Barnmaven

My problem with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

I have “left-of-center” stamped on my very bones.  In every argument or discussion I’ve ever had about politics, my question has always been “how do we care for those who can’t care for themselves?”  It is truly one of my biggest concerns.  I love underdogs, I hate bullies, I wish desperately to live in a world where the powerful don’t enrich themselves by sucking life, energy and money from the weak.   I want to live in a world where sick adults don’t molest, rape or murder children.  I want to live in a world where its OK to be whatever color/culture/religion/orientation/gender/size you happen to be and you don’t get points docked for not fitting a cultural norm.

No, that world will never exist.  I will nonetheless always seek to support a reality where people care for one another, where the ideals we live by whether we are Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Jews or Pagans include at the top of the list ”LOVE ONE ANOTHER.”

I love the idea of ensuring health care for every man, woman and child in this country.  It’s an ideal well-rooted in humanitarian principle.  But, my dear friends, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act doesn’t ensure health care for everyone.  It ensures everyone has health insurance.

Insurance is not care.  Having health insurance doesn’t mean we get quality health care – or affordable health care, for that matter.  In fact:

A 2009 study published in the American Journal of Medicine found that in 2007, 62% of people declaring bankruptcy had over $1000 of unpaid medical expenses.  92% of those cases had medical expenses over $5,000, and 80% of people filing for bankruptcy had medical insurance.  What does this tell us?  That even people who have medical insurance cannot afford their medical bills.

The costs of basic medical procedures have risen dramatically since 1943, when Congress passed a new tax policy making employer-provided medical insurance tax-free.  This subsidization caused the employer-provided-insurance model to become the dominant system of medical insurance in the U.S.

So why has this caused medical costs to rise?  A lot of reasons.  For a start,  if the employer is paying 80% of the bill for my annual exam, I as an individual have nearly zero incentive to price-shop amongst medical providers for the most efficient and cost-effective practitioner.  My selection criteria becomes one of convenience:  How soon can you schedule me and will you bill my insurance company directly so I don’t have to waste time filing a claim? 

When consumers no longer see cost as a factor, costs will naturally rise.     Spending on healthcare has risen at more than three times the rate of the consumer price index since the 1970's. 

I think it becomes even more complicated when doctors are required to offer certain discounts to private insurance enlistees.  In order to keep their bottom line, the list price of the procedure must rise.  This means that any individual who doesn’t have health insurance or for whom that doctor isn’t in their network will pay more for the same procedure than the person whose insurance network the doctor belongs to. 

So cost of care is a big issue that isn't really solved by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, because the system that caused prices to inflate over time is left intact.  But that's not my biggest problem with the insurance companies.  The biggest problem I see with Obamacare, or any legislation that attempts to overhaul healthcare whilst leaving Big Insurance intact, is in effect leaving the cat in charge of the creamery.

Over time, the insurance companies, not our doctors, have gained control over most of the decisions to be made about what courses of treatments, medications and number of visits or treatments the patient may have.   When my doctor recently prescribed thyroid medication for me, the insurance company didn’t want me to take the dessicated pig thyroid my doctor wanted me to have, andwhich costs considerably less than the synthetic form.  They wanted me to take synthetic thyroid medication and would only provide benefits if I got the synthetic instead.  I ended up buying the natural thyroid and paying for it out of pocket.  Likely my copay on the synthetic product would have been about the same as paying in full for the naturally obtained medicine, but why would I take a more expensive, synthetic product just so my employer could pay money to the pharmaceutical company?  Furthermore, how could an insurance company claims analyst who has never met me have more power to determine what medication I should take than my own doctor?

They don’t, really, but over time what’s going to happen, now that insurance coverage is a mandate, is that the doctors who have heretofore been able to maintain discretion in the treatment of their patients because they don’t participate in network plans will either become tools of the Big Insurance or they will go out of business.

The other problem with Employer-provided medical insurance is the lack of choice to the consumer.  We are paying for group plans with coverages some of us will never use.  I’m pretty sure my single coworker Bob would rather not pay additional premium for an annual gynecological exam and birth control coverage.  I’d prefer not to have part of my premium going for obstetrical care, since I’m all done with the baby-having, but since its part of our “plan” I don’t have a choice. 

Thanks to the plan passed by our President and our Congress, Big Insurance is still fully in control of our health care.  That means our health care costs will continue to rise, even more dramatically once there is no longer any competition in the market.  All doctors will march to the orders given to them by non-medically trained personnel who process claims based on complicated algorithms about which procedure or medication is more profitable for the insurance company.

So we're stuck with  a nightmare of mounting insurance costs, mounting medical costs, and more people not getting the care they really need because they can’t afford it.   

If the Republicans succeed in their vow to repeal Obamacare, you can be assured that they will craft a plan equally as heinous.  It might not contain an individual mandate, but you can bet your bippy it won’t address Big Insurance either.  After all, Big Insurance spends millions of dollars (if not more) helping our leaders in Congress to get elected.  Politicians don’t bite the hand that feeds them – and trust me, that hand doesn’t belong to you or to me.

True healthcare overhaul would deconstruct the health insurance system as it exists.  It would put the power of treatment back into the hands of doctors.  It would create a competitive market for healthcare providers so that doctors could choose what to charge for their services.  Charge too much, you limit the number of people who will seek treatment from you, particularly if any number of equally good doctors are charging less for the same.  It would reward practitioners with low costs and high success rates.  It would allow consumers to choose what kinds of medical insurance they would like to carry, and provide pools of funding for the poor and the currently unemployed to obtain basic medical care.  It would seek ways to assist patients with catastrophic medical issues in finding appropriate care and having some power in making decision about the courses of treatment they wished to pursue.  It would address and alter the relationship between Big Pharma and the FDA.  

