Unplug For a Day

“ Oh, he was just really quiet, I think…I didn’t really notice anything unusual…Oh, yeah, she had just quit her job, I think…needed to take care of her son…she was really into guns…really proud of her new assault rifle…Yeah, things must have been really hard for her, I guess…husband walked out…kid was like uber-weird and geeky in school…I think….I mean like he never like hung out or anything…I never imagined him doing such a thing.”

How many times do we have to hear variants on this same theme, as friends, relatives, neighbors, and townies attempt to make some sense of yet another senseless, horrific act of carnage that happened somewhere else as the rest of us sipped our Starbucks and posted our enchiladas? Officials, civic and religious, continue to talk a lot about God, but secularly vow “meaningful, concrete steps” to finally address the underlying issues. We already know that the end result will be the status quo because there has never been a concerted political or religious will to take those meaningful, concrete steps. Why not? What else? Money and power, fed by fear.

Some politicians are afraid of the NRA and so, are afraid to take even one “meaningful, concrete step” to prohibit the sale of assault weapons and/or large capacity ammunition clips. Endless talk, pro and con, about gun control is all we will get. Soul searching liberals will recite, ad nauseam, statistics from studies done in other developed nations which show marked decreases in gun violence with increases in gun control.

Then will come the inevitable, incessant, ranting, insane diatribes from the family values contingent, who do not live in Beirut or Miami but still profess that an arsenal in the basement, brazier, or belt buckle is the only way to keep the ubiquitous, alien/gummint, monsters in the closet at bay. The emptiest vessel makes the loudest noise and, in the end, noise will probably win the day...again.*

Moreover, many aspiring politicians quickly learn to cater to both the fears and selfish nature of donor/ constituents, most of whom are loathe to pay a dollar to keep a poor “not my” kid from becoming a criminal, but are more than willing to pay a thousand times that amount to lock the same “still not my” kid in a cage and throw away the key. That is why so many local politicians advocate spending millions to implement tougher sentencing laws, but get all “fiscally responsible” when it comes to funding early childhood education, healthcare, child care, welfare, food stamps, extended hours for recreation centers, and job training for single parents.  

Similarly, most organized religious leaders have no real interest in stemming the violence, because, quite simply, fear is what brings in the faithful. Can you imagine a serious, viable exercise of interfaith cooperation and collaboration to eradicate the root causes of gun violence?  No? Me neither. Not as long as Mega-churches, and Mike Huckabee and the Grahams and 700 Club and “pray the gay away” rackets are lifting money hand over fist out of the pockets of the terrified “who cling to their guns and their Bibles.”

There I go again. Picking only on the hypocritical Christian, charlatan racketeers and their sheep-like flocks. Alrightythen, feel free to substitute any or all paranoid American Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Scientologists, Zoroastrians, Mormons, and/or any other organized syndicated criminal enterprise calling itself a religion that offers to trade peace of mind for cold hard cash.  Fear is the fuel in a speeding truck with no brakes. Why stop it? It’s going places!

Think about it. Who is going to obey five hundred-year-old dogma or, more importantly, tithe, unless they are afraid? How else does one explain how a doddering old fool in a dress, a beanie, and ballet slippers can tell millions of men and women how to manage their private parts?

Okay so our leaders will probably do nothing substantive to address this soul-sucking situation but rather insist upon a private, market-driven solution. Can we Americans, as the nation foremost in rampant consumerism, eschew any further consumption of violence and only buy stock in a complex, plodding, nuts and bolts solution?

Yes, that was a rhetorical question. Americans are in love with violence. Violence permeates every facet of our lives from movies, to video games, to sports, to schools and hostile takeovers. Violence, especially under the insidious guise of warfare, has been the driving force behind almost every scientific breakthrough and technological advancement that we take for granted today. We have about as much chance of weaning American culture off of violence as weaning Ted Nugent off of the AR15 teat he has been suckling on stage for the last twenty years.

There will always be fear and violence as long as there is profit to be made. As children,  we are dosed with fear by advertisers. Fear titillates our young psyches and makes us consume, but we are then consumed by fear as adults. What is anger after all, but fear, turned inward?

