Addiction Affliction (Part 1)*

We Americans are habitual addicts. Indoctrinated into consumerism at an early age, most of us base every aspect of our lives on conspicuous consumption. Even when we work at producing something, it's all about being able to consume more. We're so enamored of self-indulgence that we've elevated addiction, per se, to a lifestyle.

Appetite, pleasure, well being, convenience and technology are the main ingredients of most addictions. Add varying amounts of greed, selfishness, indolence and flawed percepts and you have a winning formula for an addiction that's almost impossible to break.

In bygone eras, people worked hard, albeit at a slower pace, to grow, process, preserve and prepare their own food. The labors given over to such activities were part of making a living. Today, people work hard to earn money to buy inferior pre-packaged food that requires only a minimum of preparation. We no longer have the time or energy needed to make a home-cooked meal from scratch.

However, the object of the labor is the same. One must work in order to eat. The difference is that now our labor is co-opted by third parties to the betterment of third-party interests. In effect, we became the unwitting servants of a pervasive corporatocracy.

The same reasoning, the same logic, the same explanations can be applied to all of life's necessities. Houses, clothing, labor saving appliances—whatever it is we need—are all obtained in the same way. We exchange our labor for money, and then we exchange our money for that which we need or want.

Instead of working for a year or two to build a home out of materials that can be had at low cost or for free, we'll buy a pre-existing home and work for thirty years to pay off the mortgage. Credit becomes essential to our lives, and soon we're addicted to it.

Because the price of goods always rises faster than wages, we find ourselves in a classic dilemma. We work harder to increase our productivity, to make ourselves a more valuable commodity in the marketplace so we can earn more money. Often, we work more hours, further limiting the time and energy we have available to pursue personal goals. To free up more time and conserve more of our energy, we buy yet another labor saving device (on credit, of course), further increasing our indebtedness.

As the cost of living increases, we find ourselves lagging farther behind. At some point we discover that our life has become a racing, spinning, not so merry merry-go-round, and that the brass ring is always just beyond our reach. Each revolution of this vicious, whirling circle of insanity digs the rut a little deeper. Soon, the struggle to get ahead becomes a struggle to get caught up.

And so we become addicted to our job, addicted to the daily routine that having a job demands, addicted to the lifestyle we develop because of our job, addicted to our ability to accumulate possessions, addicted to our desire to keep up appearances. It's not just the job we're addicted to; every aspect of our job, everything that influences our job and everything that's influenced by it becomes a part of our addiction because it's a package deal.

Our job title, then, becomes an integral part of our identity. Whether doctor, lawyer, beggar, steelworker, stay-at-home mom, or blogger, we develop a behavior pattern specific to our identity, and we channel our thoughts and actions in ways that reinforce and protect our sense of self.

In essence, the identity we create for ourselves becomes an addiction, too.

*This article originally appeared, in slightly different form, on March 6, 2006, in Issue #26 of Petey’s Pipeline E-zine.

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Universal Health Scare

There are enough “strikes” in the Health Care Reconciliation Bill to take the Major League, the Minor League, and all the Little Leagues through an entire season of baseball. With all the misdirection that is part and parcel of the legislative process, it’s no wonder that legislators find it so easy to deceive the American public into accepting something they shouldn’t.

Maureen was right:

“The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.” —Maureen Dowd

Without the original bill, the reconciliation bill is absolutely incomprehensible. But, hey, I’m willing to bet that the original bill is pretty much incomprehensible, too. It’s a simple strategy, really; if no one knows what they’re voting for, they won’t know what they’re getting—until they’ve already got it.

The health care bill is just another example, in a long list of examples, of politicians adhering to the old adage, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”

It’s too much to expect that the people who already have health care should give a rat’s ass about the people who don’t.

