Buffy Anne Summers, aka

Posts Tagged ‘future’

I’ve waited and waited to hear someone in the mass media to explain reality in these United States, and I see now that I have waited in vain. Well, since they won’t do it, I guess it falls on poor, humble bloggers like me. I am about to give you a little bit of my take on things, a little bit of my philosophy, my observations and my interpretations of what is really going on and what is going wrong with the way this country is operating right now.

Obviously though, I can’t cover everything, so I will stick to the big topic of the moment: health care reform.

As you all know, some evil hell gods who cannot be named have done everything possible to derail health care reform in the US, and as I hope you also know, they have done so not through serious debate, but by fanning the flames of hatred and ignorance.

So what are their objections?

Well, to listen to them, you would think their problem is that Obama wasn’t born here, or that he wants to kill off Republicans or old folks or women with breast cancer or disabled children or something, or that they don’t like socialist fascism or fascist socialism (and if you can equate those two ideologies as easily as they do, it is very doubtful you even know what either one of them is), or something.

But these are just distractions, the kind of thing passive-aggressive adolescent boys would do, angry little boys who are simply and metaphorically poking a larger sibling in the ribs with snide remarks because they’re afraid any authentic confrontation would result in the sibling out-muscling and overwhelming them.

No. The only real objections that make any kind of sense are that they are afraid it will lead to them having to pay more taxes, that they have this usually religious-based logic about imposing the harshest conditions on their fellow citizens as being good for their moral character, that they believe when the government helps people it diminishes their reliance on the rich and extremely religious, and that, for all the foregoing reasons and more, they are very much against what they call "the redistribution of wealth."

So let’s look at all that for a second.

1.
Could they wind up having to pay more taxes? Well, sure. If the program doesn’t do such a great job of increasing efficiency and of reducing costs (and it might not by the time the real Democrats get through trying to appease the Republicans and the faux-Democrats). But given the ever-rising costs of medical care and medical insurance, is it likely that their taxes will increase so much as to offset any benefits of health care reform? If they are very wealthy, perhaps. But then, if the very wealthy righties would back the plan and see to it that it does increase efficiency and reduce costs, probably not. So that doesn’t hold up very well.

2.
Is imposing harsh conditions on your fellow citizens good for their moral character? Perhaps. But some of us think life itself often does a pretty good job of that as it is without needing a push from the we-believe-we’re-morally-superior-so-screw-you citizens brigade. And even if not, is it really the intention to argue that it is the duty of some to ensure a tough life for others, on moral grounds? Is that really what Jesus would do? And I’m pretty familiar with both the old and new testaments, and as I recall, ensuring life is tough is God’s work and God’s curse, not man’s — so what are they trying to do? Be God?

Well, then, as Spike might say, I’m all for lots of suffering and melodrama, so long as it’s not mine, or just on the telly. (Spike was a fan of Passions, you know.) I am, after all, a novelist, or a dramatist, if you will, and without all that suffering and melodrama, and silliness and absurdity too, what would folk like me have to write about? But how about let’s let God be God? I’m sure He can dish out whatever harsh conditions He likes without their petty help.

3.
When the the government helps people does it diminish their reliance on the rich and the religious? Well, yes and no. Obviously, the rich will always have influence, and history suggests so will the religious. If the question is, does it reduce an average person’s reliance on very specific rich persons, yes, it probably does. If you mean does it reduce an average person’s reliance on monied people, of course not. As for reliance on the extremely religious? Well, er, since when can those guys be relied on? One day one of those guys is a straight anti-homosexual tele-evangelist and the next he’s a homosexual paying for thrills from male prostitutes, or, well, let’s not go into all the examples. That would fill a multi-volume encyclopedia. Maybe what they mean is they want people to rely on the church, and on charity. Okay. But what that really means is they want more control over people, and they want it through their favorite institutions of social control, institutions which have proved themselves woefully inadequate to the tasks, both of providing adequate care for those in need and of benevolent social control, for several centuries now — at least. So, hey, if some come to the conclusion that the real motivation here is simply to accumulate and augment their own status and power, well, aren’t you smart?

