Obama is unable to say the words “single-payer health care.”
Some of you reading this are saying, “Yeah? So? What’s that, anyway … single-payer health care?” Well, simply put, its a health care system very similar to the Canadian system. It’s pretty much the same as HR 676, sponsored by John Conyers in Congress and it’s a lot like like the new bill (S.703) put forward by Senator Bernie Sanders. Basically, its new and improved Medicare for all.
Imagine there’s no HMO-style delivery system sitting right smack in the middle of your health care dollar, siphoning off 25-35% of your premium! The savings would be intense, as you might imagine. Imagine also that doctors are able to just treat you without ever having to wonder what level of care your insurance company will allow them to employ. Imagine that there are no forms to fill out and that you can go anywhere you like to seek treatment without any co-pays.
What’s the trick? No trick. I went to school in Canada and have ex-pat relatives who live there and the Canadian system is absolutely amazing. I could relate personal anecdotes all day about how terrible the American health care system can be and how great the Canadian system can be by comparison but, for the moment, lets just stick to the objective part of the equation.
It costs Canadians about $5200 per person for their single-payer health care system and this is about $2700 less per person than we will spend this year, per capita, in the United States. This means that we already spend more than enough to cover everybody. That’s the dirty little secret of corporate health care propaganda. It would actually be cheaper to cover everybody. Canadians also live a full year longer than we do. That’s another dirty little secret. You can do the math.
If, as the Rush Limbaugh crowd would attest, our new president is such a “socialist”, I have to wonder why he is not trumpeting this (seemingly, Communist) conspiracy that would make us all healthy while saving us money? Why are Democratic apologists falling all over each other trying to explain to us about “political feasibility” and achieving “the possible”.
“After all”, they say, “the guy’s only been in office for a few months. Give him a break. He’s got to work on these things one small step at a time.” He is currently advocating a forced HMO plan that would be no more effective or affordable than asking Dow Chemical to grow our food and his party is telling us he has a plan.
You’d think that this guy who just land-slided the election on a campaign of hope and change would be a far better strategist than these apologists are claiming. He just told his supporters that we are in desperate economic straits and that he would need to print several trillion dollars and give it out to people (mostly to people other than those who are actually hurting) and … everyone is actually buying it! They say, “Well, he’s got to do something, right?” Congress debates for about fourteen minutes and then says, “Okay, Barack. We trust you. You got to do what you got to do.”
We all know that Obama is riding a very short wave. It will end soon and now is probably the only time during his first four years that he might be able to approach congress with something this important and actually expect to get it passed. Even so, he’s pulling a Hillary Clinton on us instead and everyone seems to be buying it!
If Obama was really a socially-conscious guy, he would go on TV tomorrow and he would say, “Almost 20,000 Americans are dying every year because they lack access to health care and I can’t stand it anymore! Not on my watch! It’s a crisis and I’m going to fix it. I have a plan and it will save us money and it will also cover everyone. Similar models are being used in dozens of other countries around the world and it would simply be stupid not to follow their lead just because the HMO lobbies tell us we have to.”
But, he’s not going to do this and I don’t actually blame him. I blame you, the Obama voter. It’s your fault. You voted for him and you did so in a safe state where it made no difference at all. I told you he didn’t have a progressive bone in his body and you said, “That’s okay, Matt. We’ll hold his feet to the fire. Look at the movement! Look at all the young people! Look at all the excitement Obama generates.”
I’ll believe the “feet to the fire” rhetoric works when I see some evidence of it. Go ahead and pressure him like you all said you would. Please prove me wrong! I would really, honestly, love for you to do so. Please do so! Every day that you wait, about 50 more Americans will die. That’s more than six 9/11’s every year and you could prevent them all by simply making good on your campaign promise.
Showing posts with label adirondack progressives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adirondack progressives. Show all posts
Friday, April 10, 2009
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The Green Party's Future
I served as a national representative to the US Green Party in 2005 and I remember when I first questioned a mysterious $25,000 donation made by a Mr. and Mrs. Mazzes. I was not casting aspersions or insulting anyone to ask the question; "What did the Mazzes get or expect in return for such a huge donation." I was attacked, nonetheless.
