Let them know you care

January 31, 2013 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments
The mindset of the American Tea Party.

The mindset of the American Tea Party.

The Tea Party-infused North Carolina General Assembly lost no time on the opening day of the legislative session letting us all know just how far-right they are.

Without consulting the new governor, who also is a Republican, they voted to go back on the decision by the previous governor to form a partnership with the federal government to build our health benefits exchange (the marketplace where people will buy insurance starting next year). They also voted to reject the Medicaid expansion, even though the state will pay nothing for the first three years and then just 10 percent thereafter.

North Carolina has 500,000 people who would benefit from the expansion and who otherwise will have no access to health care. Some will die.

Not that NC legislators care.

Fortunately, this decision is not up to them; it is up to Gov. Pat McCrory.

Which leaves us a little hope since he has not announced his decision yet.

So, we have to move quickly. Here’s what you can do. Visit http://www.governor.state.nc.us/contact and e-mail or call the governor to let him know you take this issue seriously.

The lives of a half-million people could be at risk if McCrory decides against expanding Medicaid to everyone whose income falls below 133 percent of the federal poverty level.

What’s worse is that move is financially foolish. The federal government will foot the entire bill for the first three years and 90 percent thereafter. Compare that to the cost of more heart attacks, more strokes, more amputations, more kidney failure, more asthma, more advanced cancers and more intractable psychiatric illnesses among these 500,000 people.

There’s no compassion in the decision not to expand Medicaid, just a backward ideology.

Please let the governor know we need to expand Medicaid. If he hears from enough of us, he might listen.

 

Hunker down, NC folks

January 30, 2013 a world of progress, letters, progressive living One comment
Now, wait just a minute. What do you mean you'll just do what you want?

Now, wait just a minute. What do you mean you’ll just do what you want?

On Day One of the new legislative session in North Carolina, it’s clear who will be in charge of the asylum, and it’s not the governor.

I never thought of Pat McCrory as a moderate, but I suppose “moderate” is relative when you’re talking about the right-wing nuts in the General Assembly and their agenda.

I e-mailed McCrory last week and the week before, asking for him to agree to expand Medicaid. But now it appears that the nuts in the Assembly are considering a law that would make it illegal to comply with the federal Affordable Care Act.

Now, they can’t do that, of course. I mean, they can pass a law, but it won’t be legal because state law can’t supersede federal. Still, it sends the powerful message that these people are extremist and we won’t be able to reason with them.

What’s worse is that we’re stuck with them for the next two years because North Carolina has no provision for recalls.

And it’s not just anti-healthcare laws they want to promote; they want to enshrine the state’s regressive right-to-work laws in the Constitution the way they did with their anti-marriage-equality stance.

They want to reduce unemployment compensation to the point people who lose their jobs will have no means to pay their bills, even for a couple of months.

Apparently, they’re introducing these bills without even talking to Gov. McCrory.

I foresee a really nasty couple of years ahead, and I can only hope we can unseat the bastards then.

 

 

Thanks a lot, Harry

January 25, 2013 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

filibusterHarry Reid sold us out. It’s as simple as that.

He let filibuster reform slip away, claiming he didn’t have the votes.

He should have called for a vote so we all could know which Democrats didn’t support ending the gridlock and obstructionism of the Republicans in the Senate. Then we could direct our anger at them instead of Hapless Harry.

A disappointed Sen. Tom Harkin said President Obama might as well take a four-year vacation, and I’m afraid he’s right.

The GOP holds the House, thanks to their gerrymandering and even though the Dems have a majority in the Senate, they will get nothing done because the GOP won’t allow it — and Harry Reid has just let that happen.

I didn’t even have to read the headline when I saw the creepy, lipless smile on Sen. Mitch McConnell’s face. He has every reason to be happy — he just got the best gift he could ever wish for.

In the last six years Republicans have used the filibuster nearly 400 times to grind progress to a halt, and it doesn’t even take any effort on their part. I single senator can say, “I don’t like this. FILIBUSTER!”  and it’s done unless the Democrats have 60 votes to overcome it.

They have ruled by minority ever since the Dems took control of the Senate and they’re not going to stop now.

Thanks a lot Harry. You really screwed us this time.

 

Where were they when …?

January 24, 2013 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

hillaryI was thrilled with Hillary’s outrage yesterday, especially when she scolded Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin).

Where was this outrage when more than 40 people died at embassies and consulates during the Bush Administration? I believe it was just waiting for a Democrat to blame it on, and all the better that it’s a “gal” Democrat.

