This blog is created to advance progressive politics in America, i.e. to advocate for economic justice in America and the world, human rights and civil liberties, reduction of conflict and war, and for sane and safe environmental policies.
This might be an odd time to writer a letter, but I felt compelled.
Hopefully, we will reach the magic number 60 in the Senate, but keep in mind also that Bernie Sanders is one of two independents in the Senate who votes more correctly on progressive legislation like this than even a good number of Democrats in the Senate whom he often votes with 98% of the time and the other 2% is when they are wrong; being the only self described Democratic socialist [nothing wrong with that whatsoever] he will be supporting this legislation if it makes it to the Senate.
However, I'm tired of the excuses; I'm tired of the incremental steps and now that we have the presidency back, and a majority in the House and Senate, it's time to push for what most other modern industrialized countries have some form of, even if it operates differently, through taxation. We pay much more than other countries do with "taxes" without the benefits and it's time most Americans realized this.
The market has failed. It is not free and never will be in this area. Our healthcare delivery system is in need of urgent reform. As the profits of HMOs and the salaries of their CEOs increase each year, so do the number of Americans who are dying and falling ill because they lack healthcare coverage. BTW, that doesn't trickle down; the facts and stats are in.
Below are some frightening facts:
* At least 18,000 Americans die each year from lack of healthcare coverage.
* 80%of Americans who lack healthcare coverage are families with one or more jobs.
* More than 50% of bankruptcies occur due to medical bills and half of those had private medical insurance at the time the illness/injury occurred.
* Of all nations, the US spends the most on healthcare, 14.6% of GDP.
* At 60%, the US has the highest rate of people who believe their health system should be reformed.
* The spiraling costs of healthcare are negatively impacting American businesses making it difficult to compete globally.
Interestingly, we're already paying for a national healthcare system; we're just not getting it. History will not look kindly upon elected officials who put corporate profits above the public health. And like I said, it doesn't trickle down. More Americans are getting that this kind of economic theory with our health care system among everything else, is costing more money and lives as insurance companies continue to play around with their record of surpluses from premiums in the stock market and write off the losses on patients like the Sarkinsyan family. The way our health care system is set up is just like the Wall Street bailout the people of this country cannot afford this kind of treatment and they are fed up with it. It is criminal.
I urge you to co-sponsor HR 676, The United States National Healthcare Insurance Act, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers. The facts are in and any "market speak" about how "competition" will lower prices and provide better health care is false in every way, so I don't want to hear it. And don't give me the bit about the poor workers that will be laid off during this transition; HR 676 provides jobs for those workers; CEOs of Insurance companies and HMOs will have to take the hit and they should, because they have failed. I'm an active voter who is among the majority of Americans who want a national healthcare system, and I'll remember your position on this issue next Election Day.
Now this series is called Letters From an Angry Constituent, because these issues make me and many people angry, and you don't have to use the same language, but keep in mind I live in TX and I have to be stern with my Representatives and especially my Rethug Senators, so I can counter the BS from their form letters back to me so they will think twice before sending me "market speak" as I mentioned. I hope you will write your representative and get HR 676 through the House and the Senate and to President Barack Obama's desk where he might not agree with the path entirely, but he will not veto this legislation if Democrats pass it to his desk.
My Facebook friend and poet, Shankar Hemmady, writes eloquently of joy and celebration in the wake of Americans coming to their senses. This time, all the negative campaigning, purges, caging and chicanery just didn't work. It just seems this time that the more they did it, the more they hurt their own cause.
America woke up! From an awfully long sleep, and did not succumb to fear and smear! Hooray!
Here is Shankar's lovely poem of celebration and joy.
Karita Hummer's Gold Pen awarded to Rabbi Michel Lerner for his beautiful and inspirational prayer on the eve of the Election, after 8 long years of hardship. KH
Prayers Before Going to Vote Posted Monday, November 03 2008 @ 01:00 PM PST
Cross-posted from Tikkun Magazine and sent to me as a member of Network for Spiritual Progressives
Meditation or Prayer Before Going to Vote by Michael Lerner
Thank You, the Power of Healing and Transformation in the Universe, that Your energy has moved through human beings in the past and inspired them to create democratic institutions that would give me and others this wonderful opportunity to participate in shaping our world. I know that the outcome of this election will have consequences for all six billion people on the planet, and that if democratic norms were to be fully established that they too would be able to participate in shaping the decisions about how the world's resources should best be used.
So I hereby take it upon myself to vote in a way that is sensitive to the needs of all the people of the planet, not just to those who are blessed to live in the richest and most powerful society. I recognize and affirm the unity of all being, and the interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of all people with each other and with the well-being of the planet itself.
As I approach this holy act, I recommit myself to the message revealed to the prophets and sages of old: that our highest task on earth is to bring more love and kindness, generosity and sanctity into the world, and that to do so we must vigorously pursue a world of justice and peace and avoid violence and hurting others directly or indirectly. May my votes actually contribute to these results.
Please give strength to those for whom I vote. If they are elected, let them actually contribute to achieving a world of greater peace, justice and love. If they are not elected, let my vote be one of the factors that contributes to empowering them to play a positive role in continuing their efforts for peace, justice and love, so that they represent my intentions and so that they do not personally fall back into despair or into personal opportunism and forget that they have the task of vigorously articulating the aspirations of those who were seeking through voting for them to bring more caring and more generosity into the world.
Give me the wisdom to understand those who do not vote in the way that I do. I already know that most people on this planet share with me the desire for a world of peace, justice, loving-kindness and caring. So it is hard for me to understand why they don't support the candidates who I see representing those values.
Please give me the wisdom to understand the complex psychological, social and political factors that could take fundamentally decent human beings and lead them into paths that may, I believe, lead to a world exactly the opposite of what they really want. And let that understanding empower me to be more compassionate in the way that I think and talk about those with whom I disagree, and more intelligent in finding ways to reach them, speak to their goodness, and bring them through my love and compassion for them to be able to see a better path to achieve the goals that they share with me.
From this point forward, I commit myself to seeing the good in all others, and to finding the decency and generosity in those who disagree with me, and to keep that in front of my consciousness even as I continue to disagree with the paths that they have chosen - and let that understanding give me even greater energy to act for the causes of social justice and peace.
Meanwhile, let me also have compassion for the leaders of movements and candidates for office whom I do support - let me not judge them for their personal failings, for the ways that they are not in their PRIVATE LIVES the fullest possible embodiments of the ideals that they articulate. Yet let me simultaneously have the energy and commitment to hold them accountable in their PUBLIC ACTS to working even harder for social justice and peace and ecological sanity.
I know that my vote is only one little part of the whole, and nevertheless I will not belittle what I am doing today in going to vote. But neither will I use this vote as a way of excusing myself from doing more. I commit myself to putting more of my time and more of my energy and more of my money into activities explicitly aimed at tikkun olam, the healing and transformation of our planet.
Please let me be witness to a dramatic surge of the world's energies toward love, justice, peace, nonviolence, spiritual awakening, and ecological sanity - quickly and in my lifetime, and let it be so. Amen. Shalom. Salaam.
Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with us!
Rabbi Michael Lerner Tikkun Community
Voting Prayer by David Seidenberg
With my vote today, I am prepared and intending to seek peace for this country, as it is written (Jer. 29:7): "Seek out the peace of the city where I cause you to roam and pray for her sake to God YHVH, for in her peace you all will have peace."
May it be Your will that votes will be counted faithfully, and may You account my vote as if I had fulfilled this verse with all my power. May it be good in Your eyes to give a wise heart to whomever we elect today and may You raise for us a government whose rule is for good and blessing, to bring justice and peace to all the inhabitants of the world and to Jerusalem, for rulership is Yours.
Just as I participated in elections today, so may I merit to do good works and to repair the world with all my actions, and with the act of...[fill in your pledge]...which I pledge to do today on behalf of all living creatures and in remembrance of the covenant of Noah's waters to protect and to not destroy the earth and her plenitude.
May You give to all the peoples of this country the strength and the will to pursue righteousness and to seek peace as a unified force in order to cause to flourish, throughout the world, good life and peace, and may You fulfill for us the verse (Ps. 90:17): "May the pleasure of Adonai our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; may the work of our hands endure."
If you can't pray in a voting booth, where can you pray? And where would you need more to pray? This prayer is not about casting a winning vote or supporting a particular party. It's a prayer that peace may come through whomever is elected, on behalf of the whole planet. It's also more than that: you, the pray-er, are invited to add your own pledge that embodies the ideals you are praying for and voting for, to live your prayer. This pledge is based on the Jewish custom of pledging to give charity, when going up to the Torah. What is your pledge on the occasion of "going up" to the voting booth? The two lines following this pledge express the intention to act in the highest interests of all creatures. Please modify these lines to express in your own words why you act. Read the Hebrew version at http://neohasid.org/resources/votingprayer.
If you have said, never again, what will you do if they try to steal the election once again. No More Stolen Elections has a plan of action, all ready for us to follow, easy as 1, 2, 3.. Follow the steps, one by one.This is what I received from them in my Email account this morning.
Tens of millions have already voted. How many have already been turned away? On the eve of Election Day, one thing is already very clear: Our system of elections still does not work.
In this election we have again seen evidence of a well-organized, partisan voter suppression effort involving purging of voter rolls, voter intimidation, voter misinformation, and polling place, voting machine, ballot, and pollworker shortages.*
In this election, as in 2006, 2004, and 2000, already in evidence are vote flipping, the inability to conduct paperless recounts, and machine malfunction.*
And we are again seeing an explanation being prepared for how the losing candidate actually won; in this case, we are supposed to believe that ACORN committed voter registration fraud, that the polling gap between the candidates is closing, and that in the end, white voters simple won't bring themselves to vote for an African-American candidate.
As for what we will witness tomorrow night:*
Expect the theft of a landslide victory in the presidential race.
The announced results may still be convincing. But those results will not show the same level of mandate that the people voted for.*
Be prepared for the possibility of a contested presidential election.
McCain continues to insist, all evidence to the contrary, that he can win tomorrow.*
Expect the theft of at least one, potentially many, U.S. Senate and House seats.
Under any of these outcomes, democracy is denied. We must be ready. We must be organized. WHAT TO LOOK FOR TOMORROW
At No More Stolen Elections!, we will be looking for, and reporting back to you, specific voting rights violations: * Vote suppression in the form of voter intimidation and polling place, ballot, poll worker, and machine shortages. * Voting machine problems involving vote flipping and denied recounts. * Exit poll manipulation and the possibility of a concerted effort to force the winning candidate to concede.
WHAT WE NEED YOU TO DO
In the next 24 hours, please take the following three steps:
1 - PLAN TO ASSEMBLE ON WEDNESDAY - Go to our website and look for a Voter Assembly in or near your community. If you don't see one, organize one. Go to: http://www.NoMoreStolenElectio... 2 - TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT THE POLLS
- Report any voting rights violations you are aware of: http://www.nomorestolenelectio... Frederick Douglass said, "Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
"Thank you for your refusal to submit. p.s. -- Almost all of the funding for this campaign has come out of the operating reserves of Liberty Tree, the sponsoring 501(c)3 organization. Since we sent out our first and only fundraising appeal on Thursday, we have raised just over $6,100 dollars from your generous contributions, and are one third of the way to our fundraising goals. We are very thankful for that support. But if you haven't donated yet, or would like to donate again, please do so:
Thank you.p.p.s. -- If you have time to get a little inspiration, check out these four fun videos at: http://www.nomorestolenelectio...
You are subscribed to this list as karitahummer@yahoo.com. Click here to unsubscribe, or send email to unsubscribe.306282.243273995.4947752476062797434-karitahummer_yahoo.com@en.groundspring.org. Please support No More Stolen Elections! right now. Our postal address is P.O. Box 260217Madison, Wisconsin 53726-0217United States
Karita Hummer, Edwards democrat, demanding justice in the election booth.
Laura Serena receives Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award for this beautiful prayer for America and all its citizens, on the eve of the 2008 Presidential Election, when we are hoping so ardently for change, after eight years of such wanton governance and greed. KH
We have wandered in darkness too long, Following idolators of the Golden Calf, Rushing headlong into the chasm, Washing our hearts away in the forgetful waters of Styx, Seeking to possess the rest of the world in our watery clutches, Where being dragged down, We all would drown.
Too long have we hurled everything of value into the depths. Stealing the offering from others, Long before throwing away our own. And the greedy mouths of the damned have devoured it all, Ever hungry for more.
But look! Some disobedient souls have resisted! Tenaciously they cling to the slippery slope. They find a foothold here, A handhold there. Too weak to climb without support of many, They reach to those struggling for life upon the brink. A saving hand thrust down. Fingers barely caught. A mighty effort as each one is saved.
And now the few become a throng. We rise with all our strength. A light shines through the cleft above. It will take all of us to reach it. Let no morsel of human flesh be tossed back to the mouths of the damned.
Tomorrow, we begin the arduous ascent. Together.
Please read the words of Mr. John Cusack on Huffington Post, whose clarity of insight inspired this more obscure and metaphorical assessment of our situation.
and ever so timely. I believe we must be educating our citizenry about the origins of our freedom and our most basic values and principles.
Again, for your important article, I give you my Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award. We have a lot of citizen education to do, so our history can, indeed, guide us.
Karita Hummer Edwards Democrat, who believes that opportunity and justice for all are embodied in our most precious documents of independence and formation of governance through a Constitution that spells out rights and responsibilities.
The protection of our freedom and rightful pursuit of opportunity require citizen vigilance, support and backbone, in order to withstand fear tactics and intimidation. Fellow citizens, know your rights and responsibilities and the principles on which our government was founded. Karita Miraglia Hummer
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessaryfor one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,
and to provide new Guards for their future security.
--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
--------------- He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
---------------
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare,
That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown,
and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;
and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
=========================
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia: Button Gwinnett Lyman Hall George Walton
Column 2 North Carolina: William Hooper Joseph Hewes John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge Thomas Heyward, Jr. Thomas Lynch, Jr. Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts: John Hancock Maryland: Samuel Chase William Paca Thomas Stone Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe Richard Henry Lee Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Harrison Thomas Nelson, Jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee Carter Braxton Column 4
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris Benjamin Rush Benjamin Franklin John Morton George Clymer James Smith George Taylor James Wilson George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney George Read Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York: William Floyd Philip Livingston Francis Lewis Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton John Witherspoon Francis Hopkinson John Hart Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett William Whipple
Massachusetts: Samuel Adams John Adams Robert Treat Paine Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman Samuel Huntington William Williams Oliver Wolcott
This blog is dedicated to the memory of my immigrant father from Sicily and Mother, who taught me politics at an early age: my father, ever the Patriot and my Mother, ever the compassionate inspiration.
Therefore, I've been active in politics all my life.
