health care reform, a sick democracy and a cure - public financing!

OK I gotta rant a little about the health care reform situation.

After all this debate we have 2,000 pages in the house up for a vote in a matter of days, no Republicans are expected to vote for it and no one knows if enough Dems will vote for it.

We are the only industrialized nation in the world that has this level of dysfunction regarding health care and insurance companies. The fact is our democracy is sick and until we make it better we will never solve problems like health care.

Money controls our politics. The health care industry has spent 400,000,000 dollars lobbying to prevent real health care reform. Corporate profits are in the way of affordable health care for all. And our government officials have drafted a 2,000 page bill that benefits the corporations more than the citizens of this country.

This bill, according to Nancy Pelosi is going to provide 50 million new costumers to the insurance companies, many of which will be subsidized by tax payer dollars while the public option will only have an anticipated 6 million people who will qualify and sign up by 2019!

This whole situation is proving that our democracy is deathly ill.

Another example: every single Republican boycotted the mark up of a Climate Change Bill and our government just may destroy the chance of the world coming together successfully in Denmark in December in what many say is the last chance for a real international protocol to be effective.

The cure: PUBLIC FINANCING for campaigns. If we want politicians who are answerable to US and not the drug companies, wall street banks, oil and coal companies and military contractors then we need to have publicly financed election campaigns. Take the money out of politics. Most democracies in the world do it this way and we must if we want our government back!!!!!

time for us to push the politicians

FIND YOUR REPRESENTATIVE'S CONTACT INFO HERE: congressional directory

the white house switchboard is: 202-456-1414

Well it is now one of those times when every one of us needs to do our civic duty and take part in our democracy. A couple quick phone calls is all that is called for.

As we have been witnessing, the politicians in Washington have been debating what to do about our health care system for some time now. We have now been told that both the Senate and House bills will include a public option.

It is a weak, watered down, innefficient version (single payer would be much better of course) but we must put the pressure on to keep the public option and to support some of the progressive ammendments like Bernie Sander's state single payer option.

Know that without a public option rates are likely to go up! The legislation is forcing companies to take preexisting conditions, cover pregnancy, etc. The companies have said this will make them raise rates so they can continue their obscene profits.

Also it is requiring everyone get insurance and without a public option the tax payers will be paying the private insurance companies to insure the people who cannot afford it.

There is going to be a lot of pressure being put on those in congress by the insurance industry and conservative groups and we need to balance that with pressure from the citizens for whom health care reform is intended.

Of course there will be lots of debate and there are many ammendments to be considered - ranging from single payer bills from the left to who knows what from the right. So bottom line we still do not know what we will end up with.

What is important right now is that we all call our representatives and tell them how we want them to vote. Ask them to take a stand for single payer if you want, but most importantly, if you believe in having a public option then tell them you will be watching how they vote very carefully and that we need a STRONG PUBLIC OPTION.

You can also call Harry Reed and thank him for including a public option in the Senate bill, it was not a given that he would do that, it was key that he did, and he is taking heat from the senators who represent the corporations and not the people for doing it.

FIND YOUR REPRESENTATIVE'S CONTACT INFO HERE: congressional directory

also call the white house and tell them you want Obama to use his leadership to push hard for a strong public option.

the white house switchboard is: 202-456-1414

a day of global climate action

On October 24, 2009 over 5,000 actions in over 180 countries took place to raise awareness surrounding the issue of global climate change.

The organizers - 350.org - chose a number because a number is more easily understood across boarders and languages. 350 in particular, represents the parts per million of greenhouse gasses that many scientists (originally a NASA scientist) have determined the limit above which we will experience dramatic climate destabilization. (we are now at 387 ppm so we need to actually go backwards).

It is worth going to the 350 website and checking out the slide show of actions from around the world - it is quite moving to see people from all over the world coming together to express concern over a single pressing issue.

It is also worth noting that while the world is concerned about this issue, Americans are actually becoming LESS concerned with it as a recent poll shows that the number of United States citizens who believe global climate change is a real problem is actually going down!

I was attending a conference called Re-imagining High School so was not able to take part in any planned actions. Instead I drew on a t-shirt and wore it throughout the day. It sparked lots of conversation. One presenter, during his talk, called me out on my shirt, showed us a photo his school had taken that morning for 350 and then I saw others in the audience googling 350 to see what it was all about. The conversations continued later that night as I had a drink in a bar and spurred conversation with patrons and the bar tender alike. The photo of my shirt is on the 350 flicker stream.

