The Tallgrass Activist will always ardently and vociferously support gay rights and the rights of other groups suffering discrimination.  GBLT publications should also display sensitivity to the rights of oppressed workers.

The current issue of Liberty Press features an article regarding the Kansas Indoor Clean Air Act, which took effect on July 1.  As indicated on the cover, the focus of the article was “How the Local GLBT Community Thinks the Law Will Impact Them.”  The contents were mostly about how patrons of bars felt about prohibition on indoor, public smoking.  It included the typical whining by libertarians and business owners about infringement on their rights.

The article included nothing about the ravaging effects of environmental tobacco smoke on the health of employees in the hospitality industry.  It would have been nice to see something in the article about nonsmoker heart disease, lung disease, cancers, and other maladies caused by exposure to cigarette smoke.  What right do smokers have to make other people sick?

As someone with a leading role in passage of the groundbreaking Lawrence Smoking Ordinance, which took effect in 2005, I was not primarily concerned about the comfort of bar and restaurant patrons who find cigarette smoke as offensive as I do.  I did not spend all that time on meetings, research, and lobbying so people could go out to dinner or to bars and feel more comfortable. 

The Federal government, through the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), has implemented regulations, which protect a large proportion of American workers from a host of toxic substances.  In the early 1990s, OSHA issued a set of regulations on clean indoor air.  These regulations, which included environmental tobacco smoke, were never approved.  Why?

OSHA employees who were part of the process have told me that they had never seen an assault on regulations like the one unleashed by the tobacco and restaurant industries  on the clean indoor air regs.  By the end of the Clinton Administration, the regs had not been approved and the Bush Administration just let them die.

In the meantime, we have had to fight it out from city to city and state to state.  It is hard to know how many low wage, uninsured bar and restaurant workers have suffered harmful health effects as a result of the barriers erected by neo-conservatives, libertarians, and business owners.

My message to the selfish and the greedy is this:  it’s over.  The time has come.  You can no longer make other people sick because you want to smoke at any time and place of your choosing.  You have to consider other people.

  Recently, we traveled through Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.  At no time did we encounter a “smoking restaurant.”  This trip through “tobacco country” tells me that it is time for businesses who want to sue and lose to just move on.

KKFI is community radio.  Community radio is just that – radio broadcasting that comes from the community rather than corporate America.  Community in this sense is Eastern Kansas and Western Missouri, in the middle of which is KKFI 90.1 FM.  This is an important media outlet for us to hear the “the truth” from programs such as Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! (8:00 AM, Monday through Friday), and FAIR’s Counterspin (9:00 AM, Monday).

Democracy Now! is produced in New York’s Chinatown in a Downtown Community Television Center.  This program includes the type of open discussions of foreign policy, war, economics/social justice, and other issues that you won’t hear on corporate-sponsored media.

Counterspin, hosted by Janine Jackson, Steve Rendall, and Peter Hart, provides an exposure of the mainstream media’s biases, inaccuracies, and witting and un-witting spin of issues that affect the lives of everyday citizens.

KKFI focuses on local issues also.  On Saturday at 3:00 PM, Sharon Lockhart’s hosts EVERY WOMAN – a show about women making a difference and the men by their side. As 52% of humanity, women are not a ‘special interest’ group and EVERY WOMAN should work for nothing less than full participation in the social, political and economic arena.

The KKFI program schedule can be found at:  http://www.kkfi.org/programschedule.php.  Check it out!

You can make a donation to this community effort at: http://www.kkfi.org/donate.php.

 On July 3rd, Sharon Lockhart hosted a gathering of progressives at her home in Leawood.  The Tallgrass Activist was there.  This “Patriot Picnic,” hosted by Sharon, is an annual 4th of July fundraiser for the American Friends Service Committee .  It was a nice opportunity for this Lawrencian to connect with some progressive Kansas City soul mates.  The backyard barbecue was a  good opportunity to not only enjoy the company of other progressive thinkers, but to also discuss some ways we can come together across a wider area of Missouri and Kansas to take action.  Believe it or not there are a lot of us.  In fact, there are, I believe, probably more people on the progressive side of the political spectrum than there are in the Tea Party movement.

