What do the Democrats Stand for Anyway?

The public has spoken...over and over again! Single payer is what we want dammit!


The profit driven system does not work. If it did we wouldn't be where we are today for fuck's sake. What is so hard to understand about this?




But once again we are at the mercy of big pharma and the insurance lobby.


A picture is worth a thousand words. Why is Obama so ready to screw us over? He knows what we want and why. Is is so hard to stand up to the corruption that is rampart in the corporations and in our government? What do Democrats stand for anyway?

Healthcare Update From Dennis Kucinich

Dear Friends, In mid-May, in an effort to reach consensus, President Obama secured a deal with the health insurance companies to trim 1.5% of their costs each year for ten years saving a total of $2 trillion dollars, which would be reprogrammed into healthcare. Just two days after the announcement at the White House the insurance companies reneged on the deal which was designed to protect and increase their revenue at least 35% The insurance companies reneged on the deal because they refuse any restraint on increasing premiums, copays and deductibles - core to their profits. No wonder a recent USA Today poll found that only four percent of Americans trust insurance companies. This is within the margin of error, which means it is possible that NO ONE TRUSTS insurance companies. Then why does Congress trust the insurance companies? Yesterday HR 3200 "America's Affordable Health Choices Act," a 1000 page bill was delivered to members. The title of the bill raises a question: "Affordable" for whom?. Of $2.4 trillion spent annually for health care in America, fully $800 billion goes for the activities of the for-profit insurer-based system. This means one of every three health care dollars is siphoned off for corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, marketing and the cost of paper work, (which can be anywhere between 15 - 35% in the private sector as compared to Medicare, the single payer plan which has only 3% administrative costs). 50 million Americans are uninsured and another 50 million are under insured while for-profit insurance companies divert precious health care dollars to non-health care purposes. Eliminate the for-profit health care system and its extraordinary overhead, put the money into healthcare and everyone will be covered, everyone will be able to afford health care. Today three committees will begin marking up and amending HR3200. In this, one of the most momentous public policy debates in the past 70 years, single payer, the only viable "public option," the one that makes sound business sense, controls costs and covers everyone was taken off the table. In contrast to HR3200 ... HR676 calls for a universal single-payer health care system in the United States, Medicare for All. It has over 85 co-sponsors in Congress with the support of millions of Americans and countless physicians and nurses. How does HR-676 control costs and cover everyone? It cuts out the for-profit middle men and delivers care directly to consumers and Medicare acts as the single payer of bills. It also recognizes that under the current system for-profit insurance companies make money NOT providing health care. This week is the time to break the hold which the insurance companies have on our political process. Tell Congress to stand up to the insurance companies. Ask members to sign on to the only real public option, HR 676, a single-payer healthcare system. Hundreds of local labor unions, thousands of physicians and millions of Americans are standing behind us. With a draft of HR3200 now circulating, It is up to each and every one of us to organize and rally for the cause of single-payer healthcare. Change the debate. Now is the time. The time to act is now! Sincerely Yours, PS - Over the next several months, I will be engaging all of you with frequent updates and will ask you to continue a movement to fight for what needs to be done now; ending this war in Iraq and stopping the escalation in Afghanistan, attaining true single-payer healthcare for all Americans, standing up for my brothers and sisters of organized labor. After you have contacted your member of Congress, please tell us your thoughts and ideas on how you are organizing your friends and neighbors towards a single-payer movement and all of the other issues that are important to us. Contact us at feedback@kucinich.us

Medical Insurance for Americans NOW!

Forces beyond my control continue to exert a momentous pressure upon me that I have yet to blog about but here goes. One: my daughter became ill and lost her job, or rather she quit outright. She has been having seizures/blackout spells/ ? and she has no insurance. She went to the hospital and as soon as they ruled out the possibility of her dying right then and there they released her and asked her to go to her regular doctor. She does not have medical insurance. She can not drive because twice now she had a spell while driving. Lucky for her, and the other motorists on the road, she realized she was having problems and she pulled over. The second time this happened the kids were in the car with her at the time. The oldest used a cell phone and called for help. Her husband arrived and could not get her to regain consciousness so that was when he took her to the emergency room. He works in construction and work has became sporadic as the economy has soured. He works weekends tending bar to make up for it but as you can imagine it isn't always enough. They've asked for loans several times recently just to put food on the table. Of course I just give them some money outright and don't expect them to pay me back. They've also asked his parents for help too.

