An ACORN office in Arizon was vandalized Wednesday night. Staff arrived for work Thursday morning to find windows broken, computers stolen and files taken. Wait. What? The burglars took files? Your run of the mill burglar doesn’t burden himself with worthless paperwork about the doings of a non-profit. What is this? Grandson of Watergate?

So now the office will go into lockdown. People won’t any longer be able to stroll in off the street looking for help. They’ll have to be cleared before they get in. The incident is one small sign, on a local level, of the way ACORN is suffering these days. Both the House and the Senate have passed bills barring ACORN from receiving federal funds. It’s not much money. ACORN has only received about $53 million in federal funds since 1994. That’s less than a drop in the federal bucket. But it still burns me to see Democrats–out of ignorance or cowardice, or both–voting for these bills just because Republicans have brayed so loudly about community organizers.

The Democrats who voted yes are denigrating an organization that, here in eastern Missouri, for example, is working to prevent AmerenUE from gaining an 18 percent rate hike. Ameren rakes in fifty million a month in profits from its monopoly status as electricity distributor over a large chunk of Missouri. In this recession, the Ameren ghouls want to suck almost 20 percent more blood out of rate payers. ACORN is demonstrating against that and working to defeat it. That’s just one example of their worthwhile work.

Glenn Burleigh, the head field organizer for St. Louis, says that the Baltimore organizer has been fired who advised a woman posing as a prostitute about how to avoid paying taxes on her illegal income. Burleigh notes that a white glove standard is being applied that would never happen to the big money boys. Can you imagine Halliburton, with its legion of sins, being similarly persecuted or prosecuted for one employee who advocated fraud, without actually even committing it? Imagine away, because so far, in your mind is the only place you’ve seen even minimal accountability for corporations that screw us the people in the form of our government.

Activist Susan Cunningham told us last Sunday about her outrage that a tea party group wanted to  use the local high school auditorium in Union to disseminate its lies–and that it wanted the fee waived. Not one to sit home alone and fume, Susan joined 25 or so “take the fight to them” activists and appeared at the Wednesday evening Union school board meeting. One tea party member showed up.

The sign Susan brought that evening built on a recent school bond issue campaign with the theme “Save our schools. She added “from Patriots” because these particular tea partiers call themselves the Franklin County Patriots. (Get a load of their professional looking–not cheap, sponsored by the big bucks?–website.)

The school board was mighty impressed with the arguments Susan’s group presented–including the fact that as anti-tax, anti-government, anti-public-anything citizens, the teabaggers support vouchers over public schools.

The board voted unanimously not to waive the fee for the teabaggers. But it turns out that the district has no policy about who may rent the auditorium, so the tea party event will be there on Oct. 10. The local Dems had just assumed that political groups would not be allowed to rent the place. Now that they know differently, they’ll make use of it, so in a way the baggers did the Dems a favor. And the Democrats may decide to attend on the tenth and participate–but civilly, of course.  

What did I tell you?:

…And it would appear that Senator Baucus’ health care bill is DOA everywhere but inside the beltway Washington and at old media corporate operations…

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) joins up with the few, the proud, the obstructionist:

September 17, 2009

SENATORS NELSON, SNOWE, LIEBERMAN, MCCASKILL COMMEND CHAIRMAN BAUCUS ON HEALTH CARE PROPOSAL

WASHINGTON, D.C. -Today, a bipartisan group of senators issued this joint statement about “The America’s Healthy Future Act” proposal for health care reform released by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana:

“We commend Chairman Baucus for his efforts to forge a health care reform proposal that has the potential to gain broad bipartisan support.  We are encouraged by his commitment to work with both Democrats and Republicans in the Finance Committee, and believe there is a responsibility for both sides of the aisle to work together to develop a bill that will earn strong support from the full Senate.

