Tag: Politics

Veterans Day, 2018

 

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A partial repeat: In 1967, the Summer of Love was over. Viet Nam protests were barely beginning, and I found myself without a place to live, and had quit a job with an abusive boss. I did not know what to do, and so I joined the USWACs. The Army was segregated in those days — not by race, but by sex. All WAC training was held at Ft. McClellan, AL and so the Army flew me out to begin my training. It was in Alabama, in 1967 that I first observed racial segregation. I saw “whites-only” bathrooms and water faucets. They were NOT just a “left-over” relic from an earlier and sad time. They were a commentary on how far we still had to come, and have come. Racial segregation, at least not overt, was minimal in California. It was still rampant in Alabama when I was there.

In 1968 I was stationed at Ft. Huachuca, AZ at the Combat Surveillance School/Training Center Headquarters. (Spook School) I was on my way home to California when an automobile accident almost took my life, and did take my leg.

I ended up at the Veteran’s Hospital in West LA, associated with UCLA medical center. The medical care there was the best available. What wasn’t the best, was how they treated women veterans. We were a rarity, and the VA was not set up to deal with us.

There were no changing rooms for physical therapy for women vets, and I was the only one in the program. They had me use a broom closet. Of the over 400 bed hospital, only 16 were for women, and we had a separate open ward.

In 2018, more women have been elected to state and federal offices than ever before in history and more people of color are fulfilling their dreams of public service. There was both a blue wave and an estrogen wave. In my lifetime, women have traversed a difficult path with determination and with grace. We are making a difference.

In Harris County, TX, home of Houston TX, 19 black females were elected to the bench this past Tuesday. In TX. In GA, a black female is still in the running for Governor, as of this writing. This past Tuesday, there WAS a shift in the American conscience. We achieved so much and overcame much of the hatred and racism which had infected some of our leaders. We told them, NO MORE. I could not be prouder of us and how we are taking back our democracy from those who have been trying to destroy it for the last couple years. We are a nation that is inclusive, not devisive. We are becoming stronger than ever before. America is powerful because of our diversity. Let us celebrate how much stronger our love is than the hate. Blessings to all our veterans and those who support them.

Elizabeth Warren

I usually stay out of the political arena on this blog, but goddess bless her, Elizabeth Warren is one of the straightest talkers in the Senate I have seen in my adult life. If she would just introduce the budgetary considerations Warren Buffet has raised, I would again have faith in my country.

Here’s what Elizabeth Warren had to say:

“Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to solve a real, honest-to-God problem.

Our health care system was broken. 48 million people in this country had no health insurance. Women couldn’t get access to cancer screenings. People with diabetes were denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. People with cancer hit the caps on their health insurance spending. And health spending in this country was growing far too fast.

So we worked hard, we compromised, and we came up with a solution. A solution that will substantially improve the lives of millions of Americans – because that’s the way a democracy works.

It’s time to end the debate about whether the Affordable Care Act should exist and whether it should be funded.

Congress voted for this law. President Obama signed this law. The Supreme Court upheld this law. The President ran for reelection on this law. His opponent said he would repeal it – and his opponent lost by five million votes.

Right now, Republicans are taking the government and the economy hostage, threatening serious damage to both unless the President agrees to gut the Affordable Care Act. For days, they even tried to change the law so that employers can deny women access to birth control coverage.

I am the mother of a daughter and the grandmother of granddaughters. I will never vote to let a group of backward-looking ideologues cut women’s access to birth control. We have lived in that world, and we are not going back. Not ever.

I see things like this and I wonder what alternate reality some of my colleagues are living in.

So let me be very clear about what is happening in the real world: The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. Millions of people are counting on it – people who need health care coverage, people who need insurance policies that don’t disappear just when they are sickest.

The law is here to stay, and it will stay.

Now the government is shut down. We haven’t fixed the sequester because of all the obstruction. We haven’t finished a budget because of all the obstruction. We haven’t even passed a single appropriations bill because of all the obstruction.

The least we can do – the bare minimum we can do – would be to pass a “continuing resolution” to open the doors back up and turn the lights back on. We could ensure that over a million federal workers aren’t staying home for no reason. We could end the government shutdown.

But the Republicans have refused to do even that. They have shuttered the government unless the President agreed to de-fund the Affordable Care Act.

The threats may continue, but they are not working and they never will. In a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t win their fights through elections, can’t win their fights in Congress, can’t win their fights for the Presidency, and can’t win their fights in Courts.

For this right-wing minority, hostage-taking is all they have left – a last gasp of those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy.

The time has come for those legislators who cannot cope with the reality of our democracy to get out of the way – so that those of us in BOTH parties can get back to working on solving the real problems faced by the American people.

We have real work to do.”

Elizabeth