There are a few things most Americans want from the government, and the current administration withholds most of these things as a matter of principle. All kinds of “reasons” and “facts” provide rationale for withholding those things, but nothing provides an excuse.
A doctor works for an HMO for more than 10 years. At 38, she is the most senior person in her department. She is also one of the oldest. When the HMO begins to see her personal politics and her practice of medicine as being at odds with their bottom line, she is summarily fired. The HMO claims to have dismissed her because of her bad recordkeeping, but no one really believes that. She has been fired because of the combination of her age and her refusal to blow with the corporate wind.
A homemaker spends her twenties and thirties raising a family and then returns to school. Upon graduation, she discovers that 40 is too old to get an entry-level job anywhere. One employer, in its effort to avert accusations of age discrimination, interviews her for five hours before offering a terminal position outside of her field, even though they advertise openings in her field. Later, she hires on with a company that claims to be family-oriented, but which penalizes her for lateness beyond 3 minutes, has no sick time or family leave, and insists that she take her lunch “hour” promptly from 11:00 to 11:45 each day. When she chafes under the micromanagement of her time, they fire her.
A chemist with a Ph.D. and 30 years experience as a university professor and researcher fails to obtain grant support for his position. The university dissolves his position. He spends the next four years looking for work, before reaching retirement age and giving up to draw his social security.
No one believes that shiftless workers should be guaranteed jobs. By the same token, most people object to being used and discarded like so much toilet paper by corporations whose sole motive is profit. The reason corporations get away with it is simple, people do not want to see the hand writing on the wall.
Thirty years ago, at a General Electric manufacturing facility in Philadelphia, workers routinely and voluntarily took shorter hours to prevent layoffs. The company only laid workers off when the entire shop would have to drop below 32 hours per week to maintain a full crew. The same facility shut down for 2 weeks every summer, so employees could vacation with their families.
GE is not small potatoes. The company survived these worker-friendly policies and others, and continued to pay dividends to its stockholders. Now, rather than have humane policies toward workers, or pay them fairly, big business out-sources positions to other lax-lawed countries where $5 is a handsome price for a day’s work.
The neo-cons promise on a daily basis to protect us from terrorists. Perhaps it is time for us to tell them exactly which terrorists we wish protection against. If spilling oil all over Prince William Sound and taking a tax deduction for the clean-up costs is not terrorism, what is? If disenfranchising large portions of the population by creating 5-hour lines on Election Day is not terrorism, find some. If big business re-instituting the sweat-shop as standard operating procedure is not terrorism, please someone, enlighten me. These are wrongs that need to be righted.
The challenge is to get the scales to fall from the eyes of corporate serfdom. The cubicle-dwellers of this country have suffered wrongs while wrongs were sufferable, but they need someone to help them connect the dots. They must understand that they need not consent to abuse in order to feed their families. Most of all, they need to see that their employers do indeed abuse them and their families, and that the stories the employers tell about profitability and what dire straits the corporations inhabit are exactly that—fairy tales about things that go bump in the night.
For millennia, humans have carried on trade without abusing their brethren. Where do corporations get the idea that using people as “human capital” is acceptable? If the purpose of government is to protect the weak from the strong, as some believe, then government’s failure to do so is grounds for the governed to withdraw their consent.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Recommended Reading
I confess to being confused. I keep looking at the Declaration of Independence and wondering why, on the one hand, it has not been outlawed, and on the other hand, why people are not reading it on the street corners or publishing it in their blogs. Because the Declaration is such a seminal document, and because it holds insights for Americans today as much as for the founders, its transcription, as found in the National Archives on line is reproduced here.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Take Your Country Back
It seems almost trite to say it: Somebody needs to lead Americans in a fight to take this country back. The religious right and the neo-conservatives have led a war against what they have called a “lack of values.” There is no lack of values, but there is certainly a lack of understanding.
Sometimes it looks like the American public is being manipulated. Take the aftermath of 9-11. The Fed’s response was to lower interest rates. The auto industry came to the rescue and sold a gazillion cars and trucks at reduced prices, often with no-interest loans and cash rebates. Note, very few of the cars were particularly fuel efficient.
Toyota makes at least two models of car that get fabulous gas mileage, in the upper 30s and above. Neither of them gets much advertising. On the other hand, most people can name six or seven kinds of SUV, minivans, and pickup trucks, most of which are getting great mileage if they hit 25 miles per gallon.
Gasoline costs $2.00 or more a gallon. Soon the price of oil will drive up electric bills. People who are unlucky enough to heat their homes with fuel oil already feel the pinch. More people talk about fuel-efficient technology than used to, but the big fix endorsed by the president was opening the last unspoiled land in the United States—the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve—to oil exploration. Most of the United States is not an oil-producing region, making most of its citizens innocent of the destruction that accompanies oil drilling and extraction.
In oil-producing Texas, there are basically three kinds of trees: mesquite, oak, and dead. Driving an hour west of San Antonio, and five minutes off the main road will prove it. Making the well is bad enough, but after oil is found, it is pumped to a tank called a shotgun barrel, where the water is allowed to separate from the crude. This water is not clean, and no grass, weeds, or other plants grow around the outlet where workers drain it onto the ground.
Spills are not an aberration, but the norm. When the production of a well starts to decline, very often drillers will truck in salt water and inject it into the wells to force up what is left of the oil. This practice is also harmful to the environment, considering that salt is hazardous to most inland plant life.
Has the entire country forgotten the Exxon Valdez? Soon enough, Americans will see pictures of oil-coated caribou and moose, because they want to drive their Escalades.
The president of the United States is talking to Crown Prince Abdullah of the House of Saud, trying to get some relief for the populace. Why does the populace not wake up and get its own relief? Most of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudis. Why does anyone think the Saudis would help us?
Interestingly, the Drug Enforcement Agency, or DEA, has arrested the head of what may be the world’s largest heroin production and smuggling operation. He became a target because he sold heroin to American citizens, and then used their money to give Al Qaeda guns and ammunition. What a perfect plan. Take the Yankees’ money, and use it to destroy them; get them to pay for their own destruction.
The same people who are appalled at the idea that some women want to have abortions have yellow ribbons tied to their mailboxes and plastered on their cars. Someone in that camp needs to explain how war is pro-life. Why is not-yet-born life more sacred than 18-year-old life?
The list goes on and on. The problems this country faces cannot be solved by one faction taking the helm and going off in a direction that half the country thinks is wrong. Why is conservation the enemy of American society? It does not need to be. Why do business and industry leaders cling to out-moded paradigms for business, when simpler solutions exist?
A prime example is the beleaguered Amtrak system. No other country in the world thinks its rail system should turn a profit from serving so small a segment of its people. Workers on the East Coast have access to Amtrak, but for the most part, it stops there. In order to go from Texas to South Florida, it is necessary to go through Chicago. (This is true.) If Amtrak served a larger segment of the population, it might become self-supporting, or even profitable.
Rather than address the oil problems by expanding public transportation, the policy makers have decided to let Amtrak die its painful death, and leave the country without a passenger rail system altogether. Not such good thinking.
When leaders propose preposterous solutions for problems and ignore the sensible options in front of them, either they are stupid and need to be removed from power, or they are dishonest and stand to profit from the solutions they back, and they need to be removed from power.
In a representative democracy, citizens tell their representatives what they want, and the representatives are supposed to listen.
If a representative does not hear from his constituency, he can only assume that he is doing what they want. The practice among representatives, including U.S. Senators, when they receive letters urging them to take a position on an issue different from the one they hold, is to send out a letter that explains that they are going to do what they darn well please. Fine. Let them send out their letters, telling people that after prayerful consideration they still think Americans should be killing and maiming young people. They cannot ignore the opposition forever, particularly if it comes knocking on their doors with regularity.
Write a representative today. Let her know what Americans really value. Don’t give up. Take this country back.
© 2005
Sometimes it looks like the American public is being manipulated. Take the aftermath of 9-11. The Fed’s response was to lower interest rates. The auto industry came to the rescue and sold a gazillion cars and trucks at reduced prices, often with no-interest loans and cash rebates. Note, very few of the cars were particularly fuel efficient.
Toyota makes at least two models of car that get fabulous gas mileage, in the upper 30s and above. Neither of them gets much advertising. On the other hand, most people can name six or seven kinds of SUV, minivans, and pickup trucks, most of which are getting great mileage if they hit 25 miles per gallon.
Gasoline costs $2.00 or more a gallon. Soon the price of oil will drive up electric bills. People who are unlucky enough to heat their homes with fuel oil already feel the pinch. More people talk about fuel-efficient technology than used to, but the big fix endorsed by the president was opening the last unspoiled land in the United States—the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve—to oil exploration. Most of the United States is not an oil-producing region, making most of its citizens innocent of the destruction that accompanies oil drilling and extraction.
In oil-producing Texas, there are basically three kinds of trees: mesquite, oak, and dead. Driving an hour west of San Antonio, and five minutes off the main road will prove it. Making the well is bad enough, but after oil is found, it is pumped to a tank called a shotgun barrel, where the water is allowed to separate from the crude. This water is not clean, and no grass, weeds, or other plants grow around the outlet where workers drain it onto the ground.
Spills are not an aberration, but the norm. When the production of a well starts to decline, very often drillers will truck in salt water and inject it into the wells to force up what is left of the oil. This practice is also harmful to the environment, considering that salt is hazardous to most inland plant life.
Has the entire country forgotten the Exxon Valdez? Soon enough, Americans will see pictures of oil-coated caribou and moose, because they want to drive their Escalades.
The president of the United States is talking to Crown Prince Abdullah of the House of Saud, trying to get some relief for the populace. Why does the populace not wake up and get its own relief? Most of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudis. Why does anyone think the Saudis would help us?
Interestingly, the Drug Enforcement Agency, or DEA, has arrested the head of what may be the world’s largest heroin production and smuggling operation. He became a target because he sold heroin to American citizens, and then used their money to give Al Qaeda guns and ammunition. What a perfect plan. Take the Yankees’ money, and use it to destroy them; get them to pay for their own destruction.
The same people who are appalled at the idea that some women want to have abortions have yellow ribbons tied to their mailboxes and plastered on their cars. Someone in that camp needs to explain how war is pro-life. Why is not-yet-born life more sacred than 18-year-old life?
The list goes on and on. The problems this country faces cannot be solved by one faction taking the helm and going off in a direction that half the country thinks is wrong. Why is conservation the enemy of American society? It does not need to be. Why do business and industry leaders cling to out-moded paradigms for business, when simpler solutions exist?
A prime example is the beleaguered Amtrak system. No other country in the world thinks its rail system should turn a profit from serving so small a segment of its people. Workers on the East Coast have access to Amtrak, but for the most part, it stops there. In order to go from Texas to South Florida, it is necessary to go through Chicago. (This is true.) If Amtrak served a larger segment of the population, it might become self-supporting, or even profitable.
Rather than address the oil problems by expanding public transportation, the policy makers have decided to let Amtrak die its painful death, and leave the country without a passenger rail system altogether. Not such good thinking.
When leaders propose preposterous solutions for problems and ignore the sensible options in front of them, either they are stupid and need to be removed from power, or they are dishonest and stand to profit from the solutions they back, and they need to be removed from power.
In a representative democracy, citizens tell their representatives what they want, and the representatives are supposed to listen.
If a representative does not hear from his constituency, he can only assume that he is doing what they want. The practice among representatives, including U.S. Senators, when they receive letters urging them to take a position on an issue different from the one they hold, is to send out a letter that explains that they are going to do what they darn well please. Fine. Let them send out their letters, telling people that after prayerful consideration they still think Americans should be killing and maiming young people. They cannot ignore the opposition forever, particularly if it comes knocking on their doors with regularity.
Write a representative today. Let her know what Americans really value. Don’t give up. Take this country back.
© 2005
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Attacking the TAKS
My youngest child is taking the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test this week, and for the millionth time, I am wondering what the point is. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was designed to impose the insanity we endure here in Texas on the rest of the country.
Somewhere along the line, someone decided that all kids should be able to pass the same test to prove that they mastered skills that the teachers were supposed to teach. Standardized testing is not something new. We took standardized reading tests on a bi-yearly cycle. After the test, the students got their papers back with a raw score and a grade level. It was very cool to read on a fifth-grade level in second grade, and even cooler to read on a tenth-grade level in fifth grade.
After the standardized tests were scored and recorded, we were divided into reading groups, by level. This allowed the teacher to give more attention to the kids with problems without making the kids without problems sit through a lesson umpteen times. It seemed to work, and almost all of us learned to read on grade level or better.
And then came the self-esteem crowd. Their thinking was that if children were segregated by their reading ability, those who had lower reading levels might get the idea that they weren’t as bright as the rest of us. So reading groups, and later tracking, in high school had to stop. The thing I noticed way back in first grade was that the kids in the lowest reading group also got in trouble a lot. I connected those dots early on. Back then, I was convinced I knew which was the cause and which the effect. These days, I’m not so sure.
First they did away with the reading groups and everyone read together. When eighth graders must wait for a kid who reads on a first grade level to “get it,” the quicker ones get awfully bored. The entire class can bog down completely depending on the mix and the ability of the teacher to match all the learning styles in the class. Then came social promotion. We can’t have sixth graders driving to school, so they let them become seventh graders without making them master the skills they needed to be seventh graders.
Later, somebody noticed that illiterate kids were graduating from high school, and got their panties in a wad. Oh no! Some children cannot read! We must fix this. And they decided that the problem was that there were no standards. Committees met and brain-stormed. Task forces formed and made recommendations. At the end of all the work and time and millions of dollars, they had a list.
Johnny should be able to read simple sentences and to add and subtract 3-digit numbers at the end of grade one. Thank you, Sherlock Holmes. It took 20 years and millions of uneducated kids passing through the system to learn what all teachers knew 30 years ago.