And, Rand Paul saying he would have fired her if he was president. Well, the fact that she kept a straight face as he said those words is to her credit.

Really, Rand? And who was it that refused to increase funding for security at Benghazi and other US State Department outposts? Why, it was the GOP. For even more hypocrisy, let me say Rand Paul has advocated slashing State’s already tight budget by almost half.

So this GOP outrage, if indeed it is real, is misdirected. Hillary’s outrage, despite what the Right is claiming, was very real and well deserved.

Secretary Clinton was right to lose her cool with Sen. Johnson. When there’s chaos at an embassy and no one is sure what is going on, we need time to find out. I’m sure if someone had picked up the phone to call the consulate, no one would have answered to say, “Oh, it’s not a protest.”

That is not what matters at this point. What matters is that an attack against an American outpost succeeded. Would it have succeeded if there had been more security? Possibly not. And why wasn’t there more security? Secretary Clinton had requested it, so why wasn’t it deployed?

Oh, that’s right, the GOP cut funding for security at overseas outposts. Secretary Clinton has taken the blame. When Ronald Reagan said he took the blame for the Beirut bombing in 1983 that killed 241 US service members, the GOP seemed happy to accept it. But they’re not happy this time. Could it be hypocrisy? I think so.

They’re looking for a way to blame Secretary Clinton because she’s a Democrat and a female. They just hate that.

The power of nonviolence

January 21, 2013 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

rush-johnSome 55 years ago, the struggle for civil rights for African-Americans began in earnest in Montgomery, Ala., when Rosa Parks sat in a bus seat and refused to give up her seat to a white person.

Parks was arrested and the African-American community began a boycott of the city bus system. They organized carpools and they walked. They endured the elements in the worst weather to prove the transportation company needed their business more than they needed the buses.

They didn’t throw rocks or shoot anyone; they just did what they needed to do to prove their point. Eventually, they won a Supreme Court decision saying they were free to sit where they pleased on buses.

Later, an integrated group of people boarded buses to cross the Deep South and use the bus terminals. In Anniston, Ala., one of the two buses was met by a mob that threw rocks at the bus and slashed its tires. The bus managed to get out of town, but six miles outside of town, the mob caught up and firebombed the bus and attempted to keep the passengers inside.

In Birmingham, Ala., “Bull” Conner, the director of public safety had a mob ready and waiting to greet the second bus. Again, people were beaten.

But national news cameras were there to capture the mayhem. When not one of the Freedom Riders fought back, the nation’s sympathy turned to the Civil Rights warriors. Images of brutal beatings and bloodied faces horrified viewers.

These were among the first images I recall vividly of the Civil Rights Movement. Among the others were the marchers over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., being attacked by police as they attempted a peaceful march to Montgomery in 1965. I have walked that bridge on a Civil Rights tour alongside African-Americans. It was sacred ground. I felt the courage of those people who risked their lives for equality.

Andrew Young, one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, said later that several people wanted to go home and get their guns to retaliate, but they realized before taking that action that it would only cause the movement to fail.

They attempted the walk again two weeks later with Martin Luther King Jr. at the head of the column and walked the more than 50 miles to Montgomery under the protection of the National Guard.

I remember seeing marchers attacked by dogs and by powerful water cannons, causing them to skitter down the street like trash or cower against buildings as the water beat against them with the power of a battering ram.

And I remember the outrage of so many Americans who saw the powerful abusing unarmed, nonviolent people. The violent overlords looked evil, as does Rush Limbaugh today.

The fight was a battle for dignity and respect, and one who possesses dignity does not stoop to the level of the ignorant when seeking respect.

King’s work made possible today’s inauguration of Barack Obama. Although there still is racism, it is dying out with the people who fought against civil rights. Nonviolence won.

Martin Luther King was inspired by Gandhi and Christ when he decided to lead a nonviolent movement. Nonviolent civil disobedience moves nations in the right direction. It is the only way to achieve real and lasting peace.

Violence begets violence and love begets love. It is time for society to learn that lesson.

 

The GOP’s priorities

January 7, 2013 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

repealOK, so it’s the new Congress and there’s a lot of really urgent work to do. So, what do Michele Bachmann and her cronies do first? They try for the 34th time to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

No matter that they’ve tried 33 times and haven’t been able to succeed (thank God). No matter that they have fewer votes now than they did before the election. No matter that the American people want Congress to work on more urgent problems like getting aid to the victims of Hurricane Sandy or renewing the Violence Against Women Act. Nope, they have to make the statement that they’re just a bunch of spoiled, selfish children.

