Arguing With Signposts

This originally appeared as a comment at Balloon Juice on a post by DougJ about Kos and John Cole, but I thought I’d expand it a little, and post it here for review some day when Health Care Reform is just a page in a high school history textbook (assuming the neanderthals in the Texas textbook commission don’t replace it with a page about Phyllis Schlafley):

One thing I’ll mention about the entire discussion surrounding Health Care Reform (HCR) is that this is truly an amazing sight to see – this entire HCR debate. Step back a moment from the heated debate and marvel at what is occurring.

This is truly the first enormous, historic, ground-breaking legislative process that has occurred during the 24/7 Internet-enabled, social media-juiced media environment. Think about Medicare or Social Security or the 1964 Civil Rights Act as its precursors.

Thanks to the information-overload media system we now live in (or cursed because of that), the politically tuned-in public has been treated to the full panoply of legislative maneuvering in ways we have not witnessed previously. Even the ‘93 version of HCR didn’t have this level of information available about all that was going on. Now, we can find out more than we ever wanted to know about Reconciliation, the Filibuster, Conference Committees, and the like.

Two things I have observed from this:

1. Sausage-making is ugly: This new level of information has revealed a lot about our legislative process that turns off a lot of the public (look at congressional approval ratings across the board – ugly). Sure, the public hasn’t liked Congress for a while, but this whole process has made the disgust that much more palpable. I knew the sausage making process was ugly, but damned if I knew it was this ugly. And the sausage-making process is burning out some politically excited newcomers. Who knows how many, but cynicism seems to be the attitude du jour. It’s also exposed us to the powers of astroturfing by monied interests who don’t want any reform of the status quo (can you say Tea Baggers? I knew you could).

If I had to guess, I would say that the legislature will reform itself at some point in the near future, perhaps lower the majority needed to break a filibuster, or something like that. A nation as vast and populated as ours can’t survive with legislative gridlock for long. They will do this not because Congresspeople don’t enjoy the perks of being an asshole and obstructing legislation, but because the people will push them to it. It will be ugly, too. But the alternative in this hyper-real atmosphere will be worse for all involved.

All this Internet-based sunshine is revealing traditional legislative processes as the dated methods and machinations of a bygone era, in need of innovation as much as the printed newspaper.

2. Dialed up to 11: The constant need for content in the news media (and blogosphere) has artificially compressed everything, so that we (the politically attuned) are following every zig and zag as if it’s life-or-death. This has amped up the emotional level to 11, as witnessed by the heated discussions that go on every day at Balloon Juice, Daily Kos, or FireDogLake (or right-wing blogs that I won’t even bother to visit or link to, because that’s just the sort of asshole I am).

We want everything instantly, like we get our opinions and our e-mail. Meanwhile, the legislative process is *so damned slow!* They’ve been working on this for 10 months. Get ‘r’ done, already! we say.

Meanwhile, large swaths of the country are only minimally tuned in to the HCR debate. They overwhelmingly favor reform (if polls are to be believed), but aren’t dialed in to the particulars. I would hazard to guess that many are so busy making ends meet that they don’t have time or the energy to follow the legislative chess games.

Conclusion: I’m honestly not sure what all has been going on in Congress legislatively during the time HCR has been working its way through the bowels of the legislature. I’m sure David Waldman at CongressMatters could tell you. But I do know that this is important for our democracy. Health Care Reform is – in itself – important, because of the dramatic impact health care costs have on millions of insured and uninsured Americans.

But the mediated lessons are also important. As I mentioned in my comment at Balloon Juice, I’m not sure what to make of these two things yet. I’ll be glad when the HCR process is over, for sure. But there are definitely some things to take away for future legislative priorities of *either* party.

In the coming weeks, I hope to spend some time examining these two issues, because they are so important. My fellow BJ commenters are welcome to contribute, because I think these two aspects of the HCR debate are truly crucial in a “meta” sort of way. They will be with us as long as our media environment is saturated as it is now. And if we are going to get anything done in the future, politicians and politically active citizens will need to heed the lessons we can learn.

