It's been ten long years since Bush v. Gore. The Supreme Court, in what was already an increasingly blatant series of partisan cases, installed the worst president in modern history. The justices tend to cite landmark cases in their later "work," but they have never referred back to BvG. Alito tells people to "get over it," a playground retort that tells you: a) he won't discuss it because he can't defend it; b) he won't apologize for it because he has no shame; c) he won't admit it was partisan because he's still handing down shoddy, biased decisions; and d) he doesn't care what anyone thinks because he's publicly involved in political affairs. He is a hack, not a judge.
If you don't remember the specifics, here's a quick review. The presidential election of 2000 apparently ended in a dead heat. Bush had 246 electoral votes, Gore 266, with only Florida's votes not included. Those 25 votes would decide the election, but the difference in the state's totals was less than one-half percent between the two candidates. Under state law the election officials had to perform a recount and report within seven days. That was when the circus began.
Lawyers for both sides flooded into the Sunshine State. Stories about voter intimidation, purging of eligible voters from rolls, and other irregularities began to surface. Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who had co-chaired Bush's Florida campaign, tried to invalidate the recount by certifying each county's totals as originally reported. In other words, she wanted to use her position to ignore the actual totals and declare the election over because her candidate had ostensibly won.
A Bush family crony and unindicted co-conspirator, James Baker oversaw a blizzard of legal diversions. Recounts in various counties started, stopped, and started again, all under the watchful eyes of lawyers. Reporters breathlessly told us about different kinds of chads. The actual votes, the will of the people, got pushed further and further into the background. The Florida Supreme Court displayed an unhealthy interest in facts and evidence, going so far as to order a complete and final recount to resolve the election properly. The Bush legal team went over their heads. Reagan and Bush Sr. had appointed the majority on the Supreme Court, so that was where the case needed to go. Bush had to win; the legal justification was almost an afterthought. Best of all, with SCOTUS there could be no appeal. More than a month later, the federal justices stopped the recount, effectively appointing Bush the new commander in chief.
There were plenty of issues to provoke outrage. For me there are three that still resonate a decade later.
One, the whole process became politicized too quickly. The country can't have confidence in an election if the votes are pushed aside in favor of legal hair-splitting, partisan maneuvering, and endless debates over established procedures. The higher the stakes, the more important it is to follow the law. If a county has a recount procedure in place, follow it to its conclusion, flawed though it may be. Fix the flaws later. Bush may have actually won, but we'll never know.
Two, a democracy (even a representative democracy) lives or dies on the integrity of its elections. The only point in the political process where you have any real power is in an election. If someone interferes with how your vote is recorded, he is taking away your power, he is substituting his decision for yours, he is subverting the democratic process and committing treason. Americans don't seem to understand how important their votes are. The general outrage over Florida soon dissipated, with few reforms ever put in place. The biggest "reform" was a switch to electronic devices, which I've covered in another entry. The time for reform is now, before the next election.
Three, the Supremes are supposed to be impartial. They're human beings, but judges are allegedly chosen for their impartiality. They are supposed to have the training and experience to put their personal prejudices aside. That's their job, that's their duty. With Bush v. Gore they abandoned their duty. They are indirectly responsible for the ensuing disasters, from two pointless wars to Katrina to the current depression. They have become as corrupt as the rest of the federal government.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
A Letter
A friend forwarded a letter to me. I won't name the author, who (according to the letter) is an actor on a popular television series. He might be surprised to learn that his name is being used for propaganda.
Make no mistake, this type of message is propaganda. There's a patina of respectability because it claims to come from a known source. There's even a photo of the actor, so it must be genuine.
The refrain in this message is that the author is "tired." He's worked hard all his life. I'll give him that one. Acting is marketing oneself more than anything, and marketing is hard work.
Then the moaning begins. He's tired of the government taking his hard-earned money and giving it to lazy bums who don't work as hard as he does. He doesn't understand that some people are simply not capable of working as hard as he does. In fact, he's been lucky to avoid a long period of disability, which happens to half of all Americans, or a chronic illness.
He's tired of paying taxes to bail out people who tried to flip pricey houses. Actually, the big bailouts went to the big banks. He's also tired of the government programs that created the bubble. Actually, the banks paid Congress to deregulate them. The bubble happened because of too little government in one area, not too much.
He's tired of limousine liberals who trash America. Who loves his country more: someone who blindly favors one side over another and continually smears all government, or someone who points out the flaws in both sides in order to have a better country?
He's tired of hearing about Muslims who want peace, because the news is full of Muslims committing acts of violence. He might want to put some of that hard work into learning something about Islam and Arab countries before he makes such blanket statements.
He's tired of affirmative action. Apparently he doesn't see the discrimination going on all around him. It's easy to ignore the misfortunes of others when you are so fortunate.
He's tired of oil money going to establish mosques in America, when Christian churches aren't allowed in Muslim countries. Here's one idea: don't buy oil.
Wait, that won't work. He's tired of hearing about global warming, but he won't put some of his hard work into learning a little bit about climatology. Instead he will take the word of think tanks who create junk science with oil company money.
He's tired of paying to help junkies, who obviously meant to wind up destroying their lives when they took that first snort of cocaine. They aren't ill in any way, even mentally ill, so they don't need treatment. When you're lucky, you don't need drugs to cope with the world.
He's tired of illegal aliens. They should be hard-working, lucky anglophones like him before they can become citizens.
He's tired of unpatriotic people trashing the military for torturing terrorists. First, the CIA, not the military, did most of the torturing. Second, they had to make it up as they went along, because our government had nobody who knew how to torture. Third, the blame rests squarely on high-level people like Dick Cheney, who must be happy to see this kind of blame-shifting going on. There's more, but the message here is that questioning the government is unpatriotic. Unless the government is actually accomplishing something at home, then it's time to start impeachment proceedings.
He's tired of political parties blaming each other for everything; they're both bunches of liars and cheats. Except that the Democrats are much worse. At least he's fair and balanced.
He's tired of celebrities and politicians who get caught with their pants down and apologize gracelessly. Once again, I agree.
Heading for the big finish. He's tired of hearing people blame everyone but themselves for anything and everything, when they should blame themselves. This is the "personal responsibility" card. When you're lucky, you don't have problems, so all you do is take credit for your good luck. When you do have problems, you should magically solve them yourself, whether they're medical, legal, cultural, or economic. And "personal responsibility" always goes with "corporate irresponsibility," which means corporations are never held responsible for anything.
So, we have welfare queens, house flippers, limousine liberals, Muslims, minorities, more Muslims, tree huggers, junkies, Mexicans, hippies, and irresponsible people of every stripe, with a healthy sprinkling of Obama and big government. All we need are trial lawyers, communists, and the liberal media for a complete list of tried and true conservative targets.
I'm tired too. I'm tired of hearing how much conservatives hate everyone who isn't like them. I'm tired of the blind allegiance to conservative politicians who don't know how to do anything but throw sand in the motor. I'm tired of hearing the same old rhetoric that perpetuates problems instead of solving them. I'm tired of hearing opinions from people who don't know anything (and, much worse, don't want to know anything) about a topic. Finally, I'm tired of hearing litanies of complaints without a single suggestion about how to address them in a meaningful way.
What ya gonna do? If government isn't solving your problem (and odds are it isn't), get out and solve it yourself. Talk to people--the best cure for intolerance is spending time with your "enemy." Do some research--you may be surprised by how much the politicians on both sides are lying to you. Find or found a community group--you may be surprised at how many people are frustrated enough to get off their couches. Don't write to your congressman or run for office--it's a waste of time.
Make no mistake, this type of message is propaganda. There's a patina of respectability because it claims to come from a known source. There's even a photo of the actor, so it must be genuine.
The refrain in this message is that the author is "tired." He's worked hard all his life. I'll give him that one. Acting is marketing oneself more than anything, and marketing is hard work.
Then the moaning begins. He's tired of the government taking his hard-earned money and giving it to lazy bums who don't work as hard as he does. He doesn't understand that some people are simply not capable of working as hard as he does. In fact, he's been lucky to avoid a long period of disability, which happens to half of all Americans, or a chronic illness.
He's tired of paying taxes to bail out people who tried to flip pricey houses. Actually, the big bailouts went to the big banks. He's also tired of the government programs that created the bubble. Actually, the banks paid Congress to deregulate them. The bubble happened because of too little government in one area, not too much.
He's tired of limousine liberals who trash America. Who loves his country more: someone who blindly favors one side over another and continually smears all government, or someone who points out the flaws in both sides in order to have a better country?
He's tired of hearing about Muslims who want peace, because the news is full of Muslims committing acts of violence. He might want to put some of that hard work into learning something about Islam and Arab countries before he makes such blanket statements.
He's tired of affirmative action. Apparently he doesn't see the discrimination going on all around him. It's easy to ignore the misfortunes of others when you are so fortunate.
He's tired of oil money going to establish mosques in America, when Christian churches aren't allowed in Muslim countries. Here's one idea: don't buy oil.
Wait, that won't work. He's tired of hearing about global warming, but he won't put some of his hard work into learning a little bit about climatology. Instead he will take the word of think tanks who create junk science with oil company money.
He's tired of paying to help junkies, who obviously meant to wind up destroying their lives when they took that first snort of cocaine. They aren't ill in any way, even mentally ill, so they don't need treatment. When you're lucky, you don't need drugs to cope with the world.
He's tired of illegal aliens. They should be hard-working, lucky anglophones like him before they can become citizens.
He's tired of unpatriotic people trashing the military for torturing terrorists. First, the CIA, not the military, did most of the torturing. Second, they had to make it up as they went along, because our government had nobody who knew how to torture. Third, the blame rests squarely on high-level people like Dick Cheney, who must be happy to see this kind of blame-shifting going on. There's more, but the message here is that questioning the government is unpatriotic. Unless the government is actually accomplishing something at home, then it's time to start impeachment proceedings.
He's tired of political parties blaming each other for everything; they're both bunches of liars and cheats. Except that the Democrats are much worse. At least he's fair and balanced.
He's tired of celebrities and politicians who get caught with their pants down and apologize gracelessly. Once again, I agree.
Heading for the big finish. He's tired of hearing people blame everyone but themselves for anything and everything, when they should blame themselves. This is the "personal responsibility" card. When you're lucky, you don't have problems, so all you do is take credit for your good luck. When you do have problems, you should magically solve them yourself, whether they're medical, legal, cultural, or economic. And "personal responsibility" always goes with "corporate irresponsibility," which means corporations are never held responsible for anything.
So, we have welfare queens, house flippers, limousine liberals, Muslims, minorities, more Muslims, tree huggers, junkies, Mexicans, hippies, and irresponsible people of every stripe, with a healthy sprinkling of Obama and big government. All we need are trial lawyers, communists, and the liberal media for a complete list of tried and true conservative targets.
I'm tired too. I'm tired of hearing how much conservatives hate everyone who isn't like them. I'm tired of the blind allegiance to conservative politicians who don't know how to do anything but throw sand in the motor. I'm tired of hearing the same old rhetoric that perpetuates problems instead of solving them. I'm tired of hearing opinions from people who don't know anything (and, much worse, don't want to know anything) about a topic. Finally, I'm tired of hearing litanies of complaints without a single suggestion about how to address them in a meaningful way.