The back of my shirt gave the phone numbers for congress ((202)224-3121) and the white house (202-456-1414) so people can call and tell their elected employees to take serious action to fight climate change and in particular to tell Obama to go to Copenhagen in December to push for a strong international committment on the matter.

peace,
Danny

Island Nation of Maldives Holds Cabinet Meeting Underwater to Highlight Danger of Global Warming

Check out the Maldives President, he pulled a great PR stunt but also speaks so well at the United Nations:

president of Maldives on Climate Change

This is worth checking out!
The Yes men who have pulled pranks on Dow Chemical, Exxon, the US government, and others to expose issues they feel important have pulled another stunt, this time on the US Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber has spent $300,000 a day lobbying against climate change legislation, even causing many of its biggest members to pull out of the chamber.
The Yes men held a fake press conference pretending to the the Chamber and telling reporters that they changed their mind and that they do now support efforts to fight climate change. The news spread around the world before it was discovered to be a hoax and even Fox news reported it live, until being interupted with a note saying it was a hoax.
see it all at: Yes Men Prank on Chamber of Commerce

peace,
Danny

Nobel Speech Prize plus Obama and Zinn on the prize

So I heard this morning that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. The reason given was his reaching out to the Muslim world and his work towards non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. My first reaction, talk is cheap.

I like Obama and hope that by the end of his Presidency he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. I had actually never considered it a possibility based on his rhetoric involving our "wars of necessity".

After thinking about it for a moment I had a couple other thoughts. One is that Bush/Cheney brought the standards for US leadership to such an all time low, that Obama, simply by making a speech to the Muslim world and by suggesting we should reduce nuclear weapons he has been given the Nobel Peace Prize! Since this award was given for Obama's words more than actions I think a better name for it would be the Nobel Speech Prize.

Obama has inspired hope and along with the encouragement of the Nobel Committee it is MY hope that he does take actions which will lead to more peace in the world.

I do think that the committee should have waited until Obama has lived up to more of his promises, ie: closing Guantanamo, securing nukes, actually ending the war in Iraq (not just replacing our troops with private military contractors), dealing with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran in a way that promotes peace, taking a more even handed approach and getting results in the Palestine/Israel conflict, he has a lot on his plate!

I also had to think that there must be people in the world who at this point are more deserving of the prize.

I hope he will live up to this honor. In order to do this he has a lot of work to do!

Post Script:

here is Obama's email regarding his award, it is a good one, check it out.

daniel --

This morning, Michelle and I awoke to some surprising and humbling news. At 6 a.m., we received word that I'd been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.

That is why I've said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. These challenges won't all be met during my presidency, or even my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it's recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone.

This award -- and the call to action that comes with it -- does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better.

So today we humbly recommit to the important work that we've begun together. I'm grateful that you've stood with me thus far, and I'm honored to continue our vital work in the years to come.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

Howard Zinn's reaction: less positive but a true and accurate perspective:

Nobel Prize for Promises?

Saturday 10 October 2009

by: Howard Zinn, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

I was dismayed when I heard Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on wars in two countries and launching military action in a third country (Pakistan), would be given a peace prize. But then I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel Peace Prizes. The Nobel Committee is famous for its superficial estimates and for its susceptibility to rhetoric and empty gestures, while ignoring blatant violations of world peace.

Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations - that ineffectual body which did nothing to prevent war. But he also bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic and brought the US into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the first World War - surely, among stupid and deadly wars, at the top of the list.

Sure, Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace between Japan and Russia. But he was a lover of war, who participated in the US conquest of Cuba, pretending to liberate it from Spain while fastening US chains around that tiny island. And as president he presided over the bloody war to subjugate the Filipinos, even congratulating a US general who had just massacred 600 helpless villagers in the Phillipines. The Committee did not give the Nobel Prize to Mark Twain, who denounced Roosevelt and criticized the war, nor to William James, leader of the anti-imperialist league.

Oh yes, the Committee saw fit to give a peace prize to Henry Kissinger, because he signed the final agreement ending the war in Vietnam, of which he had been one of the architects. Kissinger, who obsequiously went along with Nixon's expansion of the war with the bombing of peasant villages in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Kissinger, who matches the definition of a war criminal very accurately, was given a peace prize!

People should not be given a peace prize on the basis of promises they have made (as with Obama, an eloquent maker of promises) but on the basis of actual accomplishments towards ending war. Obama has continued deadly, inhuman military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Nobel Peace Committee should retire, and turn over its huge funds to some international peace organization which is not awed by stardom and rhetoric, and which has some understanding of history.

--------

Howard Zinn is a historian, playwright and social activist, and has received the Thomas Merton Award, the Eugene V. Debs Award, the Upton Sinclair Award and the Lannan Literary Award. He is perhaps best known for "A People's History of the United States."

still against the war, 8 years later

Hi,
On this 8th anniversary of the beginning of the war in Afghanistan all I have to time to say is this:
I was against this war before it began and I am still against it! Bring all our troops (and private contractors) home NOW!
If you want to combat terrorism help people don't kill 'em. Build schools, hospitals, and farms don't bomb 'em. Simple really.
And don't let the Generals decide, war is good for them.
peace ya'll