Here is today's suggestion for what you can do directly to help with the fulfilling work of electing Barack Obama as our next President. With statistics revealing there is a 1 in 3 chance of an elected President not being able to serve his full term in office, the question of any Vice President's fitness for the job becomes an object of focus, and particularly with the wildly unfit Sarah Palin in the running.
John McCain has had every kind of skin cancer diagnosis that can be made, including more than one occurrence of malignant melanoma, deep and Stage II. He smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for 25 years. His diagnoses include high cholesterol, hypertension, arthritis, vertigo, and allergies. He is currently on six different medications daily for these plus his kidneys, and he takes Ambien occasionally which has a known incidence of correlation with impaired concentration, amnesia, and mental dysfunction.
But it is the melanoma which is most concerning, because not only is the chance of recurrence in his instance more than 60%, should it recur while he is in office, the treatment for it would necessarily incapacitate him from serving as President.
As a disabled person and an advocate against ageism, I assure you that assessing the risk of ability with regard to particular jobs is not discrimination and is not oppressive, if the demands of that job are relevant to human capacity. For instance, when I fly on a plane I specifically ask to not be seated in the emergency exit row, because I have mobility impairments which would make it difficult or impossible for me to move quickly or assist others: I would be a risk to others on that flight if I blocked the exit. McCain's refusal to acknowledge his responsibility with regard to openly sharing his health, whatever it may be, is evident and is ominous.
The following letter arrived in my mailbox today from Robert Greenwald at Brave New Films, and I'll reprint it as I received it:
"The state of John McCain's health is an issue of grave concern for all Americans, regardless of political persuasion. Given the fact that he has been treated for an invasive melanoma and other maladies, it is important that he release his full health records.
For a very brief three hours in May, McCain released 1,173 pages of his medical records to a carefully selected group of reporters. They were not allowed to make any copies or phone calls. Why such secrecy?
We have enlisted a group of doctors from around the country to lead the effort to make sure the public is able to see and make judgments for themselves. Secrecy is not of service to our democracy, transparency is. Please have other doctors sign the open letter.
Watch the video and sign the open letter.
Cancer is a serious issue. That's why 30 medical doctors have already signed our open letter telling McCain to issue a full, public disclosure of all his medical records. Send this video far and wide to request that McCain release his full health records. Ask every medical doctor you know to sign onto the letter, and don't forget to sign the letter yourself! McCain's records must be made public and soon.
While McCain doesn't really care about our health care, we all should care about the health of McCain.
Yours,
Robert Greenwald
and everyone at Brave New Films"
After you sign the petition, please consider writing your friends and family about this issue, sending them a link to the video and asking them to voice their opinion. Since one out of five Americans has a disability, and more than that have ongoing health issues, we are all well-acquainted with the decisions necessary to navigate in our community as a responsible adult. I am certain that the majority of Americans believe they have the right to know about ALL the health issues of a prospective President.
The postcard graphic at the head of this post was designed and printed by Liza Cowan. She's already given away or mailed out a thousand of them, and she's extending an offer to the readers of Group News Blog: Send her a self-addressed stamped envelope with postage of 59 cents on it, and she'll mail you ten of these postcards for your own use. The addy is Pine Street Art Works, 404 Pine Street, Burlington, VT 05401. Or, if you or your organization wants more, e-mail her at Liza(at)pinestreetartworks(dot)com. If you use this graphic elsewhere, please be sure to give her copyright credit and link to her blog.
[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]
Sunday, September 14, 2008
OBAMA OR ELSE: WHY WON'T JOHN MCCAIN RELEASE HIS HEALTH RECORDS?
Thursday, September 11, 2008
OBAMA OR ELSE
(Obama Or Else postcard by Liza Cowan)
They say in Spider Solitaire, theoretically every hand is winnable. I never have the patience to try thinking through each move or using "undo" to make a crappy layout winnable. In fact, if on the first layout I don't have several moves to expose hole cards, I'll usually re-deal. But that's just a game. It's not deciding who will become the most powerful leader in the world.
I got a direct challenge from a precious friend yesterday, Liza Cowan, who was a leader before I was out of junior high, whose blazed trail literally saved my life. She's an artist, not a politician, but she said "We have to win this election. There's nothing more important right now." She's 59 and has two children about to enter adolescence (her second go-round at parenting). They've both girls, so she's not looking at them being drafted if McCain wins, but she's sharp enough to not see that as a consolation because she lived through the Vietnam era draft, which scarred us all in different ways. She's made the decision to do at least one thing every day, one concrete action, to make sure Obama wins this election. She asked me to do the same.
So here we go. My goal is to come up with a simple act you can do every day that, directly or indirectly, helps us put a sane, accountable human being in the White House and/or restore basic human rights to the daily life of America. I'll aim for an action besides donating money, because (a) giving money is something we already know how to do and (b) if you're like me, you don't have money to give. Although as Liza says, lots of people can afford ten bucks.
There's two main reasons to engage in direct action like this. One is that this groundswell is what this election is all about -- it's how we've gotten this far. The Republican strategy is to feed their extremist minority with a VP choice whose extremism they're keeping under wraps and pass it off as populism, i.e., "She's a hockey mom". They pacify their corporate overlords by NEVER passing legislation which benefits the average working person, and they dupe the rest of the country into voting for them by any lie available. They lie, they lie, they lie. But we are ravenous for the truth out here, and direct action will bring you into contact with the truth. You'll feel better afterward.
The second reason is that we are afraid and feeling some degree of despair about how things are going. It's bad out here, and looks to be getting worse. We've gotten out of the habit, in too many ways, of learning how to deal with these feelings. We take drugs, we watch TV, we complain on a blog, we sit at home and snark at our family. We think it may be too late. We want reassurance that we have not made a disastrous series of mistakes which have dumped shit in our own backyards, destroyed our economy, made us a joke in the rest of the world, and divided our landscape into enemy camps. We want Hope. And Change.
But the reality of hope and change, we're starting to realize, involves work and mess. Some people don't know how to step past the despair to do the actual work, and for those folks, McCain is offering Change Lite. He's offering absolution -- or, for those of you without a Christian background, atonement/redemption without fasting or self-examination. Except, of course, the bill will come due the day after he's elected, with interest and penalty charges.
The only way through despair is through it. Don't make any major decisions while you're at your worst; accept any offer of help; and move your body/mind according to the best thinking you had before you got desperate until you feel a little better. Keep going ("Proceed as the way opens"), and eventually you'll arrive at Change. The key is to move. Taking action is a direct contradiction to despair. Don't spend a lot of time processing it in advance, just act and process later if necessary.
Today's suggestion comes from Democracy For America. They've put together a 30 second video they're thinking about running on TV, which consists of excerpts of an interview with Phillip Butler. As their explanation states, "Dr. Phillip Butler is a veteran and a former prisoner of war at the “Hanoi Hilton” with Sen. McCain. He knows the real McCain. Now he has shot a 30 second ad with our friends at Brave New Films to make sure Americans hear the truth."
Group News Blog already ran the extended interview from which this ad was taken here in the post by The Littlest Gator Being a POW Is Not A Resume Builder.
Click on this link for Democracy for America, watch the video if you have not already, and tell them yes if you'd like to see wider exposure. Of course the point of this, from their vantage, is to add names to their database and hit you up for money. But they're a good place to donate if you agree with their strategy, and you don't have to give money to add your voice to this movement. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, by the way -- this is just about the video. Here's a transcript of the DFA ad:
Screenshot of Phillip Butler, Commander U.S. Navy (Ret.), POW Hanoi 1965-1973. (All items in quotes below are spoken by Dr. Butler.)
"Hell, I'm 70 years old and I've lived through being a prisoner of war, I'm going to tell it like it is.
A fellow POW on John McCain: Reckless. Erratic. Unfit to lead.
"The prisoner of war experience is not a good prerequisite for a President of the United States. He was well-known as a very volatile guy, and he would blow up and go off like a Roman candle.
"John McCain is not somebody I would like to see with his finger near the red button."
The YouTube URL for this longer interview is here. You could send this to everybody in your e-mail box (especially all those friends and relatives who are not solidly Democratic) with the Democracy for America link to contradict the fairly wacky notion that being a prisoner who was tortured over 30 years ago makes someone a good President, especially since John McCain has refused to outlaw torture by our own government. (Can somebody please check the box "Fails to learn from own experience"?)
And, lagniappe for today: The postcard graphic at the head of this post was designed and printed by Liza Cowan. She's already given away or mailed out a thousand of them, and she's extending an offer to the readers of Group News Blog: Send her a self-addressed stamped envelope with postage of 59 cents on it, and she'll mail you ten of these postcards for your own use. Or, if you or your organization wants more, e-mail her at Liza(at)pinestreetartworks(dot)com. If you use this graphic elsewhere, please be sure to give her copyright credit and link to her blog.
I welcome comments about what you've done today, or recently, to get our Democrat in the White House or more progressives in government. Feel free to share suggestions. Just, please, don't blog whore (i.e., use this as an opportunity to promote an individual's blog instead of that belonging to an organization or a particular cause) and don't engage in hate speech. If Obama is not your first choice, that's fine, find another action which DOES promote your vision of progressive government and tell us about that.
[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]
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