Health care and consensus decision making

Last night I went to the beautiful Belle Isle Public Library to watch President Barack Obama address a joint session of Congress on the topic of health care reform. Call me a socialist if you will, but I really enjoy and appreciate this excellent government-run service (both the wi-fi in particular and the library in general). I sat there with my laptop and my earphones, and frantically took not-very-good handwritten notes. Which probably wasn't necessary, given that it's possible to read the transcript here or view the video here.

I need to start by saying that I have a lot of policy disagreements with the president about health care. I think we need single payer. I'm disappointed that the proposed public option is only open to those who don't already have health insurance. The version of the public plan originally proposed by Jacob Hacker would have covered anyone who wanted it, and would have done a lot more to control insurance costs. And despite the president's assurances, I'm worried that people without much money would be required to pay more than they could afford for the health care insurance that they'll be required to have. Senate Finance Committee Max Baucus's framework is particularly worrisome in that regard. And frankly, I think it's a bad thing that federal money can't be used to pay for abortion.

That being said, I think that it was a masterful speech by a masterful consensus builder. The word "masterful" makes me want to get out some Julia Penelope on the topic of patriarchal language, but that is a topic for a different time.

I do want to talk a little bit about consensus.

Watching the president, I was reminded of old meetings of, oh, say, the Oregon Women's Land Trust. If you've ever been part of a lesbian feminist organization that runs on consensus decision making, you will know that the US Congress has nothing on lesbian activists when it comes to getting into down-and-dirty political fights. The Senate, in particular, has rules that are very reminiscent of consensus decision making used by lesbian feminist collectives. Having a simple majority is enough to get something passed. While one person can't shut down the Senate (and I have more than once seen a single dissenter shut down a lesbian collective from taking any action), you need to have 60 votes to cut off debate in order to proceed with a bill.

By its nature, it's a conservative process. The way the Senate operates probably has most of the same advantages and disadvantages of consensus decision making. One big disadvantage is that a minority can bolix up the works and keep actions from being taken that have majority support. This is what's happening in the Senate right now. Especially after the death of Ted Kennedy, the president and the Democrats can't count on 60 votes to move forward without courting Republicans and conservative Democrats.

But the disadvantage is also an advantage. The truth is, if you have a substantial minority of the population that opposes a law that has passed, that law has much less chance of succeeding. It seems to me that the most successful movements of our times--the civil rights movements, the feminist movements--have been the most successful when campaigns to pass legislation were combined with campaigns to achieve popular support. Changing laws is not enough without changing people's hearts and minds. Sometimes the piece of legislation fails, but the change in popular attitudes that came about by fighting for it makes an enormous positive difference. I'm thinking of the Equal Rights Amendment here.

Okay, okay, I'll try to get back on track. Health care legislation is not the same as civil rights legislation, and to make a change, we do need to pass a law. I'm just trying to make the point that to pass the legislation and to have it succeed, President Obama needs to bring people together and build a broad base of support for it, including from moderate and conservative members of the population. And I think that's exactly what he succeeded in doing with his speech last night. He took the things that just about everybody agrees about, and used that as a basis for moving forward.

He gave an eloquent description of exactly how broken our current system is. How we are the only advanced democracy that doesn't offer universal health care. How people who don't have insurance--because they are self-employed and can't afford it, because they have a pre-existing condition that won't allow them to get coverage--can be just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy. How people who have insurance can find that their coverage has been dropped just when they need it the most. How we spend one and a half times more per person on healthcare per person without that making us any more healthy. How health insurance premiums are rising in cost three times faster than wages, and how this puts workers and businesses at a disadvantage. How increasing health care costs are putting "an unsustainable burden on the taxpayers."

When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid. If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.

What the president did with the first part of his speech was to demonstrate that we do have a national consensus about what is wrong with the way we pay for health care. What he did next was to address what we need to do to fix it. His strategy was to position himself as being what he always has been, a centrist.

There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada's...where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everybody. On the right, there are those who argue that we should end employer-based systems and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.

(Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has also proposed a plan that would end employer-based coverage and retain a private market, and might have been surprised to hear himself classified as being "on the right," but I suppose that is also a topic for another time.)

At any rate, having established that there is widespread agreement about what is wrong with our healthcare system, Obama argued that there is also widespread agreement--within Congress, at least--about many steps that need to be taken to correct the situation. And he argued that there has actually been significant progress toward creating reform legislation.

We've seen many in this chamber work tirelessly for the better part of this year to offer thoughtful ideas about how to achieve reform. Of the five committees asked to develop bills, four have completed their work, and the Senate Finance Committee announced today that it will move forward next week. That has never happened before. Our overall efforts have been supported by an unprecedented coalition of doctors and nurses; hospitals, seniors' groups, and even drug companies -- many of whom opposed reform in the past. And there is agreement in this chamber on about 80 percent of what needs to be done, putting us closer to the goal of reform than we have ever been.

According to the president, these points of agreement are:

• People who already have health insurance through an employer or through Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, would get to keep what they already have. (Although, as Matt Taibbi points out, if the insurance you get through your employer now is really awful, you would still be stuck with it.)
• People who have insurance could not have their coverage canceled or "watered down." There could be no yearly or lifetime limits on coverage. There would be a limit on out-of-pocket expenses. Insurers would be required to cover routine checkups and tests such as colonoscopies or mammograms.
• Individuals and small businesses that don't currently have access to affordable insurance would have access to something called a health insurance exchange. Because all these people would be pooled together as one group, they would have (at least in theory) the kind of collective bargaining power that government and large businesses now have. Insurance companies would participate in this system because it would give them access to millions of new potential customers.
• Individuals and small businesses that still couldn't afford the insurance offered by these exchanges would receive subsidies based on their ability to pay.
• Large businesses would be required to provide insurance for their employees. Most individuals would be required to purchase health insurance. There would be hardship waivers for individuals who couldn't afford insurance, and 95 percent of small businesses would be exempt.

While I continue to have serious reservations about the health care policies he's proposing, I have to admire the way he is putting his experience as a community organizer to good use. His strategy here seems almost like a page out of Building United Judgment. I think he's absolutely correct that even most conservative Republicans already agree with much of what he's proposing. For instance, when I attended Mary Fallin's town hall meeting back in August, one thing that struck me was how many of the things she said she supported were actually in the one of the existing health care bills, whether she was aware of this or not.

After showing how much agreement Congress already has about health insurance reform, the president openly confronted the orchestrated right-wing backlash to reform that developed over the summer.

Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple. (Applause.)

There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: You lie! (Boos.)

THE PRESIDENT: It's not true. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up -- under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place. (Applause.)

The heckler in this excerpt was reported to be Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina.

The president went on to confront claims that his plan represented a "government takeover" of health care. Here is where I had my most ambivalent feelings. I'm as skeptical of government as the next person, but I think there are some services that don't operate well as private industries, and I think health insurance is one of those. The president actually made a similar point in his defense of the limited public option that four of the five committees working on health care have included in their bills:

My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. That's how the market works. (Applause.) Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90 percent is controlled by just one company. And without competition, the price of insurance goes up and quality goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly -- by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest, by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage, and by jacking up rates.

Insurance executives don't do this because they're bad people; they do it because it's profitable. As one former insurance executive testified before Congress, insurance companies are not only encouraged to find reasons to drop the seriously ill, they are rewarded for it. All of this is in service of meeting what this former executive called "Wall Street's relentless profit expectations."

I don't think the limited public option in the healthcare bills before Congress does much to address the relentless profit-seeking of private insurers. It's only available to people who don't have insurance who are shopping for coverage through the exchange, and the president himself says that maybe five percent of people will be covered by it.

I think it's proper and necessary that some essential services--like health care--need to be made available for the public good, and not for the relentless profit expectations of Wall Street. I agree with Jeff Cohen that if Obama--or at least the liberal groups who are his allies--has started out pushing for a single-payer plan, we might have been able to win a strong public option that would have helped provide quality care at an affordable price. Now we are left with a situation in which Obama gives a ringing endorsement of a limited public plan, but says he's willing to trade it away.

Now, it is -- it's worth noting that a strong majority of Americans still favor a public insurance option of the sort I've proposed tonight. But its impact shouldn't be exaggerated -- by the left or the right or the media. It is only one part of my plan, and shouldn't be used as a handy excuse for the usual Washington ideological battles. To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage available for those without it. (Applause.) The public option -- the public option is only a means to that end -- and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal. And to my Republican friends, I say that rather than making wild claims about a government takeover of health care, we should work together to address any legitimate concerns you may have. (Applause.)

Okay. There was more of the president's speech that I haven't addressed. I don't have a grand concluding statement. But I think I've gone on about long enough, and it's almost time for me to go to work. My reaction to the president's speech remains contradictory.

On the one hand, I have serious concerns about what the president has proposed, and don't think the final bill will address those concerns. I think if progressive groups had worked harder and smarter for a more far-reaching proposal, we would have gotten a better result.

On the other hand, there is the reality of powerful right-wing opposition to health care reform to deal with, and we can't ignore that or merely wish it away. The right wing in this country remains extremely powerful, not necessarily because of whatever popular support it might have, but because it is extremely wealthy, well-organized, and well-connected. Obama's plan may be a realistic way to deal with that. I was moved by his sincerity last night, and impressed by his skill. Maybe what we have here is a good starting place. He says he hopes he is the last president to deal with health reform, but I hope he's wrong. What we have is a good first step on a very long journey.

Senate Finance Committee releases proposed healthcare "framework"

Conservative Democratic Senator Max Baucus of the Senate Finance Committee has released a proposed framework for a health care reform bill. Baucus and his bipartisan "gang of six" have been working to create a plan that at least some Republicans could support.

The semi-liberal Ezra Klein thinks the bill isn't great, but isn't bad.

Insofar as the effort is aimed at filling in the cracks of the current system — making it more affordable, more transparent and less cruel — it's not a bad bill.

The legislation really would protect millions of Americans from medical bankruptcy. It really would insure tens of millions of people. It really will curb the worst practices of the private insurance industry. It really will expand Medicaid and transform it from a mish-mash of state regulation into a dependable benefit. It really will lay down out-of-pocket caps which are a lot better than anything people have today. It really will help primary care providers, and it really will make hospitals more transparent, and it really will be a step towards paying for quality rather than volume.

Over at Health Beat, Maggie Mahar is less favorably impressed:

Finally, if insurers can charge 50-somethings five times as much as they charge 20-somethings (who the Baucus plan refers to as “young invincibles”), a great many of them are going to need subsidies. More tax-dollars winging their way to Aetna.

But wait, there is a loophole here: “An exemption [from mandate that everyone buy insurance] is permitted if coverage is deemed unaffordable – defined based on a circumstance where the lowest cost premium available exceeds 10% of a person’s income.”  Okay, here’s the answer for 50-somethings that just can’t afford paying five times as much as younger customers: we excuse them from the program. No penalty, no mandate. In other words, we don’t cover them at all—at the point in their life when they are most likely to need heath care.

Somehow, this isn’t what I thought they meant by “universal coverage.”

Oh, and in case you wondered.  . . No, there is no public sector insurance option in the Baucus plan. The private sector insurance industry will have a monopoly on the millions of new customers who will be coming their way, tax subsidies in hand.

Meanwhile, Truthdig asks Does Max Baucus Represent Montana or Blue Cross? Certainly a reasonable question. If you'd like to formulate your own opinion, you can read the 18-page framework for yourself, or compare it to other versions of health reform making their way through Congress.

Cynical but accurate?

Thanks to the folks at the Facebook "Boycott Whole Foods" group for posting a link to Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone blog post about the health care reform process. I've read some of Taibbi's writing before on AlterNet, and I'm not sure I trust him. In the past, my impression has been that Taibbi is something of an arrogant blowhard. Some of that arrogance comes across in this piece, but underneath his self-righteousness and bad language, this is also a comprehensive history of the health care bills making their way through Congress.

Here's a sample:

To recap, here's what ended up happening with health care. First, they gave away single-payer before a single gavel had fallen, apparently as a bargaining chip to the very insurers mostly responsible for creating the crisis in the first place. Then they watered down the public option so as to make it almost meaningless, while simultaneously beefing up the individual mandate, which would force millions of people now uninsured to buy a product that is no longer certain to be either cheaper or more likely to prevent them from going bankrupt. The bill won't make drugs cheaper, and it might make paperwork for doctors even more unwieldy and complex than it is now. In fact, the various reform measures suck so badly that PhRMA, the notorious mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry which last year spent more than $20 million lobbying against health care reform, is now gratefully spending more than seven times that much on a marketing campaign to help the president get what he wants.

So what's left? Well, the bills do keep alive the so-called employer mandate, requiring companies to provide insurance to their employees. A good idea — except that the Blue Dogs managed to exempt employers with annual payrolls below $500,000, meaning that 87 percent of all businesses will be allowed to opt out of the best and toughest reform measure left. Thanks to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, we can now be assured that the 19 or 20 employers in America with payrolls above $500,000 who do not already provide insurance will be required to offer good solid health coverage. Hurray!

The rest of the piece is a bit long, but I think this is necessary in order for Taibbi to do justice to a complicated subject. I would really be interested in any comments that you have afterward.

If you think health care reform is bad, consider the alternative

Thanks to Maggie Mahar at Health Beat for writing up a two-part post by Joe Paduda at Managed Care Matters. These two posts consider what the consequences are likely to be if health care reform fails to pass Congress.

Part One of "Your life without healthcare reform" is here. In this part, Paduda relies on a report at businessinsurance.com to predict what will happen to health care costs if we don't get a health care bill that includes strong cost controls. Paduda says:

When costs increase ten percent a year, they double every seven years. With current family premiums in the $15,000 range, employers and employees will be paying $30,000 per family in 2016. And that's not including deductibles and copays, which are sure to rise.

If you're relying on so-called consumer-directed health plans to stem the tide, good luck - their costs went up two points more than 'regular' HMO and PPO plans. Industry veterans aren't surprised, as new insurance products almost always have good experience in the first couple years and as the block 'ages', claims creep up. As I've noted previously, CDHPs are not a panacea, in fact they may well drive up costs due to delayed care. (That said, with substantial changes CDHPs could be a valuable tool in cost containment.)

Eventually the US will reform its health insurance and health care delivery 'systems'. Unfortunately I don't see it happening this year due to the failure of the Democrats to put forth a program that controls costs, make a cogent argument and control the debate, and the decision by the Republicans to remain nothing more than the 'Party of No'.

In Part Two, Paduda argues that

The past is a pretty good predictor of the future; over the last eight years cost have consistently increased more than ten percent each year, with most increases well above that level. Whether we are at the bottom of the cycle or cost inflation rates will continue to decrease is unclear, but what is clear is that the inflation rate will head back up at some point in the next few years.
Back to the real world impact.

• If nothing changes, the share of the nation's budget paid by the government will be greater than that paid thru private insurers.
• 178,000 small business jobs will be lost by 2018 as a result of health care costs
• If employee contributions stay at their current level (about 30% of premiums), workers will be paying $9000 per year, or $750 per month, towards their health coverage - not including deductible, copays, coinsurance, and services not covered
• General Motors' health insurance will add about $3000 to the cost of each vehicle - if it is still in business
• In my hometown of Madison, Conn., Town employee health insurance costs are paid for with property taxes; without reform the amount of tax revenue needed to pay those bills will double by 2016, forcing tax increases and/or significant serice cuts
• More Americans will have to rely on the kindness of others for their health care
• Because 65 million of us will be without health insurance

Unlike the distortions, misrepresentations, and outright lies being spread by McCaughey, Limbaugh, Palin et al, this is the real deal. So fight against reform if you wish, but don't complain later when you can't afford insurance, your employer can't afford insurance, your taxes are going up to pay for teachers' benefits, and our economy is sinking under the weight of health care costs.

Paduda thinks the right wing will win this battle but lose the war, because eventually, without health care reform, too many of us will be in too much pain to tolerate the status quo. For my own part, I am hoping that the battle is not lost, and that with luck and hard work, we can prevent the pain that Paduda predicts.

They hate government run health care, but they choose to use it

Sam Stein at the Huffington Post reports that GOPers Decrying "Socialized Medicine" Go To Govt. Hospital For Surgeries.