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Jon Swift 1667—2010

Like the earlier Jonathan Swift, after whom the late writer/blogger Al Weisel named his blog (Jon Swift), the latter day version of the brilliant 18^th-century satirist was himself a brilliant satirical writer. But Jon Swift was more than just the name of an excellent blog; it was a pseudonym, a nom de plume, a pen name, and—so I like to think—Al’s alter-ego. Unfortunately, I never met Al; sadly, any chance I might have had of ever meeting him ended abruptly, with his premature death, on February 27^th.

But that’s not the end of my tribute to the blogger known throughout blogtopia* as Jon Swift, it’s only the beginning. However, from this point on, the story gets vastly more complicated and infinitely more convoluted. That’s just the way things are when everything is connected.

When Blogroll Amnesty Day rolled around in February of 2009, Frieddogleg was nearing two months old. At the time, most of the blogs on my blogroll were carryovers from an earlier blog (Petey’s Pipeline), including Chuck for…, a great lefty political blog, written by Chuck Butcher, that I’d been following for a year or two. Chuck gets the credit for introducing me to Jon Swift, who graciously added Frieddogleg to his blogroll; Jon gets the credit for turning me on to Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, who also blogrolled Frieddogleg; Skippy gets the credit for clueing me about Badtux the Snarky Penguin, ’Tux earns kudos for . . . well, you can see where this is going. Thus is everything connected.

Jon Swift also gets credit, either directly or indirectly, for my discovery of numerous other interesting blogs, including BLCKDGRD, The Barefoot Bum, MoltenMetalMama, We Move to Canada, Bad Attitudes, and Just an Earth-bound Misfit—all of whom reciprocal link to Frieddogleg, and all of whom I read whenever their respective authors post new content. Credit Jon, too, for many other blogs I’ve found (but with whom I haven’t yet found time to do the things necessary to complete a blogroll exchange). It was largely Jon’s generous spirit and liberal linking policies—not to mention the huge number of followers (relative to mine) he had—that convinced me that blogrolls have actual value, and that hugely popular blogs like Jon Swift are well worth emulating. No one knew better than Jon the importance of being connected.

With Blogroll Amnesty Day 2009 behind me (and a hugely expanded blogroll gracing the sidebar of my blog) I returned to blogging with new enthusiasm and a renewed sense of purpose. I looked forward to following Jon Swift because anything that puts a smile on my face or coaxes a laugh out of me before I’ve had my first mug of coffee—or before noon, whichever comes first—gets my nod of approval and all the support I can muster. I hoped that by interacting with Jon Swift some of Jon’s success would rub off on Frieddogleg so that it, too, could reap some of the benefits of being connected.

Jon Swift’s cutting edge satire prompted my sister to speculate that the blog was actually written by a writer—or team of writers—who wrote for Stephen Colbert. Apparently, a fair number of bloggers had similar thoughts. But things like that happen when everything is connected.

Jon posted what was to be his final entry on the Jon Swift blog on March 19, 2009. It was a short post (perhaps his shortest, ever), titled “Sometimes There Are No Words,” that brought to the attention of his many readers a sad personal tragedy that had befallen Chuck (of Chuck for…) earlier that day. The irony is that it was Chuck who, many months later, alerted me that Jon Swift had recently died. Interesting, the way things that go around eventually come around—when everything is connected.

Only the people who were closest to the blogger now known to the world as Al Weisel know the real reasons why he chose to hide his true identity from the legions of followers who provided, on a daily basis, quantifiable proof of Jon Swift’s success and popularity. Only they know for sure why Al suddenly and mysteriously stopped blogging for no apparent reason. The rest of us can only speculate.

To explain the identity thing, perhaps Al delighted in creating the aura of mystery that surrounded Jon Swift. That seems reasonable. The cessation of blogging as Jon Swift is a little more difficult to speculate away. I prefer to think that life simply intervened, perhaps threw at Al a project so large that no time for blogging remained. Throughout Al’s long hiatus I maintained a high degree of optimism that Jon Swift would one day return, and I waited patiently for that day to come. Mine was unfounded optimism, as it turned out; bloggers take time off, but Death never does, and Death had other plans for the man who kept his true identity cloaked in the mantle of Jon Swift.

