Last week, USAction sent me back to Upstate NY, my stomping grounds of 18 years, to help our New York affiliate, Citizen Action of New York (CANY).  The area is currently buzzing with political activity, especially around moderate Congressmen Michael Arcuri and Eric Massa, both Blue Dog Democrats.

The night I flew back into town, fellow activists and I went to a town hall meeting for Representative Arcuri.    Although we got there at the starting time, the room was already full, and along with about a hundred other people, we were sequestered to the lobby of an academic building at Utica College, where we were told that folks would be let in when others came out.

We took the opportunity to “work the room” by recruiting volunteers and talking to undecides.   Our quest, however, was not without obstacles.  While about half of the attendees were on our side and wanted to get involved, I was amazed at how many people were incredibly vitriolic and had bought into the health care reform myths.  The most common myths I heard were:

• The bill has death panels
• The bill will force us to have abortions
• There are really only 4-5 million people uninsured
• Health care reform will lead us down a path towards socialism.

For a split second, I had wondered where these people could have possibly gotten such false notions.  Then when some protesters started chanting “God Bless Fox News,” I got my answer.   I’m not going to spend time rebuffing these falsehoods, but Media Matters produced a great piece on clearing up these myths.  Be sure to check it out here.

While I and other pro-reform activists were advocating for a public health insurance option, focusing on the facts and recruiting volunteers, the opposition resorted to intimidation and insults.  In the course of a few minutes I was told to “stop listening to my college professors” and “go back to my Communist country and listen to Rachel Maddow.”  Little did he know, The Rachel Maddow Show wasn’t on for another three and a half hours.

Anyway, during and after the event, we ended up passing out a lot of flyers for the upcoming teach-in and signing-up more than 80 people for various activities, including contacting the Congressman and participating in events.  It was really rewarding to see people’s favorable reactions to us and willingness to volunteer for upcoming activities.  In addition, after the meeting was finished, some of the people we had talked to helped us hold up signs and provide more visibility.

Seeing the energy from activists on both sides gave me a much-needed energy boost to get back to work.  It was refreshing to spend some time outside of the Beltway bubble and in the field where the rubber meets the road.  Amid the angry protesters, it was amazing to be around such positive energy and activists dedicated to a cause that may be the biggest political fight of our lifetimes.  The work that CANY and other activists have been doing around health care for the past year and a half is truly remarkable.  While it is unfortunate that that some angry residents of Utica, NY acted like childish bullies, this is one of the most important votes that Congressman Arcuri and others will take, and I, along with the majority of America, hope that he will vote in favor of quality, affordable health care with a public health insurance option.

William McNary, president of USAction and co-director of Citizen Action/Illinois, today issued the following statement on the passing of Sen. Edward Kennedy:

What distinguished Senator Kennedy’s values from the political mainstream was not just his support for a set of policies, but his willingness to take risks and fight for what he believed in. Whether the issue was health care, education or inequality, Senator Kennedy’s moral clarity projected an authenticity that appealed to Americans across the political spectrum.

To the Kennedy family, we offer our condolences on the loss of their patriarch. To the progressive movement, we offer our condolences on the loss of our champion. Let us rededicate ourselves to his concerns so that his hopes, his dreams and his work live on in us.

When Senator Kennedy spoke of overhauling the nation’s health care system, he referred to it as “the cause of my life.” Since its inception in 1999, health care has been at the forefront of USAction’s issue advocacy. USAction is a founder of Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the nation’s largest public health care campaign, and USAction Executive Director Jeff Blum serves as co-chair of HCAN’s steering committee.

“Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection.”

These were the words of President Harry Truman when he delivered a message to Congress about the need for national health care on November 19, 1945.  Almost sixty-five years later, those words still ring true for too many Americans.

By 1949, the private corporate forces which opposed national health care were offering $3,000 prizes to those political cartoonists who best depicted the evils of “socialized medicine.”  Sound familiar?

Continue reading this post by Linda DeLaforgue, co-director of Citizen Action/Illinois.

Wow, time has healed some more wounds.

Glenn Beck is one of the main opponents of health care reform, calling our health care system the “best in the world.”

But in January 2008, he was telling a different story. He was complaining about his “personal voyage through the nightmare that is our health care system.” He went on to call it “a system that is trying to shove the patients outside the door as fast as they can.”

Jon Stewart pointed out in this Daily Show clip, “if only the Glenn Beck of sixteen months ago had the health care the Glenn Beck of today raves about.”

If only we all did.

As the debate over health care reform heats up, an effort to place a billboard in U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt’s home district has been, well, blunted.

The billboard was to have featured a picture of Blunt with the words: “Roy Blunt has taken $556,682 in contributions from the insurance industry. Is that why he won’t take our side on health care reform?”

USAction and its Missouri affiliate, Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition, had arranged to place the billboard in downtown Springfield. However, the groups were informed Thursday that it was being rejected based on political content.

“Roy Blunt, the target of this smear campaign, is a local politician and has been a strong proponent of Outdoor Advertising in Missouri for a number of years,” Lamar Advertising Company said in an email message. “As much as we would always love the business, we will have to respectfully decline.”

