Universal, Single-Payer Health Care: Not Just For the Un- and Under-Insured

I sent the following account to my representatives (and selected others) today.



This letter is to describe my experience today trying to access health care while on vacation in San Antonio, TX. The reason I believe this anecdote will be of interest is that I think my experience is a microcosm of the ills plaguing health care reform and access in our country.

I am employed at Texas A&M University, and have Scott & White health coverage through my employer. While vacationing with my family in San Antonio, I began to have pain in my eye, and after it grew worse after two days, I decided to see a doctor. I studied Scott & White’s website and then contacted the TAMU Employee Services office as well as Scott & White’s help line and determined that since there were not any network providers in San Antonio, I could be seen at an Emergency Room for $150 or an Urgent Care facility for $40. Armed with this information, I researched Urgent Care facilities in downtown San Antonio. Finally I discovered that Alamo City Medical Group’s 24-Hour Urgent Care facility was just blocks from my hotel. This was especially fortuitous since this was the only Urgent Care facility listed in the downtown area.

I walked to the Riverwalk Urgent Care center, checked in, completed paperwork and had my medical history taken by the nurse before the receptionist informed me that Scott & White wouldn’t pay any benefits for my visit (this despite my working for one of the largest employers in the state of Texas, and Alamo City Medical Group’s brochure claim that “we accept all Major Network Insurances”) and suggested I call Scott & White to locate a clinic that would be covered.

I called Scott & White for the second time, and spoke with another friendly but unhelpful associate, who suggested that I call information to find an Urgent Care facility since Scott & White will accept Urgent Care billing from any clinic. I relayed this information to the Alamo City Medical Group Urgent Care receptionist, who then let me know that they have two different tax IDs, one of which is Urgent Care, the other is Family Practice, and that they are only contracted with certain providers to bill as Urgent Care. Ultimately, I discovered that my options were to pay Alamo City Medical Group’s $140 (minimum) office visit charge or find an ER and pay my $150 copay. I decided to just wait until I get home next week to see a doctor instead.

While this might not be the best decision medically, it is the only one that I felt comfortable making considering my family finances and how I had been treated as a health care consumer. What I discovered was that, even though I have insurance, and even though I did the due diligence necessary to find an appropriate doctor while out of my regular coverage area, the most attractive option offered to me is to visit an Emergency Room.

The national health care debate has highlighted the overuse of Emergency Room medicine for reasons other than medical emergencies. My experience today has underscored that one reason for this is the general availability of the Emergency Room and the relative stability of this definition across insurance providers. My experience today would have been far different if there was some sort of regulation of the term “Urgent Care,” which seems to be loosely used by Alamo City Medical Group when it is in fact a technical term in the medical industry. I would have experienced no issue at all if we instead had a national, single-payer health provider.

I have to admit that in the grand scheme of things, my little malady pales in comparison to the chronic pain and illness that millions in our country suffer every day. These uninsured and underinsured are often the poster children for universal health care, but I hope that my experience helps illuminate the fact that fully-insured Americans stand to benefit from a health care system that is seamless and transparent, too. To that end, I strongly encourage you to fight for a universal, single-payer plan such as the Conyers-Kucinich plan, HR 676. Why an expensive, expansive, and ultimately handicapped plan like HR 3200 is even being considered is beyond me, and suggests that insurance lobbies have more clout than voters. Please consult this beautiful comparison of HR 676 and HR 3200 and fight for health coverage that will benefit all of us.

Respectfully,



Jonathan Kotinek

In a Post 11/4 World...

A Lexis-Nexis search for the phrase “post 9/11 world” in all English-language print and broadcast transcript outlets returns 999 hits since September 11, 2001. That such a context-loaded phrase has become shorthand for the change in our lifestyle is obvious from within, but what does it mean from a perspective outside of that experience? We can point to various watershed moments in history after which the paradigm for normality shifts and “everything changes.” I believe that today, November 4, 2008 is another one of those days.

As a short preface, I should explain my position vis-à-vis the presumptive president-elect. I campaigned for Dennis Kucinich during this election as I did during the 2004 election. I have been vocal about my feelings that Barack Obama might make a good president someday, but not yet. I have worried that in order to get to where he is in as short a time as he did, that he must be in someone’s pocket. I’ve echoed concerns that an Obama presidency will certainly be more polished, but isn’t likely to be more transparent. I have spoken openly that its just as wrong to vote for Obama because he’s black as it is to vote against him because he’s black.

I did cast a ballot for Barack Obama, not because I like his policies or think that he’ll make necessary changes; in fact, I think that he’s not likely to be radical enough in changing our foreign policy writ large with the so-called “War on Terror” being a prime example of our folly nor will he go far enough in nationalizing health care to truly make such a system workable and affordable. Essentially, I voted for change. For the hope that if enough people cast ballots the way I did, that states like Texas can’t be presumed to vote one way or the other.

The Obama campaign has promised things like “change,” and “hope.” While what Obama means by these words isn’t exactly clear (especially since his stance on many issues is centrist, maintaining status quo). When I step back and look at this election as a referendum on race, however, these words do make a kind of sense. I think that they’ve resonated with black Americans as well, since the greatest fears and hope we have seem to revolve around Obama as a “first and only.” Though I would be quick to criticize someone whose only rationale in voting for Obama was race, I certainly see Obama’s racial identity as a value-added component of his presidency.

Given the recent history of presidential elections in this country, there is reasonable concern that a post 11/4 world will reinforce the state of racial affairs in the United States. Even if Dick Cheney hasn’t rigged all the voting machines and purges of registered voters fail to effectively disenfranchise black voters, there is significant buzz among white Americans that “we’re not ready for a black president.” This statement really has very little to do with any person in particular or black people in general, but about the mindset of the people who think and say such a thing. They mean, I think, to say that there’s no way that a black person is capable of holding and executing such a powerful and prestigious position as President of the United States of America. Such a thought causes so much cognitive dissonance in these folks that they are literally scared for their way of life. For good measure, the Republican machine has cultivated rumors about Obama’s citizenship, his religion, his attitude toward gays, and his ability to serve in the CIA or FBI as fodder for those Republican voters who are too sophisticated to be swayed by a racial argument. A post 11/4 world might very well mean a retrenchment for openly racist Americans who would view Obama’s defeat as a victory for the Lost Cause.

A post 11/4 world might also bring that ray of Hope that Obama preached to us. Yes, an Obama victory means that he will no doubt be considered a race representative, and that his gaffes will be attributed to some supposed defect of the black condition instead of his own foibles. But the opposite is also true. The inescapable presence of a black man in position as what has often been referred to as the “most powerful man in the world,” suggests that white folks will have to do daily battle with the little racist thoughts that are so pervasive as to constitute a sort of “background radiation.” For our part, seeing one of our own in the Oval Office gives a reason to hope against experience that sometimes the system will work for us. We can only get over so many times before it becomes the rule instead of the exception. Certainly the man down the street, the lady at your grocery checkstand, and the kid in your daughter’s classroom aren’t going to stop holding racist beliefs or making racist comments or viewing every black person differently in 11/5, but those beliefs and comments will be on notice.

Finally, what this contest is about is Change. Whether the post 11/4 world brings a resplendent victory for Obama or chilling defeat for racial progress, we will be forced to enter into a conversation about who we are as a nation (including who “we” encompasses), what we believe, and where we are going. The necessary prerequisite to that conversation is a common vocabulary, and that vocabulary requires a common experience. Up till now, it has been the peculiar prerogative of white privilege to deny the subjective experience of discrimination. Life after this election means that we have to examine why racism has been so persistent in the way that Americans think and act.

Be the Change...

Mahatma Ghandi, in the statement "Be the change you want to see in the world," echoed the words of St. Seraphim of Sarov who said, "Acquire peace and thousands around you will be saved." Few political leaders in the U.S. are doing as much as Dennis Kucinich to wage peace and call the Bush43 administration to account for the direction they've taken the country.

Rep. Kucinich is working to deliver one million signatures in support of his articles of impeachment by September 10. If you are so inclined, I hope that you'll sign on and do what you can to effect this change.

Up with Dennis...

Hello friends. I just watched Dennis Kucinich's speech "Up with America" from the DNC this past week. I still struggle to fathom that we can't see clear to think of this energetic, inspirational, and insightful man as "electable." The disgrace that he suffered at the hands of the media in collusion with the DNC is unconscionable...and yet he is the image of love stumping for the Dems.

This literally brought tears to my eyes. God bless you Dennis. I hope someday we can get this man and his vision into a position to move our country in the right direction, and I hope we do it before its too late.

