In many ways I treat American Politics the way other people might treat Sports.
So it's only right that I provide a primer of sorts for some of the issues - and I say provide, rather than write, since that's what the Economist is good for. I mean, honestly, I didn't even know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid till I read the article. It's pretty short, and is just an incidental piece on the likely upcoming battle over the the Medicaid Budget - but it serves well as an informative piece on the principal political and economic issues.
I sometimes wonder if I should refer to myself as subtitles - as in 'when subtitles was young', or some such - much as the Economist does; particularly their columnists. Now if you learn anything from watching the West Wing, it is that referring to yourself by something other than your proper name is a distancing gesture - put simply, you'd sometimes be better off thinking of yourself as the office or the function or the magazine or the column, rather than the person.
The Economist does not tell substantive stories about individuals - they leave that to the hacks at the BBC and those other rather disreputable organisations. There is an obsession with the particular that can move to the point of being inaccurate. People who are more willing to tell you stories of people they've met than to, at least part of the time, tell you about statistics of change, can and should be subject to the phrase caveat emptor - buyer beware, be careful of what they are selling. The individual at many times can be subject to so many tugs and pulls and can with such finality be swayed by something other than what is right - which is why at times being a person is just less than helpful. If you can help more people than you could before, that has to be a good thing, especially if you otherwise do no harm to anything except people's predjudices.
Perhaps it's not the best idea to blog policy - but again, that's what the Economist is for. I'm reminded of the image of the ship in Golding, and the mast, dipping sometimes into darkness. As Mr. Clements said.
Which my way of delaying you reading the article till I post the link at the end - Narratives, Stories, The Particular, are things that can affect us to an undue extent (take it from someone who watches as much television as I do), and I'm not one to romanticise the aggregate, the mean, the statistical and mathematical - it can only truthfully be thought of as dismal. But the will to move contrary to instinct and at least some of the time to be rational and detached, is, and you would think, has always been, a force for material progress, for general wellbeing, the inching towards less bad.
It takes great mettle to write communicative prose about subjects that are otherwise dismal, arcane and inflammatory. I'm not saying this is the acme of that, I'm just feeling the need to tell you why this won't be the last time I link to articles like this.
