Democrats in Congress have teamed with President Obama to score the greatest legislative victory so far in this century, which is universal health insurance. It will have a primary role in whether the nation and the workforce keep abreast of the leading competitors in the new world of industrial technology and global trade.

The biggest mistake Democrats can make in the 2014 mid-term Congressional elections is to go weak on the Affordable Care Act. They must not be cowed by either their opponents or the media rabble-rousers whose health insurance comes with their contracts and who could care less about the 40 million Americans who don’t have it.

As dogged as the ACA has been by server errors in the enrollment systems, the program has met its paramount target of the first year — seven million subscribers by March 31. With all those online by the deadline, completion of their enrollment in early April could make the startup push bigger than seven million.

America now has universal health insurance, with far more than a fourth of the uninsured now not only covered but also freed from cost caps and exceptions for grave illnesses. Millions who never dreamed they could afford health insurance are now enrolled, including legions whose severe ailments denied them coverage even as many were bled into bankruptcy. These are the facts. Exceptions are gone. And there’s little doubt that enrollment will continue to surge, however long the Republican governors continue to drag their feet. History is not on their side. The USA has at last joined the league of progressive nations, whose people know that the strength of the nation, its productivity, rests heavily on the health of the people.

Any Democrat who is uncomfortable with these facts is in the wrong party. Profiting lushly as they do from controversy, the big media have been drawn too easily into the Republican game of doubt, so now it’s time for Democrats to fight back with the old Republican trick of running against both their opponents and the media. It’s time to put to rest once and for all the shaggy myth that the American press and broadcasters are always leaning liberal. Nine-tenths of the media serve Republican owners, who profit enormously by keeping the public thinking that their products have a liberal flavor. Theirs hardly a bigger lie in the history of American politics. Ralph Nader puts it so aptly, “All Americans grow up corporate.” The media effect!

The biggest challenge that Democrats face in November is not opponents who are trashing the dream of health care as a human right, which it is everywhere else in the free world. It’s the ground game of getting their faithful to the polls. Whatever war chests they can raise the rest of the year, they should be spent on making Democrats understand that the stakes have never been higher in getting to the polls. They must understand that their health depends on it — as does the health of democracy in its struggle to balance freedom and the Bill of Rights against the global greed of corporate power. As we learned from the Citizens United ruling, the Supreme Court is not on the people’s side.

And, it’s high time the Democrats prove again that they are the party on the people’s side. They  need not look smug in thanking Republicans for helping enact the ACA, they must by turnout ensure that it’s the 21^st century right that the Bill of Rights would be incomplete without.

Frank Mensel — April 2014

When it comes to off-year elections, Democrats will never face a bigger one than 2014, if you’re going to get American democracy and liberty back on track for this century — and hopefully, beyond. If you let the downbeat spinmeisters of big media keep you home, the GOP and Tea Party win.

You’ve worked with President Obama to score a huge populist triumph in the Affordable Care Act, setting the nation on the road to universal health coverage. This election will be a bloody test of whether you now can give it unbreakable legs.

You can’t quibble. Kingmakers in the cable media are counting on you to do just that. So are the Republicans, who have all their eggs stacked in the basket of lies and falsehoods they count on to force its repeal. Never have they had bigger money on their side.

This makes it a supreme test of liberty itself. In this day of medical miracles, reasonable access to quality care is as meaningful to both workers and families as the Bill of Rights and the pursuit of happiness. Without it, happiness can be no more certain than a game of cards.

Democrats, you hold the winning hand in this election: history is on your side, and so is the Constitution.  You must ride both hard. We are dedicated as a nation by the Constitution to Securing the Blessings of Liberty, paramount among them Justice and our general Welfare.

Democrats will never have a better, more resounding slogan than the Preamble of the Constitution. Without universal access to advanced health care, WeThePeople will have neither Justice nor the general Welfare.

Run hard on this focus, and you can win. Don’t be caught in running against Republicans or the Tea Party.  You are running against the enemies of liberty, and they’ve never been plainer to see: greed, corporate power, terrorism, racism, and the broken rule of law.

Yes, racism is the card Republican leadership have been playing since President Obama’s first day in office. It’s twin is the war on women. Every Republican candidate must be confronted on these issues. None should stand free of their Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, and his claim from the first day the Obama presidency that his first duty was to defeat anything and everything the first black president pursued, and to defeat his reelection. The Republican Caucus in the House made a similar pledge, before his Inauguration, and why the media have made so little of this House chicanery is a riddle that quite plainly refutes the GOP relentless rant of chronic liberal bias in the media. It may be the oldest joke in American politics since conservatives own the vast majority of media outlets.

The issues likely to decide the 2014 election are turning the Democrats’ way. They’ve put President Obama in the White House twice; their duty now is to stay at his back. Numbers on the Affordable Care Act have exceeded the first big target, more than 8 million already enrolled. We are now in the family of progressive nations that know health care is the cornerstone of economic competitiveness. Any Democrat who is still shy about the ACA is a fool.  The numbers guarantee that it’s here to stay, burying the old exceptions for too much cost or preexisting conditions, while making the insurance industry competitive at more than outrageous executive bonuses. It’s a true sweetener of the Bill of Rights.

True Democrats relish this opportunity to back the Commander in Chief to the completion of his historic presidency, and to make it yet more historic. It’s an opportunity to shovel more dirt on the ugliest trait of our national character: racism.

Enduring expansion of health care has already made it historic. Presidents as far back as Truman and Eisenhower openly wished for guaranteed health care for all. All the more remarkable that the first black president should finally open the door.

If Democrats can turn out record off-year numbers, they can brighten his chances of bringing about the equally relished dream of immigration reform — which in a just world would earn him a place on Mount Rushmore.

Women hold the key. So they’ve enjoyed the right to vote for 90 years, they are still sold short on equal protection. Very short. Choice is not the only place. Why is the establishment still getting away with unequal pay for women for the same work men are doing? It’s kin to racism, keeping women and minorities living by the same music and the same organ-grinder, whose identity is all too plain – the One Percent!

They must not be tricked into skipping their duty in November. They are in ascendency on the big issues — minimum wage, equal pay, health insurance, unemployment protection, choice. Clearly the Republicans want none of this. Just take the word of Bill O’Reilly, the old Fox who keeps spreading confusion in the hen-house.

If women get out in November and vote their interests they can brighten the chances that corporate power will not erase liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the middle class for good. If they turn this corner in November, the 21^st century may yet become the Century of the Woman. And, in the process, they can settle the debt of keeping the president’s back, for having elected him twice, at the same time ensuring that health insurance is a competitive choice for all, and that the minimum wage is a living wage. If it isn’t, oligarchy will be our future for sure, and the light we see in the Statue of Liberty’s hand will dim, dim, dim.

Indeed, Democrats, 2014 is no ordinary off-year election.

Frank Mensel — May 2014

That question has been reduced by science to maybe just three rational possibilities, none consistent with any of the popular religious faiths:

• Extinction of our own making

• Extinction by a celestial accident, such as that befalling the dinosaurs

• Survival of our own making for an uncertain period of time, but extending far beyond that projected for us by climate change

Our survival hinges, of course, on far more than solving climate change. It calls for a plan that puts care of the earth first, and the care and comfort of ourselves second. It must be executed faithfully. That would be a faith I could keep with every breath.

But our existence continues to run largely, relentlessly in the other direction, pulled by forces of our own making. Three are easily strong enough to sink us; in fact, any one of the three might do it alone, if untamed. One is the absence of population control. Closely related to it is poverty. The third is unharnessed and reckless wealth.

The latter takes many forms. It might be the least relentless of the three in the short run, but it’s also the least excusable. The guilty should all know better. It is powered by various combinations of conceit, ignorance, arrogance and greed.

First and foremost, those of us who live well in today’s world live too well, for the good of the planet. The instinct that has been labelled the territorial imperative plays a large roll. We draw mixed pride, comfort and security from real estate. Our home may fit a very small plot – but it’s ours! For most Americans and our families, it’s part of our identity. And, most of the time, much bigger than our conscious mind recognizes. We can’t seem to get away from the old saw: a home is our castle. Our appetites form its moat.

So, the first solution is up to us who live well, to live less abundantly. That doesn’t have to mean living less well. It means living better by living smarter and simpler. With a sustained, conscious effort, it could and can be done. It must be done, if we’re going to beat pollution, waste, and climate change. A wealthy businessman whose mind I’ve learned to admire said to me in the 1990s that the biggest challenge facing the business world in the 21^st century would be waste management. When will corporate America and the multinationals see it?  My view is that they have less than this century —much less — to grasp it, and meet it aggressively.

In the meantime, the rest of us have a pressing responsibility to live more wisely, ever more conscious of acts that weaken the environment and the earth. Let me start by acknowledging my own hypocrisy and my failure to put the earth first.  As an octogenarian I’m too old to move again, to shrink the territorial claim, but I am determined within the year to reduce us to one car. I remember the big dream when WWII ended, “a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage.” One car! Can you think of one stroke that would do more to correct climate change than cutting gasoline consumption by half? It might do wonders for the health of the earth, as well as our own. Only the very lame would not benefit from riding bicycles and walking more. It’s by discipline and exertion that we earn our liberty. Better choices come the same way. Without them, extinction can’t be far away.

Frank Mensel — March 2014