well i gotta say that todays meeting was perhaps the single most uplifting, entertaining, englightening, refreshing, and hopefull thing ive seen our executive and legislative braches of government do in many years.
u know america as the worlds oldest democracy has a lot of shit to uphold.
we are like a walking civics lesson for less developed and less sophisticated democracies around the world.
what have they seen for 10 years? gridlock, deadlock, fighting , and wars...
ok not too great, but what did they see today?
well, assuming anybody watched it (and it was the main article on bbc website so i know some did) they saw what it was like to be in a closed door meeting between rival politicans- except that this one happened to be open door, so that instead of falling back onto party lines and bs the various people had to really back their shit up and defend their positions and defend against attacks etc etc...
what did I personally come away from this with ? well to be honest, i came away with a variety of feelings.
one is that both sides generally believe in the shit they say, or at least they believe in what they say, to a certain extent, its not all just bloviating etc.
I gotta say honestly that watching like 4 hours of this today I really got the sense that the democrats (or at least the moderate ones like Tom Harkin ) really care about needy people, politics is almost like a calling for them, they are in it to help those people without power and without a voice. and frankly , i know some of u might be surprised to hear me say this, for one of the first times in a long time i really got the feeling that at least some of the democrats are trying to do the right thing and trying to do whats right for the people of america.
i know, i know, but wait....
so i also got the feeling (altho i knew this comming in) that many in the gop believe that structrually the idea of making healthcare a government administered thing is a bad idea and that in the long run, it would make healthcare worse not better. I think they did a pretty good job of explaining that. but in some sense, polls have shown, etc, most americans already agree with that so in some ways the gop had an easier job to do today.
honestly some emphasis on SOME of the democrats really impressed me today. their job was to put forth their ideas in a way that convinces people their ideas are good. I think they did that to a more effective extent than any other time ive heard them talk abourt this issue today.
But, the problem that remains is clear. The democrats want to help people, or i believe that at least some of them generally want to help people, not all, but some. Now the gop wants to help people too (or at least some of them do as well).
what do i think? basically what i said from the beginning when some conservatives here said we should just let the poor rot, I think that if we really took half gop ideas and half dem ideas and put em together we would have something that actually might do a shitload of good for our country. frankly, i worry that doing EVERYTHING that one side wanted to do would be bad- i dont wanna radically change healthcare in america. But the simple fact that I saw today how heartfelt some of the dems feelings are and how they represent people in america who need help just like the gop represents people who dont want gov't interference, I got the feeling that if the dems watered it down and took out the public option and let private healthcare be in charge , that then the gop should support a meeting in the middle to subsidize a large number of those poor people who really cant afford healthcare.
now i get the feeling that neither side will let the pieces fall in such a nice fashion, and so i dunno what will happen next. but honestly, i think this meeting today will be a historical event that people can look at to see intricasies of how our government works, and how well meaning people from both sides are still capable of getting together and having a substantive discussion about how to improve the country they and we share.
any thoughts anyone?