Have You Been Ignored Long Enough==Past time to shout LOUDER:

HealthJustice
to me
BUT BE POLITE.
I have left messages. except for Baucus line--His staff have not been picking up the phone.


This is an email I got:



10:26 AM (1 hour ago)
newsletter@health-justice.org



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Have You Been Ignored Long Enough?


Are You Mad Enough About It Yet?
Memorial Day Weekend, 2009
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Dear xxxx
Here's the story so far. On Friday, many of you sent a fax from our website telling the House Energy & Commerce (E&C), Ways & Means(W&M) and Education & Labor(E&L) committees that you did not want to keep the insurance you have and you did not want forced purchase of health insurance. Because the combined membership of those committees is about 150 congresspersons, your faxes were sent directly to the fax numbers of the committees themselves. The expectation was that your faxes would be delivered to committee members by the committee staff as part of the government employee's duty.

Instead, by mid-afternoon, the E&C staff was faxing back to our fax vendor all the faxes they received. By late afternoon, they were faxing them directly to our Salt Lake office. In late afternoon, I called to inquire why and was told (rudely) by an employee that they were not supposed to give these faxes to Congresspersons and we were not supposed to send them faxes. Moreover, I was told, the employee knew that some or all of the faxes were coming from fake email addresses because they (the employees) had phoned the persons on the email signature and confirmed that these persons had not sent any fax.


A short while later, I received a call from "Max" at the E&C committee who rebuked me for sending faxes, told me they had to unplug their fax machine, said he had investigated me and I was a "radical" and asked whether I knew it was a Federal offense to "break" government fax machines (he is wrong.) He assured me that he would not prosecute me but that maybe Nancy Pelosi would, except that she had "bigger fish to fry."



What really concerned me was this: Max said the E&C staff were throwing all the faxes into the trash, except for one copy that they would show the chairman, Mr. Waxman. He suggested that the only way to contact the congresspersons on the committee was to have individuals from their district send individual faxes to their individual congressperson.


Recognizing that if faxes were going into the trash, nothing was being accomplished, I diverted all faxes being sent to the committees (E&C, W&M, E&L and Senate committees) to our email (for future use), while maintaining the fax flow to Pelosi, Baucus and the White House.


I then immediately sent an email to you suggesting that the chairs of the subject committees (Waxman, Miller and Rangel) would like to hear your opinion of their committee staff. I gave you the relevant office phone numbers.

Within minutes of that email to you, I received multiple phone calls from you asking why you were unable to contact the named committee chairmen. It seems that you all had the same experience and I confirmed this with my own calls. Waxman's voicemail was full and there was no way to leave a message. You could and did leave messages with Miller's voicemail. Rangel's phone just rang and rang without answering.


Of course, those of you that called me were frustrated and angry. Many of you expressed a feeling of impotent rage; others felt that if this is how our government treated us, we should simply withdraw and protect ourselves, essentially becoming gun-toting enclave-building isolationists. Still others expressed despair at their personal situation and the unbelievable arrogance that has destroyed the hope we expected with Obama.


Obviously, Washington insiders, including our elected and unelected employees, are doing their very best to ignore what we are saying. We have known that for months. Now we know it is taking a direct and threatening form of actively trashing our message.


The question now is: What do we do? How angry are we? What can we do? I am setting out some options below. I really want your thoughts. I would do this by way of a poll, but this feedback seems more important. There are about 4900 people who directly receive this email. If you send me 4900 responses, I will read every one of them. I want your help in deciding what to do and how to do it.

i don't want to give up, but i am just one person and cannot effect change alone. I need your ideas and your help. Send them to me by email here.
Sincerely
Clark Newhall MD JD
clark.newhall@health-justice.org

..................

The Three Options I See
Be Polite

Give Up

Get In Their Faces


Option 1: Be Polite and Follow the Rules Congressmen Want Us To Follow
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We can continue our campaign of faxes and phone calls but we can make a 'pick list' for each fax so you can pick which congresspersons or senators your fax should go to. That way, you can send faxes only to your own elected representatives. This is the method that has been and continues to be used by all other organizations attempting to influence Congress. Call it the "grass roots" method.
The obvious drawback is that the impact of several hundred faxes on one message is eliminated. The supposed advantage is that Congresspersons pay attention mainly to those missives (phone calls, faxes, etc.) that come from their own constituents. Supposedly, fifty faxes to Congressman X from only his constituents is more effective than 5000 faxes from voters all around the country. What do you think?
.

Option 2: Give Up
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Given that we are ignored -- given that Obama is not going to lead us to real health reform -- given that Baucus and most other legislators are owned by the insurance industry -- given that you and I do not have unlimited money and time--
Given all these givens, why keep trying? Face it, we are screwed. Whatever we do is futile. Let's give up.

Option 3: Get Louder and Closer
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I don't mean louder telephone calls or more faxes. i mean travel to Washington. All of us. Everyone else we know that can and will come. 1 thousand, 100 thousand or 1 million. Whatever we can muster. Gather on one day. Make a loud noise.
I have been told that it costs $12 per person to organize a mass event. I have been told that organizing a mass event in Washington will require at least two months and ten organizers.
I don't have the money or the employees to do this. You and I would have to do it together. You would be the organizers. You would be the fund-raisers. You would be the people gathering and you would be the people getting 1000 other people to gather. All on the same day. All in Washington. All with one purpose. Get Congress and the White House to listen to the demand for real health care for all.



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phone: 801-363-8888 Email: clark.newhall@health-justice.org
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http://www.1payer.net/


Call the White House
It's more important than ever. Tell the White House to support a Single Payer National Health Plan.
1-800-578-4171

Send Your Free Fax
Choose from the following list to send your free fax to congress members:


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• No, I don't Want Forced Health Insurance

voting does not work, doing things the "normal way" doesn't work. So are we ready for a mass national strike?

I'll sit here waiting. Muricans are way too docile for our own good.

all of us--as Obama said he would have an open government and listen.

and then people wonder why the US has such a low level of voting.

NOT.

but now I can't afford it! And from the last Marches I've attended there was NO COVERAGE, even on C-Span. I take that back, there was "some" coverage, about a minute or so and it was terribly frustrating.

I WILL agree with you that THEY aren't listening to US! My gut feeling tells me that THEY have their own plan and "we the people" are just in the way!! I wonder how many here REALLY want this??? I see so many defending what is going on, and calling those of us who are "dissenters" various derogatory names. Even Jonathan Turley, Olbermann and Maddow have become enemies because they "dare" to voice their opinion. And the names THEY are being called here actually astound me. I NEVER thought so many here at DU would react this way.

And I've said this many times here... IF this was BFEE acting this way (and we know they did screw this country) would there be so many defending the policies that are ongoing from their administration??

Even our elected DEMOCRATS have decided to ignore us. I have written my Senators, only one a DLC Democrat and my Representative a Repuke and I've written other committees too! I have yet to receive an answer from ANYONE! Of course, this is FL and I wasn't expecting much, but your OP is quite revealing.

Calling you a "radical" is over the line, but what is worse is that they are so blatant about how they want to proceed. Hey you!! Just shut up and sit down, we have an agenda and we don't NEED ANY OTHER input!

Some Democracy!! I'm not sure I can take much more of this. You ARE correct, and I've been calling for REVOLUTION for YEARS now and have been shouted down or completely ignored! Still, we have gained very little and I wonder IF there will ever be any real action! I don't know HOW to get something started, I sound like a broken record because these are words I've spoken many times before. Now, with the economy tanked, I have only my voice to use and yet... my voice isn't being heard, and seemingly WON'T be heard. They'll just find some OTHER way to get around ANYTHING "we the people" do. I'm really beginning to believe this and it SCARES ME more than I ever thought it could!

Even many here at DU don't agree with YOU or ME!! So if we aren't even supported here, where do we go???

but you can't afford it, they have us in a bind, don't they?

anything from being shoved in our faces!

is essential, so it looks like APATHY is winning! What a good name for a HORSE!!

having a disciplined message on this. Single payers have hardly made a dent. The insurance industry has the WH ear. --others are left in the cold--

Having seen Baucus et al, I got the message loud and clear. Plus I don't think it would have gone down that way if the WH wasn't behind or at least supported what is going on now.

so that is part of your answer. Those who believed otherwise in the campaign deluded themselves.

of Democrats who have been thrown under the bus by many here on DU. And they name call us who only want to be heard on health care. or called freepers and threatened with tombstones.

The answer? Numbers. Believe me, if thousands upon thousands were calaling, outraged, those Congress Critters would be quaking in fear.'

For starters, the core can call all the local offices to register their views. Then every one of us can get three more to do the same and you'll begin to make a difference.

Trust me, long tirades or real hostile stuff gets ignored. Be short, to the point and professional in tone. Do it to all offices and get others to do same.

Julie

I got some free land in swamp land to give away.

The political system is not responsive, period. They KNOW from polls 70% want single payer, yet they keep every one of those pushing for that choice off the table. No the system is broken and we have to find a way to fix it. But calls are not the answer any more, I fear.

The other part is political organizing. Organize, get elected, stuff like that. Long term stuff. Not popular to pitch the long hard slog to those who want it and want it now. So I only shared the quickie part of what we need to do.

Julie