Big Insurance has no compassion for the patient.  Big Insurance cares only about profit margins.  Sick people aren’t profitable, so they’ve found a way to make well people pay more all the while raking in the money while patients continue to receive substandard care and grapple with out-of-pocket costs that set them back or make them go bankrupt.

What, you ask, about the people who can now get insurance that couldn’t before because they were already sick?  They’ll benefit from the pre-existing conditions clause of Obamacare, won’t they?  Yes and no.  I know plenty of people who have pre-existing conditions who are thrilled right now because they can finally get health insurance.  But is health insurance what they really need?  Or is it affordable health CARE?    Wouldn’t they benefit more if the costs of the procedures they needed costs only hundreds or thousands of dollars instead of tens and hundreds of thousands?  Wouldn’t they benefit more if we allowed them to see the doctors they were comfortable with rather than the doctors the insurance company says they must?  With properly funded pools for the uninsured, they’d have financial support for the treatment they needed, and that treatment need not come at a grossly inflated cost.

The concept and the dream behind Obamacare, that I get.  I agree and I applaud.  Everyone who needs medical care should be able to obtain it.  

The reality of the plan that has now passed the scrutiny of SCOTUS frightens and worries me.  Our government keeps getting bigger and costlier and keeps feeding the giant corporations that are chewing up and spitting out people like you and me as if we were simply more fodder for their coffers.  They grow fatter and wealthier while I put off getting my own medical needs met so I can care for my children, because our insurance isn’t so great on the mental health and autism issues, and I have two children who need a psychiatrist to manage their medications.  I should have better choices than this.  Thanks to legislation that continues to put all the power into the hands of my insurance company, I probably never will.

War or distraction, Part I.

First it was the national conversation around birth control, which brought us the absurd photographs of a mostly male, mostly white group of senators debating contraception was a necessary part of insurance coverage.  Next it was the Ann Romney/working moms vs stay at home moms debate.

 

 

This week we've got the gratuitously sensational TIME cover of Jamie Lynne Grumet breastfeeding the largest three year old I've ever seen, and an outcry over Dell's choice of Mads Christensen, a notoriously misogynist "inspirational" speaker to give a speech at a partner event in Copenhagen.

It seems no matter where you look these days, we are being drawn into a discussion about women's choices, women's work, women's parenting, women's competence. 

What's difficult to discern, though, is whether we are looking at an escalating war on women or whether we are looking at some major confluence of interests attempting to distract us from the very real problems facing us as the international financial crisis deepens and governments, corporations and families find themselves in a desperate struggle to pay the bills.

I made a new friend this last week.  She just moved here from Arizona.  She remarked today how nice it was to talk to people here in the Tri-Cities because so many people were bottom-line happier than people in Arizona.  "People up here have jobs.  They have income.  They're not, as a whole, struggling the way people down in Arizona are doing.  Its horrible down there, and everybody is depressed and miserable.  Its so bad you don't even want to talk to anyone there."

Is there a conspiracy to sidetrack us from some of the most important national conversations we will have in the last thirty years in this country or are we really so on the rails about women and their roles as parents and workers that we feel compelled to engage in this type of debate?  Are these conversations about women being started by women?  Because they are certainly being carried on by women.

Lets start with birth control.  The real debate isn't over whether women should have access to birth control, because let's face it, we really DO want to live in a world where families do better economically, and statistically they do when women have easy and affordable ways to manage their fertility.  The real debate, the one that the contraception issue effectively distracted us from, is over how health care should be managed in this country.

I want everyone to have access to affordable health services and to affordable insurance, if that's what they want.  But what we've ended up doing is giving even more power to the big insurance agencies, requiring everyone to carry health coverage on plans that are broad-based rather than a la carte, and the only people who are going to profit from this are the insurers.  Health care reform should have begun with removing insurance conglomerates and their power over our health care choices from the playing field entirely.  Medical services cost far more than they ought to for a variety of reasons having to do with liability coverage and mandates from insurers. 

Patients ought to have the ability ot choose medical coverage that provides benefits for the services they need, and basic preventive health care should be so affordable that people don't need to have an insurance plan to obtain it.  

Drug prices should be based on what the competitive market will sustain, not what prescription drug plans will cover.  The price of birth control pills, particularly generics, would decline pretty immediately in such a market, as would the cost of other methods of controlling fertility, such as IUD's and implants.

I don't even feel like I should have to discuss whether its better to be a mom who has a job outside the home or a mom who manages her home and family or has a job that she can perform from her home.  Most women don't have a choice in this regard, and most families who make the decision to have one parent stay at home make great sacrifices financially to do so.  The majority of families don't have the easy luxury of having one parent not work.  Even so, a man or woman who spends their days managing a household isn't separated from the economics of the real world and real business. 

A mother homeschooling her children and performing most of the tedious chores involved in keeping a house running is a busy woman.  She is engaged, she is productive, she has to manage her family's time and finances.  A mother who is working a job outside the home also has to manage time and finances.  Lets not even get into the plight of single parents, shall we?   Because single parenting is its own special hell at times.

Yes, some people have a greater income and therefore a real choice about whether or not one spouse becomes a full-time household manager.  And?  Life's not fair.  I'm not going to waste time worrying about what my reality is not, and I'm not going to waste time debating with you on who is a better mother or what you think a stay-at-home mom does or doesn't have to add to debate on the national debt.  WE ALL LIVE HERE, PEOPLE.  This problem belongs to all of us, and if this economy fails, we are all going to suffer.  It won't help much to be a billionaire if your billion dollars will buy you nothing more than a six-pack and a pack of hamburger buns when the dollar has imploded.

To be continued.

 

 

 

 

The contest of likeability

I hate elections, particularly presidential elections.  I hate the ads, the debates, the analysis and the endless barrage of information.  What I most particularly hate is that there are only two platforms for candidates to be electable from, and the candidates that are playing for my vote have more dissimilarities to me and to many similarities to one another.

Electing a president is not about electing someone who is smart enough, strong enough, capable enough and honest enough to be entrusted with the highest office in America.  Sure, we'd like to think that it is.  But its not.  Its a contest over how many people each candidate can convince that he is more likeable than the other guy. I was watching Morning Joe's interview with Steve Schmidt, Mcain/Palin campain chief strategist.  The interview itself outlined some particularly intelligent opinions about why we choose certain people to run for office, but it was a segment header that followed that made me cringe and begin typing this post.

"Coming up next:  Candidate Y says he's starting to use the phrase y'all and that he loves Grits.  Candidate Z says he loves grits even more than Candidate Y." (paraphrased)

The ridiculousness of it -- down to the fact that news outlets are actually reporting this as news, should be a huge DOINK on the collective consciousness of us all.  Sadly, only those who actually agree with this assessment understand the importance of it, and those who don't understand it will most likely disagree with me.

Politics today are a caricature.

Races are determined by which candidate is a better liar.  They lie to make themselves more attractive to us, to convince us that they are LIKE us.  Mostly, they are not.  Candidates at the highest levels have as much in common to me as an individual as I have to a spineless mollusk.  But the most important job they will undertake while on the campaign trail is not to convince me that they are capable, not to convince me that they are trustworthy, not to convince me that they are intelligent.  Their job is only to convince me that I like them. 

Ever since Gallup ran its first presidential poll in the 1960's, we've learned that of the three main characteristics that determine who will win an election (political party, stance on the issues, likeability), LIKEABILITY is the most important.

And here's the problem:  I don't.  Like them. 

Not a single damn one of 'em.

 

Maybe Someday

My husband, as I might have mentioned before, is a capital L Libertarian.  He is consumed with the problems we face not just as a country but as a world.  He believes those problems only grow greater with a larger government that wants to mandate belief and opinion, and to him there is no difference between one side which would mandate one set of thinking and rights and the other which would mandate the opposite set of thoughts and rights.  Its all a matter of perception - and to a very large extent, I agree.  I tend to the humanistic side of things, I care about people, I care about women and children and minorities, I care about those who suffer the most under the heavy hand of poverty and discrimination and violence.  We discuss this a lot.  Even where we have laws and agencies and systems in place, we still have people who are hungry, victimized, isolated and discarded.   So we talk about ideas and beliefs and I sometimes think he lacks compassion and he often thinks I have too much of it.  But the ideas, they flow.

We like music at my house.  We are not "musicians," but we enjoy singing together and playing around on our guitars.  Over the course of twenty some years, SG has written a handful of songs.  A couple of months ago, on a day where I was off on a horse and the kids for some odd reason were remarkably quiet and occupied, he sat down and he wrote a new song. 

He couldn't wait to play it for me when I got home, and he kept playing it and refining it and toying around with it over the next several weeks, to the point where it became a permanent earworm for me.  At that point I started picking up harmonies and making suggestions.  He took his guitar to a local Libertarian phone banking event and played it for his buddies there.  One of his friends told him there was a recording studio locally that wasn't too expensive and that he should see about getting it put on disc there. 

The next thing you know, we're in the recording studio, laying tracks.  After he put down his guitar and vocals and I added harmony, the studio owner went over the whole song and added drums, bass, fiddle, mandolin, and the next thing you know we have a song.

Its not terribly professional, we know we're not *that* great or anything, but he -- WE -- are proud of it. 

So the next step of course is to put together something with images or video and upload it to share.  Except that's where I'm supposed to really get involved.

As I'm moping around the house and SG is packing for his road job, he suggests that we could get together on Skype or on the phone for a few hours a week and work together on compiling and editing said video, at which point I think I sort of went apeshit for a few minutes.  Because with him gone and the timesuck of working and commuting and kids and animals and you know, the general WTF that is my life when I'm alone, I'm going to have SO MUCH TIME  for that project.

Even so, I hope it gets completed and soon so that he can get it out there. 

So many of us end up in careers out of necessity and lack of opportunity that we might not have otherwise pursued.  Its a nice thought that America is the land where anyone can do anything if they just want it badly enough, but in the real word that's not quite true.  My husband was not built to be an I&C tech or a valve tech, he thinks and walks and talks like a writer or a professor.  He has ideas he wants to share and a passion to express them.  He has spent an unbelievableamount of time studying ideas and theories and the structure and framework of society.  Being married to him is like having a compendium of world history AND an encyclopedia in your pocket.  An innocent question can lead to a 45 minute off-the-cuff discourse which includes names, dates and other historical accuracies along with a complete dissection of the event and its repercussions down the line. 

