Monday, December 28, 2009

Why I Am Still A Democrat, and Why I Am Concerned

My then-struggling parents, pictured with “Papou” at their Kennedy-era backyard wedding, carried on a family tradition, supporting Democratic candidates throughout their medical careers. But Democratic support of Bush’s Iraq invasion sorely tested Mom’s party loyalty, and Dad is seeking EU citizenship. What happened to staying in the fight? Answer: Unlike myself, some people know when to quit!

The past week was spent watching various talking heads explain why we should view the recent Senate vote on HCR as an historic piece of legislation – a “win” for President Obama. (And, of lesser import to the talking heads, some partial win for uninsured Americans, of whom I am but one.)

Much of the argument has been framed as a difference between “progressives” (variously described as unreasonable purists, left-wingers or crybabies) and “centrist Democrats.” I’m told that my support for the polite compromise of the public option marks me as some kind of “leftist” progressive, even though the goal of national health insurance has been a traditional “centrist” goal of my own Democratic Party for the last century.

Not to mention that it was once the goal of even a few Republicans: Nixon’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Act of 1974 was arguably far more radical than the soi-disant reforms the Senate has just passed.

My concern as a Democrat is that the current legislation, which creates a mandate without any real competition for private insurers and without any significant cost controls, has the potential to do far more harm than good to the Democratic Party.

I understand that my position is now in the minority, since so many reform advocates have been newly enlisted to tout the weak Senate bill as a “win”, apparently to boost Democratic chances in 2010. (A short-term, but necessary goal.) But the Democratic opinion in the Senate may be as wrong as it was on the vote to invade Iraq in 2003.

Because the current legislation only reinforces the corporate stranglehold on working and middle class Americans - a trend which has accelerated rapidly over the last 18 months - this legislation may be toxic for the Democratic party over both the near and long term. (Somewhere, Mitt Romney is smiling, and no doubt plotting for 2012.)

Moreover, given the administration’s already demonstrated lack of political will to fight for regulation and reform of the insurers (which will remain exempt from anti-trust laws under the Senate bill), I wonder whether it is realistic to believe that our activism can make a difference at this point in time.

But many of you disagree on that last point. For that I am grateful, and over the next week I’ll present your suggestions for making our voices heard - including ideas from Democratic Congressman Eric Massa.

In the meantime, best wishes for a more transparent, more truly Democratic 2010.

Keep the faith.

Eva

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

A Classical Method for Dealing with Joe Lieberman

An original ostrakon, from 5th-century BC Athens, banishing Cimon (Kimon):

And a contemporary model bearing Senator Lieberman's name:

I wanted to respond briefly to so many of your emails expressing the desire to see Senator Joe Lieberman banished for his attempt to block health care reform earlier this week.


I salute your democratic reflex: Yale historian Donald Kagan has noted the tradition of the non-violent ostracism that ancient Athenians enacted against too-powerful citizens who threatened their democracy. The Athenians took a vote, writing the name of the offender on shards of broken pottery. If there were enough of these shards, or ostraka, the offender was sent out of town for ten years.


The ostracized citizen was allowed to retain his property and access to his funds. It wasn't always a perfect method (is anyone surprised archeologists later found evidence of pottery-rigging?), but Kagan notes that in various ways it protected the young democracy from would-be tyrants, while, I guess, protecting the tyrant from the outraged citizenry. Like an extended "time-out."


To honor your own classical intuition, I have made an ostrakon reflecting your thoughts on Lieberman. I hope these funny images will remind you of how far we've come since the birth of democracy, and how far we have to go. But mostly, I hope it will remind you that democratic traditions weren't built by people who were easily satisfied, or even easy-going people, but by an engaged citizenry.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Howard Dean Says “Kill The Bill” and Move to Reconciliation

Sincere apologies to all those who wrote in - we have a lot more of your comments, but I’m withholding them until Thursday to get this word out from Dr. Howard Dean, please see item #2.



1. Article: Where Does Lieberman Stand At This Moment?

2. Howard Dean Says Kill The Bill and Go to Reconciliation

3. Article: Rep. Capuano Warns Dems


1. Article: Where Does Lieberman Stand At This Moment?

Yes, Lieberman threatened to tank the legislation last Sunday because of the Medicare provision, which he actually supported as recently as three months ago.

And yesterday it was reported on Politico and TPM that Rahm Emanuel had been sent by the White House to tell Reid to make whatever concessions Lieberman wanted.

