Mumzee's Kitchen

The New Medicare Maze

2005-12-28T05:55:00.000-08:00

If you have never seen a riddle in an enigma, wrapped in a conundrum, just log into the Medicare or the AARP site and try to figure out the plans for Medicare, Part D. Now, this is not to be confused in any way with Medicare as we know it. Gone is the "single-payer" program. This is nothing more nor less than a mandatory requirement to engage in commerce with the regularly licensed insurance companies with which we are all too familiar.

First, you are not only required to know what medications you are currently taking, but you must predict what medications you might possibly require later in life. Some companies may refuse to pay for one medicine but will cover another. Your job will be to carry with you the list of covered medications every time you see a doctor or check into an emergency room so that your physician will not prescribe a non-covered drug. Some companies will waive the deductible while charging a higher co-payment. Others base the co-payment schedule on the medication used. If you have prescriptions for "generic" drugs, you may pay less than for a "brand name" medication. Others have a "tier" system whereby you pay a higher co-pay for some drugs than for others, and some are only usable in their chain system of pharmacies, requiring one to have to go some distance away to obtain their prescriptions. Many of the medications commonly prescribed by doctors will not be covered at all!

It has been stated that use of generic drugs will save money for the company issuing the insurance, but that sometimes has drawbacks which a patient is not able to tolerate. A good example is the difference between the blood-thinner, Coumadin, and its generic "cousin", Warfarin. Cumadin is what is called a "stable dosage" medication, which means that each tablet will have the same dosage of the essential ingredient as the others. This creates a steady control of the desired activity in the system. On the other hand, Warafin is known as an "unstable dosage" medication in that the tablets may vary in strength and allow the clotting effect to be variable, possibly contributing to either stroke or uncontrolled internal bleeding. Other "generic" drugs may have side-effects that may be similar if not so serious. In many cases, something as simple as a reaction to one of the "inert" ingredients, used to contain or to stabilize the essential ingredients, may jeoparize the life of the patient, requiring a switch to a different brand, which may or may not be included in your insurance company's "pharmacoepia".

Even with the handy-dandy little "help tools" which are furnished by the government, the AARP, and the insurance companies, it is simply impossible for the private citizen, especially the elderly who are supposed to benefit by it, to compute the financial impact on their budget. One must simply consult all those advisors who are willing to help and then reach into the grab-bag and pull out an insurance company which will control your health until you are moved to reach back into the bag and choose another, but not until after you have to deal with the shortfall with which you are faced as the result of the policies of the first company.

In addition, you have the option to have the premiums deducted from your Social Security check. That way the insurancce company will get their money before you get yours, and you will be left with less total income and still have the deductibles and co-payments with which to contend. Bear in mind that with the "cost-of living" increase, there is also an increase in the premiums for Medicare and for Part B which will leave most beneficiaries with slightly less in their check this year even before the Part D premiums are taken out. Thus, rather than an increase in Social Security benefits for the year, the elderly are facing a reduction in their disposable income and many will be left with even greater bills than before for their medical care.

Those who have been eligible for Medicaid and have had their Part B premiums paid for and little or no co-payments with which to deal, are finding themselves faced with paying the deductibles and co-payments inflicted by this "insurance" coverage and will be less able than before to afford medical care. In addition we must consider the reduction in LIHEAPP funds and the increase in fuel prices. We will hear no more about people who have to choose between keeping warm or staying healthy. They will be able to do neither! Medicaid beneficiaries who have not signed with a company by now will find that they have already been "enrolled" with a company that has been designated by their state and will have no choice but to complete their research and go through the process of changing, should such action benefit them. In the meantime, they may be tasked with finding transportation to distant drug stores in order to obtain their medicines. The rest of us have a few more months before we must enroll before being penalized, unless Congress acts in the meantime to simplify, defer, or repeal this blunderbus of a "program" with which we are afflicted.

This is but the latest boondoggle to bleed the limited resources of the poor, the weak, and the elderly to the benefit of the corporate moguls. If one dares to mention the possibility and the advantages of single-payer health care based on the pattern currently employed by Medicare, one is lambasted with charges of wanting "socialized medicine" and "rationed Medical care"., but these charges are spurious. It would cover only the essential services and doctor-prescribed necessary medications, leaving things like "elective surgery" such as face-lifts and tummy-tucks to be paid by the patient and drugs like Viagra to be paid out-of-pocket as would be other "recreational" items.

The United States spends a greater amount for medical care than any other nation in the world but does not have the highest quality of care by far. This can be partially accounted for by the unconscionable prices of prescription drugs, but also by the exhorbitant premiums charged for health insurance. The costs for health insurance of employees has broken many American manufacturing corporations and left uncounted persons unable to provide the basics of health care for their families. The insurance companies merely raise the rates charged to those who can still afford to pay and continue to show record profits as their owners pocket ever-expanding dividends.

As a couple who are eligible for Medicare Part D, we find ouselves sifting through insurance company advertising in our mail on a daily basis, each offering the limitless sky and each adding to the confusion over choice. This leads one to believe that they have been given a bonanza by the passage of this undecypherable legislation and there is no way the American public can participate on an equal basis with their corporate gobbledegook. It is merely another bone thrown to the corporate dogs in order to assure the continuation of the river of campaign funds flowing into the political parties. I charge the "compassionate conservatives" for further victimizing the American public and the "party-of-the-people" Democrats for allowing this travesty of an "insurance program" to pass out of Congresss and onto the backs of those who have already been reduced to pauperhood and who find their meager income looted once again.

God save America!

It Is SO About Class!

2005-12-21T09:42:00.000-08:00

Whenever our government sells us another abominable ripoff of the ill, the elderly, and the handicapped or increases the burden of the working people, they are prompt to tell us that "it is not about class". They lie. It is always about "class" and it has always been about "class". There is no other reason for ambition, for the never-ending struggle for control of whatever medium of exchange passes for wealth and the assumption that wealth equals power.

Whether man struggled upward for the primordial ooze or was created in all his glory, perfect in the eyes of God and himself, "class" has been the driving force of his primitive being. When human beings huddled together in caves, the strongest man with the most capable killing instrument, whether a sick or the leg-bone of an animal, assumed leadership of the clan. His superior hunting abilities enabled him to accumulate more food, more skins in which to wrap a chilled body and, thus, more "wealth" and prestige. This entitled him to the choicest bits of food and the most desirable female. Thus was "class" created. The small, the weak, the disabled were regarded as dependent and a waste of food and warmth and were valued only as slaves and dispensable when they had outlived their usefulness. Only when a contender arose who was stronger, more inventive, and more vicious would the holder of this "class distinction" lose his position in society and be forced to adapt a more servile attitude.

Even in the ancient tomes on which modern religion is based, the theme of "class" is a vital subject and history clearly delineates its importance. In Genesis, Abel was the son who was favored by his parents and by God. The reason? He made a "better offering" by offering meat rather than "the fruit of the ground". Thus was established for all time the higher value placed upon those who kill rather than upon the 'humble tillers of the soil". The Torah, the Old Testament, is full of tales of those who were "blessed" and given power over others even unto the destruction of other human beings. They were the ones who were entitled to the perquisites and the prerogatives inherent in the bestowal of "class". Most prominent of these tales is that of Isaac and Ishmael whose supposed enmity troubles the world even to this day. Ishmael, the first-born, who was conceived of a handmaiden because of Abraham's desperation for an heir, was banished for his illegitimacy in order to clear the path for Israel to inherent his father's riches, setting the stage for discriminatory practices against the "ill-born" to preserve the privileges of the "well-born". The history of the advancement of mankind is replete with examples of the rule by the rich and powerful at the cost of the poor, the un-schooled, and the handicapped. Slavery is the best example of this, the rich actually owning members of the underprivileged class and forcing them into unpaid labor, military service, and duels to the death for the entertainment of their masters.

The closest that mankind has come to the elimination of this practice has been in the history of the United States as it evolved from legal slavery toward true democracy, the culmination coming with the civil rights movement and the improvements in equality that resulted from it. However, when it seemed that we had almost attained true equality, we were suddenly thrust back into the old way of thinking and behaving as the "ultra-right" took control of our government. In the name of "conservatism", the social programs of a century were either ended or the budget tightened so severely that their purpose could no longer be achieved.

The war in which we find ourselves currently engaged was begun for the benefit of the privileged and has served as a smokescreen as the budget of the United States has been looted by the privileged class and the "underclass" has been condemned to poverty, illness, and homelessness as the "compassionate conservatives" ignore the conditions in our own nation. One of our major cities lies in ruins that can only be compared to the Iraqi city of Fallujah, its residents scattered to the four winds and dependent upon the charity of others and our government takes no action to correct the causes of their distress. We spend two billion dollars a week to make war upon a shattered nation in order to force "democracy" upon them while neglecting brutally the needs and the rights of our own people.

Now, our President tells us that he has "authorized" the National Security Agency to wiretap our telephones, monitor our computer communications, and otherwise spy upon law-abiding American citizens at will. Not only that but he blatantly stated that he intends to continue with these illegal and immoral acts, regardless of the terms of the law which specifically forbids it. While even the former supporters from his own party are aghast at this declaration that he considers himself to have the authority to do this under the War Powers Act as the Commander-In-Chief of the military he continues his campaign to establish the Presidency as a virtual dictatorship. Not only have the "sneak-and-peak" provisions of the hated Patriot Act nullified our Fourth Amendment Rights, but we now know that our precious First Amendment rights, the most important of all are under attack. We have written and forced Iraq to approve a "democratic constitution" while our own President off-handedly dismisses own Constitution, the very bedrock of our national governing system, as "just a goddam piece of paper" and beneath his consideration.

It would seem that in a very few years, mankind has done a reverse evolution and degenerated into the old cave-man mystique. While the President rants about "individual responsibilty" he is advocating the old "every man for himself" mentality. Here in Kansas, we are watching the power brokers as they struggle over the relative correctness of the Theory of Evolution or Intelligent Design. I would venture that, if the theory of evolution is correct, it has reversed itself and, if we are the product of design, it certainly has not been very intelligent. As mankind develops technology which makes possible a better standard of living, the greed of the ruling class is causing them to become more intent on keeping all the goodies for themselves regardless of the consequence to the poor. The agenda of the current administration appears to be to allow the poor, the ill, and the old to die and get out of the way while "guest workers" pour into the country to perform all the odious duties which the rich require in maintaining their elegant lifestyles.

It all absolutely is "about class"!

TIME TO FISH OR CUT BAIT

2005-12-15T07:25:00.000-08:00

While Congress is obediently cutting taxes for the rich in response to the wishes of the President, the displaced persons from New Orleans are still crowded into hotels or the living quarters of relatives and other caring persons and rapidly losing hope of ever going home. In the meantime, whatever remains of their homes and possessions are rotting away as are the bodies of their friends and neighbors whom the contractors have not bothered to remove. Many have lost relatives, some even the children from whom they were forcibly separated during the crisis and, as time goes on, their reunion is even more unlikely.

One could assume that there is quibbling over the cost of repairing the levees and/or raising the ground level of the area that was so devastated in order to prevent another such occurrence, but there is no agreement and no plan. There is absolutely no discussion in Congress or the administration about plans to correct the conditions which led to the disaster and to re-establish the city of New Orleans as a viable community. Further , the public appear to have lost their once-deep concern for the plight of these people or the future of their city. When a group of New Orleanians appeared before a Senate committee to tell their stories, one Senator was absolutely un-civil in his questioning, as if they had reason to dissemble about the events before, during, and after the flood.