4.
And finally, for all the foregoing reasons and more, surely I can’t challenge that they are very much against "the redistribution of wealth?" I mean, that’s just their position, their ideology, their raison d’etre — just something they believe in and adhere to, right?

Actually, this is the most laughable of all, and as such, deserves special attention.

The right and left (or at least what we have been taught to think of as the left) — and almost without exception — have been redistributing wealth in this country for decades now, to the tune of trillions of dollars. That redistribution has all been from the bottom (from the relatively humble) up (to the very, very rich). The most obvious and recent example of this, and one the righties bring up quite often of course, are the recent corporate and financial industry bailouts, but a couple of others the righties hardly ever mention are the wars now going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. Oh, and just about everything that came before. Say what you will about the necessity of these or any other wars, but one thing that is undeniable is that some of the wealthiest interests in this country always make out like bandits. Money, money, money, with most of the expenses always, always being paid for by the average taxpayers and the lion’s share of the profits always, always going to the richest stockholders of our various military and high technology corporate contractors.

And this is not recent. This went on throughout the entire Cold War as well. Average taxpayers paid for all the weapons and technology research and some of the wealthiest interests in this country made a killing (literally). Sure, there have been benefits along the way for average people, not the least of which have been lots of jobs and to live in a country that has rarely been challenged militarily, but there has never been any effort to give those average taxpayers an even stake in that investment. The money has simply been sucked out of the working and middle class, while most of the profits from huge government contracts go to the wealthy and wealthier. That’s just the facts, and that is redistribution of wealth my friends, from the have nots to the haves, and if not for decades, it has at least recently gotten way out of control.

So all the right-wing Republican monsters and liars and zombies should just shut up about being against redistribution of wealth, because that’s not what they are against at all. Not any more than the Democrats are. What they are against is giving any of it back. What they are against is giving up a little of the wealth that the average schmucks in this country helped them accumulate so that anyone who is sick or sickly, or growing poorer by the minute, might have a little better shot at a little better life. What they are against is being part of the community that helped them and, in some cases, their ancestors, amass their great fortunes in the first place. What they are against is the larger community of the United States.

Okay, does anyone think that’s harsh? They probably say they love their country, and maybe in some sense, some of them do. And of course they want to protect their wealth. That’s only natural. Of course they don’t want to give it up if they don’t have to.

But does their concern about being impoverished by health care reform so that who they perceive to be the less-deserving members of this society have a little relief really hold up to scrutiny?

Let’s look at it. Before WWII, before FDR, over 90% of the old in this nation died in abject poverty. Before WWII, before FDR, if an average working man experienced a serious illness in the prime of his life, his productive life was essentially over. Because such an illness could be so psychologically and financially devastating in addition to the normal course of the illness, there was very little opportunity to get back on his feet again and go back to being a productive worker.

After WWII, after FDR, a lot of that changed. Gradually, social security, along with GI benefits, allowed people to survive without being such a burden on their children, allowed veterans an opportunity for an education, allowed workers to get a start, and although times were still very hard, allowed some to even get back on their feet again and become productive workers again after recovering from a serious illness. And in spite of all the propaganda from the right, the truth is FDR’s economy grew 58% from 1932 to 1940 in 8 years of peacetime, and then grew 56% from 1940 to 1945 in 5 years of wartime, and overall during his administration, in terms of the percentage of GDP, the gross US federal debt decreased. (It also decreased under Clinton and Carter and increased under Reagan and both Bushes.)

By the 1950’s, the United States dominated the world economically to an extent never seen before in the history of the world. A factory worker, on a single salary, could not only own a home and feed a family of four, he could send at least one, if not both, of his children to college, and still put money back for retirement.