I look at him in the throes of many such discussions and all I can think is "This man is in the entirely wrong line of work.  He needs to be doing something with this knowledge, with these ideas." 

Even if I don't fully share his vision of what our country should be like, I fully support HIM.  I think he's pretty incredible. 

Even when he leaves me trying to hold all the balls in the air for six weeks.

 

All mixed up

You can't listen to the radio or turn on the TV or look at Twitter or Facebook and not be aware of what happened in Pakistan yesterday.  Few people aren't talking about the death of Bin Laden, and the range of response is...what's the word I'm looking for?  Fascinating?  Curious?  Expected?  I don't know.  I don't know how I feel today.

Like so many Americans I remember vividly the events of 9/11, being hugely pregnant with my daughter and working not very far from New York City.  Everyone I worked with and socialized with knew someone who was in the towers, we were all affected.  My manager's husband was one of a very small number of people who was on the 104th floor of the South Tower who actually survived the attack, fire and collapse of the building. 

I remember how stunned we were, all of us, even our then-president.  I remember the drawing together as a country, in the way that groups will do when they have been attacked.  I loved the feeling of solidarity between us and the other voices around the world that lifted to inform us of their love, their outrage, their sorrow.  Being overwhelmed when I thought of the victims and their families, the responders who lost their lives saving others. 

In the years since, memory has dulled.  A coast away from where I was, the Twin Towers and the loss that was experienced that day is not as big a topic of conversation as I am sure it still is  back in Jersey.  A decade, two wars, a recession, and the minutiae of life have the cumulative effect of allowing the past to be...well, the past.

From the time that I turned on the news last night, after receiving a call from a friend back East, until now, as I type this post, I continue to experience a range of emotional reaction that leaves me still undecided as to what I feel about Osama Bin Laden and his death.

Of course there is a sense of grim satisfaction, the kind where your eyes narrow and you snarl in triumph.  We got you, you sonofabitch.  Finally.  A hot flash in my gut, some long-forgotten desire for revenge filled.  Paybacks are a bitch.  Not just for 9/11, either.  I remember the 17 sailors who were killed in 2000 aboard the USS Cole, and let us also not forget the 6 victims of the 1993 bomb attack on the World Trade Center.  Bin Laden was a man whose ideology was to wage war against America.   He would not see you or I as individuals with lives of value, he would see us only as his enemies.  And so in that context, a part of me grins savagely at the thought of his demise.

I am proud, of our President and his succinct, to-the-point speech last night.  Whatever else he is or is not, I think we can all agree the man is a spectacular orator.  I am reminded again of why I cast my ballot for him, when in a field of candidates marked by rancor, idiocy, hatred and paranoia, he stood out to me as a man of great conviction and great ideas. More so, though, I am proud of our military and the precision and professionalism with which this operation was carried out.  I imagine there are some men who are celebrating quietly today, even though their names will likely never be made public. 

And because I feel some satisfaction and some pride, I also feel ashamed.  Ashamed because I do not believe in violence as a solution.  I believe in loving people, even when they act in ways that are unlovable.  I can't just abandon my belief that we were all created by the same God, regardless of our nationality, culture or ideology.  I cannot join those who are celebrating death today.  I agree that this is a major, remarkable event, but I don't think it is cause for celebration, flag-waving or fireworks.  Killing Osama Bin Laden will not likely prevent future deaths by terrorism, nor will it bring back those whom we have already lost.  It is at best an act of revenge.

I feel sorrow as well.  Sadness for the victims of the USS Cole bombing and of 9/11, people who survived or family members of those who did not, for whom the events of yesterady - even if they bring some measure of relief - will dredge up memories of horror and tragedy.  Sorrow at the reminder of the terrible waste of human life, human potential inflicted in those events and in other acts of terrorism carried out by Al Quaeda and its operatives.  Sorrow that we live in a world where war and hatred will seemingly always be part of our present and our future, not just part of our past.  Sorrow for all the loss, all the pain, for the children being taught to hate by their parents and their peers - not just children of terrorists, but children of everyday people who because of fear and intolerance are being taught to hate anyone who is part of a particular religion or culture, or simply happened to be born in the wrong country.  Sorrow for the divisiveness that has grown here in our own country because we could not agree on the right response, because our leaders took us to wars that so many of us felt did nothing to avenge the past or prevent future attacks. 

And that leads to frustration.  Frustration over the endless violence begetting violence begetting violence.  A violent end to a man who promoted violence as a way of life; deserved? Maybe.  Maybe not. I don't know.  I'm not God.  I'm not willing to pretend I know the answer.  Frustration because I know that this death will not end the war in Afghanistan any time soon.  Frustration because even when we do eventually leave Afghanistan that we will probably still be engaged in Libya or anywhere else in the world that our government feels that they can protect American interests under the guise of "preserving democracy." 

I don't know why I lack the certainty so many others feel about this, but there it is.  I don't know if that makes me a bad American, a bad Christian, a bad parent or a bad example.  I suppose I can hold some measure of relief that at least I'm still really, really good at writing run-on sentences and being overly parenthetical.

Conundrum at Amazon **UPDATED**

I was going to take a break from blogging today.  Actually, I was going to be at work, starting early, and wasn't going to have time for blogging today, but my poor sitter is in the ER after having a bad reaction to a new medication, and so I'm here with my kids, praying that she recovers quickly (and not just for selfish reasons).

Watching the sun turn the clouds pink in a deep blue early morning sky while I drink my coffee, I am chewing over yesterday's plethora of tweets and posts regarding Amazon's listing of a book written by a pedophile that apparently provides "advice" for other pedophiles on having (this really turns my stomach) "better" relationships with their victims and how to avoid being caught.  I say "apparently," because I am not going to read the book to see exactly what the author says, and I am not going to link to the page for the book because I don't wish to drive any more traffic to this guy, and I'm not even linking Amazon here, because I don't feel like sending them any more page hits today.  (They should be sending ME page hits in thanks for all the money I've thrown at them over the years, really.)

However.

This is one of those times where my morals and my convictions have a little tug of war with one another, and right now I'm not certain who is winning.

Background and context, for starters.  I've written about my birthmother and family.  I've actually submitted a piece to Violence Unsilenced that I compiled interjecting my own narrative with chunks of a manuscript that my sister Vicki sent me several years ago.  It is her own story of growing up with a stepfather who is a pedophile. At some point in the future, I hope, that piece will be published.

I have five siblings.  Four living.  I was given up for adoption, the rest of them were raised (using the term very loosely) by my birthmother. My sister was raped by her stepfather for the first time when she was around five years old. 

Here is what happened when she told her mother, in her own words:

She slapped me so hard across the face that I was knocked several feet backwards and fell to the floor.  She screamed at me, that I was a liar and sent me to my room.  I sobbed, hurting from the pain in my bottom and the pain in my heart, knowing that I was going to die.  He was going to kill me.  There was no one to stop him.  So I did what all good Christian girls did:  I prayed to God that I would die in my sleep before morning.

That was the longest night of my life.  Somewhere in the night I fell asleep.  When I woke up, the Monster was smiling down at me once more.  My heart was racing and I knew I was about to die and he just kept smiling.  He puts one hand on either side of my head holding me down by my long brown hair, and smiling the whole time, he said, ‘She didn’t believe you, she never will and if you ever try to tell again I will kill you.’  Then, like nothing ever happened, he walks to the door, opens it, and calmly says, ‘Breakfast is ready when you are.'

I had a younger brother.  I never met him.  He called me once, a few years ago and asked if we could meet. He was just out of prison and was looking for someone to give him a hand in getting back up on his feet. It was the only conversation I ever had with my brother. 

"I wish I could meet you, wish I could offer you some help, but I can't.  I have children."

He went to prison for raping a little girl.  While in prison he contracted HIV.  Look, I'm not stupid.  Statistically, the recidivism rate for men who molest boys is twice as high as for men who molest girls, but those statistics are based on convictions and not the actual number of crimes being committed, and who in hell could know what those statistics are? Who's to say my brother hadn't also molested boys?  And honestly, did it really matter?  I wasn't exposing my children to a convicted pedophile.  Period. 

Two years later, he died of complications from AIDS.  As sad as I feel for never having met my sibling, I still stand by my decision to protect my family.

Remember the incident back in 1993, when Ellie Nesler shot David Driver in the courtroom as he was being tried for raping her son?  She was my hero, then and now.  If anyone and I do mean ANYONE hurt one of my children, it would take more than a legal system to keep me from hurting that person.  I have no doubt whatsoever that I would kill to protect my kids.  As much as I believe in second chances, in following the law, in respecting our legal system, none of that reason could override the animal instinct that raises its head in me when I consider what I would do to someone who hurt my child.  I think I would be capable of just about anything, including violent murder.

So that's where I stand on pedophiles. Reason and logic don't apply.  Look, I know most pedophiles offend because someone hurt them when they were children.  I know they are mentally ill.  AND I DON'T CARE.  My reaction is visceral.  I am being as honest as I can here. 

As a mother, as a human being who believes that the death penalty is a suitable punishment for people who rape children, I want that book GONE.  OFF THE SHELVES.  I don't want to give Amazon another dime of my money so long as they will carry that kind of filth on their website. 

And then there's the other thing.  The part where I believe in the constitution and the right of free speech.  If Amazon can carry a book that teaches people how to make bombs, if I believe that our constitution also protects that kind of speech, then I have to agree that so long as that vile piece of filth that passes for a book contains nothing that falls within the legally defined boundary of child pornography, so long as it contains no evidence of someone actually committing a crime in its pages, so long as it is theory and not practice, then it may be published and sold.  We can't call for it to be burned or banned or torn into little tiny shreds and stomped on with manure-covered jackboots.

Can we?

I don't know.

I'm torn.

I was so proud when Google said they were going to pull out of China because China's policy on free speech was in direct opposition to the company's values and to the principles of democracy and freedom.  So disappointed when they caved in to the almighty dollar.

Should I be proud of Amazon if they take the logical and legal position that free speech is a protected right and that as a seller of books, they take no position on whether a book ought to be listed so long as it doesn't violate the boundaries of the law?

Or should I be proud of Amazon if, after reviewing the situation, decides that they will concede to the majority opinion of their customers (and the weight of the consumer dollar) and pull the book?

You tell me.  What do you think is the right thing for Amazon to do?

 **UPDATE**

Amazon has removed the book from their online catalog.  Good choice.

Two things to add. 

First:  My friend Drew shared a quote with me on FB that is now being added to my favorite quotes list:  “I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking”
~Woodrow T. Wilson

Second:  There is a great discussion going on in the comments over at Adam Avitable's blog about this issues.   Come join in.

 

I guess I'm not done talking about this (Newt Gingrich sucks. Hard.)

A friend sent me an email this morning, one that I have declined to answer or forward. It contains a statement from Newt Gingrich from July of this year. 

Newt Gingrich's  statement reads, "There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia . "  It goes on to impute evil intent to the builders and supporters of the mosque and to imply that it is being built to create inroads in America for Muslim extremism.  For jihad.

Dear Newt Gingrich:  Of course there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.  Saudia Arabia is not America.  We?  you and I?  We live in a democracy based on freedom and liberty.  We don't operate like Saudi Arabia because we are NOT Saudi Arabia.

We have a constitution that guarantees us freedom to practice (or not practice) any religion we choose.  In fact, Mr. Newton Leroy Gingrich, your own website, on the page devoted to Religious Liberty, states:

"Religious liberty in America is under assault. The secular socialist left – who hates the idea of an authority higher than the government - has used its domination of academia, the courts, and the media to twist the meaning of the first amendment from a right that protects religious liberty to prohibition on religious expression in the public square. The consequence of this campaign is that people of faith have been systematically marginalized in America through a sustained effort by the left to change our common culture and give secular values the authority of law."

Let me see if I understand this, Newt Gingrich.  You are implying here that the government should be protecting our First Amendment right to religious freedom.  And yet, your statement regarding a Muslim cultural center and Mosque at Ground Zero implies that you do not believe Muslim Americans are entitled to the same First Amendment rights as you and I. 

The moment you request that any local or federal government block the building of a mosque in America, you are in effect demanding that we violate the First Amendment. 

What happened on 9/11 was horrific, unbelievable, tragic.  The people who were in those towers were of every race and religion.  I'm not sure if people are even aware than in the Twin Towers, on the 17th floor of the South Tower, there was a room set aside as a prayer room for Muslims.  That's right, a prayer room for Muslims.  Observant Muslims, not jihadists, who happened to be in the towers going about their work just like everyone else, who died or managed to escape with their lives when the terrorists attacked and the towers fell.

I was in the final weeks of my first pregnancy on  September 11th.  I was working for an insurance company in Neptune, NJ, and my manager's husband was on the 104th floor of the South Tower.  She did not know until after 3PM on that terrible day whether he had lived or died.  He survived, though many did not.  J was also working for the same company, and until the company released us to go home, I spent most of the day going back and forth between my floor and his, to see if Kim had heard anything about her husband and then going to give and receive hugs from my husband because I could. 

I hate the terrorists who planned and carried out the attacks in New York and Washington DC on September 11th.  I cannot understand the mind and thinking of any person who hates another person or a group of persons so much that they would give their own lives to see them dead.  But whether I hate them, whether I believe they were wrong, whether I think that anyone who carries out a terrorist act should die for their crimes (I do), I am still capable of separating jihadists from peaceful Muslims.  Just as I am capable separating Catholics from people like Timothy McVeigh, Christians from people like James Kopp, Scott Roeder and others like them. 

The anti-Muslim rhetoric in this country has risen to a terrible screech.  It calls to mind the McCarthyism of the late 1940's and 1950's:

Remember our treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII?  We are still making reparations for that. 

Hate rhetoric is disabling this country piece by piece.  There is no logical, lawful reason for it, and yet it continues.  If it is not toned down, if the people who are spreading this hate like a black poisonous cloud over our airwaves and on our street corners do not stop, I fear it will take root and rise up like some awful, tentacled Beast from hell, taking what is left of our humanity right along with it. 

I have not responded, cannot respond to the email I received this morning.  The person who sent it to me is someone I care for, she is the close relative of someone I care for even more.  I don't want to have this argument with her.  It is heartbreaking to think that someone I know and like can even think about participating in this campaign of hate and lies.  But there it is.  People I know, people I even like, they may think this way.  I could weed them out of my life, but would I just be closing my eyes and ears to what exists?  Or is there some way that I can reach out to them, not in anger but in love, not in the arrogant belief that I can change them, but in the hopeful optimism that the God I believe in, who loves us all, who cares for each and every person in His creation as if they were his own child, that maybe He can reach them, even if I can't?  Maybe.

I keep wondering when God is going to come and save us from ourselves.  Soon, please.

Don't tell me who I am

Back in the mid-90's, the company I was working for sent all of its key people to a leadership seminar taught by a psychologist (maybe a psychiatrist?).  Carl James was his name, and I wish I could find him because I'd love to tell him how much I still remember of the seminar.  I'm frankly surprised I remember a damn thing about it, since the night of the first day I received the first contact from my birthmother and went down that particular rabbit hole.

On the first day, we discussed a paradigm.  I can't remember the name of the chart either (wow, apparently I don't remember as much as I think I do!) but it was basically drawn into four sections.  The sections were to identify the following:

1) Things I know about myself that you don't

2) Things I know about myself that you know

3) Things you know about me that I know but I don't know that you know

4) Things you know about me that I don't know

I've never accepted #4. 

Literally, yes there could be things you know about me that I don't know.  You might know that my boyfriend (hypothetical because I don't have a boyfriend) is cheating on me and I dont' yet realize he's a lying piece of shit.  You might know that my boss is planning to fire me on Friday while I go about my business blissfully unaware of the pending doom.  Concrete, material things, yes, you might know these. 

