Running in circles

September 14, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

I was on Matt Mittan’s radio show yesterday for the first time since he left Clear Channel.

Matt and I disagree on a lot of political things, as do his producer, Agnes Cheek, and I.

But it’s OK. Matt understands my mission to get access to health care for all Americans, and he even agrees with me on some points.

The thing is, I treat Matt and Aggie with respect and they do the same for me. We listen to each other’s point of view and don’t talk over each other. We don’t raise our voices. It’s all about constructive conversation.

He posted on Facebook that I was there, and within a few minutes, two people posted questions for me, which I saw when I got home.

One was a woman who wanted to know why New York City is so intent on limiting people’s access to soda.

I explained that my specialty is access to health care, and although I think sugary sodas are bad for people, I won’t try to answer for the government of New York City.

The other was someone who asked me to name one government program that works.

So, I explained that Medicare spends 97 percent of what it takes in on direct services, and the people I know who use it are pretty glad it’s there.

That wasn’t good for him because Medicare is about to go broke.

So I explained that we need to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, since no money is trickling down anyway, and close up corporate tax loopholes so we can shore up Medicare.

That wasn’t good enough for him either because he wanted me to name anything the government does that works.

So I did: Child labor laws, water systems, roads, employee safety regulations, Social Security, schools (until we began de-funding them), federal drug safety laws, police, fire departments, the military, the WIC program, libraries …

They’re no good, he said. They’re all broke.

Well, I said, that’s why we need to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and close corporate loopholes.

No. Taxes are bad. Oh, and the government’s broke. We need to pay down the deficit.

I explained that he seemed to be talking in circles and spewing talking points rather than having a sincere conversation and that I would disengage.

He sent me another message that all he wanted was the answer to his question.

“I gave you several answers,” I wrote.

That’s the problem with people who insist on using talking points; they can’t stop. They just go from one to the next and back again. Did this man even know what WIC is? It’s one of the most efficient and effective programs out there, offering nutrition education and food to low-income pregnant women, and it stays with them after their babies are born.

And why didn’t he answer to child labor laws? Are they bad too? How about the military and cops and firefighters?

There was no thought in his responses. Nothing the government does is good, we’re broke and need to pay down the deficit and we can’t raise taxes on the “job creators.”

If he wants to continue the conversation the way it was going, he can just go back and read it again and again. I’m too dizzy to stay engaged with him.

 

 

For 9/11, do something life-affirming

September 11, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living One comment

What are you doing today? Are you sitting at your desk trying not to think about the horror of this day 11 years ago?

I think about it a lot. I lived in suburban New York and my husband worked at a trade magazine just 12 blocks from the World Trade Center. He watched the buildings go down.

We don’t watch any of the television specials. Seeing it live was enough for my husband.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t remember. My Sunday school kids asked my how God could allow something so terrible — many of them had friends who lost a parent in those buildings.

I told them that God gave humans free will and this is what some humans do with it.

So what do we do to memorialize those who died? Building a memorial is one thing, and it’s important for us to have a place to go and ponder what happened.

But what about today, 11 years later? Should we still be angry, shaking our fists and vowing to wipe out every member of Al Qaida?

I don’t think that does anyone any good.

I’m giving blood this afternoon.

My friend Thom bought coffee and doughnuts and brought them to the fire station to say thanks to the people who are there every day to keep us safe. My friend Byron is celebrating her niece’s birthday with special fervor.

Today is a day to reach out in that same spirit we all felt the day after the attacks. We can all do something in that spirit.

Here are some thoughts:

  • Give blood. Someone always needs that.
  • Sign up to volunteer at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen and listen to the stories of the people there.
  • Donate to a food pantry or volunteer there.
  • Sign up to spend a day working at Habitat for Humanity. You have no idea how cool it is to drive by a house you helped build and know as family finds shelter there.
  • Volunteer at an animal shelter. Some shelters have shifts for cuddling kittens to socialize them. Some need help walking the dogs so they will be exercised and not as hyper when people come to see them.
  • If you see a homeless person, smile and say hello. It’s something to celebrate when most people look right past you as they pass and then someone recognizes your humanity.
  • Donate to a charity. Nonprofits do a lot of good work and funding is harder to come by than ever before.
  • Buy coffee and doughnuts for your local fire department, or better yet, if you have time, bake something.
  • Thank a cop, a firefighter, a soldier, a social worker, a nurse, a teacher … these people all work hard to make our society a better one.