The Mazzes are obviously NOT people working towards independent politics. These are people working with the (un)Democratic Party and PDA and DFA and other gateway groups who regularly use their resource to shut down our grassroots organizing. The Mazzes are not Greens. They are upper middle class faux progressive Democrats and they obviously were paying off some type of favor. I wonder who in our party most directly benefited from this donation (and the $12,000 dollar one that they also made). Would we accept money from George Soros if he came to us? Is he a Green or a "progressive" from this lists' perspective? I know that Dems see Soros as a rich progressive but any half awake Green knows the less than subtle differences between "blood money" or payola and a simple donation. I suggested in 2005 that we should no longer accept bribes this large and obvious. If we only accepted smaller donations, no one would ever again have to suspect that a donation was the cause of any undue influence.
The way to prevent this from happening in the future is simple - cap all donations annually. I suggest we apply a "tithing formula". Lets cap donations to the party at 10% of the annual full time salary of a federal minimum wage earner. This provides a scale that limits undue influence but doesn't stop many of us from "maxing out" with our yearly contributions. Those who wish to give more can give to individual races and candidates as they should. It would also allow for growth if we are successful in raising the minimum wage. It would be an assurance that Democrats and other such war criminals can't simply buy their way into our party. We could also set up a Green Card system where every party member donates a minimum amount of money (say, $36 a year minimum unless there is a hardship declaration - thats 10 cent a day, people). Based on this "tithing", the maximum individual donation would be the federal minimum wage x 2080 hours x 10%.
Currently, that formula yields us a max donation of about $1200 a year ($5.85 x 2080 hrs / 10 = $1216.80 dollars). This is what I currently give and that is exactly how I decided to give that amount.
Pat LaMarche said to me in an email earlier this year that she estimated Green numbers were somewhere "between half a million and 3 million". Lets say for the sake of argument that we might have about 400,000 active Greens in the U.S. If only 75% of that very low estimate are honest and decent people who would pay their $36 bucks (10 cents a day) and not falsely claim hardship, we would collect well over $1 million dollars annually from this program! Imagine how many campaigns we could effectively run with that kind of resource! How many more senate and congressional and mayoral campaigns would get checks for $1,000 dollars or $5,000 instead of the $100 or $200 they currently get? We could use that money to set up printing templates and services and help paper states run their own papers and organize the grassroots. We could set up ballot databases to help states organize to attain ballot status. We could help campaigns with professionally designed templates for brochures and web hosting, campaign co-ordinators and advisors! We would no longer need to beg rich Democrats for little chunks of "big money" as we would have already raised it ourselves. More importantly, we would have done so while remaining true to our ideals. We would never again need to worry about whether those "big donations" come from saboteurs with strings attached because there wouldn't be any "big donors".
The two arguments I most often hear against a Green Card program are, at best, ridiculous. Correct me if I am wrong. No one has yet.
1 - Poor people would be excluded from such a system.
I don't often use words like "Bullshit" in print but it would seem quite apropos here. These "poor people" we always hear so much about are already excluded from our party as it does 99.9% of its business ONLINE! Do "poor people" have $1,000 to buy a computer and $65 a month for DSL? Do "poor people" have thousands of dollars to travel to conventions? The "rich elitist scum" in our party already exclude "poor people" if $36 dollars is really to be used as any kind of yardstick. The current Green Card Plan only asks $36 a year and allows for hardship unlike our own current operating procedures. Get Real! We are talking about 10 cents a day - the equivalent of returning two bottles to the store. Get a grip, people! I've never heard an actual "poor person" make this argument, EVER, just the usual posers. It always seems to be middle class white people pretending to know something about poverty who wish to disparage low income workers by spreading crap like this. Is there anyone reading this who is worried that 10 cents a day might separate them from the Green Party because they just couldn't come up with it? Is there anyone truly unwilling to collect two bottles or cans a day to support the only party that works for peace, single-payer health care and a livable wage? Do we really want anyone working with us who is unwilling to do this, the absolute very least anyone could possibly do?
