I just got back from a country where everybody seems pretty happy with their health care system, Canada. It was a little weird to hear people talking about dealing with health care without anyone bitching about insurance companies, or being warned about what would happen to their health care if they switched jobs or had a pre-existing condition.
I was in Vancouver to give a speech and sign some books at a meeting of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW). I have a great fondness for the Machinists because their President when I was coming of age in the early 1980s was a fire-breathing, hell-raising trade unionist named Bill Wipinsinger, who gave some of the best speeches I have ever seen in my life, and who never backed down from challenging authority; and also because my greatest political mentor was an Iowa Machinist named Bill Fenton, who was the hardest drinker, best organizer, and most fearless political rabble-rouser I ever knew. When I was a young community organizer, I organized a union for my organization, and it was an easy pick to affiliate with the Machinists.
At the Machinists meeting, we of course spent a lot of time talking about health care and the fight for a public option, but the other big topic of the meeting was the fight for mere jobs, especially manufacturing jobs. I firmly believe that without a more aggressive focus on creating good jobs in manufacturing and infrastructure, which have a bigger multiplier effect than any other kind of jobs, that our economy will continue to sputter, and that Democratic politics will be in a world of hurt.
The big industrial unions with the most at stake in terms of the issue of manufacturing jobs - the IAMAW, UAW, Steelworkers, Teamsters - do not by themselves have the political power right now to force the Democrats to go down this path, to do more investments in creating these jobs, to stop being pansies with other countries so often on trade issues, to invest in the manufacturing sectors with the most promise. Hopefully, they can get the broader progressive movement to join in this cause. But Democrats would be very foolish not to see the economic and political wisdom of doing this ASAP.
We are seeing glimmers of this with Obama. The investments made by the stimulus bill and his first budget proposal made were decent starts, and finally standing up to the Chinese on the tire issue was very welcome. But we are going to need to see a lot more in the way of serious job initiatives if this badly wounded economy is going to start producing jobs.
The CBC's premier investigative program, The Fifth Estate was allowed to film a documentary at Insite, the safe injection site in Vancouver's poverty-ridden lower east side.
It is a compassionate examination of the facility, its staff and the lives of three regular patrons. They made an interesting (and commendable) choice not to interview any experts, pundits or politicians for this program (other than 2 employees of the site). I highly recommend watching, including the extra interviews of the five main subjects.
It isn't a rosy picture, as the three patrons are each shown injecting drugs. One of the three, Shelly Tomic, had been off heroin for three years (but on methadone) and falls off the wagon when she has difficulty obtaining methadone, despite having a prescription. Shelly's case is particularly tragic as she is actually a named plaintiff in the lawsuit which resulted in a court ruling allowing the site to remain open.
More hopefully, Taz Prouting is admitted to the facility's detox program "Onsite" and on her third attempt, makes it through the very painful 11 day period it takes to get through withdrawal. Will she succeed in staying clean? What comes through is the value of the site in at least providing a way out for the most destitute and abandoned members of society. It easily cuts through any nonsense idea that sites like this would encourage drug abuse, as no one who wasn't already an addict could possibly walk into that facility and say "I think I'd like to try this!" An opium den this is not. For some background on the facility from my post last year about it, go here. Also, I'd recommend today's Greenwald who is discussing Portugal's experiment with decriminalization.
It has long been an oddity that Vancouver, Canada's temperate coastal paradise (and perhaps answer to San Fransisco), which usually ranks in the top 5 of various "World's Best City to live in" lists is also home to arguably Canada's worst pocket of abject poverty and endemic drug abuse.
Vancouver's lower east side is a little pocket of the third world 2 blocks from affluent downtown Vancouver (I was shocked at how quick the transition is when I drove through last year). The area has become synonymous for heroin use, and has been the locus of much drug policy discussion in Canada for many years now.
In 2003, Vancouver became home to a North American first, "Insite", a medically staffed, clean, secure and legal safe injection site for needle drug users. These things are not new in Europe, but such ideas are always delicate in Canada because there is a widespread belief that the US will punish us somehow for deviating too far from its War on Drugs orthodoxy. Insite was made legal under a special permit allowed in Canada's federal drug laws issued by the then ruling Liberal government. Surprise, surprise the Conservatives hate it and have wanted to close it ever since they've taken power in 2006. They've backed away before, and even lost a legal battle over it but they're taking another run at it as Canada gears up toward a likely election in the fall (with luck, Obama will have Prime Minister Dion among his congratulatory phone calls in November).
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