Do something other than dwell on the lives lost; honor them instead by dwelling on how you can make some lives a little better while you’re here on this planet.

‘My children are my heart.’

September 10, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

‘My children are my heart,’ she said. This is a woman who understands that no mother should lose her child to a broken system.

I watched a little of the GOP convention before my head came dangerously close to exploding. Chris Christie was loud and obnoxious. Paul Ryan hardly spoke a word of truth. Mitt Romney was no more honest.

And while Ann Romney talked about what a wonderful man her husband is — and I’m sure she thinks so — it was Michelle Obama who was the highlight for me.

I love Bill Clinton as policy wonk. He was, as always, a rock star. But let’s not forget that he was the president who signed the repeal of the Glass-Stegall Act and NAFTA and other free-trade agreements that wound up sending so many jobs overseas. Still, it was a great speech.

And Joe Biden, as always, was heartwarming and sincere, calling his wife “Jilly” and asking her why she waited until the fifth time he proposed to accept. I keep remembering his speech in May to the families of people killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and the way he used his own experience of loss to offer them hope.

But Michelle was just amazing. Her speech was so from the heart. When she talked about her children — “My children are my heart.” — and her eyes welled with tears, I knew she understands what kind of pain I live with every day. I knew she’s on my side when it comes to helping the poor, the sick, the hungry, the homeless, the forgotten. She knows they all are somebody’s children, and none of them deserves to suffer because of the greed of the few. She has compassion, which is rare among people in Washington.

I can’t say I’m happy with all of President Obama’s policies, or the way he has backed off to try and compromise and then gone too far — taking the public option out of the Affordable Care Act, for example. And the fact that we’re still sending out drones that are killing innocent people.

But I want Michelle in the White House. I know she’s a champion of all of us.

Happy Labor Day, courtesy of American workers

September 3, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

This could have been my grandmother and her sister near the turn of the 20th century in a Rhose Island textile mill.

My great-grandparents came to this country in the mid-1800s, escaping the great Hunger in Ireland. They were luckier than many; they lived to get on a ship and get here.

My grandparents, born into poverty in the 1880s, never finished elementary school. My grandmother taught herself to read and write and later taught my grandfather. They left school in second grade to go to work because their families needed their income to survive.

As children, they worked in the textile mills of Rhode Island and Connecticut. The noise of the machines cost them their hearing — both needed hearing aids by the time they were in middle age. They worked seven days a week, 12-hour days.

Mill owners loved having children as employees because they were paid less, and their little hands could reach into the machinery and untangle threads caught up in the works. It didn’t matter that children’s hands were mangled — or even that children died. There were always more to replace the ones who were lost.

My in-laws landed in Pennsylvania when they came to this country from Eastern Europe and they worked the coal mines. My father-in-law lost the tip of his finger in an accident and was sent back to work that same day with the finger bandaged. The men of these northeastern Pennsylvania coal towns didn’t live long. They died in mining accidents and from black lung disease, and their employers didn’t care because there were always more to replace the ones who died.

These horrible working conditions happened just a generation or two before me. I remember the stories from my grandparents. My grandmother couldn’t even vote as a young woman, so she had no power to change things other than to hope the men in her life would vote for people who would make conditions better.

Most of us alive today have no direct connection to those times, and the 1 percent are counting on that as they try to abolish all the gains made by our grandparents, many of whom died in the fight for fair labor laws.

We stand at a crossroads in this election year. We can vote to reaffirm those laws, or we can vote for people who wish to do away with minimum wage laws and crush the few unions that are left.

I plan to vote for the rights of workers to make a living wage and to have the protections my grandparents fought so hard to gain for me.

Enjoy your holiday and remember how it came to be. Remember that our forebears lived in mill towns and were paid in company scrip that couldn’t be spent anywhere but at the company store, where prices were just high enough to keep you in debt and unable to leave.

Remember that people could be fired — or killed — for trying to organize for safer and more humane working conditions.

Our ancestors went through hell to make a better world for us. Let’s not hand it back to the 1 percent.

Boobs and boors

August 30, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living One comment

Do you really think these guys are here to celebrate women’s rights?

Let me start by saying I’m not a prude.

But c’mon, women, why all the fuss about being able to go topless when it’s already legal in North Carolina?

The idea for the rally came from a man who bills himself as Sparkles the Clown. He’s from Alabama and his wife doesn’t even approve.

It seems to me this clown and a lot of “participants” are nothing more than goons with boob fetishes.

What’s happening here is that the clown from Alabama has convinced a group of women that they need the right to parade around half-naked — a right they already possess.

Meanwhile, a women’s equality rally a couple blocks away went almost unattended.

Crap like this rally takes away from the serious problems ultra-conservatives are causing women. We’re on the fast track to losing our right to contraception. I mean, they’ve gone beyond attempts to remove access to abortion; they want to make us beg for contraception.

My generation fought this fight 40 years ago and now we’re having to do it again.

Meanwhile, women are parading topless around downtown, allowing drooling mouth-breathers to take pictures of their boobs as though it was some kind of serious issue.

The real issue here is whether we’re willing to go back to the days when men could make us stay home and have to rely on them for everything. They could treat us as they pleased and we had no recourse. Trust me, I remember those days. I lived that life for a few short years, having to ask for money to buy underwear.

Never again. I will control my body and my destiny. My husband is there to share the journey with me, not drag me along on his joy ride.

So, those of you who bared your boobs so boors could gawk, please try to see how you’re being manipulated and tell the boys to find their prurient pleasures somewhere else.

 

Legitimate rape?

August 20, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

Todd Akin, GOP Senate candidate from Missouri. The costume here fits the same timeline as his views on women and rape.

Over the weekend, Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin of Missouri, was asked his views on abortion. He’s agin’ it, of course.

Well, what if the pregnancy is the result of a rape?

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors, [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” Akin said. “But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”

Really, Todd? And where does the woman come into your equation? I guess nowhere.

And what does he mean by legitimate rape? I’ll bet I know. I’ll bet he thinks most women are just asking for it and he thinks if the woman really doesn’t want sex, her body won’t allow a baby to be conceived. In other words, she really wanted it. She was probably asking for it. Maybe she wore an outfit that looked good on her. Maybe she has worked hard to have a healthy body, or perhaps she agreed to have dinner with a man or accepted a ride home after a party. She owes him if he’s done something nice for her. She allowed  herself to be alone with him, didn’t she? Doesn’t that mean she really wants it?

I thought we were past this fiction that women really want to have sex so they allow themselves to be raped.

Many years ago, a lesbian friend of mine was raped and the rapist went free because, as one cop actually said to her, “You probably just wanted to see what sex with a man was like.”

This blame-the-victim approach is so wrong, yet it keeps bobbing up on the right. She was asking for it somehow, so she deserves what she gets.

About 32,100 adult women become pregnant each year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control (http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/sv-factsheet-a.pdf).

Does this mean 32,100 women really wanted to have sex with their attackers? Absolutely not. This is just an ignorant male fantasy. Ignorant men like to think they’re irresistible, and some will go to great lengths to keep the fantasy alive.

Get over yourself, Todd. Women don’t want sex with every man they meet, especially men who force themselves on women.

 

 

Ryan? Really?

August 14, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

It’s a gift from the Right — Paul Ryan, the author of Kill Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security, as VP pick for Mitt Romney.

OK, first off, the Protestants aren’t going to be happy, especially those furthest to the right think neither Mormons nor Catholics are “real” Christians. There are some over there who don’t even think Methodists are real Christians.

Then there are the few moderates in the party who will bail out at the thought of a Tea Partier as VP.

And those on the far right likely are unhappy already because Mitt distanced himself from the Medicaid debacle.

We on the left are pretty pleased, of course, because the Ryan budget hasn’t been very popular and we can (and will) exploit what it would do to seniors, to people with disabilities and to people who happen to be both poor and sick.

And just as the Affordable Care Act is gaining some popularity among the millions of people it has helped already:

  • 2.5 million young adults who are on their parents’ insurance policies,
  • 5 million children with pre-existing conditions like asthma or a birth defect,
  • 14 million seniors who received help with prescription drug costs or other aspects of the new law,
  • 50,000 people with pre-existing conditions such as a history of heart disease or cancer,
  • women who no longer have to pay out-of-pocket for cancer screenings or contraception.

I’ve actually heard the word, “Obamacare” spoken with some affection, and these two are smiling, waving and promising to repeal the whole thing.

Then there’s the Ryan tax plan what gives even more money to the wealthiest while increasing taxes on the working class. This “deficit hawk” has a budget that would increase the deficit while robbing the poorest Americans of everything.

While Romney and Ryan have been trying to paint everyone who’s poor as lazy or evil, many of us know people and families who would be devastated by cuts — people like Rebecca Demmer, whose two sons both have autism and need state services. Cuts in Medicaid would affect this innocent family by taking housing and work support away from them.

Medicaid rates are so low already that many service providers refuse to work in the system, making it difficult to find care for people who depend on Medicaid.

But those people don’t matter to someone who idolizes Ayn Rand, an author with a survival-of-the-fittest philosophy. Rand’s philosophy says that people who can’t “contribute” will not survive. Tell that to Rebecca Demmer, who loves her sons and will argue that they contribute greatly to the lives of the people around them.

Some of my Republican friends are worried about this choice. They see how it looks to moderates and progressives, and they know most unaffiliated voters are pretty middle-of-the-road, and those are the voters who will decide this election.

Thanks, Mitt.

 

 

Chick-fil-A flap isn’t about freedom of religion

August 6, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

The whole flap surrounding Chick-fil-A isn’t about whether Dan Cathy has a right to be against gay marriage. Of course he has a right to his feelings. He also has a right to express his beliefs in public so long as he doesn’t advocate violence, which he has not.

The reason people who support gay marriage aren’t eating there is because we don’t want money we spend to then be used to support something we disagree with.

The owner of Marriott Hotels also is against gay marriage, but he doesn’t spend money to oppose it, so I have no problem staying in one of his hotels. He is free to believe as he pleases.

I’m a Christian, but I believe people are born straight or gay. I believe God made us how we were intended to be and that’s how God loves us.

If you believe differently, that’s your right. If you want to help Mr. Cathy support his beliefs and you don’t mind money you spend at his restaurants being used for that cause, that’s your right, too.

So, why can’t opponents of gay rights understand that we’re using our rights to free speech and freedom of association the same way they are? Why must they keep saying we want to silence them or deprive them of their rights?

I want no such thing. Believe what you want. I don’t ask you to do business with places that donate to gay rights campaigns, nor do I sling nastiness at you for not shopping there.

So, why such a big deal? No one is trying to steal “your” America; you just need to realize it’s my America too, and I have as much right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of association as you do.

I’m not trying to put Chick-fil-A out of business; I’m just not going to eat there.

I know you don’t like the truth, but …

August 3, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living 4 comments

Seems some people would rather make stuff up than tell the truth, or better yet, shut up.

Someone tweeted today that I was fired from the Asheville Citizen-Times for plagiarism.

I think he knows that’s a lie, which makes the tweet slander, according to my attorney. I do hope he corrects his mistake soon.

But for those who might be interested, I’ll tell the story of my departure one more time.

My son died in 2008 because he couldn’t get access to health care. He went to the emergency room and was misdiagnosed several times before he finally was near death and they had to admit him. By then his colon was entirely blocked and the cancer had spread.

I was a reporter at the Citizen-Times then, and I had been a reporter for more than 25 years when my son died. Most of that time I covered social justice issues like health care, poverty, mental health issues, disability issues, etc.

After he died, I began to blog about his experience and about other stories from our broken health care system. I founded a nonprofit to try and educate people about health care and help individuals find care.

I spoke in public about Mike’s story, although when I spoke, I never mentioned the paper or what I thought the best solution would be. I ended every speech with “All is want is for people to have access to health care. I don’t care what it looks like; it just has to work. We need to figure this out.”

I asked permission from the publisher to speak in public and I got it.

When I spoke, I told promoters of events to list me as the founder of Life o’ Mike and not mention the paper because I wasn’t representing the paper.

One time, an organizer mentioned the paper and the Tea Party pounced, demanding I be fired because I was “biased.”

I’ll admit it; I am biased. I don’t want your kid to die the way mine did, no matter who you are or what you believe.

The publisher wouldn’t fire me and wouldn’t discuss it with Tea Party folks who showed up with a video camera.

I got e-mails, one of which said, “I don’t care about your son. You should be fired.”

Many more came, but I wouldn’t print them here.

