Words To Think About From Someone Who’s Been There

America has lost one of its heros. We want to acknowledge the passing Tuesday evening of Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Senator Kennedy devoted his entire career to making America - and the world - a better place for all of us, by championing socially conscious legislation for the last 47 years. He will be missed.

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As we see it, the biggest obstacle we face in achieving meaningful Health Care Reform in this country is the lack of any kind of connect with the people in and around Washington who are in a position to help make the absolutely critical changes necessary to our current system. For the most part they’re advocating contrary to our wishes…either because it’s in their interest as stakeholders, beneficiaries or employees to assure ever more outrageous profits for the health care industry…or because it’s simply not possible for them to relate to the problems most Americans are confronted with every day, since they’re not!

What we need in Washington is someone representing us who’s facing bankruptcy because of a mountain of medical and household bills that they have no hope of paying…someone who can’t take their sick child to the doctor or go to the doctor themselves because they no longer have health insurance and can no longer afford to pay…in short, someone who’s just as fed up and pissed off as we are.

What we need in Washington is someone like Ed Broadbent, the former, long-time leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, the party that, although never in power, was almost solely responsible for bringing Universal Health Care to all Canadians.

The following are excerpts from remarks that Broadbent delivered to the NDP in Halifax on the occasion of the opening of their National Convention on August 14, 2009.

“…There's never been a time when our social democratic values have been more practical. This is a social democratic moment. It's a moment when governments of all stripes in advanced economies around the world have been forced by the economic crisis to acknowledge things we have always known, what we've always known about how the economy works and the important role of government. Even governments of the right, who created the current mess in the first place, have now had to adopt the kinds of policies we social democrats have advocated all along. So if ever there was a time for discussing the relevance of our values to practical politics…it's now, when the whole world has experienced the disastrous consequences of three decades of an ideologically based attack on equality of citizenship and social programs, complemented by a general denigration of government and the virtual worship of markets.

…More equal nations like Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, are better off in almost every way. Their citizens are healthier, live longer, have fewer teenage pregnancies, are more law abiding, participate more in civic projects and are more trusting of their neighbours. There is, in short, a greater flourishing of individual liberty. Transcending any differences in religion, language and culture, it is the higher degree of equality that makes those nations so much better off than the US or the UK, which are the most unequal. I repeat and emphasize that once a certain minimum level of wealth is reached, it is not more growth but more equality that leads to a better quality of life for everyone.

…Unequal societies are not only unfair, they are dysfunctional. They promote isolation and social estrangement, and they foster higher levels of consumerism that depletes the planet's resources. Not just the poor but everyone is worse off. Rich and highly educated British and Americans do worse than their equivalents in more equal societies, even in basic things like health.

The first leader of our party, my friend and mentor Tommy Douglas, was a political genius. About Tommy and about no one else can it be said “Without him universal medicare would still be a dream in North America.” Tommy's genius lay not in his arguing that health care should be a right and not a privilege. Others too had made this claim. His political genius, which laid the foundation for fundamental change, was that he showed why universal public medicare was a practical answer to the health problems of Canadians. He understood in every bone in his body that idealism only works in democratic politics when the idea is seen to be real. In politics people like to be inspired, but they need to be persuaded. Then, to get the job done, they need a reforming government that manages the economy with competence.”


One more item that we neglected to mention in our Media Blitz the other day, and this one probably should have led it off. So let’s put it in the category of giving overdue credit where credit is due.

In the beginning, we were not what you’d classify as big believers in radio-pundit, and now also TV-pundit, Ed Schultz. Truth to tell, we initially thought he was kind of an opportunist who just happened to be in the right place at the right time…and we weren’t all that convinced about his true commitment to progressive ideals. Well, he’s slowly but surely changed our minds.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding…and although, due mainly to style, he still may not be the person we most look forward to tuning in every day, we do tune in. What we are finding is that there’s absolutely nobody out there in the electronic media who, day in and day out, holds the feet of Democratic politicians to the fire more than Ed Schultz does when it comes to their thoughts, words and actions throughout this Health Care Reform debate.

All we can say is, well done Big Eddie. Keep keeping them honest.

SC