What ya gonna do? If government isn't solving your problem (and odds are it isn't), get out and solve it yourself. Talk to people--the best cure for intolerance is spending time with your "enemy." Do some research--you may be surprised by how much the politicians on both sides are lying to you. Find or found a community group--you may be surprised at how many people are frustrated enough to get off their couches. Don't write to your congressman or run for office--it's a waste of time.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
An Analogy
If you're still having trouble picturing the political landscape, here's an analogy that may make it easier to follow.
Imagine a wagon full of apples rolling downhill on a bumpy road. You're supposed to be the one driving the wagon, but your friends want to drive too. Some of them pull the wheel one way, some pull the other way. They're so busy fighting with each other, they don't watch the road ahead. You can pull the wheel one way or the other, but you have to pull for a while to overcome your friends. Did I mention the road was bumpy? And there are ditches on either side? And no brakes?
Wait, it gets worse. A bandit stowed away on your wagon. He's furiously throwing your cargo of apples off the wagon. He's also promised a share of the apples to some of your friends, but you don't know which ones. The bandit could care less if your wagon crashes.
That's a pretty desperate situation, but unfortunately, that's where our democratic process is.
Obviously our country is the wagon. You are the independent voter who tries to keep our country on the right track by voting for the right people. In the real world, different groups want to use the government for their own ends, so they tug and strain and curse to turn it their way. Ideally, in our republic, the government turns right, and the voters correct the imbalance by turning left; a few years later the reverse occurs; in the long run we avoid trouble by not going too far in either direction. That doesn't happen any more.
For one thing, the mass media and the parties have done their best to alienate the electorate. Typically, 40 to 50 percent of potential voters don't bother. They're not represented in the analogy, except in the inertia of the wagon.
Most of the actual voters have made up their minds before they vote. About 40% vote Democratic no matter what, another 40% Republican. The numbers may be even higher these days. These partisans are the "friends" in the analogy who pull the wheel left or right without understanding the consequences.
That leaves 20% (or even less) to decide the election. Many of them vote based on their personal economic situation, which should keep the country in the center, just by the law of averages.
The bandit represents the wealthy in this country. They're robbing the rest of us blind, and as long as they can keep up the stealing, they don't care if the economy goes into a ditch. Their latest target is Social Security. You've been paying into it your whole working life, but if they get it privatized, Wall Street will have a trillion-dollar lunch off of your money. Do you want to get to the bottom of the hill and find out your cargo is gone? Then keep voting Republican.
Our wagon has been veering to the right for some time, and we've already got two wheels off the road and almost into a ditch. The voters pulled the wheel left, just enough to keep the wheels out of the ditch. The danger is not over, but the wagon is still veering to the right. It's just a matter of time before we run off the road. Another good bump like 9/11 could take the choice out of your hands.
What ya gonna do? You don't want the wagon to run off the right side of the road. You don't want to overcorrect and run off the left side, either. The first job is to center the wagon, by keeping the Republicans from getting more control. It's not just about putting people in Congress, you see, it's about the judges they appoint, the projects they fund or don't fund, the laws they pass or don't pass. Fixing the Great Recession will take more than two years.
After the election, the next step is campaign financing. The Citizens United case was the equivalent of giving megaphones to each of the wheel pullers and putting a blindfold on you; it will be impossible to make rational decisions about the future of our country when you can't hear yourself think and can't see the road ahead.
We have to save our country before it's too late. Democracy may not work very well, it may seem like the worst system on earth, but as Churchill pointed out, all the others are worse.
Imagine a wagon full of apples rolling downhill on a bumpy road. You're supposed to be the one driving the wagon, but your friends want to drive too. Some of them pull the wheel one way, some pull the other way. They're so busy fighting with each other, they don't watch the road ahead. You can pull the wheel one way or the other, but you have to pull for a while to overcome your friends. Did I mention the road was bumpy? And there are ditches on either side? And no brakes?
Wait, it gets worse. A bandit stowed away on your wagon. He's furiously throwing your cargo of apples off the wagon. He's also promised a share of the apples to some of your friends, but you don't know which ones. The bandit could care less if your wagon crashes.
That's a pretty desperate situation, but unfortunately, that's where our democratic process is.
Obviously our country is the wagon. You are the independent voter who tries to keep our country on the right track by voting for the right people. In the real world, different groups want to use the government for their own ends, so they tug and strain and curse to turn it their way. Ideally, in our republic, the government turns right, and the voters correct the imbalance by turning left; a few years later the reverse occurs; in the long run we avoid trouble by not going too far in either direction. That doesn't happen any more.
For one thing, the mass media and the parties have done their best to alienate the electorate. Typically, 40 to 50 percent of potential voters don't bother. They're not represented in the analogy, except in the inertia of the wagon.
Most of the actual voters have made up their minds before they vote. About 40% vote Democratic no matter what, another 40% Republican. The numbers may be even higher these days. These partisans are the "friends" in the analogy who pull the wheel left or right without understanding the consequences.
That leaves 20% (or even less) to decide the election. Many of them vote based on their personal economic situation, which should keep the country in the center, just by the law of averages.
The bandit represents the wealthy in this country. They're robbing the rest of us blind, and as long as they can keep up the stealing, they don't care if the economy goes into a ditch. Their latest target is Social Security. You've been paying into it your whole working life, but if they get it privatized, Wall Street will have a trillion-dollar lunch off of your money. Do you want to get to the bottom of the hill and find out your cargo is gone? Then keep voting Republican.