The move comes after Blunt tried, and failed, to have a radio spot taken off the air pointing out that the senior Republican congressman has taken more than half a million dollars worth of campaign contributions from the insurance industry and is working to defeat health care reform. A second radio ad – currently running on four Springfield stations — also points out that Blunt has questioned the worthiness of Medicare.

USAction Program Director Alan Charney said alternate plans are being made to get the word out about Blunt’s connections to the insurance industry and refusal to support quality, affordable health care for his constituents. “We’re guessing that there are newspapers in Congressman Blunt’s district that would welcome our business and won’t discriminate based on content,” Charney said.

Julie Burkhart, executive director of Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition, added that Blunt should stand up for his constituents’ ability to afford health care as strongly as he has stood for Missouri’s outdoor billboard industry. “After all,” she said, “Billboards don’t get sick or get dropped from coverage or see their premiums double. People do.”

You can view a PDF of the rejected billboard at www.usaction.org/bluntbillboard.

It’s August, and you know what that means.  No, I’m not talking about President Obama’s birthday, the American Idol auditions or my parents’ anniversary.  August signals the Congressional recess, which means members of Congress are holding town hall meetings and other events back in their home districts in an attempt to hear from their constituents.  While these events are meant to be productive settings for activists and other civically-engaged people to express themselves and ask questions, they have also become forums for every right-wing wacko to come out of the woodwork.

After over a year and a half of organizing, affiliates of USAction, Health Care for America Now and other progressive organizations are facing opposition from angry protesters who are working to undermine health insurance reform.  As I wrote last April around tax day, these radicals are not only fighting against a public insurance option, but are also voicing their opposition to immigration, abortion, LGBT rights, tax justice, President Obama’s citizenship and anything else they can think of to rile up the troops.

While these protests are meant to look like an organic outpouring of grassroots activity, they are largely associated with the insurance industry and right-wing fringe groups.  Their tactics are also part of a larger coordinated operation.  FreedomWorks (a conservative, lobbyist-run group) released a memo entitled “Rocking the Town Halls,” (Thanks to ThinkProgress for uncovering this) which provided instructions to protesters for disrupting the town halls:

• “Artificially Inflate Your Numbers” - spread out and congregate in the back of the room to seem like a majority of the attendants.
• “Be Disruptive Early and Often” - seize opportunities to yell and interrupt the congressman.
• ”Try To ‘Rattle Him,’ Not Have An Intelligent Debate” - rattle the congressman before he takes questions.

Real mature.  I’d compare them to five year-olds, but I would never insult children like that.

These hostile protesters seem to have taken this memo to heart and have really pushed the boundaries of civil discourse.  Numerous examples illustrate their angry, disruptive spectacles, but here are just a few: 

• Representative Frank Kratovil was hung in effigy a couple of weeks ago by an anti-healthcare reform protester at a Tea Party event in Maryland.
• Violence erupted last week at a town hall meeting in Tampa, FL, where right-wing activists were incredibly disruptive and police had to break up fights.   “The insurance industry and … Republican activists are manufacturing a lot of these phony protests,” said Congresswoman Kathy Castor, the sponsor of the event.
• At a town hall meeting in Texas, hecklers shouted down Representative Gene Green, and later admitted that they did not live in the district.
• Representative Brad Miller of North Carolina announced he will not be holding any town hall meetings during the recess due to threatening phone calls, including at least one death threat.

While the right-wing mobs are receiving most of the media attention, they do not reflect the will of the American people, a majority of whom support having a public option.  Health Care for America Now is organizing recess events throughout the country (find one on your area here) and turning out tens of thousands of people to have a spirited discussion with their member of Congress (uncivil discourse has never been encouraged), including events in New York and Pennsylvania.

Health reform advocates should be proud that they are not resorting to the violent, juvenile tactics of the right.  No one ever said achieving health care reform would be easy, but with continued innovation and organization, we will achieve quality, affordable health care for all.

Have you heard of the small groups of people protesting the congressional efforts to bring quality, affordable, health care to all?  Even though their legitimacy has been questioned, they have been getting some attention from many of the cable news shows recently.

Well, The Nation today tells the story of how USAction/TrueMajority, the Health Care for America Now coalition and others are out-organizing the other side.

…contrary to what we’re getting from most of the cable news reports, progressives are already out-organizing and outnumbering the right in plenty of events across the country. (Examples here and here.)

“We are coast to coast and throughout the Heartland,” says USAction Communications Director David Elliot. “This is hand-to-hand combat, in the trenches, congressional district to congressional district.”

The article goes on to discuss tactics including targeting of Blue Dogs, organizing activists for town meetings, door-to-door canvasses, phone banks, rallies, press conferences, and other events.

“We’ve got to out-organize [the right],” USAction Executive Director Jeff Blum says. “And we are. They are unloading gazillions of dollars and we’ll never have that kind of money. But we don’t need it if we are actually promoting something that is good for people, and which has been tested through political fights at the state and national level over many years.”

Click here to read the full article or here to get involved.