Progressive Democrats Sonoma County

by Donna Smith
December 22, 2011

Is freedom from war the only way to measure peace on earth? If the drones don’t fly for a day or a week and the combat isn’t waged on some distant battlefield, do we know peace has arrived if only for a brief period surrounding one religious holiday or another? Does war take a holiday for peace? How about injustice? When does it rest?

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Norman Soloman – Donna Smith – and Tim Carpenter of Progressive Democrats of America join Thom Hartmann. The “Healthcare not Warfare” campaign is raising awareness about our deteriorating healthcare system that’s bankrupting millions of Americans and leaving them sick with nowhere to go. And while this is going on – our nation is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on endless wars in the Middle East. So the choice is simple – do we keep funding “black hole” wars – or start making Americans healthy again? Please sign “Healthcare not Warfare” petition at http://bit.ly/jZlPGZ

By Donna Smith, PDA Healthcare NOT Warfare Campaign Co-chair
March 24, 2011

This time we’re off to California with events throughout the state in advance of the Democratic Party state convention. Full details will follow, so for those of you in California, plan to spend some time on Healthcare NOT Warfare activities, and let’s spread the campaign ever wider.

For the past couple of months, PDA has been on the road doing the person-to-person, mind and heart work of organizing those who support our Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign.

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PDA National Co-Chair of Healthcare not Warfare Campaign Donna Smith featured on Real News.

CLICK HERE to view video & transcript.

MALAK BEHROUZNAMI, REPORTER (VOICE-OVER), TRNN: The political action committee PDA, Progressive Democrats of America, declared Tuesday, November 30 national call-in day to say no to Social Security and Medicare benefit cuts proposed by former Senator Alan Simpson and President Clinton’s former chief of staff, Erskine Bowles, cochairman of the deficit commission on fiscal responsibility put together by President Obama. In addition to call-ins, which, according to PDA members, shut down Congress’s switchboards twice today, members of PDA came to DC to lobby Congress to cut military spending. ....

The Real News Network briefly interviews Donna Smith, before interviewing Jan Schakowsky on her plan for deficit reduction.

CLICK HERE to view video & transcript.

Tim Carpenter, Jim Hightower, Donna Smith, John Nichols, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Laura Flanders, Sen. Russ Feingold, Thom Hartmann!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

1) HNW co-chair, Donna Smith,upated us on the Declaration of
Health Independence and talked about some upcoming events including the Washington, DC Brown Bag Lunch Vigil.

2) Katie Robbins from Healthcare-NOW! joined us to talk about
plans for the upcoming US Social Forum.

3) Eve of Brown Bag Lunch Vigil updates.

4) State Medicare for All updates.

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Remembering. Learning. Changing the Reality.
Healthcare NOT Warfare

“If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.” Gen. John Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic wrote in his general orders prior to the first observance of Memorial Day on May 30, 1868.

Are the words above any less true if spoken about the struggle to stop funding more war, or for healthcare for all, than when spoken about the sacrifice and courage of soldiers? This Memorial Day, let’s pause to recall all of the heroes who fight with every ounce of energy and often with tremendous human suffering to end the great injustices of our day.

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April’s Healthcare for All call focused more intensely than usual on the actions PDA members and all supporters of Medicare for All can take individually and as a group.

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March 25, 2010

The health reform bill passed by the 111th Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama does far more than fall short of extending healthcare to all.

See Rose Ann DeMoro’s analysis of the few pros and the many cons of this health insurance reform.

It is troubling to watch this bill touted as an equal in political significance and social implications to Social Security or Medicare. As advocates of an improved and expanded Medicare-for-all system, we must continue to educate more and more people about the difference between transformative healthcare policy that is yet to be achieved and this bill that will leave so many people without access to the basic human right of healthcare.

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On this call we had -Donna Smith, Healthcare NOT Warfare co-chair, updated us from the Hill on where we stand and also the Brown Bag Lunch Vigil campaign from DC.

Chuck Pennacchio, Executive Director of Healthcare 4 All PA, updated us on single-payer progress in PA.

Ben Day, Executive Director of Mass-Care, updated us on MA.

The BBLV Team updated the group on where the campaign currently stands on the eve of the February BBLVs.

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Join PDA’s Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here

February 22nd 2010. Donna Smith and Norman Solomon discuss Healthcare NOT Warfare and Brown Bag Lunch Vigils

Listen to “Healthcare NOT Warfare” national co-chairs Donna Smith and Norman Solomon in the next installment of Agitator Voices of PDA, a new series of podcasts from Progressive Democrats of America’s. It was a busy week for PDA activists and our allies as we gathered in front of 65 congressional offices for the second Brown Bag Lunch Vigil.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Donna Smith
February 17, 2010

Join PDA’s Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here

This week, the Healthcare Not Warfare campaign I help co-chair for Progressive Democrats of America becomes even more deeply personal for me. My son leaves for his volunteer tour of duty in Afghanistan. And I won’t be there to say goodbye. Because I advocate a position of peace, my son believes my priorities are off kilter, and for some time now he has believed that he goes to war so whiners at home can keep griping about less critical concerns—like healthcare or economic justice.

As is sadly the case with many parents and grown children, my son and I do not see eye-to-eye and that causes a distance of the heart that hurts everyone involved. Though separated, we are both on a mission.

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Donna Smith
February 3, 2010

Join PDA’s Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.

Since I was a little child huddled in the elementary school hallway for the bomb drills to the present day when I listen to the reasons my nation must spend more on foreign military actions, the means of securing public support for war in this nation seems to have centered on one word. Terror.

We used to be terrified that the Communists from the Soviet Union were coming with their bombs, so we built shelters and indoctrinated our kids to understand our Red fear. Bombs could be launched without warning or even immediate provocation, so making us all fearful wasn’t too hard. Cold War terror lasted a good, long time and helped a lot of people get very rich. We entered many “conflicts” using the fear of a Communist spread. No Commie bomb ever fell, and many still argue that’s because we built more bombs and were much more terrifying as we won that face off with all those evil folks across the globe.

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A stellar group of guests spoke to over 80 callers, answering questions submitted in the PDA Chat Room. Minnesota Senator John Marty, Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate for governor, spoke about single payer legislation in MN, with Chuck Pennacchio from Healthcare4AllPA joining the conversation to compare and contrast the situation in PA, especially in light of ERISA legislation.

Cong. Eric Massa gave the group a generous amount of time to discuss the merging of the House and Senate Healthcare bills, which he bluntly told the group will have few or none of the good aspects of the House bill. Donna Smith, PDA’s Healthcare NOT Warfare co-chair as well as legislative advocate for CalNurses, spoke frankly about how the timidity of the Democrats lost us the chance for any kind of substantive change in healthcare.

IOT coordinator Roberta McNair told the group how to participate in the Brown Bag Lunch Vigils, which have the goal of redirecting the massive sums of money currently going to military costs for the wars into social-benefit programs, such as Medicare for All.

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January 15, 2010

The following is the PDA reply to Lynn Woolsey’s response to the January 13 open letter concerning Woolsey’s scheduled appearance at a fundraising event for Jane Harman:

Dear Lynn,


Thank you for your letter, which we’re sending to PDA members and other progressives along with this response.


No effort to sugarcoat Jane Harman’s political record can change the realities that are overwhelmingly in sync with a salient pair of facts: In Congress, she is not a member of the Progressive Caucus. She is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition.

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By Donna Smith
January 8, 2010

URGENT—Take Action NOW: Tell Speaker Pelosi & Majority Leader Reid – NO on MANDATE, YES on STATES’ RIGHTS

Should Democratic members of the House vote ‘No’ on any reform legislation that includes an excise tax on health benefits? Even if it’s now the President’s preferred funding method for the healthcare insurance company bail-out bill (or health insurance reform bill, as it’s known in the proper political framing terminology)? And should they actually intend to vote ‘No’ and not just make threats followed by a seemingly begrudging ‘Yes’ vote?

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Donna Smith
January 6, 2010

URGENT—Take Action NOW: Tell Speaker Pelosi & Majority Leader Reid – NO on MANDATE, YES on STATES’ RIGHTS

If there is nothing to protect that relates to national security, every bit of the health reform legislation debate and negotiation should be done in public. Period.

We read today that C-SPAN is arguing that the negotiations between the House and the Senate on their healthcare bills need to be done while their cameras are rolling. I agree.

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The California Nurses Association’s Donna Smith, PDA’s Healthcare NOT Warfare co-chair, brought up-to-the-minute news about the Sanders Amendment in the Senate, answering questions about the process and backroom deals that go into passing legislation. PDA members from several states gave updates on the progress being made within their states to enact single-payer healthcare legislation. A lively discussion about the politics around Medicare for All carried on in the PDA Chatroom even after the end of the call.

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Join PDA’s Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here

Donna Smith
December 16, 2009, Washington, DC

Make the calls to Sen. Harry Reid and your U.S. Senators—NOW

Reid’s Washington, D.C., office: (202) 224-3542
Reid’s Las Vegas, NV, office: (702) 388-5020
Reach your senators here: U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

This is it, Medicare for All, single-payer advocates. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Announced tonight that tomorrow the Senate will hear several more amendments to the health reform bill—and one of those amendments is Sen. Bernie Sanders’ single-payer amendment No. 2837. The amendment also has two other original co-sponsors, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Sen. Roland Burris of Illinois.

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by Donna Smith
December 11, 2009, Washington, DC

TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION — Tell Sen. Reid you want debate and a vote on Sanders’ S.Amdt. 2837—202-224-3542

Time to let Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid know that the American people want a debate and a vote on Medicare for all, single-payer healthcare during this Congressional effort.

It’s crunch time for the Sanders/Brown/Burris Medicare for all, single-payer amendment in the Senate.

In the effort to move the legislation quickly, some amendments may not be considered unless the Leader perceives the importance of such consideration or the consequences of not hearing amendments that are critical to various Senators and constituencies.

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December 10, 2009

Our healthcare NOT Warfare co-chair, Donna Smith, updated us on the very leatest news on healthcare reform in the Senate. Chuck Pennacchio updated us on the PA single payer hearings and Andrew Mcguire from Single Payer California gave us the latest news on the CA single payer bill. State reports were discussed.

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Donna Smith
December 9, 2009

While the healthcare reform legislative debate lumbers on in the Senate, the biggest advance for U.S. patients came early this week in Phoenix. Nurses joined three separate nurses’ unions into an RN “super union” with the goals of improving the professional lives of clinical RNs and building a healthcare system based on compassion and patient need, not on greed.

Nurses from 23 states are part of the new union, National Nurses United, and represent nurses organized in the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, the Massachusetts Nurses Association and the United American Nurses.

More than 150,000 nurses are joined together to ensure hospitals and clinics where they practice are centers of healing, not profit centers for speculators and CEOs and to promote the profession and honor the dedication of front line nurses with safe conditions, fair compensation, and the ability to retire in dignity.

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December 3, 2009

Late last evening, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont filed Senate Amendment No. 2837, and there are two additional original co-sponsors of this amendment, Senator Roland Burris of Illinois and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

We had a call with our healthcare leadership this am. Please listen to the recording on what we currently know regarding what the amendment means, time-lines and how we can help.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN