Some Good News, for a Change. The headline on an AOL news hilite this afternoon read, "Super-Lawyer Dies at Age 67". It should have read "Evil Shyster Finally Gets His Due".
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The shyster in question was the monster Johnny Cochran, accessory-after-the-fact in the double murder committed by O.J. Simpson, who co-conspired with Simpson to get away with slashing two (white) people to death. Cochran actively participated in one of the Nation's most divisive trials, the result of which led to seared-in memories of a black audience jumping to their feet in joy that an obvious black murderer got away with stabbing two white people repeatedly and mercilessly until they died. That cheering enraged the bulk of the people of this Nation, and has never really been either forgotten or forgiven.
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Most blacks now accept that O.J. was of course guilty. We've had a lot more experience with DNA evidence since then, and it has freed a lot of people who shouldn't have been convicted, and convicted a lot of people who otherwise might also have gotten away with murder, as O.J. did because the jury didn't give DNA evidence the weight it deserved.
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But black acceptance of O.J.'s guilt has been quiet. Very quiet. Where's our apology?
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Many of the same blacks who cheered when O.J. was acquitted demand "reparations" from white people for slavery, even tho they were never slaves themselves, in part because they feel an apology is due them, even from white people who never held slaves and whose ancestors weren't even in this country when slavery existed! I guess white people will get their apology for racist joy over O.J.'s acquittal around the same time blacks get "reparations" for slavery.
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Johnny Cochran did a little rap/rhyme thing in the O.J. trial that should be chiseled on his tombstone so that when O.J. is finally universally accepted as guilty — and may even have confessed on his deathbed (soon, one hopes) — it will stay as a perpetual stain on his memory: "If it does not fit, you must acquit." The "it" was a glove stiff from dried blood. Even if it had been a perfect fit before being wetted with blood, it might have been very hard to put on after drying with blood still in it. But Cochran wasn't content to gamble that shrinkage and stiffening of the leather would suffice to ensure that it wouldn't fit O.J.'s hand. No.
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He got away with one of the most outrageous and preposterous moves in the history of trials: he demanded that O.J. be allowed to put on a rubber glove before he tried on the blood-stiffened glove, pretending concern that pathogens might be in the glove and infect his 'innocent' client. So even if the glove had fitted snugly to begin with, before it was bloodied, it assuredly wouldn't fit at all afterward, over a SECOND glove.
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But the feeble-minded jury (all of whom should now be rounded up and repeatedly stabbed until they bleed to death; justice is harsh) acquitted O.J., despite a mountain of evidence, including DNA evidence. And Cochran lived ten more years, as tho a respectable human being. But fate struck him down by means of a tumor that attacked his brain. Poetic. Now he joins Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. He should have been sent to them the way they went.
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Another prominent black rhymester, the "Reverend" Jesse Jackson, poked his nose into another matter that doesn't concern him today. He showed up in Florida to support the Schindler sh*theads in trying to get politicians to "save" the dead woman Terri Schiavo. We have seen quite enuf of the adulterer Jesse Jackson. At least he is now involved in something that doesn't stand a 'prayer' of success. The Nation is tired of Terri Schiavo and tired of Jesse Jackson. They should both join Johnny Cochran as soon as possible.
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If you think that unkind to the poor 'victim' Terri Schiavo, consider that the stupid bitch brought this entire mess upon herself with bulimia. She was self-destructive and achieved her end. Good riddance. I'll save my sympathy for decent people who are struck down long before their time — for instance kids who get cancer or are shot dead by Israelis for the capital crime of throwing rocks.
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One last note: Johnny Cochran died only two years after the current Social Security retirement age for his age group. If retirement age were 67, as the Republicans want (mine is already 66, the age having been raised for my group), he would have been eligible for Social Security for only a few months before he died. In his case, that's fine, because he didn't need Social Security, tho he probably took it anyway. But there are decent, hardworking people whom the Republicans would rob of any retirement at all. Nature has stopped Johnny Cochran. The electorate must stop the Republicans.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 9:08 PM

 
Living Wills. The insane controversy over the no-longer-human vegetable Terri Sciavo has had one beneficial effect: it has made people think about living wills and other instruments, such as a durable power of attorney, that could prevent such controversies by eliminating uncertainties as to one's wishes in similar circumstances. WebMD.com offers a useful discussion of these instruments that was hilited on AOL today. A Google search for "living will form" produced various results, such as http://www.peopleslawyer.net/willform.html, which contains form language, and this one, which discusses the whole process: http://www.uslivingwillregistry.com/forms.shtm.
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It seems to me that Government has a legitimate interest in preventing the kinds of swirling controversies this entire society has suffered, and the potentially catastrophic cost to families and preposterous costs to health insurance plans, Medicare, Medicaid, and charitable institutions of unwarranted "heroic" medical measures. Government can do this by actively promoting the use of living wills, standardizing them, making them generally available, and governing the way they are used by healthcare providers.
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As a first step, the Federal Government should establish a standard form for a combination living will and durable power of attorney for medical purposes, and require all states to abide by the directions given in such an instrument. That is necessary because people travel, and can have an accident, heart attack, or other life-threatening medical emergency anywhere in their travels. But at present, different states have different requirements and do not feel themselves bound by forms that are accepted in other states. That's preposterous, and somebody needs to crack the whip over all medical caregivers, in the entire country, to require them to abide by a universal standard form.
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The Federal and State governments can as well require the filing of a living will for each and every one of their employees, in civilian and military services, as a condition to employment, since the Government may be required to provide care to any employee who suffers a medical emergency on Government property, and by far most would be covered by a Government health insurance program. Such a health plan could, absent a clear indication that no heroic measures are to be taken if they cannot be expected to bring a person back to a real life, be stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars of costs that other Government employees, and ultimately taxpayers, will be required to cover, for no good purpose.
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Second, since end-of-life issues can be expected to arise in any given year for a significant portion of the elderly, the Social Security Administration should require that before anyone receives so much as one cent from Social Security or Medicare they must file a living will with the Social Security Administration or another centralized national registry (see below), which will make it available to any hospital anywhere that is faced with a question of what a patient's intentions are.
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Third, recipients of public assistance (welfare, Social Security supplemental income, unemployment, etc.) should be required to complete and file a living will as a condition to receiving public assistance.
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Fourth, every adult, of every age, should be encouraged to write a living will, file it with the appropriate authorities (locking it in a safe that no one but you has access to is not good enuf), and keep it up-to-date. Government can promote this as it promotes voter registration, by offering standard forms at motor-vehicle departments, post offices, and other Government facilities people go to periodically.
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Fifth, employers should encourage their workers to create a living will, and should make a standard form available to them, (a) in printed form with blanks and instructions to cross out unacceptable provisions, (b) in the form of an electronic file the employer can revise on his/her own, or (c) by telling them the URL of a Government website where they can find a form to download for their own use. Further, employers should provide word-processing and/or Internet access for this purpose to workers who do not already have them. If a worker doesn't know how to print a blank file from the Internet or save a filled-in form and print it, someone in Human Resources should do that for him.
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In any case, filling out such a form should be done in private and the completed form should be filed with an appropriate Government agency or central repository to be set up or regulated by Government, not with the employer.
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There apparently already is a registry, but it is privately held, and I don't know whether it is a legitimate public service or a profit-making venture. We need a single, not-for-profit, national registry, be it under the auspices of Government or of a coalition of medical associations, legal associations, consumer advocates, etc.
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Sixth, doctors and hospital admissions desks already encourage people to give them a copy of any living will (sometimes called "advance directive") they may have. Healthcare providers also have their own forms relating to heroic measures. But people who come to a doctor for any condition, not just a serious condition such as might require major surgery, should be encouraged to make out a living will, which can be made available in printed form at each doctor's office. One must bear in mind that even apparently trivial medical procedures can produce catastrophic results. For instance, an allergic reaction to a local anesthetic, overreaction to general anesthetic, or even an allergic reaction to a commonly prescribed medicine could plunge a person into a life-threatening situation.
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Seventh, schools and colleges should popularize the use of such forms, and offer to students and both teaching and nonteaching staff blank forms or the path to the website where a standard form resides, along with free Internet access and the means to print such forms.
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Eighth, tho children under 18 are usually under the control of a parent or parents (or a guardian), they should nonetheless have the right to indicate, in writing, their preference as to which parent's decision controls in the event of a disagreement between parents. If kids do not trust parents from whom they are estranged, they should have the right to designate another adult they do trust: an uncle, aunt, grandparent, neighbor, teacher, priest — whomever.
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Ninth, there are self-emancipated children under the age of 18 who should also have the right to predetermine their medical care by means of a living will.

