My Experience Of Democracy In Action

Mary Landrieu at the mic.

All right. Enough procrastinating about writing a post on Mary Landrieu's town meeting in Reserve, Louisiana, on health care reform. The local newspaper accounts are in the Times-Picayune and the Advocate. Check out the Advocate for the picture of the sign which reads:

OBAMA HAS A PRESCRIPTION FOR AMERICA - next to a hammer and sickle.

My account will be personal. It appears that this meeting may the only town meeting Mary will hold, so I suppose it was a good thing we went, although my experience of democracy in action left me shaken, as I still am today, and pondering gloomily on the future of democracy in this country. I reached home yesterday in a state of exhaustion.

We arrived at the National Guard armory at around 11:00 AM on Thursday for the meeting that was to begin at 2:00 PM to check things out, intending to grab a quick lunch and return to wait for the doors to open. When we saw the numbers of people arriving, we decided not to leave. We had water, and that was good enough.

As we walked to the door we encountered friendly folks who were handing out signs and stickers in favor of health care reform. We took the stickers and stuck them on, but not signs, because I was already carrying my purse and my laptop. I was sorry afterward that I did not take a sign. The stickers read:

HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM '09
WE CAN'T WAIT!

The weather was hot, but we found a place under the shade of the canopy in front of the door of the building. If we had left, we would definitely have lost our places in the shade, and Grandpère's bald head would have been exposed to the sun for two hours, because he didn't have his cap with him.

Apparently, our stickers were enough to attract those opposed to any type of health care reform, because they began to approach us with their spiels, "Do you know this about Obama?" "Do you know this about the health care bill?" GP would not contend with them, saying simply that he believed that we needed some type of reform and then letting it go. But - surprise, surprise! - I began to point out that some of what they said was not true. I began to cite information of my own. Some of the folks were quite civil. One woman showed me a picture of her 24 year old daughter, who has cystic fibrosis and is near death. She is a beautiful girl, and her story is heartbreaking. I asked the woman what sort of health insurance she had. She told me she had insurance from her husband's employer and from Medicaid. This woman wants no reform of health care which includes federal programs, but her daughter is covered partially by a federal-state program called Medicaid. Ordinarily, her income would be too high to have Medicaid coverage, but right here in decadent and backward Louisiana is a little known program whereby people with chronic diseases, which require expensive treatments, may, on a case by case basis, get waivers and be covered by Medicaid. My friend's son, who has hemophilia is partially covered by Medicaid, although he has health insurance, and his income would ordinarily be considered too high for Medicaid.

So here is this very sweet lady and her beautiful, but tragically ill, daughter covered partially by a federal program, but who is campaigning against any health care reform at all by the federal government because it will be socialistic. I don't get this at all. I pointed out that Medicaid was a federal-state program. She said, "I know, but I want to keep what I have." She has a son in Afghanistan, and I said that I would pray for his safety and for her daughter and for her whole family. And I said no more to her.

Another very sweet and polite woman (covered by Medicare and yet campaigning against any interference by the federal government in health care reform) and several others spoke of page 16 of the bill out of the House of Representatives, that allegedly would make private health insurance illegal. I did not know what was on page 16 of the House bill, but I said that I could not take their word for it, because I would have to see it in print to believe it. Here is the refutation of the page 16 allegations if you care to read. Too late to help those folk, of course, not that they would have been persuaded anyway.

Then the meanies came. The first woman told me one thing after another about Obama and the health care bill that I knew were not true, which I pointed out to her. I asked her if she thought health care was a moral issue, and she told me that she did and that her husband made quite a lot of money and why should her tax money go to pay for the health care of others, including deadbeats? That was the moral of her story. I tried to explain about what insurance was for, that it was about spreading cost and risk, but that got nowhere. She continued to get angrier and angrier and more and more in my face, until she was screaming and waving her sign so close that I thought she would hit me. Once we were inside the meeting room, and she saw that I was taking pictures, she posed sweetly, especially for me, with her sign. You see her below in the middle of the picture. Her sign reads:

FREEDOM IS BURNING AT THE STAKE
NO GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER



The next woman who approached me said that she'd had cancer and been treated at M. D. Anderson in Houston, and that she wanted to be able to go there if she ever had cancer again. She appeared to have had major surgery around her chin and mouth. I told her that I'd had cancer, too. When she said things that were false, I said, "But that's not true." And then she started on page 16, too, and I repeated that I didn't believe that, and she got really angry and said, "Fuck you, you bitch!" and walked away.

The nice woman who had the sick daughter insisted that I go over to talk to a Cuban-American woman. I had my sandals off and was standing on top of them, because my feet hurt from standing so long, and as I was trying to put them back on, the Cuban woman said, "She doesn't want to hear it." I put my sandals back on, and walked over to them, and the vital information that she had was, "Obama is Fidel". I said, "No, he is not." She turned away in disgust.

Then another woman droned on and on about socialism. I asked her, too, if she thought everyone had a right to health care and if it was a moral issue. She said that life isn't fair, it could never be fair, and that everyone didn't have the same rights. Then she proceeded to tell a long story to illustrate her point, of a teacher in the classroom with children, some of whom were doing well and others poorly, except she made the story really long and dragged out. Trust me, really long. I confess that I broke in once to ask her what the story had to do with health care. She said, "Wait! Let me finish!" It turned out that the story had nothing at all to do with health care, but, at the end, she asked me if I wanted the teacher to give all the kids good grades just to be fair. I said, "Of course not! But what does that have to do with health care?" She said the story was to illustrate that things couldn't be the same for everyone.

The group included a good many angry people and a good many ignorant people, and sometimes the anger and ignorance were present in the same person. The level of hatred for Obama should not be underestimated. Yes, hatred. I asked the screaming woman (before she started screaming) where she thought Obama was born. She said, "I haven't seen a birth certificate." When I said, "I haven't actually held the birth certificate in my hand, but I have seen pictures of it on TV and on the internet," she smirked and shook her head. "Why didn't he have to prove that he was born in the US?"

I never initiated one conversation. I did not indulge in name-calling. I may have raised my voice at times as the exchanges got heated, and I confess that I burst out laughing a few times at the absurdity of some of what was said, and that probably inflamed the opposition. I would not soon want to repeat this experience.



"Kill the bill! Kill the bill!" the crowd chanted over and over.

And tort reform will save us all. It's the answer for everything. I'll say more about that tomorrow in my post about the actual meeting.

What I heard just standing outside the building caused me to doubt the wisdom of democracy. "Lord, give us a king!" But what would be better?

As you see, my post is quite long. I've used the post to vent, because I needed to. I was stunned by the level of anger, and the level of ignorance, and the level of hatred for Obama. I've seen the same sort of thing here where I live, but on a smaller scale, and to see such a large group of people exhibit such anger, ignorance, and hatred was quite disturbing. The hatred of Obama is partly racism and partly the Muslim connection. He's not a real American.

Those who supported health care reform were perhaps a third of the group, and they were much less vocal. Let me emphasize that Mary Landrieu and her supporters were the good guys in this movie.

The New Nicholls Mascot

Here's a picture of the Nicholls State University mascot, Colonel Tillou, who will appear in his costume at sports events and perhaps other Nicholls events. I wrote about the new Colonel mascot here.

At least the costumed mascot appears more humorous than the macho tough guy emblem that will appear on T-shirts and other items. That image is copyrighted, and I can only give you a link. Good luck to the Colonel when he gets on the road.

Picture from The Daily Comet.

Update On Sue's Brother, Myron

Good Morning,

Here is the latest update on my brother. Yesterday the family met with a pain management doctor, who told them that Myron's pain was going to be managed locally instead of systemically. This will help with his alertness. 6 catheters were inserted at various locations on his chest and the medication (I don't know what) will be set at a fixed flow rate daily.

They then met with a neurological nurse practitioner who told them that the MRI show no spinal damage, and that all of the vertebral fractures were insignificant. (Imagine that) The MRI showed some old stuff that was already known and some age related changes that were not known. He will be in a neck brace for 6-8 weeks and a back brace, called a clam shell, for at least 8 weeks.

The brain injury is being termed a traumatic brain injury. There is still swelling and some bruising to both sides of the brain, but the right side is the worse. I won't go into all of the details, but the nurse practitioner did say that the injuries were recoverable and we'll just have to wait and see. Myron is breathing on his own, and again we wait to see if that continues before removal of the ventilator will take place.

One more thing; he has MRSA pneumonia and is being vigorously treated for that.

Again, Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. I believe when all is said and done, no matter what, Myron will be a living, breathing, walking, miracle. God has sure been good to him.

Sue

Sue, that is good news about all the bone injuries, and even the brain injury is improving. The infection is a setback, but we pray that Myron be free of this complication quickly. We'll continue to pray that his brain is restored to normal function and that the miracle results in a complete recovery for your brother.

I hope that Sue doesn't mind that I tell you this, but because of her compromised immune system, she is no longer permitted to visit Myron since he developed the infection, and she hates that. Pray for Sue, too.

Town Hall Meeting - NOLA Live Blog

Grandpère and I are home safe from the raucous meeting. Tonight, I uploaded my pictures, but my story will come tomorrow, because I am exhausted.

NOLA.com live-blogged the meeting. Read it bottom to top, if you want to start from the beginning.

The man with his mouth wide open in the center of the picture at NOLA.com lost his voice by the end of the meeting. What does that tell you? He does not believe that everyone has a right to health care. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is all that we're entitled to. Sometimes it's hard to have life if you can't get medical treatment for your illness. Just a thought.

Something Silly...

...to pass the time while I upload pictures and write a post about the town meeting with Mary Landrieu.

Family Tree of Vincent Van Gogh:

His dizzy aunt ------------------------------------- Verti Gogh
The brother who worked at a convenience store ------ Stop N Gogh
The grandfather from Yugoslavia -------------------- Yu Gogh
His magician uncle --------------------------------- Where-diddy Gogh
His Mexican cousin --------------------------------- A Mee Gogh
The Mexican cousin's American half-brother --------- Gring Gogh
The nephew who drove a stage coach ----------------- Wells-far Gogh
The ballroom-dancing aunt -------------------------- Tang Gogh
The bird-lover uncle ------------------------------- Flaminn Gogh
The fruit-loving cousin ---------------------------- Man Gogh
An aunt who taught positive thinking --------------- Way-to Gogh
The little bouncy nephew --------------------------- Poe Gogh
A sister who loved disco --------------------------- Go Gogh
And his niece who travels the country in an RV ----- Winnie Bay Gogh

There ya Gogh!

Time to Gogh...........

From that silly man, Paul (A.)

Off To The Town Hall

From Steve Walker, LA.BarackObama.com by email:

June --

I wanted to send you an urgent invitation to an important health care town hall with Sen. Mary Landrieu this Thursday, August 27th.

She'll be talking to constituents and gathering feedback. Whether you ask a question or show your support with a sign, attending this town hall is a powerful way to show where you stand and thank those in Congress who are fighting for reform.
....

Please arrive as early as possible to the health care town hall, and make sure that the most powerful voices in this debate are those calling for real reform, not angrily clamoring for the status quo.


Grandpère and I will attend the town hall meeting, starring Mary Landrieu. Although Mary does not support the public option, and Obama seems less than forceful in demanding that it be included in a health care bill, I know the angry foes of OBAMACARE and ANY type of reform will be there in force, so we want to be there as a counterforce.

Update On Sue's Brother, Myron

Morning Everyone,

Myron spent most of the morning and the early part of the afternoon having a MRI done. We was sedated to do this, but the nurses said everything went well. Moving him anywhere is like having a truck convoy tag along with you. All kinds of monitors, machines, IV's and medicines. It is quite impressive. Then all of the tubes have to be long enough to get through the MRI tube, so in other words there is major logistics in setting this thing up.

As I said he did well. The fractures in his back and neck believe it or not are rather low priority at this point and he will wear a back brace, and neck brace for 6-8 weeks

The major area of concern right now is his brain. The right hemisphere is still quite swollen but this is all part of his major concussion, and it is causing him to have swelling and lack of movement on the left side, i.e. arm and leg.

His appearance continues to improve over all, the swelling in his face has disappeared, so he looks more like himself. His night nurse Steve did say they plan on sitting him up today.

Maryanne is having a meeting with the neurological nurse practitioner today at 1 so that all concerned can have questions answered.

At this point, I'm cautiously optimistic. He will probably go to rehab in the near future, but will he be the same person. No one can say right now.

Oh, and one more thing, and this definitely didn't make me happy. He has a slight infection in the lungs with MRSA, or methicillin resist staph. That nasty critter didn't take long to move in. If that gets worse, and it will, he will receive antibiotics.

I'll keep you posted about the meeting.

Thanks for your concern and prayers. There have been some small miracles performed this past week.

Sue

Thanks, Sue, for keeping us informed. Prayers continue for Myron and the family.

Ivor Van Heerden - A Good And Brave Man

From Crooks and Liars:

This week, special for Crooks and Liars readers, download for free, Palast's film for Democracy Now!, "Big Easy to Big Empty: How the White House Drowned New Orleans."

There's another floater. Four years on, there's another victim face down in the waters of Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Ivor van Heerden.

I don't get to use the word "heroic" very often. Van Heerden is heroic. The Deputy Director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, it was van Heerden who told me, on camera, something so horrible, so frightening, that, if it weren't for his international stature, it would have been hard to believe:

"By midnight on Monday the White House knew. Monday night I was at the state Emergency Operations Center and nobody was aware that the levees had breached. Nobody."

On the night of August 29, 2005, van Heerden was shut in at the state emergency center in Baton Rouge, providing technical advice to the rescue effort. As Hurricane Katrina came ashore, van Heerden and the State Police there were high-fiving it: Katrina missed the city of New Orleans, turning east.

What they did not know was that the levees had cracked. For crucial hours, the White House knew, but withheld the information that the levees of New Orleans had broken and that the city was about to drown. Bush's boys did not notify the State of the flood to come, which would have allowed police to launch an emergency hunt for the thousands who remained stranded.

"Fifteen hundred people drowned. That's the bottom line," said von Heerden. He shouldn't have told me that. The professor was already in trouble for saying, publicly, that the levees around New Orleans were no good, too short, by 18". They couldn't stand up to a storm like Katrina. He said it months before Katrina hit -- in a call to the White House, and later in the press.
....

So, even before Katrina, even before our interview, the professor was in hot water. Van Heerden was told by LSU officials that his complaints jeopardized funding from the Bush Administration. They tried to gag him. He didn't care: he ripped off the gag and spoke out.

Grandpère and I know Ivor. For years before Katrina, he'd told us that the levees in New Orleans were not safe. He was like an old vinyl stuck in the groove. He was compelled to speak his warnings. He described the exact scenario of a hurricane which could cause the levees to fail. Katrina was that hurricane. He was right, and he was punished for being right and for bravely continuing to speak out, even after the authorities tried to silence him.

From Wiki:

On 9 April 2009 LSU announced it was firing van Heerden, effective the end of the spring semester 2010. Van Heerden said he was not offered any reason. Van Heerden spoke to Harry Shearer on his Le Show radio program on 12 April 2009 and said, "I learned about not being deputy director through the news media. They basically didn't have the guts to tell me that to my face.... They couldn't tell me why and wouldn't tell me why.

Quotes from Ivor:

"What bothers me the most is all the people who've died unnecessarily."

"Those FEMA officials wouldn't listen to me. Those Corps of Engineers people giggled in the back of the room when we tried to present information."

When it was suggested that tents be prepared. "Their response to me was: 'Americans don't live in tents,' and that was about it."

Thanks to Paul the BB for the link to Crooks and Liars

Please Pray....

My son asked me to call for prayers for a 44 year old man with whom he once worked who committed suicide today. Three children are now without their father. He was separated from his wife and had declared bankruptcy. It was all too much for him.

Please pray for him and his family.

Another Nail In The Coffin...(Part 3)

...in which the Anglican Covenant will rest in peace, or such is my hope.

Taking up from where I left off in Part 2, following up on Part 1, from the splendid article in Modern Churchpeople:

COMMUNION, COVENANT AND OUR ANGLICAN FUTURE

MCU's reply to Drs Williams and Wright

How centralised should the Anglican Communion be?

Once again we find theory about an ideal church replacing realistic descriptions. Local churches do not always 'seek the judgement of the wider Church'. They relate to each other in a wide variety of ways. Roman Catholicism has a central authority with power to impose decisions; the Baptist Union is a voluntary federation which local churches can join or leave as they choose. The Methodist Conference does not feel obliged to consult the Church of England General Synod or the Baptist Union before making innovations, and the many independent charismatic churches which have arisen in the last generation certainly accept no obligation to consult in the manner Williams proposes. His assumption that they ought to do so expresses his theology, not the theology of all Anglicans let alone all Christians.

The doctrine that 'what affects the communion of all should be decided by all' may indeed be venerable but to call it 'the conviction of the Church from its very early days' ignores the historical reality of repeated controversy within and between denominations. It has never been a formal part of the Anglican Communion's governance and to introduce it now in the face of immense opposition would indeed be 'some piece of modern bureaucratic absolutism'.

For the Anglican Communion to be 'essentially a loose federation of local bodies with a cultural history in common' would be to keep it near enough as it is. Williams' hope of a 'global consensus' in a 'theologically coherent "community of Christian communities"' has never been the historical reality - especially if it implies agreement on ethical issues like homosexuality - and stands no chance of becoming so in the foreseeable future. To make the governance of the Anglican Communion fit this idea would, contrary to his claim, be a major innovation.

I'm no scholar of Christian church history, but even I know that disputes were present in the earliest days in the communities described in Paul's letters and in the Johannine communities in Jerusalem and environs, in which the Christians in the communities were considered still to be members of a Jewish sect.

I don't know what la-la land Williams and Wright inhabit. Consensus beyond the Two Great Commandments of Jesus, the Creeds, and the use of The Book of common Prayer for our common worship is not to be, covenant or no covenant. What's wrong with the Anglican Communion as a loose federation joined in the bonds of affection around the three elements mentioned? If the bonds of affection are not present, a covenant will not force them.

As to Wright's claim that our ecumenical partners need to know 'who speaks for the body they are relating to', he must refer principally to Rome, because the other denominations are even more diffuse than Anglicans. However much the pope may believe that he speaks for the whole of the Roman Catholic Church, indeed, he does not. His church is much more diverse than he will ever admit.

Williams and Wright had best keep in mind that they approach the throne in the Vatican as laymen, because the authorities in Rome do not accept their priestly orders, much less their positions as archbishop and bishop. I may have said this in one of the earlier parts, but I am sick to death of the Anglican powers begging at Rome's door. If I wanted to be in the Roman Catholic Church, I'd still be there, and I'd never have joined the Episcopal Church.

Similarly, when Wright argues that 'the decision as to which things can be decided locally is not itself one that can be taken locally' he is not making a factual statement about what normally happens at present; he is telling us what he thinks ought to be the case. To make it the case would be a major innovation. If there is any doubt that it would involve centralising power, his point about 'ecumenical credibility' makes it clear: he wants a small number of people who can attend meetings with patriarchs and cardinals and declare authoritatively what the Anglican position is. From this perspective it is easy to understand why this English bishop has no time for the more democratic American system with its Presiding Bishop instead of an archbishop and a governing body which only meets once every three years. Others think it is a price worth paying to avoid authoritarianism. Instead of trying to match the declarations of cardinals about what Roman Catholics believe, if we honestly told them that Anglicans disagree with each other this might help them reflect on the differences of opinion within their own denomination.

Amen to that. Those who want to tighten central authority do not return us to an undefined golden age of the past, rather they themselves wish to introduce the "major innovation".

The Anglican Covenant and a two-track Communion

As we would expect, Williams and Wright defend the proposal for an Anglican Covenant, and in these papers the emphasis is on the 'two-track' Communion' which would probably result.

Williams softens his position. In 'Challenge and Hope' (2006) he looked forward to a distinction between 'constituent' (covenanting) churches and 'churches in association', and suggested the relationship 'would not be unlike that between the Church of England and the Methodist Church'. In this recent paper however he stresses that churches which do not sign the covenant will not be treated as second rate Anglicans. The aim of the proposals is 'to intensify existing relationships'. For those who do not sign the Covenant 'there is no threat of being cast into outer darkness - existing relationships will not be destroyed that easily'.

Nevertheless churches which do not sign the Covenant will be excluded from some activities.

Wright softens nothing.

In reality, he believes, 'schism has already happened'. It 'is not just a middle-distance possibility but an on-the-ground and in-your-face fact'.

An important strand of Wright's argument is the urgency of a solution. He writes at length about it. There is no time to wait for more committees to meet: the matter must be settled now. TEC's General Convention will not meet again until 2012, so this is the earliest time they can vote on a Covenant. Wright considers this a 'delaying tactic' which 'must be seen for what it is, and headed off':

Why the rush? I suspect that those who want a fast-track solution, a quick opening of the as yet incomplete Covenant for bodies to sign on, are afraid that if the Covenant is delayed, it will die a slow death.

And the pièce de résistance from the article:

He adds other proposals for an immediate separation of the two. One is to enable individuals and parishes in Track 2 dioceses to opt into Track 1 by adopting the Covenant in some way. He proposes some kind of 'Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight' (11, 21). What the plans for a separation overlook is that if whatever is made available to supporters of the covenant in non-covenanting dioceses will also need to be available to opponents of the covenant in covenanting dioceses. The overall effect will be to drive a wedge between the two. If the Church in Wales votes against the Covenant, will the Diocese of Monmouth be able to vote in favour and transfer its allegiance to England? Will a group of villages in the Lleyn Peninsula be able to do the same? In a combined benefice will one parish be able to join England while the other stays in Wales? Will the 10 am congregation go one way and the 6 pm congregation the other? Or the organist one way and the choir the other? If, as Wright suggests, the answers to all these questions is 'yes', and if England does vote in favour of the Covenant, the same questions arise the other way round. Will the Province of York be able to vote against? The Diocese of Leicester? The Parish of St Luke's, Liverpool? The DCC of St Bride's within the Parish of St Luke's? One thing we can be certain of: if permission to accept the covenant is given to parishes in non-covenanting provinces, covenanting provinces will lose parishes to non-covenanters whether permission is given or not. We have seen how the 1993 Act of Synod had the unfortunate effect of producing a denomination within a denomination; the current proposals would be far more divisive.

Can't you see it? The absurdity. The confusion. Do the two gentleman ever give a thought to the consequences that would follow were their suggestions ever put into practice?

And this, my dear readers is the end. If you read through all three parts, you are indeed patient. If you have not, that's fine. Just go read the article in Modern Churchpeople.