Perhaps as a result, Lieberman changed course again, announcing that he’s getting closer to supporting the bill, now that he’s won his concessions, and now that, apparently, the White House has signaled that it will concede to whatever future concessions Mr. Lieberman desires.

If you’re scratching your head about any of this, I strongly recommend this New York Times piece, not for the Pollyanna-ish silver lining which appears, ludicrously, to suggest that Lieberman has somehow united Democrats, but for the analysis of what happened and where this could go from here.


2. Article: Howard Dean Gives You Permission To Kill The Bill And Move To Reconciliation

The plumline has been wrong before, so please read this with some skepticism. On the other hand, TPM is also linking to it, and the initial report is from usually trustworthy Vermont public radio.



3. Article: Rep Capuano Literally Warns Fellow Dems: “You’re Screwed”

We, as a group of progressives and Democrats, have made this same point as Rep Capuano many times in the newsletter. Our concerns about the administration’s direction don’t stem from a dislike the President (the Prez is a supernice guy – that’s in fact part of the problem) but because we know that by failing to deliver, we risk losing big in the 2010 elections. Losing more seats in 2010 would ostensibly further hamstring the reforms that the President indicated he wanted sometime back during the 2008 campaign. You know, those reforms to which the President continues to allude, however vaguely, and every once in a while?


And just what is Capuano’s warning? The administration’s failure to generate jobs, and its decision to escalate in Afghanistan. Ya think?


Friday, December 11, 2009

Your Comments On The Demise of the Public Option

The Feinstein 1200 Newsletter: December 11, 2009


1. Your Comments: On The Demise of the Public Option


2. Anthony Weiner’s Enthusiastic Support of the Senate Compromise


3. Robert Reich: Not So Much


4. Maggie Mahar’s Not Biting, Either


5. Your Comments: This Isn’t Working for Paula and S.


6. Lieberman Increasingly Troubled by Medicare Buy-In


7. F1200’er Rob Increasingly Troubled by Lieberman


8. Al Franken and Rocky Take Feinstein’s Idea and Run With It


9. Your Comments: Pat takes note of co-sponsors of Franken-Rocky


10. Warning: Side Effects of Extended Release HCR May Include Pre-Election Anxiety


11. Restrictions on Abortion Are, Well, Aborted


12. Your Comments: Root Canal Prompts Lawyer’s Meditation on NHI


13. Your Events: Meet the Legendary Don Bechler


14. Saving the Best for Last



1. Your Comments: I Never Liked That Public Option Thing, Anyway.

M. writes: Despite all of the wailing, gnashing of teeth, and tearing of hair,”(Editor’s Note: What? No rending of clothing?) “it seems to me that trading off the public option (whatever it now is, in its form that is diminishing by the day) for Medicare at 55 and Medicaid at 300% of poverty is a good thing. I think that expanding Medicare is the only hope we have of getting to single payer (unless, of course, everything collapses). I am less optimistic about Medicaid, where physicians have been treating patients on an essentially pro bono basis for at least 30 years that I know of. But both of them will expand the public sector. I also think that Medicare will be less expensive than the private alternatives over time.


“Have you received anything on this issue from your informed sources? If so, I would appreciate your sharing. As you know, MoveOn and FireDogLake and probably others believe that the sky is falling, so any perspective on the issue would be helpful.”


My “informed sources” appear to be too involved in gnashing of teeth to respond right now. But you’re right – the public option was looking less than “robust” which has caused many to ask what value it has at this point, other than symbolic. This was the point made by Ken Jacobs, Chair of the Labor Center at UCB at our seminar - that we were all too fixated on the public option, and that affordability was really the more important issue.

But this new Senate compromise (and the details have been sparse) is something else entirely. Anthony Weiner gave it a big thumbs-up, but others I respect as much were far more skeptical. I’ll admit to an increasingly state of being perpetually non-plussed. But here’s a look at what the non-nonplussed are saying.