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I of course do have a living will, since I have had major knee surgery under general anesthetic and am 60 years old. Do you?
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,528.)

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 2:12 PM

 
(Revised 3/24/05, wee hours, to put a fine tip to various points.)
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Bragging about Butchery. U.S. media were uncharacteristically exulting in militarism yesterday, bragging about slaughtering Iraqi insurgents who "ambushed" a military convoy. The U.S. never "ambushes" anyone, of course. We 'attack' or 'defend' but never "amBush", because that would be dishonorable, and we are nothing if not honorable. We kill for good reasons. The "enemy" kills for bad reasons. But people still end up dead, don't they?
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Mohatma Ghandi said, "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."
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The next day, "our side" bragged again about successful butchery. The Iraqi armed forces (we are told, as tho that is to be believed), with U.S. air 'support', killed over 80 insurgents at a supposed training camp not far from Baghdad. The 'fact' that this attack was instituted by the Iraqi government — which, curiously, does not yet exist, the many parties not having yet agreed to a President or Prime Minister, much less having held so much as a single legislative session — is supposed to reassure us that the death being visited upon Iraqis by Lake Tharthar was both necessary and just. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't.
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I thought back today to a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie from 1988 called April Morning, about "the shot heard round the world", the armed clash between American and British forces on April 19, 1775 in Lexington, Massachusetts, that marked the beginning of the American Revolution. It showed honorable American defenders of their rights standing on a lawn beside a church, muskets in hand, facing a British force equally unprotected. Somebody — no one knows who, on which side — fired a shot, and then all hell broke loose. Americans simply standing still were gunned down by the invaders, and the adult hero, played by Tommy Lee Jones, was killed by our enemies, the British.
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The Americans ran for cover, then immediately fell into guerrilla mode, following the column of invaders from the sides and rear, and shooting them dead at every opportunity, while seeking cover behind trees and a roadside wall. The British sent out attacking troops to hunt down the snipers in the woods, and the film's young hero, played by Chad Lowe, is almost found and killed. But he escapes, the Americans continue to harry the invaders, and the British return to Boston much reduced in number and chastened by their first taste of American lead.
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I can't help but think of the military convoys the U.S. sends thru Iraq as that column of British invaders, and the Iraqi insurgents as the brave Americans shooting at them to drive them out of their country.
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We have become the British. The Iraqis are the Americans, fighting for their homes against a foreign invader. It is utterly apt that the Bush Administration's prime ally is the British, because the British-descended American ruling class is British in its mindset: we are the source of enlightenment for the world — White Man's Burden — and if we have to create an Empire of Democracy by killing everyone who stands in our way, we will indeed drag the world into the 21st Century even if we have to kill millions and destroy entire countries.
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The British Empire lost only one major war in its entire history of brutality against the people and rape of the resources of a quarter of the planet. That was their war against Us. But now we are Them, so perhaps They won after all.
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We, who started as enemies of imperialism, have become the most arrogant and vicious empire on Earth, and not even for our own sake, because our empire in Iraq is costing us a fortune, way over $200 billion and counting, at the rate of billions more a month, all for Israel, not our own country, nor even a Christian country. We are (wrongly) called "crusaders" by Islamists, and the crimes our Government commits in our name blacken the reputation of Christianity and make the situation of the co-religionists of the great majority of Americans more difficult across the Moslem world. We are endangering Christians across the Mideast, not just Americans traveling abroad, or even just going to work in the United States (as in the (former) World Trade Center). We, Americans and Christians more generally, are more endangered today because of the war against Iraq and Islam than we have ever been — and all because of Israel. Has there ever been a smaller group that caused more trouble for the entire planet than the Jews of Israel and their Zionist supporters in world Jewry? I can't think of a one, and I know something about history.
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There are only 18 million Jews on the entire planet Earth, yet they have caused more trouble than 1.3 billion Chinese, a billion Indians, a billion and a half Catholics, 400 million Latin Americans, or any other number of any other group you can name.
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For some reason, which I do not understand, the British and the British-descended American ruling class seem to identify tightly with the Jews, seeing themselves as The Chosen People of God, entitled to Lord it over the rest of humanity.
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In regard to Iraq, our British-surnamed and British-minded ruling class put forward first one excuse — "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (remember that? it seems a long time since we've heard anything about that) — and then, when the first was shown to be a huge and shameless lie, another: 'making the world safe for democracy'. Where have we heard that load of crap before?
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Ah, that's right: World War I. When we entered World War I, we didn't understand that it would later be given a roman numeral. We thought — or were told — that we were going into "the war to end war", and that this "Great War" would be the LAST war, ever! Didn't work out that way, did it? Instead, the First World War produced the Second, an even worse war!
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Now we are in an endless war, a "Permanent War" as envisioned and embraced by Radical Zionists, in which Christians kill Moslems to make the world safe for Jews. Of course, they never put it that way. That's just the way it is.
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We are told that even tho it turns out that Iraq had no Weapons of Mass Destruction, and even tho Iraq was never really a danger to us — so we never had any justification for attacking Iraq in a war of aggression rather than self-defense — it doesn't matter. We have to forget about the past (the lies) and face "the fact" that we "can't just withdraw" and let Iraqis sort things out for themselves. No, we're to believe that we are HELPING the Iraqis avoid even WORSE devastation. How can that be?
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How much worse could it GET? We destroyed their infrastructure — bridges, highways, water treatment plants, sewage treatment plants, electrical generating stations and transmission lines, schools, hospitals — and killed literally uncounted tens of thousands of them, and continue to kill more every day. Two years after the invasion, they still don't have reliable electricity nor sewage treatment. They can't rebuild an economy without electricity, and their kids have to go to schools whose playgrounds are flooded by untreated sewage! Would we want our kids to go to such schools? What ever happened to "As you would have others do to you, so too do to others"?
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Our presence is a constant irritant that puts a significant portion of the Iraqi people in a state of war not against each other but against us — a war in which they (the "True Americans", anti-imperial defenders of their home against "The New British", US) continue to die. There are 400 insurgent attacks a WEEK in Iraq, week after week after week. How is our continued occupation bringing peace? protecting ANYone? rebuilding Iraq? Iraq's main resource, oil, cannot even fuel the nation's rebuilding, because insurgents are blowing holes in pipelines and destroying other key facilities, and there's so much violence across the country that the government cannot focus on protecting the pipelines.
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It is a truism of guerrilla warfare, especially in a landscape as desolate as Iraq's (no dense forests nor high mountains filled with caves to conceal insurgents from observation and attack), that a guerrilla force cannot function without at least passive assistance from the surrounding population. The current insurgency relies upon people not turning against them, not turning them in to the government or American invaders. Isn't it thus far more likely than not that if we got the hell OUT of there, Iraqis would STOP supporting an insurgency against their own elected government and, tired of war and destruction, join together to repair the damage, make peace between communities, and work together to rebuild their own country?
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The insurgency at its strongest was never strong enuf to destroy a working Iraqi government, but the various groups in Iraq seem unable to form a working government as long as we are there. Iraqis furious at foreign invasion and continuing occupation by "Zionist infidels" must regard any Iraqi government in cahoots with the invaders as quislings to be fought to the death. But once the invaders are gone, the government isn't in cahoots with anyone but the people who elected them.
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That is a huge difference. People inclined to fight invaders will be inclined to work with their fellow citizens.
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Will there still be terrorists? Sure, some, but mostly from outside the country. A working government can do much to stop infiltration along the borders. Will there still be domestic Islamists trying to impose a benighted, repressive theocracy upon Iraq? Sure. But much of their present power arises from the resentment of invasion, occupation, and humiliation that the people of Iraq feel, people who will not turn in their brothers to alien outsiders or their puppets in Baghdad. Once the invaders are gone, support for the insurgency is likely to plummet to manageable levels.
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And once we are out of there, the Arab League and United Nations are almost certain to offer assistance to a genuinely sovereign Iraqi government, which will gratefully accept their help. Wouldn't you rather spend a few billion dollars on transporting OTHER countries' soldiers to Iraq and supporting their peacemaking mission than spend a lot more billions on maintaining our troops in harm's way? I would.
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At end, if after U.S. withdrawal, the Iraqi government cannot reestablish a working, civil society, even with the help of the Arab League and United Nations, we can always go back in — if that be the will of the American people, making the decision on facts this time, not on lies, and for the Iraqi people rather than against them.
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But how is Iraq to heal if it continues to have a knife in its back? You must pull that knife out for the body to heal. We are the knife. We must leave.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,524.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:46 AM

