Christianity

We Need Help! (Senator Tom Coburn and the Radical Right)

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I am left speechless by Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) response to a sobbing woman, begging for help because her insurance company will not pay for a feeding tube for her brain-injured husband. Coburn instructs her to call his office, blames her situation on her neighbors, and then lectures that it is not appropriate for “the government” to intervene in her health care. (Hat Tip Jeffrey Feldman). [youtube: video=”e3jwhLcW_c8″]
I have several questions for the Senator:

You are a Christian and you align yourself with the Christian Right. Did your version of the Greek Scriptures not include the Sermon on the Mount?

Gender and Sexuality

The New Right Wing Meme

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Perhaps disappointed that death panels failed to frighten the tar and feathers out of the average American, the right wing appears to have settled on a new meme to undercut healthcare reform: the CDC will force males to undergo circumcision. Loosely based on a CDC report to be presented at an AIDS prevention gathering in Atlanta, Fox News, Reason Online, and The Drudge Report report that the CDC is considering forced circumcision of all males to prevent the spread of HIV. David Harsanyi, a Denver Post columnist and author of Nanny State wrote:
Here’s the problem: Why is the CDC launching campaigns to “universally” promote a medical procedure? If you’re an adult (and nuts) or a parent, no one stands in your way of having a bris. Today 79 percent of men are circumcised already, and even if 100 percent were, the effect on the collective health of the nation would be negligible.

Health

Organizing as a Healing Process

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Organizing as a Healing Process: A Fresh Look at PTSD is a Netroots Nation panel discussion about organizing as a tool for spiritual healing. Panelists discuss historical trauma, genocide and troop PTSD in the context of social justice.

Health

Beneath the Slush Pile

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America’s existing social inequalities threaten the success of a fledgling single payer system. The author draws upon her experience directing a health and human services department in one of America’s poorest communities to explain why a robust public option is a credible route to health care reform, and suggests ways that the reader can participate in that fight.