It was nice to have some discussions about organizing with (amongst other people) activists such as Dee Berry (Health Care for All), Ben Kjelshus (Green Party), and Sharon Lockhart, a well know activist in JOCO.  This is a good time to begin some political action.  The current assault on Social Security, ongoing wars, environmental degradation, mean-spirited Republican attacks on  poor, middle-class, and unemployed people, and a generally corrupt, wasteful health care system have progressives angry and just plain sick and tired of being sick and tired.

In their effort to slash the safety net for the elderly, billionaires such as Peter G. Peterson and their lackies in and out of government (e.g., at the Kellogg and MacArthur Foundations, in the U.S. Congress, at Harvard University, in the media, and amongst the deficit reduction commission appointed by President Obama) will probably provide the immediate catalyst for a major “coming together” in the progressive movement.  Progressives should provide the lead in opposing the cruel and unfair safety net slashing  that will be “on the table” soon after the next election.  This is one we can win!!

Don Kosmicki, Dave "Tallgrass Activist" Kingsley, Dee Berry, & Ben Kjelshus (Standing) Candy Gray & Rev. Rob Amerine (Sitting)

NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

It has become accepted wisdom that “old people” are running up health care costs.  This widespread belief allows legislators – who are mostly beholden to big Pharma, big Insurance, and big Hospital – to ignore racism, poverty, and a corrupt health-care system. 

The metaphor “plugging in granny” would lead one to believe that the oldest patients account for costly intensive care treatment, and, hence, the largest hospital charges.  Examination of hospital discharge costs for 2007 – the latest year they are available through the Agency for Health Quality and Research – shows a far different reality.  Hospital charges of $1 million or more are heavily concentrated in the under five age category.  While 30% of these extremely large charges are for patients under five years of age, less than 10% are for patients above the age of seventy-nine.

With an infant mortality rate amongst the highest in the World, along with increasing multiple and premature births, it is no wonder that neonatal intensive care units are very busy these days.  The good news is that medical science has advanced to the point that babies weighing less than 750 grams, born after 23 weeks of gestation, have a high probability of surviving – three fourths leave the hospital.  Twenty years ago, these babies rarely survived.

The bad news is that many of these children will have a life-time health of problems.  Furthermore, many premature births could be prevented with proper prenatal care.  My analysis of the AHRQ database indicates that 60% of the $1 million NICU charges are reimbursed through Medicaid, which suggests to me they are incurred by a lower income population.  This should not surprise anyone.  As the discussion of Professor Sandra Lane’s book (previous post below), “Why Are Our Babies Dying?” indicates, neglect of inner-city, minority populations is largely responsible for the disgraceful state of infant health in the United States.

Along with housing, jobs, decent activities and programs for kids, gun control has been proven to be effective in reducing homicide.  In the late 1980s, Boston and New York had homicide rates nearly equal to that of Kansas City.  Through very smart policing, which included gun control, programs for kids, housing and jobs programs, these two cities have reduced their homicide levels to at or below the national average of 5 per 100,000 in most years.  You can read all about Boston’s approach by Goggling Boston Strategy or by finding a copy of Murder is No Accident by Deborah Prothrow-Stith and Howard Spivak, both of whom are physicians, and both of whom were involved in the Boston Strategy.

Since I know a lot about guns (in the Marines, I was an infantry weapons specialist), I tried to tell KCMO community leaders that I never dreamed that so many of the weapons we used in the Marines would end up in the hands of civilians.  This fell on deaf ears.  Some of the community leaders were pro-gun conservatives; others either didn’t understand weapons or were intimidated by the current widespread gun-nuttiness in the U.S.  Furthermore, Kansas City leaders haven’t shown much of an inclination to do anything for the people living on the East side.

