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The Federalist Diaries
Are
We Going to Lose This One?, Part 5
Libertarian
ideologues and moneygrubbers stand aside. Make room for the people.
Statement
of August 19, 2008, by Don McCanne,
retired
physician and an advocate on behalf of Physicians for a National Health
Program, an organization of fourteen thousand American physicians advocating
for single-payer national health insurance.
See the letter below,
which I wrote to the president of the United Auto Workers, “UAW”. After
an exchange of letters, UAW has not replied.
It does not bode well for democracy or the environment that a large
organization like UAW would not implement the requests.
August 6, 2008
Mr.
Ron
Gettelfinger
President,
UAW
Solidarity
House
8000
East Jefferson Avenue
Detroit,
Michigan
48214
Dear
Mr. Gettlefinger:
My
father, Harutun Ajemian, a General Motors retiree and UAW member, received
the enclosed in the mail.
He
asked me what it meant. An
attorney by profession, I chose to write you this letter, in the hope that
UAW implement a common-sense policy about notices.
My
father gets notices occasionally about changes in benefits.
Generally, the notices are incomprehensible unless one spend
considerable time reading them.
Given
that my father is eighty-five and handicapped by macular degeneration and
limited English, the notices are, unfortunately, a perfunctory, meaningless
gesture. They do not become
meaningful just because public law mandates that they be sent.
I
ask that you set in motion a policy, as quickly as possible, that
(a)
retirees who are not attorneys
write the notices, which then could be checked by attorneys for accuracy;
this not only would be helpful, but, also, revolutionary, sending a
message to government agencies that they would do better to do the same;
(b)
announcements about notices be
conveyed via postcard, with the notices themselves available upon request or
upon visiting the UAW Web site; this,
too, would send a message about the importance of environmentally-friendly
methods of communication; if
this would not comport with the law, do so anyway following from a public
statement that, all things considered, this would be the sensible thing to
do, and government should rewrite laws so that they be environmentally
sensible.
Do
not wait for government to do the right thing.
Set an example for government and the public.
Please,
no more notices. Just postcard
announcements about notices. Thank
you.
Van Ajemian,
331 North Vail Avenue,
Montebello,
California
90640
Enclosure:
notice
December 4, 2008
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