Apparently, 33 attempts at repeal using 80 hours of House time and costing taxpayers $43 million wasn’t enough for Bachmann et al; they have to keep trying to take away health reform.

Victims of the Sandy have waited 10 weeks now for some help and this hopelessly tired effort to repeal health care reform takes precedence. And this comes after House Speaker John Boehner shut down the 113th Congress without allowing a vote on relief for the victims of one of the worst storms in American history.

And when the House finally did take up relief for the people in New York and New Jersey who have lost everything, they didn’t vote on the entire $60 billion package; they only passed $9.7 billion, which allows FEMA to try to find housing for people who lost everything more than two months ago.

And dozens in the GOP even voted against that.

So, what will happen when the rest of the funding comes up for a vote on Jan. 15? Republicans will act as though Sandy victims somehow brought all this upon themselves and therefore don’t deserve the help.

That’s right, the victims of Hurricane Sandy are just a bunch of moochers looking for a free ride from the government, but their corporate friends deserve every break, even if it costs American lives.

And if votes mean priorities, the safety of women means nothing. The renewal of the Violence Against Women Act was never even brought up for a vote and one doesn’t appear likely anytime soon.

After all, we women are usually asking for it when we get beaten up and raped. We were sassy or we dressed wrong or otherwise provoked the poor men in our lives who aren’t supposed to control their own violent urges.

You knew he would get furious if you walked in front of the TV or if the baby cried when he was trying to nap. He told you a million times dinner has to be on the table by 6 and here it is 6:15. And where the hell did you drive the car? It has 100 more miles on it than it should. You know that pisses him off.

And women are fair game to satisfy a man’s sexual urges if they wear anything attractive or if they allow a man to buy them a drink or to kiss them. These girls were called “prick tease” when I was younger because they didn’t understand that boys have to go all the way if they start. They deserved what they got and apparently still do. Apparently, just crossing a horny man’s path is reason enough, and we ought to know better.

So, like the victims of Sandy — more than the victims of Sandy — we women get what we ask for, so we don’t need no stinkin’ laws to protect us.

Why the hell does the US House of Representatives have to spend good time and money on our safety when there’s health reform to repeal?

How’s that for priorities?

 

Roadblocks to redemption

December 27, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

food stampsOur laws aren’t supposed to punish children for the deeds of their parents, but 32 states ban people who have been convicted of a drug felony from receiving government assistance.

Last week, Dr. Emily Wang, Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine and the Associate Director of the Transitions Clinic Network, posted a piece in The American Prospect about a 23-year-old woman named Carla who served a sentence for a drug-related crime and now can’t get food stamps for herself and her children.

Carla is out of prison, but few people want to hire an ex-convict, so she’s having a hard time finding a job. And even though she’s going back to school and staying clean, she can’t get food stamps for her children.

The ban came from the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. It was an effort to keep people from trading food stamps for drugs, even though that wasn’t a huge problem.

My question would be why the law didn’t make it a felony to trade food stamps for drugs and leave it at that.

In this country, people who have served their time are supposed to be able to rebuild their lives, but laws like this make it damn near impossible. How can you stay out of trouble when the rules keep you from providing food to your children? What parent wouldn’t get frustrated enough to commit a crime to put food on the table?

Carla, because she has been playing by the rules, has regained custody of her children, but she can’t feed them. What kind of a society sets people up for failure on that scale?

Young people who use drugs can be redeemed, and many are — as long as they’re not caught and convicted, apparently.

People like Carla deserve a second chance. Bad decisions made in one’s youth shouldn’t mean the punishment continues for their lifetime, and for the lifetimes of their children.

Efforts to change the law in Congress have died in committee, and in Georgia, which has one of the highest recidivism rates in the country, the legislature won’t even consider removing the bad.

So people are left with the choice to violate the law or watch their children go hungry.

Which would you do?

Four dead, three troopers hurt

December 21, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living 2 comments
A protester at Wayne LaPierre's press conference Friday injects a little truth into the proceedings.

A protester at Wayne LaPierre’s press conference Friday injects a little truth into the proceedings.

It’s what you call irony.

National Rifle Association lobbyist Wayne LaPierre was still talking, telling us we need more, not fewer guns, that armed teachers are the solution to mass shootings in schools, as a man walked up and down a street just outside of Altoona, Pa., shooting people, killing four, according to early reports.

