Passion09urn:uuid:96b50664-60ab-38e1-3359-e93f6ac359962008-10-30T01:32:26-04:00Passion09A Woman's Worthurn:uuid:579fc8dd-7206-ee5b-c79f-76a265cb674c2008-09-10T13:17:23-04:00I am positing this well written article by Goldie Taylor, not because I’m against Sarah Palin as a woman, a mother, or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but solely as a rash, incompetent, and all together devastating choice for Vice President. Ms. Palin's political views are in every way a slap in the face to the accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers so fiercely fought for, and that we've so demonstrably benefited from. __________________________________________________________________________
I have been a mother all of my adult life. A single working mother. I put off dating, took menial jobs far beneath my qualifications and baked my share of ginger bread cookies for PTA Night, all so that three incredible children could have better. I chose their lives over mine. I don't have to tell you that it wasn't easy. Unfortunately, my story, our story, is not
unique.
We slept in cars, bought groceries with food stamps and prayed for a better day. When that wasn't enough, I put myself through school at Emory University and took a part-time job as a staff writer at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. That was over a decade ago.
Along the way, things got better. I've been an executive at two Fortune 500 companies and a practice director at two multinational public relations firms. Today, I own an advertising agency and I've authored two novels. A third and fourth are on the way, God willing. All of this was possible because somebody laid a brick or two on the road for me.
A few weeks ago, I woke in tears. It was my 40th birthday and certainly not a time for sadness. Rather, I cried in joy because for the first time I realized and could embrace the value of the struggle. The bright little girl, who once cried in my arms because we didn't know where we were going to live, was headed off to Brown University. The small boy who had been the "man of the house" far too soon was now truly a man. And the tiny, angelic baby who had come to this world precious and innocent just 15 months after him was now a 16 year old girl headed out to her first job interview.
For all of this, maybe I should be proud of a woman like Sarah Palin. Maybe, just maybe, I should be rejoicing in John McCain's selected running mate.
But I'm not.
I'm not "bed wetting liberal" nor am I a "right-wing zealot." What I am is a working mother. And I cry foul.
I won't, for a moment, denigrate her experience or lob spit balls at her family. I will, though, take issue with what she knows. Or more succinctly, what she does not know. Living in Alaska, I'm not sure how much she knows about the people living in inner city Baltimore. I don't know how much she cares about the 125 murders this summer in Chicago. I have no idea what she believes about HIV/ AIDS and the havoc it wrecks on Black women or the cancer rates in East St. Louis. She hasn't said nary a word about Hurricane Katrina or the infant mortality rates in Appalachia.
I do know that she's a life-time member of the NRA, a proponent of individuals who wielded the very weapons that killed my father and brother. I do know that she “lives really close to Russia,” but I'm not so certain she is ready for Putin. I know she wanted to ban books for public libraries and sex education in schools, but that her 17 year old is pregnant and preparing for a shotgun wedding. I know that she loves her husband enough to allow him (and probably did herself) use her office to settle a personal score--one that the McCain campaign would now like to cover in under a blanket of Juneau snow. I know that the Alaska Independent Party, and its secessionist platform, was enticing enough for her to attend its conference (and for her husband to become a card carrying member). Does she love her country? I'm sure. Enough to support those who want to leave it.
But I have no earthly idea what she knows (or could possibly know) about national domestic policy or foreign diplomacy. For all of her working class values, she never once mentioned the Middle Class in her diatribe that mocked her opponent's experience. Having been the mayor of Wasilla (pop. 6,000 at the time) and governor of Alaska (a state a smaller than the county I live in) for a little over a year, she felt she was qualified to do that. And obviously, so did John McCain.
If she's qualified, then so am I.
But in this country I love, she has been afforded the ability to run. The very constitution she says doesn't apply to the men at Guantanamo says she can. But this is about more than that.
As Gloria Steinem said in a recent Los Angeles Times editorial, "Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie."
The good news is thanks to Shirley Chisholm, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Angela Davis, Condoleeza Rice, Anita Hill, Madeline Albright, Maxine Waters, Kathleen Sebelius, Hilary Rodham Clinton and a slew of others, there are 18 million proverbial cracks in the ceiling. Our collective political and economic power is due to the strides (and leaps) they, and others, took on my behalf.
I am grateful. I am deeply humbled to stand on the bricks they'd laid before me.
But, whatever our struggle was (and is) that last thing I want is to be patronized. Just as I cannot support just any African American who decides to offer themselves up for public service, I will not toss my vote to someone just because we share the same chromosome mix. To do so would dishonor the vow I made to my children, to myself. I did not vote for Al Sharpton, wasn't old enough (nor would I have) voted for Jesse Jackson and I certainly will not support Sarah Palin. Identity politics, especially in this case, are a sham of the worst order.