 
Letting People Die to Keep a Vegetable Alive. (Revised 3/22/05 to reflect congressional and federal court actions.) In perhaps the most contemptible proof of Republicans' moral confusions ever recorded, the Republican Party dragged members of Congress and the President back to Washington from Easter break in order to keep a human vegetable "alive" at astoundingly excessive cost, all the while normal people are allowed to die by the million for want of the kind of resources this profligate society is wasting on the humanly-dead.
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There once was a woman in Florida who suffered a heart attack in 1990. That's 15 years ago. She has been mentally unconscious ever since, but has been kept "alive" by modern medicine, tho she exists only in a "persistent vegetative state" from which no reputable doctor has ever said she will fully emerge to resume a normal life. Keeping her "alive" thru modern medical miracles has already cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, money taken first from a fund for a medical-malpractice action and now from public sources and the limited resources of a private hospice.

Who's paying for Terri Schiavo's care?
Taxpayers -- and a St. Petersburg area hospice, which provides daily care for free.

Money that Schiavo's husband, Michael, received as part of a medical malpractice lawsuit in his wife's case in 1993 is almost gone ....

Of the $700,000 payment, only about $50,000 is left .... The rest went to pay for medical care for Schiavo, who has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, and for legal fees in the battle over her fate, she said.

Medicaid, the state and federal program that pays medical costs for the poor and indigent, has been picking up the tab for Schiavo's medications for two years, Bushnell said, while the hospice provides care for free.

Louise Cleary, spokeswoman for Woodside Hospice, the 72-bed center where Terri Schiavo has been in Pinellas Park, said she could not discuss Schiavo's case, but the average cost of care is about $80,000 a year.

Contrast this first with what we always would have done, in a caring family or society, to someone in her condition.
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We would have put her lovingly to bed and watched over her to see if she recovered consciousness. We would have let her sleep, and hoped, or prayed, or both, that she would wake up and greet us with a smile on her face. But if nature, or God, did not intend her to wake up, we would have waited patiently, and sadly, until she died. That might, at the outside, have taken three weeks. We are now in the SIXTEENTH YEAR(!) of Terry Schiavo's subsistence at death's door, where she hangs between death and life. But she will, the very best doctors say, never come back to life — real, human, fully functional life.
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Contrast the extraordinary, I would say EXTREMELY EXCESSIVE, concern the Republican Party shows this useless shell of a former human being with the utterly callous unconcern that same party shows for the helpless of the Third World. The Hunger Site says that:

24,000 people die of hunger each day[.]

Other organizations say that more people, mostly children, die of starvation (38,000 a day, 41,000 a day, even 50,000 a day, possibly fewer — but not a LOT fewer — kids die of starvation each day. How much would it cost to save their lives?
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"Save the Children" has 'adopt-a-child' programs at $28 a month, which equates with $336 a year. "Christian Children's Fund" has programs at $24 a month, which equates with $288 a year.
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Terri Schiavo's legal expenses and medical care have already cost a bedrock minimum of $650,000. Let's divide that thru by $336 a year, for Save the Children's program: that yields 1,934 YEARS of care to one starving kid in the Third World. The equivalent in Christian Children's Fund terms is 2,256 years, of care to a single starving child.
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Plainly that is not a rational measure, since no one remains a child for two millennia. So let's average the 1,934 years for Save the Children with the 2,256 years for Christian Children's Fund: that comes to 2,095 years. So, the money that has ALREADY been expended for the VEGETABLE Terri Schiavo (whose name, in Italian, is pronounced skee-YOV-o, not SHY-vo) would equate with life-saving aid to 2,095 different kids in the Third World for a full year — 2,095 NORMAL kids, with a future lifetime of prospects and accomplishments, could be taken care of for the money this idiotic, profligate, Republican-dominated society is THROWING AWAY on a VEGETABLE, who has NO prospects and NO accomplishments going forward! Appalling.
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Moreover, the Republican Party, which called an extraordinary session of Congress to pass legislation specific to one person — which Congress is never supposed to do; all laws are supposed to be of general application — refuses to give us universal healthcare, arguing cost! Yet it wants to continue to spend an outrageous, indeed INSANE amount of money to keep a vegetable alive, while denying much more modest healthcare expenses to poor and hard-pressed middle class Americans! The Republicans' insistence on giving federal courts jurisdiction in this one case is contemptible in the extreme, not least for the hypocrisy of people who claim to be worried about federal intrusions on areas of state responsibility!
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And it didn't even work!
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The federal judge who considered the arguments yesterday ruled against intervening to reinsert the feeding tube! Now the idiotic parents are going to appeal that ruling, using up more resources, public and private, on an appeal that will probably (tho not necessarily) also fail. If that happens, they then plan to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, which will probably also refuse to reverse the decisions in now-TWENTY other court cases!
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The Republicans' insane action is also extremely unpopular. A poll today (March 22nd) on iWon.com shows that 71% of respondents thought Congress was wrong to act as it did. Only 19% thought it was right, the remaining 10% being unsure. This is fully in line with an AOL poll also today that shows 68% of people voting agreed with the federal court's refusal to act. Consider that iWon.com is a more-Republican site than many others (I have noted on many occasions that iWon polls tilt about 6% higher toward the Republican stance than Gallup and other non-Internet polls), and consider as well that all Internet polls are by their nature biased toward the point of view of the middle class and rich, that is, more conservative than the general population, because most of the poor don't have computers at home. So the Republican Party rallied all its resources for an action which the great majority of Americans disapprove of, proving that the Republican leadership of today is profoundly out of touch.
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Terri Schiavo is a vegetable, defined at Dictionary.com thus "Offensive Slang. One who is severely impaired mentally and physically, as by brain injury or disease." Tho such a use might be 'offensive' to some, it is nonetheless extremely widespread, and properly.
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The "plug" on that particular vegetable should have been pulled YEARS AGO, and the money, psychic energy, and political influence wasted on that worthless issue should instead have been diverted to the really living. Life is for the living, the sensate, people who can appreciate life. Life without awareness — present or future — is not human life. Pull the plug. Instead of wasting public resources and prolonging their daughter's uselessness and drain upon society, Mrs. Schiavo's parents should donate her organs, as to let the parts live on in people desperately in need of a new beginning: heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, corneas — everything another human being needs. There are people now really living who need functioning human organs. Terri Schiavo is dead, as a person. Let go. Let her pass in dignity.
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Her husband isn't trying to kill her from hatred but merely trying to let her go gently into that good nite where nature intends her to go.
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Give such of her tissues as properly function to the living, and let her death gain meaning from giving life to people who are really alive.
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We honor her life best in sharing it with others.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,524.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 8:02 PM