2 - Most states don't allow political parties to be dues paying mechanisms.
Fine. Then, we set this up as a Green "group" or PAC or fundraising mechanism, whatever name it is legally necessary to define it as. These semantics are largely irrelevant. We can use this group to organize our ballot drives and each state's own unique political organization. Duh! I would say that with only 18 ballot lines, we're pretty much a bad joke as far as political parties go, anyway. Wouldn't we be much better off organizing people around ballot access and local issues and actual campaigns that really matter than steering them towards the dysfunctional and irrelevant mess we have created for them at national? We could use this new organization to keep track of all Greens anywhere in the country regardless of their individual state's ballot status. This group would become an incredible organizing tool for the vast majority of states (which don't have ballot lines and therefore don't have BOE records to use to reach out to their Greens). We would have money and a centralized list of all those who support us and wish to work with us on issues and races.
The benefits of setting up such a system would be overwhelming but it seems that it is the same old "position, not mission" people who attack the Green Card most venomously. Is it really all that surprising that these people are often in positions of power within our party? They probably would have been run out of any other organization for incompetence or sabotage. A benevolent organization might perhaps ask people who are "helpful" on this level to set up the tables and chairs or help sweep up after. We have gone to the insane extreme of allowing these people to RUN our party (into the ground). Big mistake.
We need to revisit the Green Card idea and make it happen. It is the single most logical answer to so many of our collective problems;
- It basically eliminates worry about any specific group "owning" us (especially Democrats).
- It creates a brilliant fundraising tool, empowering us financially.
- It facilitates a grassroots voting mechanism that puts power into the hands of those who show they are capable of handling it responsibly.
- It eliminates the need for our overly-complicated and dysfunctional hierarchy.
- It eliminates the need for our overly-complicated and dysfunctional hierarchy.
- It will reward good organizers/organizations by eliminating the need for apportionment arguments and formulas because each state would be based on actual paid membership.
- A system like this would mesh perfectly with our core tenets, unlike the convoluted horsecrap that currently passes for policy within our very sick, near dead, political party.
Where's the down side?
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Adirondack Progressives Bring Ralph Nader to Glens Falls
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Matt Funiciello (518) 361-6278 mattfuniciello@earthlink.net
Former Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader To Speak in Glens Falls May 25th
GLENS FALLS – Former presidential candidate and progressive activist Ralph Nader will return to Glens Falls on Friday, May 25, 2007 for a variety of events including an appearance at a Glens Falls High School, a local premiere of the documentary “An Unreasonable Man,” and a book signing at Red Fox Books. Ralph Nader’s visit is sponsored by Adirondack Progressives, a group of local people interested in fostering a local dialogue on today’s most important issues.
The day’s events will begin at Glens Falls High School where Nader will speak to students and participate in a student forum beginning at 1:00 pm. He is expected to speak about media reform, the Iraq War, the threat of corporate power and its dangerous convergence with government, and the role of third parties and citizen activism in the political process.
The documentary film “An Unreasonable Man,” a Sundance Film Festival Official Selection, will premiere locally at Aimie's Dinner & Movie (190 Glen Street, Glens Falls). The film traces the life and career of Ralph Nader, one of the most unique, important, and controversial political figures of the past half century from his public emergence as nemesis of General Motors in 1966, through his leadership of the Consumer Movement, to his latest controversial forays into electoral politics. Following the first showing, Nader and filmmaker Henriette Mantel will be on hand to discuss the film and take questions from the audience. Tickets are on sale at Rock Hill Cafe (19 Exchange St Glens Falls) and High Peaks Java (153 Maple Street, Glens Falls) for $75 each. The price includes a copy of Nader’s latest book, The Seventeen Traditions.
