Deadline: August 31, to have your say on health care

In the Fall issue of YES!, Health Care for All, we alert readers to an opportunity to tell the federal government what you want for our health care system.

We discovered in the process of researching this issue that there is enormous support for universal health care in the U.S. Health care has become the number one domestic issue. People are facing bankruptcies, being turned away at the hospital door, digging deeper every year just to keep up with sky rocketing insurance premiums. Businesses, too, are suffering as they choose between keeping up with premium price increases or passing the burden on to employees.

Americans know what people in the rest of the developed world know. Universal health care, with government's involvement, works. It can cover everyone at a fraction of the cost we are now paying in the U.S.

If you want to let the federal government know your views on this, you have the opportunity now, but you'll have to act soon. The comment period closes on August 31.

Congress created the Citizens' Health Care Working Group to hear from Americans about health care and to make recommendations to Congress and the president. Their recommendations contain some lofty goals. But, even after hearing loud and clear from Americans across the U.S., their recommendations include only vague language about health care finance. Unless we move away from the expensive, bureaucratic, bloated private insurance system, we can't hope to control costs and bring health care into reach of all Americans.

That is the conclusion your editors reached as we developed this issue.

Whatever your conclusions are, let the federal government know by the August 31 deadline! Here's the link.

Read YES! in Spanish

You may have noticed -- you can now read YES! in Spanish. Beginning with the Winter 2006 issue, Spiritual Uprising (Rebelion Espiritual) each issue of YES! is being translated and posted on line in Spanish. Las 10 Tendencias mas Prometedoras (The Ten Most Hopeful Trends) is also available, and we are working on our more recent issues.

Please tell your bilingual and Spanish-speaking friends and colleagues.

Why have YES! in Spanish? As the recent immigrant uprisings show, there is growing activism in the Latino community. That's the good news. But there are some deep disconnects between efforts led by Latinos, by African Americans, by European Americans, and by others. Van Jones' posting on this highlight some of the struggles, and, as I report in the current issue of YES!, black-brown dialogue was a central theme of the Southeast Social Forum.

There is progress on many fronts, but we will need to understand each other's work and hear each other's voices if we are to move forward together. We thought we could make a contribution to this understanding by publishing YES! (or should we call it Si!) in both English and Spanish.

The other reason we are excited about publishing YES! in Spanish is that we believe it will help us better link up with the major changes happening in Latin America. There may be a renewed openness to the ideas and stories found in YES!, and we would like to tap into the stories and innovations emerging from the South.

Finally, there's a very practical reason we're doing YES! in Spanish now. It is that Guillermo Wendorff has been urging us to do so and offering his help with translation. The more we thought about it, the more it seemed to us he was right. I asked Guillermo to say a few words about who he is and how he came to be the YES! translator. Here's his response:

"The idea of creating a translation project for the YES! website came to me while I was reading the magazine through the Internet. Every time I read one article I felt that this kind of valued meaning information should be accessible to Spanish speaking communities. I knew that "Latinos" was already a major minority of U.S. population, and that their political power was increasing over the years. I believed it was very important to make alternative media (like YES! Magazine) easily obtainable for them, and of course the rest of Latin America community, and I wanted to help, if possible, in that effort.

"I had read a couple of David Korten's book so I was sensible about the crucial importance of North and South collaborating to change our common destiny, so this idea fit naturally into Korten's wider vision.

"At that time I was living en Mexico, and I started a long conversation with you via e-mail (remember?), talking about a lot of things; but specially, you helped me to explore within myself what I wanted to do with my life (thank you a lot for that!). So, after a time my family and I decided to return to our country [Argentina], where we have been living for three years, searching for our place in the world. Well, nowadays I think we found it? after ages! A balanced mixture of nature, work, family, friends, learning, peace, service, art and inner search.

"Working with YES! has been a fascinating experience so far. I feel myself more connected with the web of people who are helping to give birth to our Great Turning. And certainly, it helps me to pay the bills, too (not a negligible task these days uh?).

"I'd also like to state that Audrey and Lilja have been very effective and supportive with me. It's been a pleasure to collaborate with them."

Enjoy reading Si!

Sarah

P.S. If you find them useful, please tell us how you are using these articles in Spanish.

WTO Talks Collapse: The end of an era?

The Doha Round of WTO talks collapsed at the end of July, a major setback for efforts to further liberalize global trade and, according to proponents, help the world's poor.

But names have taken on an Orwellian quality, and so the real meaning of a program can often be found in the opposite of its lable: The Clear skies initiative is about allowing more pollution, Leave No Child Behind, is about flunking children, Help America Vote ... you get the idea.

Likewise, according to YES! contributing editor Walden Bello, this round of trade talks would have harmed, not helped, developing nations and the poor:

"The WTO negotiations, if brought to a conclusion on such lopsided terms, would result in the slashing of poor countries' farm tariffs while preventing them from maintaining food security. This is a recipe for massively expanded hunger and threatens to further impoverish hundreds of millions of the poor worldwide.

"The consequences for the South were perhaps best summed up by a Philippine government negotiator before the WTO Agriculture Committee: 'Our agricultural sectors that are strategic to food security and rural employment have already been destabilized as our small producers are being slaughtered by the gross unfairness of the international trading environment. Even as I speak, our small producers are being slaughtered in our own markets, [and] even the more resilient and efficient are in distress.'"

Walden Bello's article, "Why Today's Collapse of the Doha Round Negotiations is the Best Outcome for Developing Countries," quoted above, calls for a different approach to trade negotiations so that they can actually benefit the poor.

Likewise, the US-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy says the collapse of the Doha Round can provide an opening for a very different approach to trade policy. See Geneva Update.

When the WTO ministerial meeting came to Seattle in 1999, we were among those reporting on the calls for trade talks to focus not on enriching the already wealthy, and concentrating more power in the hands of powerful corporations. We told stories of the grassroots organizing that went into making Seattle a turning point in the global justice movement.

Prior to the massive street demonstrations, Vandana Shiva said that globalization comes in three waves. The first, the age of colonialism, lasted 500 years; the second, the age of development, lasted 50 years. The third, an era dominated by the WTO, she predicted would last just five years. That was 1999. Perhaps history will show that she wasn't far off.

Read more from YES! about the WTO:

WTO: What's at Stake
by Dan Seligman

November 30 WTO showdown
by Paul Hawken

Clueless In Seattle
by Jonathan Rowe

WTO Is Anti-Democratic, Anti-People, and Anti-Environment
a radio commentary by David C. Korten

WTO in Seattle: The Millennium Round or Turnaround?
by Sarah Ruth van Gelder

From DC: A New Global Solidarity
by Fran Korten

The Year of Global Protest
by Walden Bello

How To Restore the WTO's Momentum
by Bruce Silverglade

The Meaning of Cancun
by Walden Bello

Hong Kong: Asian Activists Join Forces Against WTO
by Lilja Otto and Stephanie Fung

Pranksters Sink the WTO
by Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno & Bob Spunkmeyer