 
Longevity, Equality, and Social Security. (Long entry; read at your leisure.) Republicans, ever the slimeballs, are suggesting as a fix to Social Security funding woes that we raise the retirement age, on the theory that people are living longer and enjoying a better quality of life.

A leading Republican senator is proposing to raise the Social Security retirement age from 67 to 68 * * * Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel's plan [a trial balloon for the Republican Party floated in one senator's name so the party could disown it if the public reacts with disgust] would raise the age that retirees could receive full benefits, beginning in 2023. "We are living longer," Hagel said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "So when you look at the total universe of this, I think that makes some sense to extend the age."

Simply raising the retirement age would be a ham-handed, unfair solution to a nuanced problem that ignores the fact that different groups in society have different life expectancies.
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Many years ago, the black comic George Wallace joked that life expectancy for black men is 65 years, and the Social Security retirement age was 65: "Why the hell am I paying Social Security taxes?" Good question. Why should any of us pay Social Security taxes if we can expect to die before or shortly after the retirement age a Republican Congress and White House set? In the 1970s I saw a flyer posted on an entrance to the subway near the (then) World Trade Center in New York: "Reagan Retirement Plan: Work Until You Die". That seems to be what the Republicans want for us: work until we drop, at low wages, with minimal benefits, paying maximal taxes so the rich can glide thru life on our labor.
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But contrast this Associated Press report today:

U.S. life expectancy will fall dramatically in coming years because of obesity, a startling shift in a long-running trend toward longer lives, researchers contend in a report published Thursday.

By their calculations — disputed by skeptics as shaky and overly dire — within 50 years obesity likely will shorten the average life span of 77.6 years by at least two to five years [that is, to 75.6 or 72.6]. * * *

Childhood diabetes has increased 10-fold in the past 20 years [so what other nasty surprises could develop before today's young people retire in 40 years?].

"It's one thing for an adult of 45 or 55 to develop type 2 diabetes and then experience the life-threatening complications of that — kidney failure, heart attack, stroke — in their late 50s or 60s. But for a 4-year-old or 6-year-old who's obese to develop Type 2 diabetes at 14 or 16" raises the possibility of devastating complications before reaching age 30, Ludwig said. "It's really a staggering prospect." * * *

The calculations are a stark contrast with Social Security Administration forecasts for slow improvement in life expectancy, and with projections publicized in 2002 that said the maximum human life span will reach 100 in about six decades. In an interview, Olshansky said he hoped the new research would play a role in the current discussion about overhauling Social Security.

And well it should, in a couple of regards. First, there is the absolute age at which people die, and second, there's the question of the quality of life of retirees and the strain upon Medicare if a 'hefty' proportion of retirees are seriously ill because of decades of obesity.
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Many people, especially blacks and the poor, can be expected to DIE before the proposed retirement age of 68 — which of course is just fine with Republicans. They'd much rather people die than that Republicans have to pay higher taxes.
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The more crucial question is not how long we live but how long we have worked. If most of us start to work around age 20, forty-five and more years of labor is ENUF. But there is an insufficiently appreciated disparate impact here, inasmuch as most of the rich and upper middle class attend college before starting work, and many also attend graduate school, so don't start working until at least 22, even 25, whereas the poor, working class, and lower middle class do not attend college, so enter the workforce around age 19, at oldest. If they drop out of high school — for whatever reason, including family economic and time demands — they might start working (at crappy jobs) at 16, so they will have worked for more than 50 years, 50 years of badly compensated toil at things the rest of us don't want to do.
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If longevity is the issue, why not raise the retirement age for women but not for men, to reflect their longer lives? For whites and Orientals, but not for blacks and Hispanics? For the rich, but not the poor? Indeed, why not LOWER the retirement age for poor blacks?
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Life expectancy is a statistical expectation, not a real measure of how long people live, which is established only once they have died. What about all those people who die before they reach "retirement age" — whatever that might be set at? Their survivors get no partial payment, no credit for their years of work. Rather, everything they paid into Social Security goes to others, strangers, and gave them, themselves, nothing. Now here we get to a point that favors individual retirement accounts, which would become part of the estate of a person who dies, to be distributed to his or her heirs (or, if none, to statutory distributees, such as the state, federal government, Social Security Administration, and/or locality — and as to which recipients, the law would have to decide).
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But even if there were such individual accounts, that does not mean we should let individuals who know nothing about investing risk everything because of bad advice, hunches, or an inclination to gamble. If we remove most of the risk, as by permitting investment in only a relatively few 'safe' investments (as tho there is such a thing), then what's the point of letting individuals take risks such that different people get different rates of return? Doesn't that deprive people whose investments turn out badly of "equal protection of the laws"?
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If there are to be individual retirement accounts and the moneys from them are to be invested in stocks, bonds, etc., then the Social Security Administration should hire the very best investment advisors and let them manage everybody's accounts, so everybody experiences the same risks and reaps the same rewards.
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And don't have one organization or one counselor handle everything. Have 100 different investment-advisory firms handle 1% of the total fund each, all 100 pieces of which are merged into a single fund that everyone shares, to minimize the risk to everyone. We could even split the moneys up more, entrusted to 500 or 1,000 or more different firms, spread all across the country, in small towns more than just big cities, but all proceeds flowing into a central fund from which benefits are paid to everyone equitably.
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We could as well forbid any Social Security investment to exceed, say, 20% of the total equity in any given company, further to limit risk. BUT if the Social Security Administration's investment in any given company is large enuf to warrant representation on the board of directors of that company, then by all means the Federal Government should be given a seat on the board, where it can watch the behavior of that company, and thus guard society against the kind of funny business and criminality that produced the savings-and-loan, Enron, and Worldcom scandals.
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Would Republican conservatives like government watchdogs on the board of directors of every major corporation in the Nation? Well, if the Social Security Administration owns a large block of stock, why shouldn't it get a seat on the board of directors? I'd love to see a government watchdog on the board of directors of every major enterprise in this country, and we can get that thru centralized investment of Social Security funds in stocks. But we would NOT get it thru individual investors using Social Security taxes for small individual stakes, only thru the Social Security Administration as such taking a large stake in all the major public enterprises of the Nation.
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The Republicans don't want people to know that there are two extremely simple reforms that would permanently solve the Social Security problem: (1) eliminate the cap on income that is subject to Social Security (FICA) taxation, so that every dollar the rich make is taxed just as every dollar the rest of us make is taxed; and (2) means-test Social Security and Medicare so that people who are already secure and have their own perfectly good health insurance plan in retirement would not receive anything at all from government — after all, the rich keep bitching about people 'feeding at the public trough', so why are they doing so? — and indeed empower us to give much more generous benefits to people at lower income brackets, evening things up somewhat in retirement, after a working lifetime of gross inequality. And truly, why do we have different payouts that perpetuate the inequality that people have suffered thru their entire life? If we are to have different payouts, shouldn't the poor get MORE, rather than less, than the rich?
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As regards removing the cap on FICA taxation, compare Medicare. The Social Security Administration's own website says:

Tax rates of 1.45 percent for employees and employers, each, and 2.90 percent for self-employed persons, are applied to all earnings—without a taxable maximum—under Medicare's Hospital Insurance program.