Onward march the task forces and committees. We must make sure children meet our standards. They must pass a standardized test at certain intervals. Thus the TAKS was born, and I rue the day. The difference between the standardized tests I took and the ones my daughter takes is the use to which the scores are put. When I took the test, the teacher knew where I was. She could place me on a time line with respect to what I knew and what I needed to learn. My daughter’s teachers, on the other hand, think they know whether their job is done or not. The principal thinks he knows how well the teachers are performing by the aggregate results of the test. If a large proportion of the kids pass, the teachers must be great teachers, and if a large portion fails, the teachers are to blame. The superintendent of schools thinks that she knows how the principals are doing by their schools’ test scores; and the state board of education thinks . . . you get the picture.
The net effect of all the prognostication is that the kids get forgotten. The teacher worries about the test and squanders valuable time teaching kids how to pass the test. Who cares if they can pass a test? They need to be able to read. They need to be able to cipher. They need to be able to use reason and logic to solve problems and make decisions. They do not need to know everything about everything, but they should be able to find out almost everything there is to know about anything and present that information in a concise, intelligible manner. Now I’ll let you in on a secret: the test ain’t helping.
Someday, we will discover the other thing the teachers of 30 years ago knew and took for granted. If a child cannot keep up, it is because she needs more time. Keeping her working on the skills she needs to acquire today is not leaving her behind. It is letting her catch up.
© 2005
Somewhere along the line, someone decided that all kids should be able to pass the same test to prove that they mastered skills that the teachers were supposed to teach. Standardized testing is not something new. We took standardized reading tests on a bi-yearly cycle. After the test, the students got their papers back with a raw score and a grade level. It was very cool to read on a fifth-grade level in second grade, and even cooler to read on a tenth-grade level in fifth grade.
After the standardized tests were scored and recorded, we were divided into reading groups, by level. This allowed the teacher to give more attention to the kids with problems without making the kids without problems sit through a lesson umpteen times. It seemed to work, and almost all of us learned to read on grade level or better.
And then came the self-esteem crowd. Their thinking was that if children were segregated by their reading ability, those who had lower reading levels might get the idea that they weren’t as bright as the rest of us. So reading groups, and later tracking, in high school had to stop. The thing I noticed way back in first grade was that the kids in the lowest reading group also got in trouble a lot. I connected those dots early on. Back then, I was convinced I knew which was the cause and which the effect. These days, I’m not so sure.
First they did away with the reading groups and everyone read together. When eighth graders must wait for a kid who reads on a first grade level to “get it,” the quicker ones get awfully bored. The entire class can bog down completely depending on the mix and the ability of the teacher to match all the learning styles in the class. Then came social promotion. We can’t have sixth graders driving to school, so they let them become seventh graders without making them master the skills they needed to be seventh graders.
Later, somebody noticed that illiterate kids were graduating from high school, and got their panties in a wad. Oh no! Some children cannot read! We must fix this. And they decided that the problem was that there were no standards. Committees met and brain-stormed. Task forces formed and made recommendations. At the end of all the work and time and millions of dollars, they had a list.
Johnny should be able to read simple sentences and to add and subtract 3-digit numbers at the end of grade one. Thank you, Sherlock Holmes. It took 20 years and millions of uneducated kids passing through the system to learn what all teachers knew 30 years ago.
Onward march the task forces and committees. We must make sure children meet our standards. They must pass a standardized test at certain intervals. Thus the TAKS was born, and I rue the day. The difference between the standardized tests I took and the ones my daughter takes is the use to which the scores are put. When I took the test, the teacher knew where I was. She could place me on a time line with respect to what I knew and what I needed to learn. My daughter’s teachers, on the other hand, think they know whether their job is done or not. The principal thinks he knows how well the teachers are performing by the aggregate results of the test. If a large proportion of the kids pass, the teachers must be great teachers, and if a large portion fails, the teachers are to blame. The superintendent of schools thinks that she knows how the principals are doing by their schools’ test scores; and the state board of education thinks . . . you get the picture.
The net effect of all the prognostication is that the kids get forgotten. The teacher worries about the test and squanders valuable time teaching kids how to pass the test. Who cares if they can pass a test? They need to be able to read. They need to be able to cipher. They need to be able to use reason and logic to solve problems and make decisions. They do not need to know everything about everything, but they should be able to find out almost everything there is to know about anything and present that information in a concise, intelligible manner. Now I’ll let you in on a secret: the test ain’t helping.
Someday, we will discover the other thing the teachers of 30 years ago knew and took for granted. If a child cannot keep up, it is because she needs more time. Keeping her working on the skills she needs to acquire today is not leaving her behind. It is letting her catch up.
© 2005
Friday, April 01, 2005
I Love My Country
The following column appeared in the March 17, 2005 issure of The Cameron Herald:
A funny thing happened when the conservatives decided to take over the world, particularly the United States of America. Suddenly we could no longer agree to disagree. Either one agrees with the conservatives, or one is anti-American. There are plenty of examples in other countries of this same attitude. We call the perpetrator governments fascist and totalitarian; the victims are referred to as dissidents. Note that I did not say that the U.S. government is fascist or totalitarian.
I see numerous aspects about the government that I do not agree with. I also see that the government has grown to such leviathan proportions that changing its direction could take generations. Presumably, if the reports are to be believed, during the last 20 years, conservatives have engaged in just such a monumental effort and succeeded.
But my argument is not with the direction the country is taking, but rather with conservatives questioning my patriotism. I do not, as Ann Coulter would posit, dispute that someone has the right to question it. My argument is that my patriotism is beyond question.
I love my country. How do I prove that? I vote. I pay attention to the news so I can be informed about what the government is doing. I pay my taxes on ALL my income. I listen to different points of view. I understand the culture, the underlying motivations, and the historical currents that have combined to create the United States as the world knows it today. I contact my representatives in government (national, state, and local) about issues that I can discuss intelligently and let them know what I think they should do. I teach my children that it is a duty to vote as well as a right, and that it is their duty to inform themselves on the issues beforehand.
I place my hand over my heart when I recite the pledge of allegiance. I do not, however, remove my hat then or when the national anthem is played because I am a woman, not because I do not respect the institutions. Nevertheless, I do nothing to disrespect my country or its government.
I have been to Carpenter’s Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was written, and I have visited the Liberty Bell. I have traveled all over this country, and I keep my yard decent out of respect for my neighborhood. I have a copy of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution in a file in my desk. I refer to them regularly. I love my country.
I love my country enough to speak out when I think we have taken a wrong turn. Our country was founded on the principle of self-determination. That means that the people of this country have the right to determine their future political status. It means that our government is guilty of hypocrisy (and sometimes worse) when it attempts to force sovereign nations to adopt its form of government. I love my country enough to take the heat for saying so.
I question whether the representatives in Washington are listening to us, because they have been known to ignore their constituents before.
I love this country, but I have no illusions about it having an ideal or perfect government. Politics is by nature a game of getting and giving favors. One advances in proportion to one’s usefulness to others. The others, who have done favors for the rising politician, now have credit with him or her, and when it comes time, will cash in by asking for another favor. By the time one has risen to any power, he or she is beholden to myriad people, all of whom cash in on their favors on their schedule, not the politician’s.
This is reality, but it is not necessarily good for the people of the United States, who are by rights the ones who give politicians, indeed governments, power.
Considering the tone of political dialog today between the left and right, it might be important if every liberal could defend him- or herself against persons who accuse them of not loving this country.
I am perfectly capable of defending myself against charges of lacking patriotism. Are you?
© 2005
A funny thing happened when the conservatives decided to take over the world, particularly the United States of America. Suddenly we could no longer agree to disagree. Either one agrees with the conservatives, or one is anti-American. There are plenty of examples in other countries of this same attitude. We call the perpetrator governments fascist and totalitarian; the victims are referred to as dissidents. Note that I did not say that the U.S. government is fascist or totalitarian.
I see numerous aspects about the government that I do not agree with. I also see that the government has grown to such leviathan proportions that changing its direction could take generations. Presumably, if the reports are to be believed, during the last 20 years, conservatives have engaged in just such a monumental effort and succeeded.
But my argument is not with the direction the country is taking, but rather with conservatives questioning my patriotism. I do not, as Ann Coulter would posit, dispute that someone has the right to question it. My argument is that my patriotism is beyond question.
I love my country. How do I prove that? I vote. I pay attention to the news so I can be informed about what the government is doing. I pay my taxes on ALL my income. I listen to different points of view. I understand the culture, the underlying motivations, and the historical currents that have combined to create the United States as the world knows it today. I contact my representatives in government (national, state, and local) about issues that I can discuss intelligently and let them know what I think they should do. I teach my children that it is a duty to vote as well as a right, and that it is their duty to inform themselves on the issues beforehand.
I place my hand over my heart when I recite the pledge of allegiance. I do not, however, remove my hat then or when the national anthem is played because I am a woman, not because I do not respect the institutions. Nevertheless, I do nothing to disrespect my country or its government.
I have been to Carpenter’s Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was written, and I have visited the Liberty Bell. I have traveled all over this country, and I keep my yard decent out of respect for my neighborhood. I have a copy of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution in a file in my desk. I refer to them regularly. I love my country.
I love my country enough to speak out when I think we have taken a wrong turn. Our country was founded on the principle of self-determination. That means that the people of this country have the right to determine their future political status. It means that our government is guilty of hypocrisy (and sometimes worse) when it attempts to force sovereign nations to adopt its form of government. I love my country enough to take the heat for saying so.
I question whether the representatives in Washington are listening to us, because they have been known to ignore their constituents before.
I love this country, but I have no illusions about it having an ideal or perfect government. Politics is by nature a game of getting and giving favors. One advances in proportion to one’s usefulness to others. The others, who have done favors for the rising politician, now have credit with him or her, and when it comes time, will cash in by asking for another favor. By the time one has risen to any power, he or she is beholden to myriad people, all of whom cash in on their favors on their schedule, not the politician’s.
