Ted Kennedy wasn’t there to see it.
Instead, it was Democrats’ loss of his seat that sent the Senate’s health care bill through the House of Representatives mostly unchanged yesterday, causing, among other things, a hissy fit by a clique of older white men who decided that their right to rant about the unborn babies that might possibly be aborted by women with health insurance was more important than the rights of born (and grown up and working) people to have health insurance. Continue reading
On February 26th, Michael Bryan, the eighteen year old son of Marie Osmond, leapt to his death. The Osmond family has asked for prayers of support in this extremely difficult time. According to ET Online, Bryan left behind a note explaining that the suicide was motivated by his life-long battle with depression. He wrote that this battle left him “feeling as if he had no friends and could never fit in.” Although he entered rehab in 2007, the reasons for that were never publicly disclosed.
This is clearly a difficult time for Marie Osmond. Yet instead of conveying sympathy for her loss, comedian Roseanne Barr has publicly blamed Bryan’s apparent suicide on homophobia within the Mormon Church. Continue reading
We have a tendency to refer to members of the African Diaspora as a community, despite the fact that it is filled with people that have wildly different perspectives and experiences. Race supposedly unites all Blacks, but the hierarchy within the so-called community means that there will always be some voices that are louder than others. The master’s tools are omnipresent in every social justice movement.
Last week, for example, the Reverend Al Sharpton and Tavis Smiley engaged in a very public disagreement. Continue reading
On February 13th, Kevin Smith was asked to vacate his seat on a Southwest airlines flight, on account of being “too fat” to fly. Smith is a very successful director, and when he decided to use Twitter to register his complaint at Southwest’s atrocious behaviour, he reached millions. In a series of tweets, he expressed his anger at having been subjected to Southwest’s Guidelines for Customers of Size, and people listened.
This is what Smith had to say: Continue reading
Slavery is one of the worst crimes that we can commit against one another. No country is free of its stain. In the United States, its legacy still haunts African Americans and stands as a wedge between Blacks and Whites. Lingering social inequalities mean that when conversations about slavery occur, language must be carefully chosen so that African Americans are not further demeaned and their experiences are not appropriated.
Apparently, Harry Reid missed this important memo when he made a very insensitive comparison regarding the failure of Republicans to support the health care bill.
“Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ’slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right,” Reid said. “When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ’slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough.’”
Is it really the place of a man who continues to benefit from the crime of slavery to decide that this is an accurate analogy to make? Reid clearly wants Republicans to be aware of the selfish privilege that is the basis of their resistance to universal health care, but obviously the standard of caring about marginalized people does not apply to fauxgressive White liberal Democrats. Whatever point Reid was trying to make was lost in the offensive words he used trying to shame Republicans.
However, Reid did accomplish a feat that is the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest: he made Michael Steele acknowledge racism.
In an interview on MSNBC Michael Steele responded with following commentary regarding Harry Reid’s statement:
“I still say Harry Reid is out of touch, he’s clueless. And he can’t help himself. I don’t think he should be in the leadership, responsible role right now. I don’t think if you’re going into something as important as the debate on health care, that you have to reach back into one of the darkest parts of our nation’s history and to belittle that time and that experience for generations of African Americans, uh, to put it in comparison to a political dispute on health care. To me, it’s just plain ignorant”.
One could certainly argue that this sudden awareness on the part of Steele is related to the fact that this was an example of racism on the part of the Democratic Party, since he has a history of declaring actions by the Republican Party or their talking heads as not racist. This disconnect has manifested itself repeatedly in the response of African Americans to his commentary and actions, most notably in the #BlackerthanMichaelSteele hashtag that appeared on twitter. One could say that this is the first time that Michael Steele has been on the right side of Blackness. Before responding to Reid, apologizing to White men seemed to be what Steele did best.
So upsetting was Reid’s commentary, that he actually made Senator John McCain look progressive. According to the “Christian Science Monitor” McCain commented:
“I would very much appreciate it if Senator Reid would come to the floor and, if not apologize, certainly clarify his remarks that he was not referring to those of us who we believe are carrying out our constitutional duties and that is in acting in the best interests of our constituents on an issue that will impact the United States of America for years, and years, and years,”
This from a man who voted “no” when the issue was raised of creating a holiday in honour of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1983. In 2000, McCain approved of South Carolina flying the confederate flag on state buildings, and defended his position by employing states’ rights. The states’ rights mantra has been used by Republicans for decades to pander to its racist right wing fringe. If you were searching to find an image of a racially sensitive person, Senator John McCain would not be first on any list, despite the fact that he loves to trot out his adopted daughter for photo ops.
It’s enough to make one wonder if the world is off its axis, because men like McCain and Steele are making anti-racist commentary. Never did I think that I would see the day when I would nod my head in agreement while reading an article in “The Christian Science Monitor.”
The problem with White liberals is that they are often unable to see the ways in which they support institutional racism as they wave around their liberal credential cards. If they took the time to actually listen to people of color, they would realize that fighting prejudice begins with confronting it in yourself. Racism is not just something other people participate in, it is something that we all create and maintain daily through individual action.
Health care should be a universal human right. When a country as poor as Cub can insure that all of its citizens receive medical care, the resistance of Republicans to this bill amounts to a disregard for the sanctity of human life. The Republicans must be shamed into caring for others, but to invoke something as emotionally scarring as slavery is to appropriate the pain of African Americans who are the descendants of slaves.
Reid’s refusal to apologize places his desire to save face over and above the feelings of African Americans. Playing political games instead of honouring human dignity is exactly what the Republicans are doing by refusing to support health care. If Democrats are ever going to usher in an era of real and lasting change, they need to lead by example rather than supporting a hierarchy of oppression through deed and thought.
The escalating death rate, coupled with the shortage of the vaccine, has fuelled a public panic surrounding the H1N1 virus. The limited supply of vaccines has caused the U.S. government to focus on insuring those who are considered high-risk are the first to be vaccinated. The impoverished must depend upon free clinics or look for a venue that offers a sliding-scale payment.
According to MSNBC, the state with the largest population of either under-insured or uninsured is Texas. Texas has a rate 41% higher than the national average of incarcerated adults per 100,000. Considering that Texas has the highest rate of under/uninsured and also has the highest rate of incarceration, class and social positioning clearly plays a huge part in who society feels should receive priority treatment.
The government has a responsibility to ensure that prisoners are receiving adequate medical care. Prisons are a breeding ground for influenza, because of overcrowding and close quarters. Employees of prisons interact in the larger community, thus presenting the opportunity to pass on communicable diseases. Furthermore, the prison population experiences a constant shift in bodies, as new people enter and leave each day. Those prisoners who are paroled or who have finished serving their term also present the threat of transmission. This must be factored into the debate when we consider how overall medical care in prison facilities effects the general population.
Lt Governor David Dewhurst of Texas released the following statement:
No Texan should, or will, be second in line to receive the H1N1 vaccine behind prisoners in our correctional system. I have been assured by The Texas Dept. of State Health Services that prisoners are not a priority group to receive the vaccine, with the exception of some who meet strict, medically at-risk criteria as defined by the Centers for Disease Control.
Using medical risk as a determinate of vaccination means that someone currently on death row could potentially receive the vaccine before someone who is not in jail. This has created a public controversy. Online commentary at Texas newspapers have been filled with negative commentary. One such example can be found at the Beaumont Enterprise where one reader had this to say:
“If you’re pregnant and can’t find a place that gives flu shots go down to the Stiles Unit and tell them you just shot someone. You get to go to the head of the line.”
Another stated:
“This is crazy!! There are children that need the inoculations before these prisoners!! LET THEM SUFFER! I do not feel sorry for these guys pregnant or not. Our government is so screwy. This shouldn’t happen!!”
Similar responses can also be found in Amarillo, Texas. Criminality is conceptualized as bad enough to invalidate someone’s right to receive medical care. When someone is incarcerated, they become a living embodiment of their crime and thus their lives are systematically devalued. When we consider that the justice system has a history of being racist and classist, the demonization of prisoners mirrors an unflattering reflection of how deeply we have internalized our problematic social hierarchy.
According to the American Civil Liberties of Texas, prisoners incarcerated in “San Antonio are more likely than the average citizen to have health problems ranging from serious and chronic illnesses to acute and temporary pain.” In the year 2005, the University Health Systems discovered that in the Bexar County Jail, 68% of the detainees had tuberculosis and a further 5% had staph infections. If the aforementioned medical conditions were able to flourish, it is possible to suggest that H1N1 would also find prisons to be hospitable environments.
In Harris county, conditions were so poor, that in June of 2005, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards documented that 1900 detainees were sleeping on the floor due to a lack of beds. Prison overcrowding endangers the basic rights of prisoners, including the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health. These are guaranteed by Article 25 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 11 and 12 of the International Convent on Economic Social and Cultural Rights.
In a report by CBS, Helga Dill, wife of Charles Dill, who is serving 20 years on sex crime charges in Estelle Unit, near Huntsville, Texas, says that her husband’s diet consists mainly of hot dogs. Prisoners are housed in the worst conditions and then given an inferior diet. This combination increases the likelihood that they will experience some form of medical illness in the course of their incarceration. If such conditions were the norm for the general population, it would result in outrage.
Those most likely to be incarcerated are either poor or of color. The Texas Commission on Jail Standards reported in 2005 that the when the prison population was divided by race, 29% were Hispanic, 39% were African American and 32% were Anglo. Blacks and Hispanics make up 68% of the prison population, and are the least likely to be able to afford health insurance and the most likely to live in poverty. For those living on the margins of society, race and class often interact to result in either negative gains or death.
Within the context of a health care debate, the reluctance on the part of the populace to administer the H1N1 vaccine to the prison population speaks of a refusal to accept the first premise of socialized medicine – no matter their circumstance, everyone should be entitled to adequate health care. Insurance companies are dependent upon the public invoking class privilege to support their desire to maintain a pay-per-use system. It is not possible to invoke a personal right for health care and then seek to mediate who else has access without supporting the idea that health care is not a universal right.
In fear, we quickly revert to narcissistic individualism, which is not in the best interest of marginalized bodies. The famous death row political prisoner Mumia-Abu Jamal refers to prison as “a second-by-second assault on the soul, a day-to-day degradation of the self, an oppressive steel and brick umbrella that transforms seconds into hours and hours into days. This conflict over vaccination has arisen because Americans long ago stopped viewing prison detainees as human. In fact, most people treat their pets better.
I should be writing about our historic progressive victory this morning. The U.S. House of Representatives voted for the first time to pass a health care reform bill.
But I’m not, because I don’t feel very progressive about a bill that takes away rights from millions of women like me.
I am not a bargaining chip.
I am not a special interest.
I’m a cisgender woman, pro-choice, of childbearing age and as far as I know, capable of getting pregnant. This means that my health insurance should cover, if needed, my right to a safe and still legal abortion, because it is a legal medical procedure.
Representative Bart Stupak (D-Michigan—yes, D, that’s not a typo) doesn’t think so. He doesn’t think that health insurance should provide abortion coverage. He thinks women should have to buy a separate rider that would cover abortion. Because, y’know, women like me totally plan on aborting lots of babies.
Last week, activists crashed a meeting of America’s Health Insurance Plans, singing about the death of the public option to the tune of “The Sun’ll Come Out” from Annie.
Their song appears to have been just a bit premature.
Yesterday, Harry Reid, the (justly) oft-criticized Senate majority leader, announced that he would include a public option in the final health care bill that comes to the Senate floor for a vote. Since multiple committees passed a bill on to the full Senate, the final bill will be a compromise between them—and it appears that Olympia Snowe, the sole Republican willing to even consider any health legislation at all, won’t get her say after all.
“Democrats kill the public option.”
Well, the public option lives beyond the Senate Finance Committee. But that headline should still give chills to anyone who thought that a Democratic supermajority guaranteed us the passage of progressive legislation.
The problem, after all, is not in our foes but in our own party. It is in Max Baucus, chair of the finance committee, the Montana “Democrat” who seems far more concerned with the wishes of one Republican, Olympia Snowe, than with the wishes of the large majority of the party that put him in office. It is in Blanche Lincoln, the Senator from the great state of Wal-Mart—I mean Arkansas—and Kent Conrad, from North Dakota.
While voting to kill two public options proposed by Jay Rockefeller and Chuck Schumer, respectively, Conrad voted for an amendment by Orrin Hatch that would require women to buy separate insurance to provide abortions—ironic in that most women don’t actually plan to have abortions before becoming pregnant—and Lincoln joined him and the committee’s Republicans to reinstate federal funding for abstinence-only education. The message? The government’s job isn’t to provide care for its citizens, but to tell them how to behave in the bedroom.
Differently abled adults are often treated like children, because it is assumed that they have a diminished mental capacity. The inability to complete certain tasks because the world has been designed to privilege certain bodies means that often the differently abled are at the mercy of their caregivers, reducing their ability to act independently. Dependency, meanwhile, often leads to situations of abuse which rarely receive media or police attention, because the victim is either unable to advocate on their own behalf or has been purposefully blocked from taking action.
According to CHBC news, Nyle Nagy is a resident of Brookhaven care home in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. Due to Multiple Sclerosis, Nagy has full body paralysis. To manage his MS, Nagy smokes medical marijuana. The home in which he resides has determined that such behaviour is inappropriate, though treatment was prescribed by a licensed Canadian doctor. In their effort to control his behaviour, they seized his medication and his motorized wheelchair.
Global Comment © 2012 | Design & Developed by : Slate