Team Building Struggles

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How will your garden grow?"

In the aftermath of the election there has been an explosion of energy and life. Seeds of resistance are sprouting everywhere. It has been heartening to see and experience. So many of us have stepped in and stepped up to civic activism. I believe we want to do more than just bloom, like the flowers in the California desert after so much rain. We want to do more than look pretty and die.
Most plants have phyto-chemicals; toxins, that actively kill other non-self plants. It gives them more room for growth, and reduces competition for nutrients. It is self preservation.
As our seeds are taking root, we are finding similar growths in competition with us. We have to decided if we want to work with, or against the others, what do we want to spend our energy fighting against? I believe most of us want to protect our planet, protect science, protect civil rights, and our constitution. I hope that it is enough that we can feel each other as similar. I hope that we can resist the urge to use our tools of self preservation on one another.
I am new to the scene of civic activism, other than behind the scenes. I am not new to group projects, and how difficult they can be to get through. But the group projects we are working on now have higher stakes than grades. We are trying to protect our planet, our country, and our families. I am very disturbed at how quickly people are turning against their team members.
We are not all going to have the same techniques, the same methods, and not all of the same values. However I believe we have enough in common to put in effort to work together. Right now I am seeing effective, strong people; insult, undermine, and exclude people that they don't work well with. I am seeing a lot of dividing and conquering in teams. The Machiavellian mechanization's could be comic, if it weren't for the stakes.
Insulting, undermining, and excluding are not very sophisticated forms of teamwork. It is effective to help amass control. You can get to your end goal. I just hope that we can have more value in each other. Human's can discuss concerns and disagreements. People can be managed, effective teams can be put together. We don't have to resort to back biting and undermining.
I don't want to have to step away because I can't stand the site of blood in the water. We should be working to lift each other up. Yes, divide and conquer can be very effective in strategy an battle, but we should not be battling each other.
Can we see each others as similar enough that we hold the toxins, hold the back biting and undermining, and try out different methods of conflict resolution and team building? The seeds growing next to you that are different than you could be helpful. Those around us with similar goals can be great allies. We really we do all have the same goals right now.
The differences are minimal. They can be worked through. This should be bigger than our egos, and concern about how "we look." We are people that have not worked together before. There will be difficulties, there will be poor communication. Some people won't work well together, It will happen.
We have to decided if we want to work with, or against the "others." What do we want to spend our energy fighting against? Can we see the person that is annoying us as an ally? Can we see the person that made a mistake as a colleague worthy of communication? Can we listen to words of people vs words repeated from another person?
Insulting, undermining, excluding; divide and conquer- they are effective. They will take you far. But please consider using your energy in team building. We need all the allies we can get in this battle. 
How will our garden grow?

In Defense of the Affordable Care Act.

I spoke a few weeks ago at the ACA rally here in Anchorage.

Below is an edited version of some of my reasons for supporting the ACA.

My name is Jeanna Duryee. I am a veteran of the US Army where I honorably served during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. I went to school using the GI Bill, scholarships, and Student loans. I graduated from the University of Southern California in 2001 with my doctorate in Physical Therapy. I have been living and working in Alaska as a Physical Therapist since 2002.
I own an outpatient PT clinic. That means I treat people who need PT, but are not sick or disabled enough to be hospitalized or stuck in their home. I treat Alaskans from five years old, to 95 years old: People who have had accidents falling on the ice, in car accidents, or are hurt on the job. I work with people who have diseases that limit their capacity to move, work, and care for themselves or others. It is a very good job.
Many offices do not take Medicaid and Medicare patients. I do, because it is the right thing to do. Since I accept Medicaid, when many don’t, close to 50% of my patients are Medicaid clients. I want to tell you who those people are. I want to discuss the false narrative of the “welfare mom,” or lazy people who are working the system. I want you to know who will be losing coverage with the current plans to replace the ACA.

• I have many single parents that are working two jobs, neither job provides health care. They rely on medicaid for themselves and their children. I see injuries and pain that make it hard to get up every day and take care of themselves, let alone work 40+ hours a week. They just want to feed their families. 
• I have a client who worked as a CNA in a nursing home for 20 years, which is back breaking work. She didn’t retire with a benefits package, is too young for Medicare, but her body is broken.
• I have a patient who is in her mid forties who has been a PCA for 20 years, and her body is starting to give out. She works full time, has 3 kids, and goes to school 16 hours a week. She and her kids are on Medicaid.
• I have a client who worked 15 years as a fire jumper, and had to retire to an unrelated disease, and cumulatively, his body is broken. He is too young for Medicare, and broken.
• I have seen many who were injured on the job who are to loyal to their owners or to proud to file a worker’s comp claim. They are disabled, in pain, and can't get better to be able to find other work without medical care.
• There are many tradesmen in our state that are on Medicaid. If you aren't lucky enough to have a union job or work for the state, you have usually have no benefits. Most plumbers, electricians, and construction workers have no health care. 
• I even have had union patients who have paid me out of their own pockets or with barter, because they didn’t have coverage because of injuries incurred in between their contract work. 