As with so many things that concern caring people, the government is prone to say, "It's over. Nothing to see here. Move on." After all, the flood damaged only the "poor" section of town, occupied by people of color and the super-poor. They got to have a wonderfully exciting camp-out in the Super Dome and the Astro Dome which, according to Barbara Bush, was a taste of luxury after what they were accustomed to. They got some free credit cards, which should please any poor person, and they got to travel! What more do they want?

They want to go home! It is the Christmas season and they want, as all of us do, to be with their familes, (whatever is left of them). They want to hold their children, to worship and celebrate the birth of Jesus in familiar congregations with their friends. They want to walk familiar streets and shop in neighborhood stores, being greeted by familiar faces in the spirit of the season. Instead they are faced with the possibility of arrest on charges of looting if they try to enter their damaged homes to clean up or to salvage any mementos that might be left. It will yet be a long while until they have the time and the opportunity to recognize their losses, homes, friends, jobs, and opportunities, and to grieve for them. There is work to be done and they eager to engage in it.

Meanwhile, the mobile homes and the travel trailers which have been ordered are sitting within a couple of days distant and waiting for FEMA to provide the money to pay for them. This one simple act could have the temporary housing inside New Orleans in a matter of days, available for the families to stay in them and begin the chore of cleaning out and cleaning up their own propety and restoring or rebuilding their homes. The low-income housing that might be appropriate for people to live in are locked up and barred from entry, much less occupancy, and no reasons are given for the failure to open them for the previous residents to move back in. Small wonder that many New Orleanians are convinced of some major conspiracy by the government to prevent them from ever returning to their previous living environment.

Discard the idea that New Orleans is nothing more than a party town. The partying is done by the tourists who take advantage of the celebrations to throw aside their inhibitions and to make fools of themselves in an anonymous setting. New Orleans is traditionally a very religious community. Whether Catholic, Baptist, or a mixture of these and native religions, the people are very family-oriented and devout in their faith. They celebrate life and they celebrate death, they honor their origins, and they rejoice in their freedoms. While they do have a problem with crime, do not we all? Yes, many of them are poor, but is that not why they were living in the flood-prone area rather than on Snob Hill? Many are, nonetheless, well-educated and well capable of self-representation, and some may even decide to enter the political arena as the result of this fiasco.

If you were to lose your home to a disaster, how would you like to be treated? Would you expect your insurance company to brush you off? Would you expect the banks to foreclose on what was left of your home in order to sell it to industrial developers? Would you tolerate being separated from your friends and family and transplanted into a strange community and culture? Or would you get mad as hell and take action? Not only those from New Orelans but also ones who lived in Texas, Mississippi, Florida,and Alabama are facing the same problems, non-caring lassitude on the part of the elected officials who are supposed to represent their interests. If those elected officials who are responsible for their neglect expect to run for re-election in 2006 and 2008. it would seem that they would want to see all those people safely tucked into real homes in a location of their choice. Otherwise, some may find that the "Solid South" is no longer ripe for the picking by any Bible-thumping, psalm-singing "conservative" who puts his name on the ballot.

The people of the Gulf Coast are entitled to courteous answers to their questions and attention to their plight. If they are not to allowed to return to their homes, they should be allowed re-settlement money sufficient to let them put down roots elsewhere instead of being perpetually maintained in the position of beggars and welfare dependents. They have the right, as Americans, to be able to take permanent jobs, to have their children enrolled in schools of which they can feel a part, and in homes of their choice where they can re-build their lives. To expect them to quietly acquiesce to one more condescending insult as their homes are forfeited and their families destroyed as the result of neglect and exploitation by their own countrymen would be the crowning atrocity among the many that have already been perpetrated against the American people by this war-obsessed administration. It is well past time for these people and their problems to be given the attention that they deserve.

Even the Constitution Is Not Safe

2005-12-11T07:29:00.000-08:00

Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed
into the Oval Office to meet with President George W.
Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA
Patriot Act.

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell
shocked period immediately following the 9/11
terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal
groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had
joined forces with prominent conservatives like
Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew
the more onerous provisions of the act could further
alienate conservatives still mad at the President from
his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel
Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

"I don't give a goddamn," Bush retorted. "I'm the
President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."

"Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said. "There
is a valid case that the provisions in this law
undermine the Constitution."

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush
screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

I've talked to three people present for the meeting
that day and they all confirm that the President of
the United States called the Constitution "a goddamned
piece of paper."

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of
the United States is little more than toilet paper
stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad
despots have dumped on the freedoms that "goddamned
piece of paper" used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White
House counsel, wrote that the "Constitution is an
outdated document."

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or
personal beliefs. It doesn't matter if you are a
Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn't matter
if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite
our differences, the Constitution has stood for two
centuries as the defining document of our government,
the final source to determine - in the end - if
something is legal or right.

Every federal official - including the President - who
takes an oath of office swears to "uphold and defend
the Constitution of the United States."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes
when someone calls the Constitution a "living
document."

""Oh, how I hate the phrase we have-a 'living
document,'" Scalia says. "We now have a Constitution
that means whatever we want it to mean. The
Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's
sake."

As a judge, Scalia says, "I don't have to prove that
the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that
it's better than anything else."

President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the
Constitution over the last five years, including a
controversial amendment to define marriage as a "union
between a man and woman." Members of Congress have
proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade,
ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a
Constitutional ban on abortion.

Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the
Constitution comes from a loss of rights.

"We can take away rights just as we can grant new
ones," Scalia warns. "Don't think that it's a one-way
street."

And don't buy the White House hype that the USA
Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It
is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of
every American citizen and, as one brave aide told
President Bush, something that undermines the
Constitution of the United States.

But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution
is just "a goddamned piece of paper."

© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue

The Shameful Blasphemy of the Religious Right

2005-12-02T07:32:00.000-08:00

In the 1930's, when I was but a child, my aunt was married to a travelling evangelist who presided over camp meetings and she was very proud of his work. She loved telling me of his "miracles" of healing, saving souls, and casting out demons. She used to sit me down and tell stories of things that she had "witnessed" at his meetings. Being a simple country child, I asked questions and, over time and after following her urging to read the Bible "cover to cover", I developed a healthy skepticism toward believing what I was told and have spent a good deal of time in the informal study of the Bible, its teachings, and the history of these sacred writings. Especially at this time, when religious leaders have such close ties with the politicians and share their aspirations, it is most important for Christians to study carefully what they are being told and search the scriptures to learn the truth for themselves.

I was verbally instructed, first, that the first five books of the Old Testament as it is known today were written by Moses under divine inspiration, which allowed him to write of events concerning and after his own death. Even to a small child this simply did not compute! Later studies showed that the history of this entire period of time was created by "scribes" from ancient, (even at that time), writings which were translated and collected into what became the Jewish Torah and are the basis of the beliefs of the Jewish faith. The Old Testament is now an anthology of the history of the Jews, including the prophecies of such seers as the oft-quoted Isaiah, Micah, and Malachi.

As with any book, the events documented therein must be taken in context. The Ten Commandments, for example, are the basis for Jewish Law and were validated in the teachings of Jesus Christ. In Matthew 5:17, He exhorts his followers to keep the Law but follows that statement by instructions that mere lawfulness is not enough and the rest of the chapter is a list of caveats about personal behavior which is even more stringent. Some even now attempt to abide by the dietary restrictions which were given to the Jews as they began their forty-year trek through the desert, prohibiting those foods which could quickly spoil in the heat or might be dangerous if under-cooked. They fail to include Romans 14:14 where Paul tells the Faithful that "nothing is unclean of itself". This is a problem with the present-day "prophets and seers". They pick and choose those chapters and verses which comport with their personal viewpoints and delete the rest, relying upon the laziness of their listeners to assure that they accept those words and do not bother to read the rest of the pertinent writings.

A prime example of this is their excusing the hatred of those of the Muslim faith and to justify killing them for no reason but that of their faith. They quote Genesis 16:11-12 wherein God, as punishment for the disobedience of Hagar, places a curse upon Ishmael, condemning him to be a "wild man: his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him", and neglect the later passage of Genesis 17:20 wherein, at Abraham's supplication, God relents and blesses Ishmael and promises to make him "a great nation". Later, in chapter 25, he joined Isaac in burying their father and, in chapter 28, it is mentioned that his daughter married Esau, the son of Isaac who sold his birthright to Jacob for "a mess of potage". However, it is only verses 11 and 12 that are quoted, ad nauseum, as justification for the incessant killing of Muslims thousands of years later.

Much of the Bible is written in allegories, parables, and exemplars and it is important to determine the context of each individual passage. Even in the New Testament letters of Paul to various churches at a distance, the advice given is in response to particular problems which existed in that church at that time and are not neccesarily commandments by which we are bound to live. God gave us a brain capable of reason and Jesus bequeathed us the privilege of discerning for ourselves the motivations of those who would lead or mis-lead us, but it is our responsibility to exercise these gifts. I have never seen a scripture wherein ignorance would be accepted as an excuse good enough to get us through those "Pearly Gates" and to attempt to excuse our sins by saying, "Jerry Falwell said so," just couldn't result in a good outcome. The good Reverend will account for his own sins but we are responsible for ours.

Those who elevate themselves and claim to teach the true Word of God need to spend some time in prayerful contemplation of II Timothy 2:15, "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth ." The Bible should be studied by each individual who wishes to follow its precepts and they should not accept as "Bible truth" every sermon that is pronounced from a pulpit but should read far before and after the text which is prescribed by someone else. Thus, we learn that pastors and evengelists are merely human as we are and are not infallible beings who know the Word of God and preach it infallibly. We must "beware of false prophets" who just may be skewing the facts in order to make their own points of view acceptable to us rather than telling us "the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth".

It is fortunate that , in this age of enlightenment, it is no longer appropriate to stone to death those who pervert the Word of God to their own ends under the Law against blasphemy, but sometimes, at moments of great frustration, it may seem to be a good idea. We will just have to pray about that!

