Is the ACA a bellwether on the current ability of our society to tackle and solve big problems?

[NRaleighLiberal]

Living in this time of extreme polarization, a social network and media that offers immediate knee jerk responses, a 24 hour corporate owned news cycle that aims for eyeballs (and renders truth secondary)....

ACA is a big idea. Climate change solutions - big problem needing big ideas. Even smaller but incredibly critical issues - crumbling infrastructure, alternate energy.

Would our successful Moon landing program have succeeded in a time like I've laid out above? If every dead end, every failure (because discovery and innovation are rife with failures along the way - it is how we learn) would have been transmitted at lightning speed and subject to political polarization - would we have been able to accomplish what we did?

Maybe because, as a chemist, I was trained to accept that discovery and innovation in my field meant 90% or more of my experiments would fail - I look at the ACA as another big idea that will have fits and starts, failures and successes - along the way.

Just a thought.....ACA - as in "All Coming Apart"? or as the start of something absolutely essential that will get to where it needs to - if an understanding of the complexity of task is understood - and more importantly, if the country - all of it - could possibly pull together to ensure it happens. And that - everyone pulling together - is the rub.

(sorry if this is a bit incoherent - as always, I start off with an idea I try to portray...and it quickly gets more complex than I originally expected!)....

[renegade000]

1. I have the same feeling

The media seems more keen on political score-keeping and superficial criticism than on actually examining systemic issues that face society. I suppose that's not surprising given the increasingly corporate nature of journalistic institutions, but it has made me quite cynical about the ability to actually tackle problems.

The ACA coverage has been maddening. The "Obama said X" controversy is directly a result of the systemic issues with the pre-reform system, the form of the proposed solution (Swiss-style exchange system vs. single-payer or public-option), and the oversimplifications in rhetoric made to market the program in modern soundbite politics. If the media was doing its job it should have at least played gotcha 4 years ago... but who am I kidding, that would have required (1) doing research and (2) making a more progressive option look better in comparison (we don't want to be seen as the "liberal media", heaven forfend!).