Rally? For heath care? Why bother?
Tomorrow at 10 am in Terry Shrunk Plaza, Organizing for America and Health Care for America Now! are hosting a rally for health care — "Let’s Get It Done!" There is an impressive line-up of speakers, and it's being held across the street from Ron Wyden's office. I'll be there, and I think you should, too (and you should bring some friends and family members with you). The question, of course, is why even bother? What damn good will it do?
And the answer is, as the answer in all things political: it will do whatever good you are willing to work to accomplish. Stay home, and it does no good at all. In politics, what happens is decided by those who bother to show up.
We know who has been showing up on health care reform: Health insurance company lobbyists, by the millions of dollars. Republican Senators intent on deep-sixing anything Pres Obama wants to accomplish. Blue Dog Dems who have yet to understand there was an election last year that meant something. Tea-baggers, birthers, even those who stand a trigger-pull away from suggesting Obama should be killed. In short, those who want anything except meaningful health care reform have been the ones showing up and getting things done ("done" being obstruction and distortion). That's why health care reform is in trouble. Not because of deficits or Obama's strategy, but because ordinary Americans are not on the front lines winning this battle.
It's one thing to say you want this to happen. It's one thing to demand that Congress and the President do the right thing. For eight years, I demanded that Dubya eat shit and die; didn't happen. Never was gonna happen. Wishing for health care to happen without getting busy and making it happen is defeatism at its worst. Not doing anything is an option only if you want nothing to get done.
If you are serious about making a change, whether it's health care reform or reductions to the military's budget or good schools or anything — anything at all — you have to do things that may not seem like fun, that push you far outside your comfort zone. I think a great way to start is to come downtown tomorrow morning and stand up for health care reform. You'll be with people who agree with you, it'll be a beautiful morning, and you'll find out what you can do to make a real difference in this debate.
We will change how politics is done is this country if, and ony if, enough of us who are not lobbyists, CEOs, corporate hacks, MSM talking heads and wingnut luddites do what we did last year: hit the streets, talk to people, work to make the change happen. We cannot wish and hope for change; no amount of wistful yearing for a better country will make that better country appear out of nowhere. Only dedicated action at the grassroots can make change a reality.
The good thing is that you do not have to do all the work yourself. Hell, you don't even have to do very much of the work. You just have to do something. One thing a week, or every other week. Show up for the rally tomorrow. The next week, volunteer to go door-to-door for a few hours. Call Wyden and Merkley's offices and tell them to support real reform, to support the President. Write a letter to your local paper. Every week, do one thing for health care reform, one thing for democracy, and ask those around you to do one thing as well. The lobbyists and obstructionists, after all, are doing many things. But you can be part of the movement that defeats them. They may have money but you have something far more powerful: A vote. Elected officials pay more attention to activist voters than to lobbyist donations because only the former keep them in office.
So, I'll see you tomorrow morning in downtown Portland. Bring a friend or two; bring the family and then go out for lunch after. While you're there, sign up to do something for the cause (Treasure and Betsy have lots of sign-up sheets, and I get "We Can Do Better" will be there, too). Because hopeless causes only exist when we allow them to. We can have meaningful health care reform despite all the negative signs we see from DC, but only if we take up the challenge and make the reform happen. After all, we have an advantage none of the anti-reform crowd has: The guy in the Oval Office? He's on our side. Let's show him we're on his.
|
August 28, 2009 |
T.A. Barnhart | Comments (83 so far)
| Share on Facebook |
Sponsored Advertising
Comments
Posted by: Boats | Aug 28, 2009 3:07:35 PM
I demand Obama "eat shit and die" then. Not a difficult choice as there were elections that "meant something" in 2000 and 2004 as well, which didn't matter to you.
Barack Hussein Obama=Not My pResident.
Posted by: Adam503 | Aug 28, 2009 3:26:57 PM
Another stupid rally?
Okay you asked. Here's why the left needs to stop scheduling rallies and protest marches.
