Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. --Thomas Jefferson
Dave
RE: [DFHA] Re: GKCDFA Thom Hartmann on Death Panels on Veterans Day
Since my wife has been researching a Hawaii adventure, I had the happenstance yesterday of reading a comment on kids going from ignorant/noisy disregard to silence and red eyes as they exited the video at the USS Arizona (and learned how close they were to the hundreds in their watery grave). We also experienced a “why aren’t they a little more respectful?” when we were touring the USS Intrepid in NYC; that video similarly had powerful/quieting/tearful impact. For photos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Arizona_%28BB-39%29
It’s impressive what that generation did for our country. Since yesterday was Veteran’s Day, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them (that aren’t getting healthcare, that have lost their homes, that can’t get the time of day from their elected officials…) are wondering what’s happened to their country.
How many of them are wondering about the price they paid and the price their fallen friends paid, in context of what they know today (if they’re not too disgusted to have stopped paying attention: like learning about the lack of care and physical conditions vets get at hospitals; that generals, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and BushCo get medals/consultancies/pensions/speaking honorariums while Abu Ghraib underlings get dishonorable discharge and prison sentences; that their next generation would be boomerang kids and be the first generation in history to have worse health and be financially worse off than the prior generation…)?
(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse for the list of punishments. Notice the ranks of those thrown under the bus? Accountability, transparency, amends, make-things-right-obligations from those with titles seems to be a decency that is rarely mustered.)
Regarding your email thread connecting the state of healthcare, Veteran’s Day, and politicians not doing the right thing:
Didn’t Roosevelt say “Make me do it.” to the people asking him to struggle on for reforms?
Obama’s emails have asked/said that electing him would not be the end of it and that the public would have to make their elected officials vote for reform.
From Moore’s email (forwarded below), I think his third point is the most relevant. Campaign finance reform and lobbying/lobbyist limits are the only way to stop K-street from owning America (and from politicians who use their time in “public service” as their entry-level jobs learning how to work the system before they can get 4000% raise from their post-elected-office jobs as consultants/law partners/lobbyists).
Is there any surprise that “healthcare reform” would instead be a payday-complex-legislation written by and for the insurance lobby (as has/is happening with Wall Street “reforms” that are in fact paydays for their continually obscene bankrupting of a nation)?
For every low level lobbyist who is scraping pennies together to represent interests of the citizens (and don’t have the funding to ever tempt time from your elected officials like the deep pockets can offer those fundraisers/dinners/junkets/research trips/education symposia…), there are 25 lobbyists representing interests that want to further part you from more of your dollars/property/rights/voice.
There are hundreds (400-600?) of lobbyists per elected official. They are in fact the true governing elites. They reach your elected officials with an onslaught of communications and bribes daily (including from interests that aren’t in your district, but that your officials still love to receive their calls …and their checks). Yes, bribes (didn’t Moyers quote that months ago it already ramped up to $4M/day?). Let’s call them what they actually are. You and I don’t buy each other lavish meals, gifts, trips, fundraisers, junkets, research expeditions, favors, “symposia” at resorts, honorariums… to get time and honest consideration from each other. You and I don’t hold our palms out and only permit the other to speak when those palms are greased with cash.
For politicians, political discourse/communication (which was supposed to be for the betterment of our society) has degenerated to aides tracking who and how much money was contributed to their campaigns (and taking names for their next fundraiser/solicitation). For our local KC groups, how much attention/respect/freedom are you able to afford to purchase (because your hours/dollars/votes aren’t enough to keep their attention once they become incumbents)?
Did anyone really believe that their democratic majority would truly honor the citizenry? Since before the Roman Senate demonstrated a profound capacity to line their own pockets while drugging the masses with battling and whipping themselves into a frenzy at the Coliseum, it’s only during rare pendulum swings that the politician seems to be able to majority-muster peace/grace/respect for their fellow citizens.
