This started out as a post about the health care summit

Democracy Now! has this fascinating analysis of yesterday's healthcare summit. Amy Goodman interviews Trudy Lieberman of the Columbia Journalism Review and pediatrician Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program. PHNP advocates for a single-payer system. Despite PHNP's requests to be included in that discussion, no advocate for single-payer was included in the summit. (Rep. Dennis Kucinich would have been a logical choice.) Dr. Flowers talks about the role of powerful campaign contributors in keeping single-payer off the table. Trudy Lieberman says that since its founding, the United States has been deeply divided on the proper role of the federal government. (A link to video of the entire summit is here.)

Lieberman's comments on this topic were particularly interesting to me. My own reading in American history tell me that she's right. I've been pondering the irony that the forces that advocate "individual freedom" and "small government" have often been the same voices that advocate the freedom of rich white men to dominate everyone else. During the Civil War, for instance, the South broke away in order to preserve the property rights of slaveholders against the supposed tyranny of the federal government.

It seems to me that even in the 21st century, the US keeps re-fighting the Civil War, with the so-called red states representing a slightly reconfigured Confederacy. In the 19th century, we had slaveholders. Today we have giant corporations that battle to keep the federal government from interfering with their property rights. These corporations portray the federal government as a tyrant that would interfere with our individual freedom to choose our own healthcare options. They cover up  their own control over our lives. They manipulate us with rhetoric about "individual freedom."

I find myself terrifically ambivalent about the role of government. In the imperfect world we have now, it seems to me that the government has the potential to act as a countervailing power to large and oppressive private interests. My anarchist friends would remind me that the government is often the wholly owned subsidiary of corporate interests. This internal debate has been at the center of my political life -- how to work toward a radically transformed, egalitarian world, while not being frozen by some idea of revolutionary purity into opposing programs that help real people right now.

I don't know if I'll ever have a solution to this dilemma. We humans are such contradictory creatures. We can never be truly independent. We are born naked and helpless, and we rely on each other for survival throughout our entire lives. Yet we aren't sheep. We have these stubborn, creative individual selves. I think radical lesbian philosopher Sarah Hoagland has the best take on the topic, with a concept that she calls "autokeonony." But that is a topic for another time.

Is the public option worth fighting for?

Writing on CommonDreams.org, Andy Coates of Physicians for a National Health Program says Do Not Resuscitate the ‘Public Option.’

All along, adding a feeble public insurance plan to the insurance market has been but a very poor excuse to support “insurance reform” that will criminalize the uninsured, divert billions of tax dollars to subsidize unaffordable private insurance premiums and protect pharmaceutical industry super-profits.

Another world is still possible. It is called Medicare-for-all, expanded and improved.

The public option is back?

Talking Points Memo says that a public health care insurance plan might go back into the Senate health care bill, and they have the video from Rachel Maddow to prove it.

Health bill compromise reportedly near...

...or so says the Women's Health Policy report of the National Partnership for Women & Families. The deal could supposedly be announced this weekend that would resolve the conflicts between the House and Senate versions of the bill. No report of what this bill might actually contain, however.

Feminist abortion activist Jody Howard dies

Our Bodies Ourselves on Facebook has posted a link to the obituary for Jody Howard at chicagotribune.com. Howard was a co-founder of "Jane," the abortion service provided by the Chicago Women's Liberation Union before Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure.

According to the obituary, Howard became a feminist at Michigan State University,.After graduation, she moved with her husband to the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. She became involved in a variety of progressive causes, including the Chicago Women's Liberation Union and the American Civil Liberties Union. She was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease while pregnant with her daughter. She needed an abortion for health reasons as the result of a later, unexpected pregnancy. In order to get a legal abortion, she was required to go through two psychiatric evaluations. This experience helped to inspire Howard to co-found Jane.

A forceful advocate for causes she backed, Ms. Howard "had a great deal of personal charisma and (at the same time) could offer a very nice analysis of the issue," [former Jane member Martha] Scott said.

