This past weekend my son went to the Washington State Fantasy Renaissance Faire and had a great time playing a game called "boffering." Boffering is essentially a renaissance fantasy game where people make or buy foam covered weapons and engage in battle and it is great fun. Due to the fact our family at this time does not have health insurance we have to be conscious of getting hurt or ill so we always caution him to be careful. We do have some savings for medical bills but it is not nearly enough. Later in the week he was invited to a local boffering group at Lake Wapato Park in Tacoma. We met some great kids and adults, all polite and all interested in renaissance history and weapons.
As a parent I like boffering because it is a computer game come to life but the kids and adults get alot of exercise. At this game we met a couple of young men that helped my son play and even game him the foam weapons to use. Later as dusk fell we offered them a ride home as they invited my son to come to a practice later in the week so he could improve his skills. One of the young men was walking to the Econo-Lodge on South Tacoma Way. His dad was laid off from his job, and his mom who has lupus has breast cancer. Due to the fact she had lupus and was laid off from her job earlier in the year she could not get health insurance for a pre-existing condition. Her boss, she says cried when she laid her off. Due to the recession she was laid off as the newest employee but hopes to be hired back when one of the older employees retires.
She is receiving treatment for breast cancer and paying out of pocket. The minimal care they received last year cost the family $58 thousand dollars, they had a rambler in a nice neighborhood. Her husband who is a concrete contractor until fairly recently could make about $4000.00 a week during the busy season.
Due to the economic recession and layoffs they could not pay for the medical treatment and keep their home, so they lost their home. They then were living in a 5th wheel on a friend's property but were kicked out when the City of Tacoma said this was a code violation. They have lived on the street at times, bouncing between friends but do not have family to help them. Currently they live in a motel and today dad went to a job for $40.00 for the whole day. Their son who was so helpful to my son was laid off from his job so they are living on his unemployment and basically waiting for a contract with Bruce Titus to start so they can get back into an apartment. They have lost everything and daily life is very hard.
This young man's mom can only work for a few hours at a time because she is so ill. Had they had health insurance they would have had enough savings to pay the mortgage and keep a roof over their heads. They have contacted every social service agency locally for help but the words are the same...we have waiting list...we cannot help you. This young man's mom does not want to be on the drugs provided by DSHS doctors, Oxycotin and other morphine drugs that make it more difficult for her to function so she pays $45.00 to see a doctor up near Seattle who treats her with less invasive drugs. Sometimes she is in terrible pain but does not want to take narcotics and get addicted as she is a person who does not even drink alcohol.
Many days there is no food in the house and they have to take a bus to a food bank. The young man is still kind and upbeat and praying his mother will get well and his dad will get back to work. Every working American who does not have health insurance could be in the same boat, and even those Americans who do have health insurance. We are all one illness away from bankruptcy and ruin and living in a motel not knowing what the next day would bring. We know as a family if we get sick we will have to get well or basically kill ourselves in order to leave something for the care of our son. As we seek additional employment there are no positions available where health care is available. We are in favor of a single payor system and this is one of the main reasons we support President Obama.
This is a true story and I spoke and met the woman and her family today. They are hardworking Americans who have lost everything due to medical bills and no ability to get health insurance.
As to where the money for this recovery should come from...frankly it's time to pull back on military spending just as we pull back our troops from the Iraq invasion. Yes, I'm ex-military myself, but we need to really resist the urge of investing in building military programs, facilities and weapons right now. There are too many much more important needs, including those in roads, environment, health, energy, our power-grid as well as protecting our ports, nuclear plants and water systems from terrorism.
If Obama has as much guts as he is smart, he can create a significant stimulus program by diverting military funds to programs which create a more direct impact on our lives, our economy, our health and our internal security.We have alot of these needs right in our own area.
The IdeaMan
Senator Obama, I am a big supporter of your campaign - but as a business owner, veteran and long-time Democrat I am pretty concerned with how you are responding on the economy issue. This is a real opportunity for you to show us all exactly how serious you are about making a real 'change' in the way things are always being done.
Senator Obama, if you really want to show people like us that we can 'believe' you represent change, we need you to suggest solutions that are more transformational, unique, creative, and innovative than anything that's been done before. Serious solutions that help quickly....deeply...effectively and without costing taxpayers more huge sums of money.
Innovative solutions perhaps like:
- Immediately capping adjustable mortgage interest increases (so homeowners don't have to worry about higher payments or foreclosures)...
- Putting unemployed people back to work rebuilding our deteriorating infrastructure (roads, mass transit, parks, environmental protection, schools, security, etc)....
- Creating a short term ‘bridge' insurance program (similar to the FDIC) that will enable banks to defer payments for up to 120 days when someone loses their job due to a company closure or layoff (this won't require assuming ownership of the underlying asset, and could greatly enhance bank lending confidence)....
- Creating a ‘Foreign Displacement Tax’ for each job large companies create overseas (instead of in the US)
- Capping the retail price of gas and heating oil (so oil companies stop gouging consumers and are forced to seek more profitable alternative energy themselves)....
- Requiring the Iraqi's to PAY us for the security our troops are providing (from the billions in our oil money). This might even help end our involvement quickly.
Senator Obama, you are by far the better candidate, but in this economic mess, please show us that you can deliver the change you promise. Show us that you can be an innovator, a leader, a change-agent and an "Idea man". Your political future - and our entire country's economic future - are at stake. Now is the time.
Thank you to the organizers of the Honesty Demonstration in Seattle Westlake Park! Andrew Caldwell gave away awesome buttons and we believe Fox News Channel 13 picked up the story...it probably will be distorted! We met photographers, young and old and traffic in Seattle was honking and waving like crazy. Everyone is volunteering to get out the vote! Thank you all for your hard work and dedication. All Obama supporters, friends and family everywhere you are simply awesome!
On our website www.tacomapiercecountyforobama.net there are books that you may purchase
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He did it again last night – Barack Obama once again transfixed the nation with his message of hope and change at a time when so many Americans, as well as our neighbors around the globe, have lost faith in our country. Reuters reports that this convention speech may have set a viewership record, with one quarter of all U.S. households tuned in. And I, as an Iraq war veteran whose life is forever changed as a result of my combat tour, could not have been prouder to cheer him on, there at Spud’s Pizza Parlor with the couple dozen others who showed up for our watch party.
Now, Spud’s isn’t your most liberal place, a detail that was only brought to my attention by one of our attendees who mentioned it in the RSVP. My first clue should have been the previous evening, when I went over there on a last-minute recon, making sure everything would be suitable for our group. Several of the young servers approached me, curiously, and demanded to know why they should “vote for this guy.” Oh, that got me on a roll, even though just as I began to respond, my cell phone signaled me that my house alarm had been tripped! Ignoring the alarm, I rattled off a number of convincing reasons why Barack is the man for the job right now, then politely excused myself to see to the problem at home.
Wouldn’t you know it, one of those young people was at the front desk last night, sporting a hand-lettered “Go McCain!” t-shirt. I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit under my breath – yes, we like it like this, invading “enemy territory,” preaching not only to the choir but to voters of every ilk. Just wait till he starts speaking, I thought to myself with a secret smile.
So we settled in to our assigned area – not the cramped little game room, as they had originally arranged. Turned out they didn’t know how to change the TV channel in there (huh?), so they relented and put us into a raised platform area within the main dining room. I’m sure the manager must have been fuming, because during my previous evening’s visit, when I inquired about possibly moving it into a similar raised area in the bar due to overwhelming response, she snapped that we would be in the game room, and that was that.
I passed around the sign-in sheets and stickers and went over a few admin notes while everybody chatted and watched the preliminaries on the screen. And then, the time came, and folks got quiet to watch a moving little documentary on his life.
Finally, Barack came onstage, lights shining, music playing, and all of it outshone by his million-watt grin. “Thank you, thank you,” he repeated over and over for what seemed like two minutes, as the crowd refused to quit cheering long enough for him to start his speech. But at last, they quieted down and listened.
I won’t go into every detail of what he said. My focus at the moment is how I, as a combat veteran, heard the remarks of our next commander-in-chief.
And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight. On November 4th, we must stand up and say: "Eight is enough."
I was in the front yard talking to my neighbor this morning, and the conversation drifted to last night’s speech. My neighbor had begun by saying, “Yeah, well, I think I might be starting to lean toward him….” I did my best to regulate my passion as we talked, mostly about the war and how it’s ravaged our country, but also about the economy, our standing in the world, and other critical issues facing us. Some people harbor the mistaken notion that anybody who disagrees with the current administration or its policies must be anti-American. Not at all, I assured her: “I love this country, and I love our military, and it saddens me to no end to see how this president seems bent on ruining both! We’re so beaten down by Iraq that we cannot even answer the up-and-coming threats cropping up on the horizon, and THAT puts us in great peril! It is time for a president who will at least put us back on the right track, even if he can’t solve all our problems in one term….”
And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.
Wasn’t it John McCain who promised that as president, he would ensure that oil independence would “prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East”? Hmm, well that’s just one candidate talking, but if it’s true, how does he think it makes me feel about my combat service that people treat as such a noble thing? And how would it make me feel about him, who AGREES with Bush’s policies 90 percent of the time, and who thinks it’d be fine to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for “maybe a hundred” years?
Yes, we do need to wean ourselves from foreign oil, and Barack is committed to that goal, with clear plans for achieving it. As a conservationist, I applaud his proposals as outlined in his speech. But as a veteran, I am deeply disturbed and insulted by John McCain’s implication that my sacrifice and that of so many of my comrades was chiefly to protect our nation’s oil interests. AND, as Barack pointed out, McCain has done nothing concrete in support of his stated intention:
Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last thirty years, and John McCain has been there for twenty-six of them. In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office.
Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.
Barack gets it right when he talks about the wrong way to do things:
You don't defeat a terrorist network that operates in eighty countries by occupying Iraq. You don't protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington. You can't truly stand up for Georgia when you've strained our oldest alliances. If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice - but it is not the change we need.
I, like most of my fellow veterans, was proud to answer the call to duty and take up arms in defense of my country. It is what we raised our right hands and swore to do, and we did it willingly. In my case, I was singled out at the staging area, getting ready to board the plane, sitting on my duffel bag like everyone else, because someone in the medical facility had discovered a slight discrepancy in my civilian medical records. They wanted to hold me back to resolve it, and send me on to meet my unit later. “No way,” I replied, with a disbelieving chuckle. “I’m ready to go, and I’m going with my unit.” Little did I know the real – or made-up, as the case may be – reasons for this invasion.
As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.
Nor did I understand the nature of the enemy we were about to confront – but who could blame me? Neither did my superiors as far up the chain as I could tell. The TACSOP (tactical SOP) that was supposed to be my “bible” over there had nothing to do with the reality on the ground. We made it up as we went along. The two months of training at Ft. Dix (during their worst blizzard in 26 years, I might add – wonderful preparation for the desert!) was a complete waste. The scenarios we rehearsed bore absolutely no resemblance to anything we had to do in Iraq.
And let’s not even talk about the equipment. I was issued a medium flak vest because they were all out of the small size. When I shouldered my weapon repeatedly, I’d get bruises on my biceps from where they’d hit the edges of the armholes, and the collar went up so high it would push my helmet down over my eyes in a prone firing position. My M-16 was famous for misfiring, and one range NCO disassembled and inspected it, and summarily ordered it off of his range for safety reasons. I could not get it replaced – they had no other weapon to issue me. No weapons cleaning kit, either, and the clothing sales store at Ft. Dix never had them any time I was able to check. When we got to Kuwait, I had to casually mosey on over to the Rangers’ tent across the way every morning and beg to borrow their weapons cleaning materials.
AND, my unit made me turn in my atropine injectors in Kuwait, before sending me to join a different unit in Iraq! When I arrived at that unit, the first sergeant asked to see my atropine, and I had to tell him I’d been made to turn it in. “They sent you to IRAQ with no ATROPINE???” he blustered. Yep, it was true. I don’t know if they were short on it or what, but that was still at the very beginning of things, when we weren’t sure whether NBC was going to be a factor.
Yes, Senator Obama, we will proudly serve, especially knowing that our commander-in-chief would never send us into battle lightly, without a clear mission, under false pretexts, under-equipped and ill-trained. You, Sir, will command the respect of our troops, and we’ll give 110 percent for you, knowing that you’ve got our back.
The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America.
When I went to war, I was not a Republican or a Democrat, or even an Independent. Politics repelled me, and I stayed far removed from it, beyond casting my ballot every four years (which led to my amusing but sincere question upon being named PCO: “So I understand I’m responsible for organizing a precinct caucus – what’s that, some kind of meeting, right?”).
When I got home from Iraq, I had little hope left. My experience with this no-win, aimless war and the pathetic way my unit had treated me before, during and after (I was what is known in the Reserves as a “cross-level,” meaning I deployed with a unit I didn’t actually belong to), along with some very callous and insensitive remarks from various civilians upon learning of my role in the conflict, left me with a deep sense of despair. I had just put my life on the line, every day for 367 days, for THIS? It felt unreal. I didn’t even know why I had come back.
One day I read in the newspaper that Barack Obama had announced his candidacy for the presidency. “Barack Obama?” I thought. “Who’s that? Is he even American?” So I Googled him when I got home, and came up with his campaign website. I clicked on his announcement speech. Now, normally it’s difficult for me to focus my attention continuously on one thing – you learn that in combat, always keep your eyes roving, never sit still too long, be aware of your situation at all times, watch your back – but for that half-hour or so, I was stone-cold riveted. His speech left me teary-eyed. Wow. If this guy can do half of what he says he wants to do, he NEEDS to be president! But like he said himself, and continues to say, he can’t do it by himself. It’s going to take each and every one of us to get involved. So, I clicked a link on his website, and here I am today, having run (and attended!) my first precinct caucus, given the Obama persuasion speech at my legislative district caucus, running weekly meetings as well as speech watch parties and similar events, and talking to everyone I know about Obama. Because at last, here is something I can do that will really do something good for this country I love! All the blood, sweat, and tears I shed in Iraq didn’t do a thing to make our nation safer, healthier, or more prosperous – in fact, just the opposite. But now I finally have the opportunity to make a difference for GOOD for America – this country I love, red, white, and blue.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, we gathered a few onlookers at Spud’s, people who just stopped to watch the speech with us. Some were very quiet, some pounded on the railing enthusiastically. All, I am sure, will remember this night for time to come, because this was indeed history in the making. It is not too late for our country – we are still the last best hope.
This blog post was published in The News Tribune, Tacoma, WA on August 4th under the title of Staying only Supports Efforts to Rob Iraqis. You can view the op-ed here:http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/letters/story/433296.html
Thank You to UP City Council Woman Jean Brooks and Her husband Harvey Brooks, and our National Delegate Sharon Wineberry and her husband Cornelius and volunteer Fay for setting up the Obama Booth at UPFEST and watching it faithfully. We registered new voters and talked to many wonderful people in University Place who are support ing Senator Barack Obama! Thank you to the City of University Place For Putting the booth near the entrance of the event and for Council Member Ken Grassi and volunteers Phil and John and UP Parks Commissioner Greg Gooch For Being So Gracious to Our team members and helping them set up!
Blessings to All!
University Place People For Obama!
A new 527 organization called Vets for Freedom is running pro-war ads in battleground states. The ads feature American pro-war veterans claiming that, "We changed strategy in Iraq," one of the soldiers says in the ad. "And the surge worked. Now that's change we can believe in. We need to finish the job no matter who is president."
In an earlier era during another war, Viet Nam veterans were divided about the war and issues surrounding the conflict. Back then if there was a parade honoring the returning vets it would have attracted a crowd of protesters both veteran and non-veteran. I personally heard hate spewed from both sides. Activist, anti-war veterans called patriotic veterans "baby killers", while the patriotic vets called the activist veterans "hippies" and "dope heads".
The community here and especially those of us old enough to remember those days, have varying opinions of vets from that era. This is mine. If I had said, back then, that all Viet Nam veterans were heroes to my activist friends, I would have been ostracized. If I said that the Viet Nam war was wrong to a group of my parents’ peers, who supported the war effort, I would also have been ostracized. Being so young I learned this lesson the hard way. You had to tailor your rhetoric to present company. Feelings about the war were as strong then as they are now.
In the here and now, in this era, Obama speaks of a time in which we did not honor returning veterans and calls it a national shame. I can live with that phrasing. What else would you call disrespecting the vets? The difference between then and now is today we are in another war that is wrong, but even the strongest anti-war activist calls our returning soldiers heroes. The difference is striking. Maybe, in an over-arching sense, we are forgiving ourselves for misspeaking about our brave soldiers during Viet Nam, curing our guilt. Today we honor <em>all</em> the veterans and treat them as heroes and thank them for their sacrifice. That is the proper thing to do. I think that this is something upon which the whole community can agree.
McCain has once again reversed himself on a major issue. Not only has he flip-flopped, but he blasted Barack Obama for the mere perception of doing the same.
From Media Matters:
(After the jump)
I have commented on this previously in DailyKos but never submitted a diary on the subject. I belive the strongest argument that the right-wing has is the inexperience meme and I have been worried that they would go all out this fall in this area. Well, it has started sooner than I thought.
The RNC has launched an anti-Obama YouTube video attacking Obama on his "inexperience". They are using past Democrtaic candidates' attacks, especially the Hillary attack that claimed she and McCain had crossed the commander-in-chief threshhold. We all knew that the right would use that, now they have. The website is called "Democrats vs. Obama" and the URL is http://www.gop.com/DVO/ .
I would embed the video, but I seem to be having trouble with that.
How can we fight back? One idea would be to assemble a video of Republican candidates slamming John McCain. Call it "Republicans tell the truth."
This entry was originally posted as a comment to Please, Please read this! in one of the groups that I frequent, but everyone should know.
By The Concerned 12 minutes ago
Pretty disgusting what she is continuing to do. Old politics, for sure! please re-post in your groups...
Is Hillary Clinton Push Polling?
The questions started out normal enough, but got progressively more ridiculous. Early in the conversation Ed asked my preference among the Democratic candidates and I told him I was an Obama supporter.
Here's LaMotte's story, below, and you can listen to the actual call here -- it's pretty amazing:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/is-hillary-clinton-push-p_b_98446.html
