Statement from Me for the NY Committee for Jobs and Economic Justice, City Hall Rally, October 30, 1995

In the welfare debate, there is a tendency to group the uneducated, the ill educated, the undocumented, the criminal, the sick and the poor into a class of “takers” and to dismiss this “class of takers” as outsiders, not like us, the majority.

I am hear today as a member of the NY Committee for Jobs and Economic Justice and as a person who never expected to be a poor person on welfare. In 1993 for 9 months, here in NY, I was on Home Relief.

My family came to the US 85 years ago and worked in the brass mills. Three/four generations of men and women have worked steadily in all types of jobs. I got my first paycheck at 15 from Friendly Ice Cream Shoppe. I know how to work; I am willing to work hard; and I was sure I knew how to get a job.

I have not made anti-social choices. The choices I have made in my life that left me resourceless were realistic, pragmatic responses to the world. I came to NY to go to college and suffered several traumatic events. I got married for safety. When I found the courage to leave that marriage, I chose a high-paying job instead of training for a career. When that autoworker job became obsolete, I put myself, now in my thirties, through 4 years of college and graduated into a recession. My resources were spent. I could not withstand 2.5 years of unemployment without extra help. Thank God, there was a welfare system that entitled me to food stamps and a stipend after my unemployment benefits were exhausted. I can not imagine what would have happened to me. I would not have survived 5 months on the streets.

I was 5 months on welfare before I got offered a job and then several months before I actually got a paycheck. I am now paying taxes and am on the road to reclaiming my middle class status, a good thing for myself and America. If the Congressional Welfare Reform Bill had already been in effect, there may not have been relief for me. Block grants with no entitlement quarantees means that there may not be any money available when you need it. When the money runs out it is tough luck for the next in line. The Welfare System we have now is the safety net- THE ONLY SAFETY NET for those of us who are caught in layoffs and downsizing in an economic recession; for those of us who are trying to re-establish ourselves after abuse or abandonment by our partner; for those of us who are unable to work but not yet diagnosed as disabled; for those of us many Americans who are only one paycheck away from homelessness.

Becoming poor or sick is something that can happen to any of us despite our most reasonable efforts. We are all entitled to help until we can get on our feet. Please urge President Clinton to veto any welfare bill that denies entitlement.

I am proud to have been as honest as I could about my own life. I am grateful for all and any help I had received and I am proud that I have fought to defend and extend those benefit programs. I was, also, able to lobby my Congress in DC with WMAD, Welfare Made A Difference, an organization of welfare alumni.

Many expected allies made excuses for Clinton’s betrayal. Today, if Force the Vote for Medicare for All seems rude-well, I have been on this carousel before with these same players. If I seem cynical, let me remind you…..

October 1994, Congressional Progressive Caucus members including Bernie Sanders   introduced the “Jobs and Investment Bill” into Congress, to appropriate $42 billion over several years for “make work” construction and infrastructure projects.

In 1995, Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders supported DSA member Rep Dellums’ “Living Wage, Jobs for all Act”

October 1995 NY DSA held a “People’s Hearing on Economic Insecurity” chaired by Congress members Major Owens and Jerry Nadler. Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress, and neither the ‘ Living Wage/Jobs for All Act nor Bernie’s Corporate Responsibility Act could get a vote. These people’s hearings were to “refocus the public debate and unite poor, working and middle-class people around a program for economic justice and growth.”

25 plus years later, we are on the same merry go round -nice speeches, organizing before elections, then once in Congress, officials vote in a way that does not match their promises. We need a better “inside/outside” strategy. We need accountability of our elected officials. We need Medicare for All, now.

Baby Boomer Mea Culpa

1964 New York World’s Fair-“Ford’s Magic Skyway” ride, in which guests rode in Ford convertibles past scenes featuring dinosaurs, cavemen, and a futuristic cityscape.

If our generation had one fault-one common Achilles heel- that united us across race, gender, sexual orientation and political affiliation, it was our faith in the future. We believed in our technology that was putting astronauts into space. We believed in our industry that had geared up quickly and won the Anti-Fascist World War. We believed in our creativity, our productivity and our cooperation. We believed that technology and industry would end human misery in our lifetimes. We looked forward to flying cars and 20 hour work weeks.