But I'll never agree that there is something about me the person, something about my personality, that I don't know.  I might not acknowledge it - but I DO know it.  You might think "Geez, she doesn't realize what a bitch she sounds like."  But I do.  I think we all know everything we need to know about ourselves, where we get tripped up and screwy is when we start lying to ourselves in order to not have to cope with something we don't want to change.  Then we're strolling quickly down the slope of pernicious behavior, because a person who is coping by denying self-truth is a person in a constant state of de-stabilization.  Codependents do it.  Addicts do it.  Politicians do it.  Scary shit.   But few things frost my cookies like someone pigeonholing me and thinking they know me because of a simple self-described title.  One like "liberal feminist."

A post by Adrienne Royer discussing the rise of feminisim on the far right and lamenting how the liberal feminists have ignored or outright rejected conservative feminists was featured on Blogher today.  In it, she paints liberal feminists with a rather large brush.   I object to being classified in that way.  Not as a liberal feminist, no, because I am.  Both liberal and Feminist.  No, what primed my pistons was the way the writer degenerates into comparing looks and lifestyles.  Ms. Royer says that liberal feminists "eschew makeup and men" while conservative feminists are attractive, grocery-shopping mothers.  That we resent Sarah Palin because she's pretty.   Right then and there, she lost me.

Its not only that I object to being told that since I am a liberal feminist that I don't wear makeup and must be a lesbian.  Neither of those statements is correct, but that's not really the point.  The statement was problematic because of its insulting tone.    There's nothing ugly about not wearing makeup - all women are unique and beautiful regardless of the application of makeup.  Simply because one chooses to wear or not to wear makeup has little to do with whether she is a conservative or a liberal.  I know plenty of women on either side of the aisle who don't wear makeup.  A woman is not less of a woman or someone to be marginalized because she is gay.  Its the insinuation that these things encompass all liberal feminists, AND that these things are somehow ugly and unattractive.  I'm shocked to the core to hear a woman who calls herself a feminist pick up the misogynistic bullcrap the male entrenchment used to use to marginalize the feminist movement.   And Ms. Royer's implication that we don't take Sarah Palin seriously because she's pretty?  Project, much?

Sarah Palin IS pretty.  I don't resent her for it.  I could care less about how she looks.  I care far more about what she DOES and SAYS.  Politically, I am about as far from Sarah Palin in every respect possible.  That said, I'm going to step out on a limb and say that Sarah Palin has scored a big hit for the power of women in this country, whether I like her personally or not.   Feminism is about all women, not just liberal women.  If we truly believe that, then the circle is wide enough to encompass all of us, Sarah Palin included.  I think she and I have some differing opinions on exactly what constitutes equality and freedom for women, including our ability to control our reproductive choices, but there are certainly tenets upon which we both agree.  I bet if we spent two hours over a pot of coffee or a hike in the woods that we could come up with plenty of common ground, despite our obvious differences.

I wrote a couple of months ago that "we either ALL benefit or none of us do. That to me part of being a feminist is fighting for the right of women not to be torn down by other women."  To hear another woman call herself a "feminist" and then use pejorative stereotypes to imply that liberal feminists are less attractive than conservative feminists is preposterous.   I have to question whether the writer is comletely brainwashed, mean spirited or simply off her rocker.  Real feminists don't eschew makeup - we DO eschew looks-based stereotyping.  We work reject petty jealousy and spite. 

I got the sense that this writer felt left out by the feminist movement, and that she's assuaging her resentment, using her article to lash back at a movement she feels rejected by.  Perhaps she experienced some kind of rejection on a personal level based on her conservative politics.  I don't know.

What I DO know is that we all need to be careful about the language we use when we describe what feminism means to us.  At its core, feminism seeks to create equal standing regardless of gender.  That regardless of what role a woman chooses for her life, be it traditional or modern, that she be supported in it.  That she be have equal opportunity at receiving an education, at applying for a job, at being paid for the work she does.  That she be protected from violence.  That she have access to adequate health care.  That she be free, truly free.

I do believe that women on the liberal side of the Movement need to be more welcoming of our conservative sisters and that is a point on which I take no issue.  The political events of the last two to four years have proven that we need a new dialogue to address our differences and advance our cause.  What I would caution is that we be careful to avoid stereotyping women based on their political beliefs.  When it comes down to it, day to day life looks pretty similar for women in similar situations, regardless of their politics.  Career women.  Mothers.  Single Mothers.  Wives.  Partners.  Farm workers.  We all struggle for survival, safety, respect.  Let us focus on our similarities and not our differences, Ms. Royer.  Only then will we find a way to move forward.

First and last post on this subject

If you read me you know how I roll politically.  I don't use this space to make a huge amount of political noise, nor do I want to.  I have loved ones and relatives (read: in-laws) who are on different ends of the political spectrum, and that alone is sufficient reason for me to not wish to antagonize or offend you.

Today, I'm going to cross this line and so if you are going to no longer love me or read my blog because of this, then I am very sorry to have offended you, but this is something I want and need to say.

Very often when there is a controversial issue in the public eye, I lean toward the logical argument.  I lean toward the constitutional argument.  I'm drawn to the argument that while possibly rhetorical, is drawn from fact-based argument.

I've been watching and listening and thinking very much about the controversy in New York City over the group that is attempting to build a place of worship in near proximity to the site of the former Twin Towers.  A Mosque.  I've not commented much about it.  I don't wish to hurt or offend anyone.

My argument stems from a position of acceptance and love, but also from a strong dedication to the ideals upon which our country was founded.  I look at our first amendment rights, and I wonder why this is even an argument.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of...