Rallies/protests haven't been about causes for decades. It's been that long since a rally/march accomplished anything other than maybe adding some names to some mailing lists.
They do gather all the opponents of a concept in one easy to ignore location. Sen. Wyden knows as long as he doesn't show up to his office on Saturday, a day he doesn't have to go to work anyway, he will be free of being annoyed by people who disagree with his positions.
So the one person you can count on to ignore Wyden's office during the rally is WYDEN.
Who won't ignore at the rally? Portland Police. PLENTY of them will be there. Are we trying to get the endorsement of Portland Police for any particular cause? Then it does not do much good to have PPD at that event, then, does it.
However, there is a reasonable risk the police beat the crud outta some of the progressive that show up.
Why are we doing this again? For either no reason, or to get beat on/tazed?!?
The primary beneficiaries of protests/marches are the always long list of leaders on the left who get to go up in front of a big crowd of people who yell for them.
That's no longer sufficient justification for getting progressives attacked by police. Progressives are getting the hell beat out of us for no damn good reason.
The only direct action the left has done in decades that actually accomplished anything was BOYCOTTS. Chavez beat Safeway with a boycott. Glenn Beck is losing advertisers to a boycott. There was another broadcaster boycott during the Kerry campaign of Sinclair Broadcasting that was effective, too. You can make the right jump if you target action at their WALLETS. They don't feel any other direct action.
No progressives can get attacked by police during a boycott, either.
Please stop wasting the time and resources of progressive activists. If you make a request for the time / resources of progressives, you need to have better justification of the use of that time than "Stay home, and it does no good at all."
Posted by: Old Ducker | Aug 28, 2009 3:29:20 PM
I may actually attend this. I also have decided I like government controlled medicine and I support the public option. I'm glad Bernanke was re-appointed.
The sooner this country is bankrupted, the sooner we can bust it up into pieces and start over. In the meantime, I'm eyeing a little farm in Uruguay.
Posted by: t.a. barnhart | Aug 28, 2009 3:48:33 PM
you want the country bankrupted fast? then we should privatize everything & get rid of regulation. the corporation brains will run everything into the ground within 5 years (actually they'd be imobilized without all their govt- and tax-subsidies to feed them most of their profits).
Posted by: Old Ducker | Aug 28, 2009 4:00:01 PM
TA, Actually its' bankrupt right now. The only thing keeping things running is the confidence of foreigners that the federal monster can loot enough from it's subjects to pay them the interest. What they need is a tap on the shoulder to bring them to their senses. A massive new entitlement or two should do the trick.
Posted by: Rob | Aug 28, 2009 4:02:04 PM
I have never hated a president or feared for my freedom before... but I sure do now with that racist, bastard, socialist in the White House.
NOBAMA!
Posted by: Mary Jo Kopechne | Aug 28, 2009 4:04:33 PM
I started reading this with the hope that it was going to be something intelligent. When I encountered the words: "Tea-baggers" and "birthers", I realized that it was just another retread from another asshat! Get off your toilet and write something of value or SHUT UP!
Have you any idea that "tea-bagging" refers to the sexual act of fellatio (male on male or female on male... doesn't matter)? Do you even care? Are you delighted by denigrating those who want to have Obama present his "bona fides" as "brithers"?
So basically, you are either a bone-headed ignoramus or just a DENIGRATOR! If you ask me... it is BOTH!
Posted by: Ed Bickford | Aug 28, 2009 4:10:18 PM
Idiot denigrator, fellatio is not the sexual act colloquially known as "teabagging" (hint: no female can perform), so you do not know your subject matter!
Posted by: Alex Brant-Zawadzki | Aug 28, 2009 4:28:52 PM
Tea-bagging is when a male inserts his testicular package into someone else's mouth.
So when Faux newscasters proudly declaimed, "Tea-bag the White House", it made sense for Jon Stewart to suggest how that might require the Jolly Green Giant.
In April '09, the National Organization for Marriage rolled out its "Two Million for Marriage" campaign, or 2M4M.
