Happy 2019!
We’re staying busy as we head into the year that will begin the presidential election cycle.
On January 17 at 8 pm EST we had a conference call featuring Howie Hawkins talking about the Green New Deal. Howie recently ran for Governor in New York with the Green New Deal as part of his platform.
One of the most important pieces of legislation of our times, one that will impact every person in the United States, is currently being drafted in a non-transparent and non-participatory process by a small group of insiders. Rep. Pramila Jayapal is redrafting HR 676, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, which has existed for 15 years and is based on the Physician’s Working Group Proposal, the work of the single payer movement.
Single payer activists are calling on Jayapal to share the content of her draft so the extensive expertise of the single payer movement can advise her. On Monday, December 17, 2018, the Health Over Profit for Everyone campaign delivered a letter to Congresswoman Jayapal requesting her to share a draft text of HR 676 with the single payer movement for review and input. See, Letter to Congresswoman Jayapal – Release the text of HR 676.
The letter was developed at an in-depth strategy conference that developed a plan for success, How We Win National Improved Medicare for All. The strategy includes, as an immediate priority, protecting and improving HR 676, which has the support of 123 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives. The letter to Jayapal points out a red flag, stating:
“Some of your public statements recently have caused concern. In particular, statements about your desire to align the text with the Senate bill, S 1804, which is inferior to HR 676. Indeed, the Senate Bill is so deficient that many in the single payer movement cannot support it unless it is significantly revised.”
This comparison between the House Bill and S.1804, whose lead sponsor is Sen. Bernie Sanders, describes some of the serious deficiencies of that bill. Many single payer advocates cannot support the Sanders bill because, for example, it leaves out people who require long-term care, protects the profits of investor-owned providers and has loopholes that allow the insurance industry to continue to participate, making it, in essence, a multi-payer bill. HOPE will also focus attention on Sanders and his co-sponsors to push for improvements to that bill, but the threats to the gold standard bill, HR 676, are more imminent.
Jayapal should follow the lead of Green New Deal legislative advocates. They published a Google Doc with the draft of the Green New Deal legislation. This approach would allow the single payer movement to see the draft and provide Jayapal’s office with comments on it. There is a lot of experience and expertise in the single payer movement that should be involved in order to produce the best bill possible.
The letter points out that the single payer movement wants to be a strong ally to Rep. Jayapal and do all it can to help pass HR 676. A transparent and participatory process will ensure a bill is introduced that the movement can support and can feel confident mobilizing people to help make national improved Medicare for all a reality. Jayapal should see mass participation of the movement as a way to strengthen the bill and its chance for passage.
At the same time, there is anger in the single payer movement at Jayapal’s lack of transparency and that a bill that will impact everyone is being drafted by a small group of insiders. People are ready to protest the lack of transparency and participation but want to give Jayapal the opportunity to do the right thing before escalating to protest.
The strategy report points out that the Democratic Party has undermined the single payer movement multiple times, pointing to the Clinton era when HillaryCare created concentrated private insurance corporations and required people to buy insurance, and ObamaCare, which required people to buy private insurance as well. Neither administration would consider single payer Medicare for all, despite majority support.
They also point to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s recent refusal to endorse Medicare for all while listing a host of false policy approaches that will not solve the US healthcare crisis. And Speaker Pelosi is criticized for sending the single payer movement down the false path of state legislation when single payer is not possible at the state level. These refusals by Democratic leadership to support meaningful reform come when the United States has a major healthcare crisis — 30,000 people die annually because they do not have insurance, the life expectancy of people in the US is decreasing and more than 100,000 deaths could be prevented annually if the US had a single payer system like France or the United Kingdom. There is too much at stake. People will not let the Democrats send the movement off course again.
Everyone should take action because healthcare impacts everyone. Contact Congresswoman Jayapal. HOPE has created a tool for you to use to Call Rep. Jayapal and urge her to release the text. When you contact her office, let them know about how the Green New Deal draft legislation has been made public and demand the same be done for HR 676.
The Honorable Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
319 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Ms. Jayapal:
We write to you as longtime advocates for National Improved Medicare for All as embodied in the current version of HR 676. We have championed HR 676 for the past fifteen years, working with Congressman John Conyers and his staff.
We have a deep appreciation for your willingness to not only take on the lead sponsorship of HR 676 but also to create a Medicare for All Caucus. We believe we share a common vision of a national, universal, publicly-funded, comprehensive and high-quality healthcare system in the United States.
We understand that you are rewriting HR 676 before you introduce it in 2019. It is important to us that HR 676 not be weakened in this process, but be made stronger. We ask that you release a draft of the text of the revised HR 676 so that longtime single payer advocates can read it and share our views with you before the bill is introduced.
Transparency matters greatly to us as does getting the policy right. HR 676 must be strong from the outset so that as it goes through the legislative process, we can be sure the final bill will solve the healthcare crisis in the United States.
We know you have met with representatives of some groups. Opening up the process will ensure that the best information on expanded and improved Medicare for all is contained in the bill. And, it will ensure that the whole single payer movement is in support of the bill.
Some of your public statements recently have caused concern. In particular, statements about your desire to align the text with the Senate bill, S 1804, which is inferior to HR 676. Indeed, the Senate Bill is so deficient that many in the single payer movement cannot support it unless it is significantly revised. We want the House Bill to remain strong and fully supported by the entire single payer movement as the gold standard that the Senate must measure up to.
We are committed to winning National Improved Medicare for All and believe the movement is capable of winning this issue in the near future. It will be a historic victory for the United States. We want to help you succeed in leading this effort.
We urge you to release a draft copy of the new legislation before the end of the year so people can have input before it is made final. We are being asked to mobilize support for the new HR 676, but we cannot support a bill we have not seen.
Please let us know as soon as possible if you are willing to release a draft copy of the new legislation for input and when we can expect to receive it.
Kind regards,
Margaret Flowers, MD, coordinator, Health Over Profit for Everyone campaign
Kip Sullivan, Health Care for All Minnesota
Leigh K. Haynes – People’s Health Movement-USA*
Eric Naumburg, M.D., M.P.H., Healthcare is a Human Right Maryland
Kevin Zeese, co-director, Popular Resistance
Kay Tillow, Coordinator, All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
Sumitra Joy, National Consumer Voice Leadership Council-member elect*
Health Care for All Minnesota
Bill Moyer, Backbone Campaign
James Squire, MD United for Single Payer
Lee Stanfield, HOPE Steering Committee, Founder of Single-Payer NOW Tucson*
Jody Coss and Ed Klein, Co-directors, HOPE in the Midwest
Vanessa Beck, MSW, Coordinating Committee, Black Alliance for Peace*
Anne Scheetz, MD, Physicians for a National Health Program, Illinois Single-Payer Coalition, Chicago ADAPT, HOPE
Donna M. Ellington, M.Ed., EdS, Social Media Influencer
Ethel Long-Scott, Executive Director, Women’s Economic Agenda Project*
Bruce G Trigg, MD, Addiction Medicine Consultant
Note: Socialism has gained increased popularity in the United States as generational change leads people to thing of programs like healthcare for all, free college tuition and a more equitable economy, not the dated concept of the failed Soviet Union. Others see the recent evidence and impact of climate change as well as the degradation of the environment as requiring a new type of economy, ecosocialist. On a recent podcast, we discussed ecosocialism Victor Wallis author of Red Green Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Ecosocialism. Wallis sees ecosocialism as addressing two major crises of our era: growing wealth inequality and its resultant poverty, and climate change, which is central to the environmental crisis. Wallis explains why a livable future must be ecosocialist, what ecosocialism is and how we get there.
But, how does socialism fit in US elections? Bernie Sanders has put forward soft socialism, more in the format of FDR’s New Deal or Scandanavian Democratic Socialism, and shown its popularity among the US electorate. In countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba we see efforts to create ‘Socialism for the 21st Century’ learning from the mistakes of previous socialized systems and dealing with current challenges.
In the US, there is more socialism in place than we realize. It includes energy and water systems, public transportation and public lands and more, there are programs in cities and states as well as the nation that are socialized. People us socialized systems every day among them public schools fire departments, police, libraries, the Postal Service and more. These are institutions of public ownership and control. On the Clearing the FOG podcast we discussed the breadth of US socialism with Thomas Hanna, author of “Our Common Wealth: The Return of Public Ownership in the United States.”
The reality is there has been a strong strain of socialized economies in the North American from before the US was founded. It existed in Indigenous cultures as well as the colonies. Indeed, neither could have survived without communalism and socialized economies. John Curl documented this very deep history in “For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements and Communalism in America” where he showed worker-owned business, cooperatives, and mutual aid are part of the DNA of the United States, also discussed on our podcast.
Socialism is growing in the United States at the time of growth in popular movements for economic, racial and environmental justice as well as peace because the US faces multiple crisis situations. The Occupy Movement’s call for the 99% brought issues of the unequal economy into the national dialogue. We’ve advocated ‘economic democracy’ through our project It’s Our Economy even before we helped organize Occupy in Washington, DC. Much of our Agenda for Economic Democracy, is now part of the public dialogue. Parts of it like National Improved Mediwww.care for All and the Green New Deal, which began in the Green Party, are now becoming popular in the Democratic Party and have wide popular support.
The article below by Jon Olsen co-chair of the Maine Green Independent Party, describes how the Green Party of the United States has become an ecosocialist party as a result of amending its platform in 2016. The Green Party is in tune with the movements of our times that are seeking a more just economy that confronts racism that has been with the US since its founding, inequality which is broader than at any time in history as well as the urgent need to protect the environment. KZ
Clearly, since Bernie ran openly as a socialist, the word is coming back into use and out of the bogeyman closet at last! But people attach so many different meanings and connotations that it is best to articulate what may be its best use in 21st century USA. Among those trying to get a handle on it is the Green Party of the US, which recently in its revised platform declared in support of a socialism-in-process:
Some call this decentralized system “ecological socialism,” “communalism,” or “the cooperative commonwealth,” but whatever then terminology, we believe it will help end labor exploitation, environmental exploitation, and racial, gender, and wealth inequality and bring about economic and social justice due to the positive effects of democratic decision making. Production is best for people and planet when democratically owned and operated by those who do the work and those most affected by those decisions . . . not at the whim of centralized power structures of state administration or capitalist CEO’s and distant boards of directors.
I personally like the phrase “ecosocialism,” but not everyone does, so objections to it must be raised and addressed honestly. I can think of two principal related reasons why some object. First, when some people hear the word “socialism,” they still flash on the late-stage Soviet Union, as if that were the only possible model, but this response short-circuits thinking before it can get off the ground.
The second reason is related because it assumes that it will be too hard to overcome the first objection among other people, even if one is comfortable with the term. If we regard corporate globalism as the chief enemy of the people of the world, and as left activists, we must do so, then surely we ought not to be timid in using a term that unequivocally challenges that hegemony, namely socialism. However, it is incumbent upon us to clearly define what we mean by socialism, and not let false narratives be put in our mouths.
We need to invent a form of socialism that not only can replace the dominant feudal-like corporate structures we detest but just as importantly, be culturally acceptable to the general public. In the USA, of course, this is a challenge, but one we are capable of handling.
The Green Party platform description goes a long way toward clarifying our intent. Despite ideological resistance, even the strictest libertarian is not threatened by the existence of a cooperative health food store, or the municipally run library, though they can be termed socialist structures. Why? Because there is no government coercion!
But what if these cooperative enterprises were the dominant structures? What if we could have a referendum to yank the corporate charters of the most objectively malevolent mega-corporations—the ones that grossly offend the environment, human rights and practice extreme labor exploitation? What if we declared, as the ultimate collective sovereigns (remember “We, the People declare our own Constitution) that these offenders had not more than one year to sell off inventory and dismantle themselves or their Boards of Directors would be arrested for such crimes as poisoning the air, soil, and water, along with various fraudulent representations, and their corporate assets seized?
If the products and services provided were truly needed, they could be produced under terms consistent with ecosocialist values. We need to re-activate the original intent definition of socialism to mean “control by the working class” including those currently not employed—all those who have nothing to sell but their labor. This involves expropriating the expropriators. It does not mean, of course, killing them off or wholesale imprisoning them, although some cases must undergo careful evaluation in that regard. The word “socialism” is a defiant repudiation of the rule of capital which now has a stranglehold not only on “the” economy (as if there could only be one!) but on all three branches of this government, and of the pervasive culture of commercialism.
