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Well, that big health care reform legislative death-march for the sake of which pretty much every other priority was jettisoned sure was worthwhile, wasn’t it?

From NPR: California Approves Anthem Blue Cross Rate Hike

Remind me again, someone, of how we liberals are unreasonable and delusional for being so discouraged by the utter failure to pass meaningful energy/environment legislation, to advance the cause of gay rights, to close Gitmo, to quit dithering around in overseas quagmires, to challenge the ridiculous filibuster, etc., etc., etc.

Remind me, again, how we should be excited by President Obama’s and congressional Democrats’ major victories in saving the economy (for the finance industry, the auto industry and the super-rich; two of which three beneficiaries still loathe their benefactors anyway) and bringing about universal health insurance coverage (by the thoughtful method of introducing fines for failing to purchase the overpriced offerings of private insurance companies, for which a portion of the population will receive a grudging, flint-hearted subsidy, allegedly, someday, though in the meantime private insurers continue to push already unaffordable premiums up, with regulatory approval).

Yeah. I guess this great victory was so worth it, wasn’t it? I’d definitely rather have this wonderful reform which is doing so much to rein in health care costs than a start at securing sustainable energy supplies or a habitable planet for future generations.

In fact, let’s set priorities in all future Democratic governments (if any) by sacrificing everything else in favor of a halfhearted, sellout of an effort to achieve the pet project of the eldest member of the Kennedy dynasty. It’s proved to be such an absolutely fucking brilliant strategy this time, after all.

The one feature that neither Google, nor Apple, nor Facebook nor the Kindle nor any of them will ever offer:

“One man alone… cannot fight the future.”

Today begins the Fourth-of-July weekend. Five years ago, I marked Independence Day with an attempt at a political post which actually focused almost entirely on positive ideas. It makes interesting reading, I think, from the perspective of its nickel anniversary; I’m definitely still proud of it.

For this year, figuring that I wasn’t going come up with any kind of adequate positive statement, I had the following queued up instead. But I’ve had a better idea, which will appear on Sunday. In the meantime, being as vain as a summer day is long and therefore loathe to waste any of my precious brilliance (or a good profanity exercise; must keep in practice), I’m posting this bit today. Wherein I offer up a little reply to all those people out there tooling around, proudly sporting the message “please don’t put my flag on your foreign car” on their vehicle’s bumper. So:

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