2M4M is used in singles ads, chat rooms and social messaging to indicate two gay men seeking a third for a three-way.
(check out www.2m4m.com)
For the love of Google, people! Hire some marketing folk with measurable life experience!
Posted by: Greg D. | Aug 28, 2009 5:22:02 PM
What a wonderful world it would be - to quote a line from my Mother's favorite song - if right wing nuts would spend time talking about dipping their testicles in each other's mouths on another web site. There is such a thing as an intelligent conservative, and I have many friends who qualify. But they don't hurl the electronic equivalent of vomit in every direction when they try to make a point.
Lately this site is becoming a dumping ground for wack jobs. Maybe that includes me, but at least I enjoy my own wacking.
Posted by: Suicida| | Aug 28, 2009 5:53:10 PM
This is teabagging: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLwoWDMiNa0
Posted by: Suicida| | Aug 28, 2009 5:54:36 PM
"So when Faux newscasters proudly declaimed, "Tea-bag the White House", it made sense for Jon Stewart to suggest how that might require the Jolly Green Giant."
Ho, ho, ho GreenJobCZAR!
Posted by: t.a. barnhart | Aug 28, 2009 6:14:05 PM
hard to take seriously anything from someone going by Mary Jo's name. how pathetic do you have to be to do that? the more i think about, the more pity i feel for that person.
Posted by: Joe White | Aug 28, 2009 6:28:57 PM
The question is, did you feel any pity for Mary Jo, or any sense of injustice that the person responsible for leaving her to die actually got off with a light slap on the wrist and a career in the Senate?
Posted by: Adam503 | Aug 28, 2009 6:45:01 PM
"Posted by: Joe White | Aug 28, 2009 6:28:57 PM
The question is, did you feel any pity for Mary Jo, or any sense of injustice that the person responsible for leaving her to die actually got off with a light slap on the wrist and a career?"
Did you feel any pity toward 17 year old Michael Douglas... the ex-boyfriend of Laura Welsh Bush that she killed with her car shortly after they broke up?
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Aug 28, 2009 7:12:14 PM
What happened to the editor who usually deletes off-topic comments?
The topic for Bill Moyers Journal tonight on OPB is: The film Money-Driven Medicine investigates the profit-driven world of US healthcare.
Posted by: Old Ducker | Aug 28, 2009 7:36:31 PM
Bill, you're right. Let's get back on topic. Here's an inspirational video from another health care rally:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIKPKjl0-pg&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Elewrockwell%2Ecom%2Fblog%2F&feature=player_embed
An honest cop, gotta love it.
Posted by: t.a. barnhart | Aug 28, 2009 7:37:05 PM
Joe, for you i don't even feel pity. you are beneath contempt. pretending that the abuse of Mary Jo Kopechne's name by a cowardly, anonymous commenter is supposed to induce a sense of outrage? are you that pathetic, Joe?
the bottom line: we all have to do something to take back our country (i'll forever be a deaniac) and to make real health care reform happen. i said that the do-nothings will distort & obstruct. they're doing it in this post. they have nothing to contribute to this discussion, to the struggle for health care, to our democratic society. nothing. people like Joe White are trying to destroy a movement that began in 2003 with the Dean campaign, took Obama to the White House and could bring health care to all Americans. but we have to stop playing their games, and we ahve to stay hard at work to make things like health care reform happen.
i hope i see many of you tomorrow morning at Terry Shrunk Plaza. 10am.
peace.
Posted by: Bill R. | Aug 28, 2009 8:09:36 PM
Well, it's the same old, same old. The trolls have nothing to say except hate and name calling.
Posted by: Joe White | Aug 28, 2009 8:32:01 PM
Adam503 wrote:
"Laura Welsh Bush"
What office was she elected to?
Posted by: Joe White | Aug 28, 2009 8:41:46 PM
T.A. wrote:
"make real health care reform happen"
I am in favor of real health care reform.
We simply differ on what that is.
I have health insurance that I like, as many Americans do.
You wish to take away what I benefit from simply because you don't like it.