Our wagon has been veering to the right for some time, and we've already got two wheels off the road and almost into a ditch. The voters pulled the wheel left, just enough to keep the wheels out of the ditch. The danger is not over, but the wagon is still veering to the right. It's just a matter of time before we run off the road. Another good bump like 9/11 could take the choice out of your hands.
What ya gonna do? You don't want the wagon to run off the right side of the road. You don't want to overcorrect and run off the left side, either. The first job is to center the wagon, by keeping the Republicans from getting more control. It's not just about putting people in Congress, you see, it's about the judges they appoint, the projects they fund or don't fund, the laws they pass or don't pass. Fixing the Great Recession will take more than two years.
After the election, the next step is campaign financing. The Citizens United case was the equivalent of giving megaphones to each of the wheel pullers and putting a blindfold on you; it will be impossible to make rational decisions about the future of our country when you can't hear yourself think and can't see the road ahead.
We have to save our country before it's too late. Democracy may not work very well, it may seem like the worst system on earth, but as Churchill pointed out, all the others are worse.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Vote Money
Still not sure who to vote for this time? Take the guesswork out of elections. Vote for the Money Party!
You don't have to choose between Democrat and Republican. You don't even have to go to the trouble of voting! You're still voting for money.
The Money Party platform is simple: rich people deserve to get and keep every dime they can, however they can. That's it! No complicated issues to think about, no campaign promises to break, no opposition party to slow things down.
Are you too busy making a living to follow politics, make an informed decision, and vote? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you staying away from the ballot box.
Are you fed up with negative campaign ads, or the sheer number of ads? Or do you just not pay attention and wait for *American Idol* and *Desperate Housewives* to come back on? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you staying hypnotized.
Are you following the election like it was some kind of reality show or popularity contest? Do you care about polls, about who's ahead, about the horse race aspect of it all? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you ignoring the issues.
Are you listening to the DC pundits, who explain everything in terms of political advantage? Are you listening to the other pundits, who paint the other side as buffoons or criminals? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you making partisan and emotional decisions.
Are you fed up with big government? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you looking the other way while they let our roads and water lines crumble.
Are you a disciple of laissez-faire capitalism? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you allowing them to get away with murder.
For the Money Party, money isn't everything, it's the only thing. Government works when they tell it to work and does what they tell it to do. Tax cuts? Deregulation? Tax breaks for moving jobs overseas? Forcing everyone to buy overpriced health insurance? Bailouts for investment banks? It's all gravy.
Ask not what the Money Party can do for you. They don't care about you.
What ya gonna do? Obviously, most people don't engage in the political process, so let's cut them out of it. People who don't even bother to vote, people who don't know anything about the issues, people who vote with their emotions, none of them deserve a voice. People who do care about voting should show that they're serious and committed to the political process. Let's charge a fee to register, how about, oh, a nice round number, one million dollars? We can stop pretending that your vote matters. You don't have to sit through those ads any more. The real voters can stop making all those bribes and tell their representatives how to vote. Better yet, cut out the middleman, let the real voters write the legislation. They're already doing it, why not make it official?
So vote Money! ... while you can still vote.
But seriously, folks, don't take my word for it. The vast right-wing conspiracy (especially these guys) is doing better than ever. You didn't notice? Congratulations, you've been distracted!
You don't have to choose between Democrat and Republican. You don't even have to go to the trouble of voting! You're still voting for money.
The Money Party platform is simple: rich people deserve to get and keep every dime they can, however they can. That's it! No complicated issues to think about, no campaign promises to break, no opposition party to slow things down.
Are you too busy making a living to follow politics, make an informed decision, and vote? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you staying away from the ballot box.
Are you fed up with negative campaign ads, or the sheer number of ads? Or do you just not pay attention and wait for *American Idol* and *Desperate Housewives* to come back on? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you staying hypnotized.
Are you following the election like it was some kind of reality show or popularity contest? Do you care about polls, about who's ahead, about the horse race aspect of it all? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you ignoring the issues.
Are you listening to the DC pundits, who explain everything in terms of political advantage? Are you listening to the other pundits, who paint the other side as buffoons or criminals? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you making partisan and emotional decisions.
Are you fed up with big government? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you looking the other way while they let our roads and water lines crumble.
Are you a disciple of laissez-faire capitalism? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you allowing them to get away with murder.
For the Money Party, money isn't everything, it's the only thing. Government works when they tell it to work and does what they tell it to do. Tax cuts? Deregulation? Tax breaks for moving jobs overseas? Forcing everyone to buy overpriced health insurance? Bailouts for investment banks? It's all gravy.
Ask not what the Money Party can do for you. They don't care about you.
What ya gonna do? Obviously, most people don't engage in the political process, so let's cut them out of it. People who don't even bother to vote, people who don't know anything about the issues, people who vote with their emotions, none of them deserve a voice. People who do care about voting should show that they're serious and committed to the political process. Let's charge a fee to register, how about, oh, a nice round number, one million dollars? We can stop pretending that your vote matters. You don't have to sit through those ads any more. The real voters can stop making all those bribes and tell their representatives how to vote. Better yet, cut out the middleman, let the real voters write the legislation. They're already doing it, why not make it official?
So vote Money! ... while you can still vote.
But seriously, folks, don't take my word for it. The vast right-wing conspiracy (especially these guys) is doing better than ever. You didn't notice? Congratulations, you've been distracted!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Treason
You want to be a good citizen. You pay attention to politics. You listen to the candidates. You make your choices. You go to the polls. When you go to all the trouble of voting, you want your vote to matter. These days, though, it's entirely possible that your vote is irrelevant, that you wouldn't know about it, and that you have no way of finding out.
It doesn't matter which party you belong to. A bad election hurts everybody. If your side doesn't get hurt this time, it will next time. That's human nature.
We'd like to live in a democracy, where we can vote on every issue, but that's not practical. Instead we vote for representatives, and they vote on the issues. The brilliant idea behind a republic is that we have a controlled revolution every two years. We agree on the rules ahead of time, we put limits on the possible changes, and we abide by the results. If enough people play by the rules, it works--crudely, but it works.
What we have now is a loose confederation of people who routinely break the rules. We don't publicize them enough or punish them enough. They are trying, in a limited way, to overthrow our government by replacing a duly elected official with someone else. That is treason. We hang traitors.
These traitors are computers masquerading as voting machines. More specifically, these traitors are the people who make, sell, and operate the computers, because the computers themselves are pretty stupid. It turns out the people who make the computers are fairly stupid themselves. Smart people who know computers have been saying for years that these machines are vulnerable to manipulation, by the makers, by the users, and by hackers.
Here's a simple and common trick. A computer is pretty stupid; you have to spell out names for its codes, such as X for Smith and Y for Jones, so it will display the names. When you vote for Smith, the computer adds one to column X, and that's the only fact it records about your vote. Here's the trick. When they set up the computer for the election, they switch the codes: Smith becomes Y and Jones becomes X. Now, when you vote for Smith, your vote goes into column Y instead of column X.
Think about that very carefully. If you are a Republican, you may have just voted for a Democrat. There is no way to go back and check the numbers, to recount the ballots. On election night, the computer has a total in column X and a total in column Y, nothing else. If the traitor can switch the codes in the morning and switch them back at night, without being detected, it's the perfect crime.
It doesn't stop there. What if the computer changed every tenth vote from one column to another? What if it simply generated the totals without counting any votes? How would you know? The companies who make these computers won't let you see the code that runs them. Partisan politicians will protect their election officials. These computers aren't monsters like the Terminator, but they're dangerous just the same.
Here's the bottom line: whichever side you're on, it might be your vote that they change. If you didn't vote for them, then it's not really your government, it's someone else's, regardless of who you voted for. You're no longer living in a republic. Your government is no longer accountable to you. To those traitors and their masters, your vote doesn't matter, and you don't matter.
So what ya gonna do? Get an absentee ballot. If you go to vote, ask for a paper ballot. If they won't give you one, ask for a receipt from the machine (you won't get it). Don't make a stink so big that they have you arrested, but make a stink. And remember that the poll workers are volunteers. Don't blame them, blame the people who are buying our elections, and our candidates, and our government, and our souls.
After the election, tell your representatives that you demand they get rid of the computers. Do you have so much faith in computers, in the people who make and use them, that you are willing to give them absolute control over your vote? Do your trust your government that much?
It doesn't matter which party you belong to. A bad election hurts everybody. If your side doesn't get hurt this time, it will next time. That's human nature.
We'd like to live in a democracy, where we can vote on every issue, but that's not practical. Instead we vote for representatives, and they vote on the issues. The brilliant idea behind a republic is that we have a controlled revolution every two years. We agree on the rules ahead of time, we put limits on the possible changes, and we abide by the results. If enough people play by the rules, it works--crudely, but it works.
What we have now is a loose confederation of people who routinely break the rules. We don't publicize them enough or punish them enough. They are trying, in a limited way, to overthrow our government by replacing a duly elected official with someone else. That is treason. We hang traitors.
These traitors are computers masquerading as voting machines. More specifically, these traitors are the people who make, sell, and operate the computers, because the computers themselves are pretty stupid. It turns out the people who make the computers are fairly stupid themselves. Smart people who know computers have been saying for years that these machines are vulnerable to manipulation, by the makers, by the users, and by hackers.
Here's a simple and common trick. A computer is pretty stupid; you have to spell out names for its codes, such as X for Smith and Y for Jones, so it will display the names. When you vote for Smith, the computer adds one to column X, and that's the only fact it records about your vote. Here's the trick. When they set up the computer for the election, they switch the codes: Smith becomes Y and Jones becomes X. Now, when you vote for Smith, your vote goes into column Y instead of column X.
Think about that very carefully. If you are a Republican, you may have just voted for a Democrat. There is no way to go back and check the numbers, to recount the ballots. On election night, the computer has a total in column X and a total in column Y, nothing else. If the traitor can switch the codes in the morning and switch them back at night, without being detected, it's the perfect crime.
It doesn't stop there. What if the computer changed every tenth vote from one column to another? What if it simply generated the totals without counting any votes? How would you know? The companies who make these computers won't let you see the code that runs them. Partisan politicians will protect their election officials. These computers aren't monsters like the Terminator, but they're dangerous just the same.
Here's the bottom line: whichever side you're on, it might be your vote that they change. If you didn't vote for them, then it's not really your government, it's someone else's, regardless of who you voted for. You're no longer living in a republic. Your government is no longer accountable to you. To those traitors and their masters, your vote doesn't matter, and you don't matter.
So what ya gonna do? Get an absentee ballot. If you go to vote, ask for a paper ballot. If they won't give you one, ask for a receipt from the machine (you won't get it). Don't make a stink so big that they have you arrested, but make a stink. And remember that the poll workers are volunteers. Don't blame them, blame the people who are buying our elections, and our candidates, and our government, and our souls.
After the election, tell your representatives that you demand they get rid of the computers. Do you have so much faith in computers, in the people who make and use them, that you are willing to give them absolute control over your vote? Do your trust your government that much?
