As healthcare activists, here’s one thing we hear all the time: “of course SinglePayer is the only way to fix healthcare; but the country’s not ready for it yet; let’s go slow, instead.” Meaning the country’s ready for failed reforms and an even more powerful insurance industry?.  Commentator Maggie Mahar looks at this argument, notes its parallels with the passage of Medicare, and argues that we actually are ready for SinglePayer reform now.  Meanwhile, we find labor’s advocacy for SinglePayer increasing, while Robert Samuelson, Mitt Romney, and Arnold Schwarzenegger continue their work enriching the healthcare corporations.

Brought to you by the National Nurses Organizing Committee as we organize to make 2007 the Year of SinglePayer Healthcare.

-In a rebuke to the “yes…but” crowd of people who admit SinglePayer is the only way to fix healthcare BUT think it’s not time yet, author Maggie Mahar writes of the striking parallels with the campaign for Medicare:

Ultimately, President Johnson succeeded by pulling doctors into his tent {for Medicare}. This could be done today–polls show that roughly 50% of U.S. physicians favor national health insurance. But public support was key.
And today, public support is building, especially among aging baby-boomers.
If you are forty and healthy, you may not feel the change in the zeitgeist. But today, boomers over 50 are beginning to face serious health problems. They talk about healthcare with an intensity that they once reserved for real estate. …
To build public support for radical health care reform we also need to train our sights on those on those who are making excessive profits in our money-driven health care system. A good campaign needs a good enemy-and the for-profit health care industry fits the bill perfectly.
Even Obama has suggested (however cautiously) that we should being to question the profitability of U.S. healthcare: “Another, more controversial area we need to look at is how much of our health care spending is going toward the record-breaking profits earned by the drug and health care industry,” he noted in January. “It’s perfectly understandable for a corporation to try and make a profit, but when those profits are soaring higher and higher each year while millions lose their coverage and premiums skyrocket, we have a responsibility to ask why.”
That Obama would dare to make such a remark shows how the mood of the country is changing. 

–PNHP activist Don McCanne joins Maggie Mahar at TPM Book Club and lays out a compelling case for why only SinglePayer will actually work.

-Labor continues to rally around HR 676, John Conyers’ SinglePayer bill, as the 100,000 members of the New York Capitol Area Labor Federation endorse the bill.  This makes SinglePayer the only real healthcare plan with a constituency (except that health insurers love mandated insurance), and ensures that Democratic Presidential candidates will have to grapple with this as some point.  They’re joined by The two largest healthcare unions in California, who are both working for SinglePayer.

–Meanwhile, discredited grump Robert Samuelson brilliantly figures out who’s causing the healthcare crisis: old people! 
He writes:

In our careless self-absorption, we are committing a political and economic crime against our children and perhaps — when they awaken to their victimization — even ourselves.

No mention of the mercenary insurance corporations bleeding us dry?  Bizarre.

–Employers continue to drop health coverage, pushing more risk onto individuals.

–And finally, even Mitt Romney seems ashamed of his healthcare plan mandating people sign up with private insurers.  Why aren’t other politicians embarrassed to copy it?  Arnold Schwarzenegger is not only copying it-but dreaming of the penalties he’ll impose if people don’t sign up.

If you want to join the fight for single-payer healthcare, sign up with SinglePayer.com, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee.  You can share your story about surviving the healthcare industry here, and start contacting media here.

All it took was one couple to ask one question…

In Orange County, Gonzalo Mendez, a tenant farmer in Westminster, and his wife Felicitas, a native of Puerto Rico, along with a group of Mexican American World War II veterans asked a fundamental question about their communities: If we are good enough to fight and die alongside Anglos, then why are my children not good enough to attend the same schools as their children? Early in 1945, They filed a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles against four Orange County school districts–Westminster, Santa Ana, Garden Grove and El Modena (now eastern Orange)–seeking an injunction that would order their schools’ integration.

Two years later, despite organized resistance by the school districts, and because of a great deal of effort by community organizers and a tremendous amount of personal time and money expended by the Mendez family, school segregation was no more in California. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled on April 14, 1947, that school districts could not segregate on the basis of national origin–that is, that the authorities could not make children go to separate, even if equal, schools simply because they were of Mexican descent.

(From LA Times via Mendezvwestminster.com)

So 60 years ago tomorrow, segregation began to fall. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that California schools could no longer discriminate based on national origin. And while it certainly did not end all state-sanctioned discrimination, it did begin a process of breaking down these barriers. This was the beginning of a new era when this state and this nation truly began to ask itself why some citizens were treated unlike the others, and why the color of someone’s skin should dictate whether or not that person should be treated like a fellow human being. Let’s take a moment today to remember those brave souls in orange county who took on not just school segregation, but the entire scourge of racism in California, and in America.

X-posted from California Notes. H/T to juls for her response to Grossman that encouraged the x-post.

by The Bayne of Blog

Look at any election results map and you would think that California is two states. Progressives democrats have a very strong hold on coastal areas, especially Los Angeles and San Francisco, with conservative, moderates and republicans claiming majority status on most of the inland areas.

Those are my words from a couple weeks ago when I wrote about the meeting of a group of rural Democratic Central Committee chairs meeting in Fresno. One of the outcomes of that meeting was a determination to increase the influence of progressives in rural counties.

Joshua Grossman, President of Progressive Punch has written a piece for California Progress Report entitled “The Secret is Stockton” in which he looks to the progressive central valley city as a key to California’s blue hue. [Grossman’s article is also posted here, at Calitics.] All that’s needed is a little  help.

This land could be fertile terrain for political progressives, as long as it receives a modest irrigation flow of money and political expertise. This land is called Stockton.

[Join me on the flip for more.]

In a bit of a history lesson, Grossman talks about the influx of working class people as “Democratic Okies” came to the valley to escape the Dust Bowl in the 1930’s. The same thing is happening now, though on a lesser scale, as people escape the outrageous home prices of the Bay Area and move inland. Of course, many of these people are progressives and Democrats. That, Grossman says, affords valley progressives a great opportunity, an opportunity progressives waste at their own peril.

California’s coastal progressives ignore the Valley at their peril. It’s rapidly growing while the Bay Area’s population is essentially stable. Without combating Republicans and conservative Democrats in the Valley so that it doesn’t become their 21st century equivalent of what Orange County represented for the right wing in the 1980s and `90s, California will slowly but inexorably slide from being a blue state to being a purple one overall. That’s because the other rapidly growing parts of California, the Inland Empire counties of Riverside and San Bernardino lean to the Republicans and carry increasing heft in California politics as they mushroom in population and Los Angeles stagnates along with the Bay Area.

  I don’t completely agree with his premise that no one is “doing partisan electoral work from a progressive perspective on the ground in Stockton,” but I do think we could be doing more. Like involving the new folks in town in progressive actions in the rural areas and the valley. This means we have to stop hiding and stop being afraid of showing our progressive side in public. Progressives should be working hard in every “red” area of the state. I believe we can make a difference, not overnight, but our actions will pay off in the long run.

That’s why I disagree with this statement by Grossman.

California coastal progressives from places like the Bay Area need to think strategically. We shouldn’t be channeling scarce resources to the sparsely populated Gold Country Congressional districts of Doolittle & Lungren, however much their stench offends our nostrils. Those districts are just too Red. Even if we defeat Doolittle because he’s indicted (the only way it’ll happen), we’d lose the seat back two years later.

If we don’t start now, then when. This attitude is one of the chief reasons California remains two states, one red and one blue. Too many Democrats refuse to believe the red areas are worth fighting for, and they do it at their own peril.

Stockton is a good starting point, and for now it may even be key, but California has 58 counties, most of them inland and most of them rural. The red districts aren’t asking for the whole pie, just a fair share to help us move toward blueness. As we talked about at our recent meeting, we’re

not interested in a “one-size-fits-all” approach that may not address the unique situations found in individual rural counties, but want to make decisions based on the needs of their particular counties with support and resources from the state party. They also want the state party to focus on them early, not after polls show they can actually win tough races.

[snip]

Part of that plan will focus on getting Democrats into local elected and appointed positions to begin building a “farm team.” They feel it is important to not only elect Democrats in red counties to the Assembly and Senate, but also get Democrats established in local positions, such as Board of Supervisors, School Boards, and a myriad of commissions and special districts, so that a viable farm team can be built for future candidates for Assembly, Senate and even Congress. Early involvement, they feel, means a better chance at success, both immediately and down the road.

Stockton has already set a great example. Look at what they did in the last election. Perhaps they are the key, so why not open the door wide.

UPDATE: I just spoke to the media folks over at the CalChamber, who called in response to my phone call.  Apparently, the wires between them, the Capitol Morning Report, and umm…me, got crossed somehow.  I can now confirm that this was a mistake, and the CalChamber has not endorsed Ms. Nguyen over Van Tran.  Well, I guess that Janet will likely be running for re-election.  Too bad, that would have been fun.

Janet Nguyen is still fighting for her supervisorial seat, so I must say that I was quite shocked to get this little tidbit from the Capitol Morning Report in my inbox from a friend:

CalChamber reports endorsing Republican  Janet Nguyen for the AD 68 Primary Election. Nguyen is a Garden Grove City Council member and seeks to replace fellow Republican  Van Tran who is not termed out until 2010.

It looks like she has no intention of sticking around long in OC’s First District, and would rather pursue her fight with Van Tran. Now, I can’t say that I’m particularly opposed to that fight. It’s just, well, that was quick. It could be an interesting race, Janet Nguyen vs. Van Tran, a lot of interesting relationships there.  But, I’ll leave that to others to go into. 

Two months ago, I wrote a story about how Arnold Schwarzenegger is not that great on the environment, and the hype surrounding His Greenitude is largely a media creation.  Today, the LA Times gets around to the same thing, in what is actually a brave move to rewrite the narrative by using the actual facts.

Back home, environmentalists see the governor’s green credentials as thin.

The governor has taken more than $1 million in campaign money from the oil industry, whose products contribute to the greenhouse gas buildup that Schwarzenegger says he wants to roll back. And he is not reliable in using his bill-signing powers to protect the environment, activists say.

more on the flip…

Each year, the California League of Conservation Voters puts out an annual scorecard that rates the governor on a scale of 0 to 100, based on the environmental bills he has signed or vetoed. Last year, Schwarzenegger’s grade was 50, down from the previous two years when he logged a 58.

Gray Davis, the governor Schwarzenegger ousted in the 2003 recall, scored 75 in 2002 and 85 the year before that.

“Despite the governor’s public embrace of the environment, his record on signing good environmental bills into law remains mediocre,” the league said in its annual report card.

I don’t expect the national media to understand this.  After all, Arnold’s bringing sexy back to the environment.  But locally, there has to be some pushback against this absurd notion that the guy with the fleet of Hummers is the nation’s biggest environmentalist.  In fact, within the article, Peter Nicholas explains that this is all mainly an election strategy:

…audio recordings of the governor’s private meetings show that his aides have seen political value in making the environment a pet issue.

“Every four or five weeks, we’re going to spend an entire week on the environment,” the governor’s communications director, Adam Mendelsohn, told him in a private meeting in early 2006. ” … I do not believe it’s smart politics here in California to not talk about your environmental stuff.” […]

In the recordings, Schwarzenegger seems to wonder if people would accept a high-living, Hummer-driving ex-muscleman as an environmentalist.

“Here I was driving Hummers,” he says at one point. “I don’t know if I leave myself open here by calling myself an environmentalist. So we should just be aware of that.”

(These were the real revelations in the not-so-secret Schwarzenegger tapes, not the “hot-blooded” nonsense.)

I would argue that now, Arnold’s green lip service keeps him nationally relevant, and keeps his approval ratings up.  He’s a decent environmental governor for a Republican, but he falls well short of even Gray Davis’ record.  This makes him useful to the environmental movement, as they can say “See, even a REPUBLICAN supports our cause,” but it doesn’t do much to roll back global warming pollution, up 18% since 1990.

Nicholas also remembers something the whole country never knew – that he didn’t write AB 32, and it wasn’t a slam dunk that he would support it:

With only one day left in the legislative session, it was by no means certain that Schwarzenegger would sign the bill. Powerful interests stood in opposition. Business groups – the core of Schwarzenegger’s fund-raising base – feared that it would jack up costs.

Schwarzenegger wanted business-friendly provisions that would allow companies to trade emissions credits, meaning some could pay for the right to pollute.

The governor’s office offered “a number of amendments that would have watered down provisions of the mandatory reductions,” Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles), a coauthor of the bill, said in an interview.

A game of chicken followed. Nuñez told the governor’s staff that he would push forward with or without Schwarzenegger’s support. The governor threatened to veto the bill if his changes weren’t adopted, Nuñez said.

With Nuñez poised to tell a news conference that he was proceeding alone and Schwarzenegger needing legislative achievements to fuel his reelection campaign, the governor signed on. The trading system Schwarzenegger wanted is allowed under the law but is not mandatory.

“It was touch-and-go until the very end as to whether or not the governor would sign the bill,” said Ann Notthoff, California advocacy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who was involved in the discussions.

We all know that he vetoed other environmental bills.  We know that his appointee voted to approve the environmentally harmful BHP Billiton LNG Terminal which was thankfully stopped by Democrats on the Land Commission panel.  We know that Senate Democrats are so fed up with his lax regulation of AB 32 that they offered a raft of new legislation to fight global warming.

I believe that environmental activists don’t speak up about this much because they find Arnold to be a useful advocate.  He can be heard by groups that would normally tune out the message.  And that’s helpful.  But they should use this as a lever to get real action and change in California.  Every threatened veto, every slip on legislation, they should be tied to Arnold like an anvil.  “He talks the talk but refuses to walk the walk.”  That’s how an effective environmental movement would act.

I have seen this piece by Joshua Grossman all over the blogosphere this week.  I agree with much of what he says, but disagree strongly with this passage:

But there’s not anyone doing partisan electoral work from a progressive perspective on the ground in Stockton. California coastal progressives from places like the Bay Area need to think strategically. We shouldn’t be channeling scarce resources to the sparsely populated Gold Country Congressional districts of Doolittle & Lungren, however much their stench offends our nostrils. Those districts are just too Red. Even if we defeat Doolittle because he’s indicted (the only way it’ll happen), we’d lose the seat back two years later.

There is just so much here where should I start?  How about typical old view of politics: limited resources?  Have we learned nothing from Dean and what happened in 2006?  We can compete everywhere and we can find the money to run competitive races in places where people thought we had no hope.  This logic would meant giving up on McNerney before he even got started, after all who would have thought we would have unseated Pombo?

There is organizing work going in the Valley.  Randy is your man and his post in response to Grossman is worth a read.  We need to fund the 58 County Strategy, not limit where we take it to the Republicans.

Case in point is CA-04, one of the districts Grossman thinks we should write off as “too Red”.  He suggests that the only way to beat Doolittle is for him to be indicted and even then we would lose the seat two years later.  Joshua, did you not see Charlie Brown come within 3 points of Doolittle despite being massively outspent and not getting much of anything in the way of party support?  The DCCC didn’t give him anything, nor did the CDP.  He did it on his own.  Hopefully this time around he gets more resources not less.  Charlie proved that this district is winnable.

We need to do several things at once: reinvigorate old school non-progressive blue areas like the Stockton area supervisorial district and we need to work to elect guys like Charlie who are a match for their district.

I agree that Stockton is one solution, but it is not THE solution.