With her daughters, Ms. Howard participated in a blockade of the Rock Island Arsenal to protest war. At an ACLU fundraiser at Hugh Hefner's Gold Coast mansion, she showed up with small pictures of naked men that she posted here and there.

"She was escorted out," her ex-husband said.

A commenter on Our Bodies Ourselves Facebook post pointed out that more information about Jane can be found at this page on the Chicago Women's Liberation Union herstory site.

In memory of the poet Lucille Clifton

Meta Watershed has a tribute to the poet Lucille Clifton, who died on Saturday.

What's the emergency?

The things that right-wing Republicans and mainstream news outlets use to stir up and manipulate popular fear are not always the things that really endanger us.

For instance, Truthout has cross-posted Hold Onto Your Underwear: This Is Not a National Emergency from TomDispatch.com. In this essay, Tom Englehardt compares the 290 fatalities that would have occurred on Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day -- if "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been successful -- with the things that actually kill US citizens:

In 2008, 14,180 Americans were murdered, according to the FBI. In that year, there were 34,017 fatal vehicle crashes in the U.S. and, so the U.S. Fire Administration tells us, 3,320 deaths by fire. More than 11,000 Americans died of the swine flu between April and mid-December 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; on average, a staggering 443,600 Americans die yearly of illnesses related to tobacco use, reports the American Cancer Society; 5,000 Americans die annually from food-borne diseases; an estimated 1,760 children died from abuse or neglect in 2007; and the next year, 560 Americans died of weather-related conditions, according to the National Weather Service, including 126 from tornadoes, 67 from rip tides, 58 from flash floods, 27 from lightning, 27 from avalanches, and 1 from a dust devil.

In this list, Englehardt doesn't address our national health insurance situation, but I think he should have. Lack of access to lack of health care seems to be a real emergency in the US. According to the authors of this report,

44,789 Americans each year—123 people every day—die because they lack health insurance. Others are driven to financial ruin. Medical debt was a key reason that 62 percent of personal bankruptcy filers sought court protection in 2007.

Meanwhile, according to the same report, health insurance companies made record profits while 2.7 million more people lost health insurance coverage. (Thanks to Reclaiming Medusa on Facebook for the link.)

Right-wing Republicans insist that the United States has the best health care in the world and tries to frighten citizens about the possibility of socialized medicine. President Obama and other centrist Democrats seem to have crafted a "solution" to the health care crisis that forces uninsured people to buy insurance from private companies, with some subsidies that may or may not cover the cost of this insurance. Meanwhile, public discourse takes place in a climate of irrational panic.

I wish I had a clear idea of a good course of action to deal with this mess.

Don't know if this is really so wonderful

According to a story posted on t r u t h o u t, former Vice President Dick Cheney has endorsed the end of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy that excludes open lesbians and gay men from military service.

Meanwhile, Katherine Franke at the Gender and Sexuality Law blog has a post that expresses some of my difficult feelings about this issue. As Franke notes, the end of DADT "comes with no small measure of discomfort on the part of more progressive members of the community in so far as this civil rights issue marries lgbt politics with the values of militarization, state violence, and enormous human suffering." Her thoughtful post explores the changing ways the US military is dealing with sexuality as it struggles to find recruits willing to go to Afghanistan and Iraq, and is well worth reading in its entirety.

Climate change and snowstorms

Climate-change deniers such as Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe have claimed that recent heavy snows on the East Coast disprove the theory that the earth is warming because of human activities. Inter Press Service has an interesting counterpoint:

If anything, though, the weather should help discredit climate change deniers, contend major climate scientists and activists.

"Record snow is not in any way, shape, or form evidence against climate science and in fact it is largely consistent with it," Joseph Romm, a former Energy Department official in President Bill Clinton's administration and the editor of the Centre for American Progress's Climate Progress blog, said Thursday.