Unfortunately, you will have to speak louder, more often, and more consistently than you’ve ever participated before in the politics of your country, if you want to not be totally demoralized by how your “majority” is snoozing/disrespecting you/revealing who their true masters are (or if you want to actually someday still have retirement assets and healthcare). http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
If you thought getting honest healthcare reform was hard, wait til you try to get your elected officials to vote for term limits, campaign limits, public financing of elections (to get them off corporate control), and making it illegal for public officials to work for or accept ANY financing from a lobbying firm. It is a longer battle still to deal with Supreme Court increasingly allowing corporations more rights/powers/privileges.
World Future Society suggests that we will become a planet going from empires to nations to corporate states (and we already have MANY corporations with GDPs larger than most nations, and they’re controlled by a handful of corporate directors --most on multiple Boards-- that make decisions that span multiple nations, make their own armies/benefits/above-the-law rules, pass their costly mistakes onto the ignorant taxpayers who are too distracted to organize/vote/email, get their lobbyists to get officials to sign off on bailouts…).
Possible solutions to try to bring back balance from their obscene disregard and to seek justice from this huge transfer of wealth?
-get elected officials to sign statements (contracts) that they’ll do x,y,z for you, and that twice their campaign funds (or $2M, whichever is greater --so you can now finance getting someone else who will keep their word) will be their legally agreed to payment if they don’t represent you as they promise during their campaigns. A business can get sued for not acting as advertised/promised. Why not a politician being held financially liable for their claims (so they don’t lie to get your vote as a dishonest step before they serve the much deeper-pocket-interests that control/manipulate/tempt them once they’re in office)?
-maybe invite lawyers to create ACLU style organization for individuals to get shares in abusive entities and do shareholder (class-action) lawsuits for accountability? Sue corporate directors and CEOs of healthcare corps for spending your healthcare dollars on gianormous sums for healthcare lobbyists while simultaneously rescinding healthcare from people when they need to claim the service they thought they were buying into?
>>> laws limiting (if not eliminating) post-elected-office lobbying to at least a decade (so that several election cycles will have passed, thereby limiting their possible influence and capacity to manipulate favoritism --especially if in conjunction with term limits) >> and shame the politicians from patting themselves on the back thinking that their 1-2 yr no-lobbying campaign finance “reform” is anything but a disrespectful slap in your face (as they laugh all the way to their protected banks)
-encourage new people to patiently unite and sign up for HOAP (limited communications listserv --so new people won’t be too impatient in their progress of discovering who owns/controls America and the many aspects of their life and future) and sign up for the other groups in this email (which are open communications listservs). For any listserv, you can follow the links at the bottom of any email and select “daily digest” to limit your email to one summary email per day. (FYI, digest emails don’t look or have the spacing/formatting that the author used) http://groups.google.com/group/hoaprogressives?hl=en
-show up to a meeting. GKCDFA, for ex., meets at Californos @7 on first Wednesdays.
Listservs and groups aren’t perfect solutions, but short of a French Revolution, standing together is your best (only) option to better get to know your fellow citizens to be able to organize for a difference, for you to have a voice, for you to be elbow to elbow with enough friends to make officials and special interests know you’re still paying attention.
It may seem tiring, and you may wonder why you have to go to such lengths to get your elected officials to do the right thing, but what choice do you have? Will you quietly accept what they obligate you and yours with their actions and inactions?
Will you merely wait til you say you’re too old, foreclosed, wishing you had done something sooner, and think you can’t do anything about it now?
Will you look at your loved ones/neighbors/sick friend and say, “I could’ve taken a stand with others to try to organize for health, but there was this program on TV that Wednesday night that I wanted to watch rather than record.”?
Will you say to your spouse, “Sorry, dear. Our assets are half of what they once were. Looks like we can’t retire yet or at least not as good or as soon as we hoped. Guess I should’ve added my voice to seeking honest campaign finance reform.”?
Health care, common sense campaign finance, housing, and financial reforms should be your birthright. They can be, if you brush aside complacency and make some noise. It won’t be convenient, but standing with your fellow peeps will make all the difference in the quality of life/leisure/liberty that you and yours can claim for yourself and for our citizenry.