HOWARD DEAN AND THE DEMO MONEY PROBLEM

2005-11-25T07:21:00.000-08:00

Dr. Howard Dean, whose constructive use of the internet broke all records in raising money for his political campaign in 2004, is said to be having a bit of a problem in doing the same for the national Democratic Party. There are those who are quick to condemn the man as a "flash in the pan" who is incapable of doing an adequate job for the party as a whole. They fail to recognize the difference in the circumstances.
When Dr. Dean was running for the presidential nomination, there were many of us "small people" who were willing to dig into our very shallow pockets to donate whatever we could spare to assist in the changes which he and other progressive Democrats hoped to effect. Throughout the primary campaign, the field seemed to consist of Dean, Kucinich, Edwards, and Gephardt with a smaller amount of support for Braun and Sharpton. With the assistance of the media, the "establishment Democrats" weighed in and John Kerry swept in and took home all the marbles. We witnessed a campaign in which Sen Kerry, a true war hero in his own right was instantly put on the defensive and the same media which promoted his candidacy turned against him and gave us a Bush re-run, right down to another election scandal which went largely unreported until it was too late to correct it.
The progressives among us became understandably gun-shy. We are holding our fire and keeping our little bits of money in our pockets until we are sure that it will be used on behalf of those policies which we espouse. The Democratic Party as a national organization, as well as the media, is looking no further than those politicians whom we regularly see on the Sunday morning news shows, mouthpieces for the party line, Republican-lites, and stay-the-course advocates, willing to play nice at the game of "politics -as-usual". They cannot see beyond the huge profiles of Clinton, Biden, Kerry, and Gore while the media likes to hype an all-female field headed by Hillary on one side and Condi Rice on the other. With a contest like that, most of us who truly care about our country and its well-being may just stay home in bed and cover up our heads.
The great majority of us who are at the bottom of the human food chain have had enough of the same old "kiss the rich and screw the poor" choices that we have had for the last 24 years! We are sick and tired of being required to choose "the lesser of two evils" on election day, of holding our noses as we mark our ballots. We want to support someone who can think constructively, who will restore our democracy to "one man, one vote, and actually count the votes", who will stop spending our grandchildren's money on a needless and un-winnable war, and who will concentrate on rebuilding our national economy with real jobs by restoring our neglected super-structure and salvaging whatever is left of our damaged society. We need a candidate with guts, who will speak truth to power, a real barn-burning ass-kicker who is not afraid to tell the American people the truth about the liars and manipulators who have held our very existence in their hands for much too long
This candidate should be one who could marshall and organize his/her thoughts and present them in a cogent fashion so that there is no misunderstanding of what the nation needs and the steps that will be taken to correct the devastation which has been inflicted upon us by the last few administrations. We hear our corporations complaining that the pension plans for long-term employees are crippling them financially. There is an answer to that problem and they should be made to understand what that answer is. The cap should come off the Social Security contributions to allow that program to grow as it once did and that pension expense would no longer be necessary. When they cry about the cost of maintaining employee health insurance, they should be reminded that universal health insurance, with an administrative expense of only the 2% cost of administering Medicare would relieve them of that responsibility. Those who complain about the taxes that would be necessary to pay for these programs should be presented with facts and figures on what they currently pay for private insurance compared to the taxes necessary to fund universal health care and learn that their own financial situation would actually improve.
American corporations who have moved their plants overseas should be taxed as foreign corporations and have their American tax breaks ended. We will see if cheap foreign labor benefits them more than shipping, import taxes and tariffs. We want a candidate who can tell them their free ride is over and they must start paying their fair share for the benefits of the privileges and protection of the greatest nation in the world. The "fair tax" for which the rich so ardently advocate should be introduced, not as they present it but as it would be if it were totally fair. During the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, admittedly the greatest Republican President of the twentieth century, those in the top tax bracket paid income tax at the rate of 90%, business boomed, super-highways were built, many workers were able to buy their first home, and not a few millionaires were created. Now we have millionaires, good Republicans to a fault, who cry a river when they are asked to pay a measly 15% on their capital gains!
Yes, Dr. Dean, those who contributed to your campaign so liberally in 2004 are now keeping their hands on what little remains in their wallets. And we shall continue to do so until we are convinced that it will not be wasted like our contributions were then and in the same way our tax dollars have been mis-used ever since. When a real leader appears who is willing to stand up for us, for our aspirations, and our needs, the money will be available to launch a stem-winder of a campaign that will wash the crooks of both parties into the Potomac and put in their places true representatives of the people. True, you have been hired and are being paid by the Democratic "establishment" who are complaining about the amounts you are collecting for the purpose of electing their choices into office. I thought you might like to be prepared to give them the reasons the money is tricking in so slowly.
Tell them the American people are ready for a real change. When they are prepared to deliver it, we are prepared to support them with volunteers and with cash in amounts necessary to bring it about. Until we are convinced that they are seriously committed to effective the necessary changes rather than to continue to be Republican-Liteand "go along to get along", we will keep our money in our pockets, thank you.

The Economy Gap

2005-11-17T04:56:00.000-08:00

Having wakened a bit early and turned to my usual morning fodder of whatever is on C-Span, I was treated (?) to a re-broadcast of an appearance of Alan Greenspan before Congress Now, requiring a barely functional brain to decypher this man's message before fully awake is asking a lot, so I really concentrated in order to absorb the words of this guru of finance. As he talked and I strained to grasp bits and pieces of his dissertation about how successfully our economy has been managed, I was struck by two points that he made.

First, when he and others like him talk about a "robust economy", they are speaking of the money supply in general, as if it were a separate entity from the lives of Americans at large. To them, if there is a good supply of money and "globalization" is bringing a greater share of it to this country, that's good! For instance, "outsourcing" is good because it is accomplishing that goal. Never mind that every citizen of China, India, or any other nation who works in an American-owned factory means one less American with a job, it's "good for the economy" and the economy is god!

When queried as to the reasons for the ever-widening gap between the super-wealthy and the middle-class, this great wise man wrinkled his forehead even more and admitted that he simply could not understand why this is happening. This fiscal genius betrayed the fact that the world view and the comprehension of nothing but money completely ignores the problem that is uppermost in the minds of working Americans, that of the ability to make a good living and to accomplish personal progress in the modern age. He also lamented the fact that people are saving their money rather than investing. I would venture that the working class no longer has any money either to save or to invest. The super-rich, while having investments that are worth far more than they and their immediate descendants can spend in this lifetime, are also putting cash back "in the sock" in preparation for the great crash which even they expect.
For those of us whose major "investments" are our homes, our cars, and our children, watching the "economy" would be amusing if it were not so serious. It's rather like watching a kitten in its first adventure at tree-climbing. At first it is fun but, as it goes higher, it becomes more desperate. The cat never looks down but keeps its eyes on the next branch and the next after that. As the branches become smaller and more frail until there are only twigs to support the climb, it becomes more desperate and an onlooker can only watch it go up and up, wondering if one should call the fire department for a rescue or if the poor thing will simply fall before help can arrive. The goal is simply "the top", though we know there will be disappointment because, once "the top" is gained, there is nothing more there and it will be a long way down.
The religious among us could consider another aspect of this whole situation. Never mind the good advice in the Scriptures as to helping our neighbors, honoring our elders, or feeding the poor. The pertinent caveat that is contained there which applies to this situation is even more specific: "You cannot serve both God and Mammon!" Even the "good reverends" who profess to be the artbiters of our morality as a society somehow forget this message as they appeal for more and more funds from the poor to whom they hold out hope for "mansions in Heaven" as rewards for their poverty in this life. Perhaps in his retirement, our honored fiscal guru should "go to the mountaintop" and await enlightenment which would enable him to understand that "the economy" is not everything but that what is accomplished with that economy is the measure of our nation's true value.

One ventures at one's peril to impugn the intelligence of such a sage as Mr. Greenspan but he can be excused if his brilliant mind is so consumed with the problems of the money supply that he can be forgiven for not being aware of the social issues involved in the present situation. When he sees the news of the rioting in France, he has not time to ponder the fact that it is caused by the desperation of the people as they suffer from lack of productive employment, the means to establish themselves in society, to provide for their families, and to overcome the ever-present racial discrimination. As the President travels to Argentina to help form the economic future of the two continents, he is met by demonstarations and similar riots as the Argentinian people are faced with the same problems.

The world over, the wealthy are reaping the profits of the labor of the poor while the working class sink more deeply into debt and desperation. While the powerful concentrate on the dangers of nuclear wars and a crashing world economy, they are neglecting to notice a much greater threat to their power and position. The unrest and growing desperation of the poor could cause a world-wide upheaval that would repeat history as demonstrated by the first American Revolution, the overthrow of the monarchy in France, the Communist takeover of Russia, and the South African rebellion which led to the changes in the political landscape there. Political changes are in the wind in every nation of the world as a more intelligent and better educated working class realize that a mere subsistence is not enough and they determine to gain their freedom and opportunities for a better life. Slavery, whether imposed by bond and whip or by starvation and neglect, will not long be tolerated by any living person so long as the breath of God stirs in his body.

The only salient fact that Mr. Greenspan cannot grasp is the "trickle-down economics" simply does not work and never has. The super-rich will not voluntarily concern themselves with the plight of the lower classes unless they are forced to by a higher power and that power is the Federal government, "Putting the money back in their pockets" is to take it out of the pockets of the working class and the poor and "creating wealth" should not be the only end product of a democratic economy. It matters little how much money is created in a nation if it creates class division that is so pronounced that revolution is incubated thereby. And, Mr. Greenspan, the policies that have been advanced by you and President Bush have established such a condition.
Now, do you understand?

BRING OLD GLORY HOME!

2005-11-10T06:55:00.000-08:00

Bring home that once-glorious banner, those stars and stripes that once fluttered proudly and defiantly in the dawn's early light, that strengthened the sailors on that mighty ship that Commodore Perry commanded on the Great Lakes, that inspired the men of the Army of the North as they fought bravely and at great cost in order to preserve The Union. Bring home the flag that vanquished tyranny and the ambitions of empire in two world wars and kept the peace in the trouble spots of the world, bringing freedom from oppression and the blessings of liberty throughout the world for more than two centuries.
Bring her home to rest and recuperate; wash off the stains of the blood of innocent civilians, of women, children, and old men, the blood of American citizens, sent to fight a war that needed not to be and was based on lies rather than the sacred truth to which she was dedicated. Let time heal the wounds from mortars' fire, from bombs and land mines that tore at her as they tore at the flesh of those who were nearby. Let the true love of American patriots heal her wounds and banish her shame as she proudly flies above the graves of those so wrongly sent to die in the sands of the Middle East for the greed of arrogant men.
Send her in honor to escort food to the hungry of the world, to accompany medicine to the ill and building materials to the homeless. Let her once more signal to all who are in want that she brings the hopes and prayers of the good people of the nation which she represents. Let her send our message of love for our fellow man so that the whole world will know and love the United States and our flag once more as the sign of their salvation and the promise of freedom. Let her fly beside the Statue of Liberty as a token of the real meaning of the hopes and ambitions of all mankind.
Restore her credibility so that wherever she flies, all men who look upon her will know that she stands for human kindness and for truth and that all who suffer persecution and injustice will find deliverance under her benevolent shadow, that there they may worship God as they understand Him and pursue their dreams of freedom and the rights that are due them as human beings.
She is old and she is tired but she may proudly wave for yet more generations with tender loving care. She regenerates with every honorable task over which she presides and fades in the presence of dishonesty, lies, and treason. Now she hangs, limp and wounded, stained with the blood of innocents on behalf of the misguided in dishonorable conquest, exhausted in the task of covering the coffins of the fallen as they are brought home from the battlefields under cover of darkness and accompanying the fallen heroes to their final resting place.
Let us throw off the old, misbegotten ideas of pre-emptive attacks or preventive wars and restore diplomacy as the acceptable way of settling differences between nations. Let us work together again as members of the family of man to create peace in the world, working with respect and love to heal our neighbors' wounds and to feed the hungry, to rescue the downtrodden with kind words, good deeds, and greater opportunites for self-betterment . Then, and only then, will Old Glory be able to fly in all her olden glory, proudly wafting in the breeze over the home of the brave and the land of the free, a beacon to the world of truth and justice.
Let us work and pray for that day when Old Glory returns to her original condition. Then, when her very presence evokes pride in our souls, when our beloved democracy is truly restored, can we once again pledge our allegiance to "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all", sing "God Bless America" with real feeling, and know once more the thrill in our hearts as she is proudly borne in our streets.

