Two Female Physicians Follow the late Howard Zinn’s Advice… and Are Arrested

1. Doctor Chicks in Lockup!

2. Giant Passes

3. President Obama Finds His Campaign Groove

4. Your Comments: The State Of The Union Address

5. Your Questions: What’s Up With HCR?

6. And yet crowds of people continue to rally in support of HCR….

1. Doctor Chicks In Lockup!

Well, almost. “C” sent me this video of Dr. Carol Paris and Dr. Margaret Flowers of PNHP right before they were briefly arrested last Friday. The reason: for refusing to move their "Medicare For All" banner away from the hotel where President Obama was set to spar with the GOP in the now-historic televised address.

If you think all this single payer activism is crazy, guess again: this week, the California State Senate passed single payer legislation, SB 810, the California Universal Healthcare Act. It will now move to the State Assembly for discussion. After that, it will go to the Assembly Health and Assembly Appropriations Committees before a floor vote. Give credit where it’s due, and if you want to get involved in helping this move forward, please visit the great and patient folk at “Single Payer Now” – their website is: http://singlepayernow.net/

2. Giant Passes

Image above: 2nd lieutenant Howard Zinn in 1945, the flesh-and-blood counterpart to Heller's Captain Yossarian.

I wonder if half of us would even have tried becoming politically active if it weren’t for men like the late historian Howard Zinn, who tirelessly championed the idea that change comes from the bottom up – even against overwhelming odds. As someone who once took issue with some of Zinn’s claims in the much-loved A Peoples’ History of the United States, I was surprised to find myself so saddened by the 87-year-old historian’s death, and shamed by Bob Herbert’s comment on Zinn in the Times. Herbert’s column concludes:

“Mr. Zinn was in Santa Monica this week, resting up after a grueling year of work and travel, when he suffered a heart attack and died on Wednesday…. That he was considered radical says way more about this society than it does about him.”

And from the Times obituary:

“He joined the Army Air Corps in 1943, eager to fight the fascists, and became a bombardier in a B-17. He watched his bombs rain down and, when he returned to New York, deposited his medals in an envelope and wrote: ‘Never Again.’

‘I would not deny that war had a certain moral core, but that made it easier for Americans to treat all subsequent wars with a kind of glow,’ Mr. Zinn said. ‘Every enemy becomes Hitler.’ …Mr. Zinn served on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and marched for civil rights with his students, which angered Spelman’s president. ‘I was fired for insubordination,’ he recalled. ‘Which happened to be true.’

Now that's another guy who might have earned the Nobel Peace Prize.

3. President Finds Campaign Groove:

No doubt the Republicans regret having invited President Obama to rap their knuckles with a ruler at the Congressional GOP’s televised annual lobbyist-sponsored party this past Friday. It was great (and I mean GREAT!) to see the President reprimand them.

And yet, I couldn’t help but wonder… if he had just schooled the Senate’s blue dog Democrats in the same manner last summer, perhaps we’d have health care reform by now.

Regardless of how emotionally gratifying it was to see the President read the riot act to archetypal jerks within the GOP, let’s distinguish great television from great leadership – we still have a long road to travel. After all the televised pyrotechnics, a reality check: health care remained on ice; Geithner, Summers and Rahm remained protected and on the payroll; arsonist-turned-heroic-fireman Bernanke was re-appointed to the Fed; and the pointless Afghan escalation continues to put us further into debt to China. They say we've been through worse - here's to pulling our country out of the muck!

4. Your Comments: On the President’s State Of The Union Address

“President Obama is so easy on the eyes and the ears that I am lulled into a blissful attitude of calm for about 24 hours. Once the sedative wears off, my brain begins to recalibrate and what I heard was that we are having a health care reform "time-out" but we haven't been told how long this "time-out" might last (until after November elections?)

“Jobs and the economy are Numero Uno, the country is broke, we're bringing troops home from Iraq in August, the war in Afghanistan will go on and blah-blah-blah. Little bits and bites are offered up as tax credits that won't do much for anyone.

“I have the feeling that Obama wishes he had never opened his mouth on health care reform, period, and especially not to have demanded a timetable in the first place.... I have a horrible hunch that Obama knows the country cannot afford the reforms we need and he is somehow involved in the "slow-down" effort. Just a sinking feeling and I hope to God I am wrong.

“So, what to do? Keep the pressure on. Keep writing letters -- snail mail is very productive because someone has to open the mail and they are charged with responding to a hard copy letter. E-mails get lost. Calls and letters are critical.”

5. What’s Up With HCR (this week’s version):

According to TPM, HCR is simultaneously “on life support” and “on the back burner.”

6. And Yet, Crowds of People Continue to Gather in Support of HCR…

Feinstein 1200’er Jeff helped to organize a MoveOn rally last Tuesday night (sorry I couldn’t go – I’d already paid to see Eliot Spitzer at the Commonwealth Club!) I was amazed to learn later how many people Jeff and the other organizers gathered on a dark and somewhat rainy night. If only our U.S. Senate was as on-the-ball as some of the professionals I’ve met who are now working with MoveOn.org. (P.S. Separate thanks to Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health who serendipitously connected me up to an AP reporter to send to the rally.)

“…we had between 200 and 300 people out there, plus at least three reporters. This was despite the fact that (as I learned later) there was a competing demo across town: the SF school district is apparently planning to lay-off ~400 teachers, so many people were there protesting the layoffs.

“Another good thing was that several MoveOn members, including me, had brought extra signs for people to carry; one fellow brought dozens. The MoveOn organizer led the group on the song ‘Where Have All the Democrats Gone?’, then participants stepped up to the megaphone to tell their healthcare horror-stories.”

So health care reform may be both “on life support” and “on the back burner” to the administration, but to ordinary people, it’s still a very pressing issue. More tomorrow.

Thanks for hanging in there,

Eva