In the matter of Al Weisel/Jon Swift, it’s fair to say that both blog and blogger were more than the sum of their individual parts; both were worthy of profound respect, and both had mine. R.I.P., Al Weisel.

R.I.P., Jon Swift.

*Yes, Skippy coined that term.

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Place Your Bets, Take Your Chances. Or Not!

Insurance is like a casino game. The insured bets that the insurance company will pay off in the event of a loss or claim, and the insurer bets that it won’t. Even when the “house” loses, it can still cut its losses by arbitrarily and unilaterally adjusting the amount of its “bet” downward. Sometimes, it simply refuses to pay.

The problem with giving insurance companies any part in health care—or health care reform—is that for-profit corporations exist for one purpose only—to steal as much profit (c’mon, you didn’t expect me to say “earn,” did you?) as they can for their shareholders and to pay outrageous salaries and bonuses to their top executives. Terms like “conscience,” “honesty,” “aboveboard,” and “forthrightness” are not part of the corporate lexicon, especially where profits are concerned.

Because health insurance companies have broad powers to discriminate in regards to whom they will and won’t insure—not to mention that they deserve much of the blame for rising healthcare costs—the idea of giving them carte blanche privilege to be the sole providers of health insurance for the masses doesn’t even come close to passing the straight face test. In terms of serving most members of society, a strong public option is a better way to go; in terms of serving all members of society, a single payer plan is the only way to go.

Maybe it’s time for House and Senate Democrats to back down* and give obstructionist Republicans what they want: scrap Obama’s current healthcare plan and start over. Start by kicking the insurance companies to the curb. Replace them with a single payer universal healthcare plan based on the Social Security/Medicare models, which work just fine, thank you, when conservatives aren’t trying to subvert them out of existence.

A comprehensive single payer plan would give everyone access to medical care and healthcare services regardless of their income, economic status or station in life. No citizen could be denied medical services, and everyone could choose their own doctor. Everyone would get 100% coverage for medical, dental, vision and hearing. The government, contrary to popular belief, would not be in the business of dictating healthcare choices, so a wide range of medical alternatives, including chiropractic, holistic, acupuncture, physical therapy, dietary, and preventive medical disciplines would be available on patient demand.

Funding a single payer plan is simple in theory if not in practice. Start at 10% of income for individuals, regardless of the individual’s source of income, economic status, or station in life. If you’re a 12-year old with a paper route, 10% of your income goes to 100% healthcare. If you’re a homeless person making a living by returning discarded cans and bottles, 10% of your deposit refunds (collected at point of return) goes to 100% healthcare. If you’re a retiree living on Social Security, 10% of your Social Security amount goes to 100% healthcare. If you’re a CEO hauling down a $1 million a month, 10% of your income goes to 100% healthcare. The plan is all-inclusive, with no loopholes and no exemptions. If you have an income of any kind, in any amount, you pay 10% of it for 100% healthcare.

Such a plan would be advantageous for companies—both large and small—that now find it onerous, if not impossible, to provide health insurance for their employees, as they would be relieved of the moral and/or contractual obligation to provide insurance. Healthcare practitioners and service providers would find relief, too, if only through simplified billing procedures.

But . . . but . . . but what if it takes less than 10% of income to fund the plan?

Reduce the percentage across the board. The plan should not exist to make a profit, only to satisfy people’s healthcare needs.

But . . . but . . . but what if it takes more than 10% of income to fund the plan?

Before raising the percentage on individuals, assess corporations a percentage of their income to make up the shortfall. After all, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people, too, didn’t it? Besides, some corporations are already getting health care (AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and General Motors, to name a few); they’re just not paying for it. However, in this case, health care should be limited to the kind rendered by medical professionals for the benefit of living, breathing humans.

But . . . but . . . but I make obscene amounts money, so I’d have to pay an absurd amount of money for my healthcare. It’s just not fair.

