Those with low self esteem find it difficult to respect others. Because of their lack of esteem, they will humiliate others in an attempt to put them self into a better position. If you believe in yourself, you believe in others, if you love yourself, you will love others, if you hate yourself, you will hate others. To change the world you must first change yourself and others will change along with you.

A lot of us, me included, especially me included, live in the past and fear the future. While we live in the past and fear the future, we are powerless to what is happening right now. Jesus tells us that we can move a mountain. The future is our mountain. What we do right now can move that mountain, but if we are caught in this pain of the past and fear of the future, we can never move that mountain. Change the future, live in the now.

Jim Mylott

Jim served in the first Gulf War and Kosovo, but it was during his service in Iraq in 2003 that he suffered a traumatic brain injury that cost him much of his memory. Now a volunteer with WWP’s National Campaign team, Jim believes it is important to get soldiers talking about their experiences to help them heal. Send Jim a note of thanks.

Ian Lennon

Always known to be a funnyman, Ian joined the Marines in 2000, bringing his lighthearted humor to his fellow troops. Today, more than seven years after a fuel explosion burned over a third of his body, he still lives to have fun! Read more about Ian and send him a note of thanks.

Marissa Strock

Marissa joined the Army in 2005 after one year of college.She lost both legs a year later while serving in Iraq. Now she is restarting her education through WWP’s TRACK program and living and working alongside other veterans. Read her advice for wounded soldiers and send her thanks.

A Peaceful Protest to Protest FBI raids of peace groups

Its been a long time since I’ve protested, I figured this one was important.

To me protests used to be a waste of time, because who listens anyways and the media just ignores you, so you’re really just pissing in the wind.

But now, it’s different.  Now I protest because I can.

Starting out, there were 5 of us, near the end of the protest, I think 9 people were there.  I think for every two of us, there was one cop keeping an eye on us, I’m not kidding.  But I’m sure they will tell you that they were just looking out for our safety.

We had a permit and we went to the corner our permit told us to go.  We were told that was federal property, yes even the side walk, though I do recall, it was in Oklahoma City, but still, they said our permit had no jurisdiction over federal property.

So we went on over to the other corner across the street and there we were met with another police officer and some high ranking person who informed us that we could not stand there either, so we crossed the street and went to the corner of a large parking garage and a couple police officers, a high ranking official and a few security guards kept a close eye on us the whole time.

Now John, the Republican for peace who attends all protests, carrying a sign, veteran for peace decided to challenge them and remained at the first corner that we had started at.  Saying he was not a part of the protest but was just one person standing there holding a sign.  And of course the sign said, “veteran for peace.”  okay, so what’s the problem.  Well, they made some phone calls and finally told him if he didn’t move, he would be arrested.  Now I did not know that there was a law that said you could not carry a sign that said “Veteran for peace.”  But I guess I just don’t know every thing like sometimes I think I do.  John decided that he did not like jail food, so he to joined us on our corner.

It was nice to have all those police officers protecting us and I felt lucky that we were not tased.

But from now on though I decided to protest because I can, because if we don’t, tomorrow we may not able to.  Think about it, if we don’t push back, we just might get pushed over.

——————–
Subject: Statement By Dr. Margaret Flowers From the Press Conference on Single Payer Today

Good Morning! I am Dr. Margaret Flowers. I am a pediatrician and the Congressional Fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program. I also serve on the steering committee of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care and on the board of Healthcare-Now, a national single payer grassroots organization.

Members of Physicians for a National Health Program (known as PNHP) educate and advocate for a single payer national health system, also known as Medicare for All. PNHP performs ground breaking research on the health crisis and the need for fundamental reform and contributes scholarly articles to peer-reviewed medical journals. PNHP takes pride in providing information that can inform legislators and the public about the reasons why Medicare for All is the optimal solution to provide necessary medical treatment to everyone in a way that controls health care costs. PNHP does not take a position on how congress members should vote on the legislation that is currently proceeding through congress. We do provide information to members about whether the legislation is likely to be effective and how it compares to a national single payer health system.
We share the growing sense of desperation among patients and providers across the nation, desperation which has been heightened by the economic crisis. Like you, we are hungry for change. We believe that we should act based on the evidence of what types of health reform have been most effective in the United States. Review of the current health insurance reform legislation reveals that it resembles health reforms that have recently been tried and have failed at the state level.

