Monday, October 28, 2013

What Does That Mean?


I spend a lot of time thinking about democracy. Well, it’s more accurate to say that I spend a lot of time thinking about the rights and responsibilities of life in these United States. Ahh, ... that is, I spend a lot of time thinking about democracy when I am able to escape from being forced to confront the various biases and frauds that surround those of us who live in the United States. Okay, okay, so I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about democracy, but I do think about it.

Usually, this train of thought is generated by the intrusion of some example of the power of capitalism. It is then that I remind myself (and everyone who’ll sit still long enough) that capitalism is an economic system, not a political one - which leads to: our political system is a democracy. Inevitably, the next thought is like that TV producer’s end of credits logo tag, “what does that mean?”

For me, democracy in the United States is at base the right and responsibility of the citizenry to actively participate; to vote and to hold government accountable to serving the needs of We, the People. Suffrage is the most powerful right bestowed by a democracy. It is the vote that gives the individual American a voice.

There are many forces at work to co-opt this right. Those who have benefited the most from both our political and economic systems now would like to see democracy replaced by a plutocracy where the wealthy trump We, the People, and they’ve got the lobbyists to prove it. Some say they have already been successful - except for that pesky voting thing. Witness the mind-boggling Supreme Court-enabled rush to the enactment of voter suppression laws.

This isn’t a contemporary phenomenon. This struggle has been going on since America’s Day One. In the colonies, land was wealth and the need for the settlement of a vast quantity of land supported upward mobility for those who had none in the Old World. For the most part, American colonists adopted the voter qualifications that they had known in England. Typically, a voter had to be a free, adult, male resident of his county, a member of the predominant religious group, and one who owned land worth a certain amount of money. It was a colonial belief, and one which persists in contemporary attitudes and tax policies, that only landowners had a permanent stake in the stability of society and paid the bulk of the taxes. While other persons, “are in so mean a situation as to be esteemed to have no will of their own.” The quote is from William Blackstone, an 18th century English lawyer who, I think, recognized the vulnerability of the poor and working class (albeit from a lofty and rather disdainful height). It’s a vulnerability that made the simplest forms of political patronage effective.

Up to 75% of the adult males in most colonies qualified as voters, but after eliminating everyone under the age of 21, all slaves and women, most Jews and Catholics, and men who weren’t landowners, the colonial electorate was only 10-20% of the total population. And it is this minority that has passed on a legacy of discrimination and bias at every level of the American political process. Even after suffrage was granted to all adults 18 years of age and older through the 14th, 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments to the Constitution, we have a federal government dominated by “rich, white men.” Even on bright sun-shiney election days as in 2008, scratch a little deeper and the would-be plutocrats will bring you the storm of the 2010 mid-term elections and the 2012 aftershock. Because, although We, the People have the right and responsibility of suffrage, we seem to really struggle with our decisions about who will get our vote.

Patronage once informed the choices of many voters over the first 200 years of American History. Jobs and holiday turkeys for constituents. Contracts and government subsidies for business. Tax breaks and shelters for corporations and the wealthy. Patronage’s curried favor was remembered in the polling booth. But, time and technology marches on and lobbyists and Super Pacs have redirected political attention to focus on the gears of capitalism rather than the will of We, the People.

In the early days of searching the Internet before you could carry a computer in your pocket and use it to make telephone calls, it was a huge concern to educators and pollsters that things read on the Internet were treated as the gospel truth, regardless of source or improbability. Perhaps people have become more wary of accepting anything that pops up in a search feed, but the wariness does not seem to extend to what is broadcast over the airways. If its on TV, it must be true. Enter political advertisements. No need for the immediate gratification of a holiday turkey-type patronage system, just bombard the electorate with ads attacking your opponent and painting yourself as a family man and patriot and, more than likely, you’ll get the majority of the votes - especially, if you can convince a governor or two to hold sway over election boards. It is absolutely amazing how many challenges can be found to disqualify votes. Remember the presidential election of 2000? Thank you, Florida. Not. And, the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission says that corporations and unions can spend as much money as they choose on independent and electioneering communications.

So, here we are, and for the first time in a long time, Americans are starting to realize the importance of their vote. Just in time to be run over by a speeding train, namely money in politics at levels heretofore never even dreamt of. Serving the will of We, the People has been solidly replaced by nonstop political fundraising. Legislation will not see the light of day until all vested parties have had a chance to buy the Congressional support to ensure that the legislation will be of benefit to the vested party with the most outlay. And, that is an understatement.