Some will object, with good reason, “What about all the employees who are displaced? They would rather work under exploitative conditions that have no income at all!” Of course, we need to plan ahead to provide at least equal if not better compensation from the moment of dissolution. We can do this!
There is work to be done until everyone has sufficient housing, food and water, energy supply, health services, and educational opportunities. Once we have achieved this, then we need to apply this test to the rest of the world—no end to the need for labor, once we reject the notion that only when a profit is to be made by the capitalist class, shall there be a demand for labor! Bad premise! It is a matter of re-allocation of resources away from a war economy and mega-profits fora few to humane objectives. It will be the responsibility of a Green eco-socialist government to facilitate this transition.
Will we allow private business? Indeed, for this is where we see the rewards of innovation via entrepreneurial energy and the motivation to invent. But these enterprises need to be run within the context of reasonable ecological and human rights parameters and at a scale consistent with local supervision. Instead of positive socialist features within the context of an overall capitalist economy (e.g. the Scandinavian countries), we do just the opposite! We allow creative small businesses to operate within the context of a decentralized cooperative economy. Not everyone wants the responsibility to be an owner or manager and will be satisfied to work for an entrepreneur, under humane and generous working conditions. We need to terminate conglomerates by outlawing one company owning another company, though it may be permissible for one family to own more than one small business.
Needless to say, as part of this radical change, we need to break up the huge media complex that dominates news coverage that increasingly is hardly respected, and appropriately so! We have to encourage honest journalism that feels no need to self-censor due to the need to conform to the value system of upper levels of corporate management, including CIA infiltration (note: Operation Mockingbird).
I look forward to an honest commitment to Truth, which is the daughter of Reality, no matter where she leads. Truth matters, but Reality does not care what people merely “believe.” It just is! If people in media positions are free to and encouraged to act with honor, we can get the truth. With truth we can pursue justice; and with justice, peace among all peoples becomes a realistic objective. All in favor, say “Aye!”
Jon Olsen is co-chair of the Maine Green Independent Party. He is a long time peace and justice activist and a Green Party member for 30 years. A graduate of Bates College in Maine with a degree in philosophy, he went to the University of Hawai’i for a Master’s Degree in the same field. He returned to Maine in 2001, serving twice on the Steering committee of the Maine Green Independent Party. He has conducted town caucuses and gathered signatures for Green Party gubernatorial candidates. His recent book, Liberate Hawai’i, describes the legal and historical research done by Hawaiian scholar-activists. The book documents the illegal claim of the US to the sovereignty of Hawai’I and demonstrates its fraudulent nature as well. Olsen draws a parallel with the similar fraudulent attempt by the late USSR to do the same to Lithuania.
This article is based on an article originally published in Vol. 34, Winter/Spring 2017, Green Horizons Magazine, GREEN PARTY and SOCIALISM—Engagement, but Marriage? by Jon Olsen. Note: The actual title of the article was mistitled as “But Marriage?” should have been “But is there a Marriage?”
This month progressives nationwide are talking about a Green New Deal, and, while mainstream media is saying that insurgent Democrats came up with this, we beg to differ!
We applaud the efforts of Democrats for finally adopting what the Global Greens began to work on in 2006 while noting that the delay of 12 years is very significant when it comes to climate change. Simultaneously, we are seeing National Improved Medicare for All impact the news cycle. The Green Party is changing the political dialogue and agenda in the United States more than people realize!
The Green Party has been advocating for a massive jobs and public works program to transition our energy infrastructure rapidly over to renewable energy under a Four Point Plan. The project truly began in 2006 with a Global Greens ‘Green New Deal Task Force’. It was brought into American Green political campaigns by Howie Hawkins when he ran for governor in 2014. Next Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka highlighted it in their 2016 presidential campaign while many more American Greens have run campaigns using it since. Part of this plan includes reduction in support for the largest polluter on earth, the Pentagon, through our anti-imperial planks. In 2016 we adopted ecosocialism to create a truly equitable ecological economy and grassroots democracy with an intersectional lens.
