Democracy For The Southern Adirondack/Tricounty Area: July 2009

Democracy For The Southern Adirondack/Tricounty Area

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Tricounty DFA Update: Washington County Picnic, Kucinich Amendment, More

Hello Everyone;

In This Update:

1. Washington County Democratic Picnic

2. Kucinich Amendment: Saving Real Healthcare Reform

3. Can Do or Can't do?

4. Rockhill Progressive Family Film Fest

1. Washington County Democratic Picnic

Sheila Comar, our redoubtable Washington County Democratic Chair wants to let you know you are invited to the Annual Washington County Democrats Picnic!

Where: Roger’s Island, just outside Fort Edward

When: Sunday July 26 from noon—4:00pm

The Committee will provide barbecue meats; everyone is asked to bring a dish to share. (food served between 1 and 3 pm.

Feel free to bring any non-alcoholic beverages.

Beer and wine will be sold by the Idle Hour Club for $2.00 each.

Note: No alcohol can be brought into the park.

Zuela – a blues band of young adults – will be performing for us during the afternoon

Cost is $18 per individual; $35 per couple

For tickets contact your local town chair or Judy Doonan: 692-7215

2. Kucinich Amendment: Saving Real Healthcare Reform

Thanks to conservative Democrats, it seems clear the bill that will emerge from the Congress will probably have a watered-down public option. According to the Post Star (not online, unfortunately) healthcare reform is now scheduled to take ten years. The public opt-in program will not even start for another four years. If we remember that progressives were upset when Rahm Emmanuel proposed a trigger that would delay the public option for five years, and felt that was totally unacceptable, then we have pretty much wound up in the same place, anyway.

But the ultimate battleground shifted Friday. The House Committee On Education and Labor adopted the Kucinich Amendment, which preserves the right of states to create a single payer system. It is now in HR. 3200, the healthcare reform bill before the house.

That means the task at hand for progressives is two fold: 1.) keep the Kucinich Amendment in the final bill, the one that emerges from the joint conference, and then, 2.) work state by state to create real reform, a single-payer system. Apparently that's the way it happened in Canada.

Here's a powerful argument for New York State: single-payer would so dramatically lower the cost of healthcare in NY, that it would lower the overall cost of doing business in NY, making the state competitive with supposedly low cost states down in Dixie, where healthcare costs will be sky high.

For more on the Kucinich Amendment and how they did it in Canada: http://www.truthout.org/071909B?n

3. Can't Do Bluedogs

We have heard much this week on the 40th Anniversary of America's landing on the Moon. JFK laid down a goal to go to the Moon and we did it in nine years. Now we are told that it is going to take us ten years to do healthcare reform, even though LBJ got Medicare up and running in eleven months, and we went to the Moon in a decade. Howard Meyerson of the Post observes,

"Watching the centrist Democrats in Congress create more and more reasons why health care can't be fixed, I've been struck by a disquieting thought: Suppose our collective lack of response to Hurricane Katrina wasn't exceptional but, rather, the new normal in America...

It wasn't ever thus. Time was when Democratic Congresses enacted Social Security and Medicare over the opposition of powerful interests and Republican ideologues." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/21/AR2009072102712.html

Dick sends this along in the same vein- "Every once in a while a killer article comes along that says it all. Do not miss this one:"

Obama Needs to Show Less Paucity of Audacity

4. Rockhill Progressive Family Film Fest

The Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe's Progressive Family Film Festival continues:

FRI JUL 24 7:00 pm SUMMER FAMILY FILM FESTIVAL Films the Whole Family Will Enjoy. Free.