So why should FICA taxation stop at $90,000 gross income? It shouldn't. Let all those millionaires and multimillionaires and the Nation's 312 BILLIONAIRES pay FICA on every dollar they make, and the Social Security system will be rolling in dough.
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As for cutting the rich from the rolls, Republicans don't want Social Security means-tested. They want the rich to be equally entitled to receive benefits as the poorest among us. But they don't want them to receive the SAME benefits, dollar for dollar. No, they want people who have made more money throughout their working life to continue to receive more money after retirement, so they can continue to enjoy the lifestyle they have grown accustomed to. The flip side of that, of course, is that people who have scrimped and saved but still lived lives of hardship throughout their working years are to continue to have to live miserably in retirement, because the Social Security benefit they receive will not cover a life of comfort.
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Why should that be if we do not presently have individual retirement accounts, but today's retirees are paid for by today's workers? Think about it.
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What does it matter what a given individual paid into the system if s/he does not draw against that fund but against a wide pool of other people who will pay into Social Security after each of us retires? We don't draw against a credit to our account, and when that individual fund is exhausted, we're out of luck. No. The credits we are given are used only to determine how large our check is after retirement. But how is that fair? If we're not drawing against what we paid in historically, but against what others are paying in each year, currently, why should the poor receive worse benefits than the middle class and rich? And why should poor and middle-class workers today have to pay higher taxes so that people who don't need Social Security, at all, can receive money they don't need? It's the old "robbing Peter to pay Paul" thing, except with a twist: robbing poor Peter to pay rich Paul.
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So we have two moral issues of unequal treatment and disparate impact here: the poor receive less from Social Security than do the middle class and rich, so that we continue through the end of life the economic inequality and unfairness that people have been subjected to throughout their working lives. That's unfair.
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Moreover, the working poor today are required to subsidize a life of luxury for the upper middle class and rich in retirement today. They are already secure. If they already have security, why would they need Social Security?
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A person who makes $20,000 a year, before taxes, on which s/he must support a family of five, has to pay Social Security taxes on every dollar of income. That money is distributed immediately to people whose annual retirement income, before Social Security, might be $200,000. Social Security might kick in an additional $22,488 a year (the maximum benefit) — that is, more than the person paying into Social Security makes! How on Earth is that fair?
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The Republicans are always telling us what pious Christians they are, deeply concerned about "moral values". Let's think about what Jesus might say about the Republican Party's devotion to the rich above all others, their willingness to see their fellow citizens live out the end of their lives in penury rather than raise taxes on the rich.
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"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24; click here to see a satire on the left-leaning teachings of Jesus.)
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Thus has it ever been, and thus will it remain until the rich take to heart sayings like that one, "The love of money is the root of all evil" (Timothy 6:10), and "You can't take it with you" (a version of which appears at Psalms 49:17),* then start devising economic policies that do right by everybody.
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In a family, if one member is doing better than the others, a parent writing his or her will does not give that one even more. Rather, s/he gives that one less, and the others more, according to their needs. The problem, then, is that Republicans do not feel about this country, about our society, that we are one great family, in which it is important that everyone live well. That's sad.
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Jesus tried to wake people to the need to do justice to the poor, especially in this passage from Matthew 25:

31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, ... he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' 40 And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'

41 "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' 44 Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' 45 Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

In today's political and psychological language, Jesus required us not simply to abstain from doing evil but proactively to do good.
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What is money for? What is power for, if not to do good?
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Money, and its predecessor, barter, were designed to allow people to exchange goods and services equitably rather than just leave society barbarous and violent, with the strong simply ripping goods away from the weak and compelling labor from them by force. With barter, you could at least make some reasonable judgment as to intrinsic value. If someone offered you one chicken for 16 of your horses, you would see that such a deal would be insane for you to make. But with money, we have no real measure of intrinsic value. It's all just numbers on pieces of paper or in bank accounts. We know that because hackers have been able to create bank accounts out of the clear blue sky and fill them with imaginary numbers, which all of a sudden were regarded as real.
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The truest measure of value for living beings is how much time and effort from one's finite life it takes to acquire or achieve a thing. A poor person may work 200 hours to make $1,000. A rich person may not work so much as a second to make the same, because his or her investments yield enormous passive income and interest, for which s/he does not have to raise one little finger. Or s/he may merely have to step onto a basketball court or stage, or into the batter's box or a TV studio, to make vastly more than $1,000. So when a rich person buys something from an ordinary working person, here, in China, or in the inexpressibly wretched Third World, s/he really is offering one chicken for 16 horses.
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We've got to make economics more like fair, during people's working life to the extent possible, thru STEEPLY progressive taxation, but at least in retirement, thru a Social Security system that enables people to live in comfort and dignity.
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I'm not willing to wait for the Last Judgment for justice to be done, the meek to be admitted to Heaven and the arrogant to be cast into Hell. I don't believe in any divine Last Judgment, nor Heaven, nor Hell. I do, however, believe that the electorate has in its power Periodic Judgment, and in the next such Judgment Day, I hope that the American people will cast out the wicked and install the righteous. But if the Republicans show themselves wicked thru their cold-heartedness toward the poor and slavish obedience to the rich, then the Democrats show their wickedness thru their cold-heartedness to the very least of us, the unborn, who cannot even beg for their lives.
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Where, pray, are the righteous in politics today?
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I have not seen these points about equity and inequity (or iniquity) in the Social Security system raised by anyone else, on television, in print, anywhere. Why not?
____________________

* In looking for the origin of the saying "You can't take it with you," I found a clever answer to people who cite Leviticus as authority for condemning homosexuality.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,519.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:40 PM

 
Trans-Atlantic Conversation. A colleague in Britain disagreed with my suggestion last Wednesday that Americans trapped in debt might effectively resort to violence against the people who would ruin their lives; and then he asked my views about Syria and Iran:

If militants started assassinating usurious bankers, do you really think they'd let up? What happened to "Millions for defense, not a penny for tribute!"? Wouldn't they just hire bodyguards, travel in armored vehicles, fortify their premises etc?

What do you think about neocon threats re Syria and Iran, and which do you think is a more likely target? Syria would be an easy conquest, but a war against Syria would be too obviously a Zionist war. An Iran war could be sold on the basis of "Avenge 1979" [the Iran Hostage Crisis], but would involve an
enemy far more formidable than Iraq.