But you, as just one individual human being on this planet, do have the ability and perhaps the singular courage to face down those fears and be a tiny bit less selfish, less spiteful and more giving and forgiving for just one day. For just one day, you can decide to commit a small act of kindness, just to see how it feels. For just one day, you can unplug yourself from the self-imposed sequestration of your iphonesdroidsmp3semailfacebooktwitterearphones and open your eyes and ears and heart to a friend, relative, or neighbor. Just to see how it feels. Not because of some holy mandate that has been bastardized, turned inside out, and stood on its ear by thieves in robes.

You can do it because it is the right thing to do on any given day. Since I have written the better part of this piece in my robe and slippers, I feel qualified to bestow my blessings unto you to do it of your own free will. You can do one act of kindness  for someone else on this planet exactly the same way you would want it done for you. Just to see how it feels.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

 *It is a fact that the U.S. contains at least one firearm for every man, woman, and child in America. It is another fact is that New York City has one of the toughest gun laws in the nation and, not incidentally, the lowest gun violence rate of any major American city. Yes, to my friends in Kansas, the bigevilconcretejungle has a lower violent crime rate than your own state capitol. FYI.

Mitt the Wit

Since some folks have lately been reducing the serious issues and life-changing choices in this election to political cartoons and beer-soaked, one-liners about the President’s lack-luster performance in the first debate, I thought I would remind you that Governor Romney is also a really funny fellow and share with you just a few of the truly zany antics he has in store for us, should we elect him the next President of the United States:

We all know that Mitt Romney made his millions (the first million or so he got from Daddy) by firing thousands of American working people, closing U.S. factories, shipping the jobs overseas, and stashing tens of millions of his bankruptcy profits into off-shore accounts to avoid paying taxes. The funny part is that Mitt now thinks the American people should trust him to use this same business model to somehow (he won’t say how) create 12 million new jobs. Heh, heh , heh! Pretty funny, right? It gets even funnier.

Mitt Romney has a plan to cut the deficit by adding $7 trillion to the deficit. Mitt wants to start with a $5 trillion giveaway to the rich and then $2 trillion in extra military spending that even the military says they don’t need. Mitt Romney knows from history and personal experience that the more money big corporations and super rich people take in, the more they build factories in China, and Brazil, and then squirrel away loads of cash in Switzerland and the Caymans.

But he is telling us that, if we give corporations and rich people even MORE money, they will now use it to create good American jobs and the deficits will go down, uh, somehow. If this sounds familiar, this is the Mitt Romney, 2012, version of the same trickle down economic theory that hasn’t worked since 1980. Punch line below…

The burden to pay for that $7 trillion in EXTRA deficit will have to be saddled on the backs of the middle and working class because, according to the Tax Policy Institute, Mitt Romney’s plan would give an average of $250,000 MORE in tax breaks to his rich buddies and himself, while we will get socked with an extra $2,000/year. And now, for the joke... 

In fact, Mitt’s plan would take his own personal tax “burden” down to around 1%! Mitt Romney had been hawking this plan for over a year yet just did a big “king’s X” at the first debate. He didn’t deny the plan, Mitt just said that what the Tax Policy Institute verified would happen “just would not happen.” Nothing more than, “just would not happen.” If you are scratching your head with laughter on this one, you are not alone.

Mitt Romney was recorded secretly spewing his utter disdain for 47% of the American people in front of his uber-rich donors in May of this year. In that speech Mitt totally wrote off our troops and their families, returning vets and their families, seniors on Social Security and Medicare, students with loans who can’t borrow money from their folks, the disabled, and the entire working class. We have all seen the video of Mitt Romney saying this. He came right out and said that he has no plans to help these people at all because he considers them moochers and “victims.” Okay, now for the funny part…

Now,  just a month before the election, Mitt is getting all sincere with Fox News that he was “completely wrong” about how he has felt his whole life and suddenly wants to serve these people too, by taking away the government help these families desperately need to stay afloat. Hee, hee, hee, hee! But that’s not all!

