My new Facebook address is /marcstier. And if the tools I just set up work, what I’m currently writing in Microsoft Word will post to my blog Marc Stier at Large (http://blog.stier.net), the blog will then automatically create a tweet which will then automatically update my Facebook status. Or I’ll create a cosmic conflagration. It’s one or the other. Here goes. Continue reading
After almost cancelling my order I got my Kindle DX. And I love it. I almost cancelled because it’s expensive and I figure a better model with a touch screen would come out soon. Continue reading
Revised on September 9, 2009 Even as Obama was hitting a home run tonight, I saw posts on Twitter and Facebook by usually savvy people who repeated what has become the latest delusion on the single payer left: that if Obama had started with single payer as his negotiating point, we would have no trouble winning a public option now. That this is an error is easy to see if you recognize that Congressional negotiations are not at all like contract negotiations. It’s not a matter of each side making and offer and then moving slowly to something in the middle. There are two keys to success when Presidents try to build support in Congress. The first is to create as big a block of supporters as you can to start with. Without a lot of supporters at the beginning of the effort, other members of Congress won’t think there is… Continue reading
Do we daydream anymore? I’ve been wondering about that in the last few days after a conversation with a close friend in which we mutually confessed our penchant for daydreaming. My fear is that daydreaming is a lost art. But perhaps that is just a solipsistic point of view—just because we generally don’t see other people daydreaming, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I want to write here about why daydreaming is so important to me, why I fear it may be a phenomena in decline and why my daughter gives me some hope for the future. Continue reading
This is a proposal for a new blog for political organizers. It doesn’t have a name yet. And I’m not sure it’s going to happen. It depends on how the political organizers among you respond to the idea. The idea is based on a conversation I had with Hannah Miller which lead us to the idea of creating an anthology of stories by, for, and about political organizers. But the notion of starting with a blog and then creating an anthology of stories by and for political organizers is my idea. Don’t blame Hannah for it, or for the way I move to it in this post. But, if she likes the idea, she can have half the credit. Continue reading
It was two steps forward and one step back on health care reform yesterday. That’s why we need you to make a critical phone call to PA members of the Blue Dog Coalition-Congressmen Patrick Murphy, Tim Holden, Chris Carney, and Jason Altmire, this morning to ask him to reaffirm his support for a public health insurance option in the health care reform legislation being drafted in Congress? You can call toll free at 1-888-436-8427. Continue reading
The Pennsylvania chapter of Health Care for America Now released a new report today showing that consolidation in the private health insurance industry is creating skyrocketing premiums for both patients and employers. Pennsylvania’s two largest health insurers, Highmark and Independence Blue Cross control 72 percent of the market statewide. When looked at a local level, however, the situation is even worse, with three out of four local market ratings being dominated by a single company. From the point of view of the regional insurance markets, Pennsylvania has levels of concentration exceeded by only twelve states. This kind of consolidation means that an insurer can, without fear of consequences, raise premiums and/or reduce the variety of plans or quality of services offered to customers. This is what we have seen: from 2000 to 2007, premiums in Pennsylvania had risen 86 percent compared to a meager 13 percent increase in wages. This… Continue reading
Health Care For American Now (HCAN) is holding a national Rally and Lobby Day—we’re calling it called Health Care ’09: We Can’t Wait—on June 25th on the mall in Washington. We hope to bring 1000-1500 Pennsylvanians to Washington for the rally. Free buses will be leaving from locations around the state. (I’ll be announcing those locations in a day or so.) The rally will be at 11:00. Then we will gather in one very large room for a Town Hall meeting at which we expect to see a number of our members of Congress. We will head by to Pennsylvania at about 6:00 pm. You can pre-register for the event at http://www.hcanpa.org/dc. Let me tell you why you should join us: Continue reading
May 28, 2009 The Morning Call – Freelance Everyone cares which side Sen. Arlen Specter is on and what difference it makes. In Washington, the focus is more often on his party. Here in Pennsylvania, however, the critical question is where Sen. Specter stands in the struggle to reform health care. Last week we got a little better idea when Sen. Specter signed a letter supporting many of the goals of Health Care for America Now (HCAN). Health Care for America Now is the largest organization working for health care reform in the country and one of the largest issue movements in American history. Continue reading
One of the bizarro aspects of being an issue activist is that you wind up in a bubble and sometimes forget that most people, most of the time, aren’t paying attention to the issue that consumes your life day in and day out. Given that the primary goal of a political activist is to find people who care about an issue and motivate them to become active in one way or another, you would think that it would be hard to forget that most people live outside the bubble. But activists spend time a lot of time with other activists, both professional and amateur, and with politicians and their staff members, and with members of the media. And we are all inside the bubble. If you are reading this, you at least stick you head inside the bubble once in a while. And from time to time, you take action… Continue reading