Kucinich out of Race, I'm Changing Boats

Effective on Rep. Kucinich's official withdrawal from the 2008 presidential race tomorrow, I will be shifting my monetary, volunteer, and grassroots organizational support to Republican candidate Ron Paul.

The media blackout of Rep. Kucinich in the 2008 contest and the DNC complicity in a system that seeks to anoint an early frontrunner and channel all donations through the DNC is an abhorrent corruption of the democratic process. We Americans should all be ashamed of our system.

The big three issues in this race are our rampant militarism, health care, and the economy, and all three are inextricably linked. As was the case in 2004, Rep. Kucinich was the only Democratic candidate who could stand on a record of not funding the war, providing for an immediate withdrawal of troops, a universal not-for-profit health care system, and an economic policy that privileges working people, not corporations.

I have thought for some time now that the viability of the United States in the next decade would be determined by whether or not the 2008 election would be a real turning point, and none of the democratic "frontrunners" provide hope for substantive change. I'm not interested in changing the name of who is in power in Washington; I'm interested in changing who is in power in Washington, and that needs to be the American people. Since Rep. Kucinich can no longer carry that flag in the presidential race, I'm willing to be blind to party labels and support a man who has that vision.

A Movement to Transform?

I sent the following letter to Sojourners in response to their exclusion of over half of the Democratic presidential candidate field from their recent Candidates' Forum:

Dear Sojourners,

I was appalled, dismayed, and disappointed to learn that your organization declined to find a way to include all of the Democratic Party candidate field in your recent forum. At the very least, Sojourners should be quite sensitive to how media access and portrayal of candidates influences voter perspectives. More to the point, you excluded the candidate that best exemplifies the values expressed in your Mission.

Not one to let such an injustice go unchecked, Rep. Dennis Kucinich corrected your error by securing time for the rest of the field to also share their perspectives on and commitment to Faith, Values, and (ending) Poverty. In this action Rep. Kucinich clearly demonstrated his commitment to social justice, helped to inspire CNN and the rest of the viewing public to see beyond the choices made for them by self-serving interest groups, and gave some hope that a true message of peace and love can prevail even when it might not seem marketable.

I invite Sojourners to admit their error and publicly acknowledge the leadership that Rep. Kucinich has shown in this situation. Until such time, I don’t intend to monetarily support Sojourners and will be canceling my subscription to your journal.

Peace!

In response, I got what seems to be a semi-personalized form letter directing me to Sojourners website:

Mr. Kotinek,

Thank you for expressing your concerns about the recent Democratic presidential forum. We appreciate your willingness to share your views with us, as your thoughts have not gone unnoticed. Rep. Kucinich's absence, and the rest of the second-tier candidates, came in order to fulfill our need to engage in a broader dialogue on the issues. Filling in eight different candidates within one hour of time would make for a very limited discussion, which is something we very much wanted to avoid. I would invite you to take a look at our website which looks into this matter in further detail.

Blessings,

And my response:

Thank you for your response and dialogue on this issue.

Respectfully, if the intent of the candidate’s forum was broad dialogue, was choosing the three candidates receiving the most press the most effective way to achieve your goal?

My frustration and disappointment stems not as much from the fact that Rep. Kucinich was not included, or that any particular candidate was included or not; rather, I hold Sojourners to a higher standard than most mass media outlets and had hoped for an honest and real exploration of this subject. Sen. Clinton pointed out that she does her best (and it showed in the forum) to distance herself from the topic of faith. I feel that she was included only because the DNC and major media have anointed her as the “frontrunner.” Any such attempt this early in the game is ridiculous if the intent of an election is free-ranging debate and an opportunity to democratically select (on the part of the American people) the best candidate from the field. All of which begs the question, if that isn’t the intent we’re operating under, what is?

Peace!

Today Jim Wallis published four questions he didn't get to ask at the Candidates' Forum. These questions cover the topics of extreme poverty, the practical application of the Commandments of Blessedness, the cultivation of fear as a political tool, and government funding of faith-based charitable organizations. I'm hoping to see Dennis Kucinich exhibit leadership in stepping up and being the first candidate to answer these questions, and in so doing, perhaps, kindle an acceptance of his legitimacy in the minds of the folks at Sojourners (Romans 12:20-21).

More Media Bias

I wanted to insert a quick note to point out a small milestone. Depending on which of my visitor counters you prefer this blog either has just, or will soon, roll over 500 visits. I appreciate your support and comments.

And now, on to the story...

This past Sunday night, June 3, Sojourners hosted a forum for the Democratic Party candidates to talk about "Faith, Values, and Poverty". As Rep. Dennis Kucinich's site reports, Sojourners had no intention of including any "second-tier" candidates. It was only Kucinich discussed the problem of leaving out half of the Democratic field with CNN executives that the remaining five candidates were invited to participate, albeit only in the second half of the program and with half as much time for comments.

Steven Thomma notes that the mass media outlets seem to think that the American people can only understand and participate in a dualistic decision-making process. As I've pointed out before (here, and here), its undemocratic to narrow the field so early in the race, and will likely result in a ticket that is so bland as to not provide a real alternative to the status quo.

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by the DNC looking for a donation. I clearly and emphatically noted that so long as the DNC did nothing to agitate for more fair media treatment of all candidates, I would continue funding my candidate of choice directly.

I encourage you to act similarly. Don't accept the inevitability of a choice made for you by those who purport to represent you. Use the power of your support to ensure that our election process remains (or becomes, if you prefer) open, democratic, and representative.

Prognosticating Peace

U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich - OH has been chillingly prescient in foretelling the disastrous effects of Bush43's administrative consolidation of power in the executive branch. With respect to the U.S.A. Patriot Act, Kucinich recognized the dangerous and unwarranted expansion of power as a serious threat to Fourth Amendment rights, a truth that is only now being widely recognized.

One of the leaders in Congress against Bush43's Orwellian onslaught and the rush to war in Iraq, Kucinich stood alone on the Democratic ticket in 2004 emphatically denouncing the war and the lack of universal healthcare (though, by that time, he was joined by others in denouncing the U.S.A. Patriot Act). It seems as though Kucinich was just "ahead of his time" since the "frontrunners" in the 2008 Democratic race now sound like they're using D.K.'s 2004 talking points. Let's step back and consider for a moment where we might be had Kucinich been given more respect (from his party and the media) in 2004, and the Iraq War and national healthcare were issues we tackled three years (and $300 billion) ago...

Kucinich's major obstacle in 2004 and also in 2008 is also the strongest argument in favor of his candidacy. As a candidate with no strings attached, Kucinich is depending on well-reasoned argument, common sense, and grassroots support to get the Dem nod for 2008. The downside to not being in someone's pocket is that its a lot harder to be visible when you can't buy the million-dollar TV spots. Let's be clear on one thing: it's not just the media that's to blame for the lack of coverage for Kucinich's big ideas. The Democratic National Committee was so keen on declaring a nominee for 2004 that they effectively declared the race after the media frenzy over Dean's post-primary speech in Iowa. I truly believe that the Democrats lost in 2004 because they effectively silenced competition so early that they failed to realize that the most "electable" candidate was the most uninspiring.

Kucinich is electable if you vote for him.

All of which begs the question, why should we vote for Kucinich? Think about Bush43. What are your criticisms of his presidency? (Mine are) belligerence, cronyism, abridgment of constitutional freedoms, shortsightedness. Kucinich, by contrast, is committed to peace and diplomacy, is as much a threat to the DNC establishment as he is to the GOP, has been a voice in the wilderness since the passage of U.S.A. Patriot Act, and was delivering this message long before it was just so much old news rehashed on the 24-hour networks.

[Edit]I've taken down this video so that you can load the page without having to wait for this to load or listen to it again, but I highly recommend this compilation of quotes from Dennis Kucinich as an example of what we knew and when we knew it.

Peace for our time?

This post is ambitious. I hope to look at the nature of war, the threat of perpetual war, my take on the proper Christian response, and what we can do about it. I should make a note here that while I have faithfully tried to represent Orthodox Christian teaching as I understand it, there are a number of Orthodox Christians who would disagree with my take that all war (understood as combat between humans) is evil and avoidable for Christians. I earnestly entreat the forgiveness of any who might be scandalized by what I've written here.

Though I’ve been actively involved in peace-making since 2002, the particular stimulus for sitting down to write now is a pair of interviews on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. Most recent was Zbigniew Brzezinski’s evaluation of how the last three presidential administrations have squandered opportunities to change our foreign policy to effect peace.