When I cast my vote, it will be for people who will lay more bricks for people like me. It will be for people who will put diplomacy before war, challenge us all to provide healthcare for the sick, help another child go to college, and check the special interests in Washington. This fall, I'm not looking for a woman.
I'm looking for a brick layer.
I could care less if that person hasn't spent "enough" time in Washington or can "properly field dress a moose". I could care less if that person likes hockey, soccer, football or table tennis. I could care less if they graduated from Harvard or the University of Iowa. I'm a Christian, but I could care less if they are down with Deuteronomy, Leviticus or Numbers. I want them to uphold the Constitution.
So no, I will not sit idly by as they attempt to suspend habeas corpus at Guantanamo Bay, engage wiretaps on American citizens without a warrant, and hide behind executive privilege when they are caught firing attorney generals based on how well they tow the Republican line. I won't let them cost us $12 billion a month fighting a war that should have never been authorized and never been waged. Not while working people lose their homes to predatory lenders and watch as we bail out the financial institutions that created the housing crisis.
I will not, in the name of history, vote for a woman like Sarah Palin who does not share my values.
But here’s what I will do.
I will continue raising money for Barack Obama. I will get on the phone again and call people in distant states I've never met. I will e-mail, call, and knock on doors until the final vote is cast. I do this, not because he shares my skin, but because I admire his principals and he shares my values. I do this because Barack Obama is more than a community organizer, he is a bricklayer. And he sees -- just as he sees the light in Michelle's eyes -- my struggle, my worth as a woman.
______________________________________________
Goldie Taylor is CEO of Native Brand Communications and chairman of Goldie Taylor OmniMedia, LLC. She is the author of In My Father’s House (Wheatmark, 2005) and The January Girl (Madison Park, 2007 & Warner Books, 2008) and is currently working on her third novel, Come Sunday. Taylor and her children live in Atlanta and New York. For more information, visit www.goldietaylor.net or her blog Second Day at www.goldietaylor.wordpress.com. ]]>Congratulations Sen. Obama urn:uuid:20ad02e8-bc05-b721-1658-cf6785f5a1202008-06-18T15:18:57-04:00This is the perfect summation to how I feel about Obama’s nomination. So instead of reinventing the wheel, I decided to share it with you. Enjoy!
__________________________________________________________________ (CNN) -- Last night, I like most Americans of all stripes, watched with visible goose bumps as history was made. I sat with my 13-year-old son and looked from the screen to his eyes as Sen. Barack Obama became the first African American in history to lead a U.S. major-party ticket when he claimed the nomination for the Democratic Party for president of the United States.
I congratulate Sen. Obama on this historic accomplishment. I thank him for accepting the torch that was lit by our forefathers and proudly carrying it through the darkness of our struggles, trials and tribulations, bringing light and hope to a new generation, and for facing all those who said "No" and "You can't win," or "It will never happen," and firmly, proudly, defiantly saying, "Yes I can!"
However, what I really hope people take away from that night is that this is not just a victory for African Americans, it is a victory for democracy that proves that our country provides possibilities for all people. It is also a sign that a metamorphosis is in progress. Today we saw that Americans respect experience, but are interested in change. I hope that we can somehow merge the best ideas of our differences and emerge with a president who epitomizes our highest and best ideals. While it remains unclear where we are going, last night proves that we as a people have moved beyond business as usual.
I congratulate not just Sen. Obama on his victory, but the country on this landmark event that has shattered a past all too often filled with reasons to separate us as opposed to a voice of reason to unite us. The victory cup does not rest on the shoulders of the senator alone, but to all those who have been able to lift the conversation from petty racism, antiquated cut-throat politics, and fear-based campaigns to the larger issues of how we would like to see our country led into the future and ultimately how our country will be remembered.
As the days and discussions of this political season continue, it is my sincere hope and prayer that we do not sink back into the abyss of political pettiness that has plagued our country and our lives for so many years. I am grateful to Sen. Hillary Clinton for giving, through this campaign, a chance for my daughters to see that their femininity is not a liability. Today both my sons and daughters came to understand that their ethnicity isn't viewed by progressive Americans as a limitation or a liability.