I replied:

Yes, the rich always try to protect themselves with bodyguards, but bodyguards sometimes turn — as Indira Gandhi found out. In a rich country, very few people are willing to die to defend people they despise, especially when the retribution those despicable people risk is a natural and foreseeable consequence of their own abusive acts. Bodyguards are effective, if at all, only against individuals. They don't stand a chance against organized military or paramilitary action, as a great many Iraqis have found to their dismay (if they survived to experience dismay).
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As for a war against Iran, Dubya's puppetmasters have reversed themselves of late, perhaps because the Pentagon told them that there is no way to destroy Iran's deeply buried installations except a ground invasion and that would be hugely dangerous, since Iran is much larger, much stronger, much richer, much more unified, much more fanatical, and somewhat more likely to be defended by allies than Iraq. For instance, Russia might be extremely chary of U.S. occupation of a country that abuts both the former Caucasus republics of the USSR and former Soviet Central Asia. Russia would start to feel itself encircled again, with NATO to its West and occupied Iran to its south, sites for U.S. military bases. Especially would Russia be concerned if it felt that the neocons who dominate the present Administration still hate Russia, and their recent noises about Russian "democracy" are setting up U.S. public opinion for a concerted and sustained U.S. effort to destabilize Russia and even break it up more, as by breaking out Chechnya and other 'republics'.
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Nor would Russia, a major oil exporter, want the U.S. to control the oil resources of both Iraq and Iran. Moreover, either Syria or especially Iran might prove one "domino" too much not just for Russia but also for the entire Moslem world, not just the Arab world. The Arab world in particular would see themselves as next in line for devastation and occupation. Arabs have been astonishingly feckless in dealing with Zionist-motivated U.S. militarism, in part from the feeling that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". But when they see the U.S. taking over the entire region, they will all have to hang together or surrender to Zionism. Sadness and anger in places like France's suburban ghettos could turn to frantic violence, or at least dangerous internal political disruption, impelling France and other European countries with significant Moslem minorities to denounce U.S. actions.
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I hope the Arab world doesn't simply roll over and play dead, but the Arabs are so internally split, backward, and weak that they may indeed surrender and 'make peace' with Israel to save themselves from massive destruction of their infrastructure, vast death, and military occupation by 'crusaders' and Jews (the U.S. has been astoundingly insensitive in assigning Jewish reporters and soldiers to Mideast duty). This is a very unhappy time.
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Not just the Pentagon but also Europe is pushing the U.S. to accept nonmilitary means of taming Iran's nuclear ambitions. Since the neocons want European aid in pulling their fat out of the Iraqi fire, being afraid that another several years of piddling losses of life of "our boys" will eventually become untenable politically at home, they are willing to go along to get along, especially inasmuch as the Pentagon has presumably warned them that a war against Iran would be multiply as difficult and costly as the conquest of Iraq, as might force the Republicans to raise taxes even on the rich at home, which would severely weaken their domestic position.
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In short, I have no doubt that the neocons and their Israeli overlord would LOVE to invade both Syria and Iran, or at least nuke the latter after invading the former, to defend their beloved Israel, but they may feel that it is 'a bridge too far', and that to pursue that extreme goal could produce a massive and unpredictable domestic revolt, the collapse of our alliance system, the rise of new Russian resistance, Chinese intransigence, an Arab oil embargo of the United States alone, etc., etc., as would make Israel more endangered, not less.

(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,516.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:35 PM

 
Importing Everything But Jobs. The latest statistics on the U.S. balance of payments with the rest of the world show the United States running an ever more astronomical and dangerous trade deficit. In an article headed "Trade Deficit Hits 2nd Highest Level Ever", the Associated Press reported yesterday:

For all of last year, the U.S. trade gap surged by 24.3 percent to $617.1 billion, setting a record for the third straight year. Analysts believe that 2005 will also set a record, reflecting higher prices for imported oil and continued heavy demand by U.S. consumers for all things foreign.

Oh, that's fair. Blame consumers. We're the ones who make the purchasing decisions for Wal-Mart, are we? No, we're the ones who look at national-origin labels, desperately searching for "Made in USA", but can't find it on any of the competing products. Not any. You look for a laser-level and compare brands, all of them ostensibly American, looking for one made in the USA. You can't find it. Whose fault is that? The consumer's?!? No way.
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We're not the traitors who are gladly rushing to subvert our future and send money to our enemies. The treason — and no lesser word fits — is very high up in the corporate hierarchy, in the boardroom and executive suite of major corporations so eager to make profits for the rich who own the stock that they will sell out their country, ravage American manufacturing, and devastate the lives of countless American workers for a few extra cents per item.
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Consumers go to the store and search for "Made in USA", but can't find it. We are given one choice: buy foreign or don't buy at all. We can choose between one tool or gadget made in (Communist) China and another also made in (Communist) China. Or perhaps we can choose between an item from Communist China and another from Taiwan, Republic of China. Or Thailand or India or Japan or France or Canada. But in many areas of consumer goods, we can't find a single thing made here. Not one damned thing.
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Even food is now being imported more than exported!

The country exported $4.74 billion in various food products in January. However, imports of food products totaled $5.55 billion, giving the country a deficit of $81 million in food, a category it used to dominate in world trade.

And to whom are we getting in debt over our heads?

As usual, the largest deficit with a single country was recorded with [Communist] China, an imbalance of $15.3 billion, the third biggest imbalance on record and up 7 percent from December. The January deficit with China was driven by a 33.6 percent surge in shipments of textiles, which rose to $1.05 billion, reflecting the elimination of global quotas.

To put this into perspective, the present U.S. trade deficit with China is on the order of $183 billion a year, which is, the International Herald Tribune reported one week ago, 6 times China's military budget:

China intended to increase officially declared spending on its military by 12.6 percent this year, to $29.9 billion.

This latest official increase, combined with the Chinese Parliament's plans to enshrine in law China's threats against Taiwan's moves toward full independence, may intensify disquiet in the Bush administration and among China's neighbors about the speed and goals of China's military modernization. * * *

... some Western experts estimate that the real size of China's military spending is several times the official number, placing it third behind the United States and Russia, and there is no doubt China has embarked on an ambitious effort to develop or buy advanced aircraft, naval vessels and missiles.

In recent months, senior officials in the Bush administration have said that China's growing military reach is a potential challenge to the United States' dominance in Asia. The new director of the CIA, Porter Goss, said * * * "Beijing's military modernization and military buildup is tilting the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait". * * *

The Bush administration has criticized Taiwan for reducing military spending and has also tried to stop Europe from overturning a ban on sales of military technology to China.

While this latest increase is unlikely to draw direct criticism from the majority of Chinese citizens, it comes amid growing calls from society and members of Parliament for the government to spend more on schools, aid for the poor and rural development. * * *

So the pretense that liberalized trade will benefit the people of the Third World is shown again to be a sham. Continuing the International Herald Tribune story:

This latest rise comes after increases of 11.6 percent in 2004, 9.6 percent in 2003, 17.6 percent in 2002 and regular double-digit increases in the decade before that. But Jiang said that, for its size, China remains a meager military spender. "Compared with other great powers, China's military spending is fairly low," he said.

Indeed, China's official military budget is dwarfed by the United States' military budget of $400 billion for 2005, and it is less than half the size of Japan's military budget.

Hey! China's standard of living is a tiny fraction of ours or Japan's! The technology publisher CNET reports that wage rates for Chinese electronics engineers are 1/10 those of American engineers, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas says that manufacturing wage rates are 1/26 ours! To get comparability, then, we have to multiply the Chinese military budget by at least 18. That equates with $540 billion expended by the United States, that is, a military budget 35% greater than ours!
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U.S. transfers of wealth to Communist China are being used to fund a huge military buildup by a country that wants to throw the U.S. out of Asia and challenge us for world superpowerdom. Some Chinese even anticipate an all-out war against the United States. The arch-conservative website NewsMax contains a UPI story from March 2000 that says:

China's People's Liberation Army has outlined plans, including a nuclear conflict with the United States, to "liberate" Taiwan, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper reported Monday. * * * including plans to send 200,000 fishing vessels with a two-million-strong invading force to take over Taiwan. It also included photographs of what it said were the most advanced secret weapons in the world. These included laser weapons to disable the U.S.-owned F-17's guidance systems, the newspaper said.

