This article is a wonderful introductory primer on the healthcare debate which will hopefully evoke the type of questions by U.S.citizenry and cut to the chase about whose interests are truly being served. Depsite the democrats pose as populace champions, the truth of the matter is that the healthcare bill is being watered down by Democrats more so than Republicans in order to serve the same set of narrow corporate interest that always prevails despite whose in office. The problem this time is that the Democrats have no where to hide because they have such overwhelming majorities, and no longer have the facade of being able to blame the Republicans for their inability to govern effectively because of their huge majorities and subsequently have these corporate interests reward the Republican party with their largesse should the Demorcrats fail to serve their true masters well enough and pass reform that would actually benefit the people.

Sestak vs Specter is a hugely important primary. Although I have nothing against Arlen Specter (he is what he is and has never really made any bones about it) I think that it is important to for the Sestak to win and subsequently win the general election as it would strengthen and embolden the liberal progressive wing of the Democratic party and signal to Barack, Rahm, and the rest of insider Washington beltway establishment that they do not dictate our choices to us.

Pennsylvania despite having some conservative leanings has become a solidly blue state, and given that fact it should have a representative that reflects and believes in its core democratic views and not someone like Specter whose party affiliation and belief system is dictated by political expedience and survival.

I fear that the President Obama has already blown it on this issue (and that’s if you assume that he ever had any real intent on delivering in the first place). He is just another politician more concerned about getting reelected and maintaining power than he is about using government to create systemic change that more equitably and humanely serves the common man. And while he may have been able to stir a nostalgic spark of hope with lovely prose and fiery rhetoric, I can discern by your writings that intellectually you were still unmoved.

I believe that individuals that count themselves as liberal progressives need to already be working on their Plan B and C whether it is mounting a primary challenge to President Obama in 2012 and/or a third party revolt. I know it seems early to be giving up on this presidency, but I see so little to be encouraged about. And its not that he has been outright hostile to issues that are of importance to the left as a republican president would have been, although on occasion he has, but that almost on all issues that are important to his liberal progressive base he has been ambling, spineless, and ineffectual offering only fig leaf symbolic gestures as a substitutes for challenging the status quo and/or dismantling the machinery that enable and facilitate injustice. He nibbles around the margins to create the façade and decorative trappings of change, but nothing substantively and/or institutionally that alters landscape and puts the country on a fundamentally different path.

I was one of those individuals that worked tirelessly to help elect then President Obama and I would be lying if I said that I was not angry at the way things have turned out thus far, but more so than that I am resolved to finding new and different ways to jolt the existing system in order to bring about change if out traditional methods no longer work.

...to unwittingly reveal a rather piquant though still ancillary subtext to the Rhianna/Chris Brown domestic abuse drama. Does anyone think that it is a little more than coincidental that AKA Smith invokes the specter of O.J. when discussing Chris Brown. I guess African American men have an exclusive on domestic abuse, at least from a pop culture standpoint. With that one sentence Smith succinctly and in coded terms reminds anyone willing to listen or read in this instance that Brown is one of those feral, sexually predatory, incorrigibly violent, irredeemable human subspecies in the vein of O.J. Simpson, Michael Vick, and from an eccentric standpoint Michael Jackson. They can not and should not be trusted. Ever!

It is only the consistent brilliance of your work that mitigates against me stating that this is categorically and unequivocally your best work to date. However, if you forced my hand I would have say that this is the one that I would go with.

This is such a pithy deconstruction and distillation of the maladies that afflict our insular beltway culture that I'm almost moved to tears. I will be encouraging both ideological friends and opponents more so than usual to read this particular exposition and provide opinions and feedback.