AND

Ted Koppel on “Our Children’s Children’s War”

After watching Brzezinski’s interview, my wife turned to me, holding our three and a half week old boy and said,” I don’t want us to still be at war in twenty years.” Her statement was fraught with meaning. What would perpetual war mean for an already de-stabilized economy? How much further might our socio-political relations crumble in the face of increased fundamentalism (on all sides)? What role might our son be forced to play in this future? I responded that we have to be proactive in pursuing peace.

During my military training (Army National Guard), I came to a realization that I would wrestle with for five years. The realization didn’t crystallize overnight, but was something I came to gradually. The first germ of the realization was in the cognitive dissonance I had trying to integrate the training I was receiving into my still-developing value system. My mother had instructed me never to start fights, but told me to finish one if someone else started a fight with me. My drill instructor told us that he believed he was damned to hell because he had participated in war. If the notion that a strong military is a deterrent to military aggression, thereby securing peace, was true, then it seemed as though civilization was being held together by training men and women to do the most uncivilized of things. To Kill. Basic training has a number of facets. New soldiers learn chain of command, equipment recognition, disaster response, first aid, teamwork, and self-respect (and probably not enough military history and ethics). But, if all that had to be trimmed out of the training process, what would remain would be combat training: rifles, grenades, bayonets, and hand-to-hand combat. I recognized that the change in me was that I now knew how to kill someone. I don’t expect that 17-, 18- and 19-year-olds regularly engage in this kind of metacognitive evaluation (neither, I suspect, does the military establishment).

War has become a very useful metaphor in the English language. We can wage war against drugs, cancer, obesity, poverty, and a number of other social and physical ills. We are also able to war against an idea: Terrorism. In Western Christian history, the idea of the “Just War” developed to provide some insight into the always sticky prospect of Christian participation in war. One thing that just war theory, and most wars up until our “War on Terror” commenced, assume is a known enemy. War, as it has been redefined, is not limited to a particular theatre, enemy, or timeframe. Instead the war against terrorism mirrors those socio-political “wars” in that it is a protracted, consuming struggle, or “jihad” as the concept is known in Islam. In Christianity, an analogue might be asceticism. I don’t believe that Bush43’s polarizing statements about an “axis of evil” and a fight between the forces of good versus evil are gaffes. I think that in those moments he is being truly transparent and revealing in that language his moral understanding of the stakes of this war. This is truly and epic, ongoing, and eternal struggle.

If that doesn’t trouble you, then I suspect that you are among the growing number of American revolutionists that wish to change our form of government. If you are troubled by the thought of becoming the (nominally) Christian answer to RadIslamism (not to mention the financial stake that this administration, broadly imagined, stands to gain from perpetual war) our call to action is simple. We need a radical politic of peace.

In the process of working for peace, Christians must be careful not to make the struggle an end unto itself, but understand such work as serving Christ, however disfigured His image might be, in our enemies, in the poor and destitute, in those imprisoned, and those dealing with spiritual and physical illness. We have to be careful not to expect Paradise here on earth (chiliaism), but to be good stewards of the economic and political power we’ve been granted. We Christians that have the privilege of living in the United States should certainly be grateful for the freedom we enjoy to practice our faith. At the same time though, that security is not worth mortgaging our faith. We should look to the early martyrs as examples of fidelity. If we truly believe in Christ’s radical transformation of reality, and that we have the opportunity to participate (however imperfectly) in Paradise now, we need step into a role of active peacemakers, forgiving and loving our enemies. For the obvious reasons, this would be an inappropriate stance for the United States government to take, given its role in the social contract to protect its citizens. Indeed, this would be an inappropriate stance for any secular government to take, as it would require its citizenry to be willing to become martyrs. As individuals, however, we can utilize the means at our disposal—wealth, influence, and votes—to influence a compromise in the direction of true Peace.

My response to my wife’s concern about perpetual war, that we have to proactively wage peace, is ultimately a personal choice with universal implications. St. Seraphim of Sarov told us that if we could acquire peace, thousands around us would be saved. I believe that St. Seraphim is talking about physical and metaphysical salvation. Ghandi’s experience with Christianity in practice led him to conclude that Christians aren’t much like Christ. As Christians practicing in what is arguably the most permissive (on all sides) society we have ever known, we don’t all naturally get the privilege of suffering for Christ. Like the men and women that fled to the desert to preserve Christianity, I think that modern Christians can find a useful ascetic yoke in pursuing peace through practicing a personal politic of peace. We have few examples of this path which seems difficult to our comfortable sensibilities.

In persons like Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Theresa and Mohandas Ghandi, Christians can distill a sense of the spiritual import of waging peace. For Orthodox Christians, the example of St. Maria of Paris, and countless other Holy Fools for Christ stand out as shining examples of how we can put into practice the hard sayings of our Lord. Nor is this a journey that needs to be taken alone. The Orthodox Peace Fellowship is one of many Christian organizations (also Sojourners, CPT, Fellowship of Reconciliation) that persons with pacifistic mindsets can turn to for support and guidance in waging peace. There are analogous peace organizations that represent a number of religious and political affiliations. The crux of the matter is that peacemakers can’t be passive; we have to actively assert love and forgiveness, speak truth to power, and engage in these actions in our own lives.

Selected peacemaker resources:

Orthodox Peace Fellowship

Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors

The Saints on Peacemaking

The Early Fathers on War and Military Service – Louis J. Swift (out of print…I have permission from the author to distribute copies to my friends as necessary. Contact me if you need one)

The Peace Alliance – Campaign to establish a cabinet-level U.S. Department of Peace

Ladder of the Beatitudes - Jim Forest. This is a nice meditation on how to actually live out the "hard sayings" of Christ.

Love is the Measure - Jim Forest. A biography of Dorothy Day.

Mother Maria Skobtsova - Essential Writings - St. Maria of Paris

Kucinich: The Black Candidate?

The current Doonesbury Straw Poll asks which candidate has the most authentic claim to blackness

Obama. His grandfather served as a houseboy in Jim Crow-era Africa. His white mom's from Kansas. How much more African-American can you get? If he wins, he goes down in history as the first black president -- so why are we having this conversation? Say Amen, somebody.

Hillary Clinton. Sure, technically she's white, but you could say the same thing about Obama, whose mixed parentage doesn't make him any more black than white. Also, she grew up in Chicago, city of blues and hoods, whereas Obama was raised in Honolulu, about as gay a hometown as there is. Plus, Hil's guy, headquartered in Harlem, still brings it, community cred-wise.

Not surprisingly, Dennis Kucinich is invisible in this discussion of Democratic candidates. What is troubling is that the good folks at Doonesbury had to stretch to include Edwards in this lineup:

John Edwards. Looked down on for being a trial lawyer, referred to by Rush as "Breck Girl", bashed by Ann Coulter as a "faggot" -- Edwards knows about having to fight for respect. Besides, we need three choices for the poll.

(emphasis mine)

Dennis Kucinich, on the other hand might have been and easy choice to include in the line up if there was actually some equivalent coverage of candidates. The Black Agenda Report ran a story with the headline, "Kucinich: The Black Candidate." BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon notes that Kucinich's voting record matches up with the best of the Black Congressional Caucus' voting record "across the board."

The Doonesbury Straw Poll cites "a recent poll" that says 84 percent of Americans claim that a candidate's blackness will have no bearing on the way they vote. Since the performance of racial/ethnic identity is something of a personal project (another story, another time?) I am very interested in the implications of both polls. First, the inherent privilege of whiteness is to disavow the existence of privilege. From Beverly Daniel Tatum's concept of passive racism (and here, and here), we see that uncritical participation in the accumulated privilege of whiteness is problematic. I don't trust the majority of white america to know that they would unconsciously seek to consolidate their relative positions of power by limiting access to the Oval Office (or any other threat, real or perceived to their way of life). Second, BAR's implicit and explicit (re)definition of blackness vis-a-vis Kuchinich mirrors my own thought that there is a voluntary, cultural element to black identity that could be universally accessible. I say the foregoing with full understanding that such a train of thought could go in a number of wrong directions including thinking of black identity and culture as a monolith; ignorance of/insensitivity to the involuntary participation in being stigmatized, excluded, and violated based on skin color.

What remains to be seen is just how accessible media-poor candidates like Kucinich will be to a voting public who desperately needs them. I got a call from a Democratic National Committee fundraiser the other day, who despite his persistence, finally got the message that the DNC screwed up '04 by encouraging the major media outlets to focus on Dean and then Kerry almost exclusively in the primaries. He finally conceded the point that while the DNC is going to support who the public supports (in the primaries) they have the power to make sure that the primaries are, in fact, democratic.