COULDN'T SAY IT BETTER! wOULDN'T TRY.

2005-11-02T09:58:00.000-08:00

Inasmuch as I'm too busy with business to write my own blog, I will offer this Garrisaon Keillor piece for any who happen to pass by:

DeLay had better keep an eye on his friendsBy Garrison Keillor
October 16, 2005
My Dear Mr. DeLay:
I have been waiting two weeks for one Republican to leap to your defense and express outrage at a grand jury so callous as to indict a virtuous man, and nobody has. They've all been coy and cautious and whispering to the press that you are not their favorite guy in the whole world, so I am going to stand with you, sir, and cover your back. I don't like to see a man abandoned that way.
When you're a Jet and the spit hits the fan, you've got brothers around. You're a family man. I am an old liberal and if we had a Hammer, we would support him in the morning, and in the evening, all over this land. You are the greatest political fundraiser since William Marcy Tweed, sir, and that Texas grand jury is trying to referee a football game by the rules of badminton.
Corporate money not used for political campaigns? The thought is preposterous on its face. Any schoolchild knows that politics is not about highfalutin debates and policy papers; it is about putting the screws to the fat cats and squeezing them until they squeak and then hiring agents to level your hapless opponent with a barrage of rotten fruit and dead cats as you yourself stand above the fray, Bible in hand, your arm around some orphans, eyes upraised to Old Glory, your face nicely lit. And you win the race and go to work flogging your timid colleagues and raising truckloads of dough and building your war chest and scaring the bejeebers out of people. That's how it's done.
This country was not built by nervous nellies and Sunday school teachers but by bold marauders, dodgers, Sooners, buffalo hunters, forty-niners -- people who saw what they wanted and took it. You're one of them. Politics is about power. You grabbed hold of it and became King of the Republican Hill, a majority leader who knows that one can never have too much majority.
I am disappointed by your attempts to beautify yourself. It's pitiful, sir, and demeaning to blow-dry your hair and try to project warmth through those drill-sergeant eyes and belt-sander voice. You're the man, sir, who redrew the map of Texas to squeeze more Republican congressmen out of it, and got Indian tribes to pay for you and yours to fly to Scotland first-class and play golf, and who paid his wife as a consultant, etc., etc., etc. Personal warmth was not what got you to the dance. The rest of us tiptoe through the tulips, fearful of giving offense, but you, sir, are one brass monkey.
But politics is treacherous. Those Republicans who kiss your ring at prayer breakfasts and wave the flies away from your plate -- if they should sense that you are a wounded elephant, they will throw you out the window without blinking. Count on it, Mr. Leader. Behind those bland faces are neural synapses making intricate calculations. Don't worry about the Democrats, they are harmless, shaking their pointy heads and waving their small, plump hands. It's your friends who will do you in. Look at Julius Caesar. Look at Richard Nixon.
Mr. Nixon was done in by the ginks who forgot to burn the tapes, and so a great statesman suffered the ultimate humiliation of being quoted accurately when he was talking like a drunken bus driver about Jews and liberals. You, too, could be sandbagged by your pals, who may suddenly find it convenient to distance themselves from you as if you were not their daddy but just some stranger who came around every month and paid the bills and petted the dog.
Your best strategy is to Instill Fear among the Flock. Yes, you've done certain things that don't look good to grand juries and Unitarian schoolmarms and amateur birdwatchers, but so have your Fellow Republicans. They have shoved old ladies down the stairs and feathered their own nests, and you know it, and they know that you know it, and now you need to demonstrate that you will not bend one iota, no mea culpas and don't weep for me Argentina. You did not have sex with that woman, and you intend to go on Hammering, and if they let you down, you will sing like a canary and take those clowns with you.
Meanwhile, sir, I am at your side, your loyal pal and obedient servant.
Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country. Tribune Media Services.

THE GREAT PRESCRIPTION DRUG RIP-OFF

2005-10-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

One of the major problems that are afflicting our nation and that has drawn the attention of every person involved in the adminstration of governmental agencies is the problem of an aging and increasingly ill populace who cannot afford to take advantage of our wonderful modern health care system. They, rightly, point with pride to the great advances in medicine and the diseases that can be prevented with innoculations or cured by treatment and should make us the healthiest nation in the history of the world. However, quite the reverse is true as the costs of health care rise and its affordability for the poor and middle-class falls.

As the current administration and the like-minded of the Congressional majority attempt to convince us that they have our best interests at heart, their actions are nothing short of a travesty. In the interest of those poor and elderly who cannot afford to purchase sufficient prescription medication to maintain life and health, they have given us the new Medicare pharmacy plan. According to this plan, those who are already eligible for Medicaid will receive the same benefits they have now, with the exception that now they will have to find the money for larger co-payments in their meager food budget. The elderly and disabled poor will now have a "drug plan" whereby they will be forced to purchase medications insurance under a plan that is so complicated that even those who will have to work under it can't understand the rules sufficiently to educate the public about it. However, if we do not buy it by the deadline, we will be punished by higher premiums, the amount of which we do not yet know at this time. We are told that "most" will have to begin by paying about $35 per month but that the insurance companies may increase this amount at will.

For many who will be paying these mandatory premiums, there will be no foreseeable savings whatever. First, you will pay at least $444 per year for the premium, and then the first $250 for medicine will come right out of your pocket. Then the insurance will pay 75% of the amount up to a total of $2500, another $625.00 that you will have to pay before you reach the "donut hole". It has been estimated that the average retiree receives Social Security income of perhaps $1000 per month less Medicare premiums. This will add at least $75 per month in fixed expenses that reduce the buying power of that individual even more. When you consider that many prescription medications may cost as much as $10 per dose, it is not hard to pass that mark and enter the donut hole where you may pay as much as $2500 more out-of-pocket before receiving any more assistance. No wonder the average elderly person suffers from attacks of anxiety just trying to figure it out!

When you couple these figures with the information that the projected "cost of living raise" for those on Social Security will be 3% next year, you are seeing the situation in perspective, particularly in light of the fact that there will be an increase in the Medicare Part A and Part B premiums. To sum up, the increase in Social Security will net about $300 per year, from which we subtract perhaps $300 for increased Medicare premiums and the $1666 for prescription "assistance" and we are supposed to be reassured about the health and monetary well-being of the elderly in 2006. (In addition, it will cost the government several trillion dollars over ten years to administer the system.)

Once you have finished the math to realize that you will gain little or no advantage from this "insurance" plan, you will face the task of deciding with which insurance company to purchase the plan. You may go on-line or call each company individually, but you need to know precisely what medications you will need because not all companies pay for all medicines. Most will pay for generics but, if for medical reasons you require a brand-name medicine, you may find that it isn't covered and you must pay for it yourself. This will require a good deal of prescience. If we don't know which diseases we may in future contract or which medication our doctor may prescribe, we may find ourselves in the same predicament. So we must become not only economic wizards, we must predict our own future illnesses and the medicines required to cure or control it. No wonder a query of an elder person regarding this "assistance" is usually met by a blank stare and an expression of puzzlement.

It is nothing more nor less than the same old "bait and switch" that the Bush administration tried to sell the American public for the Social Security program, but this time the elderly are stuck with the "snake oil" with no recourse. Add in the fact that energy prices are expected to double this year and Congress is planning to cut domestic programs such as Low Income Home Energy Assistance Programs in order to "save" enough money to repair the Katrina damage without forsaking another tax cut for the rich and brace yourself for the news of elderly people dying of malnutition and hypothermia in the year to come. At least they may be able to afford to hoard enough medications to allow them to overdose and end their own suffering, further relieving the national budget of that burden.

The Burning Question

2005-10-14T05:27:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else noticed how badly those who write our laws despise common-sense solutions and plain speaking in the English language? Any solution to a common problem that makes common sense to the common citizen is dismissed as being "simplistic", argued about, mulled over, cussed and discussed until it makes no sense to anybody. Then it is scheduled for a vote. The hottest problem in American life today is, thanks to the constant insistence of the "religious right", that of abortion. There is no longer any middle ground and no attempt to find a solution other than outright revocation of Roe v. Wade or "abortion on demand". It seems that this artificial division has been fostered by the two major parties in order to keep their "bases" in line when they enter the voting booth. However, even the pro-choice group, NARAL, states that they want to keep abortion "safe, legal, and rare." I would go one step further and state that the medical procedure should be safe, legal, and unnecessary.
I suggest that a little common sense and a broadening of understanding, together with a Christian attitude of caring for the problem rather than condemning the victim would be highly appropriate. I, too, am revulsed by the prospect of a woman who is carrying a child in the second or third month of development finding it necessary to destroy that life. But I am even more distressed when that "woman" is little more than a child, with no education, no vocational training, and totally un-equipped to parent that child, whether or not she marries the ignorant and over-sexed little boy who is responsible for her condition. The purists preach abstinence only, but purists are not known to be practical. The pragmatist understands that Mother Nature is intent on propagating the species and does not care about the circumstances of the prospective parents. If we hope to improve the standards of living in the nation, put an end to childhood hunger, and develop a more intelligent, better educated citizenry, our best plan would be to make abortion not only undesireable but unnecessary.
There is much talk about adoption as the solution to unwanted pregnancies, but that is also only by the purists. The fact is that blonde, blue-eyed babies are in demand but the supply is inadequate. Unfortunately, most unwanted pregnancies occur among the poor, that is, largely among the non-white or mixed-blood populace and those who want to adopt do not find these children to be acceptable and turn to other nations to find adoptees. Many children have been brought from places like Rumania in order to fill the demand while native-born American children are refused because of race or color. Why were there blonde, blue-eyed orphans in Rumania, sick and unloved, lying in cribs, isolated, neglected, and unwanted by anybody? Because Rumania had been governed by a despot who outlawed all forms of birth control in an effort to increase the population! As the result, that nation found itself awash in unwanted, abandoned babies and had to establish those miserable orphanages to house them. They also experienced an huge increase in crime as these children grew to maturity with no concept of love and no training in the difference between right and wrong. We could learn from that experience.
Would it not be better to institute a system of protection and assistance for women who find themselves in this untenable position? I can hear the right-wing screams about "welfare queens" but the positives would out-weigh the negatives if it were done properly. A woman, (and that definition does include any girl old enough to bear children) who, despite adequate training in birth control, (including the desirability of abstinence), should find herself in this predicament, there should be a procedure to protect that incipient human being should the pregnancy be allowed to run its course. If the young lady in question does not yet have a high school diploma, she should be subsidized by medical care and educational assistance to stay in school until she achieves that goal as well as whatever training is appropriate to prepare to support and care for that child. It might also be appropriate to provide a plan for the unwitting father to complete his education and train him to work at a job sufficient to permit him to contribute to the support, the life, and the education of this infant, whether or not he ever marries the mother.
This will require a great deal of public education to rid ourselves of all the old taboos against "sin" and the ostracism that exists against those who have children out of wedlock. The stigma of illegitimacy should be removed from birth certificates so that every American citizen shall be "born free". The parents should be somehow immunized from the perception of illegitimacy by being considered as victims of "an act of God", as worthy of freedom and opportunity as any other citizen of this nation. The programs of "welfare" should be reconsidered so that a young couple who are prospective parents could marry and still be assisted as needed in the upbringing of their family. "Man in the house" regulations should be eliminated so that a man who is underemployed could remain in his home and parent his own children rather than having to leave in order for them to be allowed sufficient assistance to be able to eat. Those who profess to be "pro-family" and promoting "family values" should approve of these measures.
A plan along these lines would go far in re-building the structure of family life which is so desireable. The costs would be offset by the decreasing costs of crime control and drug treatment as we grow an ever better-educated society to influence children for the better and to inspire them with an ambition to create a better future for themselves. It would seem to be a better investment to create a generation of law-abiding and self-supporting youth rather than to keep spending our money on law enforcement, which is never enough, and prisons with eternally insufficient bed space and costly staffing and maintenance. The present system succeeds only in producing more un-disciplined adults who are ill-equipped to be parents, more unintended pregnancies, and more unwanted children who will grow up to repeat their history
The one question that we have to ask ourselves as individuals and as a nation is whether we want to continue to cast blame and ostracism on an ever-growing percentage of our young people or whether we approach the problem in a thoughtful and helpful manner and insure the future of our citizens and our country. Those of us who express our Christianity in loving concern for our fellow human beings prefer the latter.

An Andy Rooney Comment

2005-10-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

I'm not really clear how much a billion dollars is but the United States — our United States — is spending $5.6 billion a month fighting this war in Iraq that we never should have gotten into. We still have 139,000 soldiers in Iraq today. Almost 2,000 Americans have died there. For what? Now we have the hurricanes to pay for. One way our government pays for a lot of things is by borrowing from countries like China. Another way the government is planning to pay for the war and the hurricane damage is by cutting spending for things like Medicare prescriptions, highway construction, farm payments, AMTRAK, National Public Radio and loans to graduate students. Do these sound like the things you'd like to cut back on to pay for Iraq? I'll tell you where we ought to start saving: on our bloated military establishment. We're paying for weapons we'll never use. No other Country spends the kind of money we spend on our military. Last year Japan spent $42 billion. Italy spent $28 billion, Russia spent only $19 billion. The United States spent $455 billion. We have 8,000 tanks for example. One Abrams tank costs 150 times as much as a Ford station wagon. We have more than 10,000 nuclear weapons — enough to destroy all of mankind. We're spending $200 million a year on bullets alone. That's a lot of target practice. We have 1,155,000 enlisted men and women and 225,000 officers. One officer to tell every five enlisted soldier what to do. We have 40,000 colonels alone and 870 generals. We had a great commander in WWII, Dwight Eisenhower. He became President and on leaving the White House in 1961, he said this: “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. …" Well, Ike was right. That's just what’s happened. By Andy Rooney © MMV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

THROWING MONEY

2005-09-27T06:33:00.000-07:00

For several generations, the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans have boiled down to the Republican claim that Democrats believe they can solve problems by "throwing money at them". Now, that claim has been totally disproven by the spectacle of billions of dollars being thrown at any problem that arises, with the "bipartisan cooperation" of both parties in Congress. Even the fiscally conservative "old guard" of the Republican party have accused Mr. Bush of "spending money like a drunken sailor" as over a billion dollars a week are authorized for the Iraq war and spent for no-bid contracts for administration cronies.
The sad part is that the money which is being thrown always appears to land in somebody's pocket without accomplishing the work for which it was intended. We now learn that some two billion dollars, appropriated for the purpose of training and arming Iraqi troops to take over security so that our troops can come home, has vanished into thin air, leaving a residue of metallic junk which is not worth a fraction of the money and is so bad that it is un-usable. The legitimate government figures in Iraq are mad as hell and who could blame them? At the instigation of the United States a large number of Iraqi expatriots were trucked into that unfortunate nation and placed by us into positions of power over the purse. One might suggest that a good place to start looking for those missing dollars would be in the international banking accounts of these wannabe Iraqi leaders.
With the near-total destruction of New Orleans, we are seeing the same patterns. While the National Guard were just organizing to find and rescue trapped citizens from their dxevastated homes and to deliver food and water to the trapped victims, a no-bid contract was let for Kellogg, Brown & Root to re-build the refineries and other oil-producing facilities. When the power companies were working around the clock to restore power to hospitals and other vital facilities, calls were made by Vice-President Cheney to order them to change the priorities to restoring power to the pipelines. It's a matter of setting "priorities".
This policy of prioritizing all privileges to the multi-national corporations and adminstration cronies has been standard practice since the beginning of this administration. Money is borrowed by the billions from foreign nations and pounded down the rathole into the bottomless pockets of the super-rich and the bill left to be paid by future generations of the American working class. And yet we are hit with more and unceasing demands for more tax cuts for the rich while the President cancels the Davis-Bacon regulation which would require the holders of those no-bid contracts to pay the "prevailing wage". It appears that they belive that $9.00 an hour is too much to pay for labor and more than enough for a man to be able to support his family while rebuilding his destroyed home.
In the meantime, while "throwing money" at the Iraq war and the New Orleans rebuilding, the President has woefully under-funded his No Child Left Behind initiative and is vowing that we will have to "save money" on domestic spending while going full-speed-ahead on the revocation of the estate tax which applies only to the very wealthiest among us. It is probably too late for this "poor little rich boy" to learn that there is a limit to available money. He has maxed out the national credit card and put the government of the mightiest nation in the world into bankruptcy, yet he sees no reason to quit spending. Even his Poppy and Uncle Dick do not have enough money between them to pay the bill. Instead of letting the people who have the privileges pay for them, he is throwing them all our lunch money and telling us that we will just have to work harder or go hungry.
While old-line conservatives are pleading for spending cuts to come from all the pork that was loaded into the "highway bill", and Democrats are pleading for a tax cut roll-back, Bush wants to cut "non-essential" programs like food stamps, school lunches, and education. Even delaying the Medicare Prescription program will not be considered even though, in my opinion, it is a tax of the poor and retired directed to the insurance companies, adding premiums, deductibles and co-payments far all but the current Medicaid recipients and which would, in fact, increase the cost for most of the median income purchasers of medications.
Now, that the sacred State of Texas has been damaged, we will see further instances of "throwing money at the problem" and everyone in the middle- and lower-income classes will feel intense pain. The total conversion of "United We Stand" to "Every Man For Himself" will have been completed and the once-proud United States of America will return to the age of Charles Dickens. When I was a youngster, we would have called these actions treason. When I was a Republican, we would have made Mr. President the honored guest at a tar and feathers party. Sometimes "progress" is not necessarily a good thing.

Borrowed from a good friend

2005-09-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

The Guerrilla Campaign
09/17/2005 09:52:15
the Guerrilla Campaign
Beyond Dimensions
the archive
No War But Class War!By Beth MooreInformation Clearing Househttp://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10273.htm
09/14/05 "ICH" -- -- Look upon the city of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast now, and you see the true face of capitalism. Look upon the tens of thousands of people who were abandoned, displaced, and then even disparaged by our government and its media minions for being trapped there by poverty, age, youth, or disability. They lived for days on end with no food, water, or shelter. They lived amidst corpses and raw sewage, seeing the ill and elderly die with nothing but the odd blanket or sheet with which to cover their bodies, watching babies being born with only contaminated water in which to wash their tiny bodies, and being promised that help would come tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, until tomorrow never came for thousands.
What you see, in the majority of those people, is the productive labor force that kept that city alive before Hurricane Katrina. You see the people who rang up the sales of goods they could never, in their wildest dreams, afford, who waited and bussed tables, cleaned houses, cared for the children of the wealthy, and generally did all the work of a service industry that keeps a tourist city alive. These are the people whose work produced the wealth of those who were able to leave the city in safety. When, after days without food, water, or adequate shelter, they attempted to appropriate the goods they had generated the capital to produce, property abandoned by those whom they had supported by their labor, they were shot at, vilified, and defined as criminals.
Yes, look at New Orleans, and you see the cold and cynical face of capitalism. Our right-wing ruling class condemns the teaching of evolution, because it seems to contradict the "Holy Bible" and the words of Jesus Christ, in whom they profess to believe, but their brand of capitalism embodies the most cruel and soulless application of Social Darwinism.
For whom does that process favorably select? It selects for the survival of those who produce nothing of substance. It favors those who, by inclination and aptitude, take from society, and from those whom they rule more than they ever return. It selects favorably for those whose bottomless appetites, ruthless will to power, and insatiable greed, threaten the survival of our entire planet.
I grew up in Texas, and have lived in the Southern United States all my life. I immediately understood what the footage shown, and the reports of violence, looting, and lawlessness were meant to communicate, and the effect they were meant to have. Yes, the vast majority of faces I saw on the news coverage were black, and although few in this country would openly admit to racism, I understood very well the "spin" that the ruling class that controls the news media intended to communicate, even subliminally.
The majority of the faces I saw on the streets of New Orleans were African American. Their ancestors, as slaves, built this country, even as its original inhabitants, Native Americans (whose only sin was not having a strict enough immigration policy) were nearly eradicated by the divine imperative known as Manifest Destiny.
But I did not see "black people (I know the word that many used, whether they spoke it or not) out of control," looting and lawless. I did not see people undeserving of our compassion because they foolishly "chose" not to flee to safety, or because they are somehow inferior in their sentience and humanity.
No. Many of us saw ourselves -- working people of all races, who live from week to week, month to month, often on far less than a living wage. We saw ourselves, and our mothers and fathers and grandparents and helpless children, abandoned by those who profit from our labor, but who return barely enough of what we produce for us to afford shelter, medical care, and food.
I am not African American. Neither are most of my friends and coworkers. It may then surprise our ruling class, of both parties, that we saw our own faces, our own children, our own unburied, bloating, dead loved ones in the streets of New Orleans.
It may surprise them that someone like me, a white woman with a college degree, would see, in those thousands of stranded, desperate people, my sisters and brothers, and that my heart would break and that I would be enraged. It has obviously come as a shock to George W. Bush and his insulated cadre of neoconservative imperialists that nearly everyone I know shares those feelings. We have spoken by phone, communicated by email, talked in the break room where I work, in tears and trembling with helpless outrage, over what appears to have been criminal negligence approaching genocide.
We have known, at some level, for quite some time, that we are all expendable to this government, this ruling class, the oligarchy that covets our productivity, our taxes, and even the blood of our children for its wars for profit. Yes, we have known this, but the images and reports from New Orleans wrenched our guts and left us breathless with shock at this blatant and ruthless demonstration of that fact.
The question we've asked among ourselves over the past week, then, is "What more will it take?"
Yes, what more will it take for those of us who support the ruling class in this country with our labor, our taxes, and even the lives of our children, to say "No more!"
When I have spoken and written of a revolution of the working class against those who live from the products of our work, and who rule us by propaganda, lethal force, and murderous negligence, many have objected. Revolution is equated with violence, and often for good reason. If the ruling class resists when the people demand the power due them, and reasonable rewards for their labor, in the form, at least, of living wages, it is in the nature of that ruling class to resist with lethal force. Lethal force, in self-defense, then, has often, historically, been the only recourse for those who would demand that the power reside in the people.
Even now, those who did not leave New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast are characterized as products of a "welfare state," and as people who depended upon the government to their own deadly detriment. What the smug, right-wing pundits do not, or pretend not to understand, is the fact that resources for evacuation were not available to tens of thousands in that city. They do not understand what it means to work for the minimum wage, or even for a few meager dollars above it. A wage of $8/hour cannot pay rent on safe living quarters, provide health insurance, provide adequate food for a family of two or three, or pay for a vehicle, or even for the commercial public transportation out of a city in the face of certain disaster.
The fact is that casualties have already been sustained in this class war. The dead in New Orleans are only the most dramatic, and most recent, of those casualties. We cannot doubt that there will be more natural disasters, for which our government, if it continues in its imperial wars for corporate profit, will still be unprepared. And in the guise of a "war on terror," there will surely be more war, more resources diverted from the protection our own people, even though we pay our taxes, in faith, for that protection.
This is not the last assault upon us. It is also not the last in which the casualties will be "low-balled," by the corporate media, in which the dead and dying will be held accountable, and their lives regarded as necessary "culling" in the scheme of global corporate Social Darwinism. There will be more. There are, in fact, more being inflicted on a daily basis - silently, without media attention. The shameful infant mortality rate in this country. The incidence of homelessness. The fact that racism is one of the several "elephants under the carpet" that can then be used to divide working people along class lines, gender and race lines, and dissolve the solidarity against the ruling class that would be essential to mounting resistance toward those who practically deny us even the privilege of existence, while profiting off our labor.
It is time, sisters and brothers, for a revolution. How can we not look at the city of New Orleans and see that it is time for those of us who work and support the Bush administration, the Democrats who play polite political games with them for a chance at the same hegemony they now exercise, for us to band together and demand a new nation, an new government. How can we not understand that we are expendable? That we are merely resources that represent the capital they covet, and for which they produce nothing, but demand everything from us?
New Orleans is now up for grabs by the corporate empire, and Halliburton has been one of the first to start counting its money before the people of that city can even begin to count t heir dead. How much more do we have to suffer? How many lives? How many lies?
Give me a number. Please. Give me a number.
Tell me, please, how many lives do we, the working people of this country, have to give up. How many lives, in countries throughout the world, will it take?
One life is precious beyond accounting, but we live in a culture in which numbers of lives apparently define our response, and can be manipulated by the news media and government and corporate entities. However many figures they present to us is simply too many for me, and for many others, who know exactly why those people are dead, and then there are the numbers of the displaced, who have lost everything - hundreds of thousands. Is that not a relevant number, as well?
Give me a number. Tell me what that number will be, tell me what it will take before we will all arise and shout, with a thunder that will be heard across the world, "NO MORE!"
This class war has been waged since the first African American slave took flight from bondage, to be hunted down and killed like a worthless beast.. It has been waged since the first Native American realized the need to stop the incursion of the European invaders, and saw entire villages of women and children and elderly destroyed by the "righteous" wrath of European invaders. This war has been waged from the first strike by workers who valued their own lives, and believed that their humanity was worth more than corporate gain, and then found themselves in the sites of the guns of the corporate empire of the robber barons. It has been waged from the first time, in all those cases, that those people were injured, killed, and even set against one another by the ruling class, who hoped they would do the dirty work of culling the compliant from the defiant for them.
So it seems there are two questions here, that must be answered. How much more slaughter and mendacity and patronizing platitudes will we endure before we rise up and take the power that is ours? The power and productivity that support these parasites, is ours. What will it take for us to force them to face that fact?
The second question, and one that must be answered even by those on the so-called left in this country, who have been on vacation this summer, and who now seem primed to dialectic, but not truly visceral and decisive action, is this:
"Which side are you on?"
Beth Moore lives on the Gulf Coast of Texas with her two children. She knows which side she is on. You can reach her at bhenry1@houston.rr.com .

