Our Bodies, Ourselves
First published in 1973, Our Bodies, Ourselves was written by a collective of Boston-based healthcare professionals and political activists. This ground-breaking book by and about women arose out of a recognized need for women to take control of their bodies and their healthcare in a medical system largely dominated by men and male values.
Today’s health care climate is vastly different from the days when Our Bodies, Ourselves covered new territory and sat on nearly every counterculture bookshelf in the nation.
Neglect and incompetence in the health system no longer happens to the other guy. Increased cancer rates, the rise in childhood asthma, inadequate healthcare, and a shortfall in medical insurance is (again, in Bob Dylan’s words) “bringin it all back home” for men and women, the young and the elderly. Even the wealthy have been victimized by the failure of the American healthcare system.
More than 46 million Americans lack health insurance -- up from 39 million in 1993. Catastrophic health issues can foreshadow bankruptcy, even in the employed middle class. It’s little wonder that Americans consider health care the most critical domestic policy issue going today.
A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 63 percent of Americans disapprove of the way the government handles health care. And contrary to modern mythology Americans do care: 76 percent of insured Americans believe it is “unacceptable” that millions are stranded without health insurance; 55 percent of those polled would prefer a government-funded program over the existing privatized snarl.
In contrast to the era that spawned Our Bodies, Ourselves, no one had to teach Americans that there is a crisis in healthcare; they are experiencing it themselves.
Huelga!
In the 1950s, America saw the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott render segregated public transportation unconstitutional. In the 1960s and ’70s, the word Huelga!, or strike, became a rallying cry when the United Farm Workers launched a 5-year boycott of table grapes. The boycott led to new contracts with major growers and set protective precedents for field laborers everywhere.
Today, America is undergoing a new boycott, perhaps the most tragic yet effective holdout we have ever experienced. The current embargo doesn’t come at the hands of revolutionaries. It wasn’t led by charismatic leaders like Mahatma Ghandi, Dolores Huerta, or Cesar Chavez.
Over the past two years, with painful but steadily mounting momentum, the American middle and working classes began smashing the global credit system – by default.
Barbara Ehrenreich, journalist, columnist, author, and social critic observed that “this may be the first case in history in which the downtrodden manage to bring down an unfair economic system without going to the trouble of a revolution.”
Ms. Ehrenreich is referring to those of us with the nerve to seek the security of owning a home without being “able” to afford one. As the housing market ballooned, clever mortgage companies began to offer tempting, de-regulated “sub-prime” loans to hungry buyers with shaky income and no equity. Acting without legal or financial counsel, people grasped for a piece of the American Dream, signing up for delicious-sounding homeowner deals.
But if the banks are made of marble, their contracts are full of fine print. As interests rates flared, many working- and middle-class “homeowners” found that their loans had turned to financial quicksand. Families with limited incomes (conveniently overlooked by the lenders) were unable to keep step with massive rate increases that built up as rates “adjusted” skyward and late-pay penalties kicked in. Homeowners defaulted; lenders foreclosed. However…
Foreclosures do not cover debt burdens. Sub-prime companies, carrying defaulting clients in overwhelming numbers, were unable to pay off debt markers to the more “legitimate” money handlers up the loan chain.
The sub-prime loan community was standing on a quagmire as debilitating as the war in Iraq. Foreclosures mounted, personal heartbreak and family tragedy abounded, and government-sponsored real-estate lenders like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest mortgage lender, all reported losses in the billions.
At the same time, American consumers stopped buying. Both Wal-Mart and Home Depot have announced steadily dropping quarterly profits plunging the consumer-based stock market into the economic equivalent of an ice-cap meltdown. H. Lee Scott, CEO of the low-wage Wal-Mart empire, admitted "it's no secret that many customers are running out of money at the end of the month."
What do Americans do when they run out of money? They turn to their credit cards. Now, without equity in their homes, many have been unable to buy off bloated credit card debts. According to investigative journalist Danny Schecter, three hundred million Americans live beneath $3,000,000,000,000 – that’s three trillion dollars – worth of debt. Boil it down, you’ll discover that the average U.S. household now carries a credit card balance of $30,000...per family.