Relative to your total income, you’ll pay the same rate as everyone else. If your health isn’t worth 10% of your income to you, I’m prepared to argue that your life is less valuable than you want everyone to think it is.

But . . . but . . . but this healthcare plan will put health insurance companies out of business.

Oh, boo-hoo!

*A euphemism for stand up.

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Broken Promises, Shattered Dreams, Ugly Truths: Monopoly for the Masses

“I think Barack Obama is a one-term President.” —former Vice President Dick Cheney

Well, I think Dick Cheney is an asshole—but he’s probably right. President Obama runs a serious risk of being a one-term President because he’s largely failed to deliver on his campaign promises (the ones he made to the voters in order to get elected), and the window of opportunity for keeping those promises continues to shrink. At this point it makes no difference why Obama reneged on his promises; the end results are the same.

For what ails this country blame Obama, yes, but not before you blame previous administrations going back 30 years. Blame Wall Street’s shadow government, greedy corporations, and their minions, the lobbyists, too. In Congress, blame the Republican obstructionists and spineless Democrats who, for expediency’s sake, shirk their responsibilities to their constituents. Blame wrong-headed Supreme Court decisions; blame an ill-informed electorate that believes Faux News is the purveyor of gospel truth; blame a disinterested public that’s too dimwitted to fully understand the issues or too complacent to get out and vote. While you’re at it, blame the chickenshit defenders of the status quo (which probably includes all of the above); there’s plenty enough blame to go around.

The inconvenient, unbearable, ugly truth of the matter is that the U.S., as it’s existed for more than 230 years, faces imminent danger of becoming something the Founding Fathers never envisioned, something they abhorred. While a dysfunctional government watches dispassionately as the economy sputters and grinds to a halt, the social infrastructure of a once great nation inexorably turns to rubble.

Common citizens suffer for lack of jobs, lack of affordable housing, lack of health care, and lack of competent, trustworthy leadership. Meanwhile, a very small percentage of the total population ransacks the economy and carries off all the goodies—thoroughly shortchanging the middle class and totally disenfranchising all those below the middle class.

If current trends continue, it won’t be long before the people in the upper echelons of the middle class and those in the lower echelons of the privileged class begin to feel the pinch, too. When the richest of the rich have extracted every last dime from members of the lower classes, it’s only a matter of time until they begin feeding on their own.

In every Monopoly game, there can only be one winner.

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It's Only NORML

CBS refused to run a paid 15-second NORML ad on its 42nd Street digital billboard, so I’m letting the ad run here, for free:

Take that, CBS!

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Righting Wrongs by Writing Rights

Corporate dominance of the political process was foretold by the recent Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. FEC, in which corporations got the go ahead to spend unlimited amounts of money to back the candidates of their choice or to influence legislative outcomes. With that monumental error of lapsed judgment, the SCOTUS turned the tatters of our Representative Republic into an official Corporate Kleptocracy.

The problems attributable to corporate influence—and now, dominance—over our society are systemic, pernicious, deeply ingrained, and difficult (but not yet impossible) to overcome. These problems will, however, become more intractable as corporations flex their newfound political muscles and test the potential of the gift handed to them by the Supreme Court.

Restoring political power to the people won’t be easy, but, for the moment, at least, it’s still possible. Fran Korten’s Yes! Magazine article, republished by AlterNet, lists some specific ways to put the brakes on corporate ability to sway political decision-making processes. Even better, Quinn Hungeski suggests, on his AlterNet blog, that maybe it’s time to reintroduce some of the old laws that once governed corporations.

Not to be relegated to a lonely corner of the room, John Nichols, writing for TheNation.com (also republished by AlterNet), recounts how Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards assumed a leading role in calling for a Constitutional amendment to preserve the people’s ownership of our government and our elections, but Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, political activist and founder of Creative Commons, thinks that a Constitutional Convention is the better way to go.

