Last night 60 Minutes aired a segment that has left me so upset, so angry that I barely know what to do with myself, today ("Lifeline"):
As correspondent Scott Pelley reports, Remote Area Medical sets up emergency clinics where the needs are greatest. But these days, that's not the Amazon. This charity founded to help people who can't reach medical care finds itself throwing America a lifeline.
Remote Area Medical* is setting up emergency clinics so Americans can get checkups, dental care, cancer screenings. So, as I always do, I turned to my community--DailyKos--to have a look at the discussion about this segment.
I found a few diaries. None made the rec list. Instead, the rec list was clogged with candidate diaries complaining about this or that insignificant event that might or might not effect the outcome of the next few primaries.
Folks...we need to wake the heck up.
Read this from last night's segment:
Late Sunday, Joanne Ford's number was among the last. Pelley found her sitting by a stairwell. She's retired, living on disability with no insurance, and her glasses don't work anymore. She got in only to find out the vision care line had closed.
Asked what she was going to do, Ford told Pelley, "I don't know. I have a lot of friends and I have a lot of church support. I was very active in my church and I have a lot of friends in church. I just hate to ask. I've worked all my life. I hate to ask. That's why things like this are so wonderful."
"There is no shame in seeking healthcare," Pelley remarked.
"No. You're right. You know, it really, I am sad that we are the wealthiest nation in the world, and we don't take care of our own. So. But it will be okay," she said.
And it did turn out okay after all. Someone at RAM noticed Ford's situation. They put her in the vision care line and examined her for a new pair of glasses.
As I watched this segment, I basically just lost it. I lost it. It has been ages since I have been as angry as I was last night after watching Joanne Ford crumble under the weight of her own shame.
I am still livid.
It is outrageous and disgusting that people in our own country need airlifted medical relief to get an eye exam. But that's only one part of the story. The other part is that the Presidential debate has focused only on the 47 million uninsured and the countless underinshured, but has not focused on the millions whose spirit has been crushed with shame.
Joanne Ford is not just uninsured--she's trapped by shame and fear. She's afraid and alone, and that has kept her from learning even the most basic things about what is at her disposal to take care of her needs. To get new eye glasses, for example, she might have been able to locate a retail outlet that offered free eye exams and budget frames. But her fear that her SSI would not cover even those options left her isolated, alone.
She is so trapped in fear, so broken by shame, that she could not even ask for help that could have led her--possibly--to an earlier, workable solution.
Shame. People's lives buckling under their own feelings of shame.
And don't tell me your candidate has focused on this aspect of our national crisis--they haven't. We haven't. That was the ego crushing thrust of the 60 Minutes piece. Instead of these problems, we've become addicted to self-absorbed candidate rumors, as evidenced, ironically, by 60 Minutes' inclusion of yet another piece on the photo of Barack Obama.
Here were people seeking basic personal needs--who have worked hard their entire lives only to arrive at the exact opposite of the American dream--to be crushed by feelings of failure and humiliated by the need to beg for free checkups, dental care, cancer follow-up screenings.
There they were--their stories, their tears, their suffering, their deaths.
Now here's the tuff talk: How did this story impact DailyKos in the past 24 hours?
Here in a community that once would pounce on this type of story and run with it--barely a peep.
The few diarists who tried to bring this into the room were quickly washed aside by the endless torrent of diaries written in response to the middle-school-rumor-mill that is the mainstream coverage of the primary race--yet another dozen stories about rumors that may or may not have knocked Obama or Clinton down .68% - 1.43% amongst undecided white men aged 35-47 likely to vote in southeastern districts of Ohio as registered in the last 24-hour tracking polls.
Oh. My. God. It is time for us to snap back to life, folks. It's time for us to wake the heck up again.
This primary season has turned political coverage into 24-hour TMZ. Let's not let it turn us into that for one day longer.
We're all guilty. And we're all innocent. And none of those accusations matter. What matters is that we get back in the game.
Let's get our collective heads back in the game.
I am going to go out on a limb here and beg--beg--people to consider what I say very seriously: There are no more people on the fence here at DailyKos. None. Everyone has decided. And so there's absolutely no more need for even one more candidate advocacy diary. They accomplish nothing. They earn zero votes. Stop them.
We are not rallying support any longer with these candidate advocacy diaries. All we are doing is preventing DailyKos from truly engaging the full range of political issues that concern our readers and this country.
Please. Pull back on the candidate battles. Please. Consider something radical--consider not writing or recommending a candidate diary for the next week.
Now, pay careful attention:
This is not a request to stop writing diaries about the race or about the election results. Those are important, too! But no more diaries that just inflame. Consider the diaries as a place to post calls for action for candidates, fundraising, liveblogging, reports from the field, breaking stories,etc.--but not an excuse to throw blood in the water to get supporters angry and agitated.
And try this: look for diaries on health care, education, climate change, and economics and--don't just rec them, but participate in the threads.
Health care, climate change, education, foreign policy, economics, AND elections are all issues that should be regularly appearing on the diary rec list. REGULARLY ON THE REC LIST. WE NEED TO GET BACK TO THAT RIGHT NOW.
It's time we all start MAKING ROOM again on this site for writers who focus on the problems crushing people's souls in this country--so that those stories can be lifted up into the news.
The national media will not cover these issues unless we drive them into the debate.
Please.
If there is one thing I firmly believe, it is that this site is about far more than elections. This site is a place where like minded people come to find people who feel as they do about the crises we face in this country.
When a story like the 60 Minutes piece on RAM is drowned out before it even begins, then this community has shifted away from a crucial role that it plays. And it's time we shift it back.
Thanks for reading.
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Diaries on the 60 Minutes "Lifeline" Story:
> 60 Minutes Looks at a "Remote Area's Medical" Lifeline
> Remote Area Medical's Rural America Program and it's free
> 60 Minutes Shows the Truth about Health Care
Update [2008-3-3 17:48:50 by Jeffrey Feldman]:
(*While this was not intended as a fund raising diary, those who wish to make a donation to Remote Area Medical, can do so off the front page of their website)