The Republicans in question are senators John McCain, (R-Ariz.), Senator Kit Bond (R-Mo.), Senator George Voinovich, (R-Ohio), and Rep. Roy Blunt, (R-Mo.) . All have chosen to receive treatment at Bethesda Naval Hospital--which members of Congress are able to do if they pay an annual fee.

As Stein points out:

To be strictly accurate, there is an important distinction between a government-run hospital and a government-run health insurance agency. The public plan, which is the focus of much of the GOP's ire, is the latter. Bethesda Naval Hospital is the former.

But conservatives have long used the notion of "socialized medicine" to defeat health care reform efforts -- even though when it comes to the flagship Naval Hospital just miles away, the worries about bureaucratic nightmares, low quality care, and long lines seem to be wiped away.

Why I won't shop at Whole Foods when they open in Oklahoma City

Some natural foods lovers in OKC are celebrating the news that Whole Foods plans to open a store in Oklahoma City some time in the next year. While the future location of this store was not announced, supporters of downtown revitalization have long hoped Whole Foods, or a similar chain, would place a store downtown.

I'm not joining the celebration. Despite their progressive image, Whole Foods has a history of of union busting, detailed in this post over at Mother Jones.

According to The Rag Blog down in Austin, Texas, Whole Foods' customers are "attracted not only to its brightly lit array of pristine fruits and vegetables, organically farmed meats, and delectable (yet healthy) recipes, but also to the notion that the mere act of shopping at Whole Foods is helping to change the world." In support of this image, Whole Foods has taken such steps as supporting the Fair Trade movement to encourage better pay and environmentally safe working conditions for farmers in poor countries, and working to improve the living conditions of farm animals.

The company, and its CEO, John Mackey, would like us that it has the same kind of benevolent concern for its workers. The reality seems to be different. The Rag reports that

Preventing Whole Foods workers from unionizing has always been at the top of Mackey’s agenda, and the company has been successful thus far at crushing every attempt. Perhaps the company’s most notorious attack on workers’ right to unionize occurred in Madison, Wisconsin in 2002. Even after a majority of workers voted for the union, Whole Foods spent the next year canceling and stalling negotiation sessions -- knowing that after a year, they could legally engineer a vote to decertify the union. Mission accomplished.

At the mere mention of the word “union," Whole Foods still turns ferocious. Even when United Farm Workers activists turned up outside a Whole Foods store in Austin, Texas, where Mackey is based, the company called the police and had them arrested for the “crime” of passing out informational literature on their current grape boycott. And as Mother Jones recently reported, “An internal Whole Foods document listing ‘six strategic goals for Whole Foods Market to achieve by 201... includes a goal to remain ‘100% union-free.’”

Another one of Mackey's goals has been to hold down the cost of employee healthcare. The Rag Blog says that

Using a carrot and very large stick, Mackey managed to “convince” Whole Foods workers across the country to vote in 2004 to dramatically downgrade their own healthcare benefits by switching to a so-called “consumer-driven” health plan –- corporate double-speak for the high deductible/low coverage savings account plans preferred by profit-driven enterprises. As Mackey advised other executives in [a] 2004 speech, “[I]f you want to set up a consumer-driven health plan, I strongly urge you not to put it as one option in a cafeteria plan, but to make it the only option.”

Maybe this explains Mackey's hostility to President Obama's health care reform proposals. Not long ago, Mackey authored a controversial opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal attacking health care reform. In reaction to that column, a Facebook group and a web site have sprung up urging supporters of health care reform and workers' rights to boycott Whole Foods. Activists point out that Mackey certainly has a right to express his opinions in writing, but the rest of us have the right not to support his reactionary ideas with our hard-earned dollars.

Downtown Oklahoma City would certainly benefit from having a grocery store -- but not this one. As for myself, if I want to shop with a union-busting mega-chain, Wal-Mart has much better prices.

Eighty nine years ago today...

...women in the United States won the right to vote. The Equal Rights Amendment still remains to be passed.

Happy Women's Equality Day.

Does Medicare pay hospitals too little?

Opponents of allowing a public plan to be part of health care reform often claim that this is a bad idea because the public plan, like Medicare, would under-pay hospitals? This post on Health Beat asks, Does Medicare Under-Pay Hospitals?

The losses many hospitals report may be real, but there is tremendous variation depending on management choices, location, and the ways in which costs are incurred.

Some hospitals are indeed losing large amounts on Medicare services, while others actually are making a profit. Most individual Medicare patients are profitable. Many others could make a profit if hospitals improved their operations.

Medicare is an excellent program, has high levels of approval from its enrollees, and has provided good care for many patients who would otherwise be excluded from the health care system. Hospitals need to be protected from true underpayment, but Medicare itself and the American public also need to be protected from poor management that leads to increased costs and poor health care.

The entire post is well worth reading.

A poem I wrote while I wasn't in church

Actually, I don't ever go to church, and I don't exactly believe in god, but here's a poem I wrote this morning:

Not Quite a Prayer

I talked with God this morning,
and I don't think I understood
a single word she said.
I wasn't even sure she was really there,
or if it was just me hoping
that there was someone listening.
I didn't understand what she was saying,
because I'm almost sure she said
she's not an unpleasant bossy man
with a long beard,
and she doesn't send people to roast slowly
over hellish fires once they're dead.
I was trying to talk to God
but I couldn't understand her because she
wasn't what I expected.
She said that when she writes,
she writes with music in the clouds,
she whispers in the roar of the waves,
and under extraordinary circumstances,
she might shout along with the thunderclap,
but she never writes anything in stone.
Stone is for pictures.
Stone is for vast sculptures carved slowly
over many, many centuries.
I talked with God the other day,
and I swear I didn't understand a word she said,
because she told me she doesn't have a plan
for my life,
that she won't save me in this life,
and won't condemn me in the next.
But if I lift my eyes to the hills,
I might see a diagram I could use,
and if I reach out my hands I might
find friends to help me.
If I reach out my hands I might grab
hold of friends that I could
help along their way.

More on the difficulties faced by Afghan women voters

Indian journalist Aunohita Mojumdar has an article at Women's eNews that includes more information about the obstacles that keep Afghani women from voting.

As just one example:

Despite a tendency to blame violence against women on the Taliban, the July report says women in public life have also been targeted by "local traditional and religious power holders, their own families and communities and, in some instances, by government officials."

In Thursday's provincial council elections, not enough female candidates were found to fill the 25 percent quota for women.

In Kandahar, for example, three women are running for the four reserved seats. None of these candidates was able to either live or campaign in the province because of the threats to them, according to the chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

A joint verification exercise of political rights carried out by this commission and the U.N. mission in Afghanistan found "women's right to vote appears to be at risk in insecure areas."

Afghani Shia women need permission of husband to vote

Feministing reports that today's election in Afghanistan has more challenges to its legitimacy than are being reported in US mainstream media:

...Afghanistan goes to the polls -- and many people are questioning whether it's even possible to hold a "legitimate" election given the potential for low turnout due to recent threats of violence by the Taliban.

But, as Jeanne Brooks reminds us at Women's eNews, it's not just violence that threatens democracy in Afghanistan -- it's the disenfranchisement of women. President Hamid Karzai recently signed a law that severely restricts women's rights. Among many other appalling provisions, it prevents Shia women from casting a vote without their husband's permission.

Electrifying

Peak Oil Hausfrau argues--persuasively, I think--that large improvements in US life expectancy over the past hundred years or so is mostly due to electricity and the improved sanitation that it made possible. She adds that there is at least some possibility that disruptions to the oil supply could disrupt electrical production, and that we need to make plans to keep this from happening.

Worth reading...

is A Modest Medicare Proposal on CommonDreams.org.

Rachel Maddow takes on Oklahoma's own Tom Coburn

I'd suppose by now that y'all have heard about Rachel Maddow taking on Oklahoma's junior Senator Tom Coburn on Meet the Press on Sunday.

Guests on the show were discussing threats of violence against government officials made by right wing protesters who are trying to stop health care reform legislation from moving through Congress. Coburn said that these protesters have lost faith in government because of out-of-control deficit spending, and that this justified their violent rhetoric. He wasn't just defending their constitutional right to say hateful and inflammatory things. He seemed to be arguing their point of view was justified.