This is reality, but it is not necessarily good for the people of the United States, who are by rights the ones who give politicians, indeed governments, power.
Considering the tone of political dialog today between the left and right, it might be important if every liberal could defend him- or herself against persons who accuse them of not loving this country.
I am perfectly capable of defending myself against charges of lacking patriotism. Are you?
© 2005
Monday, March 14, 2005
Have We Become a Society Without Compassion?
The senate voted last week to approve a bankruptcy bill that will allow credit card companies to recover from people even if they file from bankruptcy. They did this, despite evidence that the majority of bankruptcies arise from real crises in people’s lives—like job loss or catastrophic illness. In fact, medical bills are behind nearly 70 per cent of middle-class bankruptcies.
Before the senate approved this bill, they stripped from it two amendments designed to help out ordinary folks. One would have raised the minimum wage by more than two dollars, and the other would have prevented persons from filing bankruptcy in the event of a legal judgement against them for vandalism as well as raising the minimum wage. Chalk up one for the credit card companies, and businesses like Wal*Mart, who do not have to pay a living wage to employees.
The president is currently pushing tort reform and a revamping of Social Security. Social Security has problems that are relatively easy to fix, but the president proposes a solution much more comprehensive than the problem. The solution involves placing individual retirement accounts at risk, which basically takes the Security out of the program.
With tort reform, the plan is to place caps on the amount of damages a jury can award in various kinds of lawsuits. The proposal removes the whole idea of due process from the picture.
Then there is the matter of prisons. The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. In many prisons around the country healthcare is sorely wanting and sometimes negligent to the point of causing death. Many prison hospitals are run by for-profit private businesses that submit a low bid, get a contract, and then figure out how to come in at the designated price. Cutting corners is almost inevitable. Publicly funded healthcare in prisons is not much better. Does conviction of a crime strip a person of all human rights?
Prison has become an all-purpose remedy for people we don’t want to deal with. One in four prisoners is mentally ill; half or more are in prison as a direct or indirect result of alcoholism or drug addiction. When people with problems other than breaking the law end up in prison populations, they often have problems. We address these problems with a prison-within-a-prison—lockdown, also known as solitary confinement. This kind of confinement has been shown to exacerbate many mental illnesses, but we continue to use it.
We keep large numbers of “enemy combatants” incarcerated for extended periods and prevent them from contacting family, legal counsel, or even knowing the charges and evidence against them. We make sure they are not on U.S. soil, so that our laws do not apply to them or their jailers.
Locally, the department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation was forced to close its crisis unit for lack of funding. When someone has a mental health crisis in Brazos County, there are no options for residential treatment; when hospitalization is required, patients are transported long distances to state hospitals.
Army recruiters are relentless in their pursuit of high school seniors. Kids whose prospects for college are dimmed by finances are particularly vulnerable to them and the large cash enlistment bonuses they offer. When they join the service and ship off to Iraq, they leave with great fanfare; when they return in flag-draped coffins, we keep it a secret—after all it would make it difficult to recruit more kids to replace them. To their parents, we pay a pittance, and give them their children’s last month’s pay, prorated for the number of days they missed because they died.
Young soldiers surviving horrific wounds that would have killed soldiers 30 years ago, are sentenced to life with disabilities, medical problems, and the mental stress of battle. Even the soldiers who escape death and injury are damaged goods when they return; many of them will have nightmares about the things they saw for the rest of their lives.
Because many of them are not members of the regular armed services, but rather members of the National Guard, their medical problems receive limited attention and then become their own responsibility. They receive no services from the Veterans Administration.
Meanwhile we, the people who have asked so much from them, drive around with yellow magnetic ribbons on the backs of our cars that say “Support Our Troops,” as if that were any help to anyone at all.
Where is the compassion we owe all these people? Have violent movies and video games corrupted us so much that compassion has gone out of style, or are the people running the government sufficiently safe from needing compassion themselves that they can afford to withhold it from those less fortunate? Those supporting these policies will continue to act without compassion as long as those who disagree with them remain silent.
© 2005 Ann Weaver Hart
Before the senate approved this bill, they stripped from it two amendments designed to help out ordinary folks. One would have raised the minimum wage by more than two dollars, and the other would have prevented persons from filing bankruptcy in the event of a legal judgement against them for vandalism as well as raising the minimum wage. Chalk up one for the credit card companies, and businesses like Wal*Mart, who do not have to pay a living wage to employees.
The president is currently pushing tort reform and a revamping of Social Security. Social Security has problems that are relatively easy to fix, but the president proposes a solution much more comprehensive than the problem. The solution involves placing individual retirement accounts at risk, which basically takes the Security out of the program.