It is for the reasons listed below that we ask our legislators to start from scratch in order to create health reform that addresses the fundamental problems with health care in this nation and creates a health system that is of similar quality to those in the top industrialized nations.
1. During the time that it will take for the health insurance legislation to begin (2013 in the House version and 2014 in the Senate version), tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Americans will die.
2. Once the insurance reform takes effect, people will still be left without health insurance. Whether it is the 17 million left out of the House version or the 24 million left out of the Senate version, we find this unacceptable. We know that the actual number of uninsured people is likely to be higher than these estimates and we know that people without insurance have a 40% higher risk of death than those who have insurance.
3. Medical bankruptcies will continue to occur as families will face out-of-pocket costs on covered services of up to $10,000 in addition to the cost of premiums and the cost of uncovered services. The average medical debt that causes insured families to become bankrupt is $18,000.
4. People who are uninsured will suffer the further indignity of being forced to pay a fine which may be as high as 2.5% of their income (House version).

5. The number of people who are underinsured will increase with this legislation. People will be required to purchase health insurance or face a penalty. There is no guarantee that premiums will be affordable even for those who qualify for federal subsidies. Health insurers have already predicted that the cost of premiums will rise because they are being required to stop the practices of excluding pre-existing conditions and rescissions. The public insurance is estimated to be more expensive than private insurance plans. A similar reform in Massachusetts has resulted in a rise of patients who forego needed care because they cannot afford the co-pays and deductibles once they have paid for their premiums.

6. People will continue to be consigned to only receiving the quality of care that they can afford. Instead of a standardized benefit plan that covers all necessary care, people will have to choose from a tiered set of plans. The least expensive plans will cover only 60% of necessary care and patients will be required to pay the balance.

7. The legislation will not control health care costs and will in fact increase the waste in health care spending. The regulation of insurance companies, which has failed to date and is predicted to fail again by industry whistleblowers, will be expensive to enforce. And the “exchanges” will have to be created from scratch. The exchange will add another level of bureaucracy which in Massachusetts has added a 4% charge to each insurance premium. Unfortunately, this legislation does nothing to reclaim the hundreds of billions of dollars that are currently wasted on administration, paperwork and marketing for the hundreds of health plans in existence.

8. The legislation transfers hundreds of billions of public dollars to private insurance companies. People will be mandated to purchase health insurance whether they can afford it or not, so the insurance companies benefit by having millions of new enrollees. In addition, between $447 and $605 billion in public dollars (depending on the senate or house version) will be given to the private insurers in the forms of subsidies to help people purchase their defective product.
9. The legislation protects the outrageous profits of the pharmaceutical corporations. The majority of Americans will not see any improvement in the costs of medications and the pharmaceutical corporations have already raised prices on brand name prescriptions by 9% this year. Biotech firms receive a windfall 12 year patent on new pharmaceuticals.

10. The legislation continues to allow discrimination based on age and immigration status. Older enrollees can be charged up to twice as much as younger enrollees. And enrollees will be required to prove citizenship in order to receive subsidies. Non-citizens will be required to bear the full cost of purchasing insurance.

The current health insurance reform legislation passing through Congress amounts to a massive bailout of the profit-making health industries, which will enrich them and increase their ability to lobby and otherwise influence legislators in the future. At the same time, patients will receive little in the way of long-lasting protection or ability to afford needed health care. The legislation is designed to fail and in the meantime, will waste billions of dollars and delay the process of creating effective health reform.

We call on Congress to start from scratch. We believe that we have the resources in the United States to create a national health system that will improve the health of the people of our nation. We believe that being ranked 37th in the world for health outcomes is unacceptable and that we, as a nation, can do much better than this. We believe that improving and expanding Medicare to all people is the simplest and quickest way to achieve our goal of universal and financially-sustainable health care.

As far as the health insurance legislation in congress goes, we support Senator Sanders’ substitution amendment which will substitute public financing for the current complicated and wasteful patchwork of financing. We urge our senators to vote “yes” on the Sanders’ amendment.

No matter what happens in Congress this year, we will continue to build the Medicare for all movement until we reach the day when all who live in the United States receive the same health security that is a right in other industrialized nations. We look forward to the day when doctors are free to focus on the needs of their patients without interference by health insurance administrators. We welcome all people who support health care reform to join with us in this movement. Together, we will succeed.

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

Friends,

I’d like to have a word with those of you who call yourselves Christians (Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Bill Maherists, etc. can read along, too, as much of what I have to say, I’m sure, can be applied to your own spiritual/ethical values).

In my new film I speak for the first time in one of my movies about my own spiritual beliefs. I have always believed that one’s religious leanings are deeply personal and should be kept private. After all, we’ve heard enough yammerin’ in the past three decades about how one should “behave,” and I have to say I’m pretty burned out on pieties and platitudes considering we are a violent nation who invades other countries and punishes our own for having the audacity to fall on hard times.

I’m also against any proselytizing; I certainly don’t want you to join anything I belong to. Also, as a Catholic, I have much to say about the Church as an institution, but I’ll leave that for another day (or movie).

