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TechnoratiWhy We Risked Arrest for Single-Payer Health Care
On May 5, eight health care advocates, including myself and two other physicians, stood up to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the Senate Finance Committee during a "public roundtable discussion" with a simple question: Will you allow an advocate for a single-payer national health plan to have a seat at the table?
The answer was a loud, "Get more police!" And we were arrested and hauled off to jail.
The fact that a national health insurance program is supported by the majority of the public, doctors and nurses apparently means nothing to Sen. Baucus. The fact that thousands of people in America are dying every year because they can't get health care means nothing. The fact that over 1 million Americans go into bankruptcy every year due to medical debt - even though most of them had insurance when they got sick - means nothing.
And so, as the May 5 meeting approached, we prepared for another one of the highly scripted, well-protected events that are supposed to make up the "health care debate" using standard tools of advocacy. We organized call-in days and faxes to the members of the committee requesting the presence of one single-payer advocate at the table of 15. Despite thousands of calls and faxes, the only reply - received on the day before the event - was, "Sorry, but no more invitations will be issued."
We knew that this couldn't be correct. We had heard Sen. Baucus say on that very same day that "all options were on the table." And so, the next day, we donned our suits and traveled to Washington. We had many knowledgeable single-payer advocates in our group. And as the meeting started, one of us, Mr. Russell Mokhiber, stood up to say that we were here and we were ready to take a seat. And he was promptly removed from the room.
In that moment, it all became so clear. We could write letters, phone staffers, and fax until the machines fell apart, but we would never get our seat at the table.
The senators understand that most people want a national health system and that an improved Medicare for All would include everybody and provide better health care at a lower cost. These facts mean nothing to most of them because they respond to only one standard tool of advocacy: money, and lots of it.
The people seated at the table represented the corporate interests: private health insurers and big business and those who support their agenda. The people whose voices were heard all represented organizations which pay huge sums of money to political campaigns. These interests profit greatly from the current health care industry and do not want changes that will hurt their large, personal pocketbooks.
And so, we have entered a new phase in the movement for health care as a human right: acts of civil disobedience. It is time to directly challenge corporate interests. History has shown that in order to gain human rights, we must be willing to speak out and risk arrest. We must engage in actions that expose corporate fraud and corruption. We must make our presence known.
And that is why the eight of us, knowledgeable health care advocates and providers, most of us parents, some of us grandparents, spoke out one-by-one at the Senate Finance Committee. And it is why we will continue to speak out and encourage others to do the same. Our voices must be strong enough to drown out the influence of corporate dollars.
Health care must become the civil rights movement of this decade. The opportunity is here. And we can create a single-payer national health care system.
Yes, we can.
Dr. Margaret Flowers is a pediatrician in the Baltimore are and co-chairs the Maryland chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). Her statement was co-signed by Mark Dudzic, Labor Campaign for Single Payer; Russell Mokhiber, Single Payer Action; Carol Paris, M.D., PNHP; Katie Robbins, Healthcare-NOW!; Pat Salomon, M.D., PNHP; Adam Schneider, B'more Housing for All; and Kevin Zeese, ProsperityAgenda.us.
102 Comments so far
Show AllI just got off the phone with Sen. Baucus's assistant. He stated that single payer is not being represented due to 2 major things. 1) Single payer's organizations did not apply early enough to be a part of the roundtable discussions and 2) No Senator wants to be a part of "something that will not pass", i.e. no co-sponsors for Bernie Sanders's American Health Security Act of 2009.
This sure doesn't feel like a democracy; more like a Michael Moore movie.
"....no co-sponsors for Bernie Sanders's American Health Security Act of 2009."
I thought Ted Kennedy might step up to the plate. What a disappointment!
"It is time to directly challenge corporate interests. History has shown that in order to gain human rights, we must be willing to speak out and risk arrest. We must engage in actions that expose corporate fraud and corruption. We must make our presence known.....Our voices must be strong enough to drown out the influence of corporate dollars."
Thank you, Dr. Flowers!
"Get more police!" This should confirm that the U.S. does not function as a democracy.
AARP had a seat at the table. Who authorized them to negotiate for Seniors?
History reveals that banks have controlled our nation’s capitol since the founding of this country. Illinois Senator Durbin has served in the U.S. Senate since 1996 and in late April 2009 admitted that banks “own” Capitol Hill.
The healthcare industry owns Capitol Hill too. Maybe we need new candidates initiating campaigns today that represent the will of WE THE PEOPLE!
My local paper recently printed a column by Bill O'Reilly, concerned that Miss California was being "denied" freedom of speech. The average American knows nothing about the arrests of single payer advocates. I even related the story to a progressive friend of mine, who expressed disbelief and asked how I knew it was true. Unbelievable.
People can't just read Google News because it categorizes news by popularity, just as the media machine itself does.