PAY ME NOW OR PAY ME LATER

2005-09-12T08:53:00.000-07:00

PAY ME NOW OR PAY ME LATER

These words have been familiar for generations as regards prevention of bad circumstances from neglect. And we have certainly been negligent in maintaining our largest national waterway, the Mississippi River. We have used it and abused it by adapting its resources to the benefit of mankind without regard for the welfare of the river or the ecology that is so dependent on it. We have not paid when we should have and now we will pay, in human life, in lost resources, in blood, and in money.
The "Lazy Ole Mis'sip'" wandered its way the depth of the nation, accepting water from every stream between the Rocky Mountains and the hills of Appalachia, carrying it to the Gulf Of Mexico, in the process creating wetlands along the delta and barrier islands offshore which afforded protection for man and beast alike. One can only imagine the wonder with which European eyes first gazed up on the majesty of the environmental kingdom which this river created and nourished. But that wonder was soon eclipsed by the greed which drove them to this land, greed which caused them to use , abuse, and destroy the very things that gave life and meaning to it all. Over the years, as shipping became more important and larger ships were built to carry the resources of the world to our shores, it was necessary to dredge the river to allow them to pass. This dredging caused the water to flow more rapidly and, as a consequence, the delta was slowly washed out to sea.
Measures were taken to protect the "wetlands" comprising the toe of the Louisiana boot but, over time, more of them were allowed to be filled and tilled as the ever-growing City of New Orleans and the industries positioned there wanted to expand. Our government, on a non-partisan basis, came under the influence of the corporate lobbyists and continued to encroach on the demands of nature. Warnings have been ignored for decades regarding "global warming" leading to the washing away not only of the delta itself but of the barrier islands which offered some protection from tropical storms. Some three decades ago the Army Corps of Engineers suggested the re-routing of the Mississippi River shipping channel which would leave the original fork to return to its old habit of depositing the rich silt which it had carried from the Midwest to replenish the delta, the islands, and the wetlands which were the natural characteristics of the region. At the time, this salvation of the entire delta region and the cities located there would have cost about 10 billion dollars over a period of some ten years and create even greater possibilities for growth of the port facilities and industry.
Congress, of course, rebelled at the prospect of "profligate spending" and, in the interest of a "balanced budget", totally denied rational discussion of the problem. Since then, the funding has dwindled until, this year, the budget for the Corps of Engineers was cut so severely that they could not even have maintained the old levees by repairing the most deteriorated of their sections. Now, all the early estimates are for a cost of some 300 billion dollars just to repair the damage to the levees and rebuild a part of the structural damage caused by hurricane Katrina, and that's just an early assessment. In addition, we can expect a major Congressional authorization for a sizeable sum to compensate the insurance companies for the immense amounts they will be required to pay for the loss of private property and increased expenses for the foreseeable future in order to re-settle and absorb into the society of the rest of the country.
No amount of money will remove the horror from the memories of those involved, particularly the children who, at this formative time of their lives, suffered separation from families, literal imprisonment, starvation, dehydration, and nightmares enough to last for a lifetime. But money, and lots of it, will be required to salvage the commerce and industry that have been so well and faithfully supported by this mighty river. One recalls the old commercial for margarine where a vengeful figure appears and states, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!" She has once again proven that it is also very expensive to neglect her.

PLENTY OF TIME

2005-09-07T09:54:00.000-07:00

PLENTY OF TIME
by Mary Pitt

We are adjured by the Bush administration to abandon the "blame game" and concentrate on the relocation and rebuilding of New Orleans. It's over. Nothing to see here. Move on. In a sense, they are right. There is no longer any urgency. Those who are homeless and jobless will continue to survive in makeshift shelters and, eventually, be dispersed all over the country to other homes and other jobs; the dead will continue to float or simply to rot in the sun; the buildings of the once-majestic and mystical city will continue to wait for the bulldozers; and the sea will continue to wash away the now-unprotected coastline. Soon New Orleans will be but a memory of a city of commerce and industry, of huge tankers from foreign shores, of genteel hospitality and of rowdy celebrations of Mardi Gras.
The time for urgency was after the storm hit and before the levee broke. It was not that this was an unexpected occasion. The Army Corps of Engineers had been warning for years that the old levees were simply rotten and needed to be replaced. A little over a billion dollars would have protected one of the major cities in the United States. However, the money was "needed" elsewhere. There were the promised tax cuts for the rich, those who put up the bucks to get Bush into power and who would cut him off at the knees if he were to break the promises he made to them as cavalierly as he broke his promises of "compassionate conservatism" to the rest of us. Warnings of increasingly severe hurricanes due to global warming had been brushed off as being merely "junk science", when the fact was that the elimination of the pollution responsible for the condition would place a financial burden of the multi-national corporations.
The people of this nation watched helplessly as he diverted money from the infrastructure to the tax cuts and then taxed the national debt to the breaking point with over a billion dollars a week for his ill-advised conquest of Saddam's Iraq. As he reduced funding for every social program that would have protected the poor and contributed to their health and well-being, attempted to sink Social Security, and is in the process of tossing raw meat to the insurance companies with his Medicare Prescription Plan, he continues to insist that the poor little rich people should be able to leave their personal millions to their heirs tax-free! The poor man had worked so hard at all these projects that he simply had to get away for a month-long vacation. Even this was marred by the tent city down the road where people were asking why he is sending their sons, husbands, and brothers to their deaths in a war based on lies. He was, himself, but a refugee as he had to accept speaking engagements and personal appearances to escape their mournful presence.
Vice-President Cheney was also on vacation, resting from the ordeal of whatever it was that he had been doing and so, obviously were the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Director of FEMA. Sceretary Chertoff stated Saturday that he did not learn until Friday morning that the levee had broken the previous Tuesday! Director Brown has been busy "training" volunteers to travel to New Orleans to "help" with whatever. The Navy hospital ship that had come in behind the hurricane was laying by off the coast, waiting for the order from the President to come in and provide assistance, but the President was "too busy" at the time and the word never came. Soldiers at a nearby base could be seen playing volleyball from the few high points in the city, but there was no authorization for them to come over and help the marooned people to find their way to the hell-hole known as the Super-Dome.
The people in the "emergency shelters" found absolutely no preparation had been made for them, having to go out and forage for food and water which was firmly locked in stores and shops by the owners when they evacuated. There was no medical care and the sick and injured lay on their miserable mats or sat in chairs and quietly died, remaining there for days because nobody bothered to move them. Nearby, women were giving birth to their babies, with no water to clean them up and no place suitable to dispose of the afterbirth. Some sat outside in the sun to escape the stench of the rotting corpses and the overfowing toilets and watched the bloated bodies of their neighbors as they floated by. And the people kept coming! They swam, they walked and pushed plastic cartons before them, bringing even more sick and injured, they were hauled in by the boatload and deposited on the crowded apron to add their own filth to that which was already there. Anyone with a television set anywhere in the country was able to view their misery but we were told that nobody could reach them.
Nobody, that is, but the press! We could see that terrible situation because it was in our living rooms courtesy of the brave souls from CNN, from MSNBC, and the networks, who walked through the bedlam with their cameramen behind and documented the horror so that we could understand just how serious it had become. The fire trucks were all under water, the police were working day and night, suffering from exhaustion and infections from the contaminated water. We were told that, when FEMA cut the lines to power communcations from the city, the police chief ordered them re-connected and posted an armed guard to protect their only access to the outside. The first National Guard to arrive set up outside the city and prevented any supplies of food and water from being brought in and turned back the Red Cross contingent from entering, telling them that it was not "safe".
Much was made of the fact that there was "looting" and that a few criminals were running wild, "doing their thing", further victimizing the people who had already suffered so greatly. Those who became so desperate that they wanted to "take their chances" on getting out of the city alive were forced back into the Super-Dome by National Guard for the interminable wait for the buses that would take them to who-knows -where, separated from everything and everyone familiar and unable to learn the fate of loved ones and neighbors. Now, they are in more comfortable quarters in stadia all over the country, waiting for someone to offer them a strange home and a new job, but there's no hurry. According to the President's mother, they are accustomed to "roughing it" and it must seem like a Scout camp-out. They have no realization that there is no more home, there is no more New Orleans and, for the foreseeable future, their fate depends on "the kindness of strangers".
There is no hurry now. We can take our time in determining who to blame for what can only be described as a "major cluster-fuck", to appoint commissions to study "the problem" and to avert any possible blame from the President or his adminstration of cronies and financial supporters. During the time when speed was necessary, everyone in responsibility must have been on vacation, going golfing, or sitting by the pool. They surely never picked up a newspaper or turned on the television set. When Mr. Chertoff stated on Saturday that he didn't even know the levee had broken until Friday morning, (after three days of horror), it bore testimony to the fact that our entire federal government was asleep at the switch. The President and his appointed big-wigs stood around and slapped each other on their backs for doing a "good job", one would have thought that they had just won a war or something. It was a "Mission Accomplished" moment that fell almost as flat as the first one did. Only a die-hard, brain-washed Republican could have been impressed. The rest of us simply bowed our heads, in prayer....... or in shame.
Yes, Lord, now there is plenty of time!

