– Ellen Shaffer
Original post found here: http://bit.ly/jfqJBm
We can’t get jobs, live in our homes, educate our kids. Get out of the way of the tornadoes. Or, apparently, influence substantially the policy decisions imposed by an increasingly vicious and mean-spirited minority.
n California advocacy has been reduced to documenting the rubble. Medicaid is cutting doctors’ visits to 7 a year, for the seriously chronically ill who can still manage to qualify. To his credit, I think, the Governor just vetoed a budget that has been a disaster for decades because no one can wrench control of the process from the 1/3 of the legislature whose most animating vision is to drown the government in a bathtub. We cannot add $70 a year to our car registration fees as a downpayment on staunching the demise. You might have missed this story because there was a sex scandal this week, and some baseball games. (I like baseball; not the point.)
Some other states are dealing with the crisis by fomenting mobs who probably do not quite get the biological links among contraception, pregnancy and abortion, but are convinced they’re against all of it, whatever it is.
Congress will not tax a cent of a billionaire’s gains from gambling on the stock market, but voted to cut the Women and Infant Children program that gets some minimum level of nutrition to indigent kids. The Administration of course is taking a strong lead in rallying the nation to hold off on arbitrary cuts to the Social Security benefits of the 50% of seniors who subsist on meager incomes, and to keep Medicare out of the clutches of the vampires in the insurance industry. Aren’t they? I thought they were; or intended to; or might at some point; or will promise to if re-elected.
Ok, it’s not their job; when the people lead the leaders will follow. We are the majority, who support the idea of having an actual society, will lend our neighbor a hand, believe in the right to reproductive health care, above all know there’s something terribly wrong when so many can’t find work while so few bask smugly in obscene excess. I’ll write again soon about the people, organizations and campaigns that are trying to corral us close enough to each other so that we can make a difference. We’re out here. But right now, it’s time to take a moment and call a travesty a travesty.
—
Ellen R. Shaffer, PhD MPH
Co-Director, Center for Policy Analysis/EQUAL/CPATH
San Francisco Presidio
P.O. Box 29586
San Francisco, CA 94129-0586
Phone 415-922-6204
http://www.centerforpolicyanalysis.org
http://www.cpath.org
cell: 415-680-4603
Winwomenspeak's Weblog 
This is the first time I’ve seen this and it reminds me of another post i read yesterday. It’s shorter than this one, not quite as eloquent, yet echoes the same sentiment. It’s title is “Really, How Much Longer?” The first line says: “I despair for this country….” I think I like this title best: UTTER MADNESS, though the “how much longer” question raises the possibility that things may have gone “beyond” our making a turn in a different direction. I don’t believe the madness has taken us “beyond” yet I am amazed, chagrined, and alarmed that so many people don’t see the big picture. Unless everyone in this country understands how all of our systems are connected – and therefore, all of our citizens are connected – then it not only may go on, but get WORSE. I BELIEVE THAT IF ENOUGH PEOPLE say: “STOP THE MADNESS” and JOIN TOGETHER as they are doing in places like Wisconsin that we can stop this downward spiral. Whenever I think about the greatness that underlies the vision upon which this country was founded, I think “We the People…” And it’s up to US to say “no” to the madness and get involved at whatever level, in whatever way, and join in those circles of people who WILL NOT GIVE IN TO DESPAIR. ACTION BY EACH OF US, if done on behalf of the GOOD OF THE WHOLE, will turn us around. We really don’t have a whole lot of time…