For me it was almost déjà vu as I sat with my son. I remembered a little over 40 years ago watching the famous King speech with my dad. Similarly, I watched with my youngest son last night as a historical moment unfolded. He and I saw the dreams of slaves come true as the sons of slaves and the slave owners clapped their hands in one progressive sweep. As I drifted into sleep, all I could see was the twinkle in my son's eyes. His eyes were illuminated with possibilities, and his heart was filled with the potential of what is attainable for qualified, competent people of all types who prepare themselves intellectually and are well vested with a divine sensitivity to the "fierce urgency of now!"]]>Vietnam and Iraq War – lessons learned. urn:uuid:dc0d20af-6599-ad93-8578-ad50398d490a2008-04-08T15:18:18-04:00As I was driving home today, I saw a homeless man; he looked cold, hungry and alone. He was unkempt like many beggars do, and somewhat distance. He did not make eye contact and seemed rather scared to approach my car. I rolled down the window to offer him a dollar, and as he got closer to the car I noticed he was wearing military uniform. I asked the man, if he was a veteran and he nodded his head. I prodded which war? He answered, “Iraq war.”
I drive by homeless people everyday and never think much of it, but for some unknown reason this mans face kept crossing my mind. I asked myself, how could a man who has served his country, fought for the freedom I enjoy be homeless – I mean begging for a meal? Is this what veterans deserve? I feel like I’m completely desensitized about this war...
Did we learn anything from the Vietnam War? April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr gave a speech that is less well know than "I Have a Dream" -- but is much more powerful. The entire speech is below.
I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.
And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?" "Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people," they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.
In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate -- leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.
I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.
Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans, who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.
Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. And so we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. And so we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.
My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath --
America will be!
Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.
As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1954; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission -- a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for "the brotherhood of man." This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I'm speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men -- for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this One? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?
And finally, as I try to explain for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them.
This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.
They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1954 -- in 1945 rather -- after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination and a government that had been established not by China -- for whom the Vietnamese have no great love -- but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.
For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.
After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States' influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.
The only change came from America, as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.
So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.
What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?
We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.
Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call "fortified hamlets." The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These, too, are our brothers.
Perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. What of the National Liberation Front, that strangely anonymous group we call "VC" or "communists"? What must they think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem, which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the North" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.
How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent communist, and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam, and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have a part? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them, the only party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again, and then shore it up upon the power of new violence?
Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.
So, too, with Hanoi. In the North, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French Commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered.
Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreement concerning foreign troops. They remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.
Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the North. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than eight hundred, or rather, eight thousand miles away from its shores.
At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.
Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.
This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote:
Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism (unquote).
If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.
I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict:
Number one: End all bombing in North and South Vietnam.
Number two: Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation.
Three: Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos.
Four: Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future Vietnam government.
Five: Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement.
Part of our ongoing...part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country, if necessary. Meanwhile... meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible.
As we counsel young men concerning military service, we must clarify for them our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. I am pleased to say that this is a path now chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. Moreover, I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.
Now there is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing.
The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality...and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing "clergy and laymen concerned" committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.
And so, such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.
In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.
It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.
These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.
It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."
A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.
This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.
We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word" (unquote).
We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on."
We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message -- of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.
As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:
Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
Though the cause of evil prosper, yet 'tis truth alone is strong
Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace.
If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. ]]>Compelling Reasons why you should support Obamaurn:uuid:99391a1b-060e-9053-7cbb-c4d63ec58b0c2008-02-15T16:51:25-05:00Why I support Obama!
It’s obvious that George W. Bush's presidency can't end soon enough. Many Americans are fatigued by the state of the nation: a relentless war in Iraq, a bottomless deficit, the bruising mortgage crisis and the United States' flagging image abroad. So it is not hard to be energized by the prospects for a successor.
Hilary and Obama are both promising a new political era in our country. Each has the intellect and the skills to deliver. Hillary Clinton, with her years in Washington and most recently in the Senate representing New York, brings rich experience. She is tough and keenly focused, pragmatic and driven. But Barack Obama offers a more compelling vision for the country that he would lead.
(1) He wants to forge a new reality in Washington where consensus replaces confrontation. And he has shown a remarkable ability to enroll a diverse array of Americans in his cause, convincing a new generation that it too has a stake in Washington.
(2) When Obama promises change, surprising numbers find the pledge credible. Despite his few years in the Senate, Obama exudes confidence and assesses the nation's problems with a fresh eye. When questioned by the media on a number of tough issues, he showed a sophisticated understanding of them. His opposition to the war has been steady, and while committed to an early withdrawal from Iraq, Mr. Obama recognizes the challenges to that course.
(3) When asked how the troubled No Child Left Behind education program might be salvaged, Mr. Obama said achievement testing should not be abandoned but rather complemented with other measures of progress and more aid for schools.