Many business owners say, "laborers are like trucks, you run them till they die, then you get a new one."
Well, when the laborers “die” or when their bodies are too broke to work anymore, they have a lot of life left in them. Think about it. If you started work at 20, and you are "lucky" to work 25 years, that makes you 45 years old. That is 20 years out from qualifying for medicare. You might be able to find a low wage part time job to help you feed your family, but those jobs don't offer insurance either.
These are Alaskans in heart and spirit. They are Americans. They are hard working and proud. They do not deserve to be abandoned to sit crippled in their homes and rot, while their families fall into poverty. They deserve to be seen and treated. They deserve our respect, they deserve our protection, they deserve health care. These are Alaskans I am proud to call my friends and neighbors.

People who have health care because they have a full time job with benefits are not any better people than the people on Medicaid. They are not any more deserving of mobility and pain relief. Our brothers and sisters who are on Medicaid need their coverage desperately, because it is part of a fragile network that allows them to work and feed their families.

The ACA as bogeyman is a false narrative. It has been a talking point target demonized. It is a rallying cry. It was almost a mob-mentality the last 4 years in congress trying to take it down. It has faults, but those can be amended. You don’t have to blow up a bridge if you don’t like it’s structure.  Blowing up a bridge might feel good. But to blow up a bridge while people are crossing, trying to save their lives, Who does that? It is ugly, and vengeful.

We can fix the ACA. It is the right thing to do. Our Alaskan brothers and sisters deserve better than what is being offered by congress now, which will affect all of us. There are arbitrary caps on care, funding slashed, countless Alaskans will be plain and simply cut off the roles. There safety net from falling into abject poverty and homelessness will be gone.
You aren't safe from harm if you have insurance already. In Alaska each filer will loose an average of $10,000 in tax credits. This is twice what the next state's citizens would loose at $5,000.

Americans and Alaskans, our brothers and sisters, all of us deserve better. They ACA can and should be amended. We don’t have to blow up the bridges. We don’t have to destroy our people, and cannibalize each other. There is money out there, we just need to decide what our priorities are.

Please let us amend the ACA, and make a health care system that is not rated last in the industrialized nations. Let's make health care a right, not a privilege. Lets continue to work for Liberty and Justice, for All.

Civil Unity I

So am I getting an education in my social activism. I have long been a quiet activist for social justice. Since the election I felt that my quiet activism was not enough.

I recently took up supporting and promoting a commemoration of the American Civil Rights movement. In the process I have learned the term "civil rights" does not mean the same thing to every one. So I looked it up.

• civ·il rights noun: the rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality

That is what I always have understood. It runs with my mantra: Liberty,and Justice, For all. However it does not necessarily run parallel with the Civil Rights Movement in many people's minds. The civil rights movement is more about the history of oppression and activism of African American's in our country that lead to the historic Civil Rights act of 1965. Which is not that long ago. The wounds of that time are real. The wounds of today are real. The Civil Rights Act is for the protection of all Americans, and came to us from the hard work of African Americans and their Allies. 

I am a white women, and limited in my world view by my experience walking through my life in privilege. My experience might be broader than the average white woman. I grew up very poor, with a mentally ill parent. I joined the military, and met people from all over the world. I have lived in a community where I was a minority for three years, I have traveled and visited five different countries, I have been called poor white trash, and a nasty white girl. I have seen the results of  racism in the uneven application of violence and incarceration to people of color in law enforcement in my country, I have lived through mass shootings in my country the worst being the Pulse night club massacre. 

When I look at all of the data of who is at the most risk of violence and discrimination in my country, it is very clear that people of color, and people of the LGTBQ community are the most at risk of murder. So the intersection of LGTBQ people of color are those who have the greatest need for civil rights protection. They are the most vulnerable, and live the most in fear. They are not a side note. They are not a tic mark box of inclusion. It is not about political correctness. For me it is about standing up for civil rights and civil liberties for my fellow human beings. I can not represent women of color. I can represent myself, a white woman, and the Anchorage Women's March. They are clear. I am clear. We will only associate ourselves with events that place LGBTQ heroes parallel with all others. 

We are in dark times for civil rights in our country. We are all under attack. We need to stand together if we are going to be effective, we can not afford to alienate powerful allies. In this town, the pride parade festivities had 10,000 attendees. That is a very powerful contingent of people. They know how to fight. We need their help if we are going to be successful at protecting health care, protecting our environment, protecting civil rights, and protecting our reproductive rights. My goal is that we move forward together in solidarity, in synergy. 

I will stand behind my sisters of color. I will give all the support I can. I will step away from those that will not support and fight with the LGBTQ community. I will stand behind those that will be inclusive.