Thanks to this same first amendment, which goes on to protect the right of free speech, those who are vehemently opposed to the mosque's construction, have every right to express their concern and anger and...I want to use the word hate, but I don't want to offend.

I believe that the men who flew their planes into the towers on September 11, 2001, were no more "religious" than I believe that the guy on TV who is asking you to send him money for his "prayer ministry" is religious.  I believe there is a different between faith and religion.  I believe that the majority of Muslim Americans have the same American values that you and I share.  Because a few exceptions to this rule exist is no reason we should prevent people from worshiping in the way their faith dictates.  Timothy McVeigh was raised Roman Catholic, and he was a registered Republican.  Should we then prevent the Catholic Church from constructing a cathedral in Oklahoma City?  Should registered Republicans refrain from conducting political activities near the site of the bombed Federal Building?  When we take even one step down this slope, we end up restricting the rights of everyone.   Not too many hundreds of years ago Christians were conducting torture, pillage, murder and rape in the name of the Church.  If we restrict the right to worship for every denomination who has ever been involved in violence or intolerance, there'd be no churches in America.  Except for maybe the Scientologists, but I hear they're a cult and not a religion. (THAT WAS TONGUE IN CHEEK, DON'T GET MAD)

And so I start getting mad, and I can't understand why people don't get this. And I sort of lose any chance of making headway in the discussion because the very second you lose your temper you lose your audience.

And today, I read possibly the most lucid, ego-less and loving commentary imaginable on this issue.  Please, wherever you stand on this issue, go to the following link and read Faiqa's words.  Comment if you like.  Try and understand from a different point of view, one that has nothing to do with politicism or legality.  Her post and her words are the best piece I've read on this issue yet.  If we can come together in a place of understanding and acceptance, maybe we can start to heal this damnable rift.

Faiqa's Follow Up on Ground Zero

 

Being an Us

I love the show RENT.  I saw it on Broadway with my mom about 10 years ago and have loved it ever since.  The movie was just as phenomenal - wise move, that, using pretty much all of the original cast.  I've watched it countless times and I have no less than three CD's of both the Broadway recordings and the tracks from the movie.

If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend either watching the movie or seeing it live (I believe its still running at the Nederlander Theatre and also on tour in the U.S.).  One person who saw it for the very first time ever with me said that it was the first time they had ever *really* understood that there was no difference between being gay and straight, that "love is love, no matter who it is you love."  Its not that this friend was prejudiced before that point, but I think that they may have lacked understanding, not having had spent a tremendous amount of time around gay or lesbian couples.  I think there are a lot of things that you can walk away from RENT feeling or understanding more clearly, but what a powerful statement that was on how true and clear the characters that the sadly late and very great Jonathan Larson brought to life in his script.  Oh, crap, I'm digressing AGAIN. 

Perhaps my favorite song from RENT is "La Vie Boheme."  It evokes a fierce response in me, from the feeling of being on the fringes as a kid to clinging to music and experiences and ideas that were somewhat out of the mainstream.  As much as I have one foot firmly in the buttoned-down, a huge part of me simply doesn't belong there and wishes she could just fly away and be free all over again in another world, another life. 

In part B of the song, after the Roger/Mimi Interlude and toward the very end, there is a line that grabs me by the heart: 

"To being an "US" for once, instead of a "THEM!"

Last weekend I got to be an "us" again and it was so wonderful.

My experiences with Bastard Nation were among the most powerful of my life.  Never had I connected in such an enormous way with others.  Despite different circumstances - Late Discovery adoptees, adoptees who had found, adoptees who would never find, adoptees who hated their adoptive families, adoptees who loved theirs, the members of this group shared something special and unique.  Some of the friendships I formed with my fellow Bastards will last my whole life.  Conferences, protests, rallies - every event brought with it not only the opportunity to learn, educate others, raise our voices and be heard, but to connect and share with people who felt like family.  I suppose that's incredibly odd, considering that if you put ten adoptees in a room you're looking at twenty family trees.  Hell, you want confusing?  I married another adoptee.  Our children would have six sets of grandparents were everyone involved still living, speaking to each other, or known.   And only another adoptee would really understand how normal that truly was. 

Being a Bastard was the first time in my life that I knew unequivocally that I was part of an "us."  It wasn't only the experience of growing up adopted, but the shared passion for reforming a system that treats adoptees as a suspect class, denies us the same information that is available to anyone else, and for loving the gallows humor that everyone else appears to find tasteless but from which we derived the deepest, truest laughter.

Friday night, after an incredible dinner with a couple of my favorite Bastards under the sun, we sat up late in a hotel room drinking too much wine and laughing and talking about everything.  I felt as if I had been transported to another hotel room in another time and place at one of our many conferences or rallies.  Every good thing I have ever felt about being a Bastard just welled up inside me and filled my heart and my soul.  We talked of the old days, old friends. We mourned those we have lost.  We meandered through laughter and a thousand "Oh, yeah, I remember that!"'s down the warmly-lit paths of memory and shared experience.  We looked at where our lives had come since those days.  We caught up, bonded, reconnected.

To my Bastards who were present, and to the other Bastards, wherever you are, thank you.  Thank you for being my people.  Thank you for being a place where I belong, where I don't feel like I'm different.  I love you guys.

And if you're ever in Troutdale, OR, go have dinner at Tab's Chicken and Dumplings.  Make sure you get a window seat.