Blue Commonwealth - Ted Kennedy

Derrick Jackson & Victoria Reggie Kennedy want this health care bill

teacherken — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:46:25 GMT

Two op eds relevant to health care appear in major newspapers this morning. In The Boston Globe Derrick Jackson offers Laying down the law on health reform which begins

HEALTH CARE reform is now so bizarre that the Republicans are the ones screaming that the Democrats' proposals are terrible because they will not insure enough Americans.

And in The Washington Post we can read the words of the widow of Ted Kennedy. Victoria Reggie Kennedy offers us The moment Ted Kennedy would not want to lose she writes

The bill before the Senate, while imperfect, would achieve many of the goals Ted fought for during the 40 years he championed access to quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

Derrick Jackson has been a consistent liberal voice in the press. And no one should doubt Vickie Kennedy's dedication to what was the cause of her late hsuband's life.

That does not mean we cannot question the arguments of either or both. I'm not saying that.

But I do think we owe them the decency to hear/read what they have to offer.

Let me start with Jackson.

I think many who are unhappy with how things have played out in the Senate might, regardless of their opinion of the current shape of the Senate bill - whatever that might be - find themselves in strong agreement with Jackson's third paragraph:

When the Republicans feign care for the uninsured, the Democrats had better get a grip before the entire health care moment is lost. Liberals already have conceded they are not getting anything close to single-payer coverage. It is time for Democratic leaders to tell centrist renegades such as Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska to stop threatening to destroy reform unless it bans coverage for abortions. It is time for them to tell party turncoat and anti-public-option insurance industry hack Joe Lieberman that if you block reform, the door is barred to their side of the aisle.

Methinks the blunt language describing Lieberman will resonate with most here. And Jackson's willingness to draw a line is something with which many have already expressed agreement, even knowing that crybaby Joe might take his marbles and leave the Democratic caucus. Jackson is willing to have the leadership present Lieberman with an ultimatum. And from what I can see, that would resonate strongly with Lieberman's Connecticut constituents. That includes Connecticut rabbis, more than two dozen of whom signed a letter

which says, in part, "As rabbis and Jews, we are commanded to seek the welfare and healing of all those in our midst, especially the weak, especially the vulnerable. We are taught to care for justice - and a system that leaves millions of Americans uninsured and under-insured is far from just."

Let me offer a couple of other snips from Jackson:

Without reform, the CBO, the actuary, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation estimate we will have between 54 million and 66 million uninsured Americans by 2019.

Our unfairness has a human toll. Of the 25 top-ranked countries in the UN's 2009 Human Development report, the United States has the third-highest income gap and is tied for the second-lowest life expectancy.

and from Jackson's concluding paragraph:

it is important to get 30 million more people insured, even in this highly flawed system. Democrats need to grab the debate back and not completely cave in to Republicans who are making a mockery of health care reform.

In Meeting for Worship with an attention to Business, Quakers will occasionally offer a simple and plain expression of support for a previous speaker: "This Friend speaks my mind." For much of what I read in Derrick Jackson, I offer those words: "He speaks my mind."

Vickie Kennedy goes through a list of things she believes the Senate bill would accomplish. You can read them through the link. She also offers this:

Health care would finally be a right, and not a privilege, for the citizens of this country. While my husband believed in a robust public option as an effective way to lower costs and increase competition, he also believed in not losing sight of the forest for the trees. As long as he wasn't compromising his principles or values, he looked for a way forward.

We need to remember that what comes out of the Senate would not be the final version. Keeping that in mind, read the final paragraph from Mrs. Kennedy:

The bill before Congress will finally deliver on the urgent needs of all Americans. It would make their lives better and do so much good for this country. That, in the end, must be the test of reform. That was always the test for Ted Kennedy. He's not here to urge us not to let this chance slip through our fingers. So I humbly ask his colleagues to finish the work of his life, the work of generations, to allow the vote to go forward and to pass health-care reform now. As Ted always said, when it's finally done, the people will wonder what took so long.

I claim no expertise on health care policy. I have seen first-hand the need for reform - in Wise ande Grundy, VA; in the lives of students in Prince George's County, including Deomante Driver; in the lives of friends and family who are medical professionals.

I may know a little about politics. I am 63. I remember the battles over Medicare; Clinton's attempts in 1993; the attempts to expand S-Chip; Medicare Part D. The Republicans have made clear they want health care to fail, for political purposes, and - as is clear to many of us - to benefit their corporate sponsors.

