The Layman's Guide to Ballot Propositions

A great deal of mischief has overtaken our state in the years since propositions have become wide-spread. Even if voters could understand these measures, rampant lying by promoters with vested interests makes prudent decisions virtually impossible. Aside from dubious policy matters, voters often approve spending measures which require a certain level of spending for a pet interest. In too many cases, these interests conflict, making budgeting unwieldy, even wildly unwieldy! But legislators’ hands are tied by conflicting statutes.

Propositions fall into two general categories: legislative initiatives, and budget proposals, usually financed by bonds. We’ll look at them separately.

Legislative initiatives.

Keep in mind that we hire, or elect, legislators to run the government. When we are presented with a legislative initiative, it’s generally a sign that our legislature is not doing its job. There may be matters that they are not qualified to negotiate, such as the sticky issue of gay rights. Admittedly this is a cause best worked out by public opinion---or really, by the courts. (Our freedom is not supposed to be contingent upon the fickle caprice of public opinion.) Nonetheless, this is a sticky matter for lawmakers.

Most legislative initiatives are complicated measures of law, unfit for our consideration. By the time these measures arrive on our ballots they are convoluted beyond the rational scrutiny of unsophisticates, much less semi-literate underclass.

An additional complication is presented by the driving force behind them. In simpler days, when a matter was thrown before the public, it was usually backed by public opinion. You might find young people at a table soliciting signatures to qualify the measure. These people were usually passionate regarding their cause, and eager to discuss the issue.

That has changed. Propositions are now big business. The groups that put these measures together, “Citizens for …blah…blah…blah…”, are front groups. The moneyed interests behind them are not interested in policy or public welfare; they’re just cooking up ways to make money. People manning the signature stations are being paid to collect signatures---usually a dollar or a dollar and a half per signature.

Even if the measure seems like a good one, we recommend close scrutiny. So many “good causes” either end up violating the constitution, clogging the courts, or imposing intractable confusion onto our budgeting process. Often the result becomes exactly the opposite of its intended (stated) position.

Our legislators have a vested interest in propositions in that they limit our legislators’ exposure to controversy. Generally, these people make big bucks by being in office---they must be, considering how much it costs to run for public office. For them to take a stand on a controversial issue threatens the security of their elected post. Sadly, most are in office for power and profit, not to make good public policy.

Robbinsense recommends careful consideration of any legislative matter that you may be inclined to support. Try to decide if this is a matter that’s being presented clearly enough for normal people to decide. Keep in mind that the side of the prop that gets the most financial backing is the one that will line the pockets of the special interests supporting it. If in doubt, vote the side that gets the least advertising. There’s probably a 95% chance that this matter should be decided by the legislature, not us. Unless you feel confident that you’re on top of the issue and the wording is clear, vote NO. Force our legislature to do its job.

Budget matters.

When the government decides to increase spending on something outside the existing budget, it has four choices: 1) If there’s no available money in the budget, it can raise taxes; 2) it can divert funds from other causes; 3) fund it without means (deficit spending); or 4) It can “borrow” money with a bond measure. Unfortunately, no legislator today is going to say, “OK we need a $600 Billion water project. Let’s raise taxes to put the funds together, then start work!” But floating a $600 Billion bond for a water project gets the job done, and it doesn’t sound like our taxes are being raised.

This matter is no different than you or I going out to buy a new TV. If we don’t have the money in the bank, we may buy it with a credit card, knowing that by borrowing the money, we’ll end up paying much more than the purchase price. In our new financial reality, more and more people are realizing the folly of living on credit. The prudent consumer saves money to buy consumer products with cash rather than using credit, or deficit spending. (See Reflections on the Credit Culture.)

But what about prudent government? It’s clear that many public services need sponsorship. Which do we pay for, and which should we ignore? Which are so important that we should borrow to achieve them immediately in the face of a legislature that will not [go out and get a job to increase its income] (this is another way of saying "generate the funds by prioritization or increasing taxes".)

At this time, California has $83.5 Billion in bond debt, of which $64 billion is in general obligation bonds. These are financed by tax-payers through our deficit-ridden budget. We also have an additional $47.5 billion in un-sold bonds already approved by the tax-payers.Bond indebtedness has increased by 143% in the last ten years, a measure of our legislature not doing its job. 6.9% of our budget goes to servicing these bonds, and it's projected to go to 11% in the next three years.

Robbinsense proposes the following check list to scrutinize bond measures.

1) Is this funding going to line some special interest pockets?

2) Is this an on-going expenditure? How often do we see school bonds on the ballot? Why is the government not supporting our schools from the general fund? What surprises have occurred to catch our legislature off guard, that they didn't plan for these expenditures ten years ago?

3) Is this a ploy by the legislature to accomplish something for which they don’t have the courage to raise taxes to support? Look on the ballot to see the cost of the measure…We’re going to pay for that directly through taxes, or later through taxes to pay off the debt, plus the interest. Or we’ll add it to our standing debt, trying to pass it on to our children, as the federal government does. If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, vote no.

Item 2 is the crucial one. Regardless of how obvious the need appears, we suggest that your final consideration should rest with this: should the legislature be raising money to support this matter, or is it proper to borrow the money and pay later? Remember, you’re going to pay for this either way; with a bond, you’ll pay twice as much, but it’ll look as though the legislature hasn’t raised taxes.

The greatest mischief has been created by our own folly. 100 years ago we were granted the "right" of ballot initiative---and we've been making a mess ever since. We pass initiatives with no method of funding; we stymie our budgeting process with mandatory 2/3 approval, then ask the legislature to make it work; we make it easy to cut taxes, and near-impossible to raise them, giving a small minority the ability to control the budget; we killed the predominant means for funding schools with Prop 13, then demand the impoverished state take over; we jealously protect "our" programs and declare "theirs" to be pork; we are short-sighted, and demand instant gratification. We are incapable of the wisdom and nuance of government; yet we deny ourselves the right to keep competent legislators, and guard our prerogative to go on making bad policy that cannot be undone by any legislature, much less the slackers we put in office.