When Apple’s CEO stated before a Senate panel that it was perfectly legal that Apple paid no taxes of any kind to any country, despite making billions in international profits, he might have added a “thank you” to all the political contributions that helped shape the corporate tax code.

The Federal Campaign Commission mandates the following 2013-2014 campaign contribution limits for individuals: $123,200 overall biennial limit ($48,600 to all candidates $74,600 to all PACs and parties). I mean, really! Why would anyone contribute this kind of money, except to gain influence?

So, again, here we are. What to do? What to do?

  • Well, at minimum, We, the People should VOTE! On average, less than 50% of the American electorate actually votes.
I am also of the opinion that we should:
  • Demand more information and less infomercials from political candidates. If a candidate gets you all excited and emotional and appeals to your biases, then I suggest you take a cold shower and then take a moment to Google ‘em!
  • Stop saying how busy we are and pencil in a little time to participate in democracy. Check on how your elected representatives are voting. Make it harder for election ads to mislead. You can subscribe to an email from http://Congress.org that provides a summary of recent Congressional votes and upcoming Congressional Bills and how your representative or senator voted.
  • Read more. Try the newspapers of other countries. Or, if you have abandoned reading in favor of watching, try watching the news broadcasts of other countries.

I want a movement to ban all expenditures on political campaigns beyond a single government fund. This “single-payer universal campaign fund” would be evenly distributed between all eligible candidates. Broadcast time would be provided to all eligible candidates on the Public Broadcasting Service ONLY, with live-streaming and transcripts available online.

In the meantime, maybe we could have politicians wear video cameras, much like those that are more and more in use by police departments. Then again, remember the Nixon tapes? Yikes! Okay, back to the future! VOTE!!


Tuesday, October 15, 2013

When Sedition Is Not Sedition

Photo: Toe Tags-Street Pirate

So, the melodrama in Washington continues. The vitriol makes the rational American cringe. Wall Street looks to manipulate, as do the billionaires who are currently playing at being monarchs. The media doesn’t know whether to chase behind the sound bites presented by people who display everything bad about the American psyche, or, actually report the situation from the vantage point of informed journalism (guess which stance is winning). Meanwhile, most of us work at swallowing the rising bile of anger and sense of betrayal, and, worry.

Since the 2008 presidential election and the 2010 midterms that gave the Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives (don’t get me started on how that happened), I have recognized a distinct similarity to the Republican maneuvering in the final two years of the Clinton presidency. They distracted the country with issues that should only have had relevance to Clinton and his wife. Quietly, they obstructed and the government accomplished nothing. They waited for Clinton’s exit, sure that the distraction would result in a Republican takeover. And they were right.

Why mess with success? It appears that this plan of obstruction and inaction remained the Republican strategy leading up to the 2012 presidential election. They distracted with nonsense about the president’s birth and misleading information about the Affordable Care Act - well - lies, actually. The Republicans seem to have fully embraced the act of looking you straight in the eye and lying to you. They obstructed confirmation of presidential appointments and stalled on needed legislation. Then, oops!, the president was reelected.

Republicans have chosen to leave the realm of reality and trample their oath of office. They are sticking to their plan -  with an eye on 2016. Republicans are committing sedition, first by fomenting so much dysfunction in federal and state government in terms of how the people are being served by their tax money (read "stalled appointments," "nonexistent legislation to address jobs," “sequestration,” “government shutdown,” “threat against the credit and credibility of the United States economy”) and secondly, by controlling the vote. All the while spouting patriotism as a shield against any possibility of being legally charged for their actions.

It is my opinion that these are acts of treason and sedition. There should be legal charge and challenge to this domestic attack against the democracy of the United States of America. These are sentiments that seem to be increasingly shared and echoed across social media. But, whose job is that anyway?

And herein lies the rub. We do have laws that cover sedition and treason, both federal and among the states. However, they are worded to penalize the intent of violence and violent overthrow of the government.

The Sedition Act of July 1798 punished false statements with the intent to “defame” the federal government or “to stir up sedition within the United States.” It was a blatantly partisan political move against those who opposed President John Adams. It was allowed to lapse in 1801. However, the 1798 Act did generate important debate over freedom of speech.