This is about the size of my crockpot, except mine is black. Because black is the new black.

Earlier this year, I purchased a small Crock Pot slow cooker (it’s a real “Crock Pot,” not a generic). I figured I’d learn to cook some stuff that didn’t take a whole lot of work, since I’m not the handiest person in the kitchen. I chose the small version because my mom had a larger version when I was growing up, and since it’s just me here, I didn’t see where the large version would be a wise use of food resources.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really use it too much earlier this year. I made a pot roast once in October, and it lay dormant for most of the remainder of 2009. Since 2010 came around and I’m a bachelor again, I’ve dusted it off and made pot roast at least four times. The good thing about this is that I can usually squeeze three meals out of one turn cooking.

Tonight, I decided I wanted something other than roast, but I couldn’t find a chicken recipe that didn’t involve lemons or rice or something else that I didn’t have in the apt.

So I took the chicken leg quarters and mixed them with my traditional roast fixin’s – potatoes, carrots, onion, and celery, along with chicken broth, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme and ground pepper.

Sometimes you have to live on the edge.

I hope it works. I’ll update later when I get to taste it.

UPDATE:

Tasted pretty good. I made mini-sandwiches with the chicken meat and ate the veggies on the side. Mmmmm.

So this is the first Christmas alone, well, except for the kitty. I hate it hate it hate it. It’s only Monday, and I’m already sucking at this.

It’s been a long few weeks in the health care battle, and realizing this is only a preview of what’s to come with financial reform, immigration reform, LBGTQ rights, etc.

So to take a break, I must mention this post by John Cole at Balloon Juice about the GOP.am fiasco. Watch the video.

And while you’re at it, try some Bill Bailey videos on YouTube. Especially the pub jokes.

My favorite, however, is when he and Billy Bragg team up for Unisex Chip Shop. See below:

Based on suggestions, I’ve added a circle to the Venn Diagram that explains everything about the modern GOP (thanks, amai). I can’t put a picture of that fool Glenn Beck into the graphjam version, but I may ’shop one in later.

moar funny pictures

Update:

Here’s the beck version. What do you think?

Ben Bernanke drops in on the op-ed page of the Washington Post to share his concern:

The government’s actions to avoid financial collapse last fall — as distasteful and unfair as some undoubtedly were — were unfortunately necessary to prevent a global economic catastrophe that could have rivaled the Great Depression in length and severity, with profound consequences for our economy and society.

Emphasis added.

The rest of the column is a bit of whine that the Fed might actually be held accountable for their part in the financial crisis. Bernanke claims the Fed is “independent,” but events and evidence suggest that the Fed is actually held captive by a bunch of Wall Street bankers. Unfair? Distasteful? How about unacceptable. The measures moving through Congress right now don’t go nearly far enough to rein in the greed and abuses of the corrupt financial system, which continues to roll in the dough while the rest of the economy sputters and millions of Americans lose their jobs.

So spare us the pearl-clutching, Ben. STFU and do your job. You’re in this mess because you and your buddies at the Fed FAILED.

Just been busy. That’s all. As much as life sucks sometimes, it’s better than the alternative. And the Internet is a wide, wide world with lots of great people to meet. Enjoy it.

I first started reading blogs around the time of 9/11. It was something that pushed a lot of people to explore this new medium of expression. You could be a world away and read the thoughts and impressions of real people who were suffering through a tragedy, and sympathize with their feelings.

It’s been a long eight years since then. People said things would never be the same, and for some people, that’s true. A lot of bad things have been done in our nation and around the world under the banner of 9/11. Over 4,000 American soldiers have been killed in two wars. Countless thousands of citizens of two nations have been killed in those wars as well.

So today, I’m sure people will be remembering the ones who were directly impacted by the events of that day eight years ago. I hope they will remember the ripples that have spread from that event and affected the rest of us.

moar funny pictures

Dean Esmay is a blogger I knew way back in the day. You’ll note he’s in the blogroll to the left of this column. I tried to register for his site to comment on his “last open thread,” but the site says registration is disabled. Well, Dean, if you want “open thread,” you need to be more inviting, dude!