Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Silent Night, Lonely Night 2010
Susan Boyle sings on CNN. Life marches on. Richard Holbrooke is dead. Rest in peace, Ambassador. It is said you put up a valiant fight. Here I sit in Kansas City. No one knows I am alone; no one would grieve if I should die. No breaking news here. Just an American with no standing. Just an American no one really cares about.
I want this to end. I want healthcare to be a public good not a private commodity. It is a private good too, but we seem to have to fight the reality over and over again.
I do not want my doctors and nurses to begrudgingly provide me care on faith that my insurance or Larry's supplemental will pay. I want care. Period. I want Christmas back.
I don't want Congress to waste time repealing Obamacare, though I do not support insurance purchase mandates. I want Congress to believe in and pass an amendment to the Social Security Act of 1935 and extend Medicare to all. Simple. Elegant. Work to amend and protect later. Now make it real.
Let's pass it and then fix it and make it what we want it to be. Medicare for all. Peace for all. Christmas for all.
Just do it. Extend Medicare to all. Improve it. Expand it. Demand it. Public financing and private delivery. Healthcare for all. Cut the bull. Spare me the explanations. Just do the math. And then pass healthcare for all. Medicare for all. And then let's go to work making it what it needs to be.
Onward, my friends. Onward. And maybe someday soon I'll be home with Larry, and hugging him and loving him before the final curtain calls. Larry, I love you. I love you. And someday I'll spend my days with you and resting my head on your chest. The safest place I have ever known on this earth. First the love of a newlywed and then the adoration of your wife and partner for 35 years. My life is your life. My peace is your peace. My failure is your failure and then your love and comfort all over again.
One single standard of high quality care for all. Trailer trash. High roller condo owners. Onward, my friends. Let's just get this done. For our economic health; for our public health; for our middle class health; for our national economic health. Onward. Push through the craziness and allow moms and dads and wives and husbands and regular folks own the reality and the love. It's time to fight for each other.
Merry Christmas. Come home and love your home enough to protect it. Peace. Frenzied peace on earth. Love. Love. Love. Merry Christ-mass. Christ. Love. Merry birth. Healing for all. And peace for all, goodwill on earth. Don't shoot more animals to prove substance. Produce substance. Health. Peace on earth as protected by all.
Love in practice. Merry Christmas.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
20 Comments so far
Show AllDonna, in Congress the Holy Grail is power. They have power now, but they don't have enough. They want more, they want it all. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. The path to power is paved with money. Just follow the money. They will tell you to go suck a rock.
I'm with you all the way Donna. Too bad we 'need' to finance an arrogant militarist interventionist for no good reason foreign policy to the tune of over a trillion dollars a year. Too bad we pay interest of a half trillion dollars a year on the money we BORROW for those infernal never ending wars. Too bad we have to finance a thousand worldwide military bases.
"We" can't AFFORD medical care for all. Sorry, Donna. We just cannot afford the logical, humane, and human need to fulfill your, OUR, plea. I'm with you. "WE" just can't afford it though.
Too much profit to be made building drones, cruise missles, bombs, depleted uranium artillery shells and M16 ammo, just too damn much "need" for WEAPONS for killing strangers that have never done any of us any harm.
Also, it's just too much fun killing people to stop now and spend the money more humanely. (General James Mattis: 'It's fun to shoot some people') Too much psychopathy in our "leaders". I despair. I am depressed. I am sickened.
"We" have a choice. Healing or Killing. Our country has made its choice.
We love you Donna, please stick around a little longer. And if you can't many of us will still continue to fight. You will become a saint, you've passed the test. You've performed miracles already. You have driven me out of my cynical shell to think that Medicare for all is a needed and practical necessity. All you want is decent treatment for all of humanity. That is all the saints ever want.
There will never be such a thing as Medicare for All in America and you want to know why? It's just "inconvenient". I learned this from my recent visit to my 85 year old grandmother. I can go and visit her with my family who will sit there for hours treating it like a social gathering. But talking about the faults of our hospitals and the need for health care for all is socially unwelcome to them. I keep getting reminded about my grandfather amidst all this. He refused angioplasty and passed away at the age of 65 when I was a kid. My mother once said that he believed in mental health care for everyone. She would never understand why he preferred migrating to the UK instead of the US but I now think I know why. He had a keen interest in listening to those who thought outside the box. He would have been 92 today had he lived.
Ah but if health care for all existed in America, "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays" would be nothing more than obvious frivolous greetings. I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather. Best wishes to you sir.
Merry Christmas Donna. You exemplify the Spirit of Christmas! For you and your loving husband have brought home the personal story of the failure of this country to care for its' citizens. That failure cannot be redeemed. You however, are. Bless you.
Love you Donna. The greatest kindness we can do for each other is to look out for one another. Isn't healthcare one form of looking out for one another? Some folks think that if everyone gets healthcare, that they are going to lose money or their own healthcare. Some think that if I get healthcare, then theirs costs more! I just want access to medical options too. I think that's fair. We all should have healthcare as a basic human right. There should be zones in our lives where the 'business model' should not apply.
Goodness, Donna, you just kind of blew me away with your thoughts. I spent much of this weekend crying. You see, last month I went for a mammogram after many years because I started going back to the clinic this past summer. It was hard for me to do this because I first had to forgive me doctor for pushing Paxil on me in 1999 and the massive damage that ensued to my body, my soul, my mind and my finances. So I get this note in the mail on Saturday: "We would like additional views and sonogram of right breast." I could do this for a reduced fee, as it's not at the clinic and not part of women's services, where I qualify for free because I am within 240% of the poverty guidelines. I am working up the courage to call and find out what the "reduced" rate. But, more importantly, I realized that here I am in what I've realized but rarely give voice to: A positive is a death sentence, period.
On the other hand, maybe I'll dodge a bullet again -- this time. In '93 I had a needle biopsy on the left that was benign.
I am also awaiting results of a uterine sonogram that I just had last week.
The worst thing is that I'm tired all the time and I've got a lot of pains and such, but I've been putting it all down to being 54 and going through all those fun changes. Who knows. But, yes, I feel very lonely right now. I keep telling myself that I matter, as we all do.
SAMAL: I wish you a clean slate. Tests are not always accurate. I had to get a VERY expensive lab test repeated due to a questionable result. IF I had been told I had the big "C" I would opt for a diet without any wine, coffee, dairy products or sugar. I am already a vegetarian, apart from an occasional piece of fish. The sad truth is that there is so much toxic residue in our food, not to mention our air and water. Many times a complete detox assists the body in recovering its own innate wisdom and capacity to heal.
I am writing a book about a woman diagnosed with breast cancer who decides to go on a visionquest before opting for chemo. Of course in my story, there's the happy ending and the quest heals her. Dr. Andrew Weil wrote the book, "Spontaneous Healing," and relates many cases wherein what science cannot explain DOES happen. This is why the Christian Science emphasis on mind over matter sometimes, but not always, proves helpful.
Myrtle Fillmore, wife of Charles Fillmore (the couple founded Unity Church) healed herself of a throat disorder. Edgar Cayce entered into a trance state and was able to draw forth the methodology that healed his condition. It was a big deal at the time and written up in major newspapers like The New York Times. (I don't have the book in front of me, so I apologize if it was a different mainstream newspaper. He was taken to court for "practicing medicine without a license." However, not only did he heal the judge's relative of a purportedly incurable ailment, the jury acquitted him, too!)
Before modern medicine, shamans and natural healers were able to do much. You might want to check out the book, "All Women Are Healers," by Diane Stein.
Thanks, Siouxrose. I'll check out the book. In my daily travels Daily Word goes with me everywhere. I discovered this during my recovery from Paxil. I think I've lost some of that over the past few months and I need to get back to it. Thank you for your post. It was a joy reading it and it certainly calmed the savage beast for the moment.
And a Merry Christmas to you too, Donna-- if it ain't out o' keepin' with the situation.
Now that's a good way of looking at it. Forgot that quote. It's very apt this year considering the situation for many.
"Merry Christ-mass. Christ. Love."
Excuse me! You mean the fictitious guy who said:
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law."
Donna, you are a child, a naive child, a silly child, and adult child. Please wake up and grow up.
Yes, it is wishful thinking to expect that health care for all instead of warfare for all will ever come to pass in the USA. However, that doesn't make her childish.
Here lies the problem, people think it's weak or childish to want love, and peace for all ! If we would realize that real love for each other would make us stronger, we could win the human race !
I think people don't like themselves, so how can they like others ? We are a mean bunch, it is unfortunate, but until we can each look in the mirror, and be content with who we are, we are doomed to be cruel to each other.
It makes no sense though, look how much we love babies, and children, that is who we are... just bigger !
I look at old war footage, and see the dead bodies by the thousands, and wonder how anyone could do that, let alone a collective group...I couldn't imagine soldiers busting my door down, spraying bullets everywhere, and killing my whole family, then eating our food while our bodies rot ,but that is what they did all over Europe over and over again.
I am sorry Donna but there is no way to extend Medicare for All without repealing Obamacare first. Our goal is to see to it that we have a system where government cares for its people. Obamacare forces us away from that. And FYI, Obama and Congress are getting ready to extend the Bush/Scrooge tax cuts where most of it goes towards the wealthy and corporate elite. The same Senate also passed S510 to crush small farmers and local growers with the possibility of outlawing gardening. Thank you for the holiday greetings but be prepared as Washington continues to say "Bah humbug !". As Demo Man also pointed out, it is wishful thinking to expect that Medicare for All will ever make it in this rotten nation of ours under any circumstances.
Donna, I share your sentiments. I have diabetes, depression, hypertension and getting "quality" care is not only tough, it's very expensive as well!
I learned last year struggling for Medicare For All that the REAL obstacle to getting it passed is our system; CAPITALISM!
Mike Moore's latest movie says it all! We must begin thinking outside the box! We must seriously consider building an alternative to the DP and RP, a people's party if you will! Otherwise, it's just the same old song and dance and everybody winds up burned out!
Merry Christmas to you sister Smith! As to those who are so cynical about your thoughts; BAH, HUMBUG TO THEM ALL!