Anger and Frustration - 9/05/05

2005-09-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

I like to think of myself as a pretty tough old broad. I was born into the Dust Bowl, wasn't I? I grew up as one of the poorest of the poor, didn't I? I have made my second career of caring for the disabled and disadvantaged, haven't I? But yesterday there were two occasions when I found tears in my eyes.

The first was when Aaron Bouchard, the president of Jefferson Parish, told of his old mother being in the hospital and calling him every day, asking him to send somebody to get her. Every day he told her, "Tomoorow, Mama, somebody will come and get you on Tuesday," but nobody came. Each day he said they would be there the next day. On Friday, he said, "Somebody will be there to get you on Saturday." She drowned on Friday night.

The second was when a chopper was taking two young men off a roof. When the first one was loaded, their little brown dog was trying desperately to get into the basket with him. but they hauled him up, leaving th dog. The basket came back and they loaded the second man and I began to choke. The water was lapping at the eaves, just inches below the roof and they were leaving that loyal little friend there to drown! At the last possible second, the rescuer reached down, picked up the dog, and placed him in the lap of the man in the basket! Those tears were tears of gratitude. Imagine how many animals, loved and loving, perished in this royal clusterfuck!

This has been a week from hell, just seeing the misery on television, capped off by the sight of Chertoff, saying he didn't even know that New Orleans was flooded until Friday, and Bush, Rummy, Chertoff, and the Generals, garbling their words and lying out their asses, patting each other on the back for doing such a "good job under bad circumstances". Where the hell were they on Tuesday? I am just so angry about so many atrocities that were visited on those poor people that I can't even collect my thoughts enough to do an acceptable rant!

Inflicting Democracy

2005-09-01T11:53:00.000-07:00

The President has declared that he intends to keep our army in Iraq until they have a "democratic constitution" and are able to maintain order. To him, this would appear to be the fulfillment of his goal to "establish democracy" but one is led to question whether democracy, that treasured method of government which is so taken for granted in our own nation, is something that can be inflicted on a nation in which it is a totally foreign and despised concept. Through the ages, the nations of the Middle East have been ruled by kings or despots of one sort or another as a loose amalgamation of tribes and religious sects with leaders who take their power from the ruling structure of each community. This is their culture and, it seems, they are as proud and jealous of its protection as we are of our own system.
The best thing that can be said about the conquest of Iraq is that we freed the people from the despotism of Saddam Hussein and they are now able to choose their own path to the future. However, that is not good enough for the administration. They insist that a Constitution be established which would, to all intents and purposes, turn Iraq into an image of the United States. This is counter to their culture and their religious beliefs and, if they are truly left to their own resources to draw up their own document, it would bear no resemblance to the government which we propose. A prime example of that is the government which we set up in Afghanistan. We happily declare their regime to be a "democracy" and yet their own "legally elected" president cannot venture outside the capital for fear of assassination, the war lords are the defacto rulers of the country, and women continue to be chattel. Apparently the only thing that is being protected from "insurgents" in Afghanistan is the pipeline construction. However, we are still 0 for 2 on the democracy scoreboard and we still must occupy the country in order to provide "security".
Actually, if we are to compare the process taking place in Iraq to the formation of our own government, we are leaving out a very important step, that of determining that there is nation-wide agreement that they WANT democracy. We know they want their independence from us but we have not suggested that they hold a vote of any kind in order to establish such a declaration as we formulated when pursuing our freedom from England. They have, however, made this wish perfectly clear in light of the "insurgency" which is increasing in intensity by the day. You see, the Iraqis refer to us as the "occupiers" and, more than anything they desire from us, they want us GONE! One might surmise that, once this task is accomplished, they might then proceed to solve their problems of government.
At the birth of our own nation, we engaged in a years-long war to drive the King's rule from our shores and only then did our leaders come together to determine the form the government of our new nation would take and to create documentation of that fact and laws pertaining to the establishment of an independent government. Initially, there was popular support for the establishment of a monarchy with George Washington at the helm but Mr. Washington refused the honor. At the end of his eight years as President of the new nation, he was urged to continue as he was the popular choice and, again, he was offered the position of King. Again he refused and departed government, setting a pattern for two-term service that lasted until the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. At that time, even our ancestors felt that they would be more comfortable with the same kind of government from which they had just won their freedom!
Thus, if Iraq is truly to have a democracy, it seems that first they must request that the United States withdraw all troops and administrative personnel from their borders; however we have not permitted such a decision, so they had to skip that part and go right to the act of forcing us to go. We should find a way to do so. There are several international agencies who could assume responsibilty for the monitoring of truly free elections wherein the people could make their own determination as to the form of their new government and their choice of leaders. Otherwise they would be quite willing to fight it out among themselves since the varying religious sects have been at each others' throats for centuries. The major problem is that the people of Iraq are not and never were a homogeneous people. They are remnants of previously separate nations who historically hated each other and engaged in bloody wars over the centuries but were held together by brutal dictators who were deliberately put in place by world powers for that purpose. If they were truly to decide their own future, we would have three different nations and, once again, competing and warring governments. They cannot agree on anything sufficiently to come together under a Federalist system which would function adequately. And throwing women's rights and human equality into the mix as a necessity to satisfy the West increases the difficulty as it is totally opposed to their fundamentalist Muslim religion.
In addition, there is the question of the form that government might take. The Shia want a "Federalist" form of government with three loosely tied autonomous regions loosely allied in a Federal government. Of course, the Shia occupy the oil-rich southern area and would become immensely rich whereas the Sunni in the central region would be reduced to finding other businesses and occupations, while the Kurds benefit by the richness of natural resources in their area. Needless to say, the Kurds and the Shia are unwilling to create a nationalized system of sharing all natural resources. Since one of our major reasons for invading their nation was to open up their oil fields to the profiteering of the American-backed multi-national corporations, we are certainly not going to be steering them toward that compromise.
If the members of the Bush administration had bothered to learn just a bit about the history and the culture of the region before invading, they would have reached the same conclusion as those in the previous Bush administration. It would have been best to "contain" Saddam Hussein, insulating his neighbors from any likelihood of harm from his aggressions, and keeping his army within their own borders. We have, under the blatant ignorance and incompetence of our own leaders, entered the same trap that proved so devastating to the earlier Crusaders. The Arab world is very easy to fight the way into. Getting out may be more difficult. Until we find a way to do just that, our sons, husbands and fathers will be reminiscent of those brave souls who gave their all in the Crimean War: "Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do.....or die!"

WHY?

2005-08-29T06:43:00.000-07:00

Cindy Sheehan, a middle-class mother from California is living in a tent beside the Prairie Chapel Road outside Crawford, burned brown by the Texas sun, devoid of her customary grooming and dress and so, apparently, shorn of any remnant of femininity save that of the mourning Madonna. She is on a holy quest, not for revenge but to hear from the lips of the man whom she holds responsible for the death of her beloved son the answer to her plainitve question, "WHY?"

We might look to our friends and neighbors and ask them a similar but opposite question, "WHY NOT?" Why do they not cry with her and for her? Why do they continue to follow, sheep-like, the man who lied to them so blatantly? Why do they parrot those same lies even after their falsity has been irrefutably proven? "Iraq was responsible for 9/11." "Saddam had weapons of mass destruction." "Saddam was a threat to us and would have attacked us sooner or later." They could set it to music and sing it in their sleep!
The fact is that the majority of the American people are still unconscionably selfish. Since there is no draft and, therefore no danger that their own families will be sent to their deaths unwillingly, they assume that those who are dying do so of their own accord! That is if they bother to think about it at all. They never see the coffins or the grieving families because, under government fiat, the media are not allowed to show them on the six o'clock news. They blame the fact that their jobs are being downsized and off-shored on the premise that, "There's a war on," and never question whether that fact is valid.

The vast majority of people are so consumed with their own wants and lives that there is no time to empathize with those around them. Recently I was asked asked why many of my friends and even my children so disagree with me politically. My response was that they are so caught up in the process of living their own lives, paying the bills, rearing the kids, and pursuing their careers that they have no time to keep themselves aware of what is happening on a larger scale and how it is impacting their neighbors. They associate only with people like themselves, and they go to church on Sunday where the preacher rails against abortion and gay marriage and tells them that George Bush is a Christian and their only bulwark against the invasion of these scandalous evils. They are totally unaware of the implications of the Patriot Act, the raids on Social Security, or the corporate takeover, not only of our country, but of the whole world and they refuse to consider it. Patriotism is limited to cheering for "our team in Iraq" and the warm, fuzzy feeling that "we're number one!" Then it's back to work and "Why is Susie so fond of that shaggy guy that looks like a drug user?" Ignorance is bliss and bliss is what they want.
These are not bad people. The responsibilities of modern-day life weigh heavily upon their shoulders and their minds as more is asked and expected from them than ever in the history of humanity. Our society is not kind to the "under class". The facade of a nice home, a good car, and well-dressed children is a shield against the criticism and scorn that would be brought upon them for the lack thereof. And that is the fault of modern-day society. People are no longer judged by their honesty but by their "success"; not by the goodness in their hearts, but by outer appearances; not by their private charity, but by their public contributions. Those who refer to life as a "rat race" are accurate. From day to day to day, wage earners are beset with so many problems that they have no time to even care what their government is doing to the citizens of the world so long as they don't raise their taxes or draft their children. And this fits precisely with the people who have seized control of our once-democratic nation. They no longer work for us, but it is we who work for them!

