What does it take to get me off my ass? I guess it takes a death threat against a local pol I like and respect.
Yesterday morning I volunteered for the first time since the election. Durham for Obama (the political group in need of a new name) runs a table at the farmer's market every Saturday morning. I worked from 8 to 10 am.
The woman running these events was a bigtime volunteer last fall, and also one of the sweetest people I've ever met. I also saw a couple of friends from the campaign who were shopping at the market. One of them sort of sheepishly apologized to me for not continuing to volunteer after the election. I tried to explain to her that this was the first thing I'd done, otherwise I'd been completely out of it too, but she was so busy being embarrassed that I don't think she heard me. She worked really hard last fall -- she basically kept the campaign office clean and organized and running, every day for months -- and I don't think she has to apologize for wanting her life back now. She told me that she had spent the entire spring & summer trying to repair her garden which had been totally neglected last year. I know how that is!
At the table we had a glossy flyer from Organizing for American which was pretty much content free, an information-dense flyer from DFO about what "public option" actually means (hint: it doesn't mean Obama will be serving Soylent Grandma at state dinners), a flyer with suggested actions for potential volunteers, and a bunch of flyers on how to get assistance for people who need help paying for health care. It was interesting to see that we gave away lots of the info-dense flyer and almost none of the glossy one. I think people want facts, not hype. (I even forgot to take one of the glossy flyers for my own collection of campaign materials.)
The main point of the table was a petition in support of a national public option. This was so much easier than the work we were doing last fall. The farmer's market is probably the friendliest territory in all of Durham, and it showed. All we had to do was say "Petition in support of health care reform?" and most people were like "Where do I sign!! Give me a pen!!"
I was worried beforehand that I wouldn't know enough about health care reform to work the table. What if someone asked me a question I didn't know the answer to? Well I shouldn't have worried. I'm no expert on health care, but I've been paying attention and I easily knew enough to answer the questions I got. The most common question was from people who were confused by the screaming on TV and didn't understand the difference between public option and nationalized medicine. As soon as we explained it they were happy and signed the petition. "Oh, that's all? What's all the fuss about?" was a common reaction.
Only one person approached the table in order to give us a hard time, and he wasn't aggressive, just smug. We smiled and told him to have a good day and he went away. A couple of people snarked at us while they were waiting for their spouses to sign the petition. (In both cases the spouses told them to can it. It must be hard to be married to someone who mocks your principles right in front of you.)
The weirdest reaction we got was from two men (separate, not together) who refused to sign because they wouldn't support anything less than full-on nationalized medicine. They were the only people all morning who were outright hostile. I didn't understand their anger. It was kind like saying "Help! I'm drowning!" "Here's a life raft" "Fuck you, I want a yacht! Keep your stupid life raft!" The current health care situation in America is untenable. I'm willing to support reform that isn't perfect if it will be better than what we have now.
You might be thinking to yourself that a petition sounds like a waste of time and energy. And I wouldn't totally disagree with that. But during the two hours that I was there, we gave real information to people who were frightened & confused by the bullshit on the news. We recruited a bunch of people to call their representatives. We recruited two people to visit Kay Hagan's Raleigh office. And we gave information on public assistance to a man who had just lost his health insurance and didn't know how he was going to pay for health care. Plus I got to see some of my old friends from the campaign again. A morning well spent!
Re: The life raft comparison:
I can almost understand the people who are angry from the left at the incomplete reform being offered by the current politicians, for three reasons.
First, we know how to do real, comprehensive reform, and this isn't it. There are three good models to comprehensive reform (single-payer, like Canada; nationalized care, like the UK; socialized care, like the US armed forces), and this isn't any of them.
Second, because this is not comprehensive reform, the health insurance companies--some of the most powerful and most consistently evil forces in the US--will continue to thrive.
Third, a half-a-loaf solution may actually stand in the way of getting to real reform in the future. There's a coherent argument to be made that Medicare actually made comprehensive reform more difficult because it made the elderly, who are more likely to be politically engaged (voting and contributing), *less* involved in total reform and less likely to support it. Kathleen Sebelius actually said that one of the goals of what they were proposing was to make single-payer *less* likely; if you support single-payer, you would rightly oppose Obamacare.