(4) As the first African-American president, he would deliver on America's promise that there is no barrier to success.
(5)Mr. Obama is a powerfully inspirational speaker, engaging listeners with energy and warmth as he describes his goals. That's the essence of leadership. His conversations feel more heartfelt than calculating, which reminds us of President John F. Kennedy. Every president can get people to write budgets and policy but very few have the ability to get it passed. Obama has shown he can work with all parties and get things done.
(6) Untested in foreign affairs, Mr. Obama is not afraid to disagree with popular opinion, favoring dialog with Cuba, Iran and other hostile powers, for instance. But he still has lots to tell America about how he would govern and whom he would rely on to help him lead. His promises to work across party lines may favor hope over reality, and the same might be said of his plans to reach out around the world.
In the past few years there has been an alarming rise in anti-American sentiment around the globe, centered in the Middle East. To reverse this tide, the United States must begin working immediately to establish meaningful contact with the silent majority in the Muslim world, in ways other than through military force or traditional diplomacy. The anti-U.S. aggression witnessed today represents the boiling over of intense frustration, exacerbated by a sense that Muslims have somehow fallen behind. Rather than assuming that Islam is inherently more violent than other religions, U.S. policymakers should realize that there are practical causes of the widespread discontent in the Middle East, and try to offer practical solutions. As they do so, they should take inspiration from the successful cultural diplomacy (which Obama can deliver) of the Cold War, while tailoring their efforts to the new circumstances and enemies with which they are confronted. Obama’s international experience and cultural diplomacy is one of the most potent weapons in the United States' armory, yet its importance has been consistently downplayed in favor of dramatic displays of military might by Bush. I believe Obama will restore our credibility internationally by winning foreigners' voluntary allegiance to the American cause.
(7) Mrs. Clinton told us she would be "ready on Day One" to lead decisively, and indeed, her experience is one of her most appealing attributes. But her years of sparring with conservative adversaries have left her bruised and unpopular with many Americans. Mr. Obama is more likely to turn the page to a new era and deliver real change that is urgently needed to deal with the nation's economic, social and political problems. ]]>Yes We Canurn:uuid:bf7e28eb-7644-ffbc-1935-d6889b10ed612008-02-11T16:29:18-05:00The Yes We Can Song by will.i.am
I was sitting in my recording studio watching the debates...
Torn between the candidates
I was never really big on politics...
and actually I’m still not big on politics...
but 4 years ago, me and the black eyed peas supported Kerry...
And we supported Kerry with all our might...
We performed and performed and performed for the DNC...
doing all we could do to get the youth involved...
The outcome of the last 2 elections has saddened me...
on how unfair, backwards, upside down, unbalanced, untruthful,
corrupt, and just simply, how wrong the world and "politics" are...
So this year i wanted to get involved and do all i could early...
And i found myself torn...
because this time it’s not that simple...
our choices aren’t as clear as the last elections ...
last time it was so obvious...
Bush and war
vs
no Bush and no war...
But this time it’s not that simple...
and there are a lot of people that are torn just like i am...
So for awhile I put it off and i was going to wait until it was decided for me...
And then came New Hampshire...
And i was captivated...
Inspired...
I reflected on my life...
and the blessings I have...
and the people who fought for me to have these rights and blessings...
and I’m not talking about a "black thing"
I’m talking about a "human thing" me as a "person"
an American...
That speech made me think of Martin Luther King...
Kennedy...
and Lincoln...
and all the others that have fought for what we have today...
what America is "supposed" to be...
freedom...
equality...
and truth...
and thats not what we have today...
we think we are free...
but in reality terror and fear controls our decisions...
this is not the America that our pioneers and leaders fought and
died for...
and then there was New Hampshire
it was that speech...
like many great speeches...
that one moved me...
because words and ideas are powerful...
It made me think...
and realize that today we have "very few" leaders...
maybe none...
but that speech...
it inspired me...
it inspired me to look inside myself and outwards towards the world...
it inspired me to want to change myself to better the world...
and take a "leap" towards change...
and hope that others become inspired to do the same...
change themselves..
change their greed...
change their fears...
and if we "change that"
"then hey"..
we got something right...???...
1 week later after the speech settled in me...
I began making this song...
I came up with the idea to turn his speech into a song...
because that speech effected and touched my inner core like nothing in a very long time...
it spoke to me...
because words and ideas are powerful...
I just wanted to add a melody to those words...
I wanted the inspiration that was bubbling inside me to take over...
so i let it..
I wasn't afraid to stand for something...
to stand for "change"...
I wasn't afraid of "fear"...
it was pure inspiration...
so I called my friends...
and they called their friends...
in a matter of 2 days...