Best always,
Dave
-http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ascentofmoney/featured/watch-the-two-hour-the-ascent-of-money/24/
-http://bseckc.org/2010-breaking-silence-conference January 8 & 9, 2010
-http://www.democracyforamerica.com/ for your local chapter, and video from Cleaver
-http://truemajority.org/ http://www.biginsurancekills.com/
FW: "Michael Moore's Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now"
-----Original
Message-----
From: Michael Moore [mailto:mail...@michaelmoore.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 5:57 AM
To: dave...@kc.rr.com
Subject: "Michael Moore's Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do
Right Now"
"Michael Moore's Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now"
…
It's the #1 question I'm constantly asked after people see my movie: "OK -- so NOW what can I DO?!"
…
FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:
1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.
2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. The bill to make this happen is called H.R. 3200. You must call AND write your members of Congress and demand its passage <http://www.pnhp.org/amendment/> , no compromises allowed.
3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826 http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1826/show .
4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by -- and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?" (Click here <http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/03/how-nation%E2%80%99s-only-state-owned-bank-became-envy-wall-street> for some info about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.)
5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars that don't contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here's a proposal I wrote <http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-letter/saving-the-big-3-for-you-and-me-a-message-from-michael-moore> in December.) Demand that General Motors' de facto chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-the-moon-style challenge to turn our country into a nation of trains and buses and subways. For Pete's sake, people, we were the ones who invented (or perfected) these damn things in the first place!!
FIVE THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT LISTEN TO US:
1. Each of us must get into the daily habit of taking 5 minutes to make four brief calls: One to the President (202-456-1414 <http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/> ), one to your Congressperson (202-224-3121 <https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml> ) and one to each of your two Senators (202-224-3121 <http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm> ). To find out who represents you, click here <http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/> . Take just one minute on each of these calls to let them know how you expect them to vote on a particular issue. Let them know you will have no hesitation voting for a primary opponent -- or even a candidate from another party -- if they don't do our bidding. Trust me, they will listen. If you have another five minutes, click here to send them each an email http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ . And if you really want to drop an anvil on them, send them a snail mail letter <http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/> !
2. Take over your local Democratic Party. Remember how much fun you had with all those friends and neighbors working together to get Barack Obama elected? YOU DID THE IMPOSSIBLE. It's time to re-up! Get everyone back together and go to the monthly meeting of your town or county Democratic Party -- and become the majority that runs it! There will not be many in attendance and they will either be happy or in shock that you and the Obama Revolution have entered the room looking like you mean business. President Obama's agenda will never happen without mass grass roots action -- and he won't feel encouraged to do the right thing if no one has his back, whether it's to stand with him, or push him in the right direction. When you all become the local Democratic Party, send me a photo of the group <mailto:pho...@michaelmoore.com> and I'll post it on my website.
3. Recruit someone to run for office who can win in your local elections next year -- or, better yet, consider running for office yourself! You don't have to settle for the incumbent who always expects to win. You can be our next representative! Don't believe it can happen? Check out these examples of regular citizens who got elected: State Senator Deb Simpson <http://www.rbf.org/annualreviews/annualreviews_show.htm?root_doc_id=907315&display_doc_id=940605&fullnav=2> , California State Assemblyman Isadore Hall <http://photos.essence.com/galleries/icdrm2008images4isadorehall> , Tempe, Arizona City Councilman Corey Woods <http://www.tempe.gov/elected/woods.htm> , Wisconsin State Assemblyman Chris Danou <http://www.votesmart.org/bio.php?can_id=67068> , and Washington State Representative Larry Seaquist <http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/members/Seaquist/> . The list goes on and on -- and you should be on it!
4. Show up. Picket the local branch of a big bank that took the bailout money http://projects.nytimes.com/creditcrisis/recipients/table . Hold vigils and marches. Consider civil disobedience. Those town hall meetings are open to you, too (and there's more of us than there are of them!). Make some noise http://www.showdowninchicago.org/ , have some fun, get on the local news. Place "Capitalism Did This" signs on empty foreclosed homes, closed down businesses, crumbling schools and infrastructure. (You can download them from my website http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/spread-the-word-capitalism-did-this .)
5. Start your own media. You. Just you (or you and a couple friends). The mainstream media is owned by corporate America and, with few exceptions, it will never tell the whole truth -- so you have to do it! Start a blog <https://www.blogger.com/start> ! Start a website of real local news (here's an example: The Michigan Messenger <http://michiganmessenger.com/> ). Tweet your friends <https://twitter.com/> and use Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/> to let them know what they need to do politically. The daily papers are dying. If you don't fill that void, who will?
…
I'm sure there are many other ideas you can come up with on how we can build this movement. Get creative. Think outside the politics-as-usual box. BE SUBVERSIVE! Think of that local action no one else has tried. Behave as if your life depended on it. Be bold! Try doing something with reckless abandon. It may just liberate you and your community and your nation.
…
====================================================================
____________________________________________________________________
====================================================================
-----Original
Message-----
From: Michael Caddell [mailto:bluebarnn...@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 11:29 PM
To: Democracy For the Heart of America
Subject: [DFHA] Re: GKCDFA Thom Hartmann on Death Panels on Veterans Day
As sick as it is, pardon the pun, this bill is being chipped, whipped,
diced and sliced through the fog of war and economic depression for a
people who largely are still full of illusions. It is the necessity
of empire to continue manufacturing consent and illusions. We here in
the heartland are only hearing, seeing the rumblings of the crumbling
empire. I had a pretty serious exchange with a prominent academic
from the "left" who informed me that my grumbling about this social
phenomena (the lack of mass resistance and fury) while the empire was
falling was misplaced. Her response was that the empire collapsing
was, "wishful thinking." I am convinced through my experience with
media, printed, broadcast and automonous that people can eventually
develop a grass root rebellion with enough intelligence to win, but it
will not come from any one demonstration, strike or issue of a
leaflet. It must be so regular and determined, with a message that
clearly not only spells out the particular facts of an empire that is
and should fall, but news of a certain resistance. More later, right
now I'm running my show....
On Nov 11, 9:51 pm, "Paul Rola" <paulr...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Tom
> I appreciate and unfortunately agree with your comments. Julie and I have discussed at great lengths that, it seems, as the grassroots pressure increases the legislation deteriorates. It is disheartening to realize that "the People" should be asked to continuously call, write, and push our governing body to do the right thing, only to find that our words are lost and the push ignored. We are faced with the hard reality that, contrary to what we have been told all of our lives, those people really don't work for us. Instead they work for Chase, WellPoint, Halliburton, and maybe Wall Mart and any corporation who can finance their campaign. As the people stand in the street voicing their needs, our congress critters are calling their corporate handlers for instructions. Kucinich is right, as written it appears the bill will be a windfall for the Health Insurance industry. Should the bill be killed? I suspect if it is, unlike the Phoenix, nothing will rise from the ashes... and we then will take to the streets again protesting the escalation in Afghanistan... or a new war with Iran... or... "And men still keep on marching off to war"... "and the beat goes on, the beat goes on"..."La de da de de, la de da de da"
>
> Tom, thanks for your response.
> Happy Thanksgiving!
> Take Care
> Paul
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Tom Klammer
> To: df...@googlegroups.com
>
> Cc: Paul Rola
> Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 8:47 PM
> Subject: Re: [DFHA] Re: GKCDFA Thom Hartmann on Death Panels on Veterans Day
>
> Paul,
>
> I am trying real hard to find the bright side of proposed legislation and to keep in mind that politics is the art of the possible, not the ideal. But the biggest problem in our h/c system and the biggest reason we are paying twice as much per capita as most of the rest of the world and getting dramatically worse outcomes, is the insurance companies. Broadly speaking, proposed bills do nothing to rein them in. They will be handed a captive of audience of mandatory customers who must buy their defective products or pay penalties administered, if I've got it right, by the IRS. None of the public option plans seriously considered were ever very "robust", and the latest, assuming it survives Senate and Joint consideration, is quite anemic. I'm kind of inclined to agree with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, coauthor of the study on veterans referenced in my earlier email, when she said on Democracy Now this morning that "we think that the Congress needs to start from scratch on this bill. The reform process in Washington has been hijacked by the private health insurance industry."
