Spock and William Sloane Coffin, for urging resistance to the draft. Marcus was a stalwart of the antiwar movement-he co-edited “The Vietnam Reader,” which was used at teach-ins across the nation, and he stood trial, alongside Dr. Raskin grew up in the left-his father, Marcus, after a few early years in the Kennedy Administration, quit to set up, with Richard Barnet, the most important progressive think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies. Although constantly accused of undermining American pride, of debasing American history, progressives are, in fact, the ones who actually understand the nation’s story. That it was left to the left-because Raskin is very much a man of the left-to make that case is telling. But his speech on Thursday was even more important: it was, I think, a classic defense of American history, even of the exceptionalism of American history. Raskin had opened the arguments on Tuesday with a personal, passionate speech that described his family members hiding from the rioters in the Capitol on January 6th it was as powerful and effective as the speech he gave on that long-ago Cambridge night. I thought of that moment on Thursday, as I listened to Raskin, now the Democratic representative from Maryland’s Eighth Congressional District, close out the prosecution presentation in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. He’d given a burning, powerful speech the crowd of students, not an easy audience, had roared and roared. I was a reporter for the Crimson, the student daily he was an undergrad organizing against the Reagan Administration’s involvement in Central America, and had just pulled off an enormous rally in Harvard Yard. Just get it done.The first time I remember meeting Jamie Raskin it was dark, and we were standing atop the great steps of Harvard’s Widener Library, looking out over a sea of candles. He also has some advice for anyone who is due for a colonoscopy but has been delaying it. Since the end of his cancer treatment, there has been no sign of recurrence of cancer but Raskin remains vigilant when it comes to his eating habits and overall health. In a democratic society, our obligation is not to compound all the misfortunes of life-the illnesses, the accidents, the heartache-with governmental injustice our job is to try to end injustice and reduce misfortune because we are all citizens together. That is an injustice because we, as a society, can do something about that. “If you can’t get health insurance because you love the wrong person or because you are unemployed or because you are too poor, that is not just a misfortune. He says he was struck by how medical misfortune affected various segments of society, and became more determined than ever to increase every person’s access to affordable health care. So I want health insurance for everyone, colonoscopies for everyone.”Īt the time of his diagnosis, Congressman Raskin was the floor leader on a marriage equality bill in the Maryland state legislature. I cannot imagine how devastating it must be for those who have no health insurance. It was hard enough for someone like me, who has great health insurance, to deal with my diagnosis. “It can happen to anybody–liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, Independent, old, young, every race, and every ethnicity. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the mass was malignant, but several days later test results confirmed that it was. Raskin fell asleep during the colonoscopy, but when we woke he was told that the screening revealed a mass the size of a walnut in his colon. The physician recommended that he have an endoscopy as well as a colonoscopy. It all began when Raskin went to the doctor because he was experiencing reflux symptoms. But we were fortunate to have fantastic doctors and nurses who saved my life.” He was diagnosed with the disease in 2010 and says, “It was an excruciatingly difficult experience for me and my family. Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD 8th District) recently talked to us about how his journey through surviving stage III colon cancer began with a life-saving colonoscopy.
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