Labels: 1st UU principle, 2nd UU principle, anti-oppression, classism, Community, education, equal rights, oppression, sexuality, universal health care, women, Women's Rights

Labels: economics, environment, politics, restorative justice, universal health care, USA, Women's Rights

Labels: drug war, marijuana, superhero erotica, universal health care

I support this.


Video here.

Text from here:

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

How I wish the US had pursued these with all its might. I wish it still would.

pax hominibus,agape to all,joel

Labels: anti-oppression, classism, economics, education, equal rights, freedom versus freedom, homelessness, personal bookmarks, politics, sacred texts, theological sources, universal health care, USA

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I just read an article, and one of the comments, by post LLWillis was so dead-on, I have to repeat it, because I know that sometimes things get lost and articles disappear after a period of time. (But this blog, of course, is forever...)

From LLWillis on Slate.com:
Back to basics. The lifetime cost of healthcare is an insurable risk. The 'universal' part of universal healthcare is that everyone is included, the healthy and the unhealthy, the old and the young, male and female. The natural tendency of the healthy and the young is to opt out, to increase both the pooled risk of others and the individual, mathematically small, risk to themselves. The risk is there over a lifetime. When the need strikes, and its severity, is not predictable at the individual level, but we know what the probabilities are over a lifetime. The premiums for all the healthy people for all the healthy years funds the care for the unhealthy, whenever it occurs. The premiums for all the healthy children pay for the child with leukemia or juvenile diabetes. The premiums paid on my behalf all the healthy years of my life paid for preventive care, minor ailments, my maternity care, and are only now paying for the conditions of age (I am now 60). Not everyone can be so fortunate, or so predictable.

Every insurance plan is designed to avoid 'adverse selection', a pool of insurance risks that is prone to claims in excess of premium income. If the healthy exclude themselves, the insurer responds by rejecting the very expensively sick. This is for the benefit of the insurer; the insured (or more precisely the hapless uninsured) are on their own. The insurer has control, the insured does not.

The lowest cost is achieved by the largest possible pool (universal, mandated, national, single payer). Every alternative that moves farther from that economic principle is increasing the total cost and increasing the individual risk, beyond a person's control, that today is the day he has a major healthcare need, or that yesterday was the day that she was afflicted with a pre-existing condition, or lost his/her employer health insurance. Please note this is an economic argument, not a social welfare argument. It's math. It's dollars and cents.

Full disclosure: I am Canadian, and my family benefits from universal, single payer health insurance. The US can decide for itself whether health is an essential human right. But viewed from where I sit, it is a human catastrophe that some 45 million citizens of the wealthiest country on earth are without access to affordable healthcare, and anyone can be ejected from the system because of a health condition that they have through no fault of their own. It's a mess, but it sure would be nice if you could figure it out. I do sincerely wish you luck. And then get on with the job of reducing the per capita cost of quality healthcare from $7,000 a year to the norm of $3,000 a year in other civilized, industrial nations. (Hint: the two problems are related.)

chant/prayer/mantra: Love is part of our budget.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: anti-oppression, interconnected web, Math, universal health care, USA

Today's service at First UU San Francisco was dedicated to the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office. Here is a picture of the preamble to the UN Charter, drafted 60+ years ago,written as a response to the end of WWII, "the war to end all wars." This picture was taken down on UN Plaza, by where Hyde St. meets Market. St.



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chant/prayer/mantra: Put an end to the war machine, and devote all those lost resources to peacetime prosperity efforts.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: economics, equal rights, globalism, multiculturalism, paradigm shift, parousia, pax hominibus/bright shiny future, theological sources, universal health care

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This article from racewire.org says a lot, and I recommend it for every reader of this blog. Dr. Regina Benjamin is more than qualified for the job of surgeon general, yet there are people who will find any angle they can to discredit her (or any Obama nominee, naturally).

While I have several bones to pick with Obama about the lack of real change he seems to be bringing with respect to many important issues, it is heartening and refreshing to see Sonia Sotomayor being confirmed today, and the nomination of Ms. Benjamin. There certainly does need to be more representation for people of color in the US halls of power, and the jury is still out (no pun intended), on how quickly our representatives will actually represent constituents of color as well. As an aside, how many senators of color are there presently in the USA, and in its history?

IMO, if the push for universal health care in the US fails, the blame falls not on Obama, but on all those playing for powerful vested interests in keeping the status quo, even if it means the perpetuation of classism, racism, and size-ism. The current state of health care in the US is undeniably detrimental to our economy. Fixing our health care system is one critical element of getting the economy back up and running.

lyrics:
And until the color of a man's* skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes, there's a war.
- War, by Bob Marley

*#inc gender, size, perceived class, sexual orientation, etc


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: BBWs, economics, oppression, politics, racism, universal health care

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Today, I rode my bike to church to get there early, and my sweetie came later in the car, just in time for the 11:30 service, then we drove out to eat for brunch and went home, leaving my bike locked up at the church. This afternoon, I installed the old Yakima bike rack on top of our new car finally, so I could go retrieve the bike. It probably would've been easier to just walk down there and ride back, but we needed to get the bike rack onto the car eventually. All the previous information is prologue to my main point.

When I got to the church, I saw a man across the street, looking rough, and after two hours wrestling with my bike rack when I should've been working on homework, I didn't feel in the mood to talk to him. But then as I was taking the front tire off my bike and getting my bike on top of the car, he approached me, speaking weakly, with a towel in one hand and a spray bottle and squeegie in the other, asking if he could wash my windshield for some money. I had actually gunked up part of the roof while installing the rack, so I gave him $2 and asked him for the towel and sprayer so I could do it. I don't need the "satisfaction" of watching somebody else clean it for me. Anyway, I asked him his name and what was going on. He said his name was Lester Ray, and that he was going around trying to do people's windshields to get $14, because he was in the hospital yesterday (he still had the plasticy bracelet) and was diagnosed with pneumonia. In order to get the meds, he had to put together a $14 copay, so today he was out walking around (with unmedicated pneumonia) trying to scare up that small sum of money. The two bucks I had given him was all the cash I had in my pocket and I gave him the 50 cents in change I had as well.

After I got into the car, I thought about the fact that I could've taken him to a cash machine and drawn out $20. But we're not exactly rich. Then again, if I had invited him into the car to ride down to the cash machine, he would've seen: a new car, a bike on top, an ipod shuffle attached to the radio, a new baby car seat, and several other things that indicate that we were an order or two of magnitude more well-to-do than him. In the short term, I would've felt better getting him that money anyway, but I didn't. In the long term, there is something more that needs to be done.

You judge a nation by how it treats its poor.

If somebody in need calls to neighbors for help and most of them pass him/her by, then the one who actually is charitable is the one that pays (financially and economically, though they may gain in other ways), and they bear that burden alone. I will call these charitable people the suckers, because they're bearing the burden of . All of the other people who turn the other way, or make sure to stay entirely outside of the neighborhood of those who call for help are trying not to pay and try avoid bearing as much as possible of the burden of helping their neighbor. I will call these Ayn Rand-devoted people shruggers, because they are indeed shrugging off the burden that the suckers consider as needing to be picked up, and would shrug at the cost of allowing any stranger with pneumonia die, because it's "not their problem."

When that burden is spread out across the economy -- when governments levy taxes and put it into programs that create a safety net for all -- it is because the suckers are finally being listened to, and are able to make the shruggers stop shrugging (or shirking). Then, instead of the 5% most charitable people needing to privately pay for 100% of the needs of the needy, we have 100% of the people each paying for 5% of the needs of the needy, whether they believe there is a need or not.

When there is a Katrina survivor in front of you with one missing eye and a mottled leg just let free from the hospital to "go home" to the streets, you better believe there is a need! When there's a man with a decimated personal infrastructure (homeless and/or jobless) needing to acquire a squeegie and a rag to scare up $14 to pay for pneumonia medicine, you better believe there is a need!

To those who argue that providing health care and an economic safety net is just offering hand-outs to lazy people, I have to ask -- HAVE YOU LOOKED AT THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY? There are lots of hard-working and honest people who could use this help. They lost their jobs because of decisions made by bankers and by business owners (mistakes on the part of those who control the means of production), and most of them desperately want to work, if not only for a sense of self-worth, also to put food on the table.

But there are a ton of volunteer jobs out there that need to be done, ranging from picking up litter to planting trees, to tutoring youth to use software, to working for social justice. If those people who were out of work right now could have: 1) Health care, and 2) Enough assistance to cover basic housing and food, they would be able to devote much of their time toward necessary unmonetized volunteer work, and some of their time toward finding a job that pays.

In the meantime, there are many in our communities who are financially devastated. That is not a position in which you can expect somebody to pull themselves up. It's like expecting somebody with a totalled car to get driving. But those of us with cars that do run, I say it's our moral obligation to give them a lift to town and at least get them a bike of their own.

And as a nation, it's our moral obligation to be economically strong and efficient, so that its easier for us to take better care of the poor, and in fact, to provide a better commonwealth of services for everyone. Part of that means having everybody employed. People running around working hard to find jobs (that's exhausting work!) are not doing much for the economy. But if they're actively working (even at volunteer work), they're helping us in real ways that might not be reflected in the GDP or other standard economical measures. But if we're all scrounging around for privatized jobs in a shrinking market, that's a death spiral. Our moral obligation is to NOT go there. Are the local, state, and federal governments up for that? Or is there a way that our churches can start to step in and provide welfare?

I'm hesitant to go there though, because then the churches that are the best at providing welfare end up being conglomerate suckers, and those churches that focus on serving their own interests and shrug will be conglomerate shruggers (and they may weather the financial storm better, but maybe not the spiritual storm). Then again, maybe the truth will out itself, and people will start leaving the prosperity gospel churches in droves as the masks come off. Then again, I'm only 40 years old, and still trying to figure out human nature in this kind of context. But I think we can dodge the question, just by applying brute force toward green jobs, public works, and other economy-spurring employment for people that will make sure that the physical, material labor that needs to happen actually does take place.


lyrics:

"So when you see your neighbor carryin' somethin',
Help him with his load,
And don't go mistaking Paradise
For that home across the road."
From The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest, by Bob Dylan

chant/prayer/mantra: health to us all, especially lester ray.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: anti-oppression, Capitalism, classism, economics, our mission, politics, universal health care, USA

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It's about time the United States joined other developed countries in taking care of the health of its citizens REGARDLESS of their economic/employment status.

Labels: renewable energy, universal health care, USA