Ady Barkan's Dying Quest for Social Justice
On April 30, activist Ady Barkan came to Capitol Hill from his home in California to advocate before Congress for a Medicare-for-all bill. The legislation, he said from his wheelchair, was “the only solution to what ails the American health care system.” It was the first-ever hearing for Medicare-for-all legislation, but that’s not what made this moment poignant. The voice wasn’t Barkan’s, but that of a computer, which read his testimony for him. One of the most important activists in America today can barely speak or move.
In 2016, Barkan was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a terminal illness that kills motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord, eventually impacting the sufferer’s ability to walk, to eat, even to breath. “I never thought I’d be in this position,” he explained in a CNN op-ed in 2017. “A year ago, I was healthy, taking morning runs on the California coast and looking forward to a new life with my newborn son, Carl.”
Not knowing how much time he had left, Barkan threw himself into activism, turning, as a Politico profile described it, “his body into a kind of campaign tool, laying it in front of members of Congress, news cameras and activists to inspire action for health care, immigrants and the election of progressive Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
He traveled frequently to Capitol Hill—to defend the Affordable Care Act, advocate for immigrant rights and against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, and to protest against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 with a coalition of progressive groups including the Center for Popular Democracy, for which he is an organizer. He’d been an activist for years, but his work gained a new urgency; at the same moment his health was in danger, the government had begun actively working to dismantle funding and programs that millions of Americans like him depend on.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/ady-barkans-dying-quest-for-social-justice/
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We must get there and we can together. This is a popular concept Americans embrace.
Thank you for the links. 