The bottom line on all of these matters is that the state is in a mess. The Constitution is huge; we already have some 500 Constitutional Amendments mucking it up---nothing can get done. Force our legislature to act; passing propositions is not the way to do it. (Refer to On the State Budget.) Vote NO.

On the Generation Gap

Many Boomers will remember Future Shock, a tedious tome by Alvin Toffler, in which the author pointed out that progress is accelerating. That is, the rate at which things have changed during recent history is increasing, and it will continue to accelerate at ever greater rates into the future. The implications of this phenomenon are enormous, including his assertion that people become “disoriented” as society runs away from them.

In his magnum, 1964 opus, Understanding Media, Marshal McLuhan proposed that “The medium is the message”---or the “massage”. The essence of this assertion is that the nature of the medium that delivers a message has greater impact than the content of the message. (If you think kids are threatened by violence on television, McLuhan says, “No---whether they're watching The Revenge of the Terminator, or Mr. Rogers, it’s the fact that they're watching television that affects the viewer.) McLuhan broke media down into two general categories: “cool”, such as TV or a comic strip, which requires participation by the recipient, or “hot” such as a book or cinema, which does not. This, within the context of our examination is moot, but we will nominally accept the premise.

The “generation gap” is generally thought to be the resentment/hostility, or “disconnect” that exists between generations; but viewed from the perspective of these two postulates, it would be the inevitable result of the generations perceiving the world differently. They think differently!

We know that the human brain grows at an amazing rate during fetal development. At times 250,000 neurons are added every minute! At birth, almost all the neurons that the brain will ever have are present, though the neural networks are undeveloped. These networks develop rapidly after birth, and by the age of two, the brain is about 80% of the adult size. By around eight years old, the brain has fully developed, and begins to shed unused cells. It is during our early years that the mold for our thought and perception is cast.

Let’s look at the supposed generation gap between “The Greatest Generation” and “Baby Boomers”. By current standards, the greatest generation, growing up in the teens and 20’s, had limited sources of information. They received the great majority of their information and learning from printed material. The motion picture camera was developed by Thomas Edison in the 1890s, but “talkies” didn’t emerge until 1927; so cinema had little influence. By McLuhan’s estimate, this would make the GG relatively “linear” in thought---inclined to be methodical and logical, perhaps long-term goal oriented. Reaching adulthood during the great depression also had a hand in their perspective.

Television, (McLuhan’s “cool” medium), became wide-spread in the 50’s and had a significant impact on “baby boomers”. This gave them a different perspective on just about everything. Boomers also missed the great depression and a couple of major wars.

This shift in media from linear print to electronic occurred over the course of a generation. Using Toffler’s model, we see the next significant shift in media occurring during the 80s and 90s as personal computers became wide-spread. “Generation X” grew up on our fully-developed, commercial television industry, then was influenced by the computer age.

The lid is blown off for “Generation Y” in the 90s with the introduction of the internet, and we see book-learning becoming almost obsolete. Walking into a large library on a college campus now, one may be hard-pressed to find any books!

Let’s take a look at the media timeline. Introduction of the printing press in the 15^th century contributed to the Renaissance, but the church retarded the spread of knowledge to the extent that it took 300 years to arrive at the Enlightenment, which gradually replaced superstition with reason. (Some Republicans have still not arrived here.) There was no “generation gap” then. Progress occurred so slowly that it was imperceptible over the course of 20 to 50 years. Newspapers and magazines trickled in during the 18^th century. The 20^th century brought the introduction of radio, with motion pictures in the twenties, “talkies” in the 30s, TV in the 50s, computers in the 80s, the internet in the 90s. We will soon be looking at a "cyberworld" with technologically enhanced sensual inputs.

Meanwhile, a “generation” has remained roughly the same. Actually, people are now having children later in life, so the span of a generation has become slightly longer. Consider a rural, mid-nineteenth century teenager... education was limited, and probably his reading depended on whether or not his parents read. Class or caste systems retarded upward mobility. It was relatively easy for parents to retain the respect of their children who saw little upward mobility. The greatest to which the child might aspire was his parents’ station in life.

How different is that from now when a child of 8 or 9 realizes that he has skills beyond his parents’, this leading to access and knowledge beyond their imagination. Add to that the notion that his brain is wired differently because he’s absorbed almost all of his information from electronic media, and you’re looking at a real generation gap!

So what does this mean? If you’re a mid-50s manager and you have Generation X (mid-30s) employees who don’t seem to conform to your concept of “work ethic”, it may be that you don’t understand what’s going on. Xers are not big on plodding toward long-term goals, as you were. They’ve witnessed our failures, as we’ve tried to cash in on the promised good life. Life must work for them now. Success requires being an entrepreneur. Xers also grew up amid the dismantling of infrastructure and safety nets. They realize that big learning institutions won't pull them through---so, "do it yourself"---my skills, my resources, my judgment. It's risky to rely on others. Success for this generation is not measured by a killer job---it comes from a killer life. They are working on that today!

And what about Generation Y? A young adult today, maybe 9 or 10 when Bill Clinton left office, grew up with George W. Bush. He probably remembers nothing of previous presidents except Monica Lewinsky. This young person is politically jaded. His mind was formed sitting at his computer, playing computer games, and with instant access to the world through the internet. While a Boomer grew up expecting that he would prosper---that he would surpass the hopes and station of his parents---that if he studied he’d get a good job and have lifetime security and prosperity, the Yer sees nothing but trouble ahead: a troubled world, deteriorating environment, mountains of debt instead of trees, global warming, dying oceans, collapsing infrastructure, collapsing dollar, political chaos, over-flowing jails and a dysfunctional education system. Does he think he’s going to land a job that will bring him life-long security? Absolutely not! Compared to a boomer at that age, this young person is sophisticated beyond our imagination. But we see attitudes and work ethic that we can’t even recognize. This person is not convinced that our species will last 20 years, much less that he can land a job that will carry him that long. Things are changing so fast that aside from basic service work, there is practically no career that can be counted on to survive, much less ensure his security. This person is not going to tie himself to a job, knowing that in two months the job may be “out-sourced” or disappear altogether.

