BIG Ideas – May the Force be with you

May the Force be with you, is about big ideas from young progressives who are too often ignored or dismissed.

Do you sometimes think the Evil Empire has taken over and the system is rigged against you? Join the club. Do you blindly accept ideas from your own political party and summarily reject those from opponents without considering their potential value? Join the tribe.

I absolutely LOVED this article about how we argue. And I loved its viral video of a guy playing a violin in a D.C. Metro station. The guy was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, and his case was open to invite spare change. After 45 minutes, he accumulated just $32 as most people ignored him and walked by, totally discounting his performance as if they didn’t even hear him.

The violinist was Joshua Bell, an internationally acclaimed virtuoso who draws large crowds of wealthy patrons at Carnegie Hall. But in this venue, and dressed this way, no one noticed.

Similar to this experiment, no one seems to notice big healthcare reform proposals from regular people with less notoriety than Bernie Sanders, even if the savings could exceed $1.5 trillion “per year.” They instead debate ways to sabotage the Affordable Care Act or save it, or different versions of Medicare-for-All.

And they are ignoring sensible gun regulations that could save hundreds of thousands of lives per year and billions in healthcare costs too. Instead, they tinker around the edges with universal background checks, because they fear NRA reprisal.

What I like about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other newly elected young progressives is their ability to think big and swing for the fences. AOC’s clear vision, communication skills, and command of social media has people talking at least, even if some dismiss her ideas too quickly.

Listen, consider, debate, and embellish, or fix where needed.

I then watched another video about a surprise performance at a shopping mall that captured shoppers’ attention and moved people to tears, including me. The difference between the two videos shows how a simple idea can spread if people actually listen to it, consider its potential, and then work together to embellish it and execute. So don’t summarily discount ideas presented by AOC and other young freshman politicians, or from those of the other political party.

https://youtu.be/ILNDWCLVnpw/

Why The Star Wars Reference?

The Evil Empire is much like the wealthy special interests that have corrupted our political system. In the case of healthcare, the medical industrial complex that Stephen Brill wrote about spends three times more on lobbying than the military industrial complex. This cartel is desperate to protect the perverse profits that come from treating illness and injury rather than focusing on prevention and cure.

If you follow my personal Facebook page instead of the mHealth Talk page, you’ll notice that my avatar is an image of Yoda. That’s because he represents my relatively rare Myers-Briggs personality profile (INTP = Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving).