Private and Public Tragedy

Organizing for America- the organizing branch of the Obama campiagn that stuck around afterwards, has a great example of using technology to rally people.

I wrote the following to Chris Carney and as I got into it I wanted to give it a broader audience.


Dear Rep. Carney,

I am here for Betsy and Lisa [Names changed]-

We must pass health insurance reform now. Too many people and businesses face warped incentives or grim and miserable health due to the burdens of our perverse and broken system.

Betsyworks full tie in a private child care facility. She is a single mom. She often baby sits infants for many families and is always willing to help people with sick children or other events. Her selflessness allows others to pursue their careers as professors, doctors, and business leaders. Her employer, a day care center subsidized by a local employer, does not provide coverage. She had such severe back problems she could not sleep. Friends pooled $300 to help her see a chiropractor. She limited coverage now, but is still an injury away from financial crisis.

Lisa has leukemia. She works cleaning people’s homes. She cleans and cooks for her husband every day, even when he has been furloughed or been between jobs. She stays married to a disinterested, neglectful and nearly abusive husband because she could never afford individual coverage, or even get it with her leukemia. Where is her freedom to live her life? The combination of patriarchy and our health care system is deeply unfair and sexist. I think only the strength of her personality and her adult son keeps her husband from raising his hand against her.

Millions are uninsured. In 2009, one study found 45,000 Americans died due to lack of coverage. [1] They used a rigorous method used by researchers in 1993 who found around half that number then. Among those 45,000 are more than 2,000 uninsured veterans.[2] On 9/11, 3,000 of our citizens were innocent victims and became iconic heroes. We endure 15 9/11s every year through 45,000 private tragedies of martyrs to a broken healthcare system midwife by a corrupt political system. We have marshaled billions of dollars and 100,000s of soldiers to avenge the fallen of 9/11. Meanwhile, we engage in trivial “death panel” and “reconciliation” food fights at home while our fellow citizens are chewed up and spit out as corpses by the broken health care system. Why should the public tragedy of 9/11 count for so much more all these years than the sum of 45,000 private tragedies year in and year out?

Where is the justice in that? How is that fair?


[1] Heavey, Susan. Sept 2009. “Study Links 45,000 Deaths to Lack of Health Insurance.” Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58G6W520090917

[2] Physicians for A National Health Program. Nov 10, 2009. “Over 2,200 veterans died in 2008 due to lack of health insurance.” http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/november/over_2200_veterans_.php

Barnes is Domestic Policy

Here’s a January 2007 Melody Barnes op-ed on what a progressive president might say in a Sate of the Union address:

Brought tears to my eyes...

At the end of this long WaPo article on an 89 year old, Black member of the White House staff, and his wife who also worked there, came this absolute gut wrencher.

They talked about praying to help Barack Obama get to the White House. They'd go vote together. She'd lean on her cane with one hand, and on him with the other, while walking down to the precinct. And she'd get supper going afterward. They'd gone over their Election Day plans more than once.

"Imagine," she said.

"That's right," he said.

On Monday Helene had a doctor's appointment. Gene woke and nudged her once, then again. He shuffled around to her side of the bed. He nudged Helene again. He was all alone.

"I woke up and my wife didn't," he said later.

Some friends and family members rushed over. He wanted to make coffee. They had to shoo the butler out of the kitchen.

The lady whom he married 65 years ago will be buried today.

The butler cast his vote for Obama on Tuesday. He so missed telling his Helene about the black man bound for the Oval Office.

Yes We Can? (The Answer)

HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IOKIYAR Wall Street Journal edition

IOKIYAR- Ee- oh-kee-yar.

Its OK If You Are A Republican.

I love that one. My Father in Law sent me this op ed from the Wall Street Journal by one Pete DuPont called the "Europeanization of America." I point out some of the problems with his list of horrible things that will befall us below. But let me make a metapoint. When it comes to questions of curriculum or culture, the Conservatives are usually quick to invoke the idea of a deep and abiding continuum of "Western" thought from the Greeks through to our own superior culture and soceity. I point out that much of that Western traditions happened, in, you know, Europe. Of course, when it suits their purpose, they are quick to use "Europe," historically and currently a place marked for its unity and homogeneity of peoples, languages, culture, and for its ability to get along just hunky dory without wars of words or weapons, as the qunitessential example of degenerate, misguided and dangerous cultural, social,a nd economic precedent.

Contradiction? IOKIYAR.
Argumentation marked by selective cherry picking of ideas to meet pre-conceived notions? IOKIYAR.

Anyway, back to Mr. Du Pont's list of baseless assertions and falsehoods. My responses come after the arrows --> .

I don't know where they get this stuff. Off the top of my head...

* The U.S. military will withdraw from Iraq quickly and substantially, regardless of conditions on the ground or the obvious consequence of emboldening terrorists there and around the globe.
--> The Iraqi government has signed on to this, so it is what they want. If victory is a sovereign Iraq, then that is prima facie evidence of their sovereignty isn’t it?

* Protectionism will become our national trade policy; free trade agreements with other nations will be reduced and limited.
--> he has said that we should strengthen environmental and labor protections. Ricardo himself, the grandpa of free trade theory, wrote that the factors that matter are natural factors like climate and not artificial ones like costs of labor. Why not have a global wage floor pegged to currency differences. Or at least one for companies operating in the global economy? We have other global regulations for the flow of capital or copyright protection. Fair trade is a real policy agenda, even if he wants to put his fingers in his ears.

* Income taxes will rise on middle- and upper-income people and businesses, and individuals will pay much higher Social Security taxes, all to carry out the new president's goals of "spreading the wealth around."
--> Out of context quote. Obama said we all benefit when there is a middle class that ahs money to spend. Also, is he arguing for an end to progressive taxation? Also, the proportion of the federal budget that comes from payroll taxes has been GOING UP. There is wealth transfer-from the working classes UP, compared to what it was in the past.