I have assembled a list of links for good news sources. Please pass it around to people you care about.
http://activism101.ning.com
Unfortunately, I post articles to email list servers I'm on and forward things to friends and acquaintances all the time and it's just preaching to the choir. There are a handful of individuals I know, including my own family, who remain unconvinced about Single Payer. These are people I can never reach, because they listen to Rush and watch Fox News and blame the rising cost of health care on-- I kid you not-- illegal immigrants. When I expressed shock that my sister had to pay a couple of hundred dollars out of pocket for a test, when already several hundred dollars are deducted every year from her salary for the company health insurance plan, she said, "Oh well, they have to make their money somehow." It's as if these individuals really believe that health care should be a big business, based on profit, as long as they're still managing somehow to fork over the money for whatever their needs are.
Yes it is frustrating, but we still have to talk with people who don't agree with us on everything. Or else we are, as you say, preaching to the choir.
Joe
I agree fully! My wife is the same on the issue of single-payer but not because the same reasons you mention, rather that she doesn't want to 'pay for irresponsible citizens'
This is why I said the following;
The opportunity here may be "antitrust" which can hit the GOP while it's down, since they are what essentially the obstacle. (for the health care corporation interests with help from these corporations)
We the people need solidarity on an issue with bite. I believe this to be the New Oligopoly. Maybe more people can get behind this cause and more people will as they lose more jobs and wake up disenchanted to their corporate disenfranchisement. Right now their corporate jobs are the proverbial crack that feeds their consumerism.
It's my understanding that Senator Baucus is having the last of his five meetings this coming Tuesday - May 12. That leaves only one open day, tomorrow, to contact your Senators or commit to acts of disobedience for the purposes of publicity. (Thank you Dr. Margaret Flowers).
According to Dr. Flowers, Congress is on a tight deadline. They are supposed to have legislation by August and voted on in November. She believes that President Obama prefers single payer but can't really act on it politically unless there is sizeable public demand. The ideological Republicans would love to use this to their advantage and the health insurance & pharmaceutical companies are richer than God.
I've collected some toll-free numbers to reach the Congress. I have not tried all of them.
1-800-828-0498
1-800-459-1887
1-800-614-2803
1-866-340-2981
1-866-338-1015
I hope some of you will call tomorrow. We're running out of time.
Blueheeler: The good Dr. has drunk the Kool-Aid, "...President Obama prefers single payer but can't really act on it politically unless there is sizeable public demand." That is such glaring imbecility that followers of such ideas are doomed before they start.
Betrayal means "...gee I wish I could have done something, but I did nothing because you don't have billions to bribe me with and they do. Besides, it's my job to fuck you peasants to death and it'll be my ass if I don't. But I do sympathize with your fate, being eaten to death by the parasites who own me is a very slow painful death. I'll send a card to your funeral. Thanks for your vote, Sucker."
Peece/
Lucky, I agree with your anger, I wholeheartedly agree, but we have to play with the cards we are dealt.
If the Dr. can stimulate sizable public demand which Obama can not ignore then I'm with Dr. Flowers.
Who are you with?
With one meeting left, I think we are spending our energy in the wrong direction.
The opportunity here may be "antitrust" which can hit the GOP while it's down, since they are what essentially the obstacle. (for the health care corporation interests with help from these corporations)
Can we mount a front to reclaim the antitrust laws and diminish the powers of the New Oligopolies and in so doing, take the wind from the GOP sails all together?
I look at Oligopolies as a Team Monopoly and this is the key.
The Sherman Act was the first United States Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies. It falls under antitrust law.
Section 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine”
The Clayton Act of 1914 was passed to supplement the Sherman Act.
Both the Sherman and Clayton acts are now codified under Title 15 of the United States Code.
Since the mid-1970s, courts and enforcement officials generally have supported view that antitrust law policy should not follow social and political aims that undermine economic efficiency.[31] The antitrust laws were minimalized in the mid-1980s under influence of Chicago school of economics and blamed for the loss of economic supremacy in the world.[32]
[31] Ernest Gellhorn. William E. Kovacic. Stephen Calkins. Antitrust Law And Economics In A Nutshell. West Group Publishing. 2004. ISBN 0314257233 p. 105
[32] Harry First. Eleanor M. Fox. Robert Pitofsky. Revitalizing Antitrust in Its Second Century. Greenwood Publishing Group. 1991. ISBN 0899304397 p. xvii, 1
The Senate--100 millionaires laughing at us. The Senate, always the most corrupt and oligarchic part of our government. The Senate which does not even make a pretense of supporting the interests of ordinary Americans. The solution-- change the constitution and gt rid of the Senate.
This may seem like a trite comment from an ignorant foreigner but to me it sounds like you need to change the structure of your government.
It seems to me that it has gone off the rails.
Gone off the rails to the point that the lunatics have taken over the asylum however we need them to beat us down to a pulp before we can reform it.
