Welcome to Demand Universal Healthcare!
Does America need Healthcare for All? DUH!
As 2020 brings harder struggles as we struggle with COVID-19, millions of jobs and small businesses lost (along with employer-based health insurance), homelessness, hunger, and more abject poverty than we ever expected to witness, let alone experience, in the United States, polls show that healthcare is still, beyond mere survival, the number one issue on the minds of American voters. Over 70% of people everywhere on the political spectrum favor "Medicare for All," - we prefer to call it Healthcare for All, since that is what we want, NOT Medicare as it is now. The 116th Congress is now controlled by Democrats in the House, including a freshman class NOT bought by corporate money, and we have a realistic chance for progress. Add to that, the foundational disruption of life as we know it due to the coronavirus and even the staunchest Republican might support giving single-payer at least a temporary try. If Republicans were smart, they'd grab the whole gold ring and take Richard Nixon's 1974 words to heart - “Without adequate health care, no one can make full use of his or her talents and opportunities. It is thus just as important that economic, racial and social barriers not stand in the way of good health care as it is to eliminate those barriers to a good education and a good job.” Democrats certainly aren't that smart or they wouldn't be guaranteeing another four years for Trump by choosing a doddering, tone-deaf Biden who can't even produce a good video, let alone a good policy, vowing to veto
Whatever this year brings, we must welcome ALL those who are committed to seeing the U.S. provide healthcare - as defined in H.R. 1364 - to everyone residing here. We welcome gratefully the Republicans, members of the FB page Republicans for Single Payer and others. We must be united and relentless in our demand, no matter our political affiliation, our physical ability, or the methods we employ to amplify our DEMAND for UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE!
This is our time - JOIN US in making it a historic one!
ANNOUNCEMENT
If you follow DUH, PEP, or me on Facebook, you have probably seen this already so this is for the folks who have resisted the siren song of social media or even threw her out, along with her superficial, lying, manipulatory reality. Yeah, and she IS a bitch. But I digress. If you want to read William Rivers Pitt's articulation of how I and millions like me feel, go to truthout.org/articles/rest-today-soon-we-begin-the-work-of-clearing-trumps-wreckage/. The rest follows:
I'm posting this as an explainer. Mr. Pitt has accurately, brilliantly captured how I feel. I AM numb, exhausted, disgusted, and already the chaos promises not to be over, whether it's Trump's delusions, Biden's inability to accept change, Harris' blind ambition, or the poverty, illness, and death of half the American population who STILL won't have the healthcare we need. It seems unlikely, as much as politicians bleat about the constitution, that we will ever again have government of, by, and for the People. It's questionable that we will even have our Earth and our four-legged, winged, finned, and plant brothers and sisters. I will thankfully not be alive to see the destruction. But now my question is what do I do with the time I have left? I have always lived with purpose, "a certain goal, a pattern of physics, a role" (thank you Nahko), but this election makes it hard to see any value in what I've been doing for the last decade. So I'm taking a break to reconnect to daily ceremony, to my Universe of teachers, Guides, and friends. I refuse to allow Trump to be in my life any longer and his band of henchmen are bannished with him. I won't be pouring through the news sources I've become dependent on to keep the FB pages going. I'm encouraging Josh to take a break, too, so there won't be much posting done for awhile.
To all the tireless activists who will answer Bernie's call to get the hard work ahead done, I have never been as active, brave, or relentless as you are, especially you young ones who give me what hope I have and it will be no loss for me to step back from the fight.
To the almost-300 candidates that DUH has endorsed since 2014 and were sabotaged time and again by corporate Democrats, no money, and no name recognition, I have watched many of you win despite all that and my heart has been broken by others' losses. It is my fervent hope that by 2022 there will be a strong, well-organized, viable "Peoples' Party" (or whatever it will be called) that will yield new majorities in both chambers. Please, please, KEEP RUNNING!
Finally, to William Rivers Pitt, my literary hero - thank you. You have inspired, motivated, articulated and comforted me and don't for one instant think that I won't be reading your books in chronological order during this "retreat." You are one of the four people I would love to spend a day talking to and though that isn't likely in this lifetime, I'll be looking for you the next time around. Keep writing until you can't see the keys!
Ever onward.