Two: my son lost his job as well. This just happened and he has filed for unemployment which he should get but he is really upset. Again, because the economy is just awful it is hard to find another job. He has been out searching but with no luck. I've paid some of his bills as well and he in turn has been doing whatever he can to pay us back. He is cleaning the house ( I mean really cleaning it!) and cutting down trees, doing yard work, stuff like that. He did those things before but always as the kid who was just doing the bare minimum to keep his parents off his back. Now he is working diligently. I came home one day and I have to tell you my kitchen was sparkling, he even cleaned out the refrigerator!, and the floors were swept, the laundry done, etc. It made me happy and I told him I really do appreciate it. I came home and relaxed for once before starting up on my school work.

Three: my nephew can not find a job and he has finished his schooling and now his student loans need paying. I co-signed on these loans so I am paying them, or at least I paid his first three payments. I co-signed for him because his mother and step-father have bad credit. The reason they have bad credit is because they have all these medical bills they are trying to pay back. Can you believe it--they don't have medical insurance either and my sister has had several medical problems as does her husband (he had a heart attack and he has Parkinson's disease). Her husband can't work now and the medicine he is on is very expensive. Sometimes they can't afford to get his medicines or he tries to stretch it out to make it last. So that's why I co-signed for Brian's student loans. I told him to get a deferment and he has but it will only last for 4 months and in the meantime the interest on the loans keeps accruing.

Four: I have two papers due this week instead of just one so I gotta get off here and start working on them. I have one finished but I need to proof read it and the other one I have not even started.

What I really want to say is this: WE NEED AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE FOR ALL AMERICANS NOW!!!

Character

From the book How I Got This Way by Patrick F. McManus, page 30:

Nothing improves character so much as death. I once knew a man, Pete by name, who abused his family unmercifully, stole, robbed, lied, cheated, and was suspected of at least one murder. Pete himself came to a violent end at the hands of an unknown assailant who may have been of the opinion he was performing a public service. Others thought so. Within a day of Pete's demise, however, somebody recalled a good deed the deceased had once performed, possibly an incident in which he had met a stranger on a lonely road and hadn't robbed him. Soon, even his victims were concluding that he hadn't been such a bad sort after all, merely misunderstood. Then someone recalled that the fellow had been a good worker on occasion, and someone else remembered his actually having paid a debt. By the time of the funeral, the man's character had improved so much that he had become one of the town's leading citizens, widely revered for his acts of charity, courage, honesty, and kindness, and if he had a fun-loving tendency to pull the occasional prank, why that was to be forgiven on the grounds that nobody is perfect.

Hmmm, this sounds like something that's happening even now but I ain't naming names. No sir. Anyways, I don't watch television, and I especially don't watch television now that I no longer get an analog signal. I'm supposed to get digital reception, which I do not have. And I truly doubt I'm going to be getting digital satellite or a heavy duty digital antennae anytime too soon. Living in the woods in a valley the reception sucks but that's alright by me. The less I am contaminated by the mass media I figure. However as far as the media coverage goes, I hear reports from fellow students and can see from just glancing at the papers that this situation is playing out all over again, but I ain't naming names here, although I might be pointing a finger...

Simplicity

Yes, I am supposed to be working on my paper that is due Tuesday. But I need a break. I worked today at the library and now the library is closed. The laundry continues to pile up and the dust is still settling upon all the surfaces of my home making me look like the slacker I am. I swear I just want to up and move away now. I would take with me the bare minimum needed to get by on. The rest of the stuff would be given, sold or thrown away with no qualms on my part. I want to have only those things that I truly need. Yes, those things can be ornate and artistically expressive. In fact, I would demand that of the things I have left. However, there would only be those things that I truly want and need in order to function.

If I had such a home I imagine that cleaning it up would be a breeze and that I would live there happy and content with myself. This could be just a fantasy of course and I might miss my ten sets of dishes and my antique glassware and my piles of books and all the other things I have accumulated with 27 years of marriage but a older girl can dream can't she?

I would like to go on a Buddhist retreat, take a vow of silence for at least a week, do yoga and meditate, enjoy nature and just be. That is what that new header picture speaks to me of--a simplistic life at one with nature.



what a great video--please watch it!!! In the video she talks about WHY we have so much stuff. I am just sick and tired of stuff!

Firecracker

Today is my daughter's birthday. She will be 27 years old. Hard to believe she is on the downward slide to 30. That means I'm on the downward slide to 50. To be precise, there are 19 years difference between our ages. Yes, I was awfully young to be having a baby but we both managed to survive my incredibly high expectations. I read every book I could get my hands on about babies and how to raise them. When she was born I tried my damnedest to parent the right way. I wasn't going to be like my parents you see so that meant I had to make it up as I went along. Anyway, she was born on the fourth of July so that makes her a firecracker baby. Here's to my firecracker!

Happy Birthday!

You were born, and so you're free. So happy birthday.

The health care plan

We'll be lucky if we even have social security and medicaid/medicare by the time the rich are done taking from the US taxpayer--that is to say: you and me buddy.

Skull and Crossbones

All of this shamelessly stolen from The Existentialist Cowboy

Bush promoted torture and for this he should be held accountable.

Bush belongs to at least one secret society: Skull and Bones.

You really should be reading the blog Len writes. He is calling the US government on all of their bullshit, including the bullshit terrorist attack on 9/11. I know some of the people who I read and who read me thinks the 9/11 terrorist attack happened just like our government said it did and that anybody else who thinks otherwise is a loony tunes BUT I think something fishy happened. Len lays it all out in a logical way so that even the most stubbornest and close minded individual can see it hasn't gone down the way we are led to believe.

The big greenie

Boy have I been neglecting this blog. Between work and school I am lucky if I read a blog post by you all let alone write something my own self. I had the weekend off and I didn't study or read or write. I did the bare minimum of housework and running errands. I played on Blip.fm of course. I don't really like myspace (although I have a page where I put my photos for family to look at and take and to let them know what's going on with me) and I use Twitter as another branch of Blip.fm more or less. I hated Facebook and lasted maybe a month on there before I closed the account. I have loved blogger. I have gotten to know so many good people through blogger and for that I am very grateful. But I just love, love, LOVE Blip.fm! I don't want to stop blogging and I don't see myself stopping any time soon but I need time to listen to the news and form opinions and then write about that--I started this blog as a place for me to be as political as I wanna be and that was really all I expected from it. Getting to know other bloggers and make friends is a great unanticipated bonus.

Anyway, where was I?, oh yeah, I didn't do WORK this past weekend. Hubby and I visited family. He visited his mother who is on her second round of chemo and is feeling really poorly, and I went to my daughter's to visit and hang out with the grandkids. Together hubby and I went to visit our niece and our newest grand nephew . We went to Bloomington and I went shopping for clothes. Lately when I go to the Goodwill I can find nothing. Not anything that fits me anyway. Since this economic downturn happened my favorite clothing store has been no good for me. Plus it seems that the stuff I like is coming back into style so I have to fight for it and I don't fight. It was getting to the point that I was going to have to go to a clothing store and buy something NEW! Imagine that? I mean besides shoes and underwear that is. I still haven't found a pair of sandals that I like which irritates me.

All I want in a sandal is something comfortable, stylish, well made and yet affordable. So no, I do not want to buy a pair of high heeled shoes or any heels at all really. They hurt your feet and you can't run in them. And no, I don't want to wear shoes that have no arch support or is made of cheap ass materials and is going to fall apart in no time flat. And no, I do not like shoes that don't have a strap to hold onto my heel. I don't want to have to think about what I'm wearing and hold on to them all the time with my toes. Fuck me--is that so hard? Shit all the stuff I've seen is ugly, nonfunctional and costs too much. So I'm wearing last year's sandals still and they are starting to look worn.

I hung out at my friend's for part of Sunday and we talked, did Yoga (I'm trying to get her to do Yoga with me), and played with her 5 year old daughter. She had this last kid right before she turned 40 and she tried mighty hard to talk me into also having another kid but I said oh hell no, no way in hell am I gonna do that. Now she calls me and complains about how tired she is. It takes a lot of energy to run around and keep up with the kids. Her oldest daughter has a girl who is around 3 years old now. My friend tells me she should have waited for hergrandkids , like I did, rather than go and get knocked up again. Anyway I'm 3 years older than her and I couldn't get pregnant again at that time even if I wanted to--I had already gone through menopause. She couldn't quite believe that but it was true. I'm still on my hormones although the doctors try to scare me with the big C word all the time. I am sorry but I don't want to be cold/hot/itchy/tired and dried up to boot--ready to kick to the curb. No! Not me.


But the good news is that I found a place that sells the skirts that I like and they are brand new to boot. They were on sale for $10 each and I got 3. Finding tops to match that I like is another problem altogether. I wanted cotton short sleeved, buttoned up blouses with the eyelet stitch embroidery and I wanted one white and one black. I settled for a black short sleeved blouse with a ruffle down the front and a white cotton top that can be worn off the shoulder and is cinched at the waist with some sort of elastic band. All of these clothes I bought new which is not like me.