The PLA has reportedly been working on a new generation of nuclear weapons, the publication said, and it outlined steps by which China would threaten the United States with nuclear war. China would then sway U.S. public opinion by making economic concessions, and it would increase arms purchases from Russia, the Post reported.

It would then stage a limited attack on Taiwan and if that failed, China would mobilize its people into exercises that would show that it is preparing to survive a nuclear war, the newspaper said.

"The United States will not sacrifice 200 million Americans for 20  million Taiwanese and eventually they are going to back down," the [Chinese Communist army] publication said.

And if we don't back down but call their 'bluff'?
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We are paying the entire cost of China's military buildup against us for an ultimate confrontation that could produce full-scale nuclear war.
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Shorter term:

The struggling U.S. textile industry fears that the lifting of these restraints will result in the loss of thousands more U.S. jobs and result in China dominating the global textile trade. U.S. manufacturers are asking [more like piteously begging] the administration for increased protection against a surge in Chinese imports.

Good luck with that! The Bush Administration won't do one damn thing to limit free trade, with anyone. China could announce a deliberate intent to destroy the U.S. textile industry completely and Bush wouldn't lift a finger. Instead, he would say that these are jobs Americans don't want, and our people should be training for better jobs, technology jobs, computers and such — except of course that those jobs are being exported to India, Ireland, and Malaysia!

After China, the United States recorded a record $6.15 billion deficit with Canada, the country's biggest trading partner, and a $6.21 billion deficit with Japan. The deficit with the 25-nation European Union was $8.1 billion, down from a December deficit of $10.3 billion.

In short, name a major trading partner of the United States, and we have a deficit with it. We can't even compete with Canada, Japan, and Europe, other high-wage areas, even with a depressed dollar!

The soaring trade deficit must be financed by foreigners willing to hold U.S. dollars in exchange for the products they sell to the United States. The concern has been that the trade deficit at some point could rise so far that foreigners become reluctant to hold dollar-denominated assets such as stocks and bonds.

Such a development could send stock prices plunging and U.S. interest rates soaring.

What, pray, would that do to all those private investment accounts Bush wants Americans (who still have jobs) to sink their retirement funds into?
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Who will be in office when all this s**t hits the fan? The Republicans are setting us up for catastrophe. Will they field a weak candidate the year before they see it all coming together to produce a great depression, and let the Demmies take the hit? Maybe. The Democrats are playing politics with bankruptcy and Iraq, hoping that things get so bad in the next few years that the Republicans won't stand a chance in 2008. And meanwhile, everything gets worse and worse for everyone but the rich.
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The poor and downwardly mobile middle class will have one growth industry of last resort: the military. They can find work in Iraq, Afghanistan, maybe Iran, maybe Syria, maybe North Korea, maybe half a dozen other countries as the neocons expand our empire of 'democracy'.
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Of course, those jobs won't pay very well, they may kill the people who take them, and when the survivors come back they will find that the Government that sent them into harm's way won't pay for long-term care of their injuries nor find them work or housing. But that's the brave new world the Republicans want: a certain proportion of Americans are, to Republicans, surplus population, uneducable and unemployable. All they're good for is cannon fodder. They can at best fite for the interests of the rich and Zionists, and die off. Republicans would rather the poor just go away and die.
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May I suggest that if we are to fite anyone, it should be the rich, here and now. We have no reason to attack people thousands of miles away when our most powerful enemies are right here at home.

*

Taxing Toilet Paper. A Florida lawmaker has proposed a 2-cents-per-roll tax on toilet paper to cover costs of sewage treatment in a state whose population is bounding ever higher. Appallingly, the legislator proposing this regressive tax is a Democrat!
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A regressive tax is a regressive tax, and the poor will be hit much harder than the rich by any regressive tax. Who has more people per household who need to use toilet paper? The poor, by far. Who has less money to pay for anything, toilet paper included? The poor, of course. Two cents a roll may not seem like much to most people, but if you have only $2 left before payday, or have to borrow two bucks just to get to work to pick up your check, any increase in unavoidable expenses is a hardship. And when something is an imposition upon the poor but not the middle class or rich, we are talking about regressivity in its starkest form.
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Will toilet-paper manufacturers and retailers lower their prices to accommodate the tax increase? or raise the price under cloak of a tax increase, just as ice-cream manufacturers and soft-drink bottlers have raised the unit price by stealth, in reducing the size of containers?
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For once, Republicans may veto a regressive tax, if only because the idea comes from a Democrat. Jeb Bush, the President's brother who serves as Florida's governor (and may have presidential aspirations of his own), is quoted as worrying, "if toilet paper is taxed, people might use less of it. 'That's not necessarily a good thing,' noted the governor." Ya think?
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,514.)

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 5:36 PM

 
Trapping People in Debt. The Republicans are about to "reform" the bankruptcy laws to make it almost impossible for ordinary people drowning in debt to erase that debt by declaring bankruptcy. Instead, they will be required to pay off everything — or be driven to suicide (which might leave their debts to their children). In making bankruptcy unavailable to the little guy, while retaining it for huge corporations that want to void labor and supply contracts that carry unfavorable terms, the Republican Party is attempting to impose crushing economic injustice upon society. We will either accept being reduced to slaves of the rich, or erupt in violence. The Republicans are setting us up for revolution.
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Consider this statistic:

FACT: As of 1994, 44 million Americans owned more than 192 million firearms, 65 million of which were handguns. Although there were enough guns to have provided every U.S. adult with one, only 25% of adults owned firearms. Seventy-four percent (74%) of gun owners possessed two or more firearms.
— National Institute of Justice, May 1997

Are people oppressed by debt among the 44 million who own guns? I hope so. Because it would seem that ultimately this country will have to start killing off the rich who are doing everything in their considerable power to reduce the rest of us to wage and debt slavery. The rich, and their servants in the Republican Party, are convinced that Americans are too cowardly to fight back, and too guilt-ridden to understand that they are being wronged outrageously by the rich.
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The credit industry portrays people oppressed by debt as irresponsible spendthrifts who knowingly incurred thousands upon thousands of dollars of debt in spending sprees from materialistic gluttony, and now want to turn into deadbeats to cheat the decent, honorable folks at banks and credit-card companies who lent them the money for their irresponsible shopping binges.
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However, The New York Times reported today that:

Supporters of the new law point to the rise of bankruptcy filings, from 200,000 in 1978 to 1.6 million last year, as evidence of abuses.

But critics of the measure say that the rise in such filings is not evidence of unfair filings. Rather, they say, it is symptomatic of broader economic problems — the growing distress in families plagued by high health care and education costs. A recent study by bankruptcy and medical experts at Harvard University found that more than half of the 1,771 personal bankruptcy filers in five federal courts cited medical bills as a primary reason they filed.

Interestingly, the Times reports that the people of Red States are likely to be hit harder than those in Blue States.

In a letter to Congress two weeks ago, 104 bankruptcy law professors predicted that "the deepest hardship" would "be felt in the heartland," where the filing rates are highest — Utah, Tennessee, Georgia, Nevada, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi and Idaho.