So the next time you're bewildered by a younger generation, before speaking down to them, please consider the possibility that you're a bit out of touch---that you don't have a clue what's going on for these people---and that they find you just as mysterious as you find them. The big difference is that while you're phasing out, they are phased in! It's their world; and if that world is a mess, it's probably our fault.

For further exploration, see J. Walker Smith: Success Means a Killer Life.

A Composite Healthcare Program

The “public option”, which appeared dead only a month ago, is now gaining momentum among the public. The latest polls show Democrats in favor by 65 – 35%, while even Republicans prefer that option by a small margin. “Blue-dog” Democrats are running scared for opposing reform while their constituency favors it by a wide margin. Even still, Democrats from states like Nebraska (huge insurance industry) are opposing it. This is the worst of politics!

First, there are actually two distinct issues: health insurance reform, and healthcare reform. Fortunately, the president has at last begun to defuse the “health” issue by addressing his focus as “insurance reform”.

The insurance issue is easier to unravel. The “public-option”, which is gaining traction, is ultimately the only sensible way to go. This is not the scary thing that right-wingers portray---with all their slogans about government bureaucrats and “socialism”. The public option is merely an extension of Medicare, an extremely successful and popular program. True, it costs money, but the alternative, and the system we have now is much more odious and probably more expensive.

Medicare could be systematically expanded by lowering the eligibility age over time to eventually include everyone. As a concessionary alternative, the public option could be added to the present system, available to all, for a price. This would be OK, in that it would hold the insurance companies’ feet to the fire over prices and benefits.

Any plan that does not include a “public option” is a complete concession to insurance companies and the status quo. Right now we’re hearing of “mandates” to purchase health insurance. This would be the worst of all plans, leaving the insurance companies in control---leaving the fox in charge of the henhouse.

The best option, in our opinion, is the total public option---like in Canada or Britain. Proponents of the status quo roll out spokespeople to decry these systems, but ultimately these negative testimonials appear to be straight lies or from the cherry-picked disgruntled. Our national health care should be a public utility; it’s too valuable to leave to the wiles of insurance executives and greedy stockholders.

The next issue, the cost, gets a bit stickier. There are many ways that our system produces out-of-control costs. One of the most egregious is the “multiple-test” scenario, in which doctors prescribe multiple tests to patients to cover their legal vulnerability. As long as insurance companies pay for the tests, the doctors prescribe more, running up their bills as well as those of the laboratories. This also brings more profit to the insurance companies, as a percentage of the total cost, all eventually covered by increased premiums. Another result of this scenario is an increase in the exposure of ill people to healthcare facilities, which are dangerous places for sick people! --- So these multiple, random, sometimes exotic tests run up everybody’s bills, covering the doctors’ liability, but have a negative impact on patients’ recovery. The government can control doctors’ liability through the plan, as they do in Medicare.

Another area generating enormous expense is the “final days” treatment for the very ill. There are a number of ways to handle this. The easiest is to pursue the so-called “death panel” approach (as described by Sarah Palin and other right-wing fear mongers) which really is only an avenue to allow people to prescribe how they wish their own care to be rationed in their final days.

Another way to manage this expense is to allow everyone to pre-determine his own level of “heroic measures” for their final days. There can be 2 or 3 different levels of procedures (and expense) available to everyone based upon their own decision made at some age---say 40 to 45. An individual would then pay a premium starting at that age to pay for their expanded level of coverage---the lower the age at commencement, the lower the premium. In this case, it would be important for all to know, including family members, what their relatives have chosen for their coverage.

Between a rational course of medical testing and a drastic reduction in the cost of keeping the very sick alive, a great deal of money can be saved. Further savings can easily be realized by cutting drug costs, as covered in a previous essay. Drug advertising on TV should be stopped, as it is outlawed almost everywhere else in the world. This alone would save billions. The existing prescription drug plan is designed to maximize drug company profits.

The most compelling piece of this puzzle, and perhaps the most difficult to unravel, is the issue of responsibility. Here we see the greatest possibility for savings. Who, after all, is responsible for our health? Is it our doctors? Insurance companies, the government? It is we, ourselves, who must shoulder the primary load of this responsibility. Can we ask society to take care of us when we don’t take care of ourselves? Yes, but not in good conscience.

The paradox of the “nanny state” is that while our government is proposing to insure our health, at the same time its policies now promote ill health. This hypocrisy must end. Then yes, government can definitely help us on the road to better health.

This begins with diet. Nutritious food must be available at an affordable price. Perhaps the most intractable problem is our ubiquitous junk food, so inexpensive that many are driven to eat it out of budgetary necessity. A lot of money can be saved by ending subsidies on the greatest culprits: beef and corn. Beyond, that, high enough taxes should be levied upon junk food to make it more expensive than good food. In this category we find candy, pastries, cookies, soda pop, chips, “twinkies” (processed foods), and fast-food restaurants.

This matter has actually appeared on the table. We saw a commercial on television in the last week with a shopping housewife, desperate over the possibility of a tax on her soda pop. One might think her children had to have this to stay healthy!

We need to face the consequences of unhealthy lifestyles. “Free” healthcare might be moderated by a “fat tax”, through which people assume responsibility for life-style choices (which cost the public dearly) by paying initially small insurance premiums for being overweight. These “taxes” should mount for those who continue to gain weight. A person 50 pounds over established weight standards may be asked to pay $50 per month---$100 for a hundred pounds, etc.

The beauty of such a system is that it serves itself. That is, the generation of income to pay for healthcare would come from these various (voluntary) taxes, which would “encourage” us to improve our health. This would presumably result in better health, lower health care costs, and bring the system to pay for itself.

Easy enough? Yes, but in addition to the Republican Party, considerable political forces are arrayed to oppose change from our present system. Write to your representatives.

