Sara S. Nichols
Follow me on Twitter at @snicholsblog
Sara S. Nichols is a former progressive lawyer/lobbyist turned new thought minister/spiritual scientist-- she is moved to share her thoughts on politics spirit movies, plays & books
My best rating is (:)(:)(:)(:)(:) out of a total of 5 Snouts Up -- I almost never give 5 Snouts--that's just for the best ever.
Gavin Newsom Embraced by the CNA for his Single Payer support
This will be a short post and a slightly crabby one. Gavin Newsom, with the enthusiastic support of the California Nurses Association, campaigned for governor and won on single payer Medicare for All health care system. He then promptly appointed a bunch of people who have specialized in incremental approaches to health care reform. He "discovered" that its hard to fund single payer without a federal waiver that allows you to re-allocate Medicare and Medicaid (called MediCal here) dollars (everyone who knows anything about the realities of healthcare financing knows this). And...crickets. No movement on this front whatsoever.
Also, as far as I can tell, no blowback from the California Nurses Association despite his not keeping his promises.
If anybody wonders why I plan to vote for the only candidate running for president who has a lifelong commitment to single payer Medicare for all, someone who goes into it with eyes wide open as to the sea change and political courage it will take to defeat the health care industry, someone who isn't just paying lip service to a popular program at a particular point in time, they just got their answer.
Governor Newsom, if you ever want to be president (and you clearly do), you need to actually get it done and not just talk about it.
These days, I find it particularly important to hold in mind a model for world leaders who are ethical, loving and competent. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali of Ethiopia is one of those rare leaders. Last week, The Nobel Peace Prize 2019 was awarded to Abiy "for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea." Basically, within 18 months of taking office, he successfully ended a 20 year bloody conflict with Eritrea. I intend to learn more about him and to lift him up with prayer. I wonder, how does it get even better than this? What energy, space and consciousness can I and the United States of America be to experience our own leader right here and now as ethical, loving and competent and anything that doesn't allow it, am I willing to destroy and uncreate that all right now?
Forbes reports "Abiy, a former intelligence officer, has been credit with pushing limited economic and political reforms in Ethiopia, working to mediate disputes between Kenya and Somalia and brokering talks between factions in Sudan. But he faces awakened ethnic rivalries in at home, where millions of people have been displaced by recent violence."
Elizabeth Warren, vibrant and feisty at 70, shined in last night's debate. She deftly deflected her many detractors. She held her own. And her touted policies and beliefs mirrored Bernie Sanders. So why am I still for Bernie?
Let me dispense with a few reasons that many Bernie supporters give for why they are still for Bernie over Warren:
1. I do not believe that Warren's ex Republican status makes her a traitor to Democrats. My father-in-law is still a Republican on paper and his beliefs mirror mine. There are many very ethical caring people who either were or are members of the Republican party. Why any of them would still be a member of the party or would still vote for Republicans is beyond me. I am a member of the Democratic party only to try to influence the Democratic party from within. For years I was independent. 2. I do not believe that Warren is a stalking horse for Wall Street. I think she believes what she is saying and I think that if she could win, she would try to be a strong advocate for consumers and working people in the White House. 3. I am given pause by Warren's long ago help to Dalkon Shield when it was screwing women it had injured but that is not the reason I am still for Bernie. 4. I am given pause by Warren's recent votes for bad military budgets, but that is not the reason I am still for Bernie.
The reasons I am still for Bernie are: 1. Ohio 2. Wisconsin 3. Pennsylvania 4. Michigan 5. Ability to NOT get played by Trump 6. Realism and Pragmatism 7. Depth and energy of his base including young people, women and people of color 8. Popularity with everyone who knows him best
Winning the key swing states & depth and energy of his base. Basically, Bernie has shown that he can win those states. Even though both Warren and Sanders say they campaign for the middle and working class, Warren is polling better with educated elites than with the people she says she cares about. Sanders continues to be an absolute rock star on the campaign trail. You'd never know it by MSNBC (which the Berniecrats on Twitter call "MSDNC") or CNN coverage but Bernie draws record epic crowds and lines everywhere he goes. People wait for hours in lines around the block to see him. His average contribution is $17. He's getting this money from teachers and Walmart and Amazon employees barely eking out a living.
