Category: Action

A national health insurance reform bill is on the brink of passing and all is well on Capitol Hill.

But that doesn’t mean too much for the rest of the country.  Much of the country still wants more than a public-option-free, far-from-single-payer, band-aid-like bill to fix our broken health care system.  One writer states, from the interesting vantage point of Australia, where they do have universal health care:

But Australia has something that America lacks: a universal public system that provides basic medical services for all.

Here, thanks to Medicare, you can be cared for in a public hospital without going broke regardless of your health insurance status…But the political compromise [Barack Obama’s] been forced to adopt fails to address the morbidity at the heart of the system.

It’s taking the disease and trying to turn it into the cure.

The solution, the real health care reform that we’ve been asking for since Teddy Roosevelt’s time, lies with the state single payer movement.  And, at least here in Pennsylvania, we’re moving full speed ahead.  All that this bill means for us is that we’d better move fast if we want real health care reform any time soon.

.

If the so-called progressive Democratic Party succeeds passing the Health Insurance Corporate Welfare bill without a public option, I’m staging a Sit In…On Election Day.

You’re all invited!

It’s easy to organize!

It requires almost no effort on the part of the participants!

Imagine a Sit In all across our nation.

If you want to demonstrate this in-action activism outside your own home you could stop by your polling place, walk in, sing a bar of Alice’s Restaurant, and walk out without voting.

It can start with just one person, if just one person does it they may think he’s a Crazy Third Party Naderite and they’ll ignore him.  And if two people, two people do it, in Harmony, they may think they’re both F-ing Rahmtarded Liberals and no big threat.  Where are they going to go anyway?

And if three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an organization.  And can you, can you imagine fifty people in one day, I said fifty people in one day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out.  

They may think it’s a movement.

Public universities across America are raising tuition so high that many students simply can’t afford it.

For example, the University of California system is boosting its average undergraduate tuition from $7,788 to $10,302. [1]

In five states, public universities already charge undergraduates on average more than $10,000 per year for tuition and fees. [2]

It’s outrageous that US politicians sign blank checks for war, yet turn their backs on young Americans struggling to get an education.

Tell your members of Congress to support tuition-free higher education at public universities.

State governments are justifying massive tuition hikes as a necessary evil in the face of growing state budget deficits. But the real question is one of priorities.

Congress recently passed the largest military budget in US history, [3] while Wall Street enjoyed a massive $14 trillion bailout. [4]

Our members of Congress must prioritize education above endless wars and subsidies for corporate profits.

The future of our nation depends on making quality education available for our young people.

Tell your members of Congress now: support tuition-free higher education at public universities!

Went to my Congressman’s District Office, this past Monday, March 15, 2010.

Asked to speak to whoever it was that one could speak to when the Congressman was not there.  

Out came a young man, his Deputy District Administrator.  I had met this young man about two years previously, but he did not recall me.

“What did you come to talk about?”

“I came to talk to you about the health care reform.  I would like to know why the Congressman has changed his position with respect to the public option.  He promised that he would not sign any health care reform bill that did not contain a public option.  He was a signatory to this letter stating just that.  So, why has he changed his position?”  [I held in my hand a letter of August 17, 2009, with 60 Members of Congress, who had signed on, as an attachment to the letter, stating their position with respect to the public option, i.e., that they would NOT sign any health care reform bill without a public option.  This was a letter to The Hon. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary, U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, signed off on be Raul Grijalva, Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee, representing the Congressional Progressive Cause and the Congressional Black Caucus.]

“He can change his position if he wants.”

“You know about Cong. Grayson’s bill H.R. 4789, don’t you?  The Medicare Option for anyone under 65 who wants to join and pay for it?,” I asked.  “What are the Congressman’s feelings on that?”

“He’s against it – there aren’t enough votes for it.”  

“Well, I can tell you that since he introduced it, plenty of Americans have signed up in a matter of a couple of days, they are signing up endlessly – it’s phenomenal.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, “the votes are not there and the Congressman is going to sign the bill as it is.”

Continuing the “joust”  . . . .!  

This is going to be an action packed weekend in DC and around the nation.  On Friday, there will be protests of Yoo.  On Saturday, there will be a massive antiwar demonstration (there will also be demonstrations in Philly, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and South Dakota, among other places).  On Sunday, there will be a large march for immigration reform.  And there will be other related events around the country, along with the small protests and events that happen all the time.

So join me below the fold to see how you can effect change this weekend.

