Monthly Archives: November 2009

Beware of the Kochtopus!

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If you read the Lawrence Journal World this morning (Nov. 30, 2009), you may have noticed on page 3A that some outfit called the Reason Foundation is pushing Kansas state legislators to “privatize” more public services and, consequently, to privatize more public jobs.  What the article by Scott Rothschild (“Push to privatize is on the table“) failed to mention is that the Koch family billionaires of Wichita (and Park Avenue in New York City) are putting up the money for this nasty little piece of  anti-human libertarianism.

The “Kochtopus” (a term I borrowed from Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas) wants to wrap its blood-sucking, dollar-soaked tentacles even more tightly than they are already wrapped around the Kansas legislature, and, in essence, kill government.  What the Kochs are really all about is enriching themselves at everyone else’s expense.  For instance, the Kochtopus–through its front group, Americans for Prosperity–was a financial force behind the tea bagger movement to kill health care reform.  Americans for Prosperity is one of  many Koch front groups put in motion to transform the United States into a two-tier society…with the Kochs and a few of the other super rich on top, and the rest of us on the bottom, serving them.

A primary objective of this blog is to watch the Kochtopus and to reveal its stealthy goings-on.  If you think that the Koch blob has not been effective, you would be wrong.  One Republican, State Representative Kasha Kelley, was quoted as saying to the Koch apparatchik, “You had me at hello.”  That would probably be correct for practically all of the Republicans in the Kansas State Legislature.

Stereotyping the Elderly

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Creating a dehumanizing, negative stereotype is a precursor to harming a demographic segment of a population.  Lack of respect displayed toward older Americans and blamed heaped on them for everything from traffic jams to bankrupting the health care system are evidence of creeping ageism in the United States.

While teaching a class a number of years ago on racism and groupism in general at Kansas State University, I found a full-page Newsweek  photo of nursing home residents sitting in chairs, holding their arms above their heads.  They were being led in exercises by a young woman.  The caption read, “Geezer Boom.”

These older Americans were characterized in the article as helpless invalids who are a burden to younger members of society.  This kind of portrayal of the elderly is pervasive in the mass media and is becoming fixed in the psyche of the under-65 population.  During the recent debates on health care, we heard “unplugging granny” over and over.  This metaphor is supportive of the notion that the fruits of a long life are, at the end, intubation and ventilation.  As I will discuss with very good evidence in a later post, nothing could be further from the truth.

Epithets are evidence of isms such as racism, sexism, gayism and ageism.  I find myself having to confront friends, students, and relatives for using terms like “geezer,” “codger” and “coot.”  These terms may seem funny but they are disrespectful, harmful and insulting.  I have the same concern about using “granny” in the context of plugging and unplugging.

Ageism is characterized by blaming, epithets, infantilization and neglect.  If older Americans can be reduced to being thought of as nothing more than a “pain in the neck,” it will be acceptable to commoditize them as revenue producing objects to be placed in sub-human, profitable, nursing home conditions.

Are We Setting the Elderly Up for Benefits Reductions, Lower Quality of Life?

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Beginning with the Reagan Administration, there has been a steady, incrementally-successful movement under way to rig the economic and political system against the interests of the bulk of the U.S. population.  People in perhaps the bottom four income quintiles are now paying a disproportionate share of taxes in comparison to the top 20 percent, which amounts to an income redistribution toward the wealthy classes.  At the same time, most Americans are receiving fewer benefits for the taxes they do pay, which is resulting in a lower quality of life as measured by health care availability, educational opportunity, employment income and housing affordability.

At this time, two targets of the plutocratic, ruling class are Medicare and Social Security.  Pay attention to the steady “drum beat” of dire warnings about the coming of the budget-busting, elderly hoard.  It is important for all citizens to inform themselves about the demographics of the U.S. population and the realities of Social Security and Medicare financing.

An Aug. 17, 2009, column by Ross Douthat–one of a bevy of conservative columnists for the New York Times (along with David Brooks and Tom Friedman)–is one good example of the propaganda perpetrated on an unsuspecting public by conservatives. In an ageist, “blaming-the-elderly,” ill-informed, insulting column, “Telling Grandma ‘No,”  Douthat put out the following false information:  “…by 2030, there will be more Americans over 65 than under 18….”