Mitt Romney also has a plan to save Social Security by handing it over to the same gamblers on Wall Street that caused the worst economic melt-down since the Great Depression. How’s that for a safety net?  Snicker, snicker! Are you laughing yet?

Mitt Romney wants to repeal Obamacare, so insurance companies can go back to denying coverage for preexisting conditions, limiting annual and lifetime coverage for illnesses, cancelling your policy if you get sick, and spending 80% of your premiums on CEO bonuses and golden parachutes instead of health care. Mitt knows that Obamacare is modeled after his own plan that he installed in Massachusetts and that it worked really well there. But he still wants to repeal Obamacare. I’m busting a gut!

Mitt Romney thinks that individual states can do a much better job than the federal government to insure the health of the 40 million people who were uninsured before but are now insured under Obamacare and Mitt also thinks that the sates are supposed help insure the rest of us who will be helped anyway by the Obamacare, 2014 provisions, which Mitt wants to repeal. Even though insurance premiums and medical costs have already been slowed way down under Obamacare, under a Mitt Romney administration, premiums and costs will be free to skyrocket again, and the states will get the bill and some spare change with which to try and pay it. Incredible in the truest sense of the word, as in beyond belief.

It doesn’t bother Mitt a bit that states don’t exactly have a great track record of taking care of sick people. If you live in one of the 45 states that are currently slashing government services because of budget shortfalls, I’ll bet you are just laughing out loud right now about the idea of dumping a few bucks on the states and letting them handle your healthcare!

Mitt Romney also plans to weaken Medicare so badly that only the most desperate of seniors and the disabled on fixed incomes will be forced to use it and the rest of us will (without Obamacare) again be totally at the mercy of the insurance companies. Guffaw, guffaw! You seniors and disabled will be rolling in the isles (in your wheel chairs) when you get socked with the extra $6,000/ in medical premiums, plus reduced benefits. The rest of us will be snickering over the coupon that we will get from Mitt Romney to try and buy health insurance from the same insurance companies Mitt wants to deregulate. We will be laughing all the way to the ER!

Speaking of deregulation,  Mitt, the Wit Romney also wants to repeal all those not-so-funny recent regulations on Wall Street Bankers and Hedge-fund managers, put in place by President Obama and the Democrats in Congress, to prevent another economic melt-down. If Mitt has his way, his psychotic hedge fund and venture capitalist buddies can take your money back to the track, with no capital reserves to back it up, and bet the whole wad on Rafalca, in the third. And when they lose, guess who gets the bill…again?

Mitt Romney has been pushing a rollicking romp of mass deregulation for years, yet he just kind of took it  back, (sort of, can’t really tell with Mitt) at the first debate. Chuckle, chuckle! Like hide and seek! I can’t keep track of all the reversals, modifications, “I never said that”(s) (even when it's on video), and “that just won’t happen”(s), but I find myself involuntarily giggling hysterically, every time I hear a new one and wonder if the American people are laughing, crying, or just confused as hell about what Mitt actually stands for, if anything. Speaking of confusion…

Mitt Romney argued to let the auto industry die, so his venture capital buddies could buy up the scraps at bankruptcy yard sales. Even though the Big Three Auto makers are now doing better than ever, have paid us back with interest, and 1 million jobs were saved thanks to President Obama, Mitt still thinks that letting the U.S. auto industry die would have been a better business plan. He won’t explain why he still feels that way or give any credit to the President for his bold action. Kind of funny, yes? No? Funny as in weird, maybe?

Mitt Romney kept saying he was running for president because the government Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that unemployment had been over 8%, since Bush and Wall Street almost killed the economy. Now that unemployment is under 8% (7.8%), as President Obama’s policies are improving the economy without Mitt’s brilliant plans in place, Mitt is ignoring the BLS figures and switching to GOP-funded figures and right-wing conspiracy theories.  Ha, ha, ha, ha! Can’t blame a comedian for changing stale material…

Mitt Romney also has a plan to roll back the “burdensome, job-killing” environmental regulations that have been in place since 1970, so that his rich oil/coal/gas/nuclear buddies can go back to sinking holes in our back yards, lopping off entire mountains in our national parks, belching toxic fumes in our air, bringing leaky antique nuclear plants back on line, fracking our water tables with cancer-causing benzene,  and drilling  oil wells in deep, dangerous waters without the technology to cap the leaks. No more funds for boring, unmanly technologies such as wind, solar, and bio-fuels. Whoo, ha, ha! Drill baby, drill!  Deregulation of the old-timey energy industry will also have an unintended, but humorous long-range effect on over population.