Everything that Warren said last night is correct. We don't beat the incumbents by turning back the clock. We beat them by addressing the same concerns that got him elected. That rules out Joe Obama Biden, Pete Clinton Buttigieg, and Kamala Harris right off the bat. Warren says all the right things but I still believe that she cannot connect as well with the people of these midwestern states.
Popularity with those who know him best. Before and after running for president, Sanders is the most popular senator in the country with his home state, Vermont (also in neighboring and more conservative New Hampshire). Vermont has a Republican governor and almost everyone in the state loves Bernie. They look at you like you're crazy if you ask who they support for president. Warren, by contrast, is not particularly popular in Massachusetts. (Nor is Harris in California).
Realism and Pragmatism. Bernie has been a chief executive (mayor) for many years and was, by all accounts, very effective at it. I believe he knows how to govern and is less likely to get in the weeds, but will hire great people who will be loyal and will get it done. My sense is that Warren would be more of a Jimmy Carter type who tries to get her hands on everything. That's typically a disaster for a president. Bernie is not some pie in the sky idealist (neither is Warren), he knows it will take a sea change and a movement to get the changes that he wants done. That's why he compares himself to FDR who campaigned on the New Deal and when elected said "now go out there and make me do it."
Not getting played by you know who. Although Warren is showing more discipline today, which makes me more hopeful if she does end up being the nominee, the whole Pocahontas thing, the recent discoveries of possible fabrications, all of it is unfair and unjustified stuff but I don't feel she has uniformly handled it well. This president has an uncanny ability to define the playing field and drag his opponents to it. He did it with every single Republican he beat in the 2016 primary and he did with Hillary. Bernie on the other hand just keeps being Bernie. He does not get thrown off his game. He has abundantly shown that he doesn't play by the opponent's rules. He plays by his rules. This is KEY KEY KEY to beating this guy. As Harry Reid said the other day, do NOT underestimate Donald Trump.
Popularity with young people, women and people of color. Bernie may be an old white man but yesterday three women of color in Congress (3/4 of "the Squad) endorsed him: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). This video endorsement by Omar says it all:
As the American health insurance industry straps "public option"to Democratic candidates to torpedo Bernie Sanders and his growing movement for Medicare for All (The Nation: The ‘Public Option’ on Health Care Is a Poison Pill), it makes me wonder. Perhaps most Americans, including insiders, do not know that Medicare for All is already a compromise position worldwide; it is already the "reasonable public private option." Perhaps strategically we should push for government owned and operated health care, like the British system, rather than government insurance with private health care, which is what Canada has, and what Medicare for All would be.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham in British NHS scary looking government hospital, huh?
Few people know that Canadian-Style National Health Insurance (which essentially is Medicare for All) was a political compromise proposed by the conservative party in order to forestall British-style, government run health insurance. In Britain, hospitals and health clinics are operated by the British Health Service. Physicians are public employees who work for the government. Except for certain speciality services, there is no private health industry. This is extremely cost effective simple and straightforward and works well as long as there is the political will to fund it fully. After it was up and running in Britain the liberal party pushed for it in Canada. The conservative party pushed through the compromise position, government run insurance, with private hospitals and physicians.
For decades Medicare for All has been enormously popular with average Americans and dead on arrival in Congress, which does the bidding of the insurance industry and the medical financial complex. Now that there's a viable presidential candidate with a vast and growing movement behind him pushing for Medicare for All, the industry has been busily grooming his opponents to chant "public option" whenever the subject comes up, as they no doubt will in tonight's Democratic candidate debate.
Politics is always about compromise and the art of the possible. For every Bernie Sanders or AOC there is going to be a Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg that wants us to be "reasonable" and go slower. It's just the way it works. Government operated health care has a lot to offer. It saves much more money over government operated insurance. Let's campaign for British-style Government operated health care here and let Bernie Sanders offer up the reasonable compromise position of Medicare for All, government operated insurance. Up for it?
Settling into watch a video on the history of Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, I was shocked at the length of the video and worried, based on comments from my family, that it would take forever to get to the part where our uncle Steve Nichols talks about the Nichols family part of this story. Preparing myself to fast-forward madly, there he was, our patriarch, looking and sounding great.