2. Anthony Weiner’s Enthusiastic Support:

Yesterday on public radio station WNYC, single-payer-“playa” RepresentativeAnthony Weiner strongly embraced the Senate compromise in a 12-minute interview. Reporter/host Brian Lehrer opened the interview by roughly defining the Senate compromise as allowing anyone 55+ or older who is uninsured to buy into Medicare (eventually with subsidies based on income.) It would reportedly also include a non-profit alternative to the corporate health insurance plans for people younger than fifty-five. (Or so we think, since Harry Reid ain’t talking.) Here’s a very stripped-down out-take of Weiner’s remarks on the senate compromise:

It basically takes us away from our compromise position which was the public option and goes to more our original position. We have Medicare, which is a full single payer system for those 65 and over. Why not make it 64 or 54 or 34? Well, we finally came back to the same place we should have started – Medicare. Popular, successful, barely more than 1 percent overhead rate, and now we’re going to expand it to the people who have the most difficulty getting insurance. We had this big debate, we decided we’re going to expand something that works. So much of the opposition was based on confusion. But everyone understands Medicare. It has one final benefit – it takes a program that is a progressive, Democratic, bedrock success story, and it builds on it.”


(He also had a bold answer for the GOP members who took him on, and he briefly addressed the financing problems in both Medicare and private insurance.)


The radio host asked: Why would Senator Lieberman find this more acceptable?

Weiner answered: “Because some of my colleagues have tied themselves in a knot, saying they don’t want any new government programs. It became such a bugaboo to a handful of senators, that they were perfectly willing to take the same outcome with an existing program.”


Weiner continued: “(The senate compromise) is the public option on steroids. It uses this rhetorical jab that’s been used against us and turns it around. The public option was never our opening bid – single payer was. We ought not fall in love with the idea that our compromise is falling away when we’re getting our opening bid.

Weiner concluded that, “if this is successful, we can expand Medicare even further.”

The host responded: That’s what the GOP will attack you for.

Weiner’s response: “Well, that’s why we’re in charge, and they’re in the minority, and we hope to keep it that way.”


Listen to the last two minutes to hear Weiner’s answer on what the buy-in will be – he points out that “once this program is up and running, we’ll look around and ask, why does a 56-year-old have to pay, but a 65-year-old doesn’t? And that’s going to get us down the road to where a single-payer advocate like myself likes to be.”


3. Robert Reich Doesn’t Share Anthony’s Enthusiasm:

Read the entire article here.

Excerpt:

“To provide political cover to senators who want to tell their constituents that the intent behind a robust public option lives on, the emerging Senate bill makes Medicare available to younger folk (age 55), and lets people who aren't covered by their employers buy in to a system that's similar to the plan that federal employees now have, where the federal government's Office of Personnel Management selects from among private insurers.

“But we still end up with a system that's based on private insurers that have no incentive whatsoever to control their costs or the costs of pharmaceutical companies and medical providers. If you think the federal employee benefit plan is an answer to this, think again. Its premiums increased nearly 9 percent this year. And if you think an expanded Medicare is the answer, you're smoking medical marijuana. The Senate bill allows an independent commission to hold back Medicare costs only if Medicare spending is rising faster than total health spending. So if health spending is soaring because private insurers have no incentive to control it, we're all out of luck. Medicare explodes as well.

“A system based on private insurers won't control costs because private insurers barely compete against each other. According to data from the American Medical Association, only a handful of insurers dominate most states. In 9 states, 2 insurance companies control 85 percent or more of the market. In Arkansas, home to Senator Blanche Lincoln, who doesn't dare cross Big Insurance, the Blue Cross plan controls almost 70 percent of the market; most of the rest is United Healthcare. These data, by the way, are from 2005 and 2006. Since then, private insurers have been consolidating like mad across the country. At this rate by 2014, when the new health bill kicks in and 30 million more Americans buy health insurance, Big Insurance will be really Big.


4. Maggie Mahar Isn’t Biting, Either

I shared Congressman Weiner’s enthusiasm, but Maggie’s dissent gave me real pause.


5. Your Comments: It’s not working for Paula and S,.

Paula sends this from Credo.

And S. sends this from FDL,

Don't just go with Credo and FDL - this debate on the Times blog lays out some of the merits and pitfalls. Weirdly, the guy from the Heritage Foundation is in agreement with the PNHP guys. But obviously for different reasons.


6. Lieberman “Increasingly Troubled” by Medicare Buy-In

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30473.html


7. F-1200’er Rob is “Increasingly Troubled” by Lieberman

One of our own F1200’ers sent a letter to Senator Joe Lieberman, and got a canned response saying that his letter doesn’t count because Rob doesn’t live in Connecticut. Rob wasn’t taking that lying down.

“Senator,

I am sorry to hear that you limit your answers to Connecticut residents. Considering that you have the power, and willingness, to hold the entire US Senate Democratic Caucus hostage to your interests, I firmly believe that you owe an answer to the entire Nation.

I once again request that you support President Obama's efforts to pass a comprehensive Health Care reform, including a strong public option.