“Despite the differences that have emerged in this health care debate, there is much that we all agree on, including insurance market reforms that bar insurance companies from discriminating against people based on their health status or denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions.  We also agree on prevention and wellness investments, critical delivery reforms like paying for quality rather than quantity, increasing access to care by improving health care provider training programs, and reducing uncompensated care by extending tax credits to American families to help pay for their health care coverage.

“Each of us has an obligation to put aside partisan views and to consider how health care reform addresses the needs and challenges faced by individual citizens and our economy as a whole.  While we each have outstanding concerns we wish to see addressed, Senator Baucus has taken an important and critical step forward with this legislation, which is budget neutral and reduces future health care costs according to CBO.  We will continue to work together in the full Senate on bipartisan health care reform that reduces costs, improves care, and expands access.”

Ben Nelson                                                                              Olympia J. Snowe

United States Senator, Nebraska                                              United States Senator, Maine

Joseph I. Lieberman                                                                 Claire McCaskill

United States Senator, Connecticut                                           United States Senator, Missouri

Olympia Snowe likes the Baucus bill? That’s news:

Snowe falls away, leaving Senate Dems without GOP support on healthcare

By Alexander Bolton and Jeffrey Young – 09/15/09 08:10 PM ET

Senate Democrats are going to have to move forward on healthcare without a single Republican supporter after Sen. Olympia Snowe said Tuesday she could not back the Finance Committee’s bill….

Yep, that’s inside the beltway Washington’s way of doing business. Thanks for playing their game and thanks for nothing, Claire.

What color is the sky in their world? Here’s the one the rest of us live in:

When Faced With A Parliament, Act Like A Parliament

…The truth is that one side acts like a Parliament while much of the other thinks we still live in the days of bipartisan consensus. Both parties have different visions of how to govern, and despite that giving Villagers the willies, it’s OK and expected. But if you have one side bending over backwards to work together, and the other side unyielding, the debate necessarily tips in favor of that unyielding side, as a matter of basic physics…

We’ve already compromised with the republicans:

No Snowe in the healthcare reform forecast

….So I have a question.  Since we are doing it without the heartless, soulless fiends that make up the GOP circa 2009 anyway – why not go balls to the wall and rewrite the legislation to pass a single payer plan?  And when they start wailing about how it’s unfair, we can remind them that they had a seat at the grown-ups table for months on end and they chose to throw their food and break the dishes and stab the adults with their fork.  

When they can exhibit some grown-up behavior, we’ll consider talking to them again.

But for now, since they can’t, we should do what parents do for kids all the time – make decisions and act on them, in the best interest of the entire family (in this case the family is the American citizenry) and let the kids wail about it all they want.  Competent adults know how to handle temper tantrums.  Let them scream until they wear themselves out, and if that fails, a glass of cold water in the face – in this case, the threat of single payer – never fails to stop the screaming.

The republicans won’t compromise? That makes it easy. Medicare for everyone.

Update:

Senator Claire McCaskill issued the following statement:

My continuing to work for bipartisanship should not signal that I am not firmly committed to health care reform this year.  The cost of doing nothing is too great and I will work with any and all of my colleagues to make it happen.

That’d be all well and good – if republicans weren’t so intent on doing nothing:

…Senator DeMint said this, I’m gonna quote what he said, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo.” Well I don’t think this debate should be about President Obama. [applause] [cheers] It should be, it should be about the people who are going bankrupt because of the cost of health care, [applause] even when they have insurance. [applause]…

Amy Smoucha, of Missouri Jobs with Justice, says that getting health care reform passed is like an election. We have to throw everything we’ve got at it.

Specifically:

Keep writing letters to the editor, and don’t neglect the small newspapers, like the Kirkwood Times and the various Suburban Journals in the St. Louis area. Flood those publications with your thoughts.

