Socialist Currents News and Opinion from Social Democrats USA

The following is a report of activity of SDUSA members in Kansas this weekend; filed by Tim Tarkelly in Topeka. Click on any photo for a larger version.

While the Women’s March in Topeka, KS might have been smaller than others, we still had over four thousand on the Capitol lawn. The speakers represented women from various walks of life and representing different experiences: a state legislator, a Kansas poet laureate, artists, activists, scholars, and educators.

One of the most moving speeches was from Alise Martiny who spoke about the struggles she faced as a woman in the construction industry. She had to be the first to show up every day. She had to work harder than those around her and never express her complaints, just to be seen as an equal. When she considered giving up, she found encouragement in the thought that her work would make way for the women that followed. Now, she is the president of the Operative Plasterers’ and Cement Masons’ Local Union #518 and is the first woman to ever hold that position.

Fatima Mohammadi spoke of the unique challenges that come with being an American Muslim Woman and how to face hate when it is popular. Dot Nary, a disability rights advocate reminded the marchers that people with disabilities “need accommodations for our voices to be heard.” Stephanie Mott, a licensed therapist and a local activist for LGBTQIA rights pointed out that the Trumpists of the world are trying to protect us from her, whether we are scared of her, or not. State Representative Barbara Ballard called people to action, citing that “service is the rent we pay for occupying a space on earth.”

My personal favorite speakers were Anaya Vasu and Sho Gasshauser. They are 8th graders at Topeka Collegiate School who already have reputations as activists, organizing for LGBTQIA issues. They spoke to the young people in the crowd, telling them how they can get more involved and to not let their age act as a barrier to activism.

It was extraordinary, especially for Kansas, to see so many like-minded people gathered together. However, while there were general calls for action and some strategies were discussed, I did not feel like we had created any kind of coalition. Though it has become a common criticism, the kind of positive spirit that was so present would have been much more helpful before election day. We left without sharing information, signing petitions, joining mailing lists, etc.

Still, I am optimistic. I do believe that people left inspired and I hope that this energy is carried into the midterm elections.

Tim carrying the SD torch

It felt like the sixties. There were the ghastly transportation struggles to get to the actual demonstration. The earnest concerns of the demonstrators were almost palpable. Above all, there was the sense of comradeship and fun. Even the symbol of the demonstration- a knitted pink hat with cat’s ears- poked sly fun at The Donald’s hot mike incident and the lack of respect it showed for women. The signs were home-made and showed a wide variety of anti-Trump sentiments, from the serious “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” to “Keep Your Tiny Hands Off My…” Alas, as I walked across Boston Common, my joints reminded me that I wasn’t still thirty, no matter how familiar the demonstration looked. But the more than a hundred thousand people on the Common was witness to a statement I have been making to younger people: the progressive movement now has its best opportunity in the last fifty years.

It would be nice to report that Trump paid some attention to the half million or so demonstrators who came to Washington to shout their defiance outside his window. Even Nixon went down to the Mall on one occasion and had conversations with demonstrators. Our new President, however, was busily engaged in his favorite game, “Mine is bigger than yours.”
In this instance, the “mine” was his crowd at the inauguration versus that of Barack Obama.
Sad.

In their own ways, both Trump and some Democrats made a similar point: the election is over and the protesters should have made their views known at the ballot box. This is nonsense, of course; those very responsible people almost certainly voted and many of them probably worked hard for Hillary Clinton. More importantly, this argument obscures the fact that Clinton gave them (us) precious little reason to feel enthusiastic. Having available the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party, some of whose planks were forced on her, she managed to run a campaign that left cold a significant part of the Democratic base. Hillary and her chosen technocrats ran the kind of campaign they wanted;
the election was hers to lose and lose it she did.

Inevitably, the Pussy Hat rallies had a diversity of speakers (in the case of Boston, there were two Native American speakers, not including Elizabeth Warren). And, yes, the crowd was mostly middle class. There was some labor sponsorship, but the demonstrators were not working people, on the whole. This should not concern even those of us who want more attention paid to the needs of poor and working people. Social Democracy is an ideology of human liberation, and while it certainly includes economic justice, it also covers a broad spectrum from gender equality to equality of sexual orientation. To borrow from Sheri Berman, Social Democracy is a cross-class coalition. From moment to moment, groups of us will emphasize one aspect or another. While doing so, it is important that we not lose sight of our role of fighting against all forms of oppression.

Let’s be crystal clear: the Republicans in Congress hate Obamacare, a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act. Well, most of them hate most of it. Well, maybe there are a few good parts, but overall, they truly hate Obamacare; after all, they voted to repeal it 60 times. Then along comes the unpredictable Donald Trump and talks about a program that would have to be single-payer to be as good as he describes. Of course, he is not going to give details about his program until Tom Price, his Health and Human Services nominee, is confirmed. One thing we know about Representative Tom Price: he really, truly, honestly hates Obamacare, root and branch, down to the dots on the pages of the statute. In fact, this orthopedic surgeon has been the GOP point person on its repeal. It’s hard to see how he is going to be the architect of a health program that, we have been promised, is going to be cheaper, more comprehensive, in short, all-around better than the Affordable Care Act.

Just to show that no one hates Obamacare more than he does, Trump made sure that his first
executive order, signed just hours after he took the oath of office, expressed his opposition to the ACA. Analysts are still discussing the meaning of the order. One thing seems to be clear: the order grants the power to Federal agencies to waive, exempt or delay provisions of the law that would impose costs on states or individuals. But does this mean
that the individual mandate, requiring people to get health insurance or be fined, can be effectively ended? It’s not clear. The individual mandate has brought millions of uninsured healthy people into the insurance pools. This influx has made possible the insurance mechanism that allows coverage of persons with pre-existing conditions and that requires charging the same premiums for men and women. Without the mandate and without raising premiums, the mechanism collapses: insurance companies would have to absorb unacceptable losses or withdraw from the health insurance markets. Probably the coverage of insured people is safe in 2017 because the insurance companies have already determined the policy terms for this year, but there could be a wholesale collapse of the markets in 2018. Insurance companies like to get as close to certainty as mathematics makes possible; policy muddles make this impossible.

In the midst of this confusion, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last week released a study of the effect of the repeal of the ACA. Had the law been repealed effective January 1, 2016, the CBO estimates that 19 million people would have been added
to the 29 million still uninsured under the ACA, for a total 48 million uninsured. In a population of 271 million nonelderly people, the current uninsured rate of about 11% would rise to an uninsured rate of about 18%. Bad as they are, these are only statistics. Translate 18% into the millions of human lives, and you will see the heath care catastrophe
that looms before us.

Senators Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have called for rallies throughout the country to protest Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Called “Our First Stand” to suggest that these rallies are only the beginning of resistance to efforts to eliminate Federal health care for more than 20 million people and to butcher Medicare and Social Security, the rallies are remarkable for their leadership beyond the left of the Democratic Party. The protest gatherings will be held on Sunday, January 15th, and you can locate a nearby rally on www.berniesanders.com. A live streaming of Sanders’ speech will be broadcast on Sunday afternoon, and if you can’t get to a rally, you can register for Bernie’s speech at www.ourrevolution.com.

No retreat, no compromise, no surrender!