Respectfully,

Rob”


8. Franken and Rockefeller take Feinstein’s idea and run with it:

I promised that I would call Feinstein’s office and get back to you on her three-point plan (rate authority + capping of medical loss ratio + elimination of anti-trust exemption for insurers.), but it turns out that Franken and Rockefeller are already working on one of Feinstein’s three points.


Washington, D.C. [Dec 4, 2009] – Today, U.S. Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.) introduced the Ensuring Value for Premiums amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The amendment proposes that the Senate health care reform bill include a provision to require that 90 percent of each health insurance premium dollar go toward health care services.
 
Right now, on average, only 70 cents of every dollar paid toward health care premiums are spent on actual health care services. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act raises that ratio to 80 percent. Currently, Minnesota’s non-profit plans lead the nation in keeping administrative costs low, spending 91 cents of every premium dollar on actual health services. This amendment would set a 90 percent standard on insurance companies nationwide, allowing only the remaining portion to be spent on administrative costs, marketing campaigns, and profits.

http://franken.senate.gov/press/?page=release&release_item=Franken_Rockefeller_Introduce_Health_Reform_Amendment_to_Ensure_Value_For_Premiums

But couldn't the insurance companies just continue to raise premiums to make up the difference without a rate authority a la Feinstein’s proposal?


9. Your Comments: Pat notes Franken-Rocky co-sponsors:

“I'm fascinated by co-sponsors of some amendments - specifically Blanche Lincoln on the Franken-Rockefeller amendment. (The amendment is co-sponsored by Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sherrod Brown (D-Oh.), and Mark Begich (D-Alaska).”


10. Warning: Side Effects May Include Headaches, Nausea and Pre-Election Anxiety

This is the kind of thing UCB’s Ken Jacobs was warning about at our seminar – wherein the biggest loss wouldn’t be a weak public option, but a combination of unaffordability and, in this case, timing.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/health-care-relief-in-2013-giving-dems-heartburn.php


11: Abortion Amendment Is, Well, Aborted:

As many had predicted, the Stupak Amendment in the Senate (Ben Nelson's version) didn’t have a hope-in-Hades of passing. And so it didn’t, (but not before hijacking the health care discussion and allowing both sides of the abortion debate to do some serious fund-raising.) Don’t count on NARAL to send Bart Stupak and Ben Nelson a thank-you letter. For the same reason, I never sent a thank-you to Sarah Palin for getting our Democratic base so motivated to fight last summer. But sister, I was grateful.


12. Root Canal Inspires Nostalgic Meditation for an F1200 Lawyer:

One of our F1200’ers, Bruce Cahan, endured a particularly expensive root canal recently, which prompted this meditation.

“I have a nostalgic view of NHI. Thirty years ago – 1979 – I wrote a Temple Law Quarterly article entitled National Health Insurance: How would the courts take it? The article was reprinted by BNA, and on August 12th of this year, I hand delivered a copy of the faded (but shockingly still timely) article to Senator Feinstein’s staffers. The article makes the U.S. Constitutional argument that there is a natural right to health care. While I’m not opining on that argument under today’s jurisprudence, the history of that argument may be worthwhile for Constitutional scholars to take up today.


While I’ve been a bystander in the current health insurance saga, there are many non sequiturs that seem worth reconsidering. Take dental care. I recently paid $3,000+ for a second root canal and new crown on an upper left molar, second due to the fact that the first root canal and crown let a cavity grow underneath. Where was it written that the mouth and its teeth are some out of body experience? Why should dentists, oral surgeons and related dental specialists be permitted to charge a la carte prices, while their physician friends have fees regulated by insurers or under the public option, a government regulatory agency? Why should the working family whose child, parent or grandparent needs orthodontia or other oral care have protection from cardiac surgery bankrupting them, but remain exposed to dental charges? It’s time to reattach the mouth to the rest of the body, and to include it and its care in the national health insurance debate.


I just came across this anomaly: http://www.ada.org/prof/advocacy/issues/HR3962-Side-by-side_Nov_9_2009.pdf. Clearly the ADA wants their members’ most lucrative and expensive oral restoration and surgical procedures excluded from the caps of universal health care. How odd.


So if a family is required to have medical health insurance and can’t afford it due to uncovered dental costs, their 2.5% of AGI isn’t reduced by the amount of uncovered dental costs!"