Coburn's line of argument was particularly odd because he made his comments in reference to a protester who was waving a banner that included the same slogan as a t-shirt worn by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh when he was arrested. Coburn argued that these protesters are understandably angry. Coburn said that these protesters have lost faith in government because of out-of-control deficit spending, and that this justified their violent rhetoric.

In case you haven't seen it, you can watch Rachel Maddow's response here.

I found a particularly useful analysis of this interchange at 2parse.com.

I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that a right wing Republican Senator would please for “understanding” in quasi-defense of extreme right wing rhetoric and threats of violence. After all – what else can he expect?

I suppose my point is: if any people out there take Sarah Palin’s statement that children will be put to death by “death panels” if Obama’s health care plan succeeds; if any people out there seriously believe a Holocaust is about to take place if this health care reform is passed; if they believe that their children are going to be indoctrinated into an atheistic faith in Obama if health care passes; if they believe that their grandparents of their children are in danger – if someone believes any or all of these things, then violence is justified.

We make heroes out of the men who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler. If we now say that Obama is another Hitler, aren’t we advocating assasination? If we say our child will be killed by Obama, aren’t we implicitly endorsing violence to protect our children?

How can we – as a society – have an adult conversation about the pros and cons of the specific health reforms being considered with this unhinged debate? We can’t. Instead, we just have to let the unsustainable status quo stay in place.

A simple guide to health reform

A hat tip to Ezra Klein for pointing out A Guide to the Health Care Fight by Alec MacGillis. It looks like a good, brief, easy-to-understand guide to the health insurance reform bills making their way through the US House and Senate.

What I did on my summer vacation

On the first day of my summer vacation, I spent a lot of time researching health care reform. On the second day of my summer vacation, August 13th, I went to Congresswoman Mary Fallin's town hall meeting in north Oklahoma City. This was a strange and intense experience. I took notes carefully. They were probably coherent. I have been meaning to turn these notes into at a blog post, and sometime soon I probably will. In the meantime, News9.com seems to have a video of the entire town hall meeting, if you'd like to watch it for yourself.

I thought that one of the things I would do with the rest of my summer vacation was to write the blog post I just refering to, and many other blog posts on the subject of health care reform. But I just couldn't. Every time I thought about blogging, my stomach started to churn. It's not just that health care reform is a complicated issue, it's also that the public debate has turned so truly ugly. It reminds me of , oh, say, the political climate when I lived in Oregon in the nineties and Ballot Measure 9 was before the citizenry. It feels like the same sort of right-wing nastiness, backed up by the same hints of threatened violence if the right-wingers don't get their way. It was dispiriting, if not surprising, to watch Fallin (and later Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn) pander to the extreme right. I'm committed to blogging about this issue, to help myself (and anyone who might be reading) to make sense out of the complicated mess that is the debate over health care reform.

But first I needed to take a vacation. So. I spent time hanging out on the front porch by myself and with friends, listened to live poetry, listened to live music, got my car back from the repair shop, finished painting my bedroom and moving in the bedroom furniture, had coffee with friends, did some reading, played a little bit of online chess--and now I'm almost ready to get back to trying to figure out health care.

Right wing fear-mongering not confined to health care reform

Apparently the far right is also devoting time and resources to distorting President Obama's position on Middle East issues. To deal with this situation, the progressive Jewish organization J Street has launched ObamaSmearBusters.com.

Blogging through the health care debate

If you are struggling to make sense out of the health care reform debate, some blogs that I find useful include Health Beat (by finance writer Maggie Mahar), Ezra Klein (writing on economic policy at the Washington Post), RH Reality Check and Our Bodies, Our Blog (covering the process from a women's health stand point). Physicians for a National Health Program advocates for a single-payer system. The Institute for America's Future has this explanation of the benefits of a strong public plan option.

Nixon's resignation 35 years ago today

I was not yet 18 years old, finishing up my first summer as a Girl Scout camp counselor in Red Lodge, Montana, when Richard Nixon left the presidency. Someone found a television, and we gathered in the dining hall and turned it on to watch the occasion. I was reminded of this anniversary Saturday morning on National Public Radio. Here is the text of today's NPR commentary on the occasion by Daniel Schorr, who watched Nixon resign and who was once on that president's enemies list.

Schorr observes:

In his first speech as president, Ford said that the national nightmare had ended. A resilient nation had survived, but the episode had left its scars on the body politic. Since Nixon, no president has been fully trusted.

Because I was around during the Nixon era, I am constantly asked how his abuse of power compares to the misdeeds of the recent Bush administration. Both employed illegal wiretaps. Bush compiled no list of enemies meriting special persecution — at least, as far as is known.

According to Rachel Maddow it's not grass roots, it's astroturf

Thanks to CommonDreams.org for posting this video of Rachel Maddow discussing orchestrated Republican efforts to derail congressional town hall meetings on health care reform (and thanks to my friend Pat R. for suggesting that I try to find it).

Sonia Sotomayor sworn in as Supreme Court justice

For all of the hopes and fears brought about by her nomination, no one really can know what kind of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor might be. But like author Sandra Cisneros, I think it's a grand day for the United States that Sotomayor was sworn in today as the first Latina on the Court.

Down on the pharma

The other day I linked to a post by Norman Solomon that claimed that the White House made a deal with the pharmaceutical companies not to allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Ezra Klein says that the White House is now denying there was ever such a deal.

A mainstream take on health care reform

The web site of the public radio program The Takeaway offers a "Health Care 101" section with information about health care reform bills currently making their way through the House and Senate.

Read it and weep

Over on CommonDreams.org, Norman Solomon discusses the The Incredible Shrinking Healthcare Reform.

It's enough to make you weep, or gnash your teeth with anger, or worry about the consequences for your loved ones -- or the loved ones of people you'll never meet.

During his campaign last year, Obama criticized big pharmaceutical firms for blocking efforts to allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. But since the election, the LA Times reports, "the industry's chief lobbyist" -- former Congressman Billy Tauzin -- "has morphed into the president's partner. He has been invited to the White House half a dozen times in recent months. There, he says, he eventually secured an agreement that the administration wouldn't try to overturn the very Medicare drug policy that Obama had criticized on the campaign trail."

The story gets worse. For instance, "Tauzin said he had not only received the White House pledge to forswear Medicare drug price bargaining, but also a separate promise not to pursue another proposal Obama supported during the campaign: importing cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe."

Meanwhile, with a "mandate" herd of cash cows on the national horizon, the health insurance industry is licking its chops. The corporate glee is ill-disguised as the Obama administration pushes for legal mandates to require that Americans buy health insurance -- no matter how dismal the quality of the coverage or how unaffordable the "affordable" premiums turn out to be for real people in the real world.

Health care reform battle continues

Christine C. over at Our Bodies Our Blog has a fascinating summary of all the latest health care reform news.

Maybe a kiss is not just a kiss...

A big hat tip to my friend Pat R. for sending me this fascinating blog post on the power of lesbian kisses.

The health care follies continue

Just the other day, I noted that two liberal blogs are mobilizing to try to save the public option in the health care reform bill.

Unfortunately, the public plan they are trying to save may be only a shadow of its former self, according to Physicians for a National Health Care Plan.

When the “public option” campaign began, its leaders promoted a huge “Medicare-like” program that would enroll about 130 million people. Such a program would dwarf even Medicare, which, with its 45 million enrollees, is the nation’s largest health insurer, public or private. But today “public option” advocates sing the praises of tiny “public options” contained in congressional legislation sponsored by leading Democrats that bear no resemblance to the original model.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the “public options” described in the Democrats’ legislation might enroll 10 million people and will have virtually no effect on health care costs, which means the “public options” cannot, by themselves, have any effect on the number of uninsured. But the leaders of the “public option” movement haven’t told the public they have abandoned their original vision. It’s high time they did.

Of course, you might expect PHNP to have strong criticism for the public option, given that they are one of the primary groups pushing for a single-payer national health plan. But over at Common Dreams, Jeff Cohen has an interesting post that makes pretty much the same point.

Activists must recognize the surest way to get a strong public option that could compete with the Cadillac of health plans. We needed to mobilize millions of Netroots people, almost every union and 150 members of Congress to endorse a maximum demand: National health insurance . . . enhanced Medicare for All. In other words, a cost-effective single-payer system of publicly-financed, privately-delivered healthcare that ends private health insurance (and its waste, bureaucracy, ads, sales commissions, lavish executive salaries, profiteering).