Abortion and Politics

by Jackson Dave

At a luncheon meeting last week with our editorial staff, a charming lady of past acquaintance, a recent GOP dropout, expressed doubts over supporting the Democratic Party because of its pro-abortion position. In response to this sentiment, Robbinsense will step forward to tackle just another difficult cultural issue.

As we perceive it, the Democratic Party does not promote or even endorse abortion. The Democratic Party endorses “choice”. In contrast, the Republican Party, which wails over government intrusion into our lives, tells us that for this matter, government knows best (as long as they run the government) and should step into our lives by removing our right to determine our family.

GOP nostrums over “morality” are specious at best. Abortion is not a moral issue---it’s a spiritual issue. Slogans about “murdering babies” are just inflammatory rhetoric. A zealot’s passion does not bestow truth or legitimacy on any matter. “Murder” is “unlawful killing”; abortion is legal. A fetus is NOT a baby…one need look in a dictionary to confirm these definitions.

But defining terms, or "framing the issue" seems to be the field where Republicans have found mastery; and "death" stirs. We have "death tax" for estate tax, "death panel" for a frank discussion with ones doctor about end-of-life consideration, and "killing babies" for the voluntary termination of pregnancy. This works!

But beyond the rhetoric, does the party really oppose abortion? From 1990 through 2000, the number of legal, induced abortions in this country gradually declined. Considering that abortion only became legal in 1974, these are significant statistics, at least implying that the policies of the Clinton Administration, following 12 years of Republican rule, led to a decrease in the abortion rate. Statistics for subsequent years are difficult to assess considering the intensity of forces opposing abortion. Aside from political “noise”, there is a stream of legislation requiring parental notification among other things, direct intimidation at clinics, outright killing of doctors and the closure of clinics all over the country, making it ever more difficult to find these services.

For political perspective, over the years since American soldiers liberated the Northern Marianas, tens of thousands of people, primarily Chinese and mostly women, have been lured to the main island, Saipan, told they were coming to a job in America. All the flights arrived in the middle of the night. It's scary for the workers; they had no understanding of where they were going to end up. Most of them, in the late ‘90s, were paying huge recruitment fees.

They soon discovered they were essentially indentured servants, thousands of dollars in debt to the company men who had recruited them and often forced to sign secret "shadow contracts." They agreed they wouldn't date, they wouldn't go to churches. If they got pregnant, they'd have an abortion.

The factories, many owned by the Chinese Communist government, manufactured clothing for some of the biggest retailers in America - from the Gap to Jones New York - and legally labeled them "Made in the USA." But workers were paid a pittance. It was a very sweet deal made possible because Congress had exempted the territory from U.S. minimum wage and immigration laws. It was just understood that if a worker filed a complaint against her employer, she would be deported.

The owners had a tremendous amount of control over these workers. They lived behind barbed wire in squalid shacks; the Interior Department called them "labor camps." Forced to work twelve hours a day, often seven days a week, their pay was barely half the U.S. minimum wage. Many were paid with checks that could not be cashed. There was no opportunity to just "walk out", essentially no escape.

Republican Senator Frank Murkowski, then Chairman of the Committee with Oversight of U.S. Territories, traveled to Saipan with Allen Stayman to investigate. But when pressure began to mount to challenge conditions in the islands, the owners hired Jack Abramoff to correct their image. Abramoff set out to paint a different picture, promoting the Marianas to conservatives as a free-market Eden for maximizing profits. He began running all-expense paid tropical junkets for lawmakers, their staff, and conservative activists and journalists.

Abramoff's marquee guest was Tom DeLay. When DeLay, his wife, and daughter and Ed Buckham arrived in 1998, DeLay praised Abramoff as "one of my closest and dearest friends." DeLay later told a Texas newspaper that contrary to reports that workers were being sexually exploited, he had interviewed them one-on-one and found no such evidence. "It's a beautiful island with beautiful people who are happy," he said.

Their first night, Abramoff and DeLay were hosted at a party thrown by Willie Tan, a Chinese textile tycoon who had already paid the largest labor fine in U.S. history - $9 million for sweatshop conditions in his factories. Delay told Tan, “You represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America - and in leading the world in the free market system...” After attending a cockfight with him, he called the Marianas a "petri dish of capitalism" and denounced efforts to enforce U.S. laws.

Turning the Marianas into a conservative cause was crucial if Abramoff was to block the growing bipartisan consensus in Congress that U.S. minimum wage and immigration laws should be enforced in the islands. Were these “conservatives” worried about the forced abortions?

In the rare inside look at big time lobbying, Abramoff bragged he would work his Congressional connections "to impeach Allen Stayman" and "either defund or severely restrict" Stayman's activities at the Interior Department. According to Interior Secretary, Bruce Babbitt, “Mr. Stayman has been subjected to a massive campaign of intimidation, much of which is being orchestrated by the paid lobbyists for the government of the Northern Marianas.”

Sen. Frank Murkowski's reform bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent. But that's as far as it went. The bill died in the House. “We passed it again, and still nothing was done.”

Nothing was done because Jack Abramoff - and the Marianas' garment industry - had Tom DeLay in their pockets. When Willie Tan met with a human rights activist posing as a clothing buyer from New York, a hidden camera recorded their conversation. Tan was confident he had nothing to worry about.

Tan: “…because Tom DeLay will never let it go.

You're sure?

Tan: Sure. You know what Tom told me? He said, "Willie, if they elect me the majority whip, I'll make the schedule of the Congress. And I'm not going to put it on the schedule." So Tom told me, "Forget it, Willie. No chance."

Willie Tan would contribute $650,000 to DeLay's "favorite non-profit," the U.S. Family Network, with its stated mission of restoring America's “moral fitness”. Furthermore, the Abramoff team persuaded the Bush White House in 2001 to intervene and fire Allen Stayman, who had advocated reforms in the Northern Mariana Islands that Mr. Abramoff opposed.

"We pulled the plug on him," announced one White House email. They got rid of Allen Stayman, and those workers in the Marianas remained at the mercy of Willie Tan and his ilk. No high-level Republicans raised the issue of forced abortions imposed on these exploited women.