Among the injured are three —armed — state troopers. These are people whose job it is to stop people with guns and he shot three of them. We don’t know yet whether any of the dead are troopers.

It seems to me that something is trying to tell us that LaPierre and his ilk are full of shit. More guns is not the solution to gun violence.

Do we put guns on school buses next? Do we arm crossing guards? Remember, this latest shooting was a man walking up and down the street.

Where does the arming cease? Do we provide Sunday school teachers with an arsenal, just in case?

I’m tired of the killing, aren’t you?

I don’t think we should spend another moment listening to the NRA. I don’t even care of you’re a responsible gun owner who loves target shooting and hunting. If you believe more guns will stem the violence, you are wrong. Period.

I have tried to respect other opinions because I have a lot of friends who are responsible gun owners, but we need to control guns. We need to stand up to the bullies in the NRA and tell them where they can put their guns and ammo.

I have listened to the “other side” of the gun debate and I have reached the conclusion that they no longer deserve our time and respect. The NRA represents gun manufacturers, not gun owners. I don’t even care of we repeal the damned Second Amendment. Our gun “laws” now have nothing to do with the founders’ intentions anyway.

We have the Second Amendment because George Washington didn’t believe we needed a standing army; that well-regulated militias would suffice. It wasn’t meant for every person to have an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. That was the totally twisted interpretation by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

As my husband says, “Piss on your Second Amendment rights! What about the rights of innocent people to live their lives?”

It’s time to regulate guns. It’s well past time, actually.

To those who disagree that increased regulation will help stem the tide of violence, with all due respect, piss off. I’m tired of listening to it as people die by the tens of thousands in this country.

 

20 more names

December 21, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living One comment
Paula, a woman who finally triumphed over addiction before she died in September. She was 42.

Paula, a woman who finally triumphed over addiction before she died in September. She was 42.

These aren’t the names of children; they are the names of people our society didn’t care enough about to save.
Some struggles with mental health issues or addiction, others lost jobs or became ill and then lost their homes.
These 20 names don’t mean much to most people. Only about 100 people attended a memorial service for them this morning.
Whatever you might think, these lives were as precious as yours or mine in the eyes of God, and except for better luck than they had, you or I might have been in their shoes. This year there were 20 names of people who were homeless who died; there were more who were not named.
On this, the shortest day of the year, people gathered in the chapel of First Baptist Church here in Asheville, as we do every year, to honor the lives lost from among our homeless.
I used to cover this service when I was a reporter and I continue to attend each year as a health care advocate and as a person who believes everyone deserves a safe place to sleep at night.
I go because four years ago, when we learned Mike was dying and raced to be with him in Raleigh, another man I never met was dying.
Tommy McMahon had gone to the emergency room the night before with a respiratory infection. He had been there before; the staff knew him. The doctors there gave him antibiotics and an inhaler and discharged him.
But Tommy knew he was too sick to go back out into the cold and wind and he refused to leave. Someone called the police and Tommy was offered the chance to go to jail for the night. He was arrested.
Sometime during the night, Tommy died, and an editor called me in Raleigh to ask who a reporter might interview for a story. As I gave the names and telephone numbers of a few people, I knew my precious son would die surrounded by love, and he did just six weeks later.
Tommy, on the other hand, died alone in a jail cell.
This season always brings Tommy to mind as much as it does a baby born in a stable and placed in a manger. I wonder if anyone loved Tommy, whether he had family and if they had given up on him. That happens a lot with homeless people — they burn through all their family members before they’re turned out onto the street. Did he have a mental illness that should have been treated? Was he addicted to drugs or alcohol and not able to get the help he needed to sober up? Did he become homeless because of an illness or a lost job?
I wonder whether anyone grieved him as I do my son and I grieve for him just in case. I pray for his soul to be at peace. I do that for each of the homeless people who die every year, but especially for Tommy McMahan because he is forever connected to my son in my heart.
Tommy’s death made me understand that we are all connected, that we are responsible for each other. I got to say goodbye to my son; Tommy’s mother didn’t. Both men died because of injustice. They died because no one who could save them cared enough to do so.
This year, as the names of the dead were read, a little about each one of them was shared — at least something about the people that someone knew and could speak about.

  • Fred Blevins, who perfected the sport-coat-over-a-bare-chest look.
  • Paula Jean Gump Chrishawn, a mother of five whose battles with mental illness and addiction caused her to lose all of them because she couldn’t care for them. She loved the color purple, and she finally won her battles. She was one week away from moving into her own apartment when she died in September.
  • Douglas Dillingham
  • Dennis Gillette, an outgoing “gentle giant.”
  • Floyd Hill, an accomplished storyteller with a deep mountain drawl and a veteran.
  • David Isles, a veteran who smiled often.
  • Herman Lee, a veteran known as “Buffalo.”
  • Andrew Marsh, called Sammy, was known for his generosity.
  • Dan Mason, who fancied himself a bodybuilder, even as he became increasingly weakened by illness.
  • Joseph Metcalf, a soft-spoken native of West Asheville.
  • Kenneth Myrick
  • Rebecca Plemmons, a mother who was just rekindling her relationship with her daughter.
  • David Pounders, a kind man who divided his time between his beloved mountains and the coast of Florida.
  • Donna Ray, a woman of kind and gently spirit.
  • Jeff Reynolds, a young man still struggling to navigate the world.
  • Delois K. Smith, a kind and gentle soul with a great sense of humor.
  • Jackie Todd Stipes, a former carnival worker who bragged that he often let the rides go longer than they were supposed to because he enjoys the looks on the children’s faces.
  • Grace Teague, who adored cats.
  • Luzella Whittemore, who was firercely independent.
  • Ivie Ward Yearns, called by his middle name, was a large man and quiet.

If you have time for a prayer today, please include these 20 souls and the people who loved them.

A pledge to reject violence. Will you join me?

December 16, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments
Let's try to make memorials like this one obsolete.

Let’s try to make memorials like this one obsolete.

I had a great discussion with the kids in my Sunday school class this morning. We have a couple of computer geeks, a video-game aficionado or two, a kid whose dad owns several guns for hunting and kids whose parents believe there is no place for guns in a civilized society.

We started off talking about whether we should ban all guns or at least regulate them as tightly as we regulate decongestants.

We talked about whether anyone with a history of mental illness should be able to buy a gun, and we found difficulty there because whom do you refuse? I have been treated for depression, so do I get rejected? Knowing my peacenick stance, a couple of the kids laughed at the thought of me wanting to buy a gun.

“Well, you get someone’s primary care physician to write a letter,” one of the kids said.

That would be great except for the huge number of people who have no primary care physician. And it wouldn’t stop other members of their families from having guns, thereby giving access to the person who shouldn’t have it. That’s what happened in Newtown.

Armed guards at the school’s entrance wouldn’t have helped because the gunman didn’t go in the door — he crawled in through a window.

So the talk turned to our culture of violence and corruption. Gun manufacturers and the National Rifle Association have been able to shut down any talk of serious gun regulation. They’re incredibly powerful.

And violence is everywhere — in games, on the Internet, in movies and on television. It’s really difficult to escape. Parents might tell their children violence is bad, but then they sit down at the computer and play a game that’s rated M for violence. They send the kids into the theater that’s playing the G-rated movie while they go in to see the movie that’s rated R for violence. Kids see that and they internalize it.

Studies show that children who are exposed to violence in games and movies are desensitized to it.

And it’s not like kids have no access even if parents lock up the games; there are plenty of places online to play war games. It’s a recruiting tool. Gun manufacturers aren’t the only ones with a huge stake in perpetuating our culture of violence — government contractors make billions and billions off going to war, and we have been kept in a state of perpetual war for more than a decade now. Still, even as we prepare to leave Afghanistan after 12 years of war there, some call for an invasion of Iraq or Syria.

We have to reject violence as a society. It’s not just the guns, although we do need regulation.

Violence is too easy an answer when you’re surrounded by it.

When my boys were teenagers, I wouldn’t allow violent games in my house. I didn’t allow them to watch movies with an R rating for violence. If we went to the movies, I didn’t drop them off at a Disney movie and then go watch something “mature.”

I have never seen a Quentin Tarantino movie and I don’t plan to. I have never played a violent video game and I get really upset when I see my 12-year-old grandson playing one.

I don’t just preach nonviolence; I try to live it. After being pepper sprayed at a demonstration last year, the temptation to get angry and break a window was pretty strong, but instead I walked around reminding others that this was a nonviolent protest and we had taken a pledge to remain nonviolent. So we sat down and sang songs. By doing so, we made out point that violence is not the answer.

We as a society aren’t going to get rid of violence in our midst as long as we approve of it in our entertainment. We have to reject it.

I took that pledge a long, long time ago, but I think now is a good time to renew it. Will you join me? Our children’s lives depend on it.

 

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