At about 3:30 pm, Ralph Nader will sign copies of his latest book (The Seventeen Traditions) at Red Fox Book Store (28 Ridge Street, Glens Falls). The book looks back to the earliest days of Nader’s own life to his serene and enriching childhood in bucolic Winsted, Connecticut. From listening to learning, from patriotism to argument, from work to simple enjoyment, Nader revisits seventeen key traditions he absorbed from his parents, his siblings, and the people in his community, and draws from them inspiring lessons for today's society. Warmly human, rich with sensory memories and lasting wisdom, it offers a kind of modern-day parable of how we grow from children into responsible adults—a reminder of a time when nature and community were central to the way we all learned and lived.
Ralph Nader is one of America's most effective social critics. He has run for the office of US President twice, as the candidate of the Green Party in 2000 (America’s third largest and fastest growing political party), and as an Independent in 2004. For forty years his documented criticism of government and industry has had a widespread effect on public awareness and bureaucratic power and has inspired a whole population of consumer advocates and citizen activists.
Nader first made headlines in 1965 with his book Unsafe at Any Speed, a scathing indictment of the auto industry for producing unsafe vehicles that led to congressional hearings and a series of automobile safety laws passed in 1966. Since then Nader has been responsible for at least eight major federal consumer protection laws such as the motor vehicle safety laws and the Safe Drinking Water Act and the launching of federal regulatory agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Environment Protection Agency (EPA), and Consumer Product Safety Administration, and the Freedom of Information Act of 1974.
Nader also helped establish the PIRGs (Public Interest Research Groups) the student-funded and controlled organizations that function on college campuses in 23 states. Their impact alone has been tremendous. The groups have published hundreds of ground-breaking reports and guides, lobbied for laws in their state legislatures, and called the media's attention to environmental and energy problems. The largest of the Nader organizations is Public Citizen, founded in 1971 and with a current nationwide membership over 100,000.
[END]
Contact: Matt Funiciello (518) 361-6278 mattfuniciello@earthlink.net
Former Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader To Speak in Glens Falls May 25th
GLENS FALLS – Former presidential candidate and progressive activist Ralph Nader will return to Glens Falls on Friday, May 25, 2007 for a variety of events including an appearance at a Glens Falls High School, a local premiere of the documentary “An Unreasonable Man,” and a book signing at Red Fox Books. Ralph Nader’s visit is sponsored by Adirondack Progressives, a group of local people interested in fostering a local dialogue on today’s most important issues.
The day’s events will begin at Glens Falls High School where Nader will speak to students and participate in a student forum beginning at 1:00 pm. He is expected to speak about media reform, the Iraq War, the threat of corporate power and its dangerous convergence with government, and the role of third parties and citizen activism in the political process.
The documentary film “An Unreasonable Man,” a Sundance Film Festival Official Selection, will premiere locally at Aimie's Dinner & Movie (190 Glen Street, Glens Falls). The film traces the life and career of Ralph Nader, one of the most unique, important, and controversial political figures of the past half century from his public emergence as nemesis of General Motors in 1966, through his leadership of the Consumer Movement, to his latest controversial forays into electoral politics. Following the first showing, Nader and filmmaker Henriette Mantel will be on hand to discuss the film and take questions from the audience. Tickets are on sale at Rock Hill Cafe (19 Exchange St Glens Falls) and High Peaks Java (153 Maple Street, Glens Falls) for $75 each. The price includes a copy of Nader’s latest book, The Seventeen Traditions.
At about 3:30 pm, Ralph Nader will sign copies of his latest book (The Seventeen Traditions) at Red Fox Book Store (28 Ridge Street, Glens Falls). The book looks back to the earliest days of Nader’s own life to his serene and enriching childhood in bucolic Winsted, Connecticut. From listening to learning, from patriotism to argument, from work to simple enjoyment, Nader revisits seventeen key traditions he absorbed from his parents, his siblings, and the people in his community, and draws from them inspiring lessons for today's society. Warmly human, rich with sensory memories and lasting wisdom, it offers a kind of modern-day parable of how we grow from children into responsible adults—a reminder of a time when nature and community were central to the way we all learned and lived.