We would not be facing a climate crisis if the two parties had responded to the people and science on climate change, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved by Medicare for All, and untold heartache and suffering would have been avoided if Green anti-imperial policies had been adopted.
Our Green New Deal is formulated as a set of transitional demands with the understanding that fundamental structural change, moving us away from logic of a capitalist market system and towards a radically democratic reconfiguration in the United States, is the only way that a program for change can occur. Unlike the model advocated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Green Party proposal emphasizes public programs, not Wall Street ideas, and calls for a transformational change in energy production and the structure of the economy based in grassroots democracy.
We are in an ecological and economic emergency that requires fundamental system change. The American financial system is deeply connected to the multinational fossil fuel industry in ways that go well beyond the realm of what is attainable within the Democratic Party without a third party movement creating external grassroots pressure on elected officials.
For instance, the US dollar is linked to the Saudi Arabian oil barrel via a process known as petrodollar recycling, a complex system that came into existence when America went off the gold standard in the 1970s. Extrication from this is a complicated and intricate process that would dismantle much of the economic landscape that we occupy currently. When we say we need system change, we mean it and this is part of the reason why. Neither of the duopoly parties will take on this challenge without an external pressure being created by a third party because it is in their vested material interests not to do so. As Saudi Arabia continues to be a feature of the news cycle in relation to the war on Yemen and the brutal killing of reporter Jamal Khashoggi, we regretfully see this as an insurance policy that will maintain the security of the Saudi royal family regardless of humanitarian protests.
Historically, third parties have always developed progressive policies in coalition with popular movements and incubated them while building support before the mainstream is forced to adopt them. With single payer healthcare, Green Party US platform has advocated it since Ralph Nader ran for president in 2000. Every year since, 25,000-30,000 people have died because they do not have insurance. The lack of access to healthcare is an urgent national crisis that is causing unnecessary deaths and pain. The Democrats are finally acknowledging this, with 123 Democrats co-sponsoring the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, HR676, legislation based on the work of the Physicians Working Group who advocated for single payer.
The House bill contrasts with the bill introduced in the Senate by Bernie Sanders, S1804, which falls short in a number of areas, including no coverage for long term care and allowing for-profit providers to participate in Medicare for All. (See this comparison between the Senate and House bills.) The Senate bill came from compromises within the Democratic Party, the House bill from the single payer movement, and the Green Party sides with the movement.
We hope the Democrats will take other parts of the Green agenda as well. Green candidates have been calling for a 50% reduction in the Pentagon budget since the beginning of this century in contrast to the duopoly’s expanded military spending. We opposed the Iraq, Afghanistan, Libyan and Syrian wars. On November 29, 2018, a delegation led by the Green Party went to the International Criminal Court to urge a full investigation of crimes by Israel against Palestinians (click here to read about the Green Party US’s letter to the ICC). We advocate a foreign policy of diplomacy as opposed to militarist interventionism. The duopoly’s War On Terror has cost the United States $6 trillion neither the Democrats nor Republicans are willing to cut the military budget.
Image from National Priorities Project.
Even while some Democrats are taking on some of our issues, we do not expect either party to adopt a Green New Deal, Improved Medicare for All or seriously curtail militarist policy unless they are pressured by a grassroots movement and by a third party that gains political support.
The stronger the Green Party becomes in your state and nationwide, the more likely we will see positive changes. Even without winning office, Greens are impacting the direction of the country in instance where they are working in the grassroots. It is the combination of a mass movement and a viable progressive third party that will advance an agenda that will transform the nation. Help us get stronger. You can make a difference by supporting your local Green Party and building it into a dues-based membership organization.
“Tell no lies, claim no easy victories.”
Artist Statement:
Prof. Cedric J. Robinson’s oeuvre, which sought to define the coordinates of what he called the Black Radical Tradition, is inspirational during Trump time. As a Green, I seek to actualize system change as opposed to limiting the range of this movement to electoralism. I think the history of the events in 2004 are still instructive moving forward.
Music from Jukedeck – create your own at http://jukedeck.com