* Federal government spending will substantially increase. The new Obama proposals come to more than $300 billion annually, for education, health care, energy, environmental and many other programs, in addition to whatever is needed to meet our economic challenges. Mr. Obama proposes more than a 10% annual spending growth increase, considerably higher than under the first President Bush (6.7%), Bill Clinton (3.3%) or George W. Bush (6.4%).
--. Is he arguing for a contraction of spending in the face of a classic Keynesian fall in aggregate demand? Has he factored in any reductions in military spending?

* Federal regulation of the economy will expand, on everything from financial management companies to electricity generation and personal energy use.
--> I guess because he said so and because Democrats and liberals are the boogey man. BOO!

* The power of labor unions will substantially increase, beginning with repeal of secret ballot voting to decide on union representation.
--> I have mixed feelings about labor organizing and secret ballots vs card checks. However, I don't see the unalloyed evil of increased Union power relative to corporate power.

* Free speech will be curtailed through the reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine to limit the conservative talk radio that so irritates the liberal establishment.
--> As a liberally and free speech lover, I would not favor a return to the fairness doctrine, but more openness of broadband for more forms of communication. Also, we need to stop using copyright as a knee jerk reaction to bolster Disney's profits. In the digital era, everything is a copy, so we need to rethink the balance between fair use and private interests. Anyway, again, has Obama said he wants the fairness doctrine to come back?

How the right will try and steal the election

I think the chances that they can actually change the outcome of the election are small. But they will try through a variety of means. I hope our local UCDC and state party is on top of this. Furthermore, these kind of stories point out why election reform should be a constant issue for the progressives and CSCC.

The Right, and I don't know how much it is the official Republican party or a shadow party that operates as a network of activists in the party and in various outside groups, have a variety of tools at their disposal

- Confuse the issue of fraud in registering and fraud at the ballot box. If Mickey Mouse registers, Mickey Mouse will not vote.
- Invoke false history about how Kennedy did it in 1960, so we it all ends justifies means this time around.
- Push laws or execution of laws that result in purging people from polling registers. Sometimes this is legal, think FL felons being purged by law. In that case, we need to fight those laws. Other times they use such laws to purge many people who should not be.
- Use direct marketing data, like change of address cards, to cross reference voting registers so they can challenge voters at the polling place. Even if the voter is eventually cleared, or given a provisional vote, this tactic drums up fear that there is something "afoul" with the voting process since X number of people were challenged. It also has the benefit of making people nervous that they have done something wrong. The whiff of criminalization probably makes some voters antsy (especially those historically subjected to disenfranchisment efforts like poll taxes).
- Invoke the FL 2000 mess as the frame that the 'systems is broke." Where broke for them means that too many Americans who "don't think like us" are trying to vote.
-Systematically underfund poorer or more dense areas to create long lines.
-Fight a national work holiday for elections (I mean, good grief!).

Even if none of this yields them the election, it does allow them to sulk for 8 years and claim that the Obama and the Democrats "stole" the election for the "true" Americans. Yes, and with all the racist and nativist undertones that feeling carries.

We need a landslide not just to win, to reverse policies, to change course. We need a landslide to so utterly crush the conservative movement that it is forced to rethink itself and its ideas.

They are drowning. Throw them an anvil.

This very good piece from Huffington Post addresses the ACORN lies:

The facts about ACORN are worth getting out. ACORN is an organization that, among other things, registers low-income people to vote. One of the ways they do this is to hire door-to-door canvassers from the neighborhoods they are working in. This sort of work is tightly regulated. So, when one of the thousands of people they give jobs to doesn't do their work right and brings back bogus or phony voter registration cards, the law REQUIRES that ACORN turn the forms in to the voter registration office. The law, rightly, doesn't want anybody throwing out voter registration forms for any reason.

Former Republican Praises Obama

At Huff post today, I read this piece by Frank Schaeffer.

Aside from his general optimism, he makes two points that I have not heard enough about. Maybe these will work in persuasion, in GOTV, in getting our own grandmothers and other fellow White Americans over their reluctance.

One, Obama is a really nice guy.

Two, he is very brave. He is calm and cool when every day he goes out knowing that he is in real physical danger.

As Schaeffer points out, the Presidency is dangerous to White presidents. Obama was appointed Secret Service protection earlier than anyone else running for president. Police arrested a man with a gun in his car near his home.

Now, as the election heats up, like steam escaping from a river rock in a bonfire, we are seeing cracks form and hearing loud ugly pops in the body politic. The McCain surrogates can not let go off vicious and inflammatory charges. People have been yelling threats at McCain-Palin rallies to the tune of "terrorist" and "kill him!"

The economic crisis, as it spreads into consumer confidence drops, reduced consumption, and possibly a deeper recession will exacerbate people's fears and invoke zero sum gain thinking.

Yes, McCain was resolute in his POW experience. But Obama shows his own courage in the face of threats of violence.

PA GOP gets a case of the nasties

The way the national parties let their state parties do the dirty work reminds me of conservative love of state’s rights. Right to suppress votes, right to limit choice, right to defund schools, right to pollute etc.

Right to smear too, apparently.

Pa. GOP hits rock bottom: Calls Obama "a terrorist's best friend"

“What does it say about the character of Barack Obama that he knowingly associates with terrorists? It tells me that Obama lacks the judgment and character to be our next Commander-in-Chief.”


http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/GOP_hits_rock_bottom_Calls_Obama_in_an_official_release_terrorists_best_friend.html