The Espionage Act of 1917 made it a federal crime to willfully spread false news of the American army and navy with an intent to disrupt their operations, to foment mutiny in their ranks, or to obstruct recruiting. The Espionage Act was amended by the Sedition Act of 1918, which expanded the scope of the Espionage Act to any statement criticizing the Government of the United States. These Acts were upheld in 1919 in the case of Schenck vs. United States (Charles Schenck was secretary of the Socialist Party of America). However, by 1921, repeals resulted in maintaining only the laws forbidding foreign espionage in the United States and allowing military censorship of sensitive material.

In 1940, the Alien Registration Act made it a federal crime to advocate or to teach the desirability of overthrowing the United States government or to be a member of any organization which does the same. This act, known as the Smith Act, remains in effect to this day. However, sedition is difficult to convict, with exceptions that smack of America’s institutionalized biases.

In 1967, demonstrators against the draft were charged with sedition. The charges were dropped.

In 1981, Oscar López Rivera, a Puerto Rican Nationalist and Vietnam war veteran, was convicted and sentenced to 70 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and various other offenses. López Rivera rejected an offer of conditional clemency in 1999. He is said to be among the longest held political prisoners in U.S. history, having been jailed for over 33 years.

In 1987, fourteen white supremacists were charged with seditious conspiracy. They were acquitted.

In 1995, Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

In 2005, Laura Berg, a nurse at a U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs hospital was investigated for sedition after writing a letter to the editor of a local newspaper, accusing then President Bush of criminal negligence in regard to government response to Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. Charges were dropped in 2006.

In 2010, nine members of the Hutaree militia were arrested and charged with multiple crimes, including seditious conspiracy. The group identifies itself as Christian warriors, adhering to the ideology of the Christian Patriot Movement. The presiding judge dismissed all charges, except for a firearms possession charge. Three members pled guilty to possessing a machine gun and were sentenced to time served.

The crux of the matter is this: unless those members of Congress, who are determined to destroy the United States government and harm the economy for Main Street America, show up to their next session with guns ablazing, the law will not condemn them. This becomes a job for American voters.

The U.S. Attorney General has filed against North Carolina’s recent voter suppression laws. The ACLU is filing against the Kansas proof-of-citizenship voting law which suspended 17,000 voters in its initial iteration. But, until the American electorate demands maintenance of its right to vote and then votes, American democracy will remain the victim of gerry-mandered voting districts and voter suppression, not to mention the loss of civility in public life, brought to you by the will of some very wealthy, very greedy, very egocentric persons.

So, whose job is it to challenge the acts that are crippling the government? Voters.


Sunday, October 13, 2013

In the Realm of Ideas


When I was eight or nine years old, my family lived in a two-room apartment on east 60th Place in Chicago. It actually was the back two rooms (kitchen and dining room originally) of the second floor of a two-flat building that had been divided into three separate apartments, rather than one. There are many memories that I retain from the short period that we lived there.

My maternal grandmother would watch us kids for my mom and invariably would decide that she should clean out the refrigerator. The result would be a cake made from whatever leftovers happened to be there, and I do mean whatever! The amazing thing is that even pan-fried calf’s liver and the dreaded brussels sprouts actually could be turned into a tasty snack. Well, as long as you didn’t watch her prepare it! In those instances, ignorance was truly bliss.

My mother had a corselette - all black lace and red ribbons - that I thought was the prettiest thing ever. So, one day I wore it to school, complete with toilet-paper enhanced breasts. The look on my mother’s face when she picked me up, about an hour later, was a perfect version of her famous “How did I raise such stupid children!?” face.

There was the day someone’s cousin or the other brought home a container of the wax used to coat milk cartons. All of us neighborhood kids gathered in the yard behind my building and made casts of our hands. I can remember being terrified to dip my hand into the hot wax and then amazed to find that after that first layer, the cast could be built up completely painlessly. I think it good fortune that soon there was this chorus of mothers shrieking at us to “put out that fire” and “get your tail in this house” and from our porch, “No-reeeeen!” which translated into “all of the above.” It’s really no telling what we would have decided to cast next.

But, my favorite memory of all from that time are the days that I would scurry across Stony Island and the adjacent sliver of parkway and run across Museum Drive to the Museum of Science and Industry. There was no entrance fee in those days, so I was free to wander among the exhibits at will. Mostly, though, I would spend the hour or so that I had before I needed to be back home just sitting in the Great Hall and thinking ... just thinking. Not worrying or plotting or planning, just thinking. It was grand. It is this treasured memory and its many intellectual influences that continue to make me take any and every opportunity to visit the Museum of Science and Industry.