First published in 1973, Our Bodies, Ourselves was written by a collective of Boston-based healthcare professionals and political activists. This ground-breaking book by and about women arose out of a recognized need for women to take control of their bodies and their healthcare in a medical system largely dominated by men and male values.
Today’s health care climate is vastly different from the days when Our Bodies, Ourselves covered new territory and sat on nearly every counterculture bookshelf in the nation.
Neglect and incompetence in the health system no longer happens to the other guy. Increased cancer rates, the rise in childhood asthma, inadequate healthcare, and a shortfall in medical insurance is (again, in Bob Dylan’s words) “bringin it all back home” for men and women, the young and the elderly. Even the wealthy have been victimized by the failure of the American healthcare system.
More than 46 million Americans lack health insurance -- up from 39 million in 1993. Catastrophic health issues can foreshadow bankruptcy, even in the employed middle class. It’s little wonder that Americans consider health care the most critical domestic policy issue going today.
In contrast to the era that spawned Our Bodies, Ourselves, no one had to teach Americans that there is a crisis in healthcare; they are experiencing it themselves.
Huelga!
In the 1950s, America saw the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott render segregated public transportation unconstitutional. In the 1960s and ’70s, the word Huelga!, or strike, became a rallying cry when the United Farm Workers launched a 5-year boycott of table grapes. The boycott led to new contracts with major growers and set protective precedents for field laborers everywhere.
Today, America is undergoing a new boycott, perhaps the most tragic yet effective holdout we have ever experienced. The current embargo doesn’t come at the hands of revolutionaries. It wasn’t led by charismatic leaders like Mahatma Ghandi, Dolores Huerta, or Cesar Chavez.
Over the past two years, with painful but steadily mounting momentum, the American middle and working classes began smashing the global credit system – by default.
Barbara Ehrenreich, journalist, columnist, author, and social critic observed that “this may be the first case in history in which the downtrodden manage to bring down an unfair economic system without going to the trouble of a revolution.”
Ms. Ehrenreich is referring to those of us with the nerve to seek the security of owning a home without being “able” to afford one. As the housing market ballooned, clever mortgage companies began to offer tempting, de-regulated “sub-prime” loans to hungry buyers with shaky income and no equity. Acting without legal or financial counsel, people grasped for a piece of the American Dream, signing up for delicious-sounding homeowner deals.
But if the banks are made of marble, their contracts are full of fine print. As interests rates flared, many working- and middle-class “homeowners” found that their loans had turned to financial quicksand. Families with limited incomes (conveniently overlooked by the lenders) were unable to keep step with massive rate increases that built up as rates “adjusted” skyward and late-pay penalties kicked in. Homeowners defaulted; lenders foreclosed. However…
Foreclosures do not cover debt burdens. Sub-prime companies, carrying defaulting clients in overwhelming numbers, were unable to pay off debt markers to the more “legitimate” money handlers up the loan chain.
The sub-prime loan community was standing on a quagmire as debilitating as the war in Iraq. Foreclosures mounted, personal heartbreak and family tragedy abounded, and government-sponsored real-estate lenders like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest mortgage lender, all reported losses in the billions.
At the same time, American consumers stopped buying. Both Wal-Mart and Home Depot have announced steadily dropping quarterly profits plunging the consumer-based stock market into the economic equivalent of an ice-cap meltdown. H. Lee Scott, CEO of the low-wage Wal-Mart empire, admitted "it's no secret that many customers are running out of money at the end of the month."
What do Americans do when they run out of money? They turn to their credit cards. Now, without equity in their homes, many have been unable to buy off bloated credit card debts. According to investigative journalist Danny Schecter, three hundred million Americans live beneath $3,000,000,000,000 – that’s three trillion dollars – worth of debt. Boil it down, you’ll discover that the average U.S. household now carries a credit card balance of $30,000...per family.
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