What ever happened to freedom of choice?
Why can't you let others choose the health insurance they want, and you make whatever private arrangement suits you?
Why do liberals consider it proper to destroy private business using government and to deprive millions of the insurance that they are willingly covered by?
Why do liberals want to give everyone's health records, and decisions over what care will and won't be available, to the government?
If all doctors become government employees, the government, by definition, decides what practitioners work where, and when.
In essence, the politicians will decide what care will and won't be available.
Just as now, politicians send dollars for roads to their districts, so the party in power will allocate more and better medical resources to their own districts, and allow districts that voted for the opposition to do without.
Do you really want allocation of medical specialists and equipment to be driven by politics?
Posted by: Adam503 | Aug 28, 2009 9:03:28 PM
Joe White: You do not have the moral right to have freedom of your choice of your choice of health care when providing a system that provides that type of choice prevents 50 million people from getting health insurance at all.
I'm sick of selfish people like Joe White here who think they are entitled to the best health insurance, but only they themselves are entitled to that great insurance, screw every other American.
Joe White wants HIS, and doesn't give a crap what happens to anyone but him. Joe White thinks the system entitled to a system of health care for Joe White, screw everyone else but Joe White.
Posted by: David | Aug 28, 2009 9:05:35 PM
If people don't show up it'll look like the trolls of Beckland are the only ones that care. Actually most of them are yellow anyhow. The last town hall I was at the teabagging trolls were outnumbered 10 to 1 - up in NW a couple of weeks back. Even in McMinnville the ratio was only 1 to 1. And that's conservative country. Maybe some of 'em have been denied coverage since then, or they've heard the REAL horror stories from REAL victims of the insurance racketeers.
Posted by: Adam503 | Aug 28, 2009 9:08:45 PM
Posted by: Joe White
"Laura Welsh Bush"
Epic Fail.
After ALL the Hillary and Michelle Obama shit we heard from you idiots over and over and over, you're going to try to pull "What office was she elected to?" crap?
Posted by: Old Ducker | Aug 28, 2009 9:08:50 PM
Joe, of course he does! Its a power play, that's all. The answer to real health reform is simple:
a) Abolish the FDA
b) Abolish the AMA's control over medical school admissions and physician accreditation.
c) Free physicians from threat of lawsuits.
d) Eliminate the tax preferences for employer-based insurance
e) Get rid of Medicare and Medicaid
f) Get rid of interstate insurance regulation
and thats just a start...
Posted by: Stephen Amy | Aug 28, 2009 9:19:00 PM
I've been phoning Wu's office regularly for a couple of years asking him to co-sponsor HR676.
Wu responds to his constituents. He sends back lenghty communiques that describe, in depth, the problems that arise around health care. He says U.S. healthcare is the world's best under some circumstances but that the system needs reform.
And then he doesn't say what he's going to do about it and also doesn't specifically speak to HR676.
Frustrating.
Posted by: Adam503 | Aug 28, 2009 9:30:00 PM
Joe White's other questions...
"Why do liberals consider it proper to destroy private business using government and to deprive millions of the insurance that they are willingly covered by?"
Liberals think it's immoral to profit off the suffering of others. You right wingers think pain and suffering is a business opportunity.
Why do liberals want to give everyone's health records, and decisions over what care will and won't be available, to the government?
George W. Bush and Republican Party opened yours and everyone else's medical records to government AND multi-national corporations while Bush was President. Bitch at Dubya and Darth Cheney for opening your medical records to anyone who wants to make money off you.
Government doesn't make any decision about patient care in any public health system anywhere in the developed world. Doctors make those decisions.
That's a big, fat Republican LIE. Republicans lie. Alot.
If all doctors become government employees, the government, by definition, decides what practitioners work where, and when.
In essence, the politicians will decide what care will and won't be available.
Except for the part that it's another GOP Lie.
Do all Medicare's doctors work for the government? NO! None of them do!
Just as now, politicians send dollars for roads to their districts, so the party in power will allocate more and better medical resources to their own districts, and allow districts that voted for the opposition to do without.
Do you really want allocation of medical specialists and equipment to be driven by politics?
More GOP lies.
Posted by: Stephen Amy | Aug 28, 2009 9:34:48 PM
Yes, under single-payer the medical professionals are not government employees. They are in private practice in Canada.
Joe White: what is your problem with not being able to understand this?
Posted by: Joe White | Aug 28, 2009 9:43:35 PM
Adam503 wrote:
"Liberals think it's immoral to profit off the suffering of others"
I see.
So, being a doctor is immoral, right? (You do know that doctors make a really good living, don't you? They do make a profit in their medical practice. You're aware of that, right?)
And I'm sure that you would never support an immoral system, so undoubtedly you never have gone to see those immoral doctors who are there to make a profit off of you.
To keep your purity, you'd be better off washing your hands of the whole thing.
No medicine (not even over the counter stuff. Those companies are there to make a profit), no medical care of any kind will your pure hands touch, right?
And you're definitely not gonna let your kids get corrupted by seeing a doctor, are you?
Just tell them when they are sick that you are looking out for their moral welfare by keeping them out of the doctor's office.
Posted by: Stephen Amy | Aug 28, 2009 9:51:28 PM
Joe White: is there not a difference between corporate profit and the salary one accrues as fees-for-service?
Posted by: Joe White | Aug 28, 2009 9:51:52 PM
Adam503 wrote:
'la la la la I'm not listening. You're a liar. la la la la'
Face the truth Adam.
If Obama gets his way and the government runs all health care, politicians are gonna divvy it up just like they do other pork spending projects now.
If you want good medical care, you'll have to move to the district of the politically powerful.
What the left proposes is using medical care as a political weapon.
Posted by: LT | Aug 28, 2009 9:52:18 PM
How much of your insurance premium goes to pay for your health care coverage, and how much to pay the CEO of the insurance company?
The more I hear about the Swiss system, the better I like it. Private insurance, private doctors, universal coverage, treated like a regulated utility.
I wonder how some of you folks would have reacted to the public power debates of roughly 70 years ago. Maybe you would have said only cities deserved electricity because there was no profit in rural electrification.
Posted by: Joe White | Aug 28, 2009 9:55:00 PM
Stephen Amy wrote:
"They are in private practice in Canada."
When 100% of your income comes from a government arranged transaction, you can pretend it's private if you wish, but you are a government employee.
Posted by: Joe White | Aug 28, 2009 9:57:06 PM
Stephen Amy wrote:
"is there not a difference between corporate profit and the salary one accrues as fees-for-service?"
It's a distinction without a difference.
The physician's income far exceeds his business expenses.
It's profit.
Posted by: Boats | Aug 28, 2009 10:26:52 PM
Profits are evil to communists.
Each according to his ability, each according to his need.
The credo of parasites.
Posted by: Adam503 | Aug 29, 2009 12:04:49 AM
Posted by: Joe White | Aug 28, 2009 9:55:00 PM
Stephen Amy wrote:
"They are in private practice in Canada."
When 100% of your income comes from a government arranged transaction, you can pretend it's private if you wish, but you are a government employee.
Using that definition, joe, everybody can pretend they are private employess, but we all end up government employees.
So that's why Joe and his right wing buds are yelling "Communist" so much. Any action any American takes one way or another turns every single person in the USA into an employee of the Soviet Republic of America.
Posted by: torridjoe | Aug 29, 2009 12:11:57 AM
I wonder how some of you folks would have reacted to the public power debates of roughly 70 years ago. Maybe you would have said only cities deserved electricity because there was no profit in rural electrification.
Oh, snap! Nice one, LT.
Posted by: torridjoe | Aug 29, 2009 12:13:06 AM
Whoops, hit post too soon. TA, you forgot to mention the big draw--Wendell Potter, former CEO of Cigna Health, who did a great and revealing (and sickening) interview with Moyers a little while back. He's the featured speaker.
Posted by: steve | Aug 29, 2009 12:23:51 AM
Yes, by all means get out and rally! But, I find it odd, and depressing, that these brilliant people we elect can't seem to do the right thing unless there is a huge public outcry. Even then, the process seems to be clogged by a few corrupt senators who don't give a damn that this country is experiencing a precipitous decline in economic status. Without a clear path to reducing health care costs to the norm of the rest of the industrialized countries, American corporations will continue to outsource or swallow an unfair burden. This exercise is far more important than the stupid fucks in this country can comprehend.
Posted by: Joe White | Aug 29, 2009 7:59:11 AM
Adam503 wrote:
"we all end up government employees"
Only if the Democrats get their way.
Doctors who take medicare patients are not government employees because their income is not 100% derived from medicare patients with no choice to do otherwise.
Even if you could find a doctor whose patients at the moment are 100% from medicare (and there probably are quite a few), he still has the choice to take those patients, or take others with private insurance.
If Democrats get their way, the government system will be the only game in town.
Their intent is to misuse power to drive private businesses into bankruptcy and establish a monopoly.
I'm curious as to why anyone would welcome the idea of politicians handing out medical care in the porky fashion that they currently handle things like roads and other public projects.
Do you really want the availability and scope of medical care in your community to be subject to the politically powerful?
What happens when your party gets voted out of power? You may say 'that will never happen', but it would take a naive person indeed to truly believe it.
FDR Democrats in the 40's thought they would reign forever, then came 50 years in the latter half of the century with over half of it under Republican presidents.
Posted by: resveratrol and anti aging | Aug 29, 2009 11:52:33 AM
these posts are informative regarding the topics of income and investment trend in different eras
Posted by: Bob Tiernan | Aug 29, 2009 1:36:41 PM
T. A. Barnhart:
Blue Dog Dems who have yet to understand there was an election last year that meant something.
Bob T:
I believe they're more concerned now with the 2010 elections.
Bob Tiernan
Portland
Posted by: Wrench Monkey | Aug 29, 2009 2:33:16 PM
Democrats love to debate with the far right. They ignore anyone even slightly to their left. What does this tell you?
Posted by: notzinn | Aug 29, 2009 2:37:33 PM
"We know that simply organizing occasional polite marches in Washington, or in key cities, accomplishes nothing. We have learned that email campaigns to deluge members of Congress with canned opinions don’t work. What has worked, and will always work, is massive campaigns of civil disobedience, tent cities in Washington, organized disruption of war preparations, and door-to-door organizing. The corrupt hacks who inhabit the halls of Congress and the White House will not do the right thing just because it is the right thing, or because we ask them nicely. They may, if we make them fear that they will actually lose our votes in the next election."
(http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff08202009.html)
Posted by: tmk | Aug 29, 2009 2:55:18 PM
I thought it was a great rally. I intend to continue working for insurance reform.
Posted by: Joe Hill | Aug 29, 2009 3:46:58 PM
Wrench Monkey, I think it means that they believe they can take our money, energy, and votes for granted because we have nowhere else to go.
Posted by: Joe White | Aug 29, 2009 7:28:14 PM
tmk wrote:
"I intend to continue working for insurance reform."
There are reforms that need to take place.
Destroying the insurance industry (by using the government to set up an insurance apparatus or 'public option' that will undercut the market), isn't 'reform'.
Posted by: Stephen Amy | Aug 29, 2009 7:55:44 PM
Hey Joe White, there was a British comedian at the Crystal Ballroom show last night.
At one point he said, "Oh, please liberate us, America. Give us the freedom to take out a second mortgage so's we can pay medical expenses."
Note: The presence of any individual above does not imply an endorsement by BlueOregon. The selection of faces shown is done by Facebook. Visit BlueOregon on Facebook.
Post a comment
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Aug 28, 2009 2:30:13 PM
Very well said, T.A.. If you can't make it to this event send an e-mail or fax courtesy of Democracy for America - Stand with Dr. Dean.