In 1989, the museum did it again and fostered another novel direction to my thinking. One that I still maintain and expand. The exhibit was Frank Lloyd Wright: In the Realm of Ideas. It was a traveling exhibit, a highlight of which was an actual life-sized example of Wright’s Usonian Automatic home installed on the museum grounds. I still covet that house. But mostly, I retain the contemplation of the lifestyle the Usonian design both stimulates and allows.

 The Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian Automatic house of hollow-core concrete block was designed so it could be built by anyone." The Chicago Exhibit was held from June - September 1989 at the Museum of Science and Industry. Photographer, Rich Hein. Date: 6-5-89. Location: Museum of Science and Industry.
Wright is known for many attributes, notably his Prairie Houses, richly detailed, labor-intensive designs for wealthy clients. Yet, Wright also believed that the basic building block of American Democracy was the freestanding private house. There was a quote in the exhibit that I have unsuccessfully searched for. Perhaps I made it up. But, it is the notion that the citizens of a Democracy must have a sense of “individual autonomy” in order to effectively contribute to the collective well-being as they direct government.


Interior view of Usonian Automatic House. Exhibition. Museum of Science and Industry. Photo acquired from the archives of the Chicago Tribune.
This has so many ramifications, this individual autonomy; the capacity to make an informed, un-coerced decision. I believe that acquiring this capacity is part of the initial trajectory of human development. Could it be that the toddler first crawls then runs at top speed just because she or he can? That “no” becomes a favorite word because it is a test of control? Likewise, the toddler’s insistence on personal choice in clothes is to stand against the tyranny of adults, albeit well-meaning adults. And on and on. With time, the natural desire for individual autonomy becomes informed (some might say suppressed) by socialization. Such that by the time we have control over, or rather the responsibility to select where we live, it is questionable whether the individual decides or the society decides. But anyway ...

The example of Usonian design in the exhibit offered the following elements:
  • A central space that is the hub of the home. where residents come to be together. It is uncluttered through a use of built-in furnishings and filled with light from window walls. In the exhibit version, this great room was bordered by a corner area that featured a division of the tall space into an intimate dining area and an upper-level office/den space. The dining area flowed into a galley kitchen, which maintained the height so that there were extensive built-in cabinets for storage.
  • One entered the home though doors which were mirrored across the entryway by doors which opened onto a terrace that ran the length of the house adjacent to the great room. This section of the house contained a hallway of built-in closets/storage areas on both sides and opened into bedrooms (the master bedroom had access to the terrace). The bathroom was at the end of the hallway.
  • Flow patterns allowed movement from the entry to the kitchen, the hallway (and thus, bathroom and bedrooms), terrace area, and great room. The great room allowed passage to the dining area, office/den, the kitchen, and back to the hallway.
  • The bedrooms were small with built-in beds, shelving, and drawer space, allowing room for a chair and side table.
  • Lots of interior wood. Everything in its place and a place for everything.
The intent of the Usonian design was that it be modular and allow a homeowner to determine configuration based on personal need and desire. It was also intended to reduce costs by allowing the homeowner to assemble specially-configured wall modules and other aspects, leaving the skilled labor to be completed by professionals. Another cost savings was in the built-in elements. They also minimized needed free-standing furniture. And, there were features which also addressed maintenance aspects.

I was particularly drawn to the expectation of participation. Like with the building plans and prefab homes you could once buy from Sears and other catalogs, it required input from the buyer in the configuration of the home. To have input has rarely been an affordable option. Yet having input is an important element of individual autonomy. It informs one’s thinking in ways that simply saying yea or nay does not.

So, Frank Lloyd Wright and time have passed and the Jeffersonian preference for open space, the pastural idyll, has given way to urban sprawl, and, biases of myriad kinds have given way to the decline of cities. And, unfortunately, the Usonian home has few existing examples. The horrible burst of the housing market bubble curiously does not seem to have generated much conversation around housing. I suppose it is reasonable to think that people are more focused on mortgages, foreclosures, and the myriad other important issues facing America in this 21st Century. Still ...