There are those who would argue that DeLay, among the many high Republican mucky-mucks who traveled to this island, was ignorant of the conditions of the indentured women, who were being sexually exploited by their “jailers”. But really, who in that position of power could be so naïve as to not suspect that this situation was enforced? And with anti-abortion as the lynchpin of the Republican Party agenda, why was this not pursued?

The real Republican hierarchy has no more inclination than Tom DeLay to oppose abortion. The GOP uses anti-abortion as a “wedge issue” to motivate passionate foot soldiers to their cause. Anybody who believes that Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich or Ralph Reed, for that matter, cares about abortion probably also believes in fairies---or that Sarah Palin sits at home at night, stewing over unwed, teenage mothers. While preaching “pro-life” and churning up as much anger and demagoguery as possible, they know that overturning Roe-vs-Wade would destroy the Party.

For those who would impose “morality” into the issue (their morality, always), consider that Christians don’t bother to claim that abortion violates the teachings of Jesus. Somehow they seem to “just know that it’s wrong.” From a moral consideration how could any person or group impose forced carriage to term of a baby born to a poor, teen-aged mother from the ghetto, likely to bear a “crack baby”, requiring enormous, perhaps life-long public services? The only “moral” position a non-hypocrite who denied abortion to this woman would take is to assume personal, perhaps lifetime financial responsibility for the child. Instead, these crusaders deny poor women birth control and family planning options (“just say no”), then insist that public services in the form of long-term welfare be denied to these needy people. Good Christians? That’s a bad joke.

Hence, to our concerned friend, we say that actually both parties appear to be concerned over reducing unwanted pregnancies. The Democrats’ plan focuses on women’s issues: equal rights, health services, education, birth control and family planning. The Republicans use deprivation of services, along with sanctimony, intimidation and fear…oh yes, “Just say ‘No’”.

Ironically, GOP focus on the religious aspect of the issue harkens back to the earlier roots of Christianity when people were motivated by guilt and fear, fear of God and fear of judgment. Now we are to fear bands of aroused Republicans.

Jackson Dave is a staff writer for Robbinsense

Healthcare Revisited

by Jackson Dave

Approximately 44 million people in this country have no health insurance while another 38 million have inadequate health insurance. This means that nearly one-third of Americans face each day without the security of knowing that if and when they need it, medical care is available to them and their families.

Significantly, this group is under the age of 65. Seniors, who have Medicare, are the largest group opposing reform, and the largest group that opposed the election of President Obama. These people aren’t “philosophically” opposed (if they have their wits about them) to “socialized medicine”---rather, they are afraid that the extension of their benefits to other groups will result in dilution of their own benefits.

So what’s the fuss? Wendell Potter, former head of corporate communications for SIGNA, the largest healthcare insurer, left the industry after a chance exposure to our actual health care mess, to advocate on behalf of people’s health. He says:

… "we shouldn't fear government involvement in our health care system. …there is an appropriate role for government, and it's been proven in the countries that were in that movie”…(Michael Moore’s Sicko).

…also “opponents of reform say we don't want the government to take away your choice of a health plan. Yet it's likely that your employer and your insurer will switch you from a plan that you like to one of these high deductible plans in which you're going to find that much more of the cost is being shifted to you than you ever imagined.

… “we have a memo written by Frank Luntz, the Republican strategist who wrote the script for opponents of healthcare reform. "First, you have to pretend to support it. Then use phrases like, "government takeover," "delayed care is denied care," "consequences of rationing," "bureaucrats, not doctors prescribing medicine"".”


While opponents of reform “cherry-pick” the disgruntled from those systems to spotlight their case, the Holy Grail of healthcare is “the public option”, which now exists in Britain, Canada and Japan, available free to all. Republicans oppose this concept because it threatens the vested interests generating enormous profits under our system, which produces the worst healthcare statistics of the leading 29 industrialized nations, at twice the cost! Like seniors, the relatively small number of Americans who have excellent health insurance and benefits fear the prospect of being lumped into the larger pool, with perhaps degraded services. Generally they don’t really care about the health of the less fortunate who would benefit greatly from the public option.

To counter the force of this extremely attractive prospect the GOP has launched a massive propaganda campaign, spending $1.5 million per day, to frighten us into believing that this is “socialism”, that our health care benefits will suffer, that we will be driven to bankruptcy (as if we’re not already there), and that our civilization will collapse. The program of spin, distortion and lies---slinging out a stream of canards, watching to see what gains traction, and scaring the hell out of us, is standard GOP procedure for all political objectives. This machinery was used in the election last year, and has been perpetuated to sabotage the president’s legislative agenda, regardless of merit, and to dismantle any prospect for healthcare reform.


So what’s really happening? In 1993, when President Clinton attempted to push through healthcare reform, the industry made $2.5 Billion profit on health insurance and devoted approximately 95% of revenue to payment of healthcare expenses. In 2007, devoting only 80% to payout, the industry generated $12.5 Billion profit.

The reason for this trend is clear. Health insurance is in the hands of private enterprise, that much-hallowed, sacred cow. The boards of directors of the major insurance carriers have no responsibility to their customers except that which is enforced by the courts or government. An un-happy customer is not in the market for more insurance---he’s sick and trying to cash in on his policy. This is a client they want to dump. There's no incentive to pay for this customer’s health needs.

The boards of directors’ fiduciary obligation is to their stock holders. Stock holders don’t care a whit about sick people. Insurance companies are in business to make profit! Their stock prices jump or fall with each report of falling or rising medical payout ratio.

The primary social contract that lies between government of a democratic republic and its citizens is the government’s obligation to protect its citizens from external threats and from the rapacious drives of commercial enterprise. In what area is that obligation greater than basic health care? This is not just about how people feel; it’s about their financial stability and the viability of their family. Sick people who cannot afford care end up losing jobs, homes, families---all ultimately requiring public assistance. Healthcare should be a basic, public utility---not an industry manipulated by big-business mucky-mucks interested only in making money.