Ralph Nader is one of America's most effective social critics. He has run for the office of US President twice, as the candidate of the Green Party in 2000 (America’s third largest and fastest growing political party), and as an Independent in 2004. For forty years his documented criticism of government and industry has had a widespread effect on public awareness and bureaucratic power and has inspired a whole population of consumer advocates and citizen activists.
Nader first made headlines in 1965 with his book Unsafe at Any Speed, a scathing indictment of the auto industry for producing unsafe vehicles that led to congressional hearings and a series of automobile safety laws passed in 1966. Since then Nader has been responsible for at least eight major federal consumer protection laws such as the motor vehicle safety laws and the Safe Drinking Water Act and the launching of federal regulatory agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Environment Protection Agency (EPA), and Consumer Product Safety Administration, and the Freedom of Information Act of 1974.
Nader also helped establish the PIRGs (Public Interest Research Groups) the student-funded and controlled organizations that function on college campuses in 23 states. Their impact alone has been tremendous. The groups have published hundreds of ground-breaking reports and guides, lobbied for laws in their state legislatures, and called the media's attention to environmental and energy problems. The largest of the Nader organizations is Public Citizen, founded in 1971 and with a current nationwide membership over 100,000.
[END]
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Howie Hawkins Visits Glens Falls
Adirondack Progressives Host Fundraiser for Green U.S. Senate Candidate, Howie Hawkins
For Immediate Release
Contact: Matt Funiciello (518)361-6278 or mattfuniciello@earthlink.net
June 26, 2006 – Local progressive and Green Party activist Matt Funiciello announced today that candidate for U.S. Senate from New York, Howie Hawkins, will be the guest of honor at a dinner and fundraiser to be held at 6 p.m., July 22, 2006, at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe in Glens Falls. The event is sponsored by the Adirondack Progressives. Local musician Carrianne Skidmore will provide entertainment and a vegetarian buffet will be served. Tickets are available at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe and also at High Peaks Java; there is a suggested donation of $25. Hawkins faces incumbent US Senator Hillary Clinton in the fall election.“Hawkins represents the best and brightest of the Green Party,” said Funiciello, a former member of the Green Party's National Committee, himself. “We’re extremely proud to have him as our party’s candidate against the pro-Iraq, pro-Patriot Act, pro-globalization, former WalMart board member, Citizen Hillary.”“An independent opposition party like the Greens is the most effective way to advance peace, justice, and a sustainable society,” Hawkins said, “It is not just the peace vote that is open to alternatives. So are the millions without health insurance, the workers who are losing wages and benefits and their very jobs, the environmentalists who see no program to address global warming, and the women and people of color who are losing their recently won rights. All have reason to be dissatisfied with Clinton, who is taking them for granted as she rebrands herself a ‘moderate’ for her presidential run.”“Clinton has been a consistent war hawk on Iraq and, indeed, all the wars initiated by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. She is more responsible than any other person in America for killing the single-payer national health insurance bill that had about 100 members of Congress as co-sponsors in 1993,” Hawkins added.Howie Hawkins has been active in movements for peace, justice, the environment, and independent progressive politics since the late 1960s. A former Marine, he helped organize opposition to the Vietnam War and was a co-founder of the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance in 1976. He was a co-founder of the Green Party in the United States in 1984 and currently serves on the Green National Committee.After attending Dartmouth College in the early 1970s, Howie worked as a carpenter in New England and helped start up a construction workers cooperative that specialized in solar and wind energy installations. Howie moved to Syracuse in 1991 to be Director of CommonWorks, a federation of cooperatives working for an economy that is cooperatively owned, democratically controlled, and ecologically sustainable. A member of Teamsters Local 317 and active in the national Teamster rank-and-file reform caucus, Teamsters for a Democratic Union, Howie presently works unloading trucks and rail cars at UPS.Howie's articles on social theory, cooperative economics, and independent politics have appeared in many publications, including Against the Current, Green Politics, International Socialist Review, New Politics, Peace and Democracy News, Peaceworks, Resist, Society and Nature, and Z Magazine . He is the editor of Independent Politics: The Green Party Strategy Debate (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006).Adirondack Progressives is a group of local Independents, along with members of the Green, Democratic and Republican parties interested in fostering a local dialogue on today’s most important issues. They are currently also organizing a fall appearance by Green candidate for N.Y.S. Governor, Malachy McCourt. McCourt is a longtime activist, author of the NY Times bestseller A Monk Swimming, and brother of Angela's Ashes author Frank McCourt).