"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
— Frederick Douglass, civil rights activist, Aug. 4, 1857
The U.S. Declaration of Independence Legalizes Our Unalienable Rights and Declares our Duty as Citizens to Reform Our Government When it Becomes Destructive of These Rights
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
It goes on to state we should only reform our government after “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Cromag: Right on!
thomas more get your sorry ass off this site you are a dissembler and an excuse man for the bush crime family and their ilk. single payer health will never pass when saboteurs like you infest this discussion
Oh that Thomas More blogging on this site were the main obstacle to single payer.
Joe
Thomas More is strongly in favor of single payer if you had actually read up on his posts. It's Obama and the corrupt Democratic leadership as well as the GOP that isn't. I know we may have our disagreements with TM but on this issue, he's strongly with us. Hell, even my conservative parents are begging for single payer healthcare but feel free to "blame" them as well !
I was trying to be wry and to defend TM from what I thought was an undeserved blanket condemnation.
Joe
Ok, my apologies for my misinterpretation.
Dr. Flowers was a rare example of a doctor who put quality care over quantity-driven care. Like almost any other profession, greed and aggression have been the dominant factors. The so-called "pro-lifers" could actually learn from such sweetheart pediatricians as the honorable Dr. Flowers who fought as a braveheart, win or lose. To me, she was not only a pediatrician but also like a loving mother fighting for healthcare for all just like the other braveheart single payer advocates. I have already written some tough letters and some of my neighbors who read about this did the same and a couple of elderlies who had a discussion with my parents on this issue. Despite my parents, having come over to visit, being conservative while my elderly neighbors were liberal, when it came to discussing the issue of single payer healthcare, we all had so many heartfelt reasons for wanting the plan to pass and it was never about money. We know that our letters will not be read by our corrupt pols but we wrote them anyway and we plan to share our sentiments with our local newspapers and see how many more voters will continue to tolerate bad pols in Washington like this. Some people will try to bully us into believing that "he/she is not electable, not a viable candidate, too this or that, too purist, blah-blah-blah" crap but it's high time that more of the electorate quit falling for the election circus frenzy and learn to vote with their hearts and minds for a change. When this happens, Dr. Flowers will no longer be forced into persecution for trying to fight for a better healthcare system for us all.
Excellent reply!
Thank you Dr. Flowers.
I agree, health care should become the civil rights movement of this decade.
"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law." MLK
Thank you Dr. Flowers, for the brave action you and the others took in fighting for "Single Payer" health care for all. After the way the single payer advocates were treated by the Democrats, let alone the Republican Crime Family, it should be clear to any sane person that the politicians in Congress do not represent the common people. "Taxation without representation!"
Not only have they violated their oath of office, but they could care less about progressive legislation. Writing letters, sending emails, signing petitions, calling their office staff, faxes, etc. doesn't budge these hypocrites and political prostitutes. This type of passive action is what they prefer, and when people actually show up, or demonstrate, they feel threatened, and are ready to call the cops and play rough.
Taking care of the public's health needs should be a priority. Why shouldn't a portion of our tax dollars go for providing health services when a person needs treatment? Has our morality sunk so low as a nation that we shy away from our fellow citizens when they need help the most?
When our taxes are being spent for waging death, destruction, misery and suffering abroad, through the Pentagon's Department of War Making (aka the "Defense" Department), and these shyster politicians who readily give our honestly earned money to the biggest bunch of conniving money lenders the world has ever seen, the "international bankers" on Wall Street, rather than for a nationalized system of health care, something is wrong with the system.
Only when the public is ready to demand Single Payer, with no compromises for the the pencil pushing insurance bosses (executive is too nice of a word to use in describing them), nothing will change.
Learn the magic mantra which is seven words, and in your communities, start preparing for it.
"Take to the streets, withhold your labor."
Very well said. I thought that last year itself when Congress and the White House strongly fought to bail out Wall $treet was itself a strong crystal clear indicator that Washington chooses not to listen to its constituents. And yet the electorate still chose status quo, Mccain or Obama, over a real chance for change. Maybe we have to go back to the drawing board and do what the NRA did to win its causes. Connect the local elections to the state and then to the federal. While this would take at least a decade to bring in better local pols to Washington, this would eventually force Washington to be more open-minded even if the monied elites won't go down without a fight. It's amazing that I am finding a growing number of local conservatives actually opposing the wars and even begging for single payer finally understanding the consequences of longer term unemployment and struggling without healthcare when they really need it and yet the pols in Washington still side with Big Insurance and Big Pharma against single payer.
Considering the fact that perpetual war + global warming + economic collapse = doomsday, dare we put off taking control of our government for another decade?
Thank you for the compliment. For a year and a half before the election, progressives and, may I call them "traditionalists?", went back and forth on CD about the best and the worse of the candidates, and some posters really got into the mud throwing.
Many were so fearful of McCain winning, they threw their lot in with Obama, knowing full well that Kucinich, McKinney, and Nader were by far the best of the candidates, but were scared to take the chance. I'm Green Party, and voted for McKinney. As you can see, the Democrats are just as corrupt as the Republicans. They serve the same $$$ interests.