Among the things that must be done immediately, if not sooner, to reverse the bad policy decisions coming from career politicians acting on behalf of corporate lobbyists are to make the necessary Constitutional corrections to ensure that political power resides with the people, and to implement procedures that guarantee fair elections at all levels of government. These are the logical starting places from which many other needed corrections will follow.

To all those politicians—professional or otherwise—who think that the smart bet is to curry favor with the corporations, I’ll say only this: Think again, dumbasses! Have you forgotten that every corporation’s primary goal is to cut costs and trim expenses to bolster the bottom line? How long do you think your job is going to last once corporations realize they no longer have to pretend they operate in a democracy? When they decide that you can be of no further use to them, your job is history.

But, hey, you can take solace in the fact that your job won’t be outsourced to a third-world country. It will simply cease to exist.

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Structuring the News

Do televised news reports often leave you baffled? This video shows the probable reasons why.

When TV news seems pointless, vague, confusing, irrelevant and incomplete, and it often leaves you scratching your head and wondering what that was all about, now you know why; there’s an app a formula for that. If you want fair and balanced news you can trust, you’ll have to make your own (or watch Jon Stewart on Comedy Central).

Many thanks to novelist Timothy Hallinan for bringing this one to my attention. Oh, and Tim shares a few of his ideas on how to effect some meaningful changes to our dysfunctional government at Murder is Everywhere.

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Looking for Answers (in all the Right Places)

In response to my previous post, Suzan (Welcome to Pottersville 2) asked what the first step is in dealing with the corrupting influences powerful corporations have on government. Having pondered that question for a few days, I’ve come to realize that I probably have a better understanding of what needs to be done than I have on how to go about doing it.

While I busy myself creating a laundry list of specific actions that will lessen corporate influence and help reverse a corporate takeover of the U.S. Government, watch this trailer for the 2003 documentary film The Corporation, based on the book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, by Joel Bakan:

Then, after you’ve seen the trailer, watch the 23-part YouTube video documentary series, from machbar, accessible under the right-hand column heading “Related Videos.” These videos are essential to understanding the dangers corporations pose to you, to society, and to all life on Earth.

Finally, read what PFAW has to say about the recent Supreme Court decision, and sign their petition for a Constitutional Amendment granting Congress the authority to limit corporate influence in elections.

In the meantime, I’ll keep working on the list.

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Winding Down the Coup-Coup Clock

There will never, ever be any positive changes to anything that matters to individual citizens until corporations are reined in and brought under strict government control. Despite the recent Supreme Court Ruling that gives corporations (including foreign corporations) the right to spend virtually unlimited amounts of money to influence elections and legislation under the guise of freedom of speech, under no circumstances must corporations be allowed to wield unrestrained and unlimited purchasing power to engineer a takeover of the government.

To say that ours is a nation in crisis only addresses the visible tip of the iceberg; it’s much more accurate to say that ours is a nation in crises. That’s right, many crises. An overpopulation crisis. An environmental crisis. A climate change crisis. A food-and-water resource crisis. An energy crisis. A crumbling national infrastructure crisis. A healthcare crisis. An education crisis. An economic crisis. If you must crowd all of these crises under the same umbrella, call it a sustainability crisis. Nothing about our current state of affairs is sustainable.

Everywhere you look, things are going wrong, and it’s incredibly naïve to think that corporations will do anything to alleviate these crises, or to act in ways that will help avert future crises. A corporation’s only goal is to make profits; it cares not a whit about common interests or about the commonwealth. Giving corporations unfettered control over the government will only guarantee more of what we’ve already got, and from there things just get worse.

For more than 120 years corporations have aspired (and probably conspired) to effect a coup by which to seize control of the government. Last week, the SCOTUS made every corporation’s fondest dream come true. Now it’s time to push back, to thwart this coup, to stop this nonsense, to put an end to the insanity that threatens to overwhelm us all. It’s time to change the national mindset, to collectively agree to make the changes that must be made if humans are to evolve, to thrive, and to endure as a species.

And, yes, time is of the essence.

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