When a sick boy (Fred Savage) receives a visit from his doting grandfather (Peter Falk) who intends to read to him from his favorite book, he's not exactly pleased to be extracted from his world of video games. However, his mood quickly changes as he, along with the viewer, is transported to a place out of time--to Florin, a kingdom in the ultimate imaginary land, complete with dashing heroes, cowardly princes, rhyming giants, shrieking eels, rodents of unusual size, fancy swordfights, and yes...even some kissing. The lovely Buttercup (Robin Wright) learns that "As you wish" really means "I love you" when she falls for her charming farmhand, Westley (Cary Elwes). While trying to seek his fortune, however, Westley disappears at sea, an apparent victim of the Dread Pirate Roberts, who takes no prisoners. A few years later, Buttercup, engaged to the oily Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon), is kidnapped by an oddball trio of rogues--brains, Vizzini (Wallace Shawn); brawn, Fezzik (André the Giant); and sword, Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin in a standout performance). As they sail away toward the Cliffs of Insanity, they notice the pursuit of a man in black...and the adventure begins. A clever fairy tale for all ages, THE PRINCESS BRIDE is arguably one of the funniest and most entertaining films of all time.

THU JUL 30 7:00 pm OPEN MIC NIGHT hosted by our very own Cory Avon. Sing, play, read or just watch and listen. Free.

FRI JUL 31 7:00 pm SUMMER FAMILY FILM FESTIVAL Films the Whole Family Will Enjoy. Free.

THE STRAIGHT STORY David Lynch (1999)

Alvin Straight (RICHARD FARNSWORTH) was 73 when he got the call about his brother. Alvin couldn't see well enough to hold a driver's license. He walked only with the support of two canes. He didn't much care for anybody else helping him out. But when he got the call that his brother Lyle (HARRY DEAN STANTON) -- separated from him by hundreds of miles and a decade of proud silence -- had suffered a stroke, Alvin knew he had to reach him. So, with little money but abundant determination, he climbed on his lawnmower and set out. From two-time Oscar-nominated director David Lynch ("Blue Velvet," "The Elephant Man") comes a lyrical portrait of this real man's journey across America's Heartland. Filmed along the route that the actual Alvin Straight traversed in 1994 from Laurens, Iowa to Mt. Zion, Wisconsin, "The Straight Story" chronicles Alvin's patient odyssey and those he meets along the way. When not rolling along at five miles an hour aboard his '66 John Deere, Alvin encounters a number of strangers, from a teenage runaway to a fellow World War II veteran. By sharing his life's earned wisdom with simple stories, Alvin has a profound impact on the characters that color his pilgrimage. Menaced by enormous, rumbling 18-wheelers, lapped by bicycle marathoners and sheltered by abandoned barns, Alvin proceeds steadfastly along on the shoulders of snaking roads toward a hopeful and long-deferred reunion with a brother whose fate he doesn't know.

Thanks everyone!

Larry

Labels: Democracy For America, Democracy For The Greater Glens Falls Area, DFA, healthcare reform, Kucinich, Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe

- posted by Larry Dudley @ 11:09 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Tricounty DFA Update: Healthcare Reform On Tap, Goldman Sachs Scandal, More

Hello Everyone;

In this update for July 14, 2009:

First, Democracy Fest, a nationwide gathering of DFA activists is this weekend in Burlington. There will be workshops, addresses by national figures including Howard Dean, training sessions, socials and more. It's a good chance to meet other DFA people. If you would like to go, but cannot afford to, please let me know-- Bob Rockwell and Miranda Kyhill may be able to donate tickets. For more on Democracy Fest go to:http://www.democracyfest.net/

1. Heathcare Bills On Tap

2. Dean, Bill Moyers On Healthcare Reform

3. Financial Oligarchy Sabotaging Economy?

4. Taser Petition Circulating

5. Rockhill Progressive Film Fest

1. Heathcare Bills On Tap

The House and Senate brought out bills today to reform our nation's healthcare system. However, contrary to what we thought at first, passage of healthcare reform this year is far from assured-- and the real issue may not be Republican opposition, but conservative Democrats.

It's time for all of us to contact our representatives again. I have the impression Rep. Murphy is still settling in to his new job. However, it is time for him to start staking out a stand on this key issue.

Senators Schumer has taken the lead for a strong public option, and GIllibrand is is supporting him.

I would urge everyone to contact Rep. Murphy's office and urge him to support a strong public option, and preferably a single payer healthcare system, which most people, including those here in the 20th CD, support. Rep. Murphy's numbers are: Glens Falls: (518) 743-0964, Saratoga: (518) 581-8247 and Hudson: (518) 828-3109

Senators Schumer and GIllibrand can be contacted at their Albany offices: 518-431-4070 (Schumer) and 518-431-0120 (Gillibrand). Urge them not to compromise on a strong public option.