We made the song and video...
Usually this process would take months...
a bunch of record company people figuring out strategies and release dates...
interviews...
all that stuff...
but this time i took it in my own hands...
so i called my friends sarah pantera, mike jurkovac, fred goldring, and jesse dylan to help make it happen...
and they called their friends..
and we did it together in 48 hours...
and instead of putting it in the hands of profit we put it in the hands of inspiration...
then we put it on the net for the world to feel...
When you are truly inspired..
magic happens...
incredible things happen...
love happens..
(and with that combination)
"love, and inspiration"
change happens...
"change for the better"
Inspiration breeds change...
"Positive change"...
no one on this planet is truly experienced to handle the obstacles we face today...
Terror, fear, lies, agendas, politics, money, all the above...
It’s all scary...
Martin Luther King didn't have experience to lead...
Kennedy didn't have experience to lead...
Susan B. Anthony...
Nelson Mandela...
Rosa Parks...
Gandhi...
Anne Frank...
and everyone else who has had a hand in molding the freedoms we have and take for granted today...
no one truly has experience to deal with the world today...
they just need "desire, strength, courage ability, and passion" to change...
and to stand for something even when people say it's not possible...
America would not be here "today" if we didn’t stand and fight for
change "yesterday"...
Everything we have as a "people" is because of the "people" who fought for
change...
and whoever is the President has to realize we have a lot of changing to do
I'm not trying to convince people to see things how i do...
I produced this song to share my new found inspiration and how I've been moved...
I hope this song will make you feel...
love...
and think...
and be inspired just like the speech inspired me...
that’s all...
Let's all come together like America is supposed to...
Like Japan did after Hiroshima...
that was less than 65 years ago...
and look at Japan now...
they did it together...
they did it...
"We can't?...
Are you serious..?..
WE CAN!!!
Yes we can...
A United "America"
Democrats, Republicans and Independents together...
Building a new America
We can do it...
"TOGETHER"
Please visit www.yeswecansong.com ]]>Reforming the Healthcare Mess: Can it be done?urn:uuid:e09c7833-6977-03ec-afd8-331dbad6936d2008-02-08T12:31:04-05:00THE UNITED STATES IS THE only remaining industrialized country without some form of universal access to medical services, in part because policy debates are driven by false, self defeating beliefs. One such belief is that the United States cannot afford to cover the uninsured, when in fact a coordinated financing system is the key tool for holding costs down, and there are affordable ways to do it. Even the largest employers are unable to hold major cost drivers in check.
A second belief, held by the medical profession, is that they would lose still more power than they have already under corporate managed care. Yet universal health care systems elsewhere give the profession greater institutional powers.
Third, many believe that the only alternative to voluntary, market-based health insurance is a single-payer system financed by tax revenues, when there are a number of options.
Fourth, many believe that the United States is so large and diverse that any lessons one might learn from smaller and less diverse countries do not apply here, so why bother with possible lessons from anywhere else?
Finally, conservative policymakers and providers imagine that a universal health care system would mean low salaries, rundown facilities, poor quality, and endless waits to see a doctor, as with the British National Health Service (NHS). In US policy debates, the NHS serves as a dreary image of everything we want to avoid and might get if we actually developed a universal system that was equitable and efficient. American journalists almost never describe its remarkable achievements or its innovative and instructive reforms.
As one who’s lived in Britain I can attest to the functionality of the system, but also be the first to admit that it has its problems. Which system doesn’t? Most of Britains NHS’s dreary features—the rundown hospitals, the chronic shortages of specialists in every field, the long waiting lists—stem from chronic underfunding and undersupply of personnel and equipment. Many universal health care systems avoid these problems.
How well a system is designed must always be distinguished from how well it is funded; the NHS is quite well designed but under provisioned. By contrast, the US health care system is richly funded but designed so that it maximizes waste, inefficiency, and inequity. This makes people working in it feel it is inadequately funded as well as badly designed. A large health services research industry has arisen to try to figure out how to reduce these inefficiencies but without discussing how the basic design of US health care—risk-selecting insurers, self-enriching fiefdoms, and profit-seeking vendors—impedes that goal. Learning about other, better-designed systems provides a needed comparative perspective.
Can Hilary make a difference? It is important to understand, given the dominance of conservative views in US politics, that the NHS and related systems may be characterized by some as “socialist” but may actually support conservative values: to maximize the ability to exercise individual freedom and responsibility by enabling people to take care of themselves and be productive. Indeed, conservatives in every other industrialized country believe their values support universal access to health care.
How did the British Do it? Excerpts from Articles from American Journal of Public Health are provided here courtesy of American Public Health Association
The British have made a number of good decisions that are transferable to other systems. Some of these are mentioned in the text and others come from a more comprehensive list.
1. Health care should be “free at the point of service,” a founding principle of the NHS. Although this is precisely opposite the principle of American employers and politicians as they increase co-payments, the evidence from the United States and abroad supports the British position. Co-payments create inequities, raise barriers to access, and usually do not achieve their goals. They are not very effective in containing costs, because patients have discretion over just a small percentage of ambulatory and elective choices. Most “cost containment” efforts focus on minor, front-end costs rather than addressing major, back-end costs.Moreover, co-payments undermine the goals of appropriate and effective care and discriminate against the working and lower classes. Such evidence seems ignored by advocates of co-payments in Congress and the business community.
2. Fund health care from income taxes. Whenever the British have reviewed the option of using health insurance instead of income tax financing, they have found evidence that an insurance-based health care system costs more to operate, is more inequitable, controls costs less effectively, and provides no basis for population-oriented prevention or public health gains. By sharp contrast, US employers are moving the other way, from large group insurance toward individuals buying their own policies on a voluntary basis, long known as the most costly and inequitable way to structure health insurance, with few means to contain costs, raise quality, or improve the health status of the population.
3. Establish a strong primary care base for a health care system. Every UK resident chooses a personal physician or practice. The system provides incentives to practice in underserved areas and prevents new GPs from setting up in saturated, affluent areas. The primary care base of the NHS is widely celebrated 31 and has been consistently strengthened over the decades. For example, as recruitment into general practice and morale waned and sub-specialty medicine grew in the postwar years, the British raised GP lifetime incomes to equal those of subspecialists. Other changes were made to strengthen primary care by providing more practice staff and nurses in order to encourage solo practitioners to come together into teams. More recently, these teams have been further enlarged by bringing together geographic clusters of GP practices into large Primary Care Trusts that include all community health care services and many social services as well.
4. Pay GPs extra for treating patients with deprivations and from deprived areas. Almost 20 years ago, Brian Jarman developed a deprivation scale based on factors that affect clinical care, so that living alone is a factor as well as low income. The British have long paid GPs considerably more for taking care of patients who are more likely to have more problems and whose care is more demanding. American health policy researchers are still debating whether it can be done.
5. Reduce inequalities in historic funding that usually favor the affluent. Regional inequities in the United Kingdom are much smaller now than 20 to 30 years ago, and all major budgets are risk adjusted, in sharp contrast to the United States. Reductions have been achieved through national planning, building up hospitals and resources in underserved areas, and giving disproportionately more new funds to less well-funded areas.
6. Devise a set of bonuses for GP practices that reach population-based targets for prevention. Starting in 1990, the government added a new element to the GP contract—lump sums or bonuses for carrying out preventive measures on a high percentage of the patient panel (enrollees). For example, a practice could receive about $1250 if it completed the childhood immunization series for 70% to 89% of all eligible children registered and $3700 if it completed the series for 90% or more. The result has been high levels of immunizations and other preventive measures. Another incentive rewards GPs for using generic drugs for 70% of their prescriptions. Why don’t US health plans follow suit?
7. Pay all subspecialists on the same salary scale. This policy conveys the sense that psychiatry is as important and complicated as cardiology and pediatrics as challenging as orthopedics. On what defensible grounds should one specialty (cardiology) be paid more than another (psychiatry)? Equal pay signals to young doctors that they should specialize in what they do best and enjoy. Yet in many systems pay differs greatly by specialty. This decision has many cultural, organizational, and clinical benefits, even though some subspecialties have more opportunities to supplement their incomes than others.
8. Control prescription drug prices while rewarding basic research for breakthrough drugs. Like most other countries, the British have a national board that negotiates with the industry. Pharmaceutical companies like to portray this approach, which is nearly universal outside the United States, as “price controls” that can “never work.” In fact, nationally negotiated price schedules have worked well for years and saved billions. The British approach goes further, by rewarding breakthrough research and discouraging “me too” research or patent manipulation. It regulates profits, not prices, by having companies submit financial records and by determining set proportions for expenditures (e.g., a limit of 7% of sales for spending on marketing) on in-patent branded drugs.If prices result in higher profits than allowed, the excess profits are paid back. The British approach both ensures and limits profits. Meanwhile, providers are given drug budgets within which they have to live. Any other nation or large buyer can learn from this system.
