If I were to argue that in order to FORCE Congress to pass the kind of health care reform that most people and most doctors in America really want it (i.e. single payer) it would take leadership on the order of Mahatma Ghandi or Martin Luther King, someone of unimpeachable personal idealism coupled with a willingness to commit acts of civil disobedience and a willingness to stare down that bitch goddess, fame, you might well agree. Could Margaret Flowers be such a person? Here is an interview with Dr. Flowers conducted shortly after she was arrested along with seven other doctors for insisting that single-payer be represented before the Baucus committee on health care reform.
http://www.opednews.com/...
She subsequently committed yet another elegant act of civil disobedience which caught the eye of one of America’s greatest journalists, Bill Moyers, who shows video of the event in his recent interview with Dr. Flowers.
http://www.pbs.org/...
Now here’s my idea for how to bring single-payer to America. On the 25th of this month President Obama has announced a televised confab of both parties’ leaders in Washington, D.C. to review all the options for health care reform. Although time is short and conditions uncertain, my thought is that Dr. Margaret Flowers would be the ideal person to attend this meeting to present the VIEWS OF THE MAJORITY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE to our distinguished leaders. And here’s my thought, call it a modest proposal: perhaps we, a portion of that majority who are willing to follow a Ghandi or an MLK for real health care reform, those of us WILLING TO COMMIT ACTS OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, perhaps we ought to physically go to Washington and accompany Ms. Flowers to the meeting and physically insist that she be allowed to present our views. Among the chants we might use: “We are the majority” and “majority rules.”
Perhaps such an event could provide the seeds of a new progressive social movement that is so woefully lacking in America, and one that seems more and more imperative to countervail the dangerous right-wing tendencies visible in the “tea party” movement. (If you strongly agree, please rec this diary to see if this plan could go viral.)