It's kind of a goofy production though. Reminds me of "There Goes a Train" which our once three year old son adored, and called "Goes a Train." In it, "Engineer Dave"(who, as a young bored housewife, let's be honest, I had a bit of a pathetic crush on) would always say things like "maybe Frank the station master has an idea what to do next. Let's go talk to Frank the station master."
ohmigod I found "There Goes a Train" on Youtube--crappy 90s quality!
Anyway, let's raise our glasses the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, a masterful piece of engineering and a must do whenever you're visiting the desert empire. Nowhere else in the US can you zip from palms to pines thousands of feet in the air with unparalleled views. Don't miss it. Together we can offer our ex 3 year old's favorite utterance, "Goes a Train!"
I am trained in how to work reliably with spiritual principle to produce the result I want in the world. I believe that thoughts, words and beliefs create reality and that whatever I put my attention to grows and whatever I resist (which is a form of attention) persists. So when it comes to the political realm, which unlike some of my spiritual brothers and sisters I am VERY interested in, can I put my money where my mouth is? How am I using my thoughts, beliefs and actions?
Once upon a time I was in business with a wonderful woman whom I adored. After months of doing business together we found out that we were absolutely antithetically inclined politically. It was a staggering discovery for me. I felt betrayed by my inability to spot this coming. Out of respect for her privacy, I won't describe the many ways in which she presented like one of my tribe and NOT "the other" but it blew my mind. This was simply not possible.
This discovery coincided with a general election presidential campaign. I was committed to my candidate and she was committed to hers. We were accustomed to starting our meetings with affirmative prayer (something we BOTH believed in) and as it was getting very close to the election, this prayer came to me:
I know that the next President of the United States of America is intelligent, loving, caring, disciplined, experienced and ready to lead the country ethically and responsibly.
We both loved the prayer because we were both sure that that meant our candidate would win. Her side won. In my estimation, that meant we had just re-elected the worst president of my lifetime (and that was saying a lot, even before the current era).
I tweeted out a similar prayer yesterday. And as I wrote it, I hovered over the word "next" -- if I really believed in affirmative prayer could I write in the present tense, "I know that the President of the United States is intelligent, loving, caring, disciplined, experienced and leading the country ethically and responsibly"? I couldn't bring myself to do that because it seems patently false to me.
But how different is this affirmation from any other affirmation that might set my teeth on edge? If I had a client who was barely making ends meet, I might have her affirming "money is flowing easily and effortlessly to me." If I had a congregant who wanted to manifest a wonderful life partner, I might have him say "I feel happy and joyful and comfortable with my wonderful partner." Neither of things would appear to be true at the time, probably they would feel if anything as false or more as my presidential affirmation does.
So then, it makes me wonder, do I believe that this stuff works? Am I afraid that affirmative prayer works or that it doesn't work? If I say this with conviction and passion and energy, what if it works? What if I suddenly experience this president, this man, whose name I cannot bring myself to utter, what if I experience this president as intelligent, loving, caring disciplined, experienced and leading the country ethically and responsibly? Would that mean that I am suddenly wearing red hats and watching Fox News? Would it mean that this person actually becomes those things? Would it mean that he suddenly dies or is removed from office and is replaced with AOC? What would it mean?
Part of the obstacle for working reliably with spiritual principle is that I want to control the results of what I pray for. But if I could have controlled who was going to be president, this is NOT how I would have made it go. The universe, life, is having its way with us, and this is the president it has elected.
Last weekend I saw a show called She the People: the resistance continues at The Second City in Chicago. This all female comedy review featured six women, most of them not conforming to traditional standards of beauty, on stage, singing, dancing, and mostly making us laugh really hard. They hardly ever mentioned the president or men at all. It had an unabashed feminist through line. There is no question in my mind that this show would never have existed if it weren't for #YouKnowWho. How is this not answered prayer?
While I may not be able to imagine that #YouKnowWho is that kind of leader, I do know and sense that a Divine loving intelligence is guiding all things. Maybe the right prayer for now is to call upon it to make itself known even more obviously in the world and to allow me to know that all is well, despite all evidence to the contrary:
I know that the United States has a loving intelligent, loving, caring, disciplined, experienced, ethical and responsible leader at the helm.