Check out Missouri Health Care for All, a coalition of 110 organizations working on the issue. One of their projects is collecting health care stories–and not just the horror stories, though they want those too. (Speaking of them, did you see that Crystal Lee Sutton, the real life “Norma Rae”, died of cancer because her health insurance company refused to pay for necessary medication. Sally Field, who played the movie role said, “It is almost like, in a way, committing murder.”) But back to health care stories besides just the horror stories: the website wants stories from middle income people who are struggling to pay for the coverage they’ve got; from small business owners who complain their their premiums have doubled over a few years; and from pastors talking about the moral obligation we have to care for each other.

The purpose of collecting these stories is to have a stock of them ready. Recently a legislator wanted a small business person to talk to a news outlet about how difficult it is to get insurance coverage for employees. Missouri Health Care for All had someone who could feed that story to the publication. So go tell your own story.

Smoucha stressed “visibility, visibility, visibility”. Signs are one way to be visible. Lots of people are on the fence about this, and seeing a sign in your yard might just tip someone in our direction. You can order a sign here and give HCAN a little love at the same time.

Instead of visibility, you might go for audibility: Call. Yeah, yeah, I know you already did that. But when was the last time? The staunchest progressives, like Emanuel Cleaver and Lacy Clay, need to be thanked. Other supporters of reform need to be kept in our camp. McCaskill, especially, with her desire that the public option be “handcuffed”, needs to be inundated with calls. All through August she was saturated with right wing callers. Trust me; they didn’t limit themselves to one call and maybe not to one call a day. Think of our calls to her as part of a deadly serious tug of war, with teabaggers on the other side. Grab the rope.

And Smoucha even recommends calling Bond. No, he isn’t going to vote for health care reform, but we should treat him as a movable vote–for this reason: the more constant the pressure we keep on him, the less emboldened he will be about filibustering it. Right now, he has been given dutch courage by all the tea party apoplexy. He would identify with that purple faced, vein popping anger. We need to let him know that we have the numbers.

Hell, we need to let the public know that we have the numbers. Enough with this “silent majority” nonsense. It’s time to demonstrate. Opportunities will abound this next month. Seize them. Here are three in the St. Louis area:

Reform supporters gather every Friday in Kirkwood. Here’s a notice they sent:

A group of supporters of health care for all will be demonstrating each Friday in front of Kirkwood City Hall. That’s on Lindbergh Blvd which is called Kirkwood Rd at that point and next to the RR tracks. You can park behind city hall. Franklin McCallie has a load of really great signs, and about 20-25 people show up each time. See below for the schedule. They alternate lunch hour and rush hour every other Friday. For the most part, drivers honk and give the thumbs up to show their approval of our message. This reflects the national polls that say the majority of Americans want REAL health care/insurance reform.

For this coming Friday (18 Sep) we will be there from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

For the next Friday (25 Sep) we will demonstrate from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Also in Kirkwood, OFA is recruiting volunteers to work the Greentree Festival this Saturday, the 19th from 1:00-4:00. Sign up here.

And the biggest one: A demonstration Tuesday, Sept. 22 at noon across from Union Station, in front of the WellPoint offices. Last May, Clark wrote here that WellPoint controls the market in five Missouri cities:

In Columbia, it has 85 percent of the market.

In Jefferson City, 77 percent.

In Joplin, 94 percent.

In Springfield, 68 percent.

In St. Louis, 67 percent.

Let’s challenge that near monopoly. If you live in St. Louis, finagle an extra long lunch hour and show up. I’ll have more details as the time approaches.

As demonstrations are announced, post them here, in the diary section in the right hand column.

We’ve got to be out on the streets for the motorists to honk at. We’ve got to be talking to our neighbors.

And we’ve got to financially support the organizations that grubbing and sweating to make progress on our issues in between elections–not just health care, but all progressive issues. The Supreme Court is currently considering whether to broaden the “free speech” limitations on corporations in elections. If that happens, the only way we’ll have to fight back is to organize, organize, organize. Give money to Jobs with Justice (check out the Kansas City and St. Louis groups), the Missouri Budget Project, ACORN, and any other group that is toiling year round on social justice issues.

On a pickup truck in Warrensburg, Missouri.