The world we built is quite different. Flying cars are still proto-types and work weeks are more likely to be twice 40 hours not half of 40 hours or no hours. The quaint demands of our great grandparents- own cottage, own cow and a chicken in every pot now seem aspirational.

I would suggest that it is time for some deep thought and hard discussions about where we, human beings in the USA, are today. Climate change, species extinction, and feudalistic social relations beckon. Can we be honest about our mistakes? There were warnings. There were prophets but we chose other leaders, and clung to lies. I hope as elders we can do better than continue our smug belief in the future now dressed as belief in the youth. It is time for a reckoning. It is time for accountability.

Who Needs Financial Literacy?

One thing that has not changed over the past decades is the shaming of poor people for their perceived financial missteps. It may be shaming of the contents of their grocery carts, the size of their tv screens, their choice of phones, or their lack of a bank account. Feminists who may understand that mom needs the occasional tv as babysitter or soda as a treat may still lecture about banking habits. I was surprised to see a post on twitter where a person demanded their housekeeper get her own bank account in her own name. ( I was surprised at the number of people who commented favorably to that post who also had housekeepers and/or nannies. ) Financial abuse is a reality but can not be assumed because the household has no bank account or only one account in the husband’s name. Being poor is expensive. Most people do the best they can. You may be the one that needs some economic education.

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/americas-poor-subsidize-wealthier-consumers-in-a-vicious-income-inequality-cycle

https://econreview.berkeley.edu/banking-and-poverty-why-the-poor-turn-to-alternative-financial-services

What are ABLE Accounts?

Don’t assume. Assumptions undermine respect and encourage bias.

As a public health worker, up to 1999, I adhered to Family Development Principles.

Some of their points:

All people, and all families, have strengths.

All familes need and deserve support. The type and degree of support each family needs varies throughout the life-span. Most successful families are not dependent on long-term public support. Neither are they isolated. They maintain a healthy interdependence with extended family, friends, colleagues, other people, spiritual organizations, cultural and community groups, school and agencies, and the natural environment.

In order for families to move out of dependency, helping systems must shift from a power over to a power with paradigm. Human service workers have power (which they may not recognize) because they participate in the distribution of valued resources. Workers can use that power to work with families rather than to use power over them. This means you approach people as partners, as neighbors. Choice is essential to shared power, but people who live in poverty or with another ongoing serious problem are often denied choices.

It is important to pay attention to family context. Families develop patterns that work for them and it is crucial to be respectful and non-judgmental. Communicate with “skill and heart.” The bureaucratic obstacles that people encounter can not be minimized. Empathetic listening and support can motivate people to take the actions they need to move ahead.

On the other hand, develop boundaries. Community health workers do not have as much power or resources as we would like or need to fix the immense problems we often find. Be real. Be responsible, Be conscientious. That is the minimum and the maximum.

These are the principles for “helpers, advocates.” However, worker/employer relationships are different. The employer can hire, fire, pay and control work conduct of the employee. Conduct not work related is none of the employer’s business. Feminism does not give you reason to interfere in people’s personal lives unsolicited.

Hope and Change- Part 2

Not so long ago we held a few truths to be self-evident.

Politics is the social institution by which society organizes decision making and distributes power and resources. Social groups are collections of people with something in common who believe that what they share in common is important. These are concepts we learn in Introductory Sociology. (see:crash course)

When I had a good job with life insurance that would pay for a nice funeral, and my remaining debts, with considerable money left., I planned to leave it to my nieces for educational expenses. Therefore, I set up a trust for the girls education. The insurance beneficiary was the trust-the trust would distribute money as the girls proved an educational need. Why? because possession is 9/10ths of the law-once something has been acquired-it is yours to do as you want-whether money, job, title…. They could promise to use my money for education but if they were the beneficiaries it was theirs to do what ever they wanted-including no funeral for me and big new car for them. That is how the law works.

Our Congress is full of lawyers who seem not to know basic law. Getting promises of good behavior from people before you give them the contract, or the job is meaningless,absolutely meaningless. I am so tired of their theatrics.

Demanding that your political representatives do what they say they would is basic. Getting rid of the leadership that enabled the current administration’s judicial appointments, and budgets is also basic.

To quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. …

Let us be dissatisfied until from every city hall, (every state capital, and national Congress) justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Politicians serve us. We are not their fan club.

Dick Van Dyke talks about Alcoholism and Recovery

I appreciate Dick’s education on alcohol. You do not have to be an alcoholic to get into trouble from drinking. Drinking might cause an accident on your first drink or your hundredth. Drinking might make you vulnerable to crime on your first drink or your hundredth.

Twenty five years later, I was working as a prevention educator and HIV counselor/tester at rehabs and community corrections. There was not this nuance. Like all movements there is not a straight line forward- we go back and forth.

Fact Checking is Not Enough

Medicare Advantage Plans are being advertised 24/7 on TV. They are plans for people with Medicare and a low-income. Are they what they promise?

Fact checking is not enough-

For example: Yes, Medicare Advantage Plans give you the freebies they promise &

AARP summarized the people who prefer original medicare to 5 groups- 1. People who travel often or have more than one residence. 2. People who want flexibility in choosing doctors/providers. 3. People who live in areas with few Medicare Advantage providers. 4. People who do not mind managing multiple insurance policies. It seems like the handful of people who reject them are a small minority of the seniors who are well-to-do and if you are eligible for an advantage plan you will be well served by one.

But there are really important reasons why you may not be best served with one, including AARP’s last point (5) People who prefer to manage their own health care or people who prefer the doctor to determine medical care. If you are very sick, you need your doctor to be making all the calls-whether to go into nursing home or come home from one, whether to have a medical bed, in-home care, types of pain relief. Old medicare puts the doctor in charge-old-fashioned medicine, the kind we assume when we ask for Medicare for All. Medicare advantage makes the insurance company the decision maker. If these are your last months, you don’t want yourself or your family and friends fighting with the insurance company or waiting for decisions. If aggressive or unorthodox treatment might prolong your life, you want your medical care team making decisions not an insurer.

No one is telling the whole truth here, the majority of people want Medicare for All, meanwhile Medicare is being undermined- That is one reason fact checking is not enough- that is why investigative journalism is crucial-that is why doing your own research is crucial- understanding the whole picture- pros, cons, history, context.

My Mom retired at 65 with Social Security and a pension of about 5/6 of her Social Security. She did not have any real health challenges until she neared 80. Despite that, because she was a responsible person who did not wish to burden her children with her medical costs, she kept a full range of supplemental insurance to fill the gaps of Medicare. Over 15 years, this was hundreds of dollars paid out. Her insurance agent encouraged her to sign up with a Medicare Advantage Plan in 2015. Even with the pension, her income was low and she qualified. Shortly, thereafter, she became very ill and frail. Trying to make good decisions was very hard because of the limitations imposed by the insurance company. To coordinate the hospital doctors with nursing home availabilities with the insurance second guessing everything and everyone was very frustrating for all of us. The timing was wrong. She should have been on Medicare Advantage before she was frail. So, she paid out premiums for care that she did not need or use. She did not have the flexibility she needed when she was ill. We learned too late that she could have returned to Original Medicare at any time (but not from her insurance agent.) This is a complicated and confusing system that a single payer system that returns ultimate decision making to patient and doctor would eliminate. In the meantime, do your research!

Hope was a Thing with Feathers

Some thoughts on Hope and Change, Part 1

In March 2019, BirdLife International revealed that the blue parrot, featured in the movie ‘Rio’ (along with 7 other bird species) has disappeared. In the movie, Blu circles the earth to find Jewel, the last female of the species. There is a happy ending when the birds fall in love and start a family. It is nice, animated family entertainment but the real Blue Parrots, the Spix’s Macaw did not make it. They are gone. Rio brought a sentimental story of hope to a global audience with some optimism that humans might save declining bird species. It brought exposure. It sparked conversation. High paid “social change agents” in climate change and single payer movements insist ” You need to make your cause relatable, develop a good storyline, get that story exposure, develop a world-wide audience.” If you listen to expert advice, this was a role model campaign.