Me, the recycle queen, the big greenie.

Today one of the members of the board was at the library and he was spraying the weeds in the garden. I asked him what he was using--was it green? He said it was round-up and that it was harmless--when it mixed with rain it became harmless he assured me. He is big time into landscaping and gardening and he belongs to these gardening clubs. They volunteer to keep up the gardens and landscaping for the library and so he comes over all the time and waters the grass and putters around. Since he's on the library board I must tolerate this use of poisonous chemicals for now, although I have brought it up several times that as a "green" library we need to use "green" gardening and pest control methods instead of just dumping poisonous chemicals all around. I make sure we recycle as much as possible anyway.

I wondered if he was really listening to what he said and could he realise that it didn't make any sense? Round-up is made to kill plants and in order to kill them it isn't "harmless."

Well I still have some reading to do for class tomorrow and I need to proof read my 2 page paper too. Just wanted to get something out here. Dear diary...indeed.

The School Among the Ruins

Beirut.Baghdad.Sarajevo.Bethlehem.Kabul.

Not of course here.

1.

Teaching the first lesson and the last
--great falling light of summer will you last
longer than schooltime?

When children flow
in columns at the doors
BOYS GIRLS and the busy teachers

open or close high windows
with hooked poles drawing darkgreen shades

closets unlocked, locked
questions unasked, asked, when

love of the fresh impeccable
sharp-pencilled yes
order without cruelty

a street on earth neither heaven nor hell
busy with commerce and worship
young teachers walking to school

fresh bread and early-open foodstalls


2.

When the offensive rocks the sky when nightglare
misconstrues day and night when lived-in

rooms from the upper city
tumble cratering lower streets

cornices of olden ornament human debris
when fear vacuums out the streets

When the whole town flinches
blood on the undersole thickening to glass

Whoever crosses hunched knees bent a contested zone
knows why she does this suicidal thing

School's now in session day and night
children sleep
in the classrooms teachers rolled close


3.

How the good teacher loved
his school the students
the lunchroom with fresh sandwiches

lemonade and milk
the classroom glass cages
of moss and turtles
teaching responsibility

A morning breaks without bread or fresh-poured milk
parents or lesson-plans

diarrhea first question of the day
children shivering it's September
Second question: where is my mother?


4.

One: I don't know where your mother
is Two: I don't know
why they are trying to hurt us
Three: or the latitude and longitude
of their hatred Four: I don't know if we
hate them as much I think there's more toilet paper
in the supply closet I'm going to break it open

Today this is your lesson:
write as clearly as you can
your name home street and number
down on this page
No you can't go home yet
but you aren't lost
this is our school

I'm not sure what we'll eat
we'll look for healthy roots and greens
searching for water though the pipes are broken


5.

There's a young cat sticking
her head through window bars
she's hungry like us
but can feed on mice
her bronze erupting fur
speaks of a life already wild

her golden eyes
don't give quarter She'll teach us Let's call her
Sister
when we get milk we'll give her some


6.

I've told you, let's try to sleep in this funny camp
All night pitiless pilotless things go shrieking
above us to somewhere

Don't let your faces turn to stone
Don't stop asking me why
Let's pay attention to our cat she needs us

Maybe tomorrow the bakers can fix their ovens


7.

"We sang them to naps told stories made
shadow-animals with our hands

washed human debris off boots and coats
sat learning by heart the names
some were too young to write
some had forgotten how"

Adrienne Rich

Uncle Sam

Yay! The midterm is over! We are now on the downhill slope. Still have 6 more papers to write but that is less than 10. Two of those papers are really small. I shouldn't even call them papers when they are only two pages to begin with. So looking at it like that, I only have 4 more papers to write. Excellent! Summer reading is in full swing. We are running out of prizes because we have so many kids signed up in the program. That's a good problem to have don't you think?

So to sum up I've been busy reading and writing and working. I have more yet to do. I have opinions about certain political issues but these concerns are on the back burner for now. I can tell you that I am pissed that we are still in a war and have even expanded that war into more countries but I'll rant about that another day. As usual, I will let the pictures do the talking for me.

Dad's Day

First off to all the fathers out there in blogland I want to wish you a happy Father's Day. That goes double for you Randal, Okjimm, Dean and you too Mathman. Any blogger daddies I left out I wish a happy daddy day to you as well. May I just say that without fathers there would be no mothers...

