Kudos to Bwak and LisB and Gumbun and Synchronicity, et al, for leading the charge July 31st into D.C. from TPMers who want universal health care NOW. They understand that momentum must BUILD and not be allowed to wane. Stall tactics used by the insurance lobby and delays from legislators in search of a "perfect" bill will only lead to the death of reform--and the deaths of many thousand Americans each year who are denied medical treatment.

So I urge you: Let your heart be stirred into action. I am disabled because I could not get proper medical care at the onset of my condition years ago. I had no insurance and could not afford to get it. As a result, I find myself years later having lost my health, my career, my marriage and much, much more. All within the last two years.

Young and old alike, rise up! March on Congress to demand health care for all Americans! Nearly 50 million of us live in fear for our very lives and futures. Many millions more have been ruined in the shredder of our current system.

For those like me, approaching the age of 50 or beyond, I beg you: Rouse yourself from despair, shed your excuses and FIGHT NOW, with all your strength. FIND a way to get involved. Like the great Ulysses about whom Tennyson wrote, we must us all become heroes in this, our collective hour of need:

Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.