I talked to the publisher about resigning. He told me he didn’t want me to leave, that they could change my beat from social justice issues to something else.

But I saw this as God’s way of booting me in the ass to get me doing the work I needed to be doing.

The publisher asked me to wait a couple of days before making a final decision, and then came to me and said if I would stay for a couple of weeks, I could be laid off and have a small income for awhile. I could also save another person’s job.

So, I volunteered to be laid off.

There were no charges of inappropriate behavior from anyone other than the Tea Party.

I have written op-eds for the paper about health care policy and about the Affordable Care Act, and every time there’s at least one comment saying I was fired for being biased. I sometimes reply to the comment to correct the record, but most of the time, I ignore it.

But this is too big to ignore. I have never been accused of plagiarism, and I will not let this go.

So, the person who tweeted and his ilk resort to lies because they don’t like the truth.

I still do some freelance writing, so the tweet yesterday is damaging to my reputation, even though I can prove it is false, and I think the person who tweeted it knows that.

It’s called slander and it is actionable. I won’t be intimidated by lies and I won’t let them stand.

 

He really said it

August 1, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living 5 comments

From Scrutiny Hooligans

Note: I deleted a paragraph in this post because it was based on a private conversation Moffitt and I had some time ago. He asked that I remove it, and since it was based on a private conversation, I did so.

In a meeting this morning, I got a chance to read yet another lengthy newspaper profile on Rep. Tim Moffitt, my representative in Raleigh.

This one, in the Biltmore Beacon, was a little less flattering than the one that ran in the daily paper here 10 days ago, and I believe it’s more of a true portrait of this arrogant, petulant man.

First off, he tells a gathering of supporters, “… The newspaper is good to spread out for a low-country boil, but that’s about it.”

Really, Tim? The daily newspaper gave you a pretty glowing two-and-a-half -page profile. It hardly challenged anything you said, and when it did, it was buried close to the end of the story.

In talking about trying to get speed bumps installed on a road in the subdivision where he lives, Moffitt said he called the NC Department of Transportation, which was insisting on rumble sticks to slow traffic.

“The problem on that road is speeding,” Moffitt told the gathering. “I said, ‘Don’t you know who I am? I want speed bumps!’ They told me they knew who I was but they didn’t want speed bumps.”

The rumble sticks were installed.

Moffitt claimed the state budget “was widely praised by educators,” but I have my doubts about that since it has resulted in the layoffs of thousands of teachers and teacher assistants in the state. I’d like to talk to the educators who are happy with the budget; I suspect they’re with for-profit charter schools.

“We have funded education appropriately,” Moffitt said. “I feel good about that.”

In response to a question about drug testing people who need government assistance, Moffitt replied, “We’ve created a segment of society who are far too dependent on government.”

So the wealthy, who are getting wealthier, don’t want to help the people whose jobs have been shipped overseas, or those who are devastated by the housing bubble burst, or people who can’t get health care, or those who are homeless because they can’t get treatment for mental illnesses.

The vast majority of people who need help from the government would rather be able to earn it at a decent-paying job, and most of them don’t use drugs (as the results in Florida are showing).

When I told him about the death of my son because he couldn’t get care, Moffitt told me he has a chronic condition, and he was able to get medical tests without health insurance. He just paid for the procedure in installments.

I told him that my son was denied that. He was told he had to produce cash up front or go without. Moffitt didn’t believe it.

“I could get care,” he said.

But Moffitt was a businessman with a decent income; my son was a student who worked waiting tables to put himself through college. Moffitt, however, had trouble accepting the fact that he was treated because he had money and my son was denied because he didn’t.

Moffitt’s so-called successes have taken control of Asheville’s airport away from the city and threatened to take the city’s water system away, too. He has spoken about creating a public-private partnership for the system, which would in effect privatize the system by giving control of the water to a private entity.

The man has lied about his opponent, Jane Whilden, and about her votes on the issues. But here’s the truth: If we had re-elected Jane, the state wouldn’t have fracking, Asheville would not have lost control of its airport and would not be in danger of losing control of its water system. Buncombe County would still have a five-member, at-large county commission instead of a seven-member commission elected by districts.

Even looking at the more flattering newspaper profile, it’s obvious that what happens to him shapes his opinions and his crusades. It’s all about him, just like a petulant child.

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