Note: GP means General Practitoner or otherwise known as PCP - Primary care physician
The evidence it clear - IT CAN BE DONE! Let's hold our politicians accountable with our votes.]]>The pro-life debate - what's at stake?urn:uuid:8f052896-4140-5432-4e3c-6c8703e4f1ae2008-02-08T09:48:56-05:00The upcoming Presidential elections and so called "Potomac primaries" have sparked heated pro-life vs. pro-choice debates in our household. This morning, Ellis and I lovingly had a heated discussion regarding my support for Obama and his voting record on abortion. Knowing that the other side will try to frame the upcoming debate around this issue, I thought I'd share my views and the reality with you. As always, thanks for your comments and suggestions on my political views… read on.
The abortion controversy has become one of the most divisive and irrationally contentious issues of our time, turned into a legal and political power struggle with no permanent resolution in sight. The controversy over its legal and moral status rages on.
Several labels have been invented to define the variety of stances available on the issue. Pro-Life is often synonymous with Anti-Abortion, and related partially to Anti-Choice. Pro-Choice is often assumed to be synonymous with Pro-Abortion, and by opponents, with Anti-Life. More often than not it is assumed that the pro-life/anti-abortion stance is rooted in religious belief and that the secular community shares a support for the pro-choice movement. Yet it need not be.
Social, and therefore media, attention has been focused almost exclusively on the differences between pro-life and pro-choice forces, rather than on the common ground they have; and that has been even further compounded by the fact that many actively involved people on both sides have been driven to extreme positions they do not really relish, simply out of fear that not seeking more than is necessary will yield less than is acceptable.
Common Ground: There is more common ground among opposing sides than is realized. And there would be even more yet if the issue were discussed and portrayed in a rational way that sought mutually agreeable solutions rather than unconditional victories, particularly solutions that are consistent with those principles in many other areas of life that involve relevantly similar moral features (good samaritanism, normal privacy freedoms and limitations, definitions and consequences of negligence, responsibility limitations in non-negligent accident, etc.) areas where we already have accepted law and public consensus, or at least less divisive debate about which laws ought to be changed and what the content of the new laws ought to be (such as conditions allowing the withdrawal of life-support).
o Many pro-life and pro-choice advocates cannot even accurately state the other sides' position; and many people cannot even state their own position in a way they would be comfortable with after even just a few questions that get them to reflect on it.
o Almost no pro-choice advocate believes, for example, that giving a woman choice over whether to have an abortion or not means that she cannot make a wrong choice or choice that she would regret -- a choice made, and honored, say, in a moment of panic or fear, or a choice made on wrong information about the health of the fetus, the likely future quality of life of her child, or insufficient information about the resources available to help her have, care for, and successfully rear a healthy child.
o Almost no pro-choice advocate believes that abortion should be a person's chosen first-line method of birth control or method of gender determination.
o Almost no pro-choice advocate believes that promiscuity or sexual irresponsibility (male or female) is a good thing or that either ought to be encouraged.
o Almost no pro-choice advocate thinks that teen-age sex or teen-age pregnancy is a good thing. Almost no pro-choice advocate believes that abortion is or ought to be considered a casual event or that it should be undertaken without reverence and respect for the life or potential life that is being ended.
o Almost none but the most zealous pro-life advocates think babies should be made to be born if that means they only suffer painfully and prolongedly until they die with nothing to somehow make up for that suffering.
o Almost no pro-life advocate can consistently maintain for any length of time their initial view that quantity of life is more important than quality, or, put in another way, that life under all circumstances is better than, and preferable to death under any circumstance. (They would have to disavow Patrick Henry's revered statement "Give me liberty or give me death", for example.)
o Almost no pro-choice advocate thinks abortion is a good thing; but many simply think it is sometimes the best of a bunch of bad options; and that it would be better if women's other options were better so that abortion would not have to be chosen.
Pro-choice advocates would prefer to see fewer abortions chosen voluntarily -- not by making abortion even less desirable due to more punishment, but by making the other alternative (in regard to having and rearing one's children reasonably) proportionally more desirable than it currently is. Almost no pro-life advocate argues that it is better to force women to have babies they do not want than to help them want the babies they might have.
The political reality: Can Roe vs. Wade be overturned (at least within the next four years)? Probably not, unless there is a change in the Supreme Court's makeup. It would take five justices to overturn Roe. Two justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, have clearly indicated a readiness to vote that way. The two newest justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, are conservatives, and abortion opponents have high hopes that they will vote with Scalia and Thomas. Alito and Roberts got through their confirmation hearings without saying how they would rule if a fundamental challenge to Roe comes before them.
But the other five justices have affirmed Roe or have indicated a willingness to do so. Four of those five -- Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens -- appear solidly in the pro-Roe camp. Justice Anthony Kennedy voted to affirm Roe in the 1992 Casey ruling, but many court analysts believe he is wobbliest of the pro-Roe camp. Some, such as Leslee Unruh of Sioux Falls, S.D., one of the leaders behind the South Dakota abortion ban, believe the court might find the ban constitutional, even without any change in personnel. But most Supreme Court analysts say there are still five votes to sustain Roe.
Can the retirement of Justice Stevens change matters?
The South Dakota Legislature has passed a law that is unconstitutional under current Supreme Court doctrine, and Gov. Mike Rounds has signed it. The law would ban abortions, except when necessary to save the life of the mother. It directly contradicts the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Roe vs. Wade (1973), reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey (1992), that a pregnant woman has a right to choose to have an abortion.
The South Dakota Legislature hopes that by the time the court reviews their new law, the court makeup will have changed. This is based on several premises, none of them certain. But unless Kennedy changes his position, the scenario comes down to this: the two new justices are ready to overturn Roe and -- between now and the time the South Dakota law is argued at the Supreme Court -- at least one of the pro-Roe justices has been replaced with another justice ready to vote against Roe. "They seem to be betting on several things," said law Professor Thomas Berg of the University of Thomas, "how the new justices will vote, who will retire, who will replace them, how that person will vote and when all this will occur. And none of those bets are sure things."
The bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Roger Hunt, has said the possible retirement of Stevens, 85, who supports Roe, makes it a "very real and very viable" possibility that by the time the South Dakota law makes it way to the court, a fifth vote to overturn Roe will have arrived on the scene.But close Supreme Court watchers say that despite his advanced age, Stevens appears to be in good health and enjoying his work after 30 years on the court. Further, since Stevens is among the most liberal and most reliable abortion rights supporter on the court, there's little reason to assume that he would hasten his retirement at a time when Republicans control the White House and the Senate.
Of course, if Stevens or another of the pro-Roe justices developed a health problem while the South Dakota law is making its way through the lower courts, that could trump such political considerations.
In sum, when faced with this issue and rhetoric about a candidate's voting record on this matter, let's not be quick to making judgments. Let's try to make the question more rational, more productive, and less divisive by (1) search for the most common ground possible, (2) point out morally relevant similarities to other areas of life that are not controversial, (3) eliminate the common illogical and confusing arguments, (4) discuss the real needs of pregnant women and mothers, and seek to find out what acceptable laws and social changes might be necessary and sufficient to bring about more uncoerced and truly voluntary choices for birth rather than abortion, and (5) foster awareness of more reasonably effective ways of reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies. Then, after that we can perhaps leave to pure politics and power struggles, the far fewer kinds of cases that might not be mutually resolved.
Thanks for hearing me out - Now go and vote for Obama!!!]]>Who will WIN on Super Tuesday?urn:uuid:51d2e598-3066-4502-fbea-f0cef244a39f2008-02-08T09:45:26-05:00My friends,the Super Bowl is over and history has been made. However, what lies ahead is bound to affect generations and millions more than what took place yesterday. I don't mean to undermine the importance of sports, but rather want to direct your attention to something of greater magnitude – the presidential elections!
Which of the two candidates democratic candidates will win on Tuesday and by how much? In my view, the real question is posed by our experience 7 years ago. That is, would America be in the international mess it now faces had Gore won the election? Clearly not. So, then the question is this, does it matter which of these two get elected from the standpoint of America today?
I believe that Hillary Clinton's administrative skills might be able to rebuild the institutions of government that have been gutted under bush. However, I do not think she has the "gut feeling" to engage with the now messed up US policy (role) in the world, a role that is even more important for everyone, including Americans than re-establishing government institutions at home. The gut feeling I see in Obama is the primacy he gives to an America committed to engagement over militaristic relations, to international economic development as a tool of peace and not merely as a source of greater profits, or "control" of resources.
Does it matter anymore who owns anything? Is a Chinese investor in the Midwest not as good as an American one? Is Ireland less Ireland for having most of its business owned by foreigners? All economics is now international, and while some companies benefit most from war, the vast majority benefit most from peace. I do not say that Hillary Clinton is opposed to international peace, but I simply do not see her being able to think globally. She's a polarizing figure and will not be able to bring both houses together to agree on important policies that we need to move our nation forward. Hence I believe that this election is not only extremely important, but it is equally important that the candidate most suited to the international challenges of today should win.
Thus, I urge you to please get out and vote...I think you'll truly agree with me when I say, EVERY VOTE COUNTS – Join me in voting for positive change in Washington.]]>