The American people want health care security. They want to see that the recent election gave THEM some benefit, not just bailouts for banks and auto companies. Health care remains a critical issue for many Americans.

Perhaps what comes out of the Senate will really shock many of us. But suppose just this - the Senate comes out without Stupak or Nelson's equivalent. The rest of the House bill is not bad, and that might give grounds for a decent bill that moves the line, starts a process that can be continued and expanded in the future.

I claim no wisdom on this.

But two people I am willing to respect, Derrick Jackson and Victoria Reggie Kennedy, suggest that we need to get a health care bill now.

I think that is worthy of our serious consideration.

Don't you?

Peace.

Thank You, Teddy Kennedy

Elaine in Roanoke — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:08:44 GMT

As Sen. Kennedy is laid to rest in Arlington, let's pause to remember these things:

Every major piece of legislation that expanded civil rights for Americans who had been left out of the blessings of this country was championed by Sen. Edward Kennedy. Blacks, women, the disabled, all owe him a debt. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Title IX for women, the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The greatest champion of my generation for the working man and woman was Ted Kennedy. He was a powerful advocate for union rights, a fighter for a living wage for those who do all the work we value every day.

Someone said today that John Kennedy inspired a generation. Bobby Kennedy challenged a generation to be better. Teddy Kennedy made his generation better, fairer, more just.
Sen. Kennedy also knew the secret of politics. It can be fun! It is combat without the pain and the blood. It is sport with the highest stakes - making one's country a better place. Kennedy relished the game. He knew that a game well played can bring the benefits of victory to many. He also knew that if one loses, there will be another day and another battle.

Kennedy's secrets for political success seem easy, yet they are so hard to follow when we believe strongly in our cause. Every person in Congress represents those back home. That's the heart of representative democracy. Because of the diverse beliefs and interests of a nation that spans a continent and extends beyond to encompass an archipelago in the Pacific that has given us our president and an arctic land to the north, sometimes we find it hard to find common ground. Kennedy was able to bridge many of those differences.

Personal respect for one another goes far in Congress in achieving one's political goals. Teddy Kennedy was a master in the personal touch. It is a skill not easily learned. His grace will be missed.

It is unfortunate that our political comity has been drowned in recent years in the vitriol that is the staple of shock-jock radio, hate-filled cable "news" hosts who spout prejudice too often masked by patriotic jingoism and religious symbolism.

My prayer on the day we say farewell to Teddy Kennedy is this: May knowledge replace ignorance and prejudice, may love for the least of those among us lift us to the better angels of our nature, may the torch of idealism never be allowed to be extinguished.

Godspeed, Sen. Kennedy. We will not see your like again

"Follow the fellow who follows a dream"

teacherken — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:42:43 GMT

When Jack Kennedy learned on a May morning in 1948 that his sister Kathleen, known as Kick, had been killed in a plane crash in Europe, he had been listening to recordings from the Broadway musical "Finian's Rainbow."

Bob Herbert begins with those words today, in a column that is titled Look to the Rainbow. It is a worthy column, as most of his are. And because he reminds us of Kathleen, we should remember that the number of siblings who died of unnatural causes early is four - her and the three oldest brothers who are so often remembered, Joe, Jack and Bobby.

But for me it is Herbert's use of Finian's Rainbow instead of Camelot that is key to this column, and leads to both my title and this diary.
The title of the column is a well-known song from that musical. It is a song I remember well, since we performed "Finian's Rainbow" when I was in high school. Here are the complete lyrics to "Follow the Rainbow:"

On the day I was born,
Said my father, said he.
I've an an elegant legacy
Waitin' for ye,
'Tis a rhyme for your lips
And a song for your heart,
To sing it whenever
The world falls apart.
Look, look
Look to the rainbow.
Follow it over the hill
And the stream.
Look, look
Look to the rainbow.
Follow the fellow
Who follows a dream.
Follow the fellow,
Follow the fellow,
Follow the fellow
Who follows a dream.
'Twas a sumptuous
To bequeath to a child.
Oh the lure of that song
Kept her feet funnin' wild.
For you never grow old
And you never stand still,
With whippoorwills singin'
Beyond the next hill.
Look, look
Look to the rainbow.
Follow it over the hill
And the stream.
Look, look
Look to the rainbow.
Follow the fellow
Who follows a dream.
Follow the fellow,
Follow the fellow,
Follow the fellow
Who follows a dream.

Follow the fellow who follows a dream After telling us near the end of the column that he finds "Finian's Rainbow" a more appropriate metaphor for the Kennedys than Camelot, and describing the lyric I have just bolded as "moving", Herbert offers this in his penultimate paragrpah:

That was Ted's message at Bobby's funeral. The Kennedys counseled us for half a century to be optimistic and to strive harder, to find the resilience to overcome those inevitable moments of tragedy and desolation, and to move steadily toward our better selves, as individuals and as a nation.

There are other notable expressions in the column, whether of Jack's notable speech at American University on the cold war, or of remarks by Bobby at Terre Haute that I had not known, but which show the concern he had developed for the poor:

"The poor are hidden in our society. No one sees them anymore. They are a small minority in a rich country. Yet I am stunned by a lack of awareness of the rest of us toward them."

It hurts to realize that too many in our society now more than four decades after his death remain unaware of the true condition of many Americans.

Herbert reminds us that service was an essential part of the Kennedy legacy - and also reminds us that is was not just the brothers, given the legacy of Eunice so visible in Special Olympics.

Even those who politically opposed the Kennedys should recognize how much they have given this country. Certainly in the words of two Republicans who were close to him, John McCain and Orrin Hatch, we heard last night some recognition of the role Teddy, the youngest and last of the brothers has played. I still hear in my mind the list of all he included in his vision, in his dream for this nation and the world: the old, the poor, people of color, women, the disabled. Is there anyone who was not included?

Ted's brother Bobby liked to quote Shaw:

Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.

Teddy lived out that quote. Perhaps Herbert touches me because as I look at the public life of Ted Kennedy, and the more I learn of the private life and the many kindnesses towards so many, he embodied that Shavian quote. As he did the famous words by Hubert Humphrey, which in this recounting I will change slightly, to make it about an individual, this individual, Ted Kennedy. Here is that modified version:

The moral test of man is how he treats those who
are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight
of life, the aged; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the
needy and the handicapped.

Ted Kennedy passed that moral test with flying colors. His heart was that large. It included, it did not exclude.

Herbert concludes by suggesting the funeral today is an apt occasion to remember what the Kennedy family has given us. That is true.

Might I suggest that we take the words of the song and make them our own: Follow the fellow who follows a dream. It is now up to us to step forward so that others will see that dreams are possible, that they too can join in following, or perhaps step past us and help us lead.

Finian's Rainbow is in part about a leprechaun who surrenders that status for love. Ted Kennedy was too large to be a leprechaun, but his irrepressible Irish spirit had much in common with leprechauns. And as he in his later life was rejuvenated by love from Vickie, his ability to continue to strive, to expand even further the capacity of his heart to include, should be an inspiration, even to those of us who are ourselves far closer to the ends of our time on earth than to our beginnings.

We need inspiration. We need motivation. We need to be reminded not merely of what is and to be bound thereby, but to dream of what still can be.

Follow the fellow who follows a dream.

Peace.

"And the Dream Shall Never Die" (Ted Kennedy)

KathyinBlacksburg — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:29:49 GMT

It is a little after noon. And I just turned on the television for the first time today. It was hard enough to hear the news on the radio this morning. TV would be too much. The news from the clock radio had crashed through my slo-mo wake up. And, first, selfishly, I thought "Oh, no!" The central force in our fight for real health care reform stilled. How can this be? And what of the many great ventures advanced in the Congress on behalf of the people? Kennedy became mired in self during his relative youth, and early tenure in the Senate. And then he became one of the most selfless men ever to serve in Congress, always advancing programs that would serve the people, not special interests. As a Virginian with no Democratic Senator I felt I could call during the John Warner, George Allen days, I called Kennedy's office to thank him and them for being there. I called him during the late 1990s when the Republican Congress sought mightily to take down Bill Clinton. "My" Senator--because I had "none." And then, this morning, I brought myself back from selfish thoughts and thought about the loss of the man and the Senate legacy to America.

For 47 years Sen. Ted Kennedy, in many ways, was the Senate. How to imagine it without him there? Through good times and bad, the Kennedys always showed how to rise from tragedy and personal failings. They showed us how to mourn and how to fight one more time, no matter how difficult things become. From admonitions of responsibility from his patriarch father to personal failings to his reborn career in the Senate, Sen. Ted Kennedy's journey was part of who were and are.

It is more than heartbreaking that he has died before realizing the dream he fought for nearly forty years, universal health care.
They were not perfect, but in many ways, the Kennedys stood in sharp outline of who we could be come, that we could, no matter who we were, reach for greater things. And those greater things were about making this country better for others. With Irish Catholic roots, I lived my older youth immersed in the Kennedys. I could not yet vote when JFK ran for the president (one had to be 21 to vote back then). But, when he campaigned near our town, I and other family members headed to a shopping mall a little over a mile from our home. And there we stood in the throng of thousands waiting for a glimpse of our orator candidate. My mother shook his hand, and then got down the rope line to do it again. I was further back and my glimpse less clear. It was the only time a presidential candidate came our way back then. It was a singular experience in my early life.

Though I am aware of his shortcomings, I loved having JFK for our president and was devastated upon his death. And though he had his Nixonian critics at home, he was beloved both at home and abroad-as was his extended family. Despite my admiration of JFK, and my profound reaction to his loss, I did not support Bobby for president. And it was not until McCarthy showed LBJs vulnerability that Bobby jumped in the race. Many of us thought he should have done so earlier. McCarthy would have supported him too had he been the one to lead the way. As we left McCarthy HQ on election night in Los Angeles, we heard the news as we started up our car in the garage of the Beverly Hilton. I will never forget that night that made Teddy the only surviving Kennedy brother. Even McCarthy supporters stayed up all night watching in disbelief the unfolding nightmare that had occurred at the Ambassador Hotel. And we tried to embrace that artful George Bernard Shaw quote Bobby loved so much: "Some dream things as they are and ask why. I dream things that never were and ask why not." That night, Teddy stepped up and never looked back.

Though his flawed life cost him presidential ambitions, his best life played out, as they say, as the Lion of the Senate. Few would have dreamed it 47 years ago, or in some of his darkest hours.

In July 1969, however, the Chappaquidick incident...in which he drove off a bridge with a young campaign worker, Mary Jo Kopechne, literally derailed his ambition for higher office. The young woman died, the circumstances of the story remain hazy even 40 years later -- but one thing was clear, Kennedy didn't seek out help immediately. And while Kennedy subsequently won back the respect of his colleagues, winning back the nation took a little more time. CBSNews.

--SCHIP
--ADA
--OSHA
--Title 9

As MSNBC summarized:

His answer was the 1964 Civil Rights Act, enacted in the wake of JFK's assassination, that outlawed discrimination on the basis of race; the 1965 Voting Rights Act, where Kennedy was especially proud of his sponsorship of the amendment banning the poll tax, which had been used for generations by Southerners to disenfranchise blacks; and the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, the bill that first allowed non-European immigrants into the United States in significant numbers, managed skillfully on the Senate floor by the young senator from Massachusetts. For more go here.

Hundreds of bills, indeed more legacy than anyone perhaps since the founding of our country. Ted Kennedy showed the real meaning of bipartisanship, strong partisanship, compassion for his opponents, and bridge building across the aisle. The capstone of Kennedy's life may well have been his help making Barack Obama our president, the looming Kennedy figure there before the crowds, rising oratory swelling once more as if our country depended upon it. And in some ways it did.

Ted Kennedy stood strongly against the Iraq war when few would. A hero in so many, many ways.

Many brilliant editorials will be written this day, but none so dear as the pain we each carry in our hearts today. Teddy can't bring us universal health care now. Nor any other of the things he hoped and dreamed for us. Today, that job is our own.

Photos from Reston: "Why isn't Ted Kennedy going to Canada for health care?"

Laura at Working America — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:57:57 GMT

(Crossposted from our Main Street blog.)

Some people are classy. Picture taken at last night's health care town hall with Howard Dean and Rep. Jim Moran, in Reston, Virginia. This should serve as a reminder to the media what kind of people we're dealing with when we talk about opposition to health care reform.

So should this:

And we should also remember that those are not the only voices, that supporters of health care reform are standing just feet away, and not ignore them simply because they aren't screaming insults and threatening violence.

Vice President Biden on Ted Kennedy

KathyinBlacksburg — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:10:23 GMT