We have to be on watch for this type of propaganda. 

Here is the truth:

According to the Population Division of the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2030, the percentage of our population under age 18 will be 23.51%, while the percentage of those 65 and over will be 19.3%.  After 2030, these percentages will change very little. By 2050, those under age 18 will constitute 23.14%, while those 65+ will account for 20.17% of the U.S. population.  This leaves approximately 57% of the population as potential wage earners who will be funding their own future benefits of Social Security and Medicare.

This should hardly be viewed as a major, unabsorable shock to the U.S. budget. Indeed, it should be much much less of a problem for our country’s coffers than continuing to finance the folly of war, bank bailouts, give-aways to the pharmaceutical industry and the military-industrial complex welfare programs.

(I will write more about the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds in later posts.)

Blaming Elderly and Poor Americans

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The Nov. 21-27, 2009,  issue of the Economist was devoted to the U.S. budget deficit–its causes and solutions.  I found it disconcerting that this conservative, business-oriented publication chose to focus on programs for the elderly as the main causal factor in our current 13 trillion dollar debt.  For instance, on page 13, an editorial writer had the following to say: 

“America’s deficit problem is in essence a spending problem, so spending must bear the brunt of adjustment.  An aging population and health care inflation are inexorably driving up the cost of the country’s three big entitlements: Social Security (pensions), Medicare, and Medicaid (health care for the elderly and the poor, respectively).”

This is reminds me of the blame for U.S. budget woes heaped on welfare recipients during the Reagan and Clinton Administrations.  And, indeed, a punitive so-called “welfare reform” act was passed during the Clinton Presidency.

Nothing was said in the Economist about spending on the military-industrial complex, the trillion or so that was gifted to Wall Street gamblers, tax cuts for the rich, handouts to the pharmaceutical industry, and on-going wars of choice–just to name a few other drains on the Federal budget.  In terms of adjustments, the Economist might have mentioned some of the current proposals to tax financial transactions, taxing hedge fund managers as employees rather than treating their income as capital gains, increasing the capital gains tax, and so on.  Why does the debt problem have to be solved, again, on the backs of the elderly and the poor?

The DNC, President Obama, and Change We Can’t Believe In

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During the past week, I have received three phone calls from the DNC.  Rather, I have received three phone calls from DNC-hired fundraisers.  They wanted money.  I thought my crankiness during the first call would have been warning enough about me as a difficult customer to give pause to any subsequent caller.  But naively, I failed to realize that I am just a name in a database through which a dialing machine churns– nothing more, nothing less.

Why would I give these people money?  I have already blogged about the “Obama/DNC Listening Tour” that I attended (during which no one was listening).  Now I see that President Obama will be sinking us deeper into the quagmire of Afghanistan.  Did he forget that he is president by virtue of Hillary Clinton’s vote on the Iraq War?  Had it not been for her militarism, she would be president instead of Barack Obama.  He was the anti-war candidate.

President Obama’s tepid support for real health care reform has indeed been puzzling.  Is he willing to make more deals with Blanche Lincoln, Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson?  Will the DNC be giving these obstructionists to decency and social justice money to run their next campaigns?  I want to know that.  I would rather support  primary candidates against these destructive, pro-Republican turncoats.  Rahm Emanual can tell us that we are f…ing stupid for criticizing another Democrat, which he has said.  Since he is a big part of the problem these days, I would say,  f… him.

Apparently, Emanual has been successful in purging Greg Craig from the Obama Administration.  This is a bad sign.  Craig was one of the members of the president’s inner circle who was pushing for adherence to the spirit of the Obama campaign.  That was a campaign that inspired many of us to give money, walk neighborhoods in Missouri, and heartily celebrate Barack Obama’s election. 

I think we need a very quick and serious course correction by President Obama at this juncture in his administration. 

Remembering Darryl Ringer: Charismatic Farm Activist

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This Thanksgiving, I can truly give thanks for having known and worked with farm activist Darryl Ringer from Quinter, Kansas.  Darryl died in a farm accident in 1993.  At the time he was killed, he had gained national stature as an activist on behalf of farmers who were losing their farms to banks in foreclosure actions.

I am proud to say that I offered my couch to Darryl as a place to sleep as he traveled the state in 1988 and worked with us on the Jesse Jackson campaign.  His charisma, intelligence, and organizing ability were phenomenal.  His death left a gaping hole in the progressive movement.

In memory of Darryl, I suggest that we support the actions of the National Farmers Union, which represents 250,000 farming and ranching families. The Farmers Union is pushing for a strong, viable, government-run, health insurance program.  Farm families are finding the cost of health care out of reach due to the nature of the insurance cartel.  For instance, 69% of health insurance policies in Nebraska are written by two insurance companies.

The other farm organization, the Farm Bureau, is opposing the bill passed in the House of Representatives.  Since the Farm Bureau represents large corporations and the agricorp industry as a whole, it opposes the provision of HR 3962 that requires employers to provide health insurance or pay some rather severe penalties.

Warfare or Health Care?

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35,000 More Troops in Afghanistan…
Is President Obama About to Make a Huge Mistake?  

Will we get warfare or health care in the Obama Administration?  If the media is correct in reporting that President Obama is planning to announce a major military escalation, perhaps a whole new war, in Afghanistan, then that is the question.  Will this Country pour another $50 billion per year into an unnecessary, misguided war that will in all likelihood end badly?    

How much militarism can the U.S. afford?  How many U.S., mostly working class, troops are we willing to sacrifice in worthless military ventures that have nothing to do with the safety and welfare of our population – or any other population for that matter?  Have we learned nothing from Viet Nam and Iraq?  It is mind boggling to see the seemingly intelligent, liberal Barack Obama bend to the will of a general that should have been fired for insubordination when he undermined the President in public.   

I sometimes wonder what could have become of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society had he not made the mistake that President Obama is apparently ready to make.  Congress can stop this. 

Call Congressman Moore and/or Congresswoman Jenkins and tell them to vote against this misadventure.

HR 3962: Does It Go Far Enough?

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Thanks Congressman Moore 

Today Congressman Dennis Moore (D-KS) generously gave Eric Kirkendall and me time to discuss health care reform with him.  We expressed our concerns about the public option as it is framed in HR 3962, The Affordable Health Care for Americans Act.  With only 2 billion dollars in seed money and a clause that excludes a “bailout” if the program cannot sustain solvency, the public program may be set up for failure.  Due to negotiated “fee-for-service” reimbursement to providers, a likelihood of higher risk customers, and competition with private insurance conglomerates, the public option will have an uphill battle as is.    

Also, the public option will not provide insurance until 2014 (as the bill is written).  In the meantime, the uninsured will still need to buy insurance in a high risk pool.  What will that cost?  A healthy middle aged staff member for the Congressman said that she would have to pay $500 per month with a $5000 deductible.  In other words, she would be paying $500 per month for nothing, unless she was unlucky to suffer a catastrophic illness.  A woman who has just opened up a small business in Lawrence told me she was denied insurance due to some minor surgery for endometriosis.  She was told that she would not be able to buy insurance, outside of the risk pool, unless and until she had a hysterectomy.  Her female organs, being a perceived risk for insurance companies, had to go.  She refused to do that and is buying insurance in the risk pool for $350 per month with a $10,000 deductible (per year).  Essentially, she is handing over $350 a month to an insurance company for nothing. 

The language in HR 3962 regarding state risk pools is vague.  We don’t know what will be available to the uninsured until the public option kicks in.  If a few U.S. Senators in our party (Democrats, with the exception of Joe Lieberman), succeed in destroying the public option altogether and, therefore, any meaningful health care reform, all of this will be a moot question.  However, if a public option like the one included in HR 3962 comes out of Congress in the final analysis and is signed into law, we will need to intensify our lobbying.  I think the Congressman is in a position to help us out.  We need to maintain communication with him and his staff. 

Keep lobbying at the local level and push back on K Street.