Gosh, is there anybody out there who thinks all that economic productivity, and all that economic dominance and all that affluence could have had anything to do with all that "socialism" the right hated so much then and now? Where do you think the wealth in this country came from, you righties? It came from the hard work and productivity of average American workers who helped build companies based both on innovations and government funded research and development. It came from satellites, computers, electronics, jet planes, cell phones, nuclear power plants, hydroelectric dams, even the Internet — absolutely none of which would have ever come about if not for the "socialist" programs of FDR. His programs built those dams, his approach to government gave people the opportunities to become and remain productive workers and to have hope that they could better their own lives and the lives of their children. His administration and those who followed him built this country and its economic dominance on the principle that taxes for all and investment by the government today means profits for all tomorrow.

Don’t think so? Every major high tech industry in this country, in fact pretty much in the world, got its start because the US federal government invested in research and development in areas the average business interests and investors considered to be too high risk, either because the technology was just a theoretical concept at the time, or because the technology was in its infancy, or because they had little incentive to spend their corporation’s money to develop some technology that would have been just as advantageous to their competitors (who didn’t pay for it) as it would have been for them.

So what does all this have to do with health care reform? Because since Ronald Reagan, wealth distribution in this country has gotten out of hand, i.e., the kind of wealth distribution the right wingers secretly like, and hope the rest of us are too dumb to notice. There is now not much of a middle class left. Many estimate it to be less than half of what it was before Reagan, and experts say it is still shrinking, that the US is becoming more and more a nation of the very rich and the relatively poor with fewer and fewer in between. Having seen with my own eyes various people I’ve known for the last 30 years or so, I have very few doubts it is true. I have seen many, including some in my own family, become nearly destitute. And I have seen a few others strike it rich. But what I have not seen very much of is very many who have been able to maintain any kind of steady, predictable middle-class lifestyle.

So what does all this have to do with health care reform? It has to do with the wealthy stupidly shooting themselves in the foot and taking the rest of us out in the process. Stupid, wealthier-than-God, morons! How do they think this nation, or even this world, is going to continue to produce anything? How is this economy going to work if there is no hope? How are the rest of the world’s economies going to fare without their biggest customer? If there is no reason for US workers to get up and be productive because there is no hope, why shouldn’t they become criminals and terrorists? You’ve got to give people a chance to improve their lot. This is, or at least was, most of the basis of capitalism according to many of the righties’ intellectuals, which they all seem to have forgotten now. And don’t they know what happens to countries where it is nothing but the rich and the poor and there is no hope? Don’t they know? In the long run, it often doesn’t turn out any better for the rich than it does for anyone else. They often get overthrown in revolutions, they often get shot, or dragged through the streets, or blown up, or have their kids kidnapped, or get kidnapped themselves, and see the quality of their own lives go down and down and down.

Most of those "socialist" Europeans the righties love to hate have learned this. Maybe it’s because of their longer history. But why can’t we learn it without having to go through everything they went through? Why?

Okay. I didn’t make the coherent, level-headed, point-by-point argument I set out to. I guess I just had to vent.

But it just seems to me, except for the special interests and the very wealthy and very unpatriotic, if any of you righties are even half as intelligent as some of you seem to think you are, you should be able to consider the possibility that you are being manipulated, and I challenge those of you who are still capable of acknowledging facts to research and think about all this for a few days, and ask yourself exactly how did this country become the economic powerhouse it did, and don’t settle for some simplistic explanation that doesn’t require any thought on your part; look at the whole picture. And then, if you want to come back and prove to me how wrong I am, fine, power to you. I’ll appreciate the education, because I am open to facts (just not the right-wing funded think tank manufactured and made-up ones).

But otherwise, I suggest everyone find the most radical leftist supporters of health care reform they can and give them as much of your money and help as you can reasonably afford, and take to the streets and put the fear of God into the extreme political right, support health care reform, support the public option — Hell, support a single payer system! It is in the best interest of the rich as well as the poor as well as the middle class as well as the economy as well as the national security as well as the future of this country and this society. And since this sometimes militaristic country is likely to do little else but spiral downwards, morally and otherwise, if we keep on our current path, it might even be in the best interests of humanity.