Yet, what was accomplished? Well, there was a substantial profit for an entertainment company. But it did not save the Blue Spix Macaw, nor the Hawaiian black-faced honeycreeper, nor the Brazilian cryptic treehunter, nor dozens of other species whose populations have declined precipitously in the last decade. Neither has it changed the conditions that are creating this catastrophe- invasive species are still developing and forest habitats are still shrinking. Does anyone consider this a success? or is it decades of self-deception?

Keep Hope Alive!

Our politicians, of both parties, sloganize us with hope and more happy talk of the future. Hope may keep the soul warm, as Emily wrote but what relation does hope or a warm soul have to social change? or environmental justice? And why are our politicians so eager to call on it?

Interestingly, Christains pair hope with faith and love-enduring anchors of humanity. Hope is future oriented, associated with optimism. Faith is present oriented, associated with trust. Hope does not save. Faith does. Faith is trust in our facts, our experts, our plans, our programs, our leadership, our neighbors, our colleagues, our community. Yes, faith is belief. Faith roots Hope in the real world. Hope without faith has no responsibility or no accountability. Gambler’s hopes are not winnings. Hope for food and warmth did not keep the persistent mouse from the jaws of my cat. Hope without faith is all we get from our politicians. For years we have gotten platitudes- not analysis, not demands, not a battleplan. We do not win with hope. We do not need hope to fight. (“Better to starve fighting than to starve working.” A slogan of the Lawrence, Massachusetts “Bread and Roses” strike of 1912 see@PapaJ)

We may be a better, deeper, kinder person with hope. Many of us felt hope in the Bernie campaign fighting together for our needs with a leader who seemed to listen. That fell flat. We may choose hope for our soul but politicians and social change agents can not give us hope. Politicians and social change agents can give us real choices about the solutions to the problems we face but most are hucksters, hocking hope.

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Responsibilities as an Elder

In my junior year of high school Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. I changed from a good liberal, ethnic white democrat to a radical socialist within months. Socialism is an ideology that believes in the potential of all persons of all ages and fights for the social conditions that will let that potential blossom. Liberalism, including liberal or “bourgeois” feminism, affirms much of capitalist, patriarchal relations- including boss and worker, landlord and tenant, and parent and child.

I would have preferred to just add feminism to my liberalism. However, in NYC for college, I did not find the mainstream women’s movement welcoming. I was young and ready for action, but I was marginalized as “a kid” and not encouraged to participate in actions like the Ladies Home Journal sit-in. But like generations before and after, my youth was used by the movement.

When NY legalized abortion that same year, 1970, 3 years before Roe v. Wade, girls were coming in from all over the country for abortions. Girls came in from Midwest cities, towns, farms and reservations. Many called the NY Women’s Liberation Center en-route or when they arrived. They were directed to the Women’s Health and Abortion Project. We met them at the bus stations- helped them get services-and then returned them safely to the bus station for their trip back home. These were funded advocate positions- my first NYC job.

I was happy to have a meaningful job but my feeling, which I made known, was if I had saved my 4H egg money to come to NYC, on a bus, by myself, for an abortion, I would prefer meeting my Grandma when I alighted the bus not some Hippie Chick but No Aunties or Grandmas volunteered. The older women were the bosses and the funders. Youth were the foot soldiers. Several advocates did the job as a paid internship, then left to continue graduate school as a nurse practitioner or midwife. This has remained the model- young people do the service and/or organizing work for a few years then return to school for credentialing. Policy and management input comes after credentialing.

Socialists were more open toward young people. I had some experience trying to get older activists to join our organization as it moved to the east coast. The ” old” left that I met were not largely impressed by the New Left but their criticisms were not that I was too young to have a serious debate nor that I should return to college; they were political and generational. They decried our adventurism and our arrogance toward their work and history. There was a more democratic attitude in this movement but it was a small movement. Formal inter-generational conversation was not widespread. Few, new, vital organizations had more than a token member from the Greatest Generation.

This was the political far left of the 1970’s. Socialists and communists were few in number, they had been dislodged from most mass movements, and young and old were in separate organizations with different political programs and priorities. Same today?- how do we avoid those unforced errors?

StoryCorps

Story Corps is making interviewing for their archives easier with Story Corps Connect. There is no editing ability – just push record and go.

My first interview is with Christopher Shillock- Minneapolis Poet and Radical.