Remind them all that they can and should express a preference for single-payer in principle, even if they think it can't pass.

2. Dean, Bill Moyers On Healthcare Reform

Governor Dean was recently interviewed by Esquire Magazine on healthcare and other issues, and he is terrific as usual: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/richardson-report/howard-dean-interview-health-care-070709

For those who missed Bill Moyer's Journal on Friday, Moyers had an extraordinary interview with Wendell Porter, a former PR executive for Cigna insurance. Porter described how private insurance companies scheme to dump sick patients who try to claim the benefits they have paid for, and frighten Americans away from effective government systems like the ones in Canada or France. read it at: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/transcript2.html

3. Financial Oligarchy Sabotaging Economy?

You cannot say you have any sense of what is going on in the US today if you have not read Matt Taibbi's article in Rolling Stone Magazine on Goldman Sachs and the looting of America-- everyone seems to be talking about it. Taibbi strengthens the case made earlier in the year by Simon Johnson in The Atlantic that a financial oligarchy seems to have seized control of the financial and economic affairs of our country.

As I go around I find people are becoming increasingly alarmed at the Wall Street bailout, how it is helping the wrong people for the wrong reasons, hurting the economy and probably wrecking our future by throwing the country deeply into debt.

Taibbi's must-read piece is at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29127316/the_great_american_bubble_machine/print

The NY Times reported today that Goldman Sachs had its most profitable quarter in its 140 year history and is about to pay out over $11 Billion in bonuses, despite having just returned government bailout money. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/business/15goldman.html?hpw

Author Les Leopold writes that:

"The danger is that if our elected leaders fail to use the Constitutional powers available to them to confront a rogue financial industry that is harming the national interest, a right-wing populist movement may arise that takes advantage of Americans' legitimate anger. Historically, such movements have had a nasty tendency to turn very ugly, very fast." Read more from Leopold at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/happy-days-are-here-again_b_231455.html

Or Rob Johnson on Huff Post-- Stop the Political System That Lets Goldman Sachs and Others Run Roughshod Over Society: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-johnson/taibbis-scream-stop-the-p_b_226941.html

Frank Rich in the NY Times compares it to Dillinger and the outrage of the Great Depression: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/opinion/05rich.html?ref=opinion

This is not change we can believe in.

4. Taser Petition Circulating

On a local level, Chris Schmidt came to our last meeting and talked about problems with the use and abuse of Tasers by area police departments. He made a real case that there is reason for serious concern. He is circulating a petition to the CIty of Glens Falls calling for a moratorium. If you want to sign or know more, please contact Christ at: credoferjames@yahoo.com

5. Rockhill Progressive Film Fest

The Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe's Progressive/Family Film Fest continues with:

FRI JUL 17 7:00 pm SUMMER FAMILY FILM FESTIVAL Films the Whole Family Will Enjoy. Free.

KENNY Clayton Jacobson (2007)

Australia’s Surprise Hit. From the biggest festival to the smallest church social, Kenny Smyth delivers porta-loos to them all. Part philosopher, part comedian and all heart, Kenny is one of the cogs in society’s machinery; a knight in shining overalls taking care of business with his faithful ‘Splashdown crew’. The film lifts the lid on one of Australia’s roughest diamonds as he juggles family tensions, fatherhood and sewage with charm, humor and unflinching dignity.

THU JUL 23 7:00 pm OPEN MIC NIGHT hosted by our very own Cory Avon. Sing, play, read or just watch and listen. Free.

FRI JUL 24 7:00 pm SUMMER FAMILY FILM FESTIVAL Films the Whole Family Will Enjoy. Free.

Happy Bastille Day, everyone!

Larry

Labels: 20th Congressional District, Democracy For America, Democracy For The Greater Glens Falls Area, Glens Falls, healthcare reform, Scott Murphy

- posted by Larry Dudley @ 11:39 PM 0 comments