---

The mission of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is to “Create Strong, Sustainable, Inclusive Communities and Quality Affordable Homes for All. The HUD Strategic Plan articulates the goals that will guide and stimulate its activities to fulfill this mission during the FY 2010-2015:
  • Goal 1. Strengthen the Nation’s Housing Market to Bolster the Economy and Protect Consumers
  • Goal 2. Meet the Need for Quality Affordable Rental Homes
  • Goal 3. Utilize Housing as a Platform for Improving Quality of Life
  • Goal 4. Build Inclusive and Sustainable Communities Free From Discrimination
Wow! And that’s before you even get to the subgoals, strategies and measures that support these four goals. Here are the subgoals for Goal 3:
  • 3A.  Utilize HUD assistance to improve educational outcomes and early learning and development 
  • 3B.  Utilize HUD assistance to improve health outcomes 
  • 3C.  Utilize HUD assistance to increase economic security and self-sufficiency 
  • 3D.  Utilize HUD assistance to improve housing stability through supportive service for vulnerable populations, including the elderly, people with disabilities, homeless people, and those individuals and families at risk of becoming homeless
  • 3E.  Utilize HUD assistance to improve public safety 
It is notable that HUD has newly adapted a collaborative stance toward its mission. The strategic plan outlines a variety of programmatic approaches to working with local communities to address their particular needs. This seems to me a focus whose time has come, finally. I was also struck by the emphasis on counters to discrimination. Given the institutionalized nature of so many of our society’s biases, every element of the government needs to have such an emphasis. But, I will make a confession.

Reading the HUD materials made me extremely conscious, once again, of how much redundancy exists in American government, top-down and bottom-up. Much of the current struggle in the Congress has to do with how government will utilize its resources. It has been portrayed as the struggle between entitlement programs for the rich versus entitlement programs for the middle class and poor. This portrayal is accurate, but it also delineates why the struggle will not contribute to the strength and stability of the United States of America.

The available knowledge base, technology and resources that America brings to bear on the vision of our identity in this new century remain abundant. But, each of these is overshadowed by our very unique brand of capitalism. And in the shadow of capitalism, we will not do what most needs to be done - that is to return to first principles as we restore the faltering economy and rebuild communities devastated by natural disasters and economic ones.

Foremost among these principles is that every American must be ensured the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not only does everyone need a place to live, we need a place to prosper. We need the opportunity to not only be told about possibilities in schools, but to actually see these possibilities at work in our neighborhoods. We think of these elements as only affecting the poor, but how many people do you know whose adult children have returned to live at home because there is not affordable rental homes that enable the quality of life they came to expect from living with their parents?

All of which means that instead of planning more segregated housing patterns, we need the development of more mixed-income housing. Instead of just building affordable housing, which too often translates into boxes with very little consideration given to the lifestyle encouraged by the box. We need to insure that there is an aesthetic component to the architecture, and landscaping, AND building maintenance and sanitation services that are effective!

By way of example, back in the day I worked in a school where busing was utilized to address racial integration. One of the highlight activities of the school was a Bicycle Safety Day. Students came to school with their bikes, riding or being ferried in the family SUV. Since the school bus was not capable of carrying bikes and students who rode the bus would have to ride across several major streets, making that option dangerous, these students mostly did not participate in the activities of the day.

To address this oversight of planning, several of us - teachers and parents - decided to ride along with students in order to make a safe caravan in which they could bring their bikes to school. It was a hoot! But, what I remember most are the comments of parents as we waited for the caravan to form: “Why don’t these streets have handicap access at the crossings?” “Why haven’t these streets been cleaned?” “Wasn’t garbage pickup today? Why are these bins still full?” These were parents who lived less than a mile away, but had never before recognized that they lived in a different universe.

This is where collaborative government programs could have real inroads. Middle and lower income families often don’t recognize that they have a right to more than just a home. They have a right to a clean and pleasing environment in which to live and raise their families. They have a right to hold government accountable for providing the services that promote and sustain the quality of their neighborhood.

Here’s another example: as a young adult, I moved from Chicago’s Southside to an apartment on the Northside, just a block west of the lake. People would spend the summer evenings enjoying the beach and by evening’s end, the beach looked about as I had come to recognize it from my old neighborhood - garbage strewn everywhere! But, here comes the difference; in the early morning, sanitation crews cleaned the beach. Not once a fortnight, or whatever pattern existed on the Southside, but every day. Each evening when people returned to the beach, it was clean, not because no one left garbage, but because public works kept it that way. The instances where public services were, and are, not equally available to all neighborhoods of a city are numerous.

Every neighborhood may not be composed of Usonian houses, but every neighborhood can be inhabited by people who embrace their individual autonomy within the collective. This is learned behavior. As a society, we can teach this behavior just as easily as we now teach that those without wealth have no standing, and, by so doing, we would eliminate our institutionalized biases, like racial profiling and the “invisible” community redistributions of resources to benefit some at the expense of others.

Sometimes the most complicated of things are actually quite simple, where there’s a will - there is a way. You just do it! Our problem is that we have a system that reinforces the idea that only some of “we, the people” can have a quality life; that only homeowners or affluent renters are entitled to have input, and that wealth is the only measure of autonomy. We have integrated the notion that there exists “throwaway people,” as if they were not citizens, with protections under the law. And our housing patterns reflect this attitude. We’ll know when we have gained the will to make our country otherwise, when we establish effective mechanisms to make sure that everyone has affordable access: to quality housing, quality healthcare, and quality legal services!

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

To Share More Adequately in the Resources of the Nation.


Recent statements and attitudes from conservative politicians and their extremist factions couch their positions in such mean-spirited and biased ways that I am continually amazed that they seem so oblivious to the incongruity between their statements and attitudes and rationality and intelligence. I am most struck by how this is being played out around food stamps and the welfare system.

My perspective on the current political and economic attacks by the conservative Right, is a recognition that they are actually attacks on the the most commonly held tenets of American society. Those beliefs that most of us were raised to ascribe to America; fair play, opportunity, and justice.

Hmmm, let me rephrase, these current attacks should be understood as a continuation of attitudes and policies that have existed from the country’s earliest days -- from the colonial presence through revolution and nationhood. These policies and attitudes separate the wealthy from the poor in an attempt to eliminate from the American Democracy the influence of any except the monied - who consider themselves to be the “ruling class” and thereby entitled to dictate both the policies of the country and the behavior of others. Laws be damned.

As with all and everything in history, the evolution of notions of public welfare wind a long and circuitous road:
  • The Code of Hammurabi, 1772 B.C.E. ("along with all that eye for an eye stuff"), called for not only the protection of widows and orphans, but protection for the weak against the strong.
  • Roughly 14 centuries later, Aristotle opined that man as a social animal had to cooperate with and assist his fellow man.
  • ‘Philanthropy,’ ‘charity’ and related terms are ancient Greek and Latin in origin.
  • Within the Torah, Jewish doctrines teach the duty of giving, and, equally important the right of those in need to receive. (Here’s an aside: I found it really interesting that in this context, Christianity seems a move to acting out of service to the religion as opposed to acting out of individual responsibility.)
  • Ecclesiastical and secular charity was linked by the European evolution from mutual aid through monastic structures to feudalism to guilds to hospitals (attached to monasteries) to municipal authorities.
Seems pretty good, huh? But, just like now, a change in societal fortunes brings about reactionary policy changes. The English Statute of Laborers in 1349 was very similar to “Jim Crow” laws without the racial implications, but complete with all of the control aspects. Then in 1531, a statute was enacted that set punishment for able-bodied beggars and designated areas for the needy in which they could beg. In 1536 and 1572, respectively, paid alms collectors and an Overseer of the Poor were established along with a tax to provide relief to the needy.

But, the most influential in what would become the United States was the English Poor Law of 1601. Along with mercantilism, this law set patterns that shifted policies in recognition that subsistence depended on employment, not labor itself. Willingness to work, did not guarantee wages.

But, remedy in the colonies - as in England, was a local matter. Very quickly more and more colonies at ports and small towns found there were more poor, many of whom were refugees from various wars and skirmishes, than the local coffers could assist. This created policies that set residency requirements for aid and punitive consequences for strangers and the able-bodied who were destitute, including banishment.

By 1700, the General Court of the English colonies had begun state aid, in whole or in part for the needy, and local communities were reimbursed for the relief of “unsettled persons” with contagious diseases (who could not be sent away).

The establishment of state aid was accompanied by changes in attitudes toward the needy. Poverty came to be thought of as a crime and voluntary idleness was regarded as a vice. Such that the poor were bound out as indentured servants, run out of town, or put in jail. Poor and illegitimate children were removed from recalcitrant parents and apprenticed, as were orphans. Work houses were rationalized as both morally therapeutic and beneficial to the economy. 

What assistance there was for situations of obvious need was not available for Native Americans (who were being intentionally killed or starved) nor for Free Blacks, who were simply denied assistance. Slaves were considered the responsibility of masters and not of public concern.

Between 1700 and 1772, there was 1 pauper for every 4 free men in the colonies. Some were needy immigrants. Some were disabled soldiers or refugees from the frontier and Canada. Some were poor because of the seasonal nature of their jobs.