In a recent diary by Cassiodorus, one point of his in particular struck me:

Thus the comparison between the Great Depression and the current Great Recession falls flat, because the popular upheavals of the 1930s are only in evidence today among the least helpful segments of the population.  This of course is a major reason why we can expect no FDR-like President to save us from the…economic collapse…

…During the 1930s…intellectual figures such as John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, Kenneth Burke, and Richard Wright were actual socialists and not just mere liberals offering occasional plugs for John Kerry.

Another prominent socialist, albeit a bit later than the Depression, was Albert Einstein.  He was an all around brilliant man, someone whom I admire greatly.  And he wisely said this, although today it would probably be considered way too radical for anyone respectable to utter:

Jane Hamsher, again, says it quite eloquently when she calls out MoveOn.org for attacking Dennis Kucinich for sticking with his promise to not vote for a HCR bill that did not have a Public Option. Rep. Kucinich is being attack by the so-called “liberal” blogosphere that has now veered fo far right that it is unrecognizable to true progressives like Ms. Hamsher.

Last August, progressive groups including MoveOn, DFA and blogs across the country came together to raise over $430,000 for 65 members of Congress who pledged to vote against any health care bill that doesn’t have a public option.

Now every excuse made by the President and Congress for not including a public option has crumbled. MoveOn is against Kucinich for keeping that promise, and far from supporting members of Congress who keep that pledge, the unions are them with primaries.

If George Bush had tried to pass a health care bill that was the worst blow to the right to choose since the passage of the Hyde Amendment 35 years ago, liberal groups would be screaming bloody murder.

(Cross-posted from The Free Speech Zone)

A little unknown fact about me is that I fight, literally.

Not in a macho way but rather, in the same way a person hops on a treadmill or goes jogging.

We've got to stop Wall Street from bringing us another economic disaster — before it happens.

Tell your U.S. Senators to crack down on Wall Street now.

A real financial reform package must include an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency, restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, and strict new limits on the derivatives market.

To protect citizens from rapacious banks, we need a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to stop abusive mortgages and credit card terms, and other predatory financial schemes.

The Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking, was enacted after the financial crash of 1929, but it was repealed in 1999. It is crucial to preventing the reckless investing by commercial banks that caused some of the greatest financial disasters in U.S. history.

Rampant speculation in the unregulated derivatives market was a major factor in the collapse of the global financial system. We need tough new restrictions on the derivatives market, or speculators will continue to imperil our country's economic stability for short-term profit.

Tell your U.S. Senators today: support strong financial reform now!

Michael Walzer’s piece entitled “Missing the Movement” is so relevant and smartly written that I felt inclined to read it through four times before beginning to thinking about formulating an adequate response that would do it justice.  I am overjoyed to find someone who has managed to put forth a strong, sound hypothesis as to why recent reform efforts tied to a resurgent liberalism have been so limited while setting out cogently what we ourselves ought to do to fix the problem.  Having identified what went wrong, let us now proceed to take on the hard work and soul searching necessary to get past it.  For as it is written, “Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.”

Walzer writes,

Liberalism is the American version of social democracy, but it lacks a strong working-class base, party discipline, and ideological self-consciousness. None of these are in the offing, but we need to be aware of what we are missing, and we need to begin at least the intellectual work of making up for it. European social democrats are on the defensive right now, but they have a lot to defend. Liberals here are in catch-up mode, and not doing all that well. We know more or less what we have to do, but we haven’t managed to give the American people a brightly colored picture of the country we would like to create. There is a lot of wonkishness on the liberal left, among American social democrats, but not much inspiration. We haven’t found the words and images that set people marching. As an old leftist, I can talk (endlessly) about citizenship, equality, solidarity, and our responsibility to future generations, but someone much younger than I am has to put all this in a language that resonates with young Americans-and describe a “city upon a hill” that may or may not be the same hill that I have been climbing all these years.

It is this section in particular which resonates most strongly with me.  I notice this kind of stultifying dullness among those who have, for reasons unknown, exchanged wonkery for truly impassioned discourse and inspirational rhetoric.  The result produced is robotic and bloodless, for one.  For another, it’s downright Pharisaical.  In this circumstance, Dictionary.com defines Pharisaical as “practicing or advocating strict observance of external forms and ceremonies of religion or conduct without regard to the spirit.”  I have noted, sometimes with anger, sometimes with frustration, never with satisfaction, that this is true not just in gatherings of religious liberals, but also quite evident in multiple settings and causes comprised of vocally secular liberals.  Going through the motions without understanding the passion will never serve anyone’s cause well and indeed, it is partially why we find ourselves in the mess in which we are now.  Layering laws upon laws, formalities upon formalities, and procedures upon procedures might seem to be helpful upon first glance, but they end up separating ourselves from each other, not pulling us together.