> http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/11/study_over_2_200_us_veterans
>
> and with Dennis Kucinich who wrote Monday "During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies."
> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/08-0
>
> There had been a promise by Pelosi of a floor vote on single-payer- that promise was reneged on and one of the reasons I heard for weaseling out was that it would open the door to anti-choice amendments. We got no promised single-payer vote, but did get a horrible anti-choice amendment anyway.
>
> I think we had a historic opportunity to do something about healthcare and it was squandered with a combination of incompetent strategy and a corrupt selling out to insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies by the Democrats, aided and abetted by the mainstream media even more than by the FOX lunatics..
>
> I will continue to read up on the actual bills and try to find a brighter side to all this that would convince me that the relatively minor concessions by insurance companies that they have given in return for a huge handout make the legislation better than nothing, but I honestly am not seeing that yet.
>
> TK
> Woolhandler:
>
> If you look at the Baucus framework, which was the basis of the Senate bill—it’s on the Senate Finance Committee website. Just right-click on that document, and it turns out the author of the document was Elizabeth Fowler, who’s a former vice president of Wellpoint, the nation’s largest private insurance company, covering 35 million people. So the private insurance industry has hijacked the process. What’s come out of the House, what’s likely to come out of the Senate, is a completely inadequate bill that takes about $500 billion in taxpayer money and hands it over to the private health insurance industry.
>
> --- On Wed, 11/11/09, Paul Rola <paulr...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> From: Paul Rola <paulr...@earthlink.net>
> Subject: [DFHA] Re: GKCDFA Thom Hartmann on Death Panels on Veterans Day
> To: "Tom Klammer" <tellsomebodyra...@yahoo.com>, gkc...@googlegroups.com, df...@googlegroups.com
> Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 8:09 PM
>
> Tom
> At the end you say "Sadly, maybe the bill deserves killing for other reasons than those cited by the pathetic Sen. DeMint.....
> Tom Klammer" I find this curious, care to elaborate?
> Thanks
> Paul
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Tom Klammer
> To: df...@googlegroups.com ; gkc...@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 7:22 PM
> Subject: GKCDFA Thom Hartmann on Death Panels on Veterans Day
>
> as heard on Tell Somebody Tues night, and DNow Wed morning -2,266 vets died last year because they didn't have insurance.
>
> from my show Tuesday:
> Tomorrow is the 11th Day of the 11th month- veterans day. There will be plenty of flag-waving going on, I’m sure, but I wonder how much consideration of this, just in this afternoon from Physicians for a National Health Program:
> Over 2,200 veterans died in 2008 due to lack of health insurance, according new a new analysis by researchers at Harvard Medical School and PNHP co-founders Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein. This figure is 14 times the number of deaths suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008. Nearly 1.5 million working-age veterans lacked health insurance last year and thus have reduced access to care, increasing their death rate. Support the troops, indeed.
>
> Thom Hartmann's take below.
>
> Thom's blog
> Death Panels on Veterans Day
>
> Could we do better than death panels on Veterans day? On the eve of Veterans Day, a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School released a study finding that 2,266 veterans under the age of 65 died last year because they didn't have health insurance. That "translates to six preventable deaths per day" the researchers noted, and more than twice the number killed in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001. I'll say it again - Medicare Part E - for everyone and that includes our Veterans.
>
> Hey - it's not just death panels for Veterans - Republican Jim DeMint would like us all not to get any type of affordable health at all. Even if a public option is removed from the Senate's health care legislation, Sen. Jim DeMint is urging all Republicans to kill the bill -- lest they help "create a monster." The monster? All those who would prevent him from getting big campaign bucks from the healthcare industry.
>
> --Thom
> **********************************************
> Sadly, maybe the bill deserves killing for other reasons than those cited by the pathetic Sen. DeMint.....
> Tom Klammer
>
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