There were widows and orphans of seamen who died at sea. And, it is estimated that from one-third to one-half of all recorded first births resulted from pre-marital sexual intercourse, creating a rise in illegitimate children to be supported by public welfare.

Up to this point, poverty in England and the colonies was thought to be a part of the natural order. Remedies reflected this Calvinistic stance. But with the intellectual Enlightenment of the mid-18th century, as John Locke asserted counter to Calvinism, “poverty was not natural and incapable of being eradicated.” It was not something to be tolerated with stoicism and resignation.

With the emergence of the United States, “independence in the new world, where resources were abundant, offered Americans the opportunity, if not the obligation, to root out old errors and vices and erect a society which would be a beacon to the world. At the very least, if the independent republic and democratic rule were to endure, American citizens had to be exempt from such impediments as illiteracy, poverty, and distress to cast their ballots freely and rationally.”[1]

In subsequent decades, American welfare policies and approaches have ebbed and flowed, mostly according to economic trends, and, reflective of biases that assign poverty, again, as the fault of the poor themselves and a demonstration of their lesser character, and, also as structures of control and societal manipulation.

It is a sad fact that the stereotypes around welfare recipients are outcomes of the cement-shoes of racism that we Americans abide. Would contemporary welfare approaches be different if the majority of Americans understood that the majority of welfare recipients are not people of color? Would approaches be different if poverty was not regarded as a willful act of the lazy, whatever their race?

Fundamental questions remain. Many of them are embedded in our economic system, where they are hard to pry out for examination. I much prefer the simple, common-sense approach.

Should American welfare policies be adopted so that citizens who are without wealth will be recognized as having the right to be healthy, happy, and secure? Perhaps the first step is to stop demonizing the poor and worshipping the wealthy. Perhaps we just need to enact those so very illusive American tenets: fair play, opportunity and justice.

[1] Trattner, Walter I., FROM POOR LAW TO WELFARE STATE: A History of Social Welfare in America, 1984.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Letter From Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)

If you watch the anarchist tirades coming from extremist Republicans in the House, you'd think they believe that the government that governs best is a government that doesn't exist at all.

But behind all the slogans of the Tea Party – and all the thinly veiled calls for anarchy in Washington – is a reality: The American people don't want a future without government.

When was the last time the anarchy gang called for regulators to go easier on companies that put lead in children's toys? Or for inspectors to stop checking whether the meat in our grocery stores is crawling with deadly bacteria? Or for the FDA to ignore whether morning sickness drugs will cause horrible deformities in our babies?

When? Never. In fact, whenever the anarchists make any headway in their quest and cause damage to our government, the opposite happens.

After the sequester kicked in, Republicans immediately turned around and called on us to protect funding for our national defense and to keep our air traffic controllers on the job.

And now that the House Republicans have shut down the government – holding the country hostage because of some imaginary government "health care boogeyman" – Republicans almost immediately turned around and called on us to start reopening parts of our government.

Why do they do this? Because the boogeyman government in the alternate universe of their fiery political speeches isn't real. It doesn't exist.

Government is real, and it has three basic functions:

Provide for the national defense.
Put rules in place-rules, like traffic lights and bank regulations, that are fair and transparent.
Build the things together that none of us can build alone – roads, schools, power grids – the things that give everyone a chance to succeed. These things did not appear by magic. In each instance, we made a choice as a people to come together. We made that choice because we wanted to be a country with a foundation that would allow anyone to have a chance to succeed.

The Food and Drug Administration makes sure that the white pills we take are antibiotics and not baking soda. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration oversees crash tests to make sure our new cars have functioning brakes. The Consumer Product Safety Commission makes sure that babies' car seats don't collapse in a crash and that toasters don't explode.

We are alive, we are healthier, we are stronger because of government. Alive, healthier, stronger because of what we did together.

We are not a country of anarchists. We are not a country of pessimists and ideologues whose motto is, "I've got mine, the rest of you are on your own." We are not a country that tolerates dangerous drugs, unsafe meat, dirty air, or toxic mortgages.

We are not that nation. We have never been that nation. And we never will be that nation.

The political minority in the House that condemns government and begged for this shutdown has its day. But like all the reckless and extremist factions that have come before it, its day will pass – and the government will get back to the work we have chosen to do together.

Thank you for being a part of this,

Elizabeth

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

We, the People ...


Well, I was on a roll. Ideas for blog posts abounded at every turn and interaction of my world. Life was good! And then, American politics absolutely threw me for a loop. The workings or rather, the non-workings of our Congress is just beyond comprehension. They drove me to drink, rather than write! But, enough ostrich action. Here we go.