On the international scene, Mitt Romney has consistently and grossly oversimplified foreign affairs to a  “release of copious amounts of testosterone," response to every crisis, real or imagined, even before all the facts are known. Mitt appears to have no idea about an overall diplomatic strategy, except that most of his foreign policy advisers are the same funny bunch of Bush/Cheney clowns who got us into Afghanistan, Iraq, left thousands of our boys and girls dead or wounded, and then left the wreckage for the next president to clean up.

You would think that a guy who has been running for president his whole life would have a firm grasp of international affairs, but not Mitt! Mitt Romney talks tough about China, but Mitt’s only concern with China in the last 20 years was about how to locate sweat shops in depressed rural areas, so he would not have to pay for U.S. workers. Mitt still has millions invested In Chinese cheap factory labor. What is really funny is that he expects us to believe that he will risk all of his millions and those of his rich political donors just to get us back the same American jobs from China that he outsourced there. I guess this is really more of a bad-smell kind of funny, if you think about it.

Mitt also thought it was a really bad idea to risk a surgical strike in Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden. Too risky. Bush had given up as well and Mitt never considered it a viable option. Yet Mitt Romney refused to give President Obama any credit for having the guts to keep his promise, revive Bush’s abandoned plans, and kill this murdering terrorist. How funny is that? Not funny at all?

We are now quite aware that Mitt Romney cannot speak coherently without memorized statements like the one he memorized at the first debate, when he said he would kill Big Bird. Just this summer, we were treated to a non-stop, slapstick, comedy of errors as Mitt managed, off the cuff, to insult the governments and/or people of every European and Middle East country he visited. And those were our allies! If elected our next President, we can look forward to Mitt Romney creating all kinds of hilarious international crises, almost every time he opens his mouth! It would be sooooo funny knowing that our commander in Chief was just heartbeat away from stumbling and bungling us into another regional war, or maybe even WWIII! You just can’t make up material like this! Too funny! I am about to pee my pants!  Mitt’s killing me!

J. Brandeis Sperandeo    

A Letter From Paul To Todd

Dear Todd,

Once again, you act like you didn’t get the memo. But this time Todd, you just plain blew our cover. You know we aren’t supposed to start calling rape victims whores and liars until AFTER the election. In fact, as our marching orders of The Plan clearly state, we are to remain absolutely vague and non-committal on all ideological/religious issues as well as all tax(breaks for billionaires), spending(on the military), budget balancing(gutting programs for the middle class and the poor), infrastructure(in China) policies, until mid-November, 2012. Lie and deny. Evade and accuse. Remember, Todd? Haven’t you been watching our Super Pac ads at all?

And Todd, please don’t tell me you never received The Plan from our state of the art social media/e-mail/phones/postal service, as we will not be cutting these services to the general public until January, 2013. Now, thanks to your little slip, we end up with fertilized egg on our faces!

What good does it do for Mitt and me to run screaming from all of our previously stated radical right-wing positions (even ones caught on camera and/or the U.S. Congressional record) when you tie us right back in to this big fat albatross of political inexpedience? AFTER THE ELECTION, TODD! Why do you think that Mitt is hiding his taxes?

Do you really think the American people would vote for Mitt and me, if they knew that it was Mitt’s Bain Company that laid them off, that their jobs were sent to 11-year-olds in China, and that Mitt personally made tens of millions off of each deal? It’s bad enough that the guy has seven mansions and a car elevator, but did you know the damage control we had to do when somebody spilled that Mitt got a $75,000 tax deduction for his wife’s dancing horse? That’s more than the average family makes in a year. If we hadn’t made up that phony story accusing Obama of supposedly taking the work requirement out of welfare, Americans would still be talking about that darned horse!

Todd, the plain and simple fact is that every day you stay in the race reminds Americans what Mitt, I, and the Republican Party now actually stand for. That was NEVER part of The Plan, Todd and you know it. It is bad enough that Bob McDonnell and Reince are writing a GOP platform more reminiscent of 1860, than 2012. Now YOU have to rub it in. Do you know how hard it is to keep lying to reporters in an airplane at 36,000 feet? 

Todd, buddy! For the sake of The Plan, you just gotta get out NOW! Fox n Friends will give you a great gig at least through the election and a brand new reality show, A Filthy Pig in Slop has promised to feature you for at least ½ of the season, if you drop out now! Do it for me! Do it for all the legislation we co-sponsored in Congress. Do it for every fertilized egg in every in-vitro lab in America. Do it for the 47 billionaires who are financing our campaigns all across the country. For crying out loud, do it for Ayn Rand!

 

Your (You’re?) Secret Twin,

Paul

 

Actually written by J. Brandeis Sperandeo              

The Ryan-Romney Plan and You

If you are expecting a snappy, smarmy, bumper sticker-friendly, long-on-spin, short-on-fact, Super Pac ad in the few sentences below, let me tell you that there is a new season of Dancing With The Stars which promises non-stop, zany antics, and I respectfully suggest that you surf away from my little post now, before that vague twinge of discomfort you already feel at Mitt Romney’s V.P. pick mutates into a full-fledged viral onslaught, complete with lost lunches, aches, pains, and definitely dizziness.

If you are wondering where I got my intel for this piece, I got most of it from the New York Times. I offer no apologies here. I am sick and tired of just about every other media outlet, as I find that most sources on both the left and the right cannot seem to stop pandering to the baser instincts of their reader/viewer base. Since the Times has often as not offered inconvenient truths that make even me want to r.u.n.n.o.f.t and dance with this or that b-list celebrity and/or disgraced convicted felon, I have come to trust it as a reliable source.

Paul Ryan has been in Congress for 14 years. Coincidentally, Mitt Romney has been running for president during those same 14 years. As you might have heard by now, Mitt Romney really, really, REALLY wants to be president and will say/do just about anything to get elected. But, because he has talked and talked and yet failed to make the cut for the last 14 years, he has developed a rather mind- numbing modus operandi that involves, uh, modifications of just about all of his positions on, uh, every issue known to humanity.

I am telling you this, because Mitt has thus far, wholeheartedly endorsed what has become known as the “Roadmap for America’s Future” or more simply put, the Ryan Plan, the architect of which just happens to be Mitt’s new running mate. Every Republican in the U.S. House voted for Ryan’s Plan, but Mitt could very well modify his mind tomorrow about last month’s “unequivocal” support for what Newt Gingrich called right-wing social engineering, so I am forced to write quickly, before Mitt can Etch the Sketch again. Okay, on to the short list I promised you:

1.      20% tax cut across the board and, only two tax tiers, no more tax loopholes, and all of this without adding to the deficit. Yay! Freedom! Liberty! Don’t tread on my yellow snake flag! Oh, but there are a couple of problems with this part of Ryan’s Plan. When the independent policy folks at the Tax Policy Center and the Urban Institute actually crunched the numbers and factored in the deductions that middle income families currently enjoy, it turned out that the richest 5% would make out like bandits, and the lower 95% would end up with a net tax increase. The average family would pay about $2,000 more in taxes so millionaires could buy  new Bentleys. Oh, and this tax reform does nothing to raise a dime in revenue.

2.      Medicare Coupons. Yes, coupons. Any citizen currently under 55 can, once they turn 65, take their coupon to the nearest trusted private health insurance company (hee, hee, hee! haw, haw!  snicker, snicker!) and theoretically buy  private insurance which would take the gummint completely out of the picture. Sounds very bold until you learn that by 2022, elderly coupon recipients would pay an average of about $6,400 more per year than they do now under Medicare, because the Ryan Plan does absolutely zilch to curb the rapidly rising costs of insurance and health care.

