Letter to the Governor

I have to work tomorrow, but my son will be in Lansing at the capital protesting the pending right to work for less legislation.  I wanted my voice added so here is a quick letter I emailed to the Governor:

Dear Governor Snyder,

When you ran for office you appeared to be a moderate, many in Michigan supported you because they saw you as a moderate, and a candidate who could work in a bipartisan fashion. In addressing the so called right to work legislation I hope you can demonstration your moderation. 

I am not a member of a union, the clinic I work is too small to merit representation.  But as a nurse I am grateful for the Michigan Nurses Association.  They are a blessing to my profession.  Their role is not only to support fair treatment of nurses, but also to advocate for patients.  When a union represents a group of workers they all benefit even if they are not members. It is unfair to allow some workers to opt out of funding the organization that they benefit from.  Fortunately or unfortunately, there is no way to separate the task of advocating for workers by individual worker.

To my mind moderation means not supporting this contentious legislation.  Certainly not allowing it to pass during a lame duck session, and attaching a funding element just to prevent a referendum on the legislation is undemocratic. Please live up to your moderate credentials.

Open Ballot

The secret ballot has a number of protections that are important for a fair democracy, but it also has the potential of inhibiting political discourse. The intent is to protect individual from having to share who and what they are voting for, not to prevent the individual from being able to share who and what they are voting for and why. I haven't blogged nearly as much as I might have wanted to this political cycle. Today I voted by absentee ballot. And tonight on the eve of election day I will share what I voted and why.

At the top of the ticket I really wanted to vote for the Green party candidate Jill Stein for that matter Ross (Rocky) Anderson running in Michigan on the Natural Law party ticket would have also represented a political choice consistent with my views. In the end in spite of a five point lead in the polls I gave in and voted for Barack Obama. Obama is clearly candidate of the corporate political duopoly, is also a war criminal, but all indications are that a Mitt Romney presidency would only take the country further down the road of war, environmental destruction, further eroding civil liberties and further concentrating wealth. If Obama has acted immorally, a candidate like Romney who seems willing to say anything would most likely be worse so Obama gets my vote but with following slogan: “Reelect Obama, Impeach Obama.” 

As far as Democratic Party Senators go, Debbie Stabenow is not so bad, nonetheless with more than a 10 point lead over Pete Hoekstra I felt it reasonable to vote for John Litle the Natural Law party candidate. I know John personally, he is a grassroots activists, and he stands for many of the values I hold dear. He is also creative and radical in his politics.

For the 12th district Congress seat, again I was not happy about voting for the Democrat John Dingell. for years Dingell blocked improved energy standards in the auto industry. With a big spread between him and his Republican contender, I was very tempted to vote for the only other candidate running for this slot, a libertarian. After considerable web searching I could not find any information positions held by the Libertarian candidate.  Without knowing who he wants, I voted for Dingell instead. Dingell has done some good work over the years.

Jeff Irwin was the first Democrat I felt good about voting for. I have watched him in his first term, often taking importance to, and speaking out saying the right thing.

Although I often vote for a Green party candidate for the state Board of Education, this year I stuck to the Democrats Michelle Fecteau is already on the board, and has union activist credentials, Lupe Ramos-Montigny appears to be a good candidate, and amidst the right wing war on education having as many Democrats as possible is probably worth working for.

In terms of the University boards I split my tickets. For the U of M regents, I voted for Mark Bernstein commitment is lowering tuition, and Eric Borregard of the Green party. For MSU Trustee I voted Democrat Joel Ferguson, his Democratic running mate seemed only interested in the football, so Lloyd Clarke of the Green party got my other vote. Finally for Wayne State Governor I voted for Democrat Kim Trent, she seemed preferable to Sandra Hughes O’Brian the other Democrat. Margaret Guttshall has been running as a Green for the Wayne State Governors or many years. Her running mate Latham Redding might have got my vote but I didn't have any more information about that candidate.

On the county level, I was glad to vote for Justin Altman a libertarian running for prosecuting attorney. My hunch is that a libertarian in this position would help to undermine the war on people who do drugs. While others might still remember my campaign for Sheriff and quixotically right me in, I followed the advice of Planned Parenthood, and voted for Jeff Gallatin the Republican. This was not without some hesitation, I seem to recall, from my undergraduate days individuals who had Gallatin as a landlord, and rumors of him being somewhat scummy. Lawrence Kestenbaum the Democrat got my vote for clerk, in spite of him once bad mouthing me in my run for Sheriff, no hard feelings Larry. I voted for Catherine McClary over her Republican rival. And Evan Pratt cam well recommended for Water Commissioner. County Commissioner Conan Smith  comes from a progressive political family and is carrying on the tradition, so he got  my vote.

John Hieftje got my  vote for mayor although I was tempted to write in Steve Bean who ran an independent campaign a couple years back.  The unaffiliated candidate running against Heiftje is apparently a Republican who was late to file papers. Although his agenda includes a call for greater transparency, something the city could use, the rest of his agenda is not in line with where I’d like to see things go. Interfaith Council for peace and justice director Chuck Warpehoski got my vote for counsel.

When it comes to judges it's always a good idea to know a lawyer whose politics you trust at least a little. My cousin in law Eric Lipson is just such a person. Eric presently runs the student housing co-ops in Ann Arbor, but he knows lawyers and I trust him. He suggested Connie Kelly, Bridget McCormick, and Sheila Johnson for the Supreme Court, and Carol Kuhnke  for the judge of the 22nd Circuit Court. The only other contested judgeship was Timothy Connors versus Michael Woodyard, Connors had a number of endorsements from labor so he got my vote. As is often the case there were many judicial candidates running unopposed. For democracy to work there has to be an opposition, so when there are unopposed candidates I right people in mostly as a symbolic act. My writing candidates are almost always good friends and since their chances of winning are about as good as your good friends chances, I will spare you the races and who I wrote in.

For school board I voted for the present president Deb Mexicotte, for WCC board of trustees, there are some concerns about William Figg that led me to vote for Richard Landau and Diana Morton. For library board I voted for the one non-incumbent Lyn Davidge although I could have voted for up to four, voting only for her gives her the best chance of getting him. I think a new voice would be worthwhile on the board.

The state proposals were easy: no  on 1 , yes on 2, yes on 3, yes on 4 and no on 5 , and no on 6.

1.       1) I don’t want to give the state the power to overturn local city governments.

2.      2) Unions should be guaranteed collective bargaining rights, this will preempt attempts to make Michigan a right to work state.

3.     3) Between peek oil and global warming we need all of the renewable energy we can get and 3 gets us 25% renewable energy by 2025.  It doesn’t go far enough , but its in the right direction.

4.      4) Provides some quality protection for people receiving home care, it also promotes union rights for home care workers. All of this is good.

5.       5) Limits raises in taxes to popular votes of the electorate. This strikes me as a prohibitive standard.

6.       6) Gives the present Detroit to Canada bridge owner a monopoly on the border crossings.

 Finally there are the local propositions. Ann Arbor has a park millage renewal, (A) we have great parks, this millage is a renewal of a previous millage. I’m in favor of Parks. 

I voted against  (B) the arts millage.  As I understand it this would prevent funds being used for public art that are not specifically designated for art from a centralized fund.  Even though it raises funds for art it centralizes control over public art, and prevents art funds from coming from other department funds.  In the long run this sounds like it could work against the arts. 

 Perhaps the most controversial proposition on my ballot is the bond proposal to raise money for a new downtown library. I can see both sides of this issue they both say things that make sense. I went back and forth on this postal but in the end I'm not a fan of throwing buildings away. To my naive eye the library building seems like it is in great shape. Even if it does need some repair and upgrading this seems better than putting all that brick and concrete into a landfill. It's always good to acknowledge self-interest, and in spite of their insistence that there will be some downtown library services, I am nervous about the temporary loss of library services at a time when they are likely to be most useful to my children. 

Okay that's all I voted, if you haven't yet now it's your turn.

On Rhetoric

I watched three speeches last week, Elizabeth Warren’s, Bill Clinton's, and of course Barack Obama. Of the three, I was surprised to find Bill Clinton's speech the most compelling. I had anticipated that I would have found Elizabeth Warren’s speech most interesting, her politics are closer to my own than those of Clinton or Obama. Nonetheless, her speech contained little more than soundbites which is typical for these convention speeches. This doesn't negate my report for her as a candidate, nor my belief in her potential to use her intelligence and values as a politician. We are simply talking about rhetorical power at a given moment. President Obama, is more of a known quantity as an oratory. We've also had a good look at his politics over the last few years, both for good and ill. I did not have a lot of expectations for Obama's speech, but it seems conceivable that he could have put together something compelling or inspiring, what we got I think was middle-of-the-road Obama orientation, which is middle-of-the-road Obama politics. The power of Clinton's speech was in his ability to create a convincing narrative, and his ability to flush out the facts in a way that countered the Democratic parties opponents in the Republican party.  He was almost professorial, and there are plenty who don't like that in a political speech. For my part I appreciate an appeal to the intellect as well as emotion.

There was a time that I only thought poorly of rhetoric, it was the window trappings of ideas. But ideas do not live only in the realm of the ideal. I see now that ideas, particularly political ideas are valuable only to the extent that they can be communicated. But there is still the problem of political rhetoric where words sound good and actions ring hollow. I enjoyed Clinton's speech both for the story he told, and for his art as a storyteller, and he is not running for anything, so he can no longer disappoint us if he doesn't live up to his words. Perhaps we will leave that job to Barack Obama, or even Elizabeth Warren, the politician for whom I'm still a fan.

For those of us who sit at the left end of the Democratic Party, or to the left of the Democratic Party, if we wish to draw attention to our ideas we need the rhetorical skills that Bill Clinton displayed. Whatever our issue focused, how do we tie it into a narrative that can be or could potentially be broadly embraced, how then do we also demonstrate with the narrative that counter narratives are misguided or dishonest. Then the hardest part is the transition from revolution to governance, the best ideas whether rhetorically beautiful or not can be terribly difficult to implement once the opportunity is present.

Weak speech

I just listened to Mitt Romney's speech to the RNC. He essentially made three point, first that he created jobs at Bain capital, second that Obama has failed to deliver on his promises, and third that he will make America better again.  In his attempt to differentiate himself from Obama, the most dramatic moment was when he said “Obama promised to  begin slow the rise of the oceans, and to heal the planet”, then he paused, long enough for his Republican audience of climate deniers to grow nervous. And then he added that his promise was “to help you and your family”.  But how? What will his program be? He listed some points they were vague. An energy policy focused on fossil fuels, renewables mentioned as an afterthought , Charter schools, every parent should have a choice, trade agreements and if other countries aren't fair with us we won't stand for it, sanctity of life, traditional marriage, less war with more global dominance. Less government regulation and taxation of businesses.  One might like to know what his vision is, but like George H W Bush, it looks like Mitt Romney just doesn't do “the vision thing”. When you don't have vision, there's always rhetoric, but his speech struck me as weak  in real rhetoric as well.  I listened because, although I knew there would be stuff to disagree with, I thought it would be interesting. So lacking in content was his speech, even the stuff to disagree with was at a minimum.

Romney to Israel "your country right or wrong"

If I were a patriot, in the sense of one who prioritize the value and importance of my own country over all other countries and one who holds the belief that my country had a special status in the world, what Mitt Romney embraces as American exceptionalism, I would be outraged at Romney's recent statements in Israel. He states that he would never publicly criticize Israel. That's great if you're an Israeli patriot, but for an American president to give up the right to publicly critique another country takes a basic diplomatic tool out of America's foreign-policy toolbox. It is a lie when Romney suggests that all options for dealing with Iran should be on the table, when at the same time he is taking options off the table. 

Romney might say that he would criticize Israel but not in public (I don't know if he would say this or not) and while that is fine there are times when speaking critiques of your friends in public has the potential to give you more standing when critiquing your enemies. While this type of “option” does not fit with the bullying, world domination attitude that Romney usually projects, it is an option which he has taken off the table.

The “don't tell American what we can and cannot do” crowd should be incensed. I would be very interested to here of any conservative blog that took issue with Romney for saying he would never publicly critique Israel.

Romney's time in Israel deserves critique for many things, for instance,  his fundraising from foreign millionaires, and his racist comments about the failure of Palestinian development. But the squaring of American exceptionalism with a blanket no public  criticism of Israel policy deserves the concern of American conservatives.

Obamacare, Broccoli, and Health Freedom

With the Supreme Court ruling the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare is back in the public eye. The attention has focused on the individual mandate to buy healthcare insurance, or should we now say the tax on those who choose not to buy health insurance. This of course has been the most controversial, and in many ways the most important element of the act. This brings us closer to the ideal that many of us hold of universal health coverage. I for one don't particularly like the specific mechanism here which is to require individuals to bear the burden of their insurance. I believe that universal coverage is a responsibility of society as a whole. Every society has a responsibility to care, to the best of its ability, for its sick, its  poor, it's old, and it’s young.

Society's responsibility does not negate individual's responsibility for their own health. Society’s responsibility is to give individuals the tools for self-care and access to care. But as the old adage goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Individuals are responsible for drinking. All the time we make decisions with health ramifications. Do we smoke, do we wear a motorcycle helmet when riding, do we drive or walk, do we drink soda pop, eat trans fats or too much meat? Do we eat our vegetable, exercise regularly, have close friends, relax, and do things that have meaning in our lives?

Should buying broccoli be mandatory? Many of those who argue against the individual mandate, we can now call it the uninsured tax, have claimed that if this is legal it would be legal to mandate that people buy broccoli. Of course the absurdity of this claim is that of all the things a government might do, progressive or reactionary, making its citizens buy broccoli would be close to the last thing they would ever do. I am probably one of the few people who think this would be a rather good idea.

Let me explain, I am for individual health choice, I believe strongly that people should be able to decide whether to eat broccoli, or drink high fructose corn syrup out of a liter bottle. I don't believe that individuals should be required to have broccoli in the refrigerator at all times. But I do believe that when individuals are making the choice between broccoli and high fructose corn syrup, incentives matter. Incentives are among the tools society gives individuals for making our choices. We presently incentivize corn, that is to say, farmers are subsidized to grow it. Now I have nothing against a good corn tortilla, or some fresh polenta, but I would gladly pay a bit more for those treats, and a bit less for my broccoli.

Cost is one form of incentive, information is another potentially important form. Most of what we hear about food comes from the food industry itself. Even the information we get from the USDA is heavily influenced by the food industry. I wonder if perhaps there is just a little bias in that information. It's only when we can fully and fairly know and understand the potential health benefits and health risks in our choices that we can make truly free choices.

I would support agricultural subsidies shifting from corn to garden vegetables such as broccoli. This of course raises the risk that industry would find a way to extract sugar from broccoli stems, and feed broccoli to cattle. I think we’re a long way off from that. But more importantly, I believe that there is an important public health responsibility, for more, more accessible and more accurate nutritional information, and for limits to be placed on the corporate promotion of products that are health hazards. I'm not overlooking the difficult challenges in getting solid science around nutritional information. In fact the debate about what is solid scientific information should be a central part of a healthy democracy. Regrettably in the area of democracy like the area of health, we are short on the tools needed for us to take individual responsibility. 

Getting back to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it strikes me that it suffers from very little in the way of tools for health self care responsibility. Nonetheless, one way in which the act allows for insurance companies to incentivize self responsibility, is excluding tobacco use from its list of pre-existing conditions. What this means is that an insurance company can charge more to a smoker than a non-smoker. Of course if you're concerned about mandatory broccoli, and if requiring people to pay more for insurance if they smoke is legal, why not require people to pay more for insurance if they don't eat broccoli. Ironically, financial incentives are more likely to be successful among those who have money than among those who don't. Smoking is ironically more common among those who don't have more money.

Another step that Obamacare takes towards improving health care choices is its research initiative. This initiative provides funds for what is called patient centered outcome research, and is basically an attempt to look at health outcomes of various clinical interventions.  This research has the potential to be translated into tools to help patients choose among a variety of health care options. If it does this that would be phenomenal. Unfortunately it is only a potential. It could lead to mandate certain standards of care. While standards are useful, I don't believe that one standard applied to all individuals health needs, and standards that prevent experimentation and exploration have the potential to do more harm than good.

The political joke in the opposition to Obamacare is that many things in the program were borrowed from Republican policymakers, only to be later oppose those same policymakers. Individual mandates? Great idea, thanks Mittens. Well I'm going to do it again, I'm going to borrow couple ideas put forth by my good friend  Newt Gingrich. Cut straight from the cloth of his “plan to save lives and save money”:

• Reward health and wellness by giving health plans, employers, Medicare, and Medicaid more latitude to design benefits to encourage, incentivize, and reward healthy behaviors.
• Invest in research for health solutions that are urgent national priorities. Medical breakthroughs–ones that prevent or cure disease rather than treating its symptoms–are a critical part of the solution to long-term budget challenges. More brain science research, for example, could lead to Alzheimer’s Disease cures and treatments that could save the federal government over $20 trillion over the next forty years

When it comes to cost, Obamacare is at best a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage. If we could really implement these two ideas from Mr. Gingrich we might be able to make a real dent the cost of health. The other cost care challenges are to remove the profiteering of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and to move away from a fee for service system.