The Education of Howard Dean

Howard Dean was on Good Morning America calling the most recent Senate health care bill, "the collapse of health care reform in the United States." Now, I don't draw attention to this to talk about health care, which was doomed from the start. I instead ask you to watch this interview for what it says about politics in America in year 2009. Our politics are broken.

Doctor Dean's understanding of the problem has grown immensely since 2004, and everyone should listen carefully to what he says. We have a system completely controlled by entrenched-interests and they don't simply have influence on any issue, such as health care, banking, or the environment, they define it. Just as importantly watch the arguments Mr. Stephanopoulis uses against Dr. Dean, it exudes the insolvency of our politics. Even better is so-called "progressive" Tom Harkin's argument that Democrats need to be for the bill because all 40 Republicans were against it. Ho-Ho-Ho. Gee Tom, where was such sublimely simplistic thinking in 2002 when you voted for President Bush's occupation of Iraq?

I was in the District of Corruption last week. A person I respect took me to a meeting of progressives/liberals trying to decide about taking on a incumbent Democrat in the primary. I learned quickly there were a lot of labor people there, which made me nervous, because these days a lot of labor people gathering pretty much equates with defeat, as they remain completely bought into a system that rolls them at every opportunity. Most interesting was a young articulate fellow who gave just an extraordinary synopsis of the health care process in DC, showing a completely broken system. But what was really extraordinary, almost everyone attending completely ignored what he said and went on acting like they just needed to elect someone else.

So, that's where we are. We can continue to delude ourselves the system works, or we can come to terms that unless we have real reform, DC is going to simply codify our decline for the profit of a few. We need to change our government for the 21st century. You can continue believing in tooth-fairies, Santa Claus, and Obamas, or you can start believing in each other.