Every single one of those is a Red State. (See, for example, the several fascinating graphical maps at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/.) The people who empowered the Republicans to ram thru this bankruptcy reform are being attacked by the very people they elected! In the Times story, one Red-State Senator tried to pretend that this bill is fair, in these words:

"We are a compassionate nation but we should not be fools," said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, a Utah Republican who has fought for the measure for eight years. "We want to give our neighbors who get in over their heads a chance to get out of their financial troubles. But for some it is a way to avoid personal responsibility. There is something inherently unfair about denying full restitution to creditors."

Oh? That might be true if lenders were charging reasonable interest rates and minimal fees.

Arkansas' state constitution has kept a tight lid on interest rates for more than 125 years. Amendment 60 to the constitution, approved in 1982, caps interest rates at 5 percent above the federal discount rate. Because of this, Arkansas banks offer some of the lowest credit card rates in the country.

If all states had such a law, we might agree that people should make "full restitution to creditors". But in fact the bulk of people who feel forced into bankruptcy are assaulted by extraordinary interest rates and huge fees. Still, Americans are made to feel it is dishonorable to escape usury! Usury is an evil, so paying usurious interest rates enables evil. It is dishonorable not to escape usury but to co-conspire in your own victimization.
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Every single person in this country who is oppressed by debt and paying outrageous interest rates should rebel and declare bankruptcy NOW, before the new law goes into effect!
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Republicans are trying to sell the public on this 'bankruptcy reform' (actually anti-bankruptcy revolution) as a good thing even tho it will smile upon predatory lending practices, usurious interest rates, and fee after fee after fee that can raise the effective interest rate to astronomical levels. Consider this quote from the Associated Press March 3rd:

The Republican-controlled Senate refused to limit consumer interest rates at 30 percent Thursday as it moved methodically toward passage of legislation making it harder to shed personal debts in bankruptcy.

The vote was a bipartisan 74-24 to scuttle an amendment by Sen. Mark Dayton ..., D-Minn., who said consumers must pay interest rates as high as 1,059 percent when they borrow money. "That goes way beyond what we call predatory lending. That is `terroristic' lending," he said.

But Sen. Orrin Hatch ..., R-Utah, said Dayton's proposal would pre-empt state laws, including those that fix an interest rate ceiling below 30 percent. "There's no reason to touch the state usury laws," he said.

What a load of crap! Obviously a federal law could be written to provide that no interest rate may be greater than the lower of the applicable state usury limit or a federal limit.
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Even more to the point, and as Senator Hatch (one of the most evil men in government) knows full well, 26 states don't HAVE any usury law!

There are 26 states that have no limit on what bank credit card issuers can charge for interest rates, according to the American Bankers Association. Issuers in 27 states have no limit on what they can charge for annual fees.

California, Delaware, South Dakota and Tennessee are among the states offering the least protection. These four states currently have no maximums on the following:

 delinquency fees
 cash advance fees
 over-the-limit fees
 transaction fees
 stop payment fees
 ATM fees
 mandatory grace period

This is all fine with the Republicans who dominate Congress. They're all rich, after all, so don't need consumer credit. They pay off their entire credit-card balance every month so pay NO interest. It's absolutely fine with them if you have to pay 19%, 25%, 34%, or 16,000%, for that matter! They don't care. Indeed, some of them may own stock in credit-card companies and banks, so are very happy to make money off the crushing usury that is destroying the lives of tens of millions of Americans.
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The Bush White House is fully in cahoots with the cold-blooded monsters in Congress:

"The administration supports the passage of bankruptcy reform because ultimately this will lead to more accessibility to credit for more Americans, particularly lower-income workers," said Trent D. Duffy, a deputy White House spokesman. "The fact that the Senate was able to set aside those issues and move toward passage shows it's another bipartisan accomplishment. Coupled with class actions, it shows we're off to a good start."

The sponsors of the bankruptcy legislation say it is a badly needed measure to curb a growing number of abusive bankruptcy filings by individuals who ought to be able to meet their obligations. Those cases, supporters of the measure say, have added hundreds of dollars in annual costs to other consumers who wind up having to pick up the unpaid debt

But what interest rates will those "lower-income workers" the White House pretends to care so deeply for, have to pay? 8%? or 21%? 27%? — 34% if they miss a payment? And what fee will they have to pay if they are late? if they go over their credit limit? if they remain over their credit limit and become unable to make timely payments — whereupon they will be charged with BOTH a late fee AND an overlimit fee EVERY MONTH!? If the late fee is $29 and the overlimit fee is $29, each month they will be charged $58 in fees alone! And then they will be charged INTEREST on those fees as tho they were loans! And the interest will be at the "default rate", as high as 34.9%, maybe even higher in some cases! That's the Republicans' idea of "more accessibility to credit for more Americans, particularly lower-income workers".
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Since in this past election the Democrats did not so much as mention debt nor the Republicans' openly stated intention to make bankruptcy virtually impossible for most Americans, the Republicans are now in position to victimize people permanently with a bankruptcy "reform" (part of the Plutocratic Revolution that is fundamentally transforming this country into a Nation of a few "haves" but an overwhelming preponderance of "have-nots") that traps people inescapably in debt that accrues interest and fees at astronomical levels.
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There would appear to be no out but violence.
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It will become necessary for people to start shooting Republican Congressmen and Senators, and the President who signs their evil legislation; to blow up or burn down banks and their executive offices; to kill banking and credit-card executives.
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That's what happens when you trap people. If they can see no way out, they will fight to the death. As the Virginia state motto (proposed by George Mason in 1776) proclaims, "Sic Semper Tyrannis" — Thus Always to Tyrants!
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Another Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, said,

What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

I hope the patriots don't get killed, just the tyrants.
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Republicans don't believe that Americans today have the guts to fight. I hope they're wrong. Let them understand that if they insist on inflicting usury upon the poor and middle class and trapping them inescapably in deep, deep, profoundly disturbing and oppressive debt, they are setting the stage for omnipresent violence, which may start as individual crimes of desperation but end as well-coordinated revolution.
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So let me urge people who are becoming hopeless and agitatedly frantic: don't steal from your equally strained neighbors or victimize other poor or middle-class people. Target the rich. Steal from them. Target the banks and credit-card companies that oppress you. Burn them to the ground. Blow them up when all the customers have left but the managers are still in them. Target the executives of banks and credit-card companies who charge astronomical interest rates and fees. Steal from them. Beat them. Kill them.
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The instant even a single abusive executive is killed, all the others will stand up and take notice. Overnite they will call emergency meetings to consider whether to lower their charges. If they refuse, a second death will make them reconsider. Some will still refuse. A third murder or the first fire that races thru the executive offices of a major credit-card company, killing or injuring dozens, will force rates and fees down. The next execution — for that's what these 'murders' of abusers will be: executions — will terrify other abusers into repenting their ways. The next execution will cause them to reverse charges retroactively, to give people lower interest rates on earlier debts, not just future debts. The next execution will induce them to reverse fees already levied, not just drop or eliminate abusive fees into the future.
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In short, two dozen assassinations of banking and credit-card executives, a few state legislators, a Congressman or two, a Senator or three, and we will see Congress and state legislatures rushing to pass usury laws, forbid abusive fees, and otherwise act to end the rage that threatens social order.
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100 assassinations could achieve in a matter of weeks a total reversal of the debt-enslavement that has been growing greater and greater, more and more pervasive and oppressive, over the past 20 years.
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Violence is extremely effective. And I would rather see every bank and legislative building in this country burned to the ground than see the American people reduced to debt slavery.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,512.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 12:16 PM