MoveOn.org---Political Action

Make Them Pay Tax Day Protest

WHAT: Make Them Pay Tax Day Protest

WHO: Lexington-Frankfort Area MoveOn Members and Friends

WHERE: U. S. Post Office, 1088 Nandino Boulevard , Lexington, KY

WHEN: 5 PM-8 PM - April 18, 2011

On Tax Day, Lexington-Frankfort Area Residents To Protest Corporate Tax Dodger Chase Bank

Participants At “Make Them Pay” Event To Deliver Tax Bill To Chase Bank

On Monday, April 18, Tax Day, Lexington-Frankfort Area residents will protest outside Chase Bank and urge them to pay their fair share of taxes.

The event is part of a nationwide Tax Day campaign called “Make Them Pay.” Events similar to the one in the Lexington-Frankfort Area are taking place all over the country targeting “The Deadbeat Dozen”—GE, Bank of America, Google, BP, Amazon, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Boeing, ExxonMobil, FedEx, Goldman Sachs, Chase—wealthy corporations that are doing everything in their power to avoid paying taxes in America.

“During these difficult economic times, when all Americans are being asked to sacrifice, it is simply wrong that Chase Bank is shirking their American duty to pay their taxes,” said business owner Rikka Wallin. “We are protesting on Tax Day because corporate tax dodgers have a responsibility to our community and our nation to pay their fair share. We pay our taxes. Chase Bank should too.”

MEDIA ADVISORY FOR CONTACTS:

Rikka Wallin 859-272-9166

rikka@insightbb.com

Mike Mansfield 502-682-8704

revjmike@gmail.com

MoveOn.org Political Action is a political action committee powered by 5 million progressive Americans. We believe in the power of small donors and grassroots action to elect progressive leaders to office and to advance a progressive agenda. We do not accept any donations over $5,000, and the average donation to MoveOn.org Political Action is under $100.

Moving On With MoveOn

I first heard of the group MoveOn during the administration of Bill Clinton. In the beginning this group was formed beginning with just a couple of people with the purpose of getting the USA beyond its obsession with Bill Clinton's sexual saga to doing something positive for the people.

MoveOn also got involved somewhat in the anti-Iraq War movement; and as a certified "peacenik," I was impressed with that as well.

Then MoveOn took on lots of other areas of our lives as individuals in the United States as they relate to care for the poor and middle class and health care and fairness and virtually an unending list of areas where all people should be concerned for the plight of those other passengers on this big blue sphere. (We like the term "Big Blue" in Kentucky; but that isn't the blue I'm talking about here.)

I was somewhat politically active during the Obama nomination and general election activities; but it was virtually all as an online helper. I posted and reposted articles I considered to be relevant and stated my opinions about others remarks. I made phone calls for John Yarmuth. I placed "hangable" flyers for Obama on the doors of my large apartment complex.

When we moved to Frankfort I was able to attend a few things here in Woodford County and in Franklin County related to progressive causes thanks to two people whom I have come to appreciate so very much: Max Thomas and Joy Arnold. The two of them are passionate about the cause of "promoting the general welfare for ourselves and our posterity," as I see it. Each of them is very different; but each of them has been a teacher for me in the process of political action rather than just political talk.

In the midst of my somewhat increased interest in actually taking part in progressive action, I was invited by a FB fan who had just become more involved in MoveOn to an event in Louisville that was fun, exciting, and showed me there were others with my same attitudes about what is happening in the USA and has been happening for the last 40 years...just at a higher rate since the year 2000.

I was attending "Organizing for America" meetings with Max, gatherings with Joy, and going to a Tea Party Rally with Rikka all to see myself more involved in the process.

Then the governor of Wisconsin did something that was almost unbelievable. Large rallies outside the Wisconsin statehouse began. People from all over were heading to Wisconsin to take part in the cause of the labor unions there. In particular they/we were concerned that Governor Walker was making a direct attack on public worker unions using budgetary savings as an excuse to gut unions in that state. (Never mind that he also wants to sell off the infrastructure to private firms, and in other way destroy the state's infrastructure and virtually give it to profit making folk for their sole benefit.) As many as 100,000, perhaps even 250,000 people were in Madison, Wisconsin, over that time period before Governor Walker illegally maneuvered to pass the anti-union bill he wanted even though it didn't really save the state any money.

Shortly thereafter the volunteers in MoveOn decided we should have rallies in every state capitol to support the state workers in Wisconsin and unions in general. Since I live in Frankfort, our state capitol, it was an easy call for me to be part of the event here in Kentucky. Another MoveOn person picked me up and took me to the place where we were assembling, in front of the Capitol building. With only four days notice between beginning plans and the action at the capitol nearly 500 people showed up with the purpose of advocating the restoration of the American Dream.

The enthusiasm, attitudes of compassion and caring, speeches about progressive causes including the unions, music, chants, and conversation were big motivators for me and others.

It was time for even more involvement of people to try to prevent the USA from becoming a third world country by "giving away the farm, the country, the communication infrastructure, and the income levels to a small number of folk who are very wealthy and whose incomes are increasing while the less affluent work harder and have their own incomes going down over periods of time. This called for more local action.

One of the MoveOn people in our area suggested I give it a try in Frankfort; and the next thing you know I am the Council Coordinator for the council at Frankfort. We had our first rally, in front of the Paul Sawyier gallery with relatively good attendance of eighteen persons. "Blue in the Bluegrass" posted this about our rally: "Recently, a dozen protesters in downtown Frankfort chanted and held up signs supporting union workers. Some passers-by honked their car horns or gave thumbs-up, but only one showed hostility by yelling:

"You should thank god for what you have!"

We had our first real council meeting last Wednesday night at 6; and our second will be this coming Wednesday, also at 6. We're meeting in downtown Frankfort at the "Kentucky Coffeetree Cafe" on Broadway. It was a wonderful place to meet.

Now we're planning to attend an event in Louisville and our own Tax Day protest locally.

All of this plus doing voter registration with Max, getting to know a whole lot more local people who are outside my wife's nursing home, and perhaps making a difference for those whose need far exceeds my own.

Japan After Destruction Vs. Kentucky MTR

I was just looking at photos of folk in Japan in the aftermath of their series of disasters. It is hard to imagine going through a huge earthquake, a giant tsunami, nuclear reactor leaks, and even volcanic activity all in one short time period.

Some of the folk were crying while looking at the changes that had happened to their homeland. I know others were crying about loved ones lost as well; but one photo was captioned in that way.

I was surprised to find that as soon as I saw the photos and the reactions to the destruction of homeland, I immediately thought of Mountain Top Removal. The destruction is usually slower. The immediate damage is less obvious. It is generally not dangerous in the immediate sense, though sometimes a flying boulder may crush a house or kill someone.

Yet my homeland in eastern Kentucky is being gradually destroyed. Some of its most beautiful spots have already been degraded. Some of its living rivers have been filled with sludge. Many people have been sickened by what these mines have done in just their routine work.

It may sound callous to some of you; but I found myself grieving in union with the people of Japan for a homeland that has been and is being destroyed from its most vibrant state. My thoughts and prayers are with them and with those in Appalachia.

Renewed effort

I spend an enormous amount of time each day reading and watching news stories, many of them related to the political arena. I do a lot of this through Facebook and some through Twitter; but it is the relationships I have made through both of those plus email that has influenced me quite a bit.

When I started this blog, though, there was no Facebook; and most of my "rants" were simply emails sent to the majority of those in my email address book.

When I got on Facebook, I gradually (well almost suddenly) abandoned this blog. Recently my son has said, "Dad, if you're going to spend that much time on the computer, you should be writing your own blog." He also said he believed I was a good writer, which never hurts feelings. Two or more weeks since he last said that I have decided to take him up on it.

This is a preamble to my desire to start posting my thoughts regularly again. Those thoughts may not be as well done as some of my friends; but they will still be my thoughts and feelings about what my life, our lives together, and the political world of the United States of America and that relationship to the "real" world of all the nations.

Healthcare and Ignorance, Coupled with Lies

Before Obama was nominated for president---even before there was anybody actually saying they were running for office for 2008, I knew something had to be done about our healthcare system here in the USA. We were ranked 37th in the world in quality of healthcare, while spend much more than any of the countries who ranked above us. On top of that, our system excludes many people from good health care by limiting access by the uninsured, by charging exorbitant insurance rates, by denying claims, by denying health insurance because of preexisting conditions, etc.

Those thirty-six countries above us, though, the ones with better health care results included everyone in their health care system. For example, if I had gone to France on vacation and broken my leg, I would have been taken to a French Hospital nearby without charge. Then I would have had my leg cast, etc., done without charge. Finally, if rehabilitation were needed, I would also receive that without charge. I am talking about an American vacationing in France, not a permanent resident, or someone on a green card (or French equivalent).

What we have, then, is superior healthcare available to everyone without any direct charge for the services rendered in most cases versus a system that does not cover about 50 million citizens and that charges for almost everything to either the insurance company that may very well deny the charges, or to the individual who is sick.

Another advantage of our system, besides the limitations on who can get good care and with enormous costs to the individuals who are sick. In one year, with no major problems with which to deal, my wife & I spent $20,000 out of pocket for healthcare; and we had insurance!

So in the USA sick people not only get to pay enormous amounts, individually, for their healthcare coverage and/or healthcare itself. They also get to be sick. How lucky can you get? You are sick; and you have to pay for being sick. Then the real problems begin:
YOU HAVE TO FIGHT THE REJECTED CLAIMS!
YOU HAVE TO FIGHT THE RETURNED CLAIMS THAT WERE RESUBMITTED.
YOU GET TIRED FROM FIGHTING SO MANY BILLING PROBLEMS AND REJECTED CLAIMS THAT YOU FINALLY GIVE UP!

This isn't just a problem on the sick person's end of our healthcare system. It is also a problem for the providers. Your doctor's office has to have the ability to fill out several different kinds of forms for different problems and even more different forms for different insurers or providers.

In France the same form is used by all health care providers and there is only one healthcare system with the same form and the same payment. There are many other good things about the French system; but they are not directly related to this post.

Since this system of healthcare, the system France, England, Canada, Australia, and most of the other nations who rank higher than the USA works so well, you would think we would want to try to copy that system as much as we could.

We didn't, though. Instead we simply are going to force people to purchase insurance from the very insurance companies and providers who have been bilking the sick of their hard-earned money for decades.

I am surprised and happy that we are finally have a bill in the Senate of the USA that will beginning the transformation of our health system into something better. I am very unhappy that this bill will cost even more than our current system, will still not include all people, and will still have nothing in it to reduce the cost or improve the quality of healthcare.

There are some good things about the bill: elimination of preexisting conditions from consideration for insurance is an example. What it appears, though, is that there will still be no direct competition between the insurance companies whose objective isn't to provide the best healthcare possible, but to make the greatest profit possible. Anything in this bill to limit the insurance companies will simply require them to spend a little time figuring out how to continue to screw the sick out of their money without providing good healthcare.

On top of that through taxes, the American people will be picking up some of the money will go to the insurance companies, NOT directly to health care but through a profit making company!

Why? Why aren't we using a system similar to those countries who are ahead of us in quality of healthcare? It is simple. It is because it is being caused "the beginning of socialized medicine." Now even if it is totally wrong, everyone knows that socialized medicine doesn't work. You don't get to choose your doctor. You have long lines to wait in for care, etc., etc., etc. I say entirely wrong, because none of the things wrong is actually wrong, or greatly exaggerated.

My wife had to wait four months to see a neurologist in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the major health centers of our nation even though she was insured. I have spoken to a Canadian friend who waited a little longer for that for surgery; but the surgery was completely successful. She was healed; but instead of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars for that surgery, she walked out of the hospital with a bill of...............NOTHING!

My wife, Gay, on the other hand, had to pay a copay to see her physician, a percentage of each procedure the doctor ordered, etc. This was in addition to having already paid the total out-of-pocket costs for some parts of her policy. Likewise the medications she was required to take were costing us about $800 per month COPAY! Most of those, by the way, were generics; but the ones that were not were VERY expensive. One 30-day prescription for a 1/2 ounce bottle of eye drops had a $125/month copay on it; and she used four different drops!

I am happy we have a bill on the floors of congress that will help a little toward improving healthcare; but I shall be deeply disappointed if they do not work on this bill some more before passing it. I will be angry if there is no bill passed; but if it passes as it is, it is just not going to be as helpful nor will it save as much as it could.

I believe we, like most of the developed world, should adopt a single payer healthcare system, which the Republicans call "socialized medicine." They never call the Insterstate Highway system "socialized roads," nor the Marine Corps "socialized military." They don't call the Post Office "socialized correspondence," nor the local fire department, "socialized fire protection. Besides that, all of these things work and work well.

I don't know how much longer I shall live; but for the rest of my life I shall continue to work as hard as I can to get the United States to work toward a health system not based in profit but in care. I may not succeed; but I shall be joyful in working toward the goal.

Sarah Palin's Resignation Explained

May be your best yet.

I support

Unity and Values

The family I grew up in, with a Republican mother and a Democrat for a father was interesting. They never argued politics, at least not in front of us; but they always joked about canceling out one another's vote. There was also a notable love for one another, not in the mushy way, but in something that nothing could crush.

Now, of me and my four siblings, I am likely the only Democrat, though I have one sister who doesn't really say one way or the other. My favorite brother-in-law regularly sends me anti-Democrat and ant-Obama email; but I always send him a response from http://www.snopes.com (The Urban Legends Page) or elsewhere about the truth behind them. He may not be learning anything from my responses; but, at least, he gets a positive response to his negative email.

I must admit that some of the absolute trash going around about Obama may hurt him in the fall; and there is no doubt that racism will have its effect on white voters, especially white, low information, voters. I know there is plenty to say about Hillary; and a lot of it is lies as well. That is the way the political process is played out in this century so far. Anytime I get an email that is a false statement about either of our candidates I "reply all" and send them to Snopes, an article in a major newspaper, or elsewhere for information about the truth behind the lie. (Yes, Obama was wearing native attire; but so was George Bush.)

I found success in bringing family members to Obama, though, on one close relative. Our only son (who tells me not to argue politics with him or his wife) called me and wanted to talk about the election. He is registered Republican; but, after a very long conversation, he has decided to support Obama in the general election. (It isn't difficult to undermine McCain's supposed strengths, since they are so few.) He finally agreed with me that Obama is the best chance we've had in a long time (at least in my lifetime, I believe) to create major change in how politics "works" (or doesn't work) in the USA.

For most of my family voting Republican is seen as a "values" issue; but they don't really look at the actual values of the Republican or Democratic candidates themselves.

Hillary Clinton, for example, knows that her husband cheated on her; but they have remained married through a lot of crap and, I believe, still care for one another even with Bill's "problems." That, to me, shows they have some very good values when it comes to marital commitment overall. Obama is married to his first wife as well. McCain, OTOH, had an affair with Cindy before they ended up married. For the Bible bangers I would think this would be enough to discredit him; but he's a Republican and "Republicans are the party of values." I should also add that I know a lot about Hillary's Washington Church and Obama's Chicago Church; but I don't remember hearing anything about McCain's Church if he has one. If they're so interested in having "Christian" candidates, I would thiink they'd look at that as well. For me, though, their good deeds, their beliefs about the possibilities of the human race, their ability to make fair judgments, etc., are much more important than whether or not they claim to be Christians.

Yeah! Right! Values like hate, hypocrisy, homophobia, eliminating the rights of Americans to make choices related to reproduction, etc., always waving the flag as though they own it while dismantling the constitution. They have values that say it is a good thing for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. They apparently believe that God wants Republicans to kill a lot of innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. (It is more likely to occur, though, if there is oil under the land.) Values that believe virtually everything in the USA should be privatized so there is competition, which of course, is supposed to cause prices to get lower. (I guess you've noticed how well that's worked in the health care arena.)

They have values that relate anyone who doesn't agree with them as "evil," and not just wrong. (I got to admit that after the first four years, though, evil and Bush virtually became synonyms for me.)

Right after 9/11, when everyone started wearing flag pins, I copied the UN flag from the Internet site; and I managed to make it into a lapel pin. Most people (I mean almost no one) didn't know what it was; but I was making my statement about the fact that 9/11 wasn't just an American tragedy, but a world tragedy. To dismiss those from all the other countries working in the World Trade Center towers as though they didn't matter is a sign of the tendency of the USA to dismiss others from other parts of the world as unimportant. Some folk asked; and, after telling them, just looked at me like I was from outer space.

Right after 9/11 the world, virtually every country, was on our side. There were pro-USA rallies all around the world; but, after Iraq and other empty gestures on the part of the USA most of that world is angry with us instead of siding with us. Those of you without friends in England, Canada, Australia, Gambia, or Austria or other parts of the world may not hear about the anger; but I do. I live in a mini "UN" in my apartment community.

During the attempted and successful campaign of lies that would get us into the Iraq War, I regularly emailed my friends about what a mistake it would be for us to invade Iraq. I predicted everything that would happen; and I was only wrong because it was even worse than I imagined. I had studied that part of the world in seminary; and I knew the hostilities between the subgroups would be a problem for our troops and for building any new government in Iraq. Meanwhile we kept hearing that we were "winning." "Mission accomplished!" The lies kept coming; and eventually even the "less than mainstream" media weren't even giving us a good idea of what was really happening there. Many, perhaps most, of those friends became angry with me for being "unamerican," not being patriotic, etc. The whole "Freedom Fries" concept amused me and angered me at the same time. Just because they were smarter than we were about Iraq doesn't mean we should be hostile to our long term allies, does it?

Somehow, though, I don't see War as a positive value. Yes, there may be some wars that ought to be fought---like stopping Hitler, for example; but most of the wars we have fought in the last 100+ years were unnecessary. They weren't to protect us or even to protect our allies, but to prove our power or to prove we were right about our ideas and to keep the military industrial complex making lots of money.

Then there is the cost of the war and the way it is being fought with civilian contractors who make a lot more than the soldiers and live in more comfortable situations and who also SEEM to not have any rules. How did that happen? Oh, yes. We want to privatize everything: Medicare, Social Security, the army, the navy, building roads, building bridges, etc. "Let the people who use them pay for them." If the trend continues I'm afraid I'll live in a home where I cannot afford to pay the fire department for protection and lose my home; and I KNOW I'll never be able to afford my own police protection. In America right now millions of people cannot afford life saving ROUTINE health care because of our insurance system that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.

This is what we'll get with John McCain. He may not be quite as bad as Bush; but he could also be even worse.

So I am going to the poll next week to vote for Barack Obama. In November I expect I'll be voting for Obama; but, if not, I'll be voting for Hillary Clinton because Democrats are the party of real values: equality, looking out for the little guy, support for unions, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and, best of all perhaps, FREEDOM. George and his flunkies may continue to try to take it away from us; but with a Democratic President and Democratic congress the world and America will all be singing, "Let freedom ring."

Mike

This has also been posted to uniteddems.com and bluegrassroots.org