Had liberal groups sent out millions of emails building a movement that posed an existential threat to the health insurance industry, Sen. Baucus and Blue Dog Democrats and their corporate healthcare patrons might well be on their knees begging for a comprehensive public option – to avert the threat of full-blown Medicare for All.

As things stand now, as writers like Bob Kuttner and Norman Solomon have warned, a weak public option would institutionalize a two-tiered system with healthier, wealthier citizens getting the best (private) plans, and sicker, harder-to-treat people getting an inferior (public) plan. Newt Gingrich couldn’t dream up a better scenario to discredit an enhanced government role in healthcare.

Meanwhile, Bill Moyers and Michael Winship write that as Congressional Republicans and right-wing activists hope to use the health care issue to crush the effectiveness of the Obama's administration, the Obama health care proposal has become more and more watered down:

Alicia Mundy and Laura Meckler recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal, that "the pharmaceuticals industry, which President Barack Obama promised to 'take on' during his campaign, is winning most of what it wants in the health-care overhaul."

Their story describes "a string of victories" plucked from the Senate Finance Committee by drug company lobbyists, including no cost-cutting steps, no cheaper drugs to be allowed across the border from Canada, and no direct Federal government negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies to lower Medicare drug prices.

I wish I had a brilliant concluding sentence to tie all this together, along with a clear and shining strategy to bring some kind of reasonable conclusion to this mess. If I think of anything, I'll keep you posted.

Will healthcare reform undermine abortion rights?

I've been wanting to write a blog post about the way that Republicans and conservative Democrats have been trying to eliminate the availability of abortion coverage under the guise of health care reform. Lucinda Marshall at CommonDreams.org has written the post that I wanted to write. Please read it.

Man charged with shooting Tiller pleads not guilty

The Daily Women's Health Policy says that the man charged with the killing of abortion provider George Tiller has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and aggravated assault at Wichita, Kansas.

Poll says 76 percent want public option

Even as the Senate moves closer to producing a health reform bill
without a public plan option, a new poll shows that 76 percent of the public wants to have a public option in the bill. This doesn't translate into support for the president's plan, as this Huffington Post story explains.

Meanwhile, Firedoglake and Open Left are calling for political action to pressure supposedly progressive Democrats in Congress to vote against any health care bill that doesn't include a strong public option. Of course, none of these representatives are from Oklahoma, so I'm not sure how much attention they would pay to anyone from around these parts.

Health Care Reform Does Not Equal “Senior Death Warrant”

There are some scary misconceptions out there about President Obama's health care reform proposal. Thanks to Our Bodies Our Blog for a link to the real information on FactCheck.org.

It's an X

I am sitting here in the Red Cup having breakfast, and overheard some folks in the next room discussing whether the baby someone is having is going to be a boy or a girl. Actually, these days they can test for such things, and they knew it was going to be a girl.

The folks in the next room were discussing how raising a girl is different than raising a boy. Certainly they are right, certainly it is a very different thing to have a boy child than it is to have a girl child. We are allegedly living in a post-feminist era when the sexes are equal, but still the most important thing anyone wants to know about a baby is, "Is it a boy or a girl?"

But I am an old-school radical lesbian feminist, and I can remember when we were going to change all that. So I did a little bit of web searching to try to find a story I remember reading in Ms. magazine when I was a teenager back in the seventies, a story about a family determined to raise their child so that its gender truly didn't matter.

The story is called "X: A Fabulous Child's Story." The author is Lois Gold, and you can read the whole thing at The Gender Centre. Please do.

Yours for a world in which we don't just bend gender, but smash it into little bits.

Talking to Myself for a whole year, already

Today is the first anniversary of my little blog.

Yes, you are (a feminist)

I had never seen this classic post over on Tomato Nation, but it's well worth reading.

ERA reintroduced in US House

A friend on Facebook sent me the information that Equal Rights Amendment has been reintroduced in the US House of Representative. I did a little bit of web searching on the topic. Thanks to Sappocrat at Lavender Newswire for a link to the bill introduced by Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Judy Biggert (R-IL).

As always, the ERA is short, simple, and to the point. Look, I'll quote the entire proposed amendment right here:

SECTION 1. Equality of rights under the law shall
not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

SECTION 2. The Congress shall have the power to
enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

SECTION 3. This amendment shall take effect two
years after the date of ratification.

Thanks to the R.E.A.L.Courage web site for posting this link to ERA web sites and information sources.

Arrested for living in a house while black

One of my very favorite blogs is the blog of Angry Black Bitch, who is at her most eloquent (which is saying quite a bit) in her commentary on the arrest of Professor Gates for living in a house in Cambridge while black.

If by some chance you have missed this widely publicized story, here is the short version. Last Thursday, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was returning to his home in Cambridge, Mass. after a research trip to China. His front door wouldn't open. He and the cab driver, who was also black, tried to force open the jammed door. This happened in broad daylight. A white neighbor thought there might be a burglary in progress and called the police.

The police officer who arrived to investigate the call demanded that Gates show ID to prove that he was the rightful owner of the house. According to a statement by Gates's lawyer, Gates went to his kitchen (followed by the officer), and produced his driver's license and his Harvard i.d.

Professor Gates then asked the police officer if he would give him his name and his badge number. He made this request several times. The officer did not produce any identification nor did he respond to Professor Gates’ request for this information. After an additional request by Professor Gates for the officer’s name and badge number, the officer then turned and left the kitchen of Professor Gates’ home without ever acknowledging who he was or if there were charges against Professor Gates. As Professor Gates followed the officer to his own front door, he was astonished to see several police officers gathered on his front porch. Professor Gates asked the officer’s colleagues for his name and badge number. As Professor Gates stepped onto his front porch, the officer who had been inside and who had examined his identification, said to him, “Thank you for accommodating my earlier request,” and then placed Professor Gates under arrest. He was handcuffed on his own front porch

The police report gives a contradictory version of events. Gates has challenged the accuracy of this report. But even if it'ss accurate, Gates, who is in his late 50s, stands 5' 7", weighs 150 pounds, and walks with a cane, obviously posed no threat of violence.  Given this country's long and continuing practice of racial profiling by law enforcement agencies, any distress that Gates might have showed seems entirely understandable.

Furthermore, if you work with public, you need to have a thick enough skin to deal with people who get upset with you. Even taking the arresting officer's version at face value, Gates was arrested because Gates's behavior "caused citizens passing by this location to stop and take notice while appearing surprised and alarmed." In other words, Gates was arrested for being uppity. Is this just one office with an exaggerated sense of his own importance? If we live in a country where we're expected to do absolutely everything a police officer tells us, with no expression of disagreement, we live in a police state. I have to say this police report made my blood run cold.

On Tuesday, the Cambridge police dropped the disorderly conduct charge against Gates. But the story is not going away just yet.

There's an excellent updated analysis of the story at Whose shoes are these anyway? Nordette Adams compares the Gates episode to other recent incidents, including the choking a black paramedic by a white Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer back in May.

Meanwhile The Root has an interview with Gates giving his own story of how the incident took place.

Does Obama’s health care reform merely prop up blood-sucking private insurance companies?

Anyone reading this blog knows that I've vacillated mightily on what to do about health care reform. A single-payer system seems obvious as the best way to make the health care industry work in favor of ordinary people. But maybe the option of allowing folks to buy into a public plan that competes with private insurers would be a workable compromise? I keep going back and forth. I think that I just don't know.

Writing in The Socialist WebZine, Billy Wharton makes a compelling argument that President Obama's proposed health care reform does little to help ordinary people and a whole lot to prop up the private health insurance industry:

The bill does little to address the structural failures of private corporations. Instead of a single-payer plan which would address the problem of cost and coverage by eliminating private health insurers, thereby opening access, the House bill proposes coercive mandates to herd the great mass of the uninsured toward private plans. Key to this is a focus on keeping costs low in the private plans. The problem is that there are only two ways to do this -– offer high-fee, high-deductible plans or offer plans with bare-bones coverage. Both maintain high profitability for the corporations, while fuelling the logic of health-care avoidance and debt accumulation.

