As we continue to celebrate the Olympics with profound pride and patriotism , I wanted to share some disheartening rankings that reflect our country's stark decline relative to the rest of the world. I list these fully knowing this community's cognizance of such issues, but sometimes numbers yield a haunting, and thus effective, reminder. For anyone truly proud to be American, these numbers should anger, motivate, and prompt action.
32nd - World rank of U.S. infant mortality rate.
First - CEO to Worker pay ratio (531:1) (Second place is Brazil at 57:1)
9th - Adult Literacy Scale (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)
12th - student reading ability (Source: OECD)
37th - U.S. rank on the Healthcare Quality Index (World Health Organization)
Or: "How I stopped worring and learned to love the idea of socialized medicine".
I'm a first time diarist, but daily reader hear at "the Kos". I've been pretty frustrated lately about the state of our healthcare, so I'm going to share, in the interest of unburdening myself. It's cheaper than therepy, and if you continue reading, you'll see why that's important to me right now.
It is no secret we need our Congress to move in a more Progressive direction. We not only need to elect more Democrats to Congress, but we need to elect Democrats to Congress that will remember who got them elected and what they are supposed to fight for once they are there. On a myriad of issues, we need Demcrats that will go to Washington and fight for the real change that we need in this country.
As many of you know, the online progressive community has been working together to collectively and democratically craft a shared vision for the country. Only three short weeks ago, a small band of netizens gathered in Austin to kick off the process of writing our own political platform. We set our goals high: to collectively write a shared progressive vision for the country, which we would use to influence the Obama/DNC national platform process.
After many intense days of writing, remixing, and rating, the final version is complete. Amazingly, what started with just a few people brainstorming ideas at Netroots Nation has since grown to an impressive 29-page policy document, involving 246 registered participants, 167 planks and 925 ratings, and ultimately coauthored by 164 people across the country!
And we just received word that some parts of the Netroots platform were included in the National Platform. (We're just not sure which...)
As many of you know, the online progressive community has been working together to collectively and democratically craft a shared vision for the country. Only three short weeks ago, a small band of netizens gathered in Austin to kick off the process of writing our own political platform. We set our goals high: to collectively write a shared progressive vision for the country, which we would use to influence the Obama/DNC national platform process.
After many intense days of writing, remixing, and rating, the final version is complete. Amazingly, what started with just a few people brainstorming ideas at Netroots Nation has since grown to an impressive 29-page policy document, involving 246 registered participants, 167 planks and 925 ratings, and ultimately coauthored by 164 people across the country!
And we just received word that some parts of the Netroots platform were included in the National Platform. (We're just not sure which...)
Half of the American budget is devoted to defense spending and the economy would be in a real quandary without it. American political leaders would have to decide how to spend all the money freed up and since they believe in minimal government (except for defense, of course), they will face a real challenge. Possibly they could invest more in space travel to speed up our Mar's program. Imagine the thrill of the average American, hungry or not, of witnessing such a stupendous technological accomplishment. If we are sufficiently fortuitous, we might encounter hostile aliens who would force us to spend more on defense again.
Today I was one of 10 donors from Microsoft invited to lunch by Darcy Burner's campaign at a favorite Mexican restaurant close to campus. There were people there from her old team, some MS activists, and your truly who became a citizen almost a year ago.
She obviously took pleasure in talking with a simpatico crowd. Like they say, smart as a whip. She stressed the importance of the primaries (below). She talked fluidly and intelligently about healthcare and energy. She marveled at the huge increase in Democratic registration in the 8th (and listened patiently to my anecdote about all the new Democrats being created out of us long-time residents). Yes, Darcy, that was me, hi!
Exxon Ed Whitfield's Hypocrisy knows no bounds. We have already seen how he and his campaign believe that theft and vandalism is a Christian Value. However, on no issue does Exxon Eddie seem to be more Hypocritical than on the issue of Healthcare.
After about four years of running Frameshop, I am starting to see a crossroads up ahead. I have no plans to 'end' Frameshop in a formal sense. Nonetheless, when I started Frameshop four years ago, what I had in mind explicitly was the restoration of a Democratic Party majority in all three branches of government. The big problem that drew me into the analysis of political narratives is no longer a big problem, per se, but has become a challenge of closing out the deal. An end game. I am still going to work hard to make sure Barack Obama wins the White House--as are all of you (ehem...)--but now is the time to think out loud about new directions, new goals, new objectives.
Where we come down on these issues in the Netroots Platform is still up in the air - but only for the next few hours! Rate the planks we've developed over the past several weeks to make sure the final platform captures our collective views.
Imagine that you work in pain everyday. Your body aches; your muscles throb; you just plain hurt. Something’s not right, and you pray everyday that it doesn’t get worse because you can’t afford to go to the doctor.
Unfortunately, this is a reality for too many workers in this country and a story we heard on the Painful Truth Tour’s Orlando stop. I’ve been blogging about UNITE HERE’s tour of injured workers from the Cintas Corporation’s industrial laundries and how it points to the need for the Employee Free Choice Act to pass next year.
We are down to the closing hours to refine the planks of this netroots defined platform; plus two additional days to rate up or down the planks WE have collaboratively authored.
You can still participate and make sure your voice is heard. But to make sure the best and most representative planks appear in our platform we need your help in the next 3 days, because we want to get this into the hands of the DNC and the Obama campaign in time for them to integrate your ideas into their planning.
To learn more about how, when and where you can still participate see the email after the flip from the Netroots Platform Committee:
It is an election year, and Exxon Ed Whitfield has been trying to clean up the stains on his terrible record of representing the First Congressional District of Kentucky. First, we had him bragging in our "impartial" newsrag, the Paducah Sun about voting for the G.I. Bill for the Twenty First Century, when acutally he had voted against Veteran's Benefits three times previous.
We are the Netroots. We are powerful. We can lead the charge, and lead the change. Yes, we can!
You know that slogan everybody is chanting? "Yes, we can"? Say it louder! That's "Yes, WE can!" Or maybe even louder: "YES. WE. CAN"
That's the Obama I decided to support. Someone who wants transparency. Someone who wants all of us to actively participate in changing the direction of this country. So I was delighted to find, at my first Netroots Nation conference, that there was a group organizing an online "meeting" to allow all of us to have input into the Democratic Party Platform.
We, representing the netroots, have been invited to collectively use the tools of the net to define the direction of the Obama campaign, the Democratic Party, and ultimately the direction of our nation. Cool. (or Cooool, or Kewl - whatever)
We are down to the closing hours to refine the planks of this Netroots defined platform; and a few additional hours to rate up or down the various planks (we DO know about rating up or down around here, don't we???)
Flop over the flip to see an e-mail I got this evening from a lead member of the Netroots Platform Committee.
Note: This diary has some overlap with a diary my friend Eve put up this morning. As usual, she does it better, but I had this ready and it's enough of a different focus I thought I'd go ahead with it. We've grown all too used to these stories - stories of the failure of American healthcare. Stories of individuals let down. Stories telling us how much more we spend than anyone else to get less. So today I see yet another one in the New York Times, headlined Millions With Chronic Disease Get Little or no Treatment
This one hits close for me, as the patients it talks about are the ones I see and work with every day - when the consequences of their chronic disease have brought them to heart attacks or heart surgery - or worse.
More and Better Democrats. We in the netroots are the most vigorous champions of candidates who truly represent their districts, candidates who challenge the status quo and demand tangible changes in our government. If we had the power to create the quintessential strong Democrat, we'd be hard put to make up someone more authentic, intelligent, and schooled in the needs of his community than Manuel Perez.
