's not just about race.

I realize "anarchy" is a pretty loaded term. It conjures up images of civil disorder, chaos, and rampaging mobs looting and pillaging their way through the streets. You might wonder "How in the hell any right-thinking man could think this is a reasonable political philosophy to adhere to."

But that's exactly the case I'm going to make here. Let me preface by saying I'm not the kind of guy who would sign on to an anarchist party. Overall I think the anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists were a bit too optimistic about human nature and Karl Marx's theories about history magically working itself towards a particular endpoint were profoundly silly, but that's a topic for another diary. I'd probably classify myself as a "social-democratic libertarian" if that makes any sense at all (I suspect the astute among you will make sense of what I mean by the time I'm done) so I am partially playing devil's advocate. Overall though, I think it's a good way to reframe our thinking about the role of government in society and how we ought to look into future progressive policy proposals.

So follow me along.

I love lectures, and this fellow has some really great insights worth listening to. It provides a lot of food for thought and I recommend everyone see it.

It ought to help us all think about issues like poverty, healthcare, and globalization.

Listen here.

I think I'll add thoughts later. I'm thinking too much right now.

Despair! Despair! The supplemental funding bill got watered down. Woe unto us. Abandon hope for surely nothing good will ever happen again.

. . .and I don't much like being called a murderer.

This is my first diary, but don't worry about being gentle. I can take it.

I read mehamo's diary offering a physician's take on the healthcare industy and I think I can offer some perspective on healthcare and health insurance that is lacking here.
I currently work for an HMO, one of those much-villified organizations. This company, however, was founded by a physician who was frustrated with how many insurance companies are run and decided to start one himself believing he could outcompete on quality.
While I have some bias, we do perform better than most as far as taking care of our enrolled members, but the looking over the shoulders of doctors and demanding authorizations is a necessary part of the business.