I have to work this weekend so I'll be heading off to work soon. Can you believe that in nut bag religious Indiana we don't get the lord's day off? It's true! But it's only for a few hours so no biggy.

I just finished coloring my hair for the millionth time. I got it cut off short and everyone was commenting upon that and then the snipes about the gray hair and the looks at my forehead got to be too much I suppose so I broke down and colored it one more time. Yesterday one of my favorite patrons (which is now up for review let me tell you) said I looked so young for my age but wasn't it a shame when I had so much gray hair? I smiled and told her I started going gray in my early 20s. The darker the hair the faster it goes, yup. But her comment bothered me. I guess until the entire mop is silver I'll continue to keep coloring it. When it is entirely silver I'll shave my head and let it all grow in like that.

That child upon my lap in the picture there just turned three years old a few weeks ago. I had him with me all day Friday and I don't know how many times I had to say this is my grandson and not my own personal kid. Thank goddess for that! I was wore out by the time I took him home. He is a cutie pie and very affectionate too but he wore me out. We went to a local fair and rode some rides. I bought him some cotton candy and some other junk food so that he got all hopped up on sugar which I immediately regretted. I forgot about the reason why I didn't let my kids eat so much candy, besides it not being good for them, and that is that it wound the kids up so it about drives you crazy. Finally I took him to the park in a nearby town (we live in the country if you don't remember) and he played with the other kids while I sat on the bench and read my book (Silent Spring by Rachel Carson--yes it is still relevant after all these years) and tried to relax. After I spoiled him rotten by taking him to McDonalds for dinner I took him home. That's the wonderful thing about grandchildren--when you are done you can return them to their parents ;~)

I try to get each grandkid for a day to spend extra special time with them alone and each kid just loves that. The other two wanted to know when they were next but the baby didn't care. He is still much too attached to his mommy to worry about me yet.

Well it's off to work I go. You all have a great day today, especially all you daddies!

P.S. As some of you know, my own daddy is gone so this is sort of a sad day for me. But I don't want to cry and be sad and I won't. My hubby is wished a very happy daddy's day as well!

The American Way of Life

My friend sent me this in an email. Perfect!

Puppets

I am still around folks--just working on papers, listening to blip.fm, and doing research on the computer. Did I mention that I am working at the library too? Today I have three programs I will be leading and we have two other programs later on in the afternoon that other staff will be leading. Today is our busy day of the week. Tuesdays I'm at school. The weekends are devoted to more research, writing, and housework/chores. That leaves Thursday and Friday to sort of slack off. So hang on, I'll be around sometime soon to visit with you. For now this picture will have to do:




Who calls the shots?

Jump

What I think of Wall Street and bankers in general!

Speaking : The Hero

Speaking: The Hero

I did not want to go.
They inducted me.

I did not want to die.
They called me yellow.

I tried to run away.
They courtmartialed me.

I did not shoot.
They said I had no guts.

I cried in pain.
They carried me to safety.

In safety I died.
They blew taps over me.

They crossed out my name
And buried me under a cross.

They made a speech in my home town.
I was unable to call them liars.

They said I gave my life.
I had struggled to keep it.

They said I set an example
I had tried to run.

They said they were proud of me.
I had been ashamed of them.

They said my mother should be proud.
My mother cried.

I wanted to live.
They called me a coward.

I died a coward.
They called me a hero.

by Felix Pollak

Quotes for the week

Randomeme4u has this meme for bloggers to complete. With research for weekly papers taking up my time, and the library too (both mine and the university's), and you know what is referred to as "having a life", I could use all the help I can get to get a post out there on the web. Besides, it's fun! And no, I haven't been by of late--sorry about that! Feel free to do this meme if you are tired of politics or too busy to do much else. Your mission this week, if you chose to accept it, is to list a few of your favorite quotes.

The mission statement I wish our library had:

"The public library is the people's free university."
Justin Winsor, 1879

And those other quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh and Gandi on the sidebar too.

Here's a great quote from a book I've recently finished reading:

"For some of us, however, role-playing reflected all the depreciating attitudes toward women which we loathed in straight society. It was a rejection of these roles that had drawn us to "the life" in the first place. Instinctively, without particular theory or political position or dialectic, we recognized oppression as oppression, no matter where it came from."
Audre Lorde, her opinion on butches/dykes/femes

[in the] "boasted land of freedom, it is often extremely tyrannical."
Mary Wollstonecraft, her view of England during her lifetime