For more information about this and other Adirondack Progressive events, contact Matt Funiciello at (518) 361-6278.
For Campaign Information: www.hawkinsforsenate.org and www.malachyforgovernor.com
For Immediate Release
Contact: Matt Funiciello (518)361-6278 or mattfuniciello@earthlink.net
June 26, 2006 – Local progressive and Green Party activist Matt Funiciello announced today that candidate for U.S. Senate from New York, Howie Hawkins, will be the guest of honor at a dinner and fundraiser to be held at 6 p.m., July 22, 2006, at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe in Glens Falls. The event is sponsored by the Adirondack Progressives. Local musician Carrianne Skidmore will provide entertainment and a vegetarian buffet will be served. Tickets are available at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe and also at High Peaks Java; there is a suggested donation of $25. Hawkins faces incumbent US Senator Hillary Clinton in the fall election.“Hawkins represents the best and brightest of the Green Party,” said Funiciello, a former member of the Green Party's National Committee, himself. “We’re extremely proud to have him as our party’s candidate against the pro-Iraq, pro-Patriot Act, pro-globalization, former WalMart board member, Citizen Hillary.”“An independent opposition party like the Greens is the most effective way to advance peace, justice, and a sustainable society,” Hawkins said, “It is not just the peace vote that is open to alternatives. So are the millions without health insurance, the workers who are losing wages and benefits and their very jobs, the environmentalists who see no program to address global warming, and the women and people of color who are losing their recently won rights. All have reason to be dissatisfied with Clinton, who is taking them for granted as she rebrands herself a ‘moderate’ for her presidential run.”“Clinton has been a consistent war hawk on Iraq and, indeed, all the wars initiated by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. She is more responsible than any other person in America for killing the single-payer national health insurance bill that had about 100 members of Congress as co-sponsors in 1993,” Hawkins added.Howie Hawkins has been active in movements for peace, justice, the environment, and independent progressive politics since the late 1960s. A former Marine, he helped organize opposition to the Vietnam War and was a co-founder of the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance in 1976. He was a co-founder of the Green Party in the United States in 1984 and currently serves on the Green National Committee.After attending Dartmouth College in the early 1970s, Howie worked as a carpenter in New England and helped start up a construction workers cooperative that specialized in solar and wind energy installations. Howie moved to Syracuse in 1991 to be Director of CommonWorks, a federation of cooperatives working for an economy that is cooperatively owned, democratically controlled, and ecologically sustainable. A member of Teamsters Local 317 and active in the national Teamster rank-and-file reform caucus, Teamsters for a Democratic Union, Howie presently works unloading trucks and rail cars at UPS.Howie's articles on social theory, cooperative economics, and independent politics have appeared in many publications, including Against the Current, Green Politics, International Socialist Review, New Politics, Peace and Democracy News, Peaceworks, Resist, Society and Nature, and Z Magazine . He is the editor of Independent Politics: The Green Party Strategy Debate (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006).Adirondack Progressives is a group of local Independents, along with members of the Green, Democratic and Republican parties interested in fostering a local dialogue on today’s most important issues. They are currently also organizing a fall appearance by Green candidate for N.Y.S. Governor, Malachy McCourt. McCourt is a longtime activist, author of the NY Times bestseller A Monk Swimming, and brother of Angela's Ashes author Frank McCourt).
For more information about this and other Adirondack Progressive events, contact Matt Funiciello at (518) 361-6278.
For Campaign Information: www.hawkinsforsenate.org and www.malachyforgovernor.com
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