With tort reform, the plan is to place caps on the amount of damages a jury can award in various kinds of lawsuits. The proposal removes the whole idea of due process from the picture.
Then there is the matter of prisons. The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. In many prisons around the country healthcare is sorely wanting and sometimes negligent to the point of causing death. Many prison hospitals are run by for-profit private businesses that submit a low bid, get a contract, and then figure out how to come in at the designated price. Cutting corners is almost inevitable. Publicly funded healthcare in prisons is not much better. Does conviction of a crime strip a person of all human rights?
Prison has become an all-purpose remedy for people we don’t want to deal with. One in four prisoners is mentally ill; half or more are in prison as a direct or indirect result of alcoholism or drug addiction. When people with problems other than breaking the law end up in prison populations, they often have problems. We address these problems with a prison-within-a-prison—lockdown, also known as solitary confinement. This kind of confinement has been shown to exacerbate many mental illnesses, but we continue to use it.
We keep large numbers of “enemy combatants” incarcerated for extended periods and prevent them from contacting family, legal counsel, or even knowing the charges and evidence against them. We make sure they are not on U.S. soil, so that our laws do not apply to them or their jailers.
Locally, the department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation was forced to close its crisis unit for lack of funding. When someone has a mental health crisis in Brazos County, there are no options for residential treatment; when hospitalization is required, patients are transported long distances to state hospitals.
Army recruiters are relentless in their pursuit of high school seniors. Kids whose prospects for college are dimmed by finances are particularly vulnerable to them and the large cash enlistment bonuses they offer. When they join the service and ship off to Iraq, they leave with great fanfare; when they return in flag-draped coffins, we keep it a secret—after all it would make it difficult to recruit more kids to replace them. To their parents, we pay a pittance, and give them their children’s last month’s pay, prorated for the number of days they missed because they died.
Young soldiers surviving horrific wounds that would have killed soldiers 30 years ago, are sentenced to life with disabilities, medical problems, and the mental stress of battle. Even the soldiers who escape death and injury are damaged goods when they return; many of them will have nightmares about the things they saw for the rest of their lives.
Because many of them are not members of the regular armed services, but rather members of the National Guard, their medical problems receive limited attention and then become their own responsibility. They receive no services from the Veterans Administration.
Meanwhile we, the people who have asked so much from them, drive around with yellow magnetic ribbons on the backs of our cars that say “Support Our Troops,” as if that were any help to anyone at all.
Where is the compassion we owe all these people? Have violent movies and video games corrupted us so much that compassion has gone out of style, or are the people running the government sufficiently safe from needing compassion themselves that they can afford to withhold it from those less fortunate? Those supporting these policies will continue to act without compassion as long as those who disagree with them remain silent.
© 2005 Ann Weaver Hart
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Do Not Fall Silent
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
--Herbert Spencer
Twice in the last several months, people have replied to e-mails I sent them to tell me to remove them from my mailing list. These were not people I did not know. Both of them had, at one time, considered me a friend. And then I showed my true colors—I’m a liberal. Now these people want nothing to do with me. I have become a social leper.
This is not an isolated incident. Conservatives all over are guarding their minds against liberal ideas. The Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) has created a “Hall of Dishonor” where they enshrine the worst, most abusive professors at Texas A&M University. The abuse? Disagreeing with YCT, and having the cheek to admit it.
Stewart Nusbaumer calls this phenomenon the “politics of the closed mind,” a very fitting name. If conservatives were to have a mantra, it might be something like this: There is no viewpoint but THE Viewpoint, and George Bush is His prophet. Subscribing to any other opinion makes one an infidel of the highest order.
Worse yet, they frown upon the very act of exposing university students to divergent viewpoints. This makes one wonder what exactly the point of a university education could be. The name of the institution—university—implies the presence of a broad range of ideas, but today’s conservatives have a bizarre tendency to hostility whenever they meet anyone who disagrees with them. Sadly, this tenacious refusal to countenance any idea outside the realm of conservatism stands in direct opposition to the whole purpose of a university education, which ought to broaden one’s mind.
The conservatives have heard that liberals think them narrow minded, and they take it as a compliment. They see nothing unusual about refusing to acknowledge the validity of any idea they or their conservative sages did not conceive. Sadly, their sages are angry, vengeful people whose ethical standards align with Machiavelli. Think Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
These luminaries of the political world are oddly immune to the idea that truth is a somewhat less than subjective phenomenon. Truth, they would have the public believe, consists of saying whatever it takes to get the job done. The end justifies the means. It is only torture if it causes organ failure. It is abusive to voice one’s opinions when they do not agree with mine.
While conservatives practice intellectual dishonesty with abandon, liberals must never allow themselves to forget that while the front man may be a dullard, many of his accomplices are demonically brilliant. Perhaps the best example might be Ann Coulter’s bestseller, Treason. In this book, she posits that liberals are a traitorous lot who attack the United States at every opportunity. She calls them traitors and claims that they have committed treason, hence her title.
Likely most liberals saw this speech as figurative, thought Henny Penny was predicting the imminent fall of the sky, and went on about their business. She did not really mean that liberals are guilty of treason. Oh yes she did! Note carefully that treason is a capital offence, of which all liberals stand accused.
The legislature has fallen asleep, largely because the liberals there will not spend political capital on anything except keeping their seats. They seem to reason that if they butt heads with the conservatives, their agendas will never see the light of day. They confirmed, as the country’s chief diplomat, a woman who argues with her questioners rather than give a straight answer about anything. Civil liberties erode daily under the aegis of “security,” and liberal lawmakers assent to the laws that destroy these very liberties that the founders crossed an ocean and fought a war to get.
About seventy years ago, a right-wing ideologue rose to power in a western country. He hated communists with a passion. He lied to his people to make them believe they were in danger. He lied to other world leaders in furtherance of his designs. He was not a particularly intelligent man, and his command of the language was weak. He wrote a book that was passed around like scripture, although no one was really sure what it was about. He did not smoke or drink. Regardless, he convinced a nation to follow him, and those who saw through him spoke weakly, or not at all. After a time, it became dangerous to speak out against government policies, and those who knew remained silent. That silence cost the world—and six million Jews—dearly.
© 2005
Thursday, February 10, 2005
A Tidbit on the State of the Union
Wednesday was Groundhog Day and the day the president delivered the State of the Union Address. It is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication--and the other involves a groundhog.
Vaughn M. Bryant, College Station, Texas
Vaughn M. Bryant, College Station, Texas
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Living Within the Budget
When George W. Bush announced his budget this week, he sprang more rich-get-richer schemes on an unsuspecting public than even the most jaded observer would have suspected was coming. The president says he focused on programs’ results, cutting only those programs that are not “effective.”
Among the things the president feels we spend too much on: Community Development Block Grants. The new vision: Let American urban centers crumble and die. The rich have already sucked them dry and moved on to greener pastures. Another program that is not getting results: financial aid for vocational training. What happened to “No child left behind?” It is back that way, somewhere in the dust.
Not that the president bears any particular malice toward anyone. He just fails to see the problem with being unable to earn a crust. After all, he has gotten along just fine, and his job skills are marginal at best. Kids who have financial problems can ask dad to help out, or if times are really hard, they can pawn the family’s silver candlesticks and the Faberge eggs the ambassador sent for Christmas last year.
The new budget increases spending for Homeland Security and defense. None of the money in the budget is earmarked for military operations currently under way. Those will be handled with separate “emergency” appropriations to the tune of $80 billion. This classifying of military operations as outside of defense is certainly realistic, since those in question are most decidedly offensive.
Perhaps it is hair-splitting, but emergencies are by nature unforeseen, and this is about as unforeseen as short hair coming out of a barber shop. Ray Charles could have seen this train wreck coming, and bright man that he was, would have stepped out of the way.
The president also talks about boosting the country’s readiness for biological attack. This might be a good place to increase funds. Perhaps we should start by getting an ample supply of flu vaccine for next year. On the other hand, maybe we should let a flu epidemic solve the social security crisis by thinning out the number of our “unproductive” citizens.
Since there will be a lot of scrambling and reorganizing to live with this budget, I’d like to make a couple of suggestions about how we can give the president what he wants, and still get out of the deal with our skins.
First, bring all the soldiers overseas home. Pack them up and bring them back. The political capital to be gained from this move alone is immense. Think about the good will generated by thousands of grateful significant others whose loved ones have returned home alive—or never had to leave in the first place.
Families can pay returning veterans to care for the maimed and wounded soldiers we will turn out of VA hospitals when we cut veterans’ benefits. After that, vets can bury the dead from the famine resulting from putting half the farms in the country out of business completely when the crops they produced last season do not fetch enough to pay the bills because we suddenly cut price supports.
After big business has exported the last decent job, we will no longer need armed forces, because regular people will have been tort-reformed out of any redress against polluters and irresponsible employers (we’re also cutting the EPA), and there will not be much left to interest a foreign invader anyway, particularly when Americans begin to view cockroaches as wildlife.
Second, let’s cut the crap, and write Halliburton a check. Skip the blood and guts, the funerals, flag-waving, and crying mothers and flat-out give them the money. We can spend less than we paid them last year, because they will have incurred no expenses to pass through to us. Further savings will come from money we do not have to spend on death benefits, armor, and training more troops.
Finally, we can take all those kids who will not be learning trades in vocational schools and give them on-the-job training as rat-catchers and recycling technicians (trash pickers). After all, we will need plenty of those as our cities crumble.
© 2005
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)