Here’s a story I came upon tonight on Crooks & Liars. It’s a great piece by Bill Moyers which highlights the problem that average Americans have in obtaining health care and the best part is that he shows how a country doctor and our new Surgeon General helps average Americans. This week Republicans and Democrats who are getting money from health care conglomerates are attempting to derail health care reform for ordinary Americans. We need your help in getting out the vote and pressuring Congress to pass health care reform that guarantees affordable and where necessary government subsidized health care for ordinary Americans. Congress get’s free health care but many of those same congressional folks think that you and I don’t deserve the same. Call or write your representative and make your voice heard on this most important issue.
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It’s Time, Representatives
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No more excuses
This week we’ve seen stalling and grand standing on health care reform by folks who don’t need health insurance because they already have government provided health care. We the people demand change. Those who represent us would have us believe that health care reform is a bad thing. Why then is the rest of the world not moving to the United States because our health care is without peer. Truth be told is that while Americans do have great health care, they do not have great health care coverage. Health Care Reform will be good for all Americans including doctors and nurses. Call your representative now and demand health care reform. It’s a matter of social justice and believe it or not it will actually benefit business both large and small. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just plain lying to you.
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Thought provoking
Today Plain Foolish whom I have great respect for, mentioned a video that I felt compelled to view because of her recommendation. It is riveting and I recommend it to you. I hope you take time to watch these videos and to reflect on how we can do a better job of loving our neighbors and stemming the tide of prejudice and injustice. For more information about the series “Constantine’s Sword,” or to view this presentation in its entirety on Youtube follow this link. I like the way the author, James Carroll has presented his work. I think he’s done a real service for us and it invites an examination of our souls. James Carroll’s decision to leave the priesthood seems to have been a prophetic calling. It seems to be me that if he stayed in the hierarchy he would not have been able to do the work he has done here.
Can you imagine?
Some in our country love to point us back to the Bible upon which they say our nation was founded. Here’s a direct quote from the Bible that might not sell well with some of these same folks.
Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. And this is the manner of the remission: every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against a neighbor, not exacting it of a neighbor who is a member of the community, because the Lord’s remission has been proclaimed.- Deuteronomy 15:1-2
Can you imagine what might happen if every seven years we did this? Wall Street would implode, there would be cries of socialism. Justice is about restoring relationship with our neighbors and not about collecting from them. Can you imagine a nation grounded upon these principles instead of un-fettered greed?
A long time
Today is the first time I’ve taken time to write here in a week or so. Well, that’s what it seems like lately. The words have not been there. I’ve read lots of words and many of them have spoken to my heart, but I haven’t had the time to put them here. President Obama’s stimulus package has been in the news a lot lately. Lots of dissent that it contains too much pork. Many Republicans decry it as too much entitlement spending. The new chair of the Republican party even went so far as to claim that government money never creates jobs. I guess Michael Steele is either obtuse or maybe he forgot about the U.S. Military. As a former member of the U.S. Navy I can attest that many jobs were created with tax-payer dollars. I suppose that idea is lost on the congressional folks, many of whom never served our country in uniform. Then too, one has to wonder where they think their paychecks come from.
The world has been turned upside down by the financial crisis. Banks and bankers are okay with socialism now that it means they can continue their luxurious lifestyle. Politicians decry socialism as long as it’s on Main Street and not Wall Street. No end to government spending on K Street or at Grumman, Northrop, Lockheed, General Dynamics or other defense contractors. There’s never too much money spent there. The only place we spend too much money is on Main Street. Helping taxpayers is bad, helping defense contractors and desperate financiers is okay.
I hope the stimulus bill passes as long as it stimulates Main Street. I hope it goes to help working families who are the backbone of this economy. I hope we get a lot of socialism on Main Street. Government financed health care is okay for Senators, Representatives, Presidents, Generals and corporals. It ought to be okay for shopkeepers, construction workers and poor people too. We need liberty and justice for all. It’s in our Pledge of Allegiance. Justice for all means all.
Heroic social witness
This quote comes from the Merton Institute’s weekly mail that I receive on Mondays. As you can see I’m a Merton fan and the Merton Institute keeps me thinking.
Though there is no use in placing our hopes on a totally utopian new world in which everyone is sublimely merciful, we are obliged as Christians to seek some way of giving the mercy and compassion of Christ a social, even a political, dimension. The eschatological function of mercy, we repeat, is to prepare the Christian transformation of the world, and to usher in the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom is manifestly “not of this world” (all forms of millennial and messianic Christianity to the contrary), but it demands to be typified and prepared by such forms of heroic social witness that makes Christian mercy plain and evident in the world….
Christian mercy must discover, in faith, in the Spirit, a power strong enough to initiate the transformation of the world into a realm of understanding, unity and relative peace, where [humankind], nations and societies are willing to make the enormous sacrifices required if they are to communicate intelligibly with one another, understand one another, cooperate with one another in feeding the hungry millions and in building a world of peace.Thomas Merton. Love and Living. Naomi Burton Stone and Brother Patrick Hart, editors. (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1979): 219.
Where is your treasure?
This is a well written piece by an author whom I have come to appreciate. I’m increasingly concerned that we are watching the decline and fall of our country. For years I’ve listened to the corporate propagandists who fill our air waves with their talking points. They seem indifferent to the suffering of the masses. We’re told that public health care is no good and that the market is the best determinant of a fair price and yet all around us we’ve witnessed monopolies operating and only helping those already fat with food and cash.
Corporations have intruded into every facet of life. We eat corporate food. We buy corporate clothes. We drive corporate cars. We buy our vehicular fuel and our heating oil from corporations. We borrow from corporate banks. We invest our retirement savings with corporations. We are entertained, informed and branded by corporations. We work for corporations. The creation of a mercenary army, the privatization of public utilities and our disgusting for-profit health care system are all legacies of the corporate state. These corporations have no loyalty to America or the American worker. They are not tied to nation states. They are vampires.–Chris Hedges
According to each one’s need
Much has been made of Senator Obama’s plan to tax the rich and give it to the middle class and poor in this country. Senator McCain and members of the Republican party are calling Senator Obama a socialst, marxist and in some circles a communist. Actually Senator Obama’s plan is more akin to early Christianity when Christians still acted like Christ.
All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need.–Acts 2:45-46
The party of family values and supposed Christian ideals are actually attacking a man over a principle found in the Bible. We’re supposed to be helping each other here on the planet. It’s not all about making money. The message of Jesus is about radical mercy and forgiveness. It’s not about judgment and condemnation and grabbing all you can for yourself and to hell with the other guy.
Idiots rule
The headline caught my attention and I read the entire article and I have to agree with much if not all that it’s author is writing about. If you like this quote then you might enjoy the whole article.
Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights. That it is still in power, and will remain in power after this election, is a testament to our inability to separate illusion from reality. We still believe in “the experts.” They still believe in themselves. They are clustered like flies swarming around John McCain and Barack Obama. It is only when these elites are exposed as incompetent parasites and dethroned that we will have any hope of restoring social, economic and political order.