When I left the Marines, I never had a gun in my house or in my possession.  I lived in a “rough” neighborhood in Los Angeles for years and was in just about every part of that city in my daily activities. 

I don’t think people should even have hand guns.  Hopefully, people who like to kill animals will get over that infantile behavior and we could just leave all rifles, shot guns, and hand guns totally in the hands of the military where they belong.  Furthermore, adults who like to hear things go boom, boom should grow up and get rid of their extremely hazardous toys.  In other words, let’s just get firearms off of the streets and out of the civilian population.

The problem we have is simply this:  legislators are intimidated by the nutty, goon-like, aggressive National Rifle Association.  The Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress has even exempted these nuts from a recent bill to control lobbying activities.

 

The Nutty Rifle Association

Peter G. Peterson, one the wealthiest men in the World, likes to stereotype and blame people born in the U.S. between 1946 and 1964 (the Baby Boomers) for America’s financial woes, i.e., budget deficit.  He is so dedicated to punishing these people that he has spent millions and millions of his massive fortune to promote the idea that reducing benefits paid for by the Baby Boomers through a payroll tax is the way to balance the Federal Budget.

Peter G. Peterson – Hedge Fund Mogul & Crusader against Baby Boomers

Here are just a couple of examples of his attitude toward the generation that will soon be entering retirement (from his propagandistic book, Running on Empty):

Page 57:  “When the nursing-home crowd outnumbers the dorm room crowd by nearly four to one, America’s youth tradition may be little more than a memory.”

Let’s look at promotion of intergeneration conflict:

Page 227:  “To today’s young Americans, I say, You have a right to be angry abut the financial encumbrance your elders have collectively placed upon you.”

Page 230 – 231:  “Maybe now you wish your parents hadn’t been so indulgent.  Maybe you feel that when it comes your time to have children, you will spend far more effort on working to build a society that doesn’t rob their future, and less effort on scripting your children’s playtime for “maximum enrichment.”  And in this, your priorities may well be right.”

In the two posts below, I attempt to provide a couple of brief statements that address the Social Security Trust Fund and the “facts” that expose these types of statements as pure propaganda.

Here is the kind of truth that voters will learn about Social Security if the Obama Administration and the Democrats in Congress go along with the Peter G. Peterson led capitalist-elite-assault on Social Security benefits:

In the early 1980s, Social Security was in a position to pay out more than it was taking in.  By law, that cannot happen (it is a “pay-go” system).  A commission led by Alan Greenspan recommended an increase in the Social Security dedicated payroll tax (now at 6.2% for employees) as well as benefit reductions.  In 1983, these recommendations were legislated into existence by Congress.

The payroll tax increase and benefit reductions have resulted in a huge surplus – SS can take in more than it pays out.  Today, the Social Security Trust Fund has amassed a $3 trillion surplus, which makes this “pay-go” system, as it is now operating, solvent into the foreseeable future.

The problem is this:

The power-elite doesn’t want to pay its fair share of taxes.  As a result, for the past three decades, Congress has been cutting taxes for the capitalist ruling class while borrowing the SS surplus created by a payroll tax increase on us working stiffs.  At $108,000 in today’s dollars, the tax is no longer deducted.  Hence, those corporate executives, football coaches, etc., who are paid millions, only pay the 6.2% on payroll up to $108,000.  Most of us never make it and pay the full freight.

This regressive tax was intended for our retirement at the benefit level promised.  We have paid into the fund for three decades with that understanding.  Now we are hearing that the surplus created by our hard work and sweat was borrowed to fund tax cuts for the rich, war, bank bailouts, and other subsidies for the upper classes.  Actually, the Social Security Trust Fund loaned the surplus to the Federal Government in the form of bonds on which interest is owed.  Now the wealthy class doesn’t want the government to pay it back!  These deadbeats want to avoid the necessity of any tax increases on them and intend to manipulate the Congress and Obama administration into defaulting on the debt owed to retirees.