Friday, September 24, 2010
Real Health Care Issues
The recent "reform" was, like most politics, a distraction. That plan was more about paying for health care than about actually delivering it (see a later entry), and the right steadfastly ignores that it's almost identical to the plan Mitt Romney set up in Massachusetts. The delivery system is just as broken, though. Almost nobody talks about these problems, and the government won't touch them. The dangerous idea here is that "we have the best health care system in the world." In a handful of metrics we do better than other countries, but overall it's a bleak picture: we pay more and get less for our health care expenses. The insurance apologists seize on anecdotes from other countries and that handful of metrics, but they can't change the facts, and they certainly can't save any lives.
Problem the First: Basic economics. The principle of supply and demand is easy to understand: when supply goes up, prices go down; when demand goes up, prices go up. In other words, something that's easy to get is cheap, while something that's hard to get is expensive. The demand part of our health-care system is us--that is, people who get sick. That demand is only going to go up as the population gradually increases and even more as the boomers age. The supply part is medical personnel, such as doctors and nurses. Everything else is incidental: you can't staff a hospital, run a test, or prescribe a drug without personnel. The supply has actually gone down, because almost all medical students these days (an amazing 98%) become specialists, not general practitioners. Specialists earn much more money, which tells you where their priorities lie. So supply is going down while demand is going up: prices are inevitably going up.
Solution the First: Doctors have abandoned the role of general practitioner, so we need a different profession to fill that role. Nurse practitioners are the likely stopgap solution. In the long run we must have primary care providers who can diagnose and treat simple problems, prescribe medicine, and refer patients to providers with more specific skills. A major step toward fixing this problem (and several others) would be to blur the line between doctors and everyone else, that is, create grades of medical personnel based on function, not education. Allow people to learn as much as they can about medicine in whatever way they can, then let them take tests to certify themselves. If I can learn what a GP should know without the time, expense, wasted energy, and built-in prejudices of medical school, why shouldn't I be able to do a job that doctors themselves refuse to do? It wouldn't be a bad thing, either, to show doctors that they can be replaced; that might put a dent in their arrogance.
Problem the Second: Geriatrics. One-third to one-half of all medical spending in this country goes to keep people alive in their final month. Preserving life is a worthwhile goal when it makes sense, but postponing the inevitable for a few hours or days doesn't make sense. The patient goes through unnecessary indignity, discomfort, and pain. The family goes through false hope and often financial hardship. The only benefit goes to the doctors, hospitals, and drug companies, and that benefit is purely financial.
Solution the Second: Encourage living wills. This has nothing to do with "death panels"; nobody wants to kill your grandmother. Try to understand the distinction. It's one thing to euthanize people who are still healthy. It's another thing entirely to allow someone to pass away quietly, someone who would die anyway and has already made an informed decision to do so without any fuss. I'll repeat the critical part--someone who would die anyway. There is too much focus on the quantity of life and not enough on the quality of that life.
Problem the Third: Prevention. An ounce of prevention, in medical terms, is worth about ten ounces of cure. Less than a pound, but still a substantial savings. It may be dramatic for surgeons to save someone's life with a risky operation, but real life is not like TV. It's much less expensive to teach someone at risk for heart disease to eat properly than to do bypass surgery. There's no mystery here. Most chronic diseases can be prevented. For some reason, though, many of us listen to the politicians, who would rather pretend to solve splashy expensive problems than quietly prevent them from ever happening. The system is geared towards trauma care, towards rescuing people from imminent demise, towards the dramatic rather than the sensible.
Solution the Third: If you're at risk for, say, heart disease, get some exercise and change your diet. If you refuse to do so, you are committing slow-motion suicide. The medical establishment should recognize this fact by classifying you as a coronary DNR. If you ever have a heart attack, nobody will try to resuscitate you; nobody will perform bypass surgery on you; nobody will try to save you from your own bad behavior. On the other hand, if you have a genetic predisposition to heart disease, you should get treatment and medication to reduce the risk of a heart attack, and you should be treated properly if you do have a heart attack. Conversely, if you have no risk factors at all and still have a heart attack, you should get treatment. The operative principle here is to prevent what you can and treat what you must.
The bottom line: Somehow we have gotten the idea that medical resources are infinite. We can treat everyone for everything, we can look for cures to every known disease, we can save every accident victim and premature baby, all at the same time. Is it any wonder that prices are going through the roof?
Problem the First: Basic economics. The principle of supply and demand is easy to understand: when supply goes up, prices go down; when demand goes up, prices go up. In other words, something that's easy to get is cheap, while something that's hard to get is expensive. The demand part of our health-care system is us--that is, people who get sick. That demand is only going to go up as the population gradually increases and even more as the boomers age. The supply part is medical personnel, such as doctors and nurses. Everything else is incidental: you can't staff a hospital, run a test, or prescribe a drug without personnel. The supply has actually gone down, because almost all medical students these days (an amazing 98%) become specialists, not general practitioners. Specialists earn much more money, which tells you where their priorities lie. So supply is going down while demand is going up: prices are inevitably going up.
Solution the First: Doctors have abandoned the role of general practitioner, so we need a different profession to fill that role. Nurse practitioners are the likely stopgap solution. In the long run we must have primary care providers who can diagnose and treat simple problems, prescribe medicine, and refer patients to providers with more specific skills. A major step toward fixing this problem (and several others) would be to blur the line between doctors and everyone else, that is, create grades of medical personnel based on function, not education. Allow people to learn as much as they can about medicine in whatever way they can, then let them take tests to certify themselves. If I can learn what a GP should know without the time, expense, wasted energy, and built-in prejudices of medical school, why shouldn't I be able to do a job that doctors themselves refuse to do? It wouldn't be a bad thing, either, to show doctors that they can be replaced; that might put a dent in their arrogance.
Problem the Second: Geriatrics. One-third to one-half of all medical spending in this country goes to keep people alive in their final month. Preserving life is a worthwhile goal when it makes sense, but postponing the inevitable for a few hours or days doesn't make sense. The patient goes through unnecessary indignity, discomfort, and pain. The family goes through false hope and often financial hardship. The only benefit goes to the doctors, hospitals, and drug companies, and that benefit is purely financial.
Solution the Second: Encourage living wills. This has nothing to do with "death panels"; nobody wants to kill your grandmother. Try to understand the distinction. It's one thing to euthanize people who are still healthy. It's another thing entirely to allow someone to pass away quietly, someone who would die anyway and has already made an informed decision to do so without any fuss. I'll repeat the critical part--someone who would die anyway. There is too much focus on the quantity of life and not enough on the quality of that life.
Problem the Third: Prevention. An ounce of prevention, in medical terms, is worth about ten ounces of cure. Less than a pound, but still a substantial savings. It may be dramatic for surgeons to save someone's life with a risky operation, but real life is not like TV. It's much less expensive to teach someone at risk for heart disease to eat properly than to do bypass surgery. There's no mystery here. Most chronic diseases can be prevented. For some reason, though, many of us listen to the politicians, who would rather pretend to solve splashy expensive problems than quietly prevent them from ever happening. The system is geared towards trauma care, towards rescuing people from imminent demise, towards the dramatic rather than the sensible.
Solution the Third: If you're at risk for, say, heart disease, get some exercise and change your diet. If you refuse to do so, you are committing slow-motion suicide. The medical establishment should recognize this fact by classifying you as a coronary DNR. If you ever have a heart attack, nobody will try to resuscitate you; nobody will perform bypass surgery on you; nobody will try to save you from your own bad behavior. On the other hand, if you have a genetic predisposition to heart disease, you should get treatment and medication to reduce the risk of a heart attack, and you should be treated properly if you do have a heart attack. Conversely, if you have no risk factors at all and still have a heart attack, you should get treatment. The operative principle here is to prevent what you can and treat what you must.
The bottom line: Somehow we have gotten the idea that medical resources are infinite. We can treat everyone for everything, we can look for cures to every known disease, we can save every accident victim and premature baby, all at the same time. Is it any wonder that prices are going through the roof?
Friday, September 10, 2010
Introduction
A word about the title. In one of his concert films, the late Richard Pryor talks about his cocaine addiction. Jim Brown, a football player, intervenes and asks, "What ya gonna do?" Pryor tries to justify his habit. Brown keeps repeating, "What ya gonna do?"
Well, Pryor didn't do anything. Shortly afterward, he set himself on fire (accidentally or on purpose, there's no way to be certain). He spent several painful months in a burn ward.
This blog will be, among other things, an occasional look at some of the addictive and potentially dangerous ideas in American politics. We've already been burned by some of them, and unless something changes, we'll get burned again and again.
My nominee for most addictive idea is that the wealthy somehow deserve a break from the rest of us. It begins with someone arguing for "trickle-down" economics (or whatever they're calling it this year), which is nothing more than a simple "bait and switch" con. Bait and switch works because it's simple and it plays on greed.
Here's the scam. Someone approaches you with a wallet or bag containing money and claims to have found it. He or she would be happy to split it with you if you'll just put up some money for "security." That's the bait part. If the two of you find the original owner, you get your security back; if not, you get your security and half the money. You can't lose.
You go to the bank and withdraw your security money. Your new friend puts it in the bag. After a while he hands you the bag and tells you he's going to look for the owner, or contact the police, or use the bathroom--anything to get away from you. That's right, this is the switch part, and you're "left holding the bag." During that brief time between your putting your money in the bag and his handing you the bag, he has switched bags on you. When you get nervous enough to look inside, you find only scrap paper.
What does that have to do with tax breaks? Remember that the government's money belongs to everybody, including you (that's oversimplifying, so we'll cover it later). The bait in this case is jobs. We hear that if we allow wealthy people and corporations to keep more wealth, they will invest it and stimulate the economy. In an ideal world, it might work. In the real world, it doesn't. Just in America, we've tried it about twenty times, and not once has it worked as advertised. That's the switch: they promise to use your money to help you, but they only help themselves. An individual who gets conned ought to know better, but as a country, we've fallen for it every time. One definition of insanity is repeating behavior and expecting a different outcome.
I have two main objections to cutting taxes for the wealthy. One, they've already gotten ample rewards from the economic system. There is absolutely no reason for them to get further rewards from the political system. On the contrary, as the ultimate beneficiaries of society, they have a vested interest in maintaining that society. Over the last three decades, they have made short-sighted decisions that have instead harmed society: sending jobs overseas, keeping wages flat, adding profit motives to the health-care system, discouraging union activity, repealing consumer protections, and starving government of funds for things like infrastructure, education, and research. All these strategies have weakened our country as a whole, simply to make the wealthy even wealthier. The government should have stopped every one of these schemes as a matter of national interest.
Two, the other part of the argument is that the wealthy somehow know best how to invest. Two words: Bernie Madoff. The wealthy are at least as gullible, if not more so, than anybody else. Where were the responsible investors who should have researched instruments like collateralized debt obligations, realized they were bogus, and told everyone not to buy them? Why did anyone ever buy a "junk bond"? How many people gave their money to Madoff simply because everyone else was doing it? And Madoff is by no means an isolated case.
The whole "invisible hand" idea of capitalism relies on diffusion, not concentration, of wealth. As in politics, the more people we have making decisions, the better those decisions turn out to be in the aggregate. Yes, some people lose money, but with more people handling smaller shares of wealth, the risk is spread out. We have seen this idea turned on its head, with more and more wealth flowing into fewer and fewer hands. For instance, in 1980, the top 1 percent of Americans owned 7 percent of the wealth. Today that same 1 percent owns 20 percent of the wealth. The capitalists are destroying capitalism.
The 1890s version of the trickle-down scam used the "horse and sparrow" analogy. You feed a horse oats, they pass through its digestive system, and sparrows eat the leftovers. Think how many sparrows you could feed with those oats if you bypassed the horse entirely. That's what happened in the 1940s, when the New Deal got a chance to work. Ordinary lower- and middle-class people were able to go to college, get good jobs, and spend money. The result was the longest and strongest economic expansion in human history. Apparently the capitalists considered that a bad thing, because they set about reversing everything the New Deal accomplished. Part of that reversal, of course, included tax cuts for the wealthy.
Here's another point nobody talks about: when exactly does this trickling down reach the rest of us? After three decades of helping the wealthy, shouldn't the economy be doing well? Instead we have the worst conditions since the Great Depression. But the wealthy are doing better than ever. They don't need a break. The rest of us do.
Well, Pryor didn't do anything. Shortly afterward, he set himself on fire (accidentally or on purpose, there's no way to be certain). He spent several painful months in a burn ward.
This blog will be, among other things, an occasional look at some of the addictive and potentially dangerous ideas in American politics. We've already been burned by some of them, and unless something changes, we'll get burned again and again.
My nominee for most addictive idea is that the wealthy somehow deserve a break from the rest of us. It begins with someone arguing for "trickle-down" economics (or whatever they're calling it this year), which is nothing more than a simple "bait and switch" con. Bait and switch works because it's simple and it plays on greed.
Here's the scam. Someone approaches you with a wallet or bag containing money and claims to have found it. He or she would be happy to split it with you if you'll just put up some money for "security." That's the bait part. If the two of you find the original owner, you get your security back; if not, you get your security and half the money. You can't lose.
You go to the bank and withdraw your security money. Your new friend puts it in the bag. After a while he hands you the bag and tells you he's going to look for the owner, or contact the police, or use the bathroom--anything to get away from you. That's right, this is the switch part, and you're "left holding the bag." During that brief time between your putting your money in the bag and his handing you the bag, he has switched bags on you. When you get nervous enough to look inside, you find only scrap paper.
What does that have to do with tax breaks? Remember that the government's money belongs to everybody, including you (that's oversimplifying, so we'll cover it later). The bait in this case is jobs. We hear that if we allow wealthy people and corporations to keep more wealth, they will invest it and stimulate the economy. In an ideal world, it might work. In the real world, it doesn't. Just in America, we've tried it about twenty times, and not once has it worked as advertised. That's the switch: they promise to use your money to help you, but they only help themselves. An individual who gets conned ought to know better, but as a country, we've fallen for it every time. One definition of insanity is repeating behavior and expecting a different outcome.
I have two main objections to cutting taxes for the wealthy. One, they've already gotten ample rewards from the economic system. There is absolutely no reason for them to get further rewards from the political system. On the contrary, as the ultimate beneficiaries of society, they have a vested interest in maintaining that society. Over the last three decades, they have made short-sighted decisions that have instead harmed society: sending jobs overseas, keeping wages flat, adding profit motives to the health-care system, discouraging union activity, repealing consumer protections, and starving government of funds for things like infrastructure, education, and research. All these strategies have weakened our country as a whole, simply to make the wealthy even wealthier. The government should have stopped every one of these schemes as a matter of national interest.
Two, the other part of the argument is that the wealthy somehow know best how to invest. Two words: Bernie Madoff. The wealthy are at least as gullible, if not more so, than anybody else. Where were the responsible investors who should have researched instruments like collateralized debt obligations, realized they were bogus, and told everyone not to buy them? Why did anyone ever buy a "junk bond"? How many people gave their money to Madoff simply because everyone else was doing it? And Madoff is by no means an isolated case.
The whole "invisible hand" idea of capitalism relies on diffusion, not concentration, of wealth. As in politics, the more people we have making decisions, the better those decisions turn out to be in the aggregate. Yes, some people lose money, but with more people handling smaller shares of wealth, the risk is spread out. We have seen this idea turned on its head, with more and more wealth flowing into fewer and fewer hands. For instance, in 1980, the top 1 percent of Americans owned 7 percent of the wealth. Today that same 1 percent owns 20 percent of the wealth. The capitalists are destroying capitalism.
The 1890s version of the trickle-down scam used the "horse and sparrow" analogy. You feed a horse oats, they pass through its digestive system, and sparrows eat the leftovers. Think how many sparrows you could feed with those oats if you bypassed the horse entirely. That's what happened in the 1940s, when the New Deal got a chance to work. Ordinary lower- and middle-class people were able to go to college, get good jobs, and spend money. The result was the longest and strongest economic expansion in human history. Apparently the capitalists considered that a bad thing, because they set about reversing everything the New Deal accomplished. Part of that reversal, of course, included tax cuts for the wealthy.
Here's another point nobody talks about: when exactly does this trickling down reach the rest of us? After three decades of helping the wealthy, shouldn't the economy be doing well? Instead we have the worst conditions since the Great Depression. But the wealthy are doing better than ever. They don't need a break. The rest of us do.
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