Some of the uninsured may resist this drive into private health insurance plans designed for corporate profitability. The House of Representatives, under the advice of President Barack Obama, has therefore designed an intricate system of coercive penalties. Americans will either have to prove enough hardship to qualify for the public option or pay a 2.5% penalty on their annual income. Considering the high costs of monthly health-care premiums, we can imagine that many may opt to pay the fine in order to avoid the higher costs of a private plan.

To make up the difference, the House bill proposes the issue of “affordability credits” in order to, “reduce cost-sharing to levels that ensure access to care”. Where will these credits, read taxpayers' money, be headed? Directly to the private health insurance industry. Here again the new logic of the Obama regime is put to work. Instead of using the state to solve social problems by nationalising, or socialising industry, the administration chooses to toss taxpayers' funds at the private sector. All the while, they employ free-market language –- increased competition, market areas and individual responsibility -– to cover what is essentially a transfer of public funds to large corporations. No wonder nary a word of protest has been uttered by the normally vociferous private health-care industry.

Wharton observes -- accurately, I think -- that only a mass social movement can make real health care reform possible. If anybody knows how to ignite such a movement, would you please share that information with me?

Jimmy Carter leaves Southern Baptists to protest women's subordination

Oklahoma Voice of Reason reports that former president Jimmy Carter has left the Southern Baptist Church, because of that church's support for the subordination of women. I found Carter's explanation of this decision, published in The Age, to be quite moving. Not that I necessarily agree with all of it. Carter writes:

The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.

I not convinced by the argument that a "true" interpretation of the world's major religions would show that they support dignity and equality for women. See, for instance, Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Woman's Bible.

I'm trying to find words to express all my mixed feelings about Jimmy Carter and his record on women's rights. I cast my first presidential vote in the 1976 election, in which Carter defeated Gerald Ford. I voted for Ford, largely because I was uncomfortable with Carter's Southern Baptist religious background. I feared he would undermine women's rights.

I think that voting for Ford was a mistake, but I think my uneasiness with Carter was justified. Doing online research just now, I'm not finding much to document what I remember. Carter's Wikipedia entry has limited information on his record on women's issues.

Carter (like Presidents Nixon and Ford before him) did give at least lip service to the Equal Rights Amendment. But The Socialist Webzine documents Carter's support for the Hyde Amendment, which cut off Medicaid funding for abortions for poor women. And about.com notes that

In 1977-1978 Bella Abzug served as co-chair of the National Advisory Committee on Women. She was fired by President Jimmy Carter, who had originally appointed her, when the committee openly criticized Carter's budget for cutting women's programs.

Of course, that was then, this is now. Maybe Carter has grown over the years. Feminist Philosophers points out that Carter is now part of a group called The Elders, which has recently taken a stand saying that the use of religion to subordinate women is unacceptable. As Carter himself says:

(M)any political leaders can be reluctant about stepping into this minefield. Religion, and tradition, are powerful and sensitive areas to challenge. But my fellow Elders and I, who come from many faiths and backgrounds, no longer need to worry about winning votes or avoiding controversy - and we are deeply committed to challenging injustice wherever we see it.

The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity. We have decided to draw particular attention to the responsibility of religious and traditional leaders in ensuring equality and human rights and have recently published a statement that declares: "The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable."

I don't share Carter's optimism about the role that religious leaders might play in ensuring women's rights. I think I do respect him for making this statement.

Thinking inside the box

Sotomayor affirms Roe as "Settled Law," in second day of confirmation hearings

John Nichols at thenation.com reports that during her second day of confirmation hearings, Supreme Court nominee affirmed Roe v. Wade as "settled law," and appears to have won a battle of wits with Utah Republican Orrin Hatch.

Hatch was firm with the nominee, especially during a pointed line of questioning about cases involving gun rights. But Judge Sotomayor matched wits with the senior senator point for point, meeting arcane questions with precise responses that referenced footnotes and comments by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

Hatch was impressed, telling the nominee at the close of their discourse: "I want you to know I've appreciated this little time we've had together." Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, a key Democrat who led Judge Sotomayor through a line of questioning about executive powers issues, went even further, telling the committee how much he had "enjoyed" the Hatch-Sotomayor dialogue.

Ginsburg and Sotomayor: Two women justices would have both similarities and differences

With the Democrats holding 60 votes in the US Senate, Sonia Sotomayor is likely to gain confirmation as the third woman and first Latina appointed to the US Supreme Court. Sharon Johnson at Women's eNews has written an interesting analysis of the similarities and differences in legal outlook between Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the other woman current sitting on the Court. Both women are strong supporters of employment nondiscrimination, but Sotomayor is much weaker than Ginsburg in her support of reproductive choice.

Appeals court requires pharmacists to dispense "morning after" pill

A three-judge panel of the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that pharmacists may not use their personal religious beliefs to dodge their legal obligation to dispense morning-after contraceptives. Ann Bartow at Feminist Law Professors has the details.

Pondering the history of revolution

Happy Bastille Day. The storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1889 was a major symbolic turning point in the French Revolution. While it held only seven prisoners at the time of the attack, the Bastille had once held numerous political prisoners condemned by royal decree, and symbolized the absolute power of King Louis XVI.

The French Revolution is notorious for devolving into the Reign of Terror. This is used to support the reactionary argument that absolute democracy always leads to horrible abuses. I think it's more accurate to say that, just as there are sincere people who are bigots, there are evildoers who seem quite willing and capable of manipulating good causes to their own purposes. It is also true that empire-builders are quite able to use the trappings of democracy to justify their actions. Like the United States, France has its own history of imperialism and colonialism.

Today, Bastille Day is the French national holiday. But the French don't call it that, they call it le 14 juillet. This holiday is celebrated not only in France, but also in the United States. Is this a sign that US citizens are eager once again to work toward social justice and the ideals of liberty, equality, and sisterhood? Or is it just an indication that Americans are always eager for an excuse to go on a bender?

I remain hopeful of the possibility of an egalitarian future, but it's going to take a lot of hard work to get there.

Paul Krugman on The Stimulus Trap

CommonDreams.org cross-posted Paul Krugman's excellent commentary on what President Obama should do now that the first round of stimulus has proved insufficient to revive the economy.What Mr. Obama needs to do is level with the American people.

He needs to admit that he may not have done enough on the first try. He needs to remind the country that he’s trying to steer the country through a severe economic storm, and that some course adjustments — including, quite possibly, another round of stimulus — may be necessary.

What he needs, in short, is to do for economic policy what he’s already done for race relations and foreign policy — talk to Americans like adults.

Can progressives join forces to fight the health care industry?

Should progressives insist on fighting for a single-payer health care system, or is it more realistic to fight for a public health care plan that competes alongside private insurers. Karen Dolan at the Institute for Policy Studies has an interesting analysis.

A public option may indeed be crafted in such a way to become the wedge that ultimately wins the prize, as public plans under-price costly private plans. The public option could offer public plans designed to adhere strictly to the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ laudable principles of universality, affordability, equality. They could be carefully constructed as to be so cost effective that the Republicans fear that they will crowd out private insurance due to their affordability becomes a reality.

But a public option could also be crafted in such a way to expressly prohibit that outcome by allowing private insurers to cherry-pick the healthiest patients, eventually bankrupting a public plan stuck with the nation's sickest people. If private insurers are allowed to continue the current practice of cultivating and covering the healthiest Americans, the sickest will be dumped into a public plan, thus creating a financially unsustainable situation for the public plans.

These scenarios need to be aired, debated, and dealt with. The way that Obama and progressives on and off Capitol Hill have set the debate thus far, a "robust Public Option" is, effectively, the "left flank," and thereby the very most we can hope for. It becomes the goal rather than the compromise. Had single-payer not been off the table, it might have served as the "left flank," thus making a public option, crafted to lead to single payer, a more politically feasible option, more appealing as the compromise that it is.

Dolan's ultimare message is that members of both camps should cooperate rather than attacking each other.

Why is Wal-Mart supporting Obama’s 'Public Option’ ?

Many of us have been supporting the option for people to buy into a public health-care plan as the best option we're likely to get in the current debate over health care reform.