Amidst all the Wall Street bad guys and corrupt members of Congress exposed in “Capitalism: A Love Story,” I pose a simple question in the movie: “Is capitalism a sin?” I go on to ask, “Would Jesus be a capitalist?” Would he belong to a hedge fund? Would he sell short? Would he approve of a system that has allowed the richest 1% to have more financial wealth than the 95% under them combined?

I have come to believe that there is no getting around the fact that capitalism is opposite everything that Jesus (and Moses and Mohammed and Buddha) taught. All the great religions are clear about one thing: It is evil to take the majority of the pie and leave what’s left for everyone to fight over. Jesus said that the rich man would have a very hard time getting into heaven. He told us that we had to be our brother’s and sister’s keepers and that the riches that did exist were to be divided fairly. He said that if you failed to house the homeless and feed the hungry, you’d have a hard time finding the pin code to the pearly gates.

I guess that’s bad news for us Americans. Here’s how we define “Blessed Are the Poor”: We now have the highest unemployment rate since 1983. There’s a foreclosure filing once every 7.5 seconds. 14,000 people every day lose their health insurance.

At the same time, Wall Street bankers (“Blessed Are the Wealthy”?) are amassing more and more loot — and they do their best to pay little or no income tax (last year Goldman Sachs’ tax rate was a mere 1%!). Would Jesus approve of this? If not, why do we let such an evil system continue? It doesn’t seem you can call yourself a Capitalist AND a Christian — because you cannot love your money AND love your neighbor when you are denying your neighbor the ability to see a doctor just so you can have a better bottom line. That’s called “immoral” — and you are committing a sin when you benefit at the expense of others.

When you are in church this morning, please think about this. I am asking you to allow your “better angels” to come forward. And if you are among the millions of Americans who are struggling to make it from week to week, please know that I promise to do what I can to stop this evil — and I hope you’ll join me in not giving up until everyone has a seat at the table.

Thanks for listening. I’m off to Mass in a few hours. I’ll be sure to ask the priest if he thinks J.C. deals in derivatives or credit default swaps. I mean, after all, he must’ve been good at math. How else did he divide up two loaves of bread and five pieces of fish equally amongst 5,000 people? Either he was the first socialist or his disciples were really bad at packing lunch. Or both.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

The Self Righteous
And The Righteous

There will always be earthquakes
Rainstorms and hurricanes
Changing the earth we are living on
But the inside
stays the same

And we
On the outside
Change constantly
Making ourselves
What we want others to see
But the inside
stays the same

Who accepts their feelings
and lives them out
Who hides them inside
trying to snuff them out
Who’s wrong
And who’s right

The body gets old and dies
But the feelings last forever
for all of us

By: Roger Harkness

One Hundred Times

If I fell in love one hundred times
I would be hurt one hundred times
But I would learn one hundred things
Be one hundred times stronger
And be one hundred years older

Love is a process of learning
Turning and changing
Growing and knowing

It’s an adventure out at sea
Fighting a freggin storm
Trying to keep her on course
It’s a million different stars in the sky
Seeing both sides of a rainbow
Landing ashore in a foreign land

There is no way
I would turn love away

By:  Roger Harkness

God Is Near

Lying in the darkness of midnight
I’m suddenly gripped with fear
I know that God is near
My heart begins to pound
My chest beings to hurt
And I wonder if I’m gonna be taken away
Don’t really know why I’m afraid
Maybe because you’re so great
Or maybe because I’ve made a few mistakes
But as Jesus sat with the sinners
Please stay with me
For as long as you may
Because I know as long as you’re with me
I’m okay
Knowing that you love me
And would do nothing to hurt me

By:  Roger Harkness

******************************

Written in Antarctica, second time I have had this experience, first time was on Afterlookout, have poem about that too.

As A Child

This is a great big world
So much to feel
So much to learn
All I want to do is have fun
A rainbow is magnificent
A dark pit has something to be feared
I just want to explore
Learning to dance
I love to sing
Wishing everyone was my friend

Everybody can’t have everything
Toys aren’t for free
But if you cant have everything
You can learn everything
Before you lies life’s lesson plan
Explore it like a child

By:  Roger Harkness

********************

I wrote this in Antarctica about 1988.

A Horse Called Pride

I saw a horse
Went by the name of “Pride”
So sick inside

Prancing across the sky
Couldn’t see
Blind to reality
Figured he was all there was
Being independent
That was his confinement
Putting himself up
Laid him down

I saw that horse called pride
So sick inside
I watched it die

By: ?Roger Harkness

**********************************************

This was one of the first poems I wrote. I believe I was 15 when I wrote this, which was a long time ago unfortunately.

I would say that this was a good bit of imagination, but actually, this is simply a dream I had and I wrote it down just about the way I dreampt it. I interpreted the dream to mean that pride will make you sick and die and us men unfortunately have a real problem with pride and I was to recognize this and not let it rule my life.