While no party can be corrupt-free, I can only hope that virtually every 3rd party has learned its lessons from both the Democratic and Republican Parties. After watching Kucinich, Mckinney, Paul, etc ... getting crushed by their own Democratic and Republican party rank and files, I gave up hope of considering myself re-registering as a Democrat or Republican and stayed Independent. I wanted to vote for both Mckinney and Nader but between the two of them, I was hamstrung as to which to pick. I finally thought that I'll just have to give Nader a third one in a row and be done with it. I really wished that Nader had stayed in the Green Party and would have helped strengthen it for the last 8 years but I understand what the party went through so much as I disagreed with his decision to run outside the Green Party, I respected it and as usual kept voting on the issues. There were some issues where I had no clue as to where Mckinney stood on those so that's what tipped me to Nader since I knew his positions on a greater number of issues than I had on Mckinney. A Nader/Mckinney ticket would have been a much stronger ticket but alas it all had to end up this way. :_(
They will never change a thing.
Like the IRS, "healthcare" (American Style) keeps the citizens scared and working extra hard.
Washington and Wall Street will have none of this silliness called Single Payer.
Now all of you...GET BACK TO WORK!
Twenty Thousand Dead Last Year For Want Of Health Care
"Cause of death?"
"The privatization of health care."
"Caused by."
"Greed."
"Contributing factors?"
"Take care of number one."
"The answer being?"
"A single payer health care system."
If a person held you at gunpoint and demanded 'your money or your life.' You'd either shoot him, or call the cops if he just took your money. So, why do doctors and the health insurance companies get away with doing the exact same thing?
I've argued before in these healhcare topics that socialized h/c is just like having socialized fire departments and police. Perhaps you yanks should start calling the cops on your health care providers.
Charge them with extortion.
Charge them with uttering death threats.
Charge the politicians with aiding and abbeting known criminals.
"Our elected officials have clearly demonstrated that they are not public servants but are, in truth, paid mercenaries of the vastly wealthy." This sums up our dilemma. In DC $$ talks and BS walks. The pols care nothing about all of us. They have great health care paid for by us but that's because they're entitled according to Sen. Specter.
Good job, Dr. Flowers!
We might as well have a Surgeon General that says "Warning. The American health system can be dangerous to your health."
I'm not a resident of your country now, I am back home in Australia -- however I was living there during the Bush regime, and one thing that always stuck out for me was when, during one of the "debates" between Bush and John Kerry, Bush made a statement something like:
"...the world is in envy of our health system..."
I almost puked on the spot, knowing the difference between the US and Australian health system. I thought at the time that the American people would not put up with this kind of talk, that politicians would do the right thing -- yet here it is some years later and a Democrat is having citizens arrested for wanting to have representation at an event so important and impacting on the people.
Surely the President will act and some commonsense will prevail?
"Surely the President will act and some commonsense will prevail?"
You can't confront your state of denial, can't you? The USA is not a democracy, it is an oligarchy. The democracies of the world could, like they did with South Africa, put a lot of pressure on the US to reform it's institutions if they wanted to.
Don't count on it. Our Congress, both House and Senate has been bought and paid for by the corporate interestss. If the insurance companies and Big Pharma do not want single payer health care, it does not matter what the people want.
The so-called elections are nothing but "Bread and circuses" for the riff-raff people. We only have one political party in this country and it is the coorporate party with two branches, some of whom are against humanity and others who are against any but the corporate interestss. You figure out which is which - they are interchangeable.
I used to think that the mounting number of unemployed (and therefore impossible to privately insure) would cause even the stanchest opponents to Single Payer or the President's modest Public Option idea to concede that those minnows were never going to be worth catching and that they deserved Medicaid. I was silly enough to even think that the H1N1 scare would be the tipping point.
Now I know that nothing is going to separate the primacy of the free market rhetoric from these Robber Barons. We are going to have to terminate the careers of several politicians before they terminate us by spreadsheet.
It is not surprising that Senator Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, cares nothing about a national health insurance program that is supported by the majority of the public, doctors and nurses; cares nothing about the thousands of people who die every year because they can't get health care; cares nothing about the more than one million citizens who go into bankruptcy every year due to medical debt - even though most of them had insurance when they got sick.
This is the same Senator Baccus who voted to defeat Illinois Senator Durban’s legislation that would have given judges the ability to adjust distressed homeowners’ mortgage terms in bankruptcy proceedings and avoid foreclosure. Senator Durban asked, “Why is it in this country, in America, that we can find hundreds of billions of taxpayers' dollars from hard-working people all over the United States to come to the rescue of bad banking decisions, rotten investments, mortgages that were fraudulent on their face, but can't summon the political will to do something about 8 million families in America who are going to face foreclosure?” He answered his own question, "Frankly, this place is owned by the banks."
A similar question, why is it in this country, in America, that we can find hundreds of billions of taxpayers' dollars to come to the rescue of bad banking decisions, rotten investments, mortgages that were fraudulent on their face, but can't summon the political will to do something about the millions of our fellow citizens who can’t get the health care they need or go bankrupt due to their medical debts? The answer is the same old story. Senator Baccus is a large recipient of health insurance and drug company donations. Facts mean nothing to most Senators because they respond to only one standard tool of advocacy: money, and lots of it. The Senate is not only owned by the banks, it is also owned by the current wealthy health care corporate interests.
The non-partisan Center for Public Integrity, "Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown?" reports that mega-banks unbridled political contributions and massive lobbying created the lack of regulation and oversight that led to this financial crisis. It asks where is the accountability…for what has happened? The same might be asked about health care reform. Where is the accountability for our current dismal health situation?
Thank you Dr. Flowers and the others of the Baccus Eight, for your courage and selflessness in speaking truth to power.
Greetings fellow Kansan. It looks like your governor is about to become HHS. How was Sebelius on the issue of healthcare and does she support single payer?
Before Sebelius was governor she was the commissioner of insurance. Her father was also a governor of another state. He now works for a pr-lobby group that has insurance as one of their clients. I don't have all the details at my finger tips, but I did a little research on her when her name first came up. She got the HHS job because she worked hard to get Obama elected and she share's his views on never forgetting where the money comes from. And I'd just like to add, as everyone is focused on congress in this thread, that none of this would be happening without Obama's approval.
For all that trouble Sebelius went through, she couldn't deliver KS to Obama. Thanks for the details on her. I guess she was another pseudo-populist after all. :(
One victory....we need one victory on an issue of this importance to help citizens to realize we have the power...just ONE victory!
Lets set a date and see how many will show up in DC from all over the country.The summer of 2010 just before the elections since that is the only thing politicians understand.Start keeping score now on our own reps and if we can help to defeat some of these assholes we do what we can.If someone has a better timetable bring it up.1 million folks;can we?I don't fly but there are other ways and my ass would be there.Tony
I want to do it, but how do those of us who live so far away get there? I can't afford airfare or gas for the long drive, lodging, food, and time off from work.
Let us start the damn ball rolling. WE HAVE ALL HAD ENOUGH.
Thank you, Doctor Flowers -- what grace, to work on a sick system as well as a patient.
Dramatic action is required.
At the next "public" hearing, fill the room with projectile vomiters and the incontinent who don't mind raising a "stink'.
Can you be arrested for being sick ???
Meetings should be booked with key legislators - vomit all over their cozy house and senate office might make a point.
Organize a "piss" in at the capital (and White House and every other public building including Raygun Airport and Dullass, where volunteers spend hours in line at the urinals and bring their lunch to all stalls - thanks Saul Alinsky ...
Bring the need for public health care to the people and their representatives
Several thousand cancer kids posed on the capital steps.
I am not making light of their plight... it is not until the world can see (and smell) the national tragedy that is unwinding ...
I not only have a right to single-payer health, I have the right to be sick in public until there is a system which can help me...
Let's do it!
The Senators and Congressman should have their government subsidized health care cut off. Of course most of them are fairly wealthy, so it would not hit them the way it does most people.
A pediatrician asks to discuss single payer health care. The answer - "More police". Classic and iconic.
Joe
Here we are, listening to and admiring these folks that risked arrest...BUT, is ONE of us willing to do the same? How about thousands? Millions? Reality: Most of us are cowards. At least I can admit it. If enough of us do the same, maybe that truth will set us free.
We ALL need to be in the streets. Has not the Obama deception shown us anything? What we need to happen will NOT happen until millions march on DC. You may all rationalize yourselves into oblivion, but underneath it all, YOU KNOW THIS IS THE ONLY ANSWER.
I volentered!
I'm here. I'm on the same page.
So, here we are! Now...how do we get a few million more to join the march?....
Keep hammering away, make signs for your front yard and stick them to walls, stop signs, stuff like that. And tell your kids to spray paint it on the freeway overpasses!:)Do mass emails.
mustbefree May 9th, 2009 8:52 pm......It's a beginning...gives us a year......email all and make it so, eh??
Dr. Flowers,
I applaud you and your organization for speaking on my behalf in that so-called "...public roundtable discussion..." to "reform" health care.
I watched it. I thought you were very effective. NO ONE snickered nor laughed that I could hear.
I could not believe what I was seeing. And I could not understand the exclusion of a voice for universal, single-payer health care. At first I wanted to think that it was a given that was being compared with 'corporate health care,' as represented in the meeting. Yeah, right. Assume nothing. Then the 'Hon.' Senator will say that no organization made its beliefs known, did not apply, yada, yada, yada. I did not see the third meeting. I wonder what happened then?
Call 800-578-4171 and press 0 to leave a message for the White House or 1 to leave a message for Sen. Baucus.
Here is another related example of putting big-business money before people.
The American Cancer Society's mission statement says it is dedicated to "preventing cancer and saving lives—through research education, advocacy, and service." Yet what the Society seems to do best is accumulate wealth.
Both the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society (ACS) are fixated on damage control—screening, diagnosis, and treatment—and genetic research, and are largely indifferent to cancer prevention.
Of an approximately $4.6 billion 2003 budget, the NCI allocated less than one percent to researching occupational cancers, even though they are the most preventable cancers. Over 10 percent of adult cancer deaths result from occupational exposures, which are also a recognized cause of cancer in children: parents exposed to carcinogens on the job often expose their unborn children to the same cancer-causing chemicals. And while the NCI says that diet accounts for roughly one-third of all cancers, it spends just $1 million on education, media, and public outreach to promote the consumption of fruits and vegetables for cancer prevention, while ignoring well-documented evidence that produce contaminated with carcinogenic pesticide residues increases risk. It also fails to educate the public about the cancer risks posed by a wide range of industrial by-products and contaminants, particularly dioxin.
The cancer establishment has been most negligent in its failure to provide Congress, regulatory agencies, and the public with well-documented scientific evidence of known cancer risks. This information is essential for Congress if it is to protect the public by legislating or banning the addition of recognized carcinogens, from food additives to pesticides.
...It is time for the cancer establishment to deploy its considerable war chest toward implementing meaningful cancer prevention strategies and eliminating the toxic output of industry. We must put lives before profits. Only then will we begin to make real progress in the war on cancer.
Read more at www.preventcancer.com
Reposted on www.Activism101.ning.com
Sioux Rose
CROMAG: A good friend of mine was the head of the American Cancer Society in Puerto Rico about 15 years ago. She told me the majority of $ collected went to salaries, and provided similar statistics on the appalling lack of funds for things that matter. It's similar with other disease-oriented organizations. Diabetes seems to me the one that could most easily turn conditions around since the introduction of so much corn syrup and sugar into unnatural foods (in babies even!) predisposes bodies towards this condition in response. Instead of teaching dietary changes, particularly in poor families, too much money is made in helping people to MAINTAIN these out of balance conditions.
I'm sure you've noticed that TV has countless drug ads, and some of the conditions being spoken about are ordinary: restless leg syndrome? Here's my MEDICINE: take a f--king walk! Your legs are restless from NO exercise! The virility drugs crack me up, that warning about the 4 hour erection... I'd like to see Saturday Night Live do a parody on that one, where perhaps he's good looking and the women are lined up around the block. Kind'a like sitting on Santa's lap. (I have to make myself laugh at something, the condition of our nation would otherwise make me sick, as it no doubt has millions.)
Another thing that really pisses me off is liability! How many people are ill due to exposure to toxic chemicals in their food, water, air, soil or via products they use around their homes? How about sick buildings? The net effect of a profligate use of toxic chemicals has rendered some persons far more susceptible than others. Tragically a climate of relative impunity is created as there are SO MANY toxic offenders, a decent lawyer would have much difficulty establishing a case without reasonable doubt. So under Bush the EPA stops doing regulatory work, and the FDA pretty much allows payoffs from Big Pharma to determine which products get the proverbial rubber stamp. Once enough people break down, the product is pulled from the market. What fun to be a Guinea Pig population! Downwinders like those living in NYC after 911, are told the air is perfectly safe, and now with so many unregulated products coming to us from other lands, safety protocols are a joke. Everything falls apart, no center holds when integrity fails to carry any meaning, and so many industries serve mammon (naked proft/the love of $) or Mars (militarism and its catalogue of increasingly lethal toys.) What a national ethos the US has bowed down to!
Good points about the proliferation of drug advertisements. "Ask your doctor about..." and fill in the blank with the expensive medication you DON'T need. Shouldn't it be, "Ask your doctor how good nutrition, exercise, and more vacation time can help you"? I can't keep up with all of these meds anymore. Every other person I meet is on antidepressants and you can't possibly convince them that they don't need these things-- because they ALL have "chemical inbalances." Yet, antidepressants aren't enough. The other evening I saw a commercial for a new drug- I kid you not- that is supposed to be taken when your antidepressant is not enough! It's called "Abilify." I couldn't even understand what it does or why you would need a supplement to your Prozak, Wellbutrin, or whatever else you might be taking.
Sioux Rose
NMLIB: It's the biological (or physiological) complement to "Disaster Capitalism." Why would a person NOT be depressed in these times? So if they wreck the nation enough and people feel depressed, how Orwellian to treat their depression, rather than the very valid collective estate that is the reason for it! INSANE R'U.S.