"I wouldn’t want to say global warming is the cause or the sole cause [of the snowstorms]…but we are in a warming trend," he said. "It is absurd when we are in an overall warming trend that a snowstorm is evidence of a cooling trend. But the anti-science side – the ideologues – have been trying to push the idea that we're in a cooling trend and that this is evidence of that."

In fact, increased snowfall is entirely in line with climate projections, said Jeff Masters, a meteorologist with WeatherUnderground.com.

While the current storms are likely due to "natural variability" – the "jet stream this year [happened to] set up in a path that includes these cities" on the eastern U.S. seaboard, he explained – they are nonetheless historically "extraordinary" and it is reasonable to expect global warming to bring more such storms in the future.

Romm agrees. "You heat up the planet and you put more moisture in the atmosphere, you get the more intense precipitation that has been observed globally and has been observed in the United States," he said.

Is US helping or hurting Haiti?

AlterNet correspondent Arun Gupta reports that US forces in Haiti are creating a military occupation under the guise of helping in relief efforts. He says that a massive airlift of troops actually has hindered relief supplies from arriving at the Port-au-Prince airport. Reports of looting have been greatly exaggerated in order to justify the need for security.

This is the crux of the situation. Despite all the terror inflicted on Haiti by the United States, particularly in the last 20 years -- two coups followed each time by the slaughter of thousands of activists and innocents by U.S.-armed death squads -- the strongest social and political force in Haiti today is probably the organisations populaires (OPs) that are the backbone of the Fanmi Lavalas party of deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Twice last year, after legislative elections were scheduled that banned Fanmi Lavalas, boycotts were organized by the party. In the April and June polls the abstention rate each time was reported to be at least 89 percent.

It is the OPs, while devastated and destitute, that are filling the void and remain the strongest voice against economic colonization. Thus, all the concern about “security and stability.” With no functioning government, calm prevailing, and people self-organizing, “security” does not mean safeguarding the population; it means securing the country against the population. “Stability” does not mean social harmony; it means stability for capital: low wages, no unions, no environmental laws, and the ability to repatriate profits easily.

Popularity contests

Seattle Post-Intelligencer blogger Joel Connelly reports that "A bare majority of Americans give thumbs-up to President Obama's job performance, while Democrats and Republican run dead-even in voter preference, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll." If you follow Connelly's link, you will see that a majority of survey respondents approve of the president's handling of terrorism, but disapprove of his handling of health care, the economy, the federal budget deficit, and jobs.

This is not necessarily good news for the extreme right wing that is doing its best to make sure that no real change results from the Obama presidency.

Talking Points Memo says that another poll, also conducted by ABC News/Washington Post, shows that "the amount of people with a favorable view of (Sarah) Palin has dropped to its lowest point ever recorded by the pollster. More than 70% of respondents said she's not qualified to be president." Only 45 percent of conservatives and 37 percent of Republicans consider her qualified for the presidency.

Sebelius criticizes California firm's health insurance hikes, California Senate passes single-payer bill

T r u t h o u t has the details.

Hope for healthcare reform?

Janinsanfran at Can it happen here? has an interesting analysis of Organizing for America's latest effort to revitalize a health care reform bill.

Trivia

The other day, Feminist Peace Network on Facebook posted a link to Issue 9 of the online journal TRIVIA - Voices of Feminism. This is the issue on goddesses from March 2009. It looks really interesting. I've read the editors' introduction and an article by Carolyn Gage on how the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by US forces in 1898 might have been stopped if Queen Liliuokalani has listened to her native shamans instead of  following Episcopalian teachings.

This is how I discovered that the feminist journal Trivia still survives after all these years. Or, more accurately, it was revived in 2004 as an online publication. Their dedication to their most recent issue, Are Lesbians Going Extinct? tells the story:

This issue of Trivia is dedicated to Mary Daly, without whom this online journal simply would not be. Trivia, a Journal of Ideas, its predecessor, published in print from 1982 to 1995, grew out of a study group that spun off from Mary's classes at Boston College. It was named after the Triple Goddess TRIVIA—whom we first encountered in the pages of Daly's Gyn/Ecology. While the journal developed its own identity over the years, it remained, and in this online version remains, rooted in her steadfast vision of female power and possibility. The word "lesbian" did not go far enough for Mary. She preferred to talk of "Terrible Women"—women who break the "Terrible Taboo: the universal, unnatural patriarchal taboo against Women Intimately/Ultimately Touching each Other."

Not only do they have an archive of all of their online issues, but you can order copies of most of the old print issues as well.

As I've said before, the existence of small independent feminist periodicals played a crucial role in creating radical feminist and lesbian movements that challenged patriarchy and all forms of oppression. Each time I discover another surviving feminist or lesbian periodical, I gain new hope that those movements can continue to move forward.

A tempest in a teapot?

The publicity and influence granted to right-wing political groups often outweighs their real popularity. I was reminded of this today by this item on the Right Wing Watch site of  People for the American Way. It was a critique of the speech given by right-wing activist Tom Tancredo at the opening session of the Tea Party Convention in Nashville this weekend.

Rep. Tom Tancredo’s deeply offensive remarks embodied the worst of today’s Republican Party, calling President Obama a ‘socialist ideologue,’ raving about the threat of immigration and multiculturalism, and longing for those good old days when literacy tests and other obstacles to the ballot were used to keep the ‘wrong’ people from voting. He would be nothing more than a bad joke if he did not represent a corrosive spirit that is far too prevalent in our politics today.

Too many conservative and Republican politicians, pundits, and political strategists have been eager to inflame racial and ethnic resentments for short-term political gain. And far too many have followed Tancredo’s path of demonizing immigrants in ways that dishonor our nation’s history and heritage.

Tancredo and the spirit of the ‘tea party’ groups that shouted down discussion of health care reform are destructive to civility and democracy. As President Obama said this week, it is possible to disagree strongly on policies and still engage in civil, respectful debate. But that’s not the path that GOP leaders, right-wing pundits, and behind-the-scenes backers of the tea party crowd have chosen.

PFAW's press release ended with a confident statement that ultimately the people of the United States will "reject this kind of ugly scapegoating and the political leaders who embrace it." I think they're right. But I was left to wonder why news of this convention was so prominent on public radio and on the web.

I came of age as a political activist in the years after Ronald Reagan won the US presidency in 1980. The mainstream news media described this as a huge change in the nation's political direction, but I remember it as a moment that set off a large wave of demonstrations by left-wing activists, against nuclear weapons and nuclear power, against US support for right-wing dictatorships in Central America, against US support for the apartheid regime in South Africa. Feminist women's peace camps sprang up in the US and other nations. As I remember it, the mainstream news media ignored this movement. Unless you had other sources of information -- such as the small feminist newspapers that were still widespread in the 1980s -- you would have thought that the entire nation accepted Reagan's right-wing politics.

Although Barack Obama is not the ideologue that Reagan was, his presidency has also been presented as a major change in course for US politics. Now, at every possible moment, malestream news outlets are telling us that there is a significant part of the electorate that opposes Obama, and any political policy that deviates from the hard-right politics of  his predecessor. The publicity given to the so-called Tea Party Movement is merely one example of this. Not that we should ignore Obama's opponents, but it seems to me that this onslaught of publicity has given them much more influence than they deserve.

The reason for this is not too hard to find. Rachel Maddow pointed it out last summer. This "tea party" isn't a grassroots movement, it's astroturf, orchestrated and financed by long-established right-wing Republican organizations with lots of money. This is not a reason for despair. But it is a reason to look for ways to minimize the influence of money in politics. For instance, even here in Oklahoma, efforts are mounting to promote a US constitutional amendment for campaign finance reform.

We can create an egalitarian society in the United States. But we're going to have to fight for it.

Obama and Clinton condemn Ugandan anti-gay law at prayer breakfast

Feministing has a video clip and a report.

Worth noting

TPM LiveWire covers the controversy over the decision of CBS to air an anti-abortion ad from Focus on the Family. This after CBS has consistently refused to accept "issue ads" from progressive groups.

Jill on Feministe also has an interesting analysis.

To read the mainstream media spin in the Tim Tebow / anti-abortion ad controversy, you’d think that we Hysterical Feminists ™ were at it again, getting whipped into a censor-happy frenzy just because some lady decided to have a baby.
The issue, though, isn’t that we disagree with Pam Tebow’s choice (although it’s worth pointing out that she had a choice she now wishes to take away from other women, and that the choice she made — to continue a pregnancy after she became ill while on a mission trip in the Phillipines — isn’t actually available to most women in the Phillipines, where abortion is illegal and most procedures happen clandestinely); it isn’t that we don’t think anti-choice ads should be allowed on the air; it isn’t that we think anti-choice views should be censored. It’s that CBS has, for the past few years, regularly rejected ads from left-of-center organizations — MoveOn.org, PeTA, and the United Church of Christ. CBS was clear that it did not accept ads on contentious or controversial subjects such as, apparently, democracy, animal rights and gay rights. But an ad about abortion, from Focus on the Family — one of the most radical, right-leaning organizations out there? Apparently totally fine.

The power of prayer

Tomorrow is the National Prayer Breakfast, an innocuous-sounding gathering that has taken place in Washington, DC on the first Thursday in February every year since 1953. Every president since Dwight Eisenhower has addressed this gathering. Barack Obama has been no exception. He gave a speech last year, and he is scheduled to do so again tomorrow. Apparently, not everyone thinks that's okay.

This is not just about issues of separation of church and state. Critics of the event are concerned that its sponsor, a secretive right-wing group, variously called The Family or The Fellowship, has an agenda that tries to subvert democracy with an elitist ultra-conservative -- and explicitly patriarchal -- agenda. The Family includes many government officials and members of Congress, including Oklahoma senators Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe. Wikipedia describes the prayer breakfast as "a forum for political, social and business leaders of the world to assemble together and build relationships which might not otherwise be possible." Many of those relationships are less than desirable.

For instance,  Huffington Post columnist Melanie Sloan writes that

The one time of year when the Family emerges from the shadows is the annual National Prayer Breakfast, its signature event. This large-scale function serves as a recruiting tool for the group, but is often misconstrued by attendees as an official government event -- a perception reinforced by a presidential address at the breakfast, presidential seals strategically located around the room, and an organizing committee made up of members of Congress. Given the official façade, some attendees have expected at least a nod to other religions, but they are quickly disappointed. "JESUS is there!" reads a breakfast planning document.

At past breakfasts, the Family has facilitated meetings between its foreign allies and the president as well as members of Congress, outside the reach of the Department of State and traditional U.S. diplomatic protocol. Past prayer breakfast attendees have included General Eugenio Vides Casanova of El Salvador, later found liable for the torture of thousands of civilians, and General Alvarez Martinez of Honduras, later linked to secret death squads in that country.

Part of the controversy surrounding President Obama's attendance at the prayer breakfast has to do with another of this year's attendees -- Ugandan Member of Parliament David Bahati, sponsor of a bizarre and hateful Anti-Homosexuality Bill. New York Jewish Week blogger James Besser says that Bahati may not attend the event after all, but that Obama and other US government officials should still stay away.

Meanwhile, AlterNet Washington Bureau Chief Adele N. Stan has a fascinating analysis of The Family and the controversy surrounding tomorrow's event. She includes information from Jeff Sharlet, author of a recent book about The Family. Sharlet's book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, is available through the Oklahoma County Metropolitan Library System.