So, conservatives, libertarians, insurance and pharmaceutical companies and the American Medical Association (AMA) don’t like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Not surprising, they didn’t like the Health Security Act of 1993. Actually, they haven’t liked any approach to health care reform since forever. Well, notably beginning in the 1930’s.

Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to include publicly funded health care programs as part of the Social Security legislation. The American Medical Association went ballistic and opened their coffers to oppose any and all things connected with universal health care. The stage was set for the entrenchment of a deep political fear of any organized and well-funded opposition to health care reform. A fear that is ongoing and further instigated by today’s political organizations and lobbyists (not the mention the Supreme Court’s deregulation of political contributions by corporations, and, politicians themselves).

In the 1940’s, legislation was passed to support third-party insurers, mostly hospitals that offered their own insurance plans. The first of these plans became Blue Cross. After World War II, industrialist Henry Kaiser expanded the organization he had formed during the war to a nonprofit organization open to the public, with a structure similar to a contemporary HMO except for the nonprofit part (I found it interesting that The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation has the mission of “filling the need for trusted information on health care issues,” including global policies. http://kff.org). I’m still finding it hard to know who to trust. But, they are worth the read.

In 1949, President Truman attempted to make universal health care a part of his Fair Deal legislation. No dice. And once group premiums paid by employers became a tax deductible business expense in 1951, third-party insurance companies became the primary providers of access to health care in the U.S.

The legislation that established Medicare and Medicaid passed in 1965 under President Johnson’s administration. Still opponents, especially the AMA and insurance companies, opposed the legislation on the grounds that it was compulsory; it represented socialized medicine; it would reduce the quality of care; and it was 'un-American.’” Sound familiar?

In 1970, Senator Ted Kennedy introduced a bipartisan national health insurance bill—without any cost sharing—developed with the Committee for National Health Insurance founded by United Auto Workers (UAW) president Walter Reuther, with a corresponding bill introduced in the House by Representative James Corman. Congressional hearings were held for health care reform for the first time in 20 years, but no universal health care bill passed the Congress. But, reforms extending Medicare coverage in 1971 were signed into law by President Nixon.

In 1974, President Ford called for health insurance reform. AMA opposition during this period moved the conversation to a voluntary tax credit plan. However, with the change in the Congress after the 1974 elections, the AMA strategized in 1975 to support an employer mandate proposal instead of their tax credit plan.

By December of 1977, President Carter had removed the support he had given to universal health insurance when he was a candidate for the presidency. He told Ted Kennedy that the bill needed to be changed to preserve a large role for private insurance companies, minimize federal spending, and be phased-in so not to interfere with balancing the federal budget. Reverberations from this position are included in the arguments set forth in opposition to today’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Over his political career, Ted Kennedy fought long and hard for health reform. In 1985, COBRA was passed to give some employees the ability to continue health insurance coverage after leaving employment. The Clinton Administration made health care reform an essential part of its policy initiatives. During the Bush Administration there were a number of proposals offered to ensure the quality of care of all patients by preserving the integrity of the processes that occur in the health care industry. None of these were successful. Guess who, once again, opposed their enactment?

Bringing us back to the now and the continuing saga of health care reform in the United States.

Perhaps it is time that We, the People of the United States of America, step outside the hype of political parties, the AMA, insurance companies, and corporations and take the time to envision exactly what health care should look like in the richest country on the planet.
  • Should every American be able to depend on affordable and accessible, quality health care regardless of economic status?
  • Should every American have access to preventative maintenance of their health, regardless of economic status? 
  • Should every American have health insurance as a protection against emergency, unrestricted by the circumstance of age, or when you became sick, or what is making you sick?
Government becomes involved in these questions because of the word “every.” The policies and laws of the federal government should be designed to nurture the well-being of Americans, every American. Well-being begins with health and impacts all sectors of the society.

Opponents to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have failed to answer any of these three essential questions in the affirmative. Instead, they present arguments about cost and entitlement; complications and problems, but not once have they offered approaches to these elements so that the questions can be answered “yes.”

If these questions are not relevant to the naysayers, so be it. It means that their vision of America is a very unpleasant, narcissistic, greedy and oppressive vision. It is not a vision based on the reality of this country, which has prospered by the blood, sweat and tears of every American, regardless of their economic status. Theirs is a vision that should not be accepted or allowed. But that will ultimately depend on the will of We, the People ...