"The virility drugs crack me up, that warning about the 4 hour erection... I'd like to see Saturday Night Live do a parody on that one,"
Ask and you shall receive...
http://www.dailymotion.com/video
/x4rkbm_dr-porkenheimers-boner-juice_fun
SIOUX ROSE: Those are some strong words and they need to focus on change but not necessarily the Obama way. "The greatest merit no longer goes to those who resolve problems but those who create them." Dissidents like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Dr. Margaret Flowers. That is the type of leadership we need from the public, for the public.
“In my country we go to prison first and then become President” Mandela.
PS If I had an erection lasting longer than four hours I probably be telling all my friends! LOL
Thank you Margaret Flowers for your service. I have written a stern letter to Baucus and made clear that I and others in my family would contribute and work for his defeat during the next election; and, that he is not insulated from the People and to think about that real hard. If your organization could set up a beat Baucus fund we could begin to fill the coffers well beyond what the insurance industry would do. Please consider this idea. It will generate a lot of funds to beat the sob.
I don't think it would be easy to out-bid the insurance industry. Baucus is dragging some serious swag: he took in $11,602,479 in 2008 (In total, not just insurance, although insurance was ranked third behind securities and investments and lawyers and law firms. Think Goldman Sachs and AIG, two other major shareholders of stock in the senator allegedly from Montana.)
This doesn't count the campaign donation of compliant media, which also rewards those who go along to get along and punishes those that don't. I'd love to see Baucus and Pelosi made an example of what an aroused voting public is capable of despite the uneven playing field.
I agree. How can the average US citizen donate money to someone's campaign (or to try to get the evil Senators, like Baucus, defeated) when we're competing with wealthy corporations and powerful lobbying groups?
We don't have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We have a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.
Excellent idea. He is not my rep., but I'll donate. At worst, maybe, we would scare him by sheer money.
Baucus (or should I say Bachus?) is not my representative either, but I "chipped in" some money for his campaign expecting him to be a ray of light compared to the Republican incumbent he'd challenged. What I got in return was his "We Won!" email and this shite of his. I'm thinking now of sending him a letter asking him to give me back my "micro" contribution since he's not up to his promisses.
Representative democracy is inherently corrupt, so much so, that it built during the time self-protection measures only a constitutional make-over could override. How many Paul Wellstones did we have in decades - and what happened to many of them? They were exceptions to the rule, aberration the current political model cannot tolerate. (Anyway, I'll join you in funding Baucus' opponent.)
I'm pretty much a radical lefty (from American perspective), but I could live with a social democracy of Western European type, knowing that direct democracy is still just a dream of humankind, a Utopia.
BTW, what happened to American communitarian spirit? Who killed it?
I'll be happy to chip in with you. Time to clean the garbage out of Congress.
Bravo!! And well stated. Thank you for taking the stand!
This is what I have been saying and what is being called "The New Oligopoly"
The New Oligopoly is made up of multinational corporations that have chosen specific product or service categories to dominate. They are powerful enough to control government, which to remind us is suppose to be made up of "we the people" with "civic virtue." They have changed the laws to make this a reality and we cannot let them get away with it. The existence of an oligopoly such as the ones recently referred to as "too big to fail" are now forcing us to rescue them. It is an insidious and unethical system that needs complete reform.
http://activism101.ning.com/profiles/blogs/oligonomy-defined
Where do I sign-up to stand by your side next time we need to represent single-payer healthcare?
Dr. Flowers, I honor you for putting your own body on the line for us. Insanity is arresting doctors for trying to provide health care for all of us. The outrage is that the American people don't even know what's happening.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Sioux Rose
KATHY: Is it any less insane than locking up those who advocate for peace and protest war? Any less insane than locking up those who smoke the peace pipe/plant instead of those who demand guns and get loaded on alcohol which frequently unleashes their violent impulses? Any less insane than locking up Father Dear and the small group who protest torture and the School of Assasins that has taught its methods throughout Central America? Any less insane than locking up persons for petty theft, yet GIVING boatloads of $ to those that BROKE the U.S. economy?
The U.S. has OFFICIALLY forfeited sanity... perhaps that explains the high numbers that are addicted, on anti-depressants, obese, or using all manner of street drugs just to make it through another day. Lives of quiet desperation have gotten louder!
Thank you, Margaret Flowers and the other seven members of the Baucus Eight. I am deeply grateful to you for your willingness to be arrested rather than be quiet on this issue of such personal importance to millions of us who are not only your fellow citizens, but your patients.
Yesterday I had gotten discouraged by people here in this liberal forum who were calling single payer advocates purists and selfish and impractical and saying we just didn't know how things work. Today, I am not discouraged; I am inspired again by my fellows. I will not be distracted by the mind guards who would limit our attempts to make democracy work for all of us and not just those who benefit from the current cash flow. I will keep working for single payer, not only as a triumph for healthcare, but as the turning point in reclaiming our government.
Thank you.
I must have missed yesterday, but in any case, Obama and the Democrats have killed single payer insurance. Dead as the Dodo bird. Its terrible that we have been betrayed by the folks that we thought were on our side, but thats the way it is.