But Cindy, broiled to a state of medium rare, unfazed by criticism as she searches for her answer, is beginning to open their eyes and make them realize the seriousness of our situation. Casey might be, could have been, and still may be anyone's son. Any mother of a child can relate to her grief and misery as she demands to know whether her precious child died in vain. Though some who have also lost a family member in the same cause prefer to cling to the idea that the President of the United States would not lie to them and sacrifice their child in the name of oil, or empire, or financial gain, or whatever the reason really was. Without the facade of heroism in an honorable cause, they could not bear their loss! And so they must be forgiven, but there is no reason to forgive those who prefer to ignore the truth for their own selfish reasons.
If the nation is to be saved from total destruction, it will be due to the efforts of those like Cindy Sheehan, Kristin Breitweiser, and the myriad of others who, having lost family members in the World Trade Center towers or on the battlefield, have given all they had and wonder whether the gain is worth the sacrifice. They, more than any other, have the right to mount any platform that is available to them and to wake the sleeping and complacent masses with their screams of, "WHY?"

Bloodless War

2005-08-28T07:17:00.000-07:00

"Give us a bloodless war!" they cry,
"Don't let us see anybody die,
Let us cheer the marchers and salute the flag,
Celebrate the victory then go home and brag!
Hide the burning bodies and the severed arms,
And mute the sound of the raid alarms.
Let us slay the infidel and rout the beast
But shield us from what we like the least.
Let us enjoy the spoils of war,
But save us from seeing the blood and gore.

"Hide from us the keening cries
Of a mother who mourns while her baby dies,
Don't let us hear the piteous moans
Of a child in pain with broken bones
While a nurse who has no time for hugs
Tries to heal without any drugs;
Cover the missing feet and hands!
It is too sad for our hearts to stand.
Give us instead a cheerful smile
So that we may enjoy our war a while.

"Bring the dead home by dark of night
And hide them carefully from sight.
We don't want to know how their families feel;
We don't want to see that death is real.
We don't want to know that soldier's name
For that might bring a sense of shame.
Let us not question who's to blame
While we play our silly political games.
We will rejoice as we did before
While our children pay for our bloodless war."

Princes of Privilege

2005-08-27T07:09:00.000-07:00

Over the past few decades, it appears that the American people are, more and more, turning to people of great wealth to fill positions of leadership and those electees are busily engaged in disconnecting the control of our lives from our individual rights to make our own decisions. Is it our own captivity in the world of make-believe that is brought upon us by our obsession with movies and television with the stories about the extremely rich and the building up of these celebrities to super-human status? Or are we so consumed by our own ambitions to join them in their peccadilloes that we aspire to become like them? The fact is that, too often, the people who are elected on this basis have absolutely no concept of the wants, needs, and desires of the common, middle-class, working American. These sons of high society are brought up in a lifestyle similar to that of the Princes of Saud, never needing, never wanting, and totally convinced that they are entitled to the instant fulfillment of their every whim. Their attitudes toward the "rabble" in the streets in similar to that of the late, un-lamented Marie Antoinette, whose memory lives through the ages for having said, "Let them eat cake!" They view the poor as less than human, literally beasts of burden, and despise the concept of labor unions as an effort by these non-humans to extort from them their God-given lucre.

These princes, (and princesses) are, for the most part, the scions of the wealthiest families in the history of mankind, having, in most cases, inherited great wealth and power from some ancestor who gained it by good fortune or by taking unfair advantage of their fellow man. They have had the advantage of the finest schools and family connections to help them at every turn. If they fail, it's no real problem. Their family and friends will come through, bail them out, and set them back on the path to success. Others may have clawed their way up the ladder of financial success by adroit use of their intelligence, their innate gift of gab, and the judicious use of the backs of others as stepping stones. In most cases, their smartest move has been to run for public office for, once there, they have tapped into the money machine. While the law proscribes the taking of gifts, ways are found of transgressing against those regulations and becoming very wealthy while in office as well as having a choice of very remunerative occupations waiting in the wings when their career "in public service" is completed. Anyone with knowledge of the people who are and have been in government will be able to add names to each of these lists.

This was brought home to the ordinary citizen when President George W. Bush announced the nomination of John Roberts, jr., to a seat on the Supreme Court. In this introduction he stated that Judge Roberts had "worked summers in a steel mill" while attending his Ivy League college. This conjured up, for most of us, an image of a poor teen-aged boy, stripped to the waist, rag tied around his head so as not to be blinded by his own perspiration, laboring in the heat of a blast furnace for the wages he needed in order to complete his education. Not so! His father was the CEO of the steel company and his summer job was quite likely in the air-conditioned office headquarters. He attended a posh boarding school until becoming eligible for Harvard and never had to work in order to continue his education or for any other reason except that he needed something to do. The real job that awaited him was a step that was already half-way up the ladder to power and even more wealth.

Of course, this was impressive to President Bush. After all, he claims to be a Texas oil man and a rancher. Now, as any Texan knows, there are two kinds of oil men, the ones who sit in an office and make deals, breaking a sweat only when it is necessary to go out in the summer heat to check on the progress of the workers or to play a round of golf, and the kind who are out in the fields, running the drilling rigs, doing the heavy lifting and risking life and limb in the operation of the heavy equipment. There are also two kinds of ranchers, the kind who work the soil to grow crops and cattle and the kind who sit on their front porch, overlooking a few thousand acres, while someone else does all the work. Since President Bush didn't own a ranch until after he became Governor, it is plain which kind he is, despite his annual photo-op "cuttin' brush". If he were a real rancher, that brush simply would no longer be there to cut, having been totally eradicated as a nuisance and an eyesore.

Of course, there are many more "Princes of Privilege" in the halls of government who were not born "filthy rich" but arrived there as the result of opportunism which allowed them to amass sufficient financial fortunes to claim a place at the hog trough. By a handsome appearance, a gift of gab, or outstanding performance in the field of sport, they were able to persuade party bosses of their fitness to occupy those hallowed halls. Once ensconced, the road to riches was wide open and there was no speed limit. It is needless to say that there will never, short of a revolutionary event, be any laws or regulations to stop this climb of the greedy into power, and rarely in the very good memory of a senior citizen has there been an exception to the basic rule of government: Money is power.

There have been some outstanding Presidents in modern times who were not hampered by their money or their lack of it. Chronologically, they began with Franklin Roosevelt, born of privilege and reared in the luxury of the time, with one exception. His long siege of illness and rehabilitation from the effects of polio served to demonstrate to his young mind the fact that illness, pain, and death do not discriminate between rich and poor. As wealthy as he had always been and despite the fact that he knew no other life, he had a feeling for the ills of the people and was determined to alleviate the poverty which was overwhelming them at the time he came to office. Many of the social programs that exist today were established for that purpose.

Harry Truman, on the other hand, had never been a rich man nor did he ever become one. He was a simple country boy who entered the army in World War I as a private and fought in the trenches in France. Upon returning home, he opened a haberdashery shop in Kansas City which catered to the wealthy politicians and businessmen until friends convinced him to run for public office. He went reluctantly and never lost his humble demeanor nor his understanding of the plight of the poor and downtrodden. Becoming President upon the death of Roosevelt, he did a workmanlike job and then happily went back to his original home where he dwelt happily with his beloved Bess, becoming the epitome of what a President should be. He must have been the example to which Tip O'Neal referred in his advice to young politicians, "Never forget who you are, where you came from, or who sent you here."

Dwight D. Eisenhower was a general in the mold of Washington. He served admirably in two wars and was looking forward to a well-deserved retirement when he left the service, accepting a postion as a college president which well suited his ambitions. After years of being pursued by both parties, he finally consented to run for President and was elected overwhelmingly by a grateful nation. We would do well to re-read his statements about the danger of the military-industrial complex and the havoc they could wreak upon our hapless nation. (Current events have totally borne out his opinion.) Upon his retirement from public service, he went back to the life he had before he yielded to the pleas of a healing nation. His life was, indeed, one that was dedicated to the service of God and Country.

John Kennedy, too was very rich, but he was brought up in a deeply religious family that stressed social responsibilty, a love for humanity and the out-of-doors, and a sense of obligation in gratitude for their good fortune. In addition, the loss of a brother in the war and the struggles of a handicapped sister served to convince him that wealth is no insulation from tragedy. Though his regime was short, his protection of the environment as well as his work for equal rights for all have yet to be undone by his opponents.

And, lastly, there was Jimmy Carter. From financially comfortable, yet not wealthy parents, he was actually a peanut farmer who really worked in the fields from childhood. He was not, by nature, a politician and so was not very good at it, In truth, he may not have been a very good President but none will deny that he is a good man and he was a true representative of the people. He left his home, went to Washington, did his best, and then returned to his home to continue doing what he had always done, helping people. His work with Habitat for Humanity is legend as is his work as a "diplomat at large" anywhere in the world where people are suffering or peace is threatened.

In the upcoming Congressional elections as well as the one for President in 2008, we should look well at the potential candidates for the qualities of these four men, for any lesser person cannot preside over the restoration of our democracy and the peace and freedom for which we have always hungered. We must not be swayed by dirty tricks or bowled over by a savvy media campaign. We must look at the qualities of the real person behind the media hype and the religious squabbles. We must ask ourselves not where but how they were brought up, what their personal goals in life may be, and insofar as possible, their motives in aspiring for higher office. Do they have a feel for the common people? Do they, in fact, even know any common people other than as servants or supplicants? Do they aspire to the job because of a devotion to serve the country or simply as a valuable career step?

If one recalls carefully their history books, one would be reminded that George Washington was reluctant to become President because he felt "unworthy" and he helped to shape the Constitution and the laws to carefully limit the powers of the office. Later Presidents were similarly humble in accepting the position, Eisenhower so much so that he initiated and shepherded to its passage the Constitutional amendment which prohibits a President from serving more than two terms. So now we have a President who said that his job would be "easier" if he were a dictator and has proceeded to act as if he were and the Republican Congress who have assisted in that ambition.

We are running out of time. We must not be impressed by hero worship for someone rich and handsome. We must look behind the custom-made suits and the beneficent aspect which they have so carefully cultivated to discover the snake-oil salesman behind their facade. We must also insist that every eligible voter must vote and that, having voted, their votes must be accurately and fairly counted. And every American citizen worthy of the title must study the candidates in light of their true characters and personal ambitions and put aside considerations of their appearance, their wealth, their promises, or their political affiliations. It will not be easy to put aside our old habits, our prejudices and and all the old biases, but it is necessary for the good of the nation and we must do it. It's the American way!

The Kitchen is Open

2005-08-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

There are usually people sitting around my kitchen table visiting, whether or not I am there. There are few rules and the first is very important. IF YOU CAN'T BE NICE, GET UP AND LEAVE. Don't come back until you have cooled off and decide to be civil. The second is thia: If you pour the last cup of coffee from the pot, you have to make a fresh one!

Any subject ia acceptable so long as you remain calm and reasonable. Having a problem with a spouse? Tell it to Mumzee. Need an interesting new recipe on a tight budget? If Mumzee doesn't have one handy, she probably knows someone who has.

When talking politics, try to remain reasonable and, if you simply must use a cuss word, please garble it so that it sounds cute instead of filthy. And, if you can't refrain from personal attacks, just leave the site, There are lots of others where you may find those who agree with you. Mumzee may be an old lady but she still has ways to punish those who misbehave.

So, come on in, let me know what bothers you today and, if all goes well Mumzee will kiss it and make it all better.