Danielle Zora

This is his blog. https://tcbard.blogspot.com/

Invisible, Undiagnosed, (Misdiagnosed) Illness

“Health has sabotaged your life at many junctures.”

Yes, it has. Dear Reader, you may have heard this story.

A year after surviving the homeless shelter, I was happy and planning my TED talk. I was getting A’s at UT Knoxville. I had a diagnosis, McArdle’s disease with a support system- the world’s best rehabilitation counselor, Shirley Jarnagin, some friends from church, some LGBT friends from the beauty parlor, disabled friends from our school club, and a nice doctor. I had confidence in my persistence and ability to work hard and I could see mainstream success ahead.

On my doctor’s advice, I had done extensive testing to see where my academic strengths lay. I began computer programming at their suggestion. Within weeks, I was in major trouble. The teaching assistants confirmed my aptitude. My logic was excellent but you had to work out the kinks of a program on the computer. The computer companies insisted that they were disability friendly and had disability workarounds and yet within an hour trying to make the program work, a seizure had me on the floor of the computer lab. Disappointed but undeterred, I regrouped. I would be a math and vocational education teachers. Trades were still a good paying option for young people and gender and pay equity were causes that motivated me, so it was all good.

Daily exercise is mandatory for my condition and I, with my snoodle Lambchop, walked miles weekly. I race-walked and power-walked. Then one day, I woke up and could not walk to the mailbox. At the time I was bewildered. I was confused, my brain was in a fog, I was fatigued but I could not sleep. First I swelled. Shortly after I gained a tremendous amount of weight since I was no longer burning calories with long walks.

Now I know that I went to rhabdomyolysis which deteriorated into acute kidney failure. I now realize that the best day of my dog’s life had sent mine out of control. We were out in West Knoxville when my dog met an unleashed Afghan Hound. He had a look of pure bliss, like he had finally found his pack, as he bounded after the Afghan and off his leash down hill and through fields. I was tense and terrified and tried to run with them. Lambie did finally tire and returned and I did not realize what was ahead. No myophosphorylase in my muscles means sustained anaerobic work may send muscle parts to my kidneys which then clog the kidneys.

No one understood what was happening. Doctors assumed depression. For the first time in decades I had real hope for the future so not depression. Doctors did not believe the weight gain was as rapid as it was. I had to have one of my professors, Chip Hastings, a champion master swimmer and coach, intercede to get doctors to listen. I still did not get an answer.

I considered changing my degree to Sociology but I would need to get a graduate degree. My counselor sent me for an assessment to prove that I had an academic mind and needed a graduate degree. Part of the testing was a audio IQ test. I did not do well. The graduate plans would not be paid by TN Rehabilitation.

I went to California where I had friends and the community health system was being gutted and I did not get help. I came back to UT for a semester and got an internship at IFCO, Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organizing. My friend, Jeff, had written a glowing recommendation earlier for the internship about my beauty-inside and out and I arrived in NYC- unbeautifully obese, fearful and struggling. I went to the MDA clinic there and got an answer. The doctors said the diagnosis of McArdle’s GSD5 was wrong. I was more likely suffering from ALS.

I finished up my work for UTK and my mother and I attended my college graduation. I went back to my hometown to say my Good Byes. I had been struggling for years and had had a terminal diagnosis for a couple years when miraculously my symptoms cleared and my test results were close to normal. The NYC MDA clinic said that they had been wrong but they did not know what had happened. They did not believe it would return. I should get back to life.

I went to work at a school for people with learning disabilities. The headmaster got my records- did more tests and diagnosed me with an audio learning disability. It took nearly 20 years before I got a doctor that would test me for muscle disease. I was not able to get back to life- I struggled with muscle pain and overwhelming fatigue until my initial diagnosis of McArdle’s was affirmed. The audio disability may be part of it.

I met wonderful people in TN and through school. Rev John Lackey and UCC Civil Rights church folk, The Sapps and John Gaventa at Highlander Folk School, Walter Davis at the Southern Empowerment Project, Drs Don Clelland (my work-study boss) and Wilma Dunaway- world systems sociologists, Rev Lucius Walker and Dave Garrow (my landlord in NYC for my internship) Either illness or my shame at my unexplained problems prevented me from constructing a productive, left-wing life. I have been treading water and just now bobbing up and out.