So why can’t we manage to arrive at sensible legislation? The short answer is political smoke. The Republican Party is masterful at motivating their constituency to make noise, and lots of it. There are many factors contributing to the success of their tactics, but perhaps the most salient is that this group makes life very uncomfortable for those who oppose it. Sarah Palin can accuse the President of advocating “death panels” for the elderly, and her devotees take to the streets. They’re easily motivated by anger over any number of things---probably angry because they think she should be president and they hate Democrats, or they hate black people---it doesn’t matter. Angry people can be motivated to action to oppose any agent that they can be manipulated to believe is victimizing them.

Right-wing mobilization surfaced during the Reagan years, as modern “conservatism”. Activism surfaced in opposition to President Clinton, but became demoralized and dormant under George W. Bush. Now with a “liberal” president and Democratic control of Congress, it has resurfaced with a ferocity unfamiliar since McCarthyism of the 50's. Calling these people "conservatives" is a stretch; they are radicals in every sense.

In the face of lies and smear campaigns, the left fights an up-hill battle to present its actual policy. The (“liberal”) media is complicit with the right by presenting their lies as “news”. Gone is Walter Cronkite, a real journalist, who would look into what’s happening and tell us that all of this chatter is a pack of lies! Rather, the press, with its milquetoast “reporters” report---over and over---what’s being said (not what’s really going on), giving veracity to the lies. This rabble, along with hysterical claims is grist for 24-hour cable news, which hungers for sensational anything. The more noise and the bigger the controversy, the greater the coverage. This creates a situation in which not only is the truth subordinated to lies, but one in which shameless lies are actually privileged over reasoned debate. The American public is aware enough of this bullshit factor that Jon Stewart (of Comedy Central) has replaced Uncle Walter as the most trusted source of news in the country.

The same lack of real journalism, by the way, is what led us to permit our government to wage war in Iraq and led us to the economic cliff. The sad truth is that most of our reporters are not prepared to distinguish government lies from truth. Actual journalism requires footwork, research, time and support from editors.

Now we see wackos carrying assault rifles to healthcare rallies. These right-wing proponents of “individual rights” appear for the express purpose of denying others the right of free expression that they demand for themselves. While they openly advocate murder of major political figures (including the president!), what intelligent normal citizen will stand up to them?

We Americans are so naïve, so politically unsophisticated that only a small number see the Republican strategy for what it is; and once again, these tactics have gained enough traction to throw the campaign for healthcare reform into disarray and possibly failure.

But while the forces of opposition are mobilized and unrelenting, there is some hope that reason will prevail. There are differences between what occurred in 1994 and today. Though the Obama base is contracting, today it is more diverse and more deep seated. The healthcare fight has brought doctors and even some drug manufacturers to support reform. Democrats with wavering support today see that success of the right-wing attack will embolden endless confrontational gridlock. They may be driven to the realization that the only politically feasible response is a counter-offensive.

Aside from their belligerent opposition, and in spite of claims to support Medicare, Republicans are actually (and quietly) proposing its dismantlement. They want to phase out Medicare for all who are now below the age of 55. Instead, those citizens would be offered a yearly allowance to “shop” for private insurers, essentially throwing seniors into the same dysfunctional pool with the rest of us. This would, of course, generate ever-greater profits for the insurance industry. A review of this agenda will bring most observers to discount their movement.



In 1934, William A. Wirt, a “Rush Limbaugh” of the age, accused the Roosevelt administration of a plot to launch a Bolshevik takeover in the United States. Wirt’s assertion was transparently absurd, but right-leaning institutions, including the New York Times and Los Angeles Times (with Harry Chandler at the helm) were quick to jump on board and air his claims freely. Those who were opposed to the New Deal were offered a concrete foundation for fear and alarm. Unlike President Obama, Roosevelt met these challenges head-on. Wirt was hauled before Congress to testify. His story was revealed to be fabrication and he became a laughing stock (as well as those institutions that advanced his claims). The Republican Party scrambled to disavow their previous endorsement.

The rebellion of baby boomers in the 60’s and 70’s from the twin shocks of the Vietnam War and Watergate signaled the beginning of our “modern (intellectual) age”. We would no longer be “hoodwinked” by slick politicians. The "information" age of television and the internet has brought sophistication to our children that most boomers will never know.

Yet even now stories of “foreign birth” and “death panels”, pronouncements from supposed “experts” dispensing silly nonsense about matters over which they know little, fill the airways. Town hall meetings are broken up by supposed “grass-roots” groups that are organized by prominent Republicans and get deferential treatment from the press. Claims that the president intends to establish a “socialist state” embolden red-necks to carry assault rifles into public meetings, advocating assassination of public figures.

We may look back condescendingly at Wirt, yet if he came on the scene today he would eagerly be given public forum of talk shows and major political rallies by those who oppose the president’s agenda. An educated man (Wirt was superintendant of schools in Gary, Indiana), he would be lionized even beyond “Joe the Plumber” as a purveyor of truth. Are we really no more sophisticated than those of three generations ago who would latch onto the elixir of any snake-oil salesman who preys on our naiveté by saying what we want to hear? It appears that we’re not.

Jackson Dave is a Robbinsense staff writer

Belief, the Choice

United States Tennis Center, N.Y.
September 6, 1993

(Mary) Carillo: Michael, Let’s get you first. Tremendous match! At 5-all in the fifth, it looked like you had this match, and the tournament wrapped up. What happened?

Chang: You know, Mary, I thought I had it…but well, I kind of collapsed. Actually, my Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ, let me down.

Carillo (in unfamiliar territory, the muscles in her face form into a gaze of utter stupefaction): …a muffled “huh?”

Chang: Jesus is always there for me, Mar; he completely left me today.

Carillo: Mike, are you ok?

Chang: God’s a big tennis fan, you know?

Carillo: Well I am a Catholic ….