Dave Lindorff suggests this isn't a realistic compromise:

(T)he plan being promoted by President Obama and by the Democrats in Congress is not real or progressive. It is a plan that will further enrich the health care industry, that will not stop the continuing rise in health care costs, that will still leave millions of people without access to quality medical care, and that will end up costing taxpayers more than they are already paying.

The proof is the support for this plan being offered by the likes of Wal-Mart and the big medical industry players.

You can read the entire post at CommonDreams.org.

This bugs me

I think it's because the weather has been so hot. At night on the front porch I've been seeing a few cockroaches. I've been thinking about going out to the hardware store and finding some roach bait. The only problem is that I've checked out some archy and mehitabel books from the library, and now I feel bad about the idea of killing cockroaches.

But entomology is not my strong suit. The insects I've been seeing might be junebugs. The more I think about it, the more I think they must be junebugs, because they don't scurry away from light the way that cockroaches do. One of these things crawled into my well-lighted living room last night and provided a great deal of entertainment for Spot. I doubt the experience was entertaining for the insect involved, which did not survive the occasion. But Spot needed the exercise.

I am also tempted to be sentimental about ants, whose form of social organization could be described as socialist matriarchy. Unfortunately, my kitchen counter was invaded this morning by what looked like pavement ants, and I had to get out the Terro again.

Can Keynesian economics still work to revive a faltering economy?

I always enjoy Warren Bello's economic essays at Foreign Policy in Focus. In his latest post, Bellow asks whether the great liberal economist John Maynard Keynes is A Man for this Season?

Keynesian economics provides the rationale for President Obama's economic stimulus policies--the idea is that during times of recession, the government should do what it can to stimulate consumption. Bello thinks this strategy may not work in our day and age. For instance, Bello thinks that we need radical restructuring of the relationship between "the central capitalist economies and the global periphery." Furthermore, he argues that increasing consumption in the good old Keynesian way might have unintended consequences as we try to deal with a global climate crisis:

The challenge to economics at this point is raising the consumption levels of the global poor with minimal disruption of the environment, while radically cutting back on environmentally damaging consumption or overconsumption in the North. All the talk of replacing the bankrupt American consumer with a Chinese peasant engaged in American-style consumption as the engine of global demand is both foolish and irresponsible.

Public plan rally at Inhofe's office

As the debate over health care reform heats up, local residents attended a rally outside of Senator James Inhofe's office to urge the senator to support a public plan as part of the package.


The rally was sponsored by moveon.org. The Peace House also had a significant presence.

If you support genuine health care reform, now is the time to contact your elected representatives. The for-profit health-care industry is putting lots of money into keeping a system that is profitable for them, even if it works very badly for ordinary people.

I was on my way home from this rally when I suffered a small personal catastrophe.

Is this bad luck or good luck?

 

So, after the healthcare rally, I stopped at the Red Cup for lunch, and I was waiting at the counter for my sandwich, when someone came in and asked, "Is there anyone here who is driving a white Corolla?"

Witnesses told me that the driver of the car that hit me hit a telephone pole first, and then backed into my car. By the time I got out there, someone had already called the police. Soon a police officer came by and got my information and interviewed the driver of the other car. A little bit later, the police officer told me the other driver had failed--I think he called it an "STSI." Probably a sobriety test. The officer said the other driver was going into jail for driving under the influence. I'm sitting here in the Red Cup right now waiting for another officer to come in to talk to me.

So, this kind of sucks, having my car hit. I don't know at this point if it's drivable or not. It will especially suck if the other driver doesn't have insurance. On the other hand, I wasn't in the car when it was hit. And the people who hang out at the Red Cup are the very best. They were all over the situation like white on rice, so if the guy was thinking about hightailing it out of there, he wouldn't have had a chance.

Those of you who know me may remember that something similar happened to me three years ago, when I was sound asleep in my old apartment and a drunken driver totalled my pickup truck. That time they never caught the person.

I think there might be some greater social or political importance in this situation, but I'm not sure what it is.

Pop was the king of him

Here's another interesting piece on Michael Jackson, at dream not of today.

I found this rather by accident while I was writing the previous post about lightning bugs.

As disconnected from popular culture as I am, the truth is that I'm not terribly familiar with Michael Jackson's music. I don't know much about him as a person. I don't know if sexual abuse allegations made against him several years ago were true--he was acquitted in criminal court, but made a large cash payment to settle a civil case. But looking at him, it seems likely to me that he was himself a victim of severe abuse, as Patricia Williams also pointed out.

Are lightning bugs headed for extinction?

I guess I don't get out enough at night and pay attention to what's going on around me. Last night at the poetry reading down at Galileo, someone read a poem about lightning bugs going extinct. I did not know that this was happening. I used to see lots of lightning bugs back when I was growing up in Philadelphia in the 1960s and '70s. Out west, in Oregon and Idaho, I never saw them. I figured it was a regional thing. Since I've moved to Oklahoma City, I've seen them sometimes, but not consistently, and usually not so many as I remember from those hot Philadelphia summer nights long ago.

Anyway, I wondered about this report of lightning bug extinction, so I did a web search. Here's a description of the situation over at dream not of today. Light pollution seems to be a major culprit. Lightning bugs--also called fireflies--require darkness in order to mate.

The best thing I've seen or heard about Michael Jackson...

...is Mirror Man, by Patricia J. Williams, in her Diary of A Mad Law Professor column at The Nation.

Oklahoma tax system is regressive

The OK Policy Blog has the details.

The regressivity of the system is obvious since the percentage paid in taxes drops with each increase in income. Those who are in the lowest 20 percent of income earners–making $12,000 or less each year–pay 12 percent (one-eighth) of their income in taxes. The percentage of income paid in taxes falls slightly for each income group above the middle. Those in the top 1 percent–making $250,000 or more each year–pay 8 percent (one-twelfth) of their income.

As much as we argue about taxes, most of us don’t think poor people should pay more in taxes than rich, but that’s how we’ve set up the system in Oklahoma.

The rest of the post includes proposals for remedying this situation.

Dean Baker on Life, Liberty, and Employer-Provided Health Insurance

Once again, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research hits the nail right on the head. The topic is health care reform:

As Congress starts to delve into the dirt of a health care reform package, the clearest point of conflict is over the existence and structure of a public health care plan. Some members of Congress have thrown down the gauntlet, insisting that they could never allow the public to have the option of buying into a government-run plan.

These members tell us that a government-run plan will be like having the Post Office manage our health care. While the Post Office actually does a pretty good job where I live, if the point is that a government-run plan is going to be bureaucratic and inefficient, then why are opponents of a public plan so worried about giving people the choice to buy into it? If the public plan is bad, then people will just stay with the options currently available in the private sector. As those of who believe in the free markets like to say: “what’s wrong with giving people a choice?”

In addition to the members who just say “no” when it comes to a public plan, there are also members who are willing to allow a public plan, but only if they can be sure that it will not provide real competition with existing private plans. This route involves crippling the public plan in various ways to make it less competitive.

The entire essay is well worth reading.

One thing leads to another...

Speaking of Elizabeth Cady Stantonand the 100th anniversary of the start of suffragette hunger strikes in Britain, I think I've finally found a reliable link to all six volumes of the old History of Woman Suffrage,  which Stanton co-authored. If you follow the link, you will find a Wikipedia article about this history, and at the end of the article are separate links to all six volumes on Google Books. This is a massive work--I downloaded one volume yesterday afternoon, and that one volume took up 35 megabytes of disk space, but well worth looking at.

Hondurans demand ousted president's return

Medea Benjamin reports the details on CommonDreams.org

British suffragette hunger strikes began 100 years ago

I found this fascinating and inspiring story by June Purvis at CommonDreams.org. It originated on www.guardian.co.uk.

One hundred years ago, on 5 July 1909, the imprisoned suffragette Marion Wallace Dunlop, a sculptor and illustrator, went on hunger strike. A member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903 to campaign for the parliamentary vote for women, she had been sent to Holloway prison for printing an extract from the bill of rights on the wall of St Stephen's Hall in the House of Commons. In her second division cell, Wallace Dunlop refused all food as a protest against the unwillingness of the authorities to recognise her as a political prisoner, and thus entitled to be placed in the first division where inmates enjoyed certain privileges. Her hunger strike, she claimed, was "a matter of principle, not only for my own sake but for the sake of others who may come after me … refusing all food until this matter is settled to my satisfaction". After three and a half days of fasting, she was released.
Other suffragettes that summer of 1909, believing they had found a powerful weapon with which to fight a stubborn Liberal government, also went on hunger strike. However, the government feared that the early release of such rebellious prisoners would make a mockery of the justice system and by the end of September forcible feeding was introduced, an operation justified as "ordinary hospital treatment" to save the women's lives. Over the next five years, this vicious circle of events was to shape the representation of the suffragette movement for years to come.

Purvis implies that British suffragettes invented the hunger strike, and says that their use of this tactic influenced such activists as Mahatma Gandhi and the Irish nationalist James Connolly. Wikipedia, however, implies that the tactic dates back thousands of years.

Although Purvis doesn't mention this, one political activist much influenced by the tactics of the British suffragettes was the US suffragist Alice Paul. According to Wikipedia, Paul studied in Britain between 1907 and 1910. After hearing suffragette leader Christabel Pankhurst speak in 1908, Paul joined the Women's Social and Political Union, and she was arrested and imprisoned three times as a result of her suffrage activism in Britain. Upon her return to the US, Paul became active in the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Dissatisfied with the conservatism of NAWSA, Paul and her colleague Lucy Burns founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage.

When their lobbying efforts proved fruitless, Paul and her colleagues formed the National Woman's Party (NWP) in 1916 and began introducing some of the methods used by the suffrage movement in Britain. Tactics included demonstrations, parades, mass meetings, picketing, suffrage watch, fires, and hunger strikes. These actions were accompanied by press coverage and the publication of the weekly Suffragist.^[3]

Alice Paul is widely credited with helping to revive a near-dead US suffrage movement and playing a critical role in winning the vote for US women in 1920. And she used the tactics that she'd learned from her British sisters.

Credit where credit is due

Speaking of Sodom and Gomorrah, I need to give proper credit to Elizabeth Cady Stanton for giving me the idea for that poem. You can find her analysis in The Woman's Bible, which is also available through the OKC area Metropolitan Library System.

Which Biblical morality are we talking about?

I kind of hate to take potshots at Sally Kern. It's not exactly rigorous intellectual exercise. I would like to say that my mother told me never to undertake a battle of wits with an unarmed person, but my mother never actually said that. OK State Rep. Kern (R. Oklahoma City) may be sincerely bigoted, or she may be your typical cynical politician who knows how to fire up her base, but her statements are so outrageous, and have been so ably dissected by so many commentators, that it seems unnecessary to chime in.

But the recent controversy surrounding her "Oklahoma Citizens' Proclamation for Morality" reminded me of an old poem of mine that I meant to read during OKC pride, but didn't get around to. Kern was not actually so tactless as to refer to Sodom and Gomorrah in her proclamation, but she did opine that "our economic woes are consequences of our greater national moral crisis." She also begged God to "to have mercy on this nation, to stay His hand of judgment." Given that this old story from the nineteenth chapter of Genesis is often used as an example of God's response to homosexuality, I think it bears retelling from a feminist perspective.

So here's the poem. It's a poem about Lot's wife.

Sodomy

Turned to stone
just like that
left alone for all eternity
for all the gawking tourists
to photograph and talk about.

How did she get mixed up with that Lot, anyway?
He, known as the one righteous man in Sodom,
the kind whom angels come to visit.
He was a pillar of the community
before she was.
He wore his righteousness like a shroud.

His neighbors were not so neighborly.
"Intercourse" is a work that also means "to talk"
but the neighbors didn't want to talk with the angels.
"Take my wife, please,"
a phrase remaining to be invented by some much later wiseass.
But Lot was not about to put his own butt on the line.
"Do not be so wicked," he told the neighbors.
"Take my daughters, they are virgins, you can do as you please to them."
He pulled his righteousness around him like a shroud.

He had offered his dearest possessions.
His neighbors, not deterred, tried to break down the door
only to be driven back by an angelic lightning flash.
Those Sodomites didn't care who they fucked with.
This town could not be saved.
Only the family of the righteous Lot could escape with the angels.
But they must trust in righteousness
and not look back.

What was her name, anyway?
Was she not ready to leave behind
the grief and sorrow of this place
or did she know what tragedy lay ahead?
She could not trust.
The river of salt flowed from her eyes.
She knew what was underneath the shroud.

Flowing powerless like a river of salt,
she could go no further.
She could not conceive
how to protect her daughters from righteousness.
She looked back.
Frozen, now, for all eternity as a bad example.

Lot took his righteousness and her daughters
and made camp in the mountains.
Later, he said the daughters were seductive.
He said they got him drunk.
We've heard that excuse many times since then.
The daughters heard it many times before
and blamed themselves as damaged goods
the neighbors would not accept.
Lot's line went on
to prove a paradigm of righteousness.
The daughters wept many bitter tears.
And their mother, whoever she was
stands alone for all eternity as the first bad example.

I have to say it crossed my mind...

...that the US government might have had something to do with instigating the popular unrest in Iran after the controversial recent election. Apparently many other progressives have harbored similar suspicions. Over on CommonDreams.org, Reese Erlich argues convincing that the US and the CIA couldn't and didn't sponsor or manipulate the current Iranian uprising, and that the Iranian people could and did rise up for themselves.

[ I scheduled this post to appear on the 30th of June, but for some reason it didn't appear at that time. So I'm going to schedule it for Sunday the 5th of July. We'll see what happens.}

Fireworks

I didn't go out to see any fireworks tonight (unless you count stepping out the door to take out the trash while people on my street are setting a few things off). But earlier there was a very dramatic thunderstorm. I was in the midst of printing out a manuscript that a friend had asked to see when after one big boom, all the power went out.

A couple of years ago during the big December ice storm that left me without power for eight days, I swore that I'd never complain about the Oklahoma summer again. Tonight I was reflecting that being without power during the Oklahoma summer could be a worse thing than going without it during an ice storm.

I wandered around my neighborhood trying to figure out how far the outage went. Just around the corner from my house, some nice young people sitting out on a porch offered to let me barbecue a marshmallow on their charcoal grill. So I did, since it had been ever so long since I'd had a toasted marshmallow. Then I proceded to survey the extent of the blackout. It seemed to extend from the north side of 31st to the south side of Hill, and from Western to at least as far as Walker.

When I passed the substation at 31st and Western, there was an OG&E truck parked out front. Just then, some very loud popping sounds emanated from some of the substation equipment, and large sparks jumped into the air. This was not encouraging, but a few minutes later when I passed my house again, I could see that the power had come back on.

Meanwhile, the nice young people on the porch had been joined by another friend, and they were all discussing whether a straight man might shave his testicles without any aspersions being cast on his masculinity. This question was actually posed to me. I gave the only answer possible, which was, "I'm an old-school lesbian feminist, how the hell should I know?" But I offered the opinion that everyone should shave whatever they wanted to shave, and leave alone whatever body hair they liked as it was.

Now there are loud popping sounds out on the street that seem to be caused by fireworks rather than by thunder, and my little cat is sitting under the bed. But she doesn't seem terribly distressed.  All in all, a fairly pleasant evening.

Boren one of 19 House Democrats who oppose health care plan if abortion coverage included

Oklahoma's own Rep. Dan Boren is one of 19 House Democrats who sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi that they will oppose any health care reform bill that doesn't explicity exclude coverage for abortion. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report has the details.

More on President Obama from happening-here?

Here is Part Two of janinsanfran's excellent analysis of the record of the Obama Administration so far. (I linked to Part One yesterday.)

happening-here? is consistently one of my favorite blogs. Not that I agree with everything she has to say. In this second post about the Obama Administration, for instance, she says that a majority of US citizens are so fearful of terrorism that they are willing to accept severe curtailments of civil liberties in order to be "protected." I find myself wondering if maybe most folks are too distracted to pay much attention to political issues. The daily struggle to pay the rent and put food on the table may preoccupy folks so much that they're willing to put up with stuff they would rise up against if they had the time and energy to pay attention.

Which is it?

Over at happening-here? janinsanfran takes on the difficult question, President Obama: Betrayal or Failure?

Read it. As always, she's informative and thought-provoking.