3.      Repeal Obamacare. Awright! Oh, wait. So all of those provisions in the Affordable Health Care Act that keep insurance companies honest would be gone AND we get a lousy coupon to buy private insurance? So we are back to denials for pre-existing conditions, spiraling costs, limits on yearly/annual claims and cancellations if/when we get sick, AND we get to pay $6,400 more?

4.      Privatize Social Security. Yes, Ryan wants us to give all the money from our payroll tax deductions to the very same clowns on Wall Street who gambled with our money (Muppet money they call it) at the track and lost. Oh right, let’s all entrust our only safety net to the psychopaths who created the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression and then lied to Congress about it. Do I really need to say more here?

5.      Get rid of all those “job killing” regulations. Yes, let’s let Wall Street hedge fund managers do exactly what they please with our savings, health care, and Social Security. All Part of Ryan’s Plan.

6.      Deep cuts to agriculture, education, transportation, science and much more! But don’t worry. Ryan would let the military budget rise with inflation, so mega-corps like Raytheon, Blackwater (changed name to XE, then Academi, or something else really spy-like), and Dick Cheney’s own Halliburton will not feel shortchanged.

7.      Okay, so with all these cuts/slashes/ privatizations but no new revenue, how in the world does the Ryan/Romney Plan, plan to balance the budget? Ryan’s idea is that, in 30 years or so, money will trickle down from all that unfettered economic growth and eventually balance things out. Yes, Trickle Down Economics again. I am not kidding and he isn’t either.

So, where is the Ryan/Romney “Roadmap for America’s Future” actually intending to take you and me and the rest of Middle America? In short, it is a roadmap designed for a one-way trip to a place that most of us would be crazy to want to go, excepting a few who are really into Extreme Personal Responsibility/Mad Max/Hunger Games, or other post-apocalyptic-survivalist scenarios. No doubt The Stars will still be Dancing in Ryan/Romney’s vision of the future, though the rest of us may be forced to steal some electricity to run the TV.

 J. Brandeis Sperandeo

Romney/Ryan "Go Back Team"

America’s Comeback Team? Like they are in the Olympics or something?

How about America’s “Go Back Team?” Because that is exactly what they are planning.

Back before 1973, so American women no longer have the right to privacy in their own homes, just like in many of the countries where Bain-tutored, U.S. corporations have already taken their factories and your jobs.

Back before 1965, so American women and men no longer have the right to use contraception, just like in many of the countries where the same mega-corporations enjoy cheap labor and tax havens.

Back before 1964, so American racial, ethnic, religious, and national origin minorities are still oppressed by Jim Crow laws and segregation in schools, work places, and all public accommodations, just like in many of the countries where those same U.S. corporations currently bribe local officials so they can do a brisk business.

Back before 1938, so American children can be forced to work 18 hours a day, in filthy, dangerous sweatshops for pennies a day, just like in many U.S. corporate factories overseas.

Back before 1880, so American unions do not even have the right to exist, just like in many U.S. factory shops abroad.

Back before 1863, so slavery will again be legal in America, just like in many of the countries where U.S. mega- corporations intentionally do business, so they don’t have to put up with modern American inconveniences like personal and religious liberty, fair pay, benefits, and safe working conditions.

The Romney/Ryan team intends to make all Americans Go Back as far as we will let them. How far are you going to let the Go Back Team take you?

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

A Break From The Internet

The only benefit to having my new, fancy, high-speed internet service down (for the seventh time) last Thursday was that I got to detoxify from main-lining up-to-the-minute political happenings. Once the D.T.s subsided, I even turned off cable news, so that I could sit and reflect a bit on more of an overview.

It is so easy to think of politics as a pointillist’s portrait, but the lousy wi-fi gave me a chance to sit and paint more of a landscape and with a broader brush. No, the finished work was not exactly a masterpiece, but since you asked…

Politicians will be politicians and my favorite politician sure took his time getting over the (oh, gosh, they really ARE a bunch of low-life, conniving, unscrupulous, criminal, spawn  of Satan on Capitol Hill) learning curve but, once he and his party took the not-so subtle hint from the American people and grew a spine, I grew ever hopeful that our country was yet capable of steering a safe course out of troubled waters.