Chang: Aaw, you Catholics don’t KNOW God!.....Seven consecutive matches Agassi has whipped me!...and he’s a fucking Arab, not even a Christian! I’m through----

Carillo: dumbfounded-----


You may have missed this interview; actually, so did we. He lost the match; but the interview took another course. Chang, ever the gracious loser, was always on script after a victory: “First, I want to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ---without his help I could never have accomplished this.” You’ve heard many athletes credit victory to God, but never blame God for a loss. Do they actually believe this? Largely, Yes! How can that be?


In April we began a series on religion and God. The April article explored “Intelligent Design” (Creation Science) and what is the nature of man?

In July we explored God: what is the nature of God, and why do we believe in it? This month, as promised, we look at the individual. What is it in an individual that leads him to religion? Why do two people with similar backgrounds, similar education, similar intelligence and similar social status come to different conclusions on religion? Why would those same two people disagree on political perspective?

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching while standing on one leg, said, "The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary." St. Augustine said that scripture teaches nothing but charity. All else is ambiguous.

Given the simplicity of our religious tradition, how does the Republican Party, the party of guns, war, capital punishment and torture become the party of our good, God-fearing Christians?

This comes down to ambiguity. The religious mind does not deal in ambiguity. If it’s good, credit God; if it’s bad, God’s taken the day off. To deal with the ambiguity that God’s hand is at work in failure is a breach of faith. There’s no conscious evasion of reality here. Some people’s brains work this way.

Essentially, they see the world in black and white---good/evil, right/wrong. And it goes far beyond religion. The good Republican ascribes all good works in the public sphere to the Republican Party. Anything that goes wrong is the fault of Democrats. Somehow their man, be it Reagan, Bush, Cheney, Palin---even Nixon, is beyond scrutiny. And don’t bother discussing it! Most of those who couldn’t stand behind these men, in case you haven’t noticed, have left the party.

Researchers have shown that even in humdrum, nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently. Their brains work differently. Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work. Read the linked article for specifics of the study.

Conservatives (generally “right-wingers”) crave solid answers, while the left-winger accepts uncertainty. Your Robbinsense editor, for example, relishes ambiguity, and frequently drives right-wingers up a wall with simple expressions of doubt. How often do you hear people ask, “Are you sure?” How, I beg you, can we be sure of anything, when we find countless examples of “certainty” collapsing into falsehood. But the right-winger readily jumps into commitment.

In the religious sphere, man’s craving for explanation leads to the acceptance of “spiritual” answers to the every-day mysteries of life…religion. Witness the paroxisms that the Episcopal Church is going through as it attempts to accommodate the diversity (and ambiguity) of modern society. The rigid, “Christian” wing of that church is threatening to branch off. Notice that “good, church-goers” tend to be conservatives---Republicans. The Republican Party caters to this mind-set by manipulating their base with social "wedge issues". They seem happily oblivious to the disconnect between their religious heritage and the political positions of the party.

The “right-wing brain” compartmentalizes issues, which yields simple solutions to difficult questions, such as creation. These people live in an “ideal” world that conforms to their perception. They welcome and cling to voices that re-enforce their beliefs; the shrill voice of a Rush Limbaugh is welcome, as he reflects the distress involved in challenging doctrine. Diversionary tactics, such as the use of euphemisms are effective tools for validation. If their man calls it “enhanced interrogation”, that's good enough. He's not a criminal, a recognized felon, practicing torture. End of discussion.

Beyond this, scientists have now shown that their brains are actually built differently.

“Liberals have more gray matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear,” said the study on Thursday in Current Biology. "We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala," the study said.

The study was based on 90 "healthy young adults" who reported their political views on a scale of one to five from very liberal to very conservative, then agreed to have their brains scanned. People with a large amygdala are "more sensitive to disgust" and tend to "respond to threatening situations with more aggression than do liberals and are more sensitive to threatening facial expressions," the study said.

This leads to a significant dichotomy in human nature: Some people, when they’re wrong about something, want to know it---really want to know it. They are willing to put their ego on the line and expose themselves as “wrong”. In order to take such a stance, one must first accept the notion that they may be incorrect. This is acceptance of ambiguity. Others (perhaps most) who do not entertain the notion that they may be incorrect (about anything), do not want to discover that they’re wrong. They certainly don’t want you to revealed it! A chink in the armor of their perception leads straight to identity crisis. One way or other, these people will excuse themselves from a conversation moving in that direction. Mingling of these two groups has the potential to produce sparks when the conversation strays from health, sports and the weather.

Those on the left, or even center, are mystified by the unconditional allegiance that their right-wing friends afford their “favorite sons”. The “left-wing brain”, which recognizes that beliefs are opinions, not fact, holds his favored politicos up to scrutiny, realizing that they may fall from grace. Witness Rachael Maddow and Keith Olbermann on the left lead their sessions with items of contention that they find with President Obama, while conservative media, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, never stray from support of Republicans---never express doubt or recognize hypocrisy. Their audience doesn’t tolerate it, because they have no desire to question their own logic, to examine their own beliefs. They live in an unambiguous world where their beliefs stand up to all scrutiny.

This produces the political divide that we currently face in this country, where the two sides are polarized. The base of “mindless Republicans”, is actually well-considered; it’s just that their minds are made up. To them, Democrats seem wishy-washy, un-focused, unpredictable and un-trustworthy.

Where do you fit? You probably have friends that you can place into both groups.

What Ails our Healthcare Industry?

Amid the current national discussion over health care and healthcare reform, Robbinsense will endeavor to unravel some of the actual issues in play.

The two primary issues at stake are 1) the health of our population, and 2) the cost of providing healthcare. The primary obstacle to real “health care” is a system conducted within the realm of “private enterprise”….that is, it’s driven by profit motive. There’s very little profit in health. Profit comes from illness. Hence, to maximize profit the system ultimately must be designed to promote illness. Unfortunately, our political system is perfectly aligned with that objective, as we will see.

