If there is anything powerful in the healthcare mess, it is the stories that go with it. The stories of yanked health insurance during or after an illness leaving the family in financial ruin and/or causing needless loss of life.
These are the stories of needed but denied or delayed healthcare causing a shower of other tragic events to spiral out of control ending in disability or death.
These are the stories of limiting or bracketing care making things worse, not better or stories of complete care denial.
These are the stories about our friends, our families and our patients. These are stories of tragedy after tragedy when, well told, can bring a reader or hearer to tears.
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Why is it so necessary to stop people from telling their stories and asking questions in town hall meetings? Because stories are effective. And the other side knows this.
Can you remember how you felt when you heard the story of a cancer survivor being shouted down in a meeting by the uncaring there? Do you think you were the only one that felt that way? Can you imagine that others in that room felt the same way?
The PR end of healthcare opposition knows that the first step to disarming healthcare arguments is to take the emotion out of it. Make it something inhuman, make it words. Make it bills and amendments and politics. NEVER allow personal stories. Make it angry. Remove compassion. Take the humanness out of it all.
And they are exactly right.
The phrases "thousand points of light" and "compassionate conservative" were crafted to do very specific things among them reassure, offer hope and brand a party that now, somehow, scoffs at empathy in a then positive way.
Politically, the phrases were designed to move an argument from point A to point B (from government responsibility to non-profit/church responsibility, in the case of "thousand points of light", and to put a happy face on the corporate party by branding them exactly what they are not... the caring people party).
But think of this in reverse.
I look like the average middle aged person, except with very long hair. Given the opportunity to tell my story in a short and well thought-through way, my story could both make people smile--perhaps even laugh--and break their hearts. Both emotions are dangerous to insurance companies and politicians who now control the quality and quantity of time I will live.
Then, add a face to that story. The face of a father, lost, gazing into the eyes of his newborn daughter. The face of a sister, lost, tenderly embracing her cat or cradling an armful of vegetables from the garden. The face of two children tenderly placing flowers atop the casket of their uninsured mom who was lost to cancer. These are the faces that go with the stories.
Stories can be questions where the whys of an action have deep, deep meaning. "Why did my only brother have to die because an insurance company needed to "think" about whether he could have a common and inexpensive test? Why did my mother have to lose her only son because of this? Why do we allow this and what will the proposed changes do to stop it?"
As one that spent a great deal of my life both as a dreaded community organizer and also as a national environmental organizer/campaigner, I spent a lot of time listening prior to deciding on a strategy to stop or advance a legislative proposal. I know just how powerful stories are. So do you. And so does our opposition.
All of you here at dKos, in one capacity or another, have done the things I have and some of you in much greater capacity. You know how to talk to people, how to touch them and move them. You know how to tell your story.
Two or three weeks ago, I contacted my Congressman's office to ask for a meeting on healthcare. I found out on Friday I was denied. So I will tell my story to him in a different way.
I will be sending, to his home, a card with photos and my story. I will be asking him to take my photo with him to Congress when he votes on a healthcare bill and stare at it before he votes for my death. I am an uninsurable cancer survivor. I will be standing in front of his office with a picture poster of my dead brother which reads: "My brother: Dead by insurance Company." I will take photo-flyers of my story with me to hand out there, also.
I will attend any town hall he holds. Instead of a saying, I will use a photo. I will put a face on the issue. I will be gentle and kind against my opposition, but direct and I will tell my story. I know how to make the appeal to those who hate me. I have spent most of my life learning the skill. I won't need to shout. I will nicely ask them to read my story when they get home and hand it to them. I will ask them to please read it and tell them since I know they too have family they love, they will understand. And many will.
I will talk about my 95yo mom and how I would NEVER support anything to harm her and address the "death panel" and "killing seniors" argument. I will explain that since my brother is dead by insurance company decision (or indecision in his case), I am the remaining single family member and that if I die before my mom, she will truly be alone and in trouble. I will ask for their help so I can live to help her through her very last moment.
I will tell my story. They can try to shout me down in a meeting, but I will tell my story.
I hope you will find ways to tell your story too. This isn't REALLY about words and catch phrases.
Note that when we have seen the variety of videos and photos on town halls from folks on dKos, there are NO photos of those lost. There are NO stories.
Let's change that.