As we all know, the situation in Israel is still being discussed by The Obama Administration and individuals are anxious that the Iran has a nuclear program. We need to know the facts behind the battling in Israel. This is not my event, however, I encourage those seeking answers to meet this great groups of folks and attend:
Global Exchange
Ventura County Supporters
present
A Recent Visit to Gaza
Wednesday, October 28
7:00 P.M- 8:30 P.M.
Thousand Oaks Library
Laila Al-Marayati, MD, will share her experiences of her recent visit to Gaza and will address some of the major political issues that impact the ongoing situation.
Dr. Al-Marayati is the chairperson of Kids in Need of Development, Education and Relief (KinderUSA), a non-profit humanitarian organization dedicated to helping Palestinian children and their families in Gaza, the West Bank and refugee camps in Lebanon. And on behalf of KinderUSA, she traveled to the Gaza Strip in May of this year where she had the opportunity to witness first hand the degree of destruction caused by the Israeli offensive in December of 2008. She visited with numerous Palestinians who continue to suffer under a regime of collective punishment that targets all members of society including those most vulnerable, children. The effects of the ongoing siege of Gaza combined with the trauma caused by the Israeli attack have imposed serious challenges on Palestinians living in Gaza. Yet their resourcefulness and faith help them survive and endure, hoping against all hope for a better future.
Dr. Al-Marayati has served on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom as an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. She is a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist and is the Medical Director of Women's Health at the Eisner Pediatric and Family Medical Center. She serves as the spokesperson of the Muslim Women's League based in Los Angeles which seeks to strengthen the role of Muslim women in society by disseminating accurate information about Islam and women to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
A question and answer period will follow the presentation.
The program is free and open to the public.
GLOBAL EXCHANGE Ventura County Supporters www.globalexchangeventuracountysupporters.org
For further Information, Contact: 805-498-9401 or GlobalExchangeVCS@yahoo.com
The Global Exchange Ventura County Supporters is a group of people - a community of conscience -dedicated to providing local monthly public forums, supporting and working with other local organizations committed to social and economic justice, human rights and ecological sustainability Global Exchange, headquartered in San Francisco, is an international human rights organization dedicated to promoting environmental, political and social justice. Since our founding in 1988, we have increased the US public's global awareness while building partnerships worldwide. Visit: www.globalexchange.org
You had the creepy crawlies when you walked out of the Buck McKeon Saturday 9AM Community Townhall Meeting on Healthcare Reform. Some women left crying and skeptical about the future. You don't see this in any video! You had to hear their comments. I even heard women from Wells Fargo who were hissing mad! "These are selfish nuts and liars", she said. I told her welcome to the club. She asked me if there is "anything that she can do", please call her. I've BCC'd her to this message and will call her later today.
My final analysis: In creating a future of change, I agree it requires talking to neighbors, friends, family and congressional leaders. The future for our American grandchildren will require healthcare reform. If number crunchers have already determined that in another 15 years our healthcare premium costs will be equal to our take home pay, how are we going to live? Not all families have the ability to have two or more breadwinners in one family.
We are in a day and age of automation, why should insurance companies utilize 30% of their costs for administrative needs?
Why should insurance executives make 10 times the average income of the American citizens’ that they are fleecing for corporate jets, penthouses, exorbitant bonus plans, elaborate **** luxury resort motivational seminars, and vacation trysts.
Meantime, your healthcare needs are being minimalized or denied because it will diminish the lifestyles of the stockholders, the insurance executives and their bottomlines.
If the insurance companies were truly honest they would accelerate incentives for illness prevention, better eating habits, exercise programs, promote positive lifestyle choices and encourage physical and mental rest to increase healthy clientele.
Questions we need to ask ourselves is why would someone who has government tax paid Roll Royce insurance belittle you into believing it isn’t important for you to have affordable, adequate, and accessible medical coverage and a decent delivery system. To do otherwise is downright “stupid-headed”. To know this information is not enough! It isn’t political ladies and gentlemen, it is a human need. Don’t just read this. Do something that is an investment in your healthcare future. Fight for healthcare reform.
If you are interested in more information on what to have at a helathcare forum please email us: minwilli@gmail.com; or visit our website: www.scvyoungdems.org. It isn't too late to have your voice hear. I know many are tiring to the subject, but I believe this is what the opposing side wants, to wear us down and they they'll have their way with us, business as usual.
Peace out, Minerva
Dear Editor,
September 15, 2009, I had the opportunity to watch C-SPAN 3 and hear another testimonial from the “whistleblower” and former head of communications from the Cigna Insurance company Vice President Wendell Potter. He referenced his previous testimonial on June 24, 2009. He expressed a need for comprehensive reform to shape reform to Congress to benefit all Americans. Several times he expressed that the healthcare reform bill will be nothing more than an insurance industry profit protection and insurance act if the bill doesn’t include the public option.
He refutes the heavily prophesized claim that adding the public option will no longer make the private options competitive. Instead he adds that the public option will lower health care cost and cause the industry to reevaluate the way that they do business. The practice of the industry has directly affected 25 million families to become under and not insured and giving rise to over priced cartel led premiums. Potter added that public option will require the Health Services to eliminate high co-pays and deductible which mean less out of pocket costs, increases in lifetime limits, eliminate “fake marketing” plans and increasing annual caps that are more reasonable. Market reforms will not only cause companies to compete, contrary by the industry and allies claims, but also stop the misinformation tactics being used to “frighten us” into believing reform can’t be done. Again, those little fear tactics are being used to induce complacency. Dumping unprofitable and sick consumers to make profit expectations, in a nut shell will cause investors needs to become secondary and can no longer be put over the health of insurance industry consumers.
Consumers must understand that limited benefits fits and underwriting is designed for profit.
Potter and I hope that this is the year that will enact legislation, I hope he is right. Meantime I’d encourage the entire community to go out to the 25th Congressional representative Buck McKeon’s Townhall meeting Saturday September 26 at 9AM and get there early. Parking lots #5, #6, #7,and #8 will assist your morning stroll to the Gymnasium, wear tennis shoes and let’s here what our local legislative representative has to say. Oh and by the way, I did email him the above link . . . I did call Potter, he told me to tell McKeon that “death panels” is another made up marketing phrase.
Peace Out, Minerva L. Williams, Castaic, CA
There’s no shortage of allegations that small business will be hurt by healthcare legislation, as Nancy Duff Campbell, a founder and co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, points out today at Reuters, with: “Women small business owners really need healthcare reform“ (subtitled: We need reform.)
Small businesses owners are suffering from the current system. That graduated surcharge that some say is a job killer? Campbell found that only 1.2% of all taxpayers, including 4-5% of those with some business income, would be affected. Not exactly a death-knell for job creation when you examine the spin coming from big insurance companies more closely.
Read more: http://obamesque.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/myth-busters-small-business-owners-jobs-and-health-insurance-reform/
1 in 6 Americans are uninsured and millions more are under-insured, yet lobbyists try to convince Congress and the media that health insurance companies are the best way to provide affordable health care to America. If the President's plan is changed to exclude an option similar to Medicare, health care in this country remains mired in the hands of insurance profiteers.
A public, single-payer option is the way to guarantee health care for all Americans. Insurance companies are in it for profit - that's what business does. Our big mistake thus far has been expecting them to behave altruistically. Where is their motive? It's on the bottom line.
New legislation without a new option is no longer a viable choice. Let people keep the for-profit coverage if they already have it, but a public health care option is overdue. Of course, competition should force private industry to provide better service at lower costs, but it still doesn't force them to help the uninsured.
"In 2009, Congress must take up and act on meaningful health reform legislation that achieves coverage for every American while also addressing the underlying problems in our health system. The urgency of this task has become undeniable."~Senator Max Baucus, (D-MT)Chairman, Senate Finance Committee12 November 2008
"In 2009, Congress must take up and act on meaningful health reform legislation that achieves coverage for every American while also addressing the underlying problems in our health system. The urgency of this task has become undeniable."
To date, the private, for-profit payment systems have enriched a few large corporations while leaving millions of average Americans one illness or injury away from medical bankruptcy. The system is broken; it's a mass of red-tape, with medical decisions in the hands of bureaucrats instead of doctors. We spend more per capita on health care than any other nation, but our results leave a lot to be desired.
“The reason we spend more and get less than the rest of the world is because we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers. Private insurers necessarily waste health dollars on things that have nothing to do with care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay. Doctors and hospitals must maintain costly administrative staffs to deal with the bureaucracy. Combined, this needless administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans’ health dollars.“
We need to re-define success. Big business is ignoring the problem, looking instead to their separate bottom lines, while non-profit organizations are bringing real innovation and proactive thinking to bear. We need insurance profiteers out of the health care industry - now. They drive costs up, because they're middle-men making a profit. What's right for their business is wrong for providing cost-effective health care to Americans. Let's pass the President's plan and move on to tackle the other thorny issues of our time: education and the economy.
The DJIA crept above 8000, there were slight up-ticks in consumer spending and housing sales reported, and suddenly we're supposed to believe the economy has bottomed out? The people I talk to are still feeling mighty insecure about their jobs, because losing your job threatens your health care and your retirement savings at a time when we know the job market is still very, very tight.
While the President is right to focus on the engines that create jobs in the U.S., such as small businesses and the schools that prepare us for those jobs, IBM has recently announced layoffs in the U.S. as they continue moving even more jobs out of the country. At IBM, business success is all about their bottom line - they're moving jobs to countries where workers earn less and have fewer benefits. Not quite what the President is working for, and certainly not what the U.S. workforce deserves.
Ms. Dawn Teo has written an OpEd at Huffington Post, "New Economic Reports Suggest Middle Class May Have To Wait For Economic Recovery" loaded with facts and figures, and I respect Dawn for her tenacious research. It's a dose of cold reality amid the sudden clamor of voices saying confidently, "it's getting better!" Did they see those unemployment numbers? Did they forget already that productivity declined in the non-farm business and manufacturing sectors in fourth-quarter 2008?
The impact of the financial deregulation orgy is not behind us yet. So trying to goad us into optimism based on a few isolated numbers, cherry-picked for their "improvement," isn't a story I'm ready to buy just yet. Not while mega corporations like IBM can still scoff and do layoffs with impunity.
Despite the setback at the end of 2008, productivity has roughly doubled in the U.S. in the last several decades, yet the benefits have flowed to the super rich, while their companies and strategies and "financial products" have abused those of us who dared to believe in terms like "privatized retirement accounts." Returning to preeminence in manufacturing and agriculture isn't simply about recapturing the American Dream, it's essential to our economy and security. The big business leaders that have touted the virtues of capitalism during those decades will be proven wrong if they fail to recognize that their profit - their success - is a direct result of the creativity and productive labor of the middle class.
When IBM can be as proud of how they treat their workers every day as General Motors was during its glory years,when I see people going back to work at jobs with good salaries and benefits, then I'll be ready to believe the U.S. economy is back on its feet. We've got a lot of work to do.
Single-payer national health insurance isn’t socialized medicine (and if it was you can bet most doctors in the U.S. wouldn’t support it.) Single-payer is simply a streamlined system in which a single agency organizes health-care financing and payments: delivery of medical care remains essentially as it in in the U.S. today - largely private. All that’s lost is the red-tape and restrictions.
Who’s against it then? Insurance companies, because they profit enormously from the current system - even though they add no value. In fact, many people will tell you that insurance companies make it hard to get what they deserve and pay for with the premiums. That’s why it was such a major focus of Obama’s campaign in 2008: he proposed that modern health care should include giving everybody in the U.S. coverage.
To get there we need the freedom to choose between keeping private insurance—for those lucky enough to have any—and opting into a universally available public health insurance option (something like Medicare.) Ultimately, by reducing the number of agencies handling the payments we simplify the task for hospitals and clinics - less of the time and money goes to red tape, and more goes to actual medical services.
Ultimately that also means diminishing the power and profits of the private insurance companies currently siphoning their lavish earnings off your health care payemnts. They make money off the red tape, and by letting non-medical personnel decide what should and should not be prescribed to treat patients, and that’s a large part of what has caused costs to soar while coverage just shrinks.
It’s time for a reality check. Insurance companies profit from the current system, so naturally they’re opposed to changes that hurt their bottom line and their corporate bonuses. What value do they add to the process?
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YES WE DID! YES WE MUST:
Þ Protect him from harm both verbal & phyiscal
Þ Stay "FIRED UP" by staying active
Þ Work Bi-Partisan to bring "Change" together
Þ Don't just bitch, get active and stay engaged
Þ Start and join a local "Change" group
Þ Be philanthropic, serve your community, state and nation
Þ Stick by Obama, STOP smears on the Right & the Left!!!! Hold yourself responsible as you hold Barack!
Join the future of this movement!!
http://change.gov/joinus
http://www.communityorganize.com
http://www.ourpresidency.com
http://www.usaservice.org
http://www.whitehouse.gov
Barack's DNC 2004 Speech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWynt87PaJ0&feature=PlayList&p=B1939005B8A4D4ED&index=188
Barack's DNC 2008 Speech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ato7BtisXzE&feature=channel
Barack’s Election Acceptance Speech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wJ-2Zu_Iic&feature=channel
Barack’s Inauguration Speech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjnygQ02aW4
No Bias! No Bull! CNN! If you regress that does not bring progress! I did not appreciate CNN's media fashionista's Campbell Brown & Erica Hill, Robert Verdi, and their poking fun remarks on Our Nations First Family. I did not see any of you looking Inaugural! The Obama's are our American Royal Family! DUH! Get over your fashion policing ways! This is a "New Era of Responsibility", this is a grassroots movement, get your ass in gear! This is transformation time of energy & vitality! Move it or lose it! Also, on Pres. Obama's speech, what more did you expect on such times, Huh! Not a History Speech CNN retorted, only a Speech of The Ages! CNN is losing ground already being mainstream they will learn how to dance grassroots one day. HAH HA! Get a grip CNN, and get off your two minute powder beauty boxes and get a life! Some of us a too real for these phony no life powder box miss muffet's that don't get out and live life, they only know how to sit and powder and complain. Now go to your powder box room and stay there, we have no use for such people that are just envious of others having fun in life. Huh! "We can...can...Yes, we can...Yes, we will make it! President Obama & Our First Families are just what this country needed most for so long. We made the change happen CNN, get use to it! America rules! It is not what is always on the outside some of you phony CNN people, inside counts just as much! We see who has heart here.
Heartfully,
Queen of Hearts~
The movement for change must continue on people, to carry our great people through the worst of times now.
Ok, folks, it’s time to ramp up this group.
For anyone who is traveling to D.C. for the inauguration, please join us, if you live in NV or not. As the group expands, and hopefully within the next week, we will begin posting links, travel news, and more.
I realize everyone is busy with the holidays but to make it work, we all need to contribute to the group.
I am posting this to all the Nevada and California groups to which I belong, as well as a few, select others. The first step is joining the group and here’s the link:
Thank you to everyone who will help us enjoy the privilege of watching PE Obama take the oath of office.
We here in Las Vegas are watching the wildfires in L.A. and are so sad that so many of you have lost their homes. Is there anything we can do?
Can we organize a food, clothing or personal necessities drive for you? Is there a church or charity taking donations? Do you need cages and/or food for animals? We're pretty good at organizing here so just let us know how we can help and we'll coordinate a drive to help you.
If we don't all practice what the campaign taught us, we have learned nothing.
I'm on my way out to the local HQ to make some phone calls, but wanted to share a photo of our Halloween Candy - every piece had a "Vote Obama" sticker on it!
Click Here for the photo
.... I think the McCain households were giving away Kool Aid to trick-or-treaters.....
Palin's recent attacks on Obama as someone who "palls around with terrorist" and who's "not like us" have been widely denounced as racially-motivated attacks aimed at driving home Obama's racial otherness. By hiding behind brief, past irrelevant associations of Obama, she can play on current race-based fears of terrorism and present Obama as a dangerous racial other without actually evoking his race. Palin's campaign can then feign innocence over the attacks and deny the racially-tinged fear that motivates them.
Luckily for Obama, her very own supporters expose the racist, bigoted, ignorant core of these not-so-subtle attacks.
At recent Palin rallies, as reported by the Washignton Post, her supporters not only shouted profanities at the media (I suppose in anger over Palin's supposed "unfair" treatment by them) but engaged in horrific behavior that exposed them for what they are--angry, racist individuals who share more in common with the KKK than with appropriately politically engaged citizens.
One Palin supporter apparently directed a racial slur at an African American sound technician for a media outlet and told him, "Sit down, boy." Even more disturbing, at least for Palin as potential vice-president, was her failure to censor the crowd, which reportedly chanted "terrorist" when she whipped them into a frenzy over her claims of Obama's ties to William Ayers, and at one point, resulted in a cry of "Kill him." Kill him. At a political rally for the presidency in 2008, a supporter cries out, "Kill him" about the first black candidate for president. And Palin does nothing.
I have a news flash for the McCain/Palin ticket and their rapidly declining supporters--this is 2008, not 1968.
We no longer live in a time where it is remotely acceptable to make racially-motivated attacks on people, or where it is acceptable to call openly in public for a political figure's assassination. We have as a country, thankfully, moved beyond that. The sacrifices of previous generations and people like Martin Luther King have brought us to this new place, and Obama's nomination and his eleven point lead in the polls show how successful they were. McCain/Palin represent the dinosaurs of the political landscape, relics from a past age where it was okay to call a black man "boy" or "that one." McCain has made it perfectly clear in the past two debates his distain for Obama, a distain that seems to come from no apparent place, and given the ugly, racist behavior of his own supporters and his running mates' desire to stir up that behavior, the only conclusion that one can reach is that McCain's distain for Obama is racially motivated as well.
As ugly as the McCain/Palin's supporters' behavior is, it at least exposes them and their candidates for what they are--out-of-touch, antiquated politicians who court racist, bigoted voters as their ticket to the White House. Luckily, their racist supporters are also a dying breed.
Lots of people watching the debate Friday night came away thinking one thing--McCain is old. Of course, it's not like McCain's age was a secret. But it seemed like he was doing everything he could to remind the viewer of just how old he is. Jokes about his hearing aside, all answers led to his age. You want to know about my plans for the economy, let me tell you about the work I've done in the past. Foreign policy, you say. Let me tell you about when I started back in 1983. Preconditions? Did I ever tell you that Henry Kissinger and I are old friends? And on and on and on.
But the real issue with his constant references to his age, his experience, his past seemed to be his motivation for doing so. His platform seemed to be look at all I've done, I deserve the presidency. It wasn't, here's what I'll do for you as president, it was here's what I've done, don't you owe it to me? In fact, he seemed pretty annoyed that he had to even make an argument for his claim to the presidency and came off as a crotchety, old man who all but called Obama a young, whipper-snapper.
The irony of this platform for McCain is that he runs for the anti-entitlement party. The party that says, you the people aren't entitled to basic human needs, like healthcare, but guess what, I'm entitled to the presidency. I've put in my time (and then some) in Washington. You owe me. This election isn't about what I'm gonna do for you, it's about what you're gonna do for me. Even more, I'm gonna remind you constantly about my age so you'll realize that this might be your last chance to give me what I deserve. After all, I'm not getting any younger.
McCain's age and experience in general wouldn't be a negative for his campaign. In fact, it should be a positive. He should be able to argue, look, this is what I've done, what experience I have, and this is what this experience means I can do for you. But he hardly used the future tense at all in the debate. He consistently used the past tense ("I have always," "I went," "I looked," "I have spent"). Of course, if you're running an an entitlement platform, focusing on what you've done might be the way to go. it takes a lot of nerve, though, to argue that you're not entitled to things, but I am.
McCain should change his campaign slogan to "It's All about Me."
Be careful of what you do at the polls. Voters can wear campaign wear & merchandice to the polls if they are there to vote, but if you are at the polls for any other reason, it is against the law to wear campaign materials within a certain distance, which varies by state, to the front door of the polling station. Please research election laws in your state and be mindful of the fact that the McCain capaign is banking on us being excited and not being aware of the laws that will be strictly enforced this year. Below is an example:
A voter may wear campaign paraphernalia (buttons, t-shirts, or stickers) into the polling place while he or she is there to vote (the voter may not linger in the polling place after voting). However, an election judge, challenger and watcher, or other person stationed inside the polling place or within 100 feet of the polling place may not wear or display campaign materials.
Even though this law specifically addresses Maryland voters, it is a pretty common law nationwide. To insure an Obama victory, we must all educate ourselves about election laws to prevent another stolen election.
Happy Voting...Go Obama/Biden!!!
CJ
‘Deal with yourself as an individual worthy of respect and make others deal with you in the same way’ ------Nikki Giovanni