Pundits and talking heads on the right tirelessly decry the “socialization of medicine” and use the catch-phrase: “Do you want a government bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor?” to rally their passionate troops. Their unspoken answer is: “No, we want an insurance company bureaucrat to do this instead.” Let's take a look, and you decide which you would prefer:

Our healthcare system is a dance between the healthcare industry and the insurance industry. The HCI, which includes the pharmaceutical industry, is profit driven; it makes money off of illness, not wellness. The insurance industry maximizes profit by excluding ill people from its roles, regardless of whether they have been paying premiums. Only government stands between that industry and this objective. Hence, ultimately, we find the government bureaucrat---plus an attorney---standing between us and our doctor whenever the insurance bureaucrat is also there. If we want to cut bureaucracy, the logical figure to cut is the insurance guy. But try to tell that to a right-winger.

The greatest obstacle to real health care is our political system. Republicans are predictable as mosquitoes in the spring: they back industrial interests. They have masters’ degrees in smoke, lies and distortion, PhD’s in the use of fear and semantics---at convincing the middle class that they have their interests at heart. They use catch-terms (“socialization”---I don’t know why this is bad, but they make it sound bad) and compelling advertising: Harry and Louise.

Democrats, as usual, are confused and disorganized because they know they are “supposed to” represent our interests, but actually they are in the pockets of industry also. The healthcare industry, the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry are all enormous contributors to our political system. These three industries want no change because they’re making huge profits. And they don’t care about our health.

Only two countries in the world allow “direct-to-consumer advertising” of pharmaceuticals. The drug companies claim high prices are necessary to fund research; yet, they spend twice as much on disgusting ads that foul our TV screens as they do on research. The “sick” part of it is that doctors are “on the take” in prescribing these drugs, while they know that the placebo effect has the best chance to cure their patient regardless of what they do. So while the drug companies bamboozle us with their ads, we request the advertised drugs, doctors comply with prescriptions, the patient is “cured” by placebo effect, and everybody’s happy. But this leads to skyrocketing healthcare costs, and it results in people taking more and more drugs, which ultimately makes them sicker, not well! This re-stokes the cycle.

So what about solutions? The first real answer is for doctors to stop prescribing pills and start making their customers responsible for their health. A typical, ill American is suffering from a bad life-style---poor diet and lack of exercise. If his doctor prescribes life-style alteration, the patient will go to another doctor. A typical doctor dealing with a middle-aged, over-weight, perhaps pre-diabetic patient with high blood pressure and arteriosclerosis will prescribe a drug regimen that is essentially a pharmaceutical cocktail. This targets the patient’s symptoms, but will not cure him. The drugs lead to lethargy, perhaps depression, muscle depletion, and a host of additional problems.

This, my friends, is where good government steps in. But our system is not only designed to keep us sick, it’s designed to make us sick. A typical middle-class or lower-class family consumes multiple meals per week at fast-food restaurants. Why? Because the kids want this food, and because it may be the only thing the parents can afford. The prices at these eateries are so low that people cannot prepare decent meals for their family at comparable cost. But the low check-out price conceals the actual cost. The food, as Morgan Spurlock showed us in his 2004 movie, Super Size Me, has little or no nutritional value. In fact, it makes people sick. The “social” cost of this diet is ill health. A staggering percentage of our population is overweight and headed toward diabetes, if not already there. The expense of that will continue to spiral upwards.

The low prices of the fast food industry are by government prerogative. Our government subsidizes beef; it subsidizes potatoes, and significantly, it subsidizes corn. Most of what we buy at a fast food restaurant comes from corn, including the beef, soda, even the packaging! Ranchers feed corn to their cattle because it makes the herd sick!! (This is sick!) Cattle are grass-feeders. They can’t digest corn, hence it makes them ill. Their body chemistry changes; they eat more, exercise less (if that’s possible), put on fat, increase weight. The farmer fattens up his herd; making the cow sick makes it worth more at market. He uses antibiotics to contain the illness, introducing these dangerous chemicals to the food-chain. Ultimately we consume the antibiotics by eating the meat, leading to more serious illness from drug-resistant bacteria. A single beef patty at McDonald’s will contain meat from a thousand animals! If any one of those cows has a serious pathogen, guess what! This is all carried out under government aegis. The government is getting paid off through contributions from the ranchers, farmers and fast food industry--- as well as the insurance, healthcare industry and drug manufacturers.

Again, the answer is not “less government”, but good government. First, government should stop subsidizing the cycle that has such profound ill-effects for our health and budget. Next it should reverse the process by taxing these products and subsidizing the foodstuffs that promote health. The cost of delivering quality food to our markets is somewhat fixed, while the cost of manufacturing junk, that’s “fun to eat”, is extremely small. Even with low prices, these manufacturers make huge profits. But these profits are essentially extracted from the public weal in the social cost of poor health. Considering this social cost, responsible government should do whatever it takes to make nutritional food less expensive than junk food, and that includes candy, chips, soda and Twinkies in the supermarket as well as fast food restaurants. That would promote better health and save billions. The drive to accomplish this in the face of huge political forces can only come from us, through pressure on our representatives and/or through direct pressure on market forces.

Today a “healthy”, 60 year-old “independent contractor” pays upward of $1000 per month for health insurance, with $1000 deductible. If he actually gets sick, the insurer will do all it can to deny coverage, frequently leading to the additional expense and stress of legal redress. If the person tries to “shop for coverage”, changing carriers will open the door to intense scrutiny of medical records to uncover “pre-existing conditions” that will further deny coverage. This system is obscene. We need to get the right wing to stand down, and stand up---for us!

The plans now being advanced take a piece-meal approach to solving our problems. The government is advocating a “modified” plan for health insurance, where it will offer insurance to compete with the private system already in place. This would be a system comparable to Medicare, but available to those not covered by that system. Presumably, the government plan will put downward pressure on insurance costs and people will be drawn to it.

As usual, this approach picks away at the symptoms without addressing the real problem. We need a single-payer system like in Britain or Japan, and to focus on the real healthcare problems that we’ve spoken about here. Healthcare should be a public utility instead of “for profit” enterprise. But even aside from the Republicans, enormous political forces are amassed to resist these changes, and at best we will move slowly with a piecemeal compromise. If the government plan is well-received, