PHIMG Coalition - Grassroot voices demanding Medicare For All!

Where do we go from here?

Written by Administrator

Wednesday, 16 December 2009 23:47

By Ajamu, Sankofa, PHIMG.org

I do not have the answer; but the question is a necessary beginning.

Barack Obama is launching a mammoth effort to move the political center of the U.S. to the right. It is a stunning ambition far beyond the reach of Reagan, Clinton, or the Bush dynasty. His extraordinary Oslo speech, referencing Martin Luther King Jr. to declare that "war is peace"; was nothing short of wizardry on the world stage. Now we have the possibility of the doctrine of perpetual war prosecuted by the U.S. rising to a universal norm of humane conduct. In addition to the triumphalist new vision of the U.S. on issues of war and peace, the U.S. fervently ignores the most urgent threat to human survival that is presented by global climate destruction. Both of these issues profoundly impact human health.

We as healthcare activists must now forge a political strategy within the political terrain of a powerful and ultra-modern nation-state that is systemically defying, through deliberate deceptions, norms of civil conduct that once offered some buffer to the decent of the modern world into barbarism and unprecedented human suffering. So what do the political and economic elites of the U.S. really care about the guarantee of comprehensive healthcare to those within their borders?

The answer is clear. They are perfectly comfortable convincing us that they are helping us while they systematically attempt an historic transfer of enormous resources from us to an industry that perpetuates the healthcare crisis by denying access to healthcare for its own self-aggrandizement. At the same time, these elites have the temerity to lie about their intention by declaring that universal healthcare access has now been achieved through legislation that is being hatched in the White House. This is moral depravity at a scale that many of us find impossible to internalize because it is far too painful to bear.

So what do we do? We must internalize it because when we do, we give rise to the seeds for our renewed activism and courage. We must become stronger to withstand what is at hand.

We need to appreciate that we are far from being alone. Folks across this nation, ordinary folks like you and me who have become active on these issues, are now far less naive than they were just 18 months ago. Indeed, there has been (and it is still ongoing) a sea change in consciousness among ordinary grassroots human rights organizers that is preventing them from being as gullible to charismatic pied piper political leaders of this recent period who have depended on our ignorance and need to feel good and to be reassured.

This is a sign of hope.

If I had one recommendation, it is this: we must build and sustain larger and more diverse mass high profile direct actions in the streets across the country for Medicare for All. We must forever end inordinate deference to elected officials. We must push them to represent us. We can not expect them to lead us to victory. We must lead ourselves to victory.

Lastly, Obama blind sided us once already; but it must never happen again. In the future, we should only have ourselves to blame.Toto has pulled back the curtain.

Now is the time for us to go back to our base, to go home. There is no place like it.

Comments (1)

Hello Ajamu Sankofa. I was pleased to hear you twice on "Education at the Crossroads" with Basir Mchawi and Sol McCant on WBAI. (See www.takebackwbai.org) And how I got here.

Some people were not fooled by Pres. Obama - such as Glen Ford and Bruce A. Dixon on Black Agenda Report www.blackagendareport.com I did vote for Obama, with reservations. I heard his 2004 Keynote address at the Dem.National Convention and figured he was too centrist.

I think you and others who have written that this is a hopeful moment in the movement for single payer - universal health care for all in the US are doing good organizing work. I really think it is do-able. I was slow to join in. As a person who is very disabled by illness (CFS/ME), I can't do demonstrations. Noam Chomsky once said, in re political work for peace, every bit helps. Howard Zinn has said that you never know what thing you do will inspire someone else to do something. I applaud direct action. My marching days are over, but so far, my art is ongoing. In the years that I've been ill, I have become more thinking (rather than physical doing). I've worked for years on working out how to do political art and am getting where I want to be. And doing it as can.

I had the privilege of being in my 20s in the 1960s. The spirit of activism has never died and young people are leading new ways. Howard Zinn keeps saying that change comes from the bottom up, not the top down. We can do it. We can get health care for all. I feel the movement growing.