13. Your Events: Meet the Legendary Don Bechler

Now that San Francisco’s become tame, you have to look pretty hard to find any old school activists in the mold of Depression-era Harry Bridges and the legendary activist/runner Walt Stack. But the ever-gracious Don Bechler, of “Single Payer Now”, is one of the old-school “true believers” – and that’s a compliment. You can meet Bechler and his merry band at the Single Payer Now Annual Potluck Dinner on December 19 at 3:00 p.m. at St. Mary’s Cathedral (Geary and Gough). Speakers will include Tom Ammiano – and New York’s Eric Massa, the congressman who co-sponsored HR 676. Check ‘em out at www.singlepayernow.net


14. Saving the Best for Last

This one’s deserves a burlesque rimshot – or at least a laugh track. Alas, we have none!

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/12/10/deal-could-put-joe-lieberman-in-charge-of-regulating-your-health-insurance/


Please contact me with any questions or comments.


Many thanks,

Eva Chrysanthe

The Feinstein 1200

Sunday, December 6, 2009

What's Your Other Volunteer Project?

Puppies after awakening from their nap after arrival, two days before Thanksgiving. The big blonde puppy is now three times the size of the smallest. (Sorry that current pictures are so out of focus!)
One of the neighborhood nurses was kind enough to take in a stray dog - who had a litter of FOURTEEN (count 'em!) puppies. So I've been on poop patrol - we have to keep them in the basement in a giant pen with tons of newspaper changes. Thank goodness for hospital gloves! This lovely grey is one of my favorite puppies, but the others are even cuter and miraculously, they are all thriving. They were finally old enough to get their worm medication two nights ago. Thank God we were under the supervision of two excellent nurses - one of whom is in the F1200!

The incredibly gracious Momma Dog, a small, red-brown American boxer mix who is VERY well socialized and very sweet, is doing well. Whenever I watch her interact so gracefully with total strangers, I realize that she must have had a very loving owner at some point.

How did she end up on the street? Was she lost? Is it a foreclosure story? No matter - we're bound and determined to find her a "forever" home, and I'll have a photo of her soon.

The rescue organization told us that there could be two fathers given the size of the litter - and aside from this singular grey puppy, the puppies are divided - with half looking like German Shepherd mixes, and the rest looking a bit more like a Labrador.

It sure beats reading about Joe Lieberman!!!

Your Comments on Afghanistan


I received so many more comments last week on the President's decision to escalate in Afghanistan than on health care that I felt I should include them here. At the time I sent it out, I had not received a single email in support of the escalation, but I have since received one, which I will put in a later newsletter.


1. Your Comments: Where Lies His Loyalty?

2. Your Comments: Contractors

3. Your Comments: Whatever Happened To Hope?

4. Your Comments: Where’s Waldo?

5. Your Comments: That Shut HIM Up!

6. Your Comments: Our Fault, Too

7. Your Comments: An Article

8. Your Comments: Haunted

9. Your Comments: Stop The Insanity

10. Your Comments: Not A Hyprocrite

11. Your Comments: Battle Fatigue

12. Your Comments: Still Hope


1. Your Comments: Where Lies His Loyalty?

"Eva, I feel the same way you do about the escalation in Afghanistan. I was not opposed to the original invasion since it was a true multilateral force in response to the Afghan's government's refusal to extradite the terrorists responsible for the attack on the World Trade Center.

However, after 8 years of bumbling in Afghanistan I do not see any credible definition of "winning' there. That's what I found so infuriating about McChrystal's troop request. He needs them to "win" with no definition of what winning means. I predict that conditions Afghanistan will be no better in 18 months than they are now. This is not the change I voted for in 2008. I am very disappointed in the President's swing to the far right on many issues.Where is his loyalty to the base that got him elected?"


2. Your Comments: Contractors

"Right on, Eva. For a day or two after Obama's speech, I was willing to trust that he made the right decision. But then I reverted to my original stance on this war, which is: GET. OUT. The elephant in the closet is defense contracts. Why doesn't the news media give more attention to this?

Cheney and his cronies still have influence in D.C. and no doubt, have scared or threatened Obama into a corner, knowing he doesn't have the cojones to stand up to the conservative pressure."

(Eva’s note: there are more contractors in Afghanistan than US military, and the reports are that even the 30,000 surge will not tip that balance in favor of our soldiers. Contractors are not bound by military law. Onward:)

"I was a high school and then college student during the long Vietnam war, where the U.S. sent 4 million troops to fight. Four Million. Over 50,000 died and countless others wounded, disabled, captured or went missing. LBJ used the same strategy: escalate to get it over with and win. Obama steered away from "win", instead calling it a "successful" withdrawal.