Buffy saved her world, a lot. And people, it’s no exaggeration to say this may be our last, best chance to save ours.

On this, the anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, I thought it might be worthwhile to again assess the real damage done. Yes, there was the tragic loss of life on that day that now almost seems to have occurred somewhere else, in some other country, and I certainly do not mean to lesson the gravity of that loss, but I’m intent here on talking about some of the other damage that was done — the damage we’ve done to ourselves.

Although, prior to the attacks I would never have thought I would ever say such a thing, it was in some respects, a far more innocent time. In those more halcyon days, most of us I suspect thought that an American — with only the rarest exception — was simply an American, a US citizen simply a citizen, some of course better, far more responsible citizens than others, some to the political left and some to the political right, but nevertheless, a more or less given that, left or right, we were held together in as many ways as not by a common thread of understanding.

It is the sort of denial that seems almost a requirement to live in this post-post-postmodern age (or whatever), and it was naive, and perhaps in some ways it really was innocent, yet most of us I suspect know and have nearly always known that the edges of our society have always been raw with the rampant and the rabid, but that understanding nevertheless did not require very many of us to acknowledge the extent to which the half-cocked and half-crazed were waiting for their opportunity to pounce.

And suddenly, with the attacks, came that opportunity at last.

Suddenly, a man who was inarguably one of the most deeply flawed and unqualified to ever inhabit the house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, toward whom most Americans, judging by the polls, had already lost much of their initial good will and faith, became, overnight — primarily it seems because he could use a bullhorn and make a few terse comments — our Great Leader.

So we were told.

For many months — and to a slightly lesser extent, even years — after, to offer criticism of that particular president became tantamount to being unpatriotic, of offering solace to the enemy, of being un-American, of being treasonous.

So we were told.

As nasty as American politics had been in recent decades, it had rarely seen this sort of opportunism, this sort of vitriol, obsession, or sheer, mindless indecency. Suddenly, anyone who did not agree with the deeply flawed policies of our deeply flawed president had the choice of being silent or of being attacked by a propaganda machine with the sole intent of threatening, bullying, silencing, and blacklisting all comers.

Fortunately, enough fought back, and passions gradually cooled enough, so that that machine did not achieve the total political and media dominance to which its operators aspired. (At least some of us think it was fortunate.)

And yet.

Here we are today, still caught in the aftermath of a political tsunami in which it has become acceptable, even heroic to many, for an elected leader in our Congress to heckle the president of the United States in the middle of his speech, in which it has become acceptable, even heroic to many, to openly carry and display firearms into venues in which the president is scheduled to speak, in which it has become acceptable, even patriotic to many, to simply make up your own "facts" on any subject whatsoever, to attribute a statement to your opponent that is exactly the opposite of what your opponent actually said, to lie about everything, to give one’s loyalty only to one’s political party, or team, to concern yourself with winning only, and for your side only, and to treat any concerns about the actual future of this society as inconsiderable and beneath contempt.

It has been said, by many on the right, and on many occasions — in utter denial of all the damage that has been done — that we should all just shut up and be appreciative that the Bush administration protected us from further terrorist attacks. And I am willing to admit, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, it may well be that Bush, Cheney, et al, did protect us, that some of their policies were far more effective than we know, or are, apparently, allowed to know.

But even if all of that is true, if we should ever be attacked similarly again (or worse) there is still one question that has to nag incessantly at anyone in this country who still has a mind, who can still think a semi-coherent thought, who still cares: who or what will protect us from the fully-cocked and the fully-crazed, the rampant and the rabid, who are now orgasmically frothing at the lips at the thought of when their opportunity may come?

In short, who will protect us from ourselves?