For several months now, the Tallgrass Activist has been warning readers about the deficit reduction commission created by President Obama through an executive order.  From the get go, it has been my belief that this is a set up for reducing Social Security and Medicare benefits.  Having attended the Peter G. Peterson Foundation sponsored America Speaks phony baloney town hall meeting in Overland Park on Saturday, I am firmly convinced that the power-elite is pulling the strings on this whole process and have already convinced a wide swath of policymakers and the American public that it makes sense to make a host of cuts such as pushing the SS retirement age to at least age 69 and even further as later generations come into the system.

All organizations fighting for social justice in this country need to come together and fight recommendations certain to be put forward in a sham process led by such resident experts/lackeys as Alice Rivlin, OMB director in the Clinton Administration (she was front and center at the America Speaks town halls on Saturday).  During appearances at the town halls by a plethora of conservative Republican and Democratic politicians such as Senators Gregg Judd and Kent Conrad and the extremist right-wing Congressman Paul Ryan, it was made very clear that the town halls were part and parcel of the official deficit reduction commission. HARD TO BELIEVE, BUT IT IS TRUE!

Everyone already knows that Republicans would kill SS and Medicare – consider some of the crazies running on the Republican ticket these days such as the nutty woman running against Harry Reid in Nevada.  However, when the masses become more tuned into the true condition of the SS Trust Fund – and they will – the political fallout will be especially severe for Democrats who show a willingness to go along with deficit hawk commissions.

Immediately upon returning from my vacation, I rushed over to the Johnson County Library in Overland Park to see what I could do to protest billionaire hedge fund mogul Peter G. Peterson’s sham town hall meetings, which were set up in twenty cities yesterday for the purpose of undermining Social Security and Medicare benefits.  It was pleasing to see contingents from the Older Women’s League and MoveOn.org carrying on a great protest in front of the library where “delegates” with passes to the event entered the meeting.  THANK THE OLDER WOMEN’S LEAGUE AND MOVEON.ORG FOR BEING ON THE CASE!  THESE GROUPS DESERVE OUR SUPPORT!

Sharon Lockhart (with OWL) helped me find a pass for entering the event (only selected applicants were allowed in the meeting and one of the protesters let me have his pass).  This meeting could only be tolerated by the most wonkiest of wonks.  It was hours of working through the U.S. budget and coming up with ways of reducing the Federal deficit by 1.3 trillion dollars.  Of course, the program was set up to lead participants in the direction of whacking Social Security benefits.  It was a very cleverly and deviously designed affair.  In fact, it is scary to see what these people can do with unlimited resources for fancy PR and manipulation of the masses.

All twenty cities were connected by video.  Leaders of the affair were in Philadelphia.  They provided a lot of very slick hoopla, which gave the whole thing a sort of festive atmosphere.  Every now and then they would pop up with some blathering from politicians like senators Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Gregg Judd of New Hampshire, both of whom told us that it was our responsibility to find ways reduce the budget deficit.  I found that rather interesting.  Both of these guys voted for the senseless war in Iraq, deregulation of the financial industry, Bush Tax Cuts, and the Medicare Part D give away to the Pharmaceutical Industry – all of which is responsible for our current budget deficit. 

This is serious stuff.  As does President Obama, Conrad and Judd have a commission working on the budget deficit.  It was made very clear that these sham town halls are working in conjunction with these commissions.  Alice Rivlin, OMB director in the Clinton Administration, is acting as their expert/lackey in residence.  The House and Senate will use these commissions as cover for doing to the elderly poor what they did to poor families during the Clinton Administration.

I WILL BE BLOGGING ABOUT THESE SHAM TOWN HALLS AND DEFICIT REDUCTION COMMISSIONS IN THE DAYS AHEAD.