When I attended my representative's town hall this summer, she strongly advocated a general approach of Medicare for all while specifically putting forth the idea that at the very least Medicare should be extended to those over 50 or over 55. Now it seems that Congress is delivering something like that.
I am one of those who applauded the idea, especially considering that I will turn 55 in a few months. So does that mean I should take a backseat on the struggle for affordable health care for all? After all, I will be covered by the new plan in theory.
The problem is that everyone under 55 will get next to nothing in this plan, so it is clearly unsatisfactory and we must continue the struggle.
The practical question is, how do we single out those congress critters who have betrayed us and take appropriate action in the new year. This is a bit tough. I certainly do not intend to go after Anna Eshoo, who made it clear that Medicare for all his/her preference.
The great dinosaur hunt of 2010 will need to be adjusted. In tomorrow's diary I will go into some details and make appropriate apologies for a wrongheaded position that I have been taking until today. But the elected officials are not our only enemies.
The pharmaceutical industry and sickness industry is the true enemy and I think that it is time for us to confront the more directly. A demonstration outside a representative's office is not likely to have much effect. Neither will a few sign carrying protesters outside corporate headquarters. In 2010, we must step it up and organize major demonstrations against the corporations, including the invasion and occupation of their offices.
The major evidence of their wrongdoing is located on the computers in their offices, if we can get a hands-on those, we can expose their frauds in a convincing manner.
I am not advocating violence. I am advocating criminal activities, because all civil disobedience must break laws or it is not civil disobedience. It is time for us to organize and take action. These bastards are killing us. Blue Cross sentenced me to death twice, but thanks to the generous actions of healthcare professionals, I'm still breathing and even walking, if not as steadily as I once did.
As far as I'm concerned I have the right, at least centuries old, to take action against people who tried to kill me. There are no restrictions, morally, on what actions I may take. But all I want to do is expose their evil deeds by getting the evidence out in the public eye.
As we have seen, government, especially the wimp Obama's government, is not going to give us real health care. We should express our outrage in the same manner that our bold ancestors did at the original Boston tea party. It is time for us to attack this evil, since our elected officials clearly do not have the guts to do so. The corporate headquarters of the evil profiteers are the natural targets, and if our elected officials do not want us to disrupt and the operations of the profiteers, they will have no choice but to give us something resembling proper healthcare.
At this point I do not know whether my political activities next year will be focused more on healthcare reform, climate change, or stopping the war in Afghanistan. Given my history, stopping the war is likely to be at the top of my agenda. But I encourage it progresses as a whole to get together and to start to take action against the profiteers.
Do not hurt anyone, and don't go and smash things up. I am not a fan of the World Trade Organization type protests. But having grown up in a period when the people did take action to shut down companies that were doing evil, I do think it is time to raise the level of civil disobedience to actions that will not only be publicly reported, but that will actually disrupt operations and reveal evidence of crimes.
Many people point out that any evidence that she through these means will be admissible in court, but I think we can already give up on the courts and the government as parties for reform. The goal should not be to set up criminal prosecutions, but to publicly embarrass the profiteers to the point where they lose money. That's the only thing they understand.
Even if the judicial system cannot help us out, all we need to do is deliver all the evidence to Jon Stewart and he can use it to refute their ridiculous statements and actions. We do not live in a nation of laws, after all.
In the Obama administration we have protections for torturers and murderers being implemented, demonstrating that Obama himself has absolutely no respect for the law and crime and punishment. We cannot rely on him to help us, though of course we must continue to pressure him to do so.
In 2010, we must take the bull by the horns and greatly step up our actions to achieve affordable health care, equal rights, peace, and the rest of our progressive agenda. Perhaps Obama, who seems to deplore disruption, we'll take notice if the people start getting feisty. Perhaps we will get some reform just so that we will not be in the streets. Who knows?