What really turned my stomach was when the President announced the troop increased the day before his lavish state dinner… The security lapse proves the incompetence, arrogance and cronyism that rages on in the White House.

The Jobs Summit? What a joke. They're about a year late."


3. Your Comments: Whatever Happened To Hope?

"Me too Eva. What ever happened to "HOPE"?


4. Your Comments: Where’s Waldo?

"I agree with you 100% about the war in Afghanistan. I heard today on KPFA from a former Obama Whitehouse aide who's resigned that Al Qaeda does not exist in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is based on the internet and cell phones, he said. Thanks for sharing."


5. Your Comments: That Shut HIM Up

"My husband is so upset about the troop surge that he can’t speak. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The Prez is going to lose his progressive base. I can’t help but feel he’s got one term to accomplish whatever it is he’s going to accomplish….I just wish he’d go down swinging…"


6. Your Comments: Our Fault, Too

"Yes, we, many of us are shaking our heads at the twisted rationale for the surge. Of course, I hope he is right; but, even if he is, to what end does it bring us? Will we be more safe than if we had decided to turn the tables on Al Qaeda and act for peace? I think these actions will enflame. Oh, well. We all projected a lot onto Obama."


7. Your Comments: An Article

"Here's something to consider: an article on Obama's war decision by Tom Engelhardt ("The Commanded in Chief). I think it's an excellent interpretation of what is going on:


http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175172/tomgram%3A__meet_the_commanded-in-chief/#more "


8. Your Comments: Haunted

"I, too, am haunted by our President's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. It's a repeat of Bush's crime. In the end, we need to pray for our leaders for wisdom that theymake the right decisions and their decisions uphold the principles of democracy and freedom."


9. Your Comments: Stop the Insanity

"I, too, hoped that Obama would STOP the craziness and take care of business here at home: Jobs, Health Care, Economy. Minimum of $30 BILLION for the extra troops. Not to mention that I didn't even know we had some 100,000 Blackwater "troops" in Pakistan. Of course Obama didn't bother to mention that in his speech! Who's running this country anyway? I guess it's the military .... big business and lots of folks making a lot of money on war. Meantime, we have more and more homeless and hungry folks right here at home. Sorry I cannot offer up one positive thing about our government and our country. It's very scary."


10. Your Comments: Not A Hypocrite

"I agree with you. I'm super disappointed about Afghanistan, as I think our presence in the Muslim world increases their hatred of us. Like you, though, I recognize that he campaigned on this and therefore don't consider him two-faced or hypocritical. I just worry that on top of our people dying that this will reduce likelihood and cash for important domestic programs, like health care reform and environmental improvements."


11. Your Comments: Battle Fatigue

"I'm glad to hear someone else (particularly you who were close to ground zero) say they opposed the invasion of Afghanistan, Eve. My feeling at the time was that invading was hardly the only or the best response, just that embraced by a cowboy president. I, too, feel defeated and sad -- that someone with Obama's intelligence and gifts is following this path; it makes me feel, cynically, that war is the best political escape when the going at home gets rough.

I wish that the non-logic of responding to terrorist force with state-sanctioned force were the subject of a high-powered public interest public relations campaign...along with efforts to get Congress to block funding for escalating this war.

Not sure which -- if any group -- is moving in the education direction, although several I've signed a few petitions to ask Congress to cut off funding. Still, I feel apathy (or is it paralysis?) snapping at my heels..."

Apathy, battle fatigue, that is where most of us are at. I feel like I have whiplash from trying to follow the back and forth on health care alone.


12. Your Comments: Still Hope

"Eva: Your words about the Pres and Afganistan resonate deeply with me. My only thoughts to allow me to go forward are.....that Obama was elected, it was not a revolution. The powerful in this country are still powerful. He is only able to operate around the edges now. Clinton is really having his third term. I have to believe that in Obama's second term he will be able to be more free and really ram some more progressive policies through before he leaves high office.

It is up to all of us and Eva you are certainly doing your part. We must keep building and pushing. Educating and speaking out. It is all that we can do. Bush/Cheney had eight years to wreck havoc on our democracy. They did really serious damage. Truthfully, I don't think we even yet know the true extent of the damage. We must discuss, plan and execute actions that restore the democracy. It is a very very long haul....but I truly believe we have made a start, by waking up and with your help, starting to bind together!"