Resignation. WHY do we give up so easily? Feaq! I say it's fear! Any dispute??
None. I'm disabled, but I could talk someone into helping me out.
We are and have been in the dark ages of health care. We would rather spend billions and trillions on military and weapons programs and use our finest scientific minds in building them than use them for finding cures for illnesses and diseases. We would rather leave our health care to a system that really only cares about one thing. Money. We would rather spend billions more on power grabbing around the world than work to end hunger and poverty. As a species we suck. I am a bear that can only laff at all this insanity.
Sioux Rose
LAFFING BEAR: The whole premise that THE people are not being listened to, considered or respected places this concept of "WE" in a considerably different light. Persons who study the human mind go on to develop buzz words and the ways and means to frame issues to create an illusion of public consent. Be careful what you presume this "WE" consents to. A majority expected Obama to really start to change foreign policy AWAY from war. MILLIONS of dollars go into shaping a public consensus on the basis of false information and often alluring "experts" reciting their "testimony" without views presenting a true contrast being aired or published. It would be one thing if a thinking public actually went along with these policies; but it's quite another matter when the policies are made regardless. It is TREASON to me because NONE of these choices reflect MY beliefs or values (nor do they reflect the tenets of The Constitution) and yet they are being done in my name. AS someone else related the other day, he retracts his consent... the consent of being governed by such as these. Makes sense to me!
Until we have single payer healthcare, WE DO NOT HAVE A DEMOCRACY!!!!!
Don't allow our greedy, self-centered, lily-livered, corporate-loving congressional personnel to tell us what we are going to get!!!!!!!
Tell them what to get for us - or get ready to find other employment at the end of their term! This includes you, Mr. President!!!
Call or write to your representatives and the President!
The very thought that hospitals and health care are for profit propositions strikes me as OBSCENE !!
Too bad we have to pay our insurance premiums...
Perhaps it is time to stop paying the insurance companies. I know that at least here in Oregon the hospitals are required to give care in the emergency room. Might be the ultimate civil protest just stop buying any thing. You have to stop feeding the beast that is killing us. By the way since Obama thinks it is alright to wage war on innocent people in Afganistan and Iraq amoung other places the Obama bumper sticker is off the bus.
Some of us don't, though there are reasons one would. Insurance companies use the money we give them to buy politicians.
The fact that both the Democrats and the Republicans will not pass the Single Payer Health Care bill is a clear indication that these corporate parties are working to improve the ability of the very wealthy to get even more wealthy -- and to cut any programs to meet the needs of our society or to protect our environment.
We are reeling from the effect of the unlimited greed of the bankers and stock brokers allowed by our elected officials by the deregulation of the banking system and the repeal of the regulations put in after the 1929 crash. We lost once with the the theft of the assets and a second time by the massive bailout of the very people that caused the collapse of our financial system.
Our elected officials have clearly demonstrated that they are not public servants but are, in truth, paid mercenaries of the vastly wealthy.
A new civil rights movement for health care will not mend this situation. We need a civil rights movement for democracy. We need representatives that will really represent the people and vote on the advice of their constituents---not to please their contributors.
We must form new political parties and allow and fund candidates to replace the corrupt current members of Congress.
I suggest we form a political party that has the values of the Democratic party of the 1930s. We need the NEW DEAL DEMOCRATS whose platform is Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights. Under that SEcond Bill of Rights, all of us have the right to a job, with wages enough for food, clothing and shelter, farmers have the right to sell their crops at a price that allows their families a decent living, the right to medical care, the right to be protected from economic fears of old age, sickness, accident or unemployement, and the right to a good education.
Do you want to be a NEW DEAL DEMOCRAT?
wantrealdemocracy: I certainly agree with your comments. Many of us have said similar things about the "Republicrats" for a long time. I was a lifelong Dem, voting for the lesser of two evils, but as Ralph Nader said, "you still wind up with evil," and switched to the Green Party. We have our problems as well, but nothing like the Dems.
The thing is, and many folks won't admit it, but our politicians (many of the Jewish ones as well) secretly admired the way the Nazis dismantled democracy in Germany and terrorized their own people before they invaded other countries in their insane and diabolical method for the 1,000 year plan for peace and prosperity. The Reichstag fire set the plan in motion, and in the 'Project For A New American Century,' there is a yearning for a "new Pearl Harbor" to rally the people for letting Big Brother control and protect us. I think the evidence is clear about 9/11 and the Patriot Act and all the rest of the illegal laws voted for since, by the Democratic Party collaborators of the Republican Crime Family.
We know how Republicans think: they're up front about it, but the deceit of the Democrats is even worse, because they give their constituents hope, for legislation they don't intend to pass.
Sioux Rose
PEACEMAN: The quest for absolute power corrupting absolutely knows no religious boundary, and it's pretty scary when religion--primarily the Calvinistic approach-applauds such behavior by placing into a context of individualized success.