But then I had to factor in the current overall state of the opposing Party. Even after 40+ years of following politics like some fanatics follow baseball, I had still underestimated the extent to which the GOP would adhere in lockstep to such a depraved, heartless, amoral modus operandi. Fed 24/7/365 on a steady diet of gin-soaked, Viagra-laced, corporate financed hot foie gras-fudge sundaes, with a way-too-generous sprinkle of right-wing mixed nuts on top, I lamented that the Grand Old Party had morphed, mutated from the party of lean, mean, fiscal conservatives, into a voracious, psychotic Jabba the Hutt-esque monster, bent upon busily and unashamedly devouring large chunks of our country.

Not satisfied to binge solely on its political opponents, this big-money behemoth has extended its viral (not like the cute video) purview onto the Beltway and into the heartland, even eating its own, purging its ranks of any moderates who still prefer political compromise to a virtual reenactment of the Crusades.

Make no mistake about it, the ultimate goal of today’s GOP is total economic hegemony, but the nuts I mentioned earlier appear to serve as both a facial disguise as well as a lure for millions of low-information, fearful, angry, needy, servile, voyeuristic, wannabes, who wanna believe that because the monster, as disgusting as it smells, still looks like them, it must represent America’s salvation.

Along the way to eviscerating and engorging itself on various local, state, and federal government competitors, the GOP (Jabba, the Blob, monster from Alien, GOPzillla, I don’t know!) doles out a few choice nuts among the more intellectually challenged disciples. The tactic being not to actually feed the ignorant masses but as part of an overall strategy to titillate as many as possible with fantastical distractions, so they don’t feel the last coin disappear from their pockets.

And so we get treated to red meat news stories such as how contraception prescriptions are secretly an affront to religious freedom and women who use them are secretly whores and prostitutes, and Hillary’s  deputy chief of staff is a secret Muslim extremist, and the gummint has a secret plan to massacre civilians so they can take our guns and our other freedoms, and the new Batman villain was secretly named Bane (in 1993)  after Romney’s company, Bain, to affect the 2012 election, and there are 78 secret card-carrying Communists serving in Congress, and there is a secret liberal conspiracy to make different people intermarry so that we are less white and less Christian, and I won’t use the word monster to describe our foreign President of the United States, but, ha, ha ,ha, you may feel free to, ma’am.

The GOP also seems to banking (and I mean in the Cayman Islands to the tune of a tax-free, $2,000,000,000,000), on the rest of us non-fringe citizens being so darned busy just trying to keep up with our own workloads (as well as loads from co-workers already laid off) to really focus on whether corporations should take over Social Security and Medicare, or whether millions more middle class jobs should continue to bleed out to Asia and South America, or whether it’s right that the new Walmart just put seventy local small businesses out of business, or whether we should/can stop the next big oil spill from flooding the ocean with benzene, or whether we should/can require the vulture capital guy who’s running for the highest office in the land to tell us how he scavenged so much capital. Wow.

Okay, so my general observations did not exactly produce the smarmy pastoral scene I had hoped for, but rather, a reasonably accurate overview, I’m afraid, even given the broad brush with which I allowed myself to paint.

Still, my short break from the media onslaught was curiously refreshing and gave me renewed perspective. I felt like I really could make some sense of it all. The next day, Friday, July 20, 2012, I broke down and switched on the T.V. at my home in Denver, to catch up on the latest news.  

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

Why We Don't Let The Houses Burn

Colorado is burning. More specifically, tens of thousands of acres in the foothills and  even some of the plains of Colorado are burning. Local, state, and federal resources have been diverted to fight these blazes. Why? Because many homes are burning and many, many more are still at risk. That’s what we do in America. We look after our neighbors as best as we can.

Yet I hear some say that families who choose to live in fire-prone areas bear the sole responsibility for locating their dream homes in the foothills and so do not deserve the fire-fighting resources for which the rest of us pay through taxes. I find this argument despicably mean-spirited and just plain morally bankrupt.

But, there is a more utilitarian reason why these good people deserve our protection. They pay taxes. Many of those now so precariously nestled up against the Rocky Mountains no longer have school-age children or otherwise educate their children in private academies, but they pay property taxes that are used to educate children in public schools who choose to live in safer, cheaper, and less picturesque locales.

In turn, the rest of us pay taxes that go to all fire-fighting efforts, even though we live nowhere near the danger.

This is a good example of what is called the social compact or social contract. We take care of them and they take care of us through the workings of a neutral government.  

Americans decided that the social compact was a good idea for America at the birth of America, as the newly minted Americans rejected the “live and let die” mentality of the feudal system they left behind in England. The feudal system was based on a kind of trickle-down theory, but our founding fathers had already learned the hard way that it was just a scam to allow the rich aristocracy to get richer and the poor serfs to “eat cake.”

Okay, does this make sense? The social compact is not Communism. In fact, we would not even have a free market economy if every individual still had to depend upon their own personal resources to protect and educate their own. This social compact has freed up the teachers to teach, merchants to merch, police to police, and just about everybody else to go to work without having to worry about what is happening to the ole homestead in their absence.

Yes, it would be great if local, state, and national politicians were more in touch with our needs, faster to respond, and more efficient in the execution. But, even as you  gripe about the gummint taking money for nuthin out of your pocket, please keep in mind that you are driving on  roads built and maintained by the gummint, crossing  bridges built by the gummint, drinking water made safe and pumped into your home by the gummint, picking your kids up from  gummint-run schools, protected by gummint police and fire fighters, listening to weather reports put out by the National Weather Service, and hunting, fishing, hiking, and biking isn national parks.

You can live in a cabin and write conspiracy manifestos like the Unabomber or a cave (actually a swanky compound) and plot to subvert the gummint like Bin Laden or you can join the rest of society and accept that the social compact is a good thing or at least a necessary inconvenience. Because it all evens out in the end. Quid pro quo.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, has upheld the Affordable Health Care Act, please think about the above argument and then consider the following:

1.     No Child can be denied coverage on her family’s plan for a pre-existing condition. This provision will extend to adults as well, by 2014.

2. No more annual limits or life-time limits for patient care, by 2014.

3. Your kid can now stay on your health insurance plan until they are 26.

4. Insurance companies must now spend 80-85% of the premiums they rake in, on actual health care and sickness prevention programs. You will be getting a rebate from your insurance company in September, 2012.

5. Insurance companies can no longer drop your coverage if you get sick.

6.     A discount for some prescription drugs for seniors, currently caught by the infamous Medicare “doughnut hole.”

7.     Free health screenings for seniors.

8.     All citizens will be required to accept the personal responsibility to either buy insurance by 2014 or pay a tax, so that the rest of us don’t continue to pay higher premiums for uninsured trips to the emergency room.

9.     Health insurance exchanges will be set up by 2014, so individuals can buy into much cheaper group plans.

Is the ACA perfect? Of course not. It was a political compromise based upon many bipartisan ideas, including the GOP idea about the individual mandate instead of the Democratic single-payer plan. Will it need to be tweaked in the future? Most certainly. Gummint programs are like new car models. It takes at least two years on the market to find the big design flaws and correct them. I suspect it will take until about 2016, to work out most of the kinks.

The ACA will NEVER equal perfect health care and I am not saying it will. Not every pothole can be filled. Not every criminal can be arrested. Not every home can be saved from fire. Not every child can be guided through school. Not every sick person will get well again. But gummint tries as best as they can, because we the people have agreed that we need this kind of cooperation and collaboration, to promote the general welfare of this country.

For those of you who still believe that private enterprise represents our sole salvation from a slow, cranky, and cumbersome government, I will borrow (and modify) a phrase from President Reagan, “Private enterprise will not solve the problem. Private enterprise IS the problem.” Sure, private enterprise might be able to get some of these things done better than gummint…if they wanted to. The problem is that they don’t care about actual people. They call us “muppets.” The general welfare is simply not the end of business. Profit is the end of business. Profit has always been and will always be the end of business. Live and let die.

That is why I’m still betting on the gummint to put out fires and now, to guarantee healthcare coverage for all.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo