What Would you say to Barack and what will you do?
“If given the opportunity to write a letter to the President — a letter in which illness and impending death served a larger agenda– what would I say to him?”
This question was answered by a wonderful man who is in a hospice with perhaps days to live. His friend Paul Loeb posted Robert Ellis Gordon’s thoughts on HuffPo.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/letter-to-obama-from-a-dy_b_224588.html
I sent an email response to Robert and he asked that I post my comment on the HuffPo thread which I did. If you were moved as I was by the words of a man who has no fear to speak his truth, I would encourage you to do the same.
Robert is urging Obama to level with the people on the dire economic emergency we face. He wants President Obama to make clear we are in serious peril and to do it through authentic hope. To speak “more deeply from the heart as well as the head. Above all, speak in the spirit of Judge Learned Hand: ‘The spirit of liberty is the spirit of not being too sure.’”
Can a president do that? When the Wall Streeters have cunningly taught all economic masters to not frighten them into deep downswings, can a president reassure the people that he’s not sure how or when he can get us out of this mess?
Barack who inspired so many with his book and life story, who entered politics to expand the reach and power of the underserved and oppressed through the political power game, soon learned to pragmatically speak and think so some legislation could get passed that accomplished something, but not enough.
Pragmatic, safe speak was not what inspired a nation and a world. We didn’t strive to believe, “Yes we can!”, so that real change would come from maintaining and enabling the same old pay to play game. We didn’t shout back, “Yes we can, sort of!” As Robert points out, Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia didn’t move us by the logic, it moved us by the passion and humanity and our longing for a more fair and just world.
When Barack’s wife Michelle speaks you immediately sense her genuineness and capacity for love of her fellow human beings. We aren’t listening to her words. We listen to her heart. Just as I am sure Barack has learned a great deal from Michelle, I wished he could capture that aura. Unfortunately, that aura only works when it is totally genuine. I believe Barack got into politics for the right reasons and has sacrificed a lot personally, as do all significant legislators, to help people who desperately need help from a genuine heart and not a political one. He needs to take the risk of showing us his heart and even anger as well as his logical thinking if he wants the majority of us to pull together.
What has changed for him and us is the number of desperate people. It is no longer those who we could immediately recognize as street people or the rural poor. It is now all of us no matter the material trappings we use to shield ourselves from the real world. Our world is dying regardless of what the global warming naysayers claim. Even if we dismiss global warming, we have too many people on a planet with dwindling resources contrasted by a medical ability to live far longer than ever realistically imagined.
In the future, who will make the decisions about who lives long and who doesn’t. Can you imaging an impartial jury deciding that or dog eat dog capitalistic survival deciding it? It is up to us now to begin the process of who will run our future world provided our grandkids have one that isn’t already lost.
We rightfully are placing enormous expectations on the mind and heart of our 44th president. If anyone should be in that position, it should be Barack with his exceptional intelligence, communication skills and life experience. Now our task is to find the best way to support him.
While we need people to tell us the truth of the peril we face with our damaging capitalistic domination and imperialistic current approach, the warnings are meaningless if we throw up our hands and say the challenge is too tough to solve or even imagine solving.
We have to find our small, individual role using our personal strengths and pull together, not apart, if we want to give ourselves a chance. We have to do that for the remainder of our lives as Robert has done and marvelously been revealed to us by the posting on HuffPo.
As we start another year in our young American history, I hope you will think about your part, not that you haven’t, and renew your “Yes we can!’ spirit to do whatever you can, in your life journey.
I would feel so alone and discouraged on this journey if it were not for the Internet and all the wonderful friends locally and worldwide that I have discovered that share my passion to build a better world. We have been provided a marvelous tool to make our voices heard. That is why I know, “We can do it!”
I can’t be quite as glowing about this president because I think he’s going to cut a deal for as much a loaf on health care as possible. It could be 50, 60, or 75 percent; but truly universal health care in this country isn’t going to happen.
I think he’ll slice and dice a bit with the financial, insurance, and pharmaceutical interests to get the biggest loaf possible, which won’t be terrible because, if he succeeds, he’ll have accomplished more on health care than Bill Clinton did. Many commentators seem in agreement that health care is the defining issue for Obama, so I wish him luck. With Al Franken now in the Senate, it may be the Democrats can bash through a decent bill; maybe Al could sneak in a provision for the coverage of clowns and comedians performing at hospital bedsides. Who knows? – thousands of people all over the nation could suddenly jump right out of bed with nothing worse than a sore stomach if they laughed hard enough.
The laughing cure! – covered by Uncle Sam. Ya never know …
Whatever happens with the actual health care legislation, I would like this president to be as plain and direct with the American people as possible. If he speaks regularly on health care, I would like to hear him explain the need as one nearly equivalent to the biblical call to “be our brother’s keeper,” or, to just put it in American communitarian terms.
There’s a wide and deep rhetorical tradition he can rely on, and it precedes by many years the ravings and distortions everyone’s gotten used to, which have come largely from our modern media outlets and related public relations organizations, products of 20th century corporate “cultural advances” for the most part.
While the president urges people to think of our friends and neighbors as having a legitimate expectation for health care (as we ourselves might think of it), he can also frame the health care issue as a true investment in our population, the “we’re all in this together” argument, as a rebuttal to the corporate argument that every individual should pay confiscatory rates for individual policies, complete with stipulations against coverage for pre-existing conditions. People would have to pay taxes for some part of a broad-based system of care, and over time, with the right adjustments (including legitimate, sustained regulatory oversight), there’s every reason to think care would be better and cheaper than the gouging, cherry-picking corporate system now in place.
It’s not hard to imagine ordinary workers, carrying some minimum health care to their jobs, being better employees because the anxiety of worrying about paying for absurdly expensive policies, or going without, would disappear. And, lots and lots of companies might become more profitable if they simply contribute something to the national till to help out. A whole adversarial element of management-labor relations would also disappear, or at least be re-adjusted to a more positive and purely productive level.
He could also insist that people be personally responsible for their health, and in that argument could go, not only a requirement that all participate in a public program, but the statement of a goal that people be required to educated themselves about their own health, promising that such knowledge and counseling would be available at more community-based health care educational programs and clinics.
The veterans affairs hospital system is the largest in the world; and as a veteran, I would say it is a viable template for many community-level care programs, including especially a mandated preventive care element, which would be essential.
He needs Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd to hang around long enough and even with Franken, he has other Blue Dogs that have to support him and some won’t, so he will need some Repug votes. What no one wants to talk much about is how long it will take for whatever changes result, to happen. Like economic recovery, health care reform will be even slower to implement.
Much of what you want him to say he has said. He has rather strongly made the point about personal responsibility on both the patient and provider side. He wants to establish a system where the doctors from the beginning, through a much better IP computer system, to work as a team and not have to repeat tests and costs that were already done, ala the Rochester clinic approach. He wants the patient to realize the value of preventative measures and taking full responsibility for the care and execution they chose.
What I want him to do is show more emotion and passion about the public option and refuse to bend to co-op or any other approach that does not challenge profit as the driving force for medical choice. You’re right that he should be a stronger defender of all those who suffer and get mad at those who don’t give a damn about anything but money or getting reelected.
I’m hoping that he is waiting for the climatic moment where it could have the most impact and not just doing the Baucus thing of 75-80% is better than nothing. I make no prediction of which choice he will make. I also will not ignore the good things that are happening in his administration because I am upset about his choices on civil liberties, torture and rule of law. I will continue to look at the total package keeping in mind how much worse they would be under McShameful.
He’s probably got the best chance for a strong health care package today than anyone could hope for, especially since the Republicans are in such disarray.
The Palin story should only reinforce the fact that the last election is yesterday’s news. Only Boehner has the presence to get attention for a big “no,” and even he sounds hollow.
I wonder how much passion Obama can tap into in the bully pulpit sense. He’s a good speaker, but he holds back most of the time. I think he’s afraid of his power. So many of today’s pols keep it in check. They all modulate away from fire and brimstone. Television has an effect on that; can’t be too big on the little screen. That’s too bad, which again is why Clinton is so sad to me. He had it all in the palm of his hand for a fleeting moment, and threw it away. Obama can’t be compromised in the same way, yet he has a Hamlet-like hesitation. Seems that way now anyway.
The palm of his hand, damn that’s hard to pass up, but I will. Here’s a good story to use with anyone who tries to use Boner and his pal’s badmouthing of the public option.
Plenty of countries get healthcare right.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/07/05/healthy_examples_plenty_of_countries_get_healthcare_right/
Here’s a good eval of Palin and what her impact may well be.
The Last Culture Warrior
http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/04/governor-alaska-republican-white-house-opinions-columnists-sarah-palin.html
No I just think Clinton still stinks because he was so cavalier about everything at just the moment when he could have done so much.
And he keeps laughing today, as if all he did was steal a hot pie from Ma Baker’s kitchen window sill or something.
But … BUT … that’s also yesterday’s news from the crumb bum file.
Back to health care though, I will give him credit – referring again to VA – for funding the computer system in VA hospitals. This is a must for the entire national health system. It will save huge amounts of money.
What Palin’s impact may be: nothing.
Great post, RMP, and spoken like the patriot you are. We have a job to do; making our President some approximation of what we’d hoped he would be. Thanks. I needed that. Anyway, I’ll read in more thoroughly and comment a little later, but here at CHNN, blog whoring is a literal thing, and a new subscriber is coming over.
rpm,
I spent the late afternoon of the 4th with some of the military side of the family. We had lots of food, and you can see the fireworks out at the theme parks over the lake. I heard a little politics, but not much as I don’t engage them any — it is up to them to see what they choose to see.
What would you want out of Obama? What would make you say “damn, that man is the one!”?
What can any president do that would “turn you on”?
That’s too broad a question. Let me ask you one, why do you chose to remain silent and ask your family members to see what they want to see? You have provided UT and Hag participants with insights on how to see the world, why not share your knowledge and engage them as well as us?
I once tried with the Vietnam vet. We were real close up until that point. Since then, I offer a little of my thinking to a broad anonymous audience from the safety of my cushy chair here in the den, and little else.
I have studied the sages from all paths, and mostly they say a man comes to decided to be spiritual/moral and then seeks guidance and help. Until the student is ready, no teacher can be of benefit. (not exactly what you asked, but maybe you can see my thinking)
That’s an odd question, Heru, if only because the answer is so obvious. Like me, RMP just wants a progressive President who will unwind some of the horror of the past eight years, and maybe throw in a few of the things we thought we voted for. Competence would be nice. Accountabilty, from his own administration and that just passed, would be even better. Nobody’s expecting to be “turned on”, as you call it.
All of us would just like not to be turned off.
I don’t think it odd at all. You want a “progressive” president who will not turn you off.
But what, exactly, does all that mean? How will I know it when I see it?
I was taught decades ago that my terms must be “operationally defined” before I could communicate my ideas. That terminology is, no doubt, gone out of style by now but the gist of the idea remains true.
We are all for the good; but what is it?
I know to some extent we need to categorize and label people, but I don’t think it is nearly as useful as studying and critiquing their decisions based on the circumstances they faced at the time. We are all asking Obama to get things done our way when he has an overflowing plate. I want life to improve for those who are suffering and not enjoying life. I want a president who cares far more about that than getting reelected or pleasing a group of ideologues. Each bill and each decision should be approached with effective problem solving not solely politics.
You want a guy more interested in people than in getting elected. I’ll buy that as one way to know we have a good president. One criterion, even if not an exhaustive list.
I think someone should write a post on what “progressives” want in a president, or out of politics, or whatever. Then various people could comment and argue over it. Obviously an anarchist like me ain’t the dude to do it.
Without meaning any offense at all, Glenn Greenwald could not do it either; he is too much a lawyer still.
I think hag could, but I think hag and you writing in tandem could really do a bangup job.
Give it a try?
This post reminds me of my own feelings this holiday. I had occasion to be at two outdoor concerts. At the first one, I was probably among the youngest ten percent. A woman sitting next to me had ankles swollen perhaps twice their normal size. Otherwise, she seemed as fine as most people her age. I wanted to ask her if she’d considered acupuncture… which I found extremely helpful for edema… but I didn’t know her insurance situation or anything else about her. She was wearing flip-flops and kept putting them on and taking them off.
Another woman was wearing a winter coat and a wool hat with a visor. She kept pulling the coat collar over her ears. I’m pretty sure she was a chemo patient, and suffering from anemia. I know what that’s like, too (the anemia, not the chemo).
All I could think of sitting there, listening to music from the 40s, was how we’re going to end up with a health care bill that is not going to solve one damn thing.
I was wondering how I could turn it into a blog post… maybe it will be just this comment, since there is not much more concrete to say… except that the financial aspects are only one piece of the problem. There’s also the problem of how medicine is practiced in this country. Anyone who listens to a doctor about their diet should know that they really don’t study nutrition in med school. They just parrot back the results of studies that are lated refuted by other studies… like the one that concluded eat “low” fat, rather than eat the proper kind of fats.
Thanks, All!
Thanks for those observations. I don’t think there is much chance that we will end up with a bill that will not improve things, the question is how much improvement. This health care crisis has marked Obama’s mind both because of his mother and all the people that he spoke to during the campaign and the ten letters a day he reads selected from the tons of letters/emails from suffering Americans that he receives each day.
Money has already been approved for the cyber improvements in record keeping and that alone can save significant money. There are just too many vested interests on all sides who realize we can’t keep the present system and must make changes. Sometimes with our pay to play politics, we become to cynical and believe the money players are too powerful to overcome. In the case of health care, they are not.
As for this health care thing, without utterly ending the huge profits of the insurers and big pharma, the money will never add up. It’s just a damnable waste of money, for lame rich people that don’t give a shit whether their fellow citizens just die, and now it is soon to be set in stone. This is somewhat personal for me; I’ve been HIV positive for 15 years, and I can’t get insurance at any price. It hasn’t happened yet, thank god, but were I to have to go on the full “cocktail” (irony intended) of drugs the cost would be, estimated a year ago, so probably higher now) seven thousand bucks A MONTH. Death, at that point, will be my only option.
And I’m not alone.
That is a hell of a thing hanging over your head. I may have supported imperialism with my military service, but I sure feel great for my socialized, big government medical situation.
No doubt your legislative reps are supporting the public option, if not you should definitely tell them your story although I’m sure they have already heard it from others. They can’t hear it too much. Ironically, I just found a positive story on HIV in Haiti. I wonder what they do when the full cocktail is needed. At least I bet the drugs would be far cheaper. Ever done any remodeling there?
From Haiti, a surprise: good news about AIDS
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090705/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_aids_success
Proof on your big pharma comment:
Pharmaceutical Industry Lobbying on the Rise
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20090705/pl_cq_politics/politics3158515
I am sorry to hear this. I lost the best member of my family to AZT — he was poisoned by his doctors early in the game.
Damn, Hag, I am truly sorry to hear of this.
I know a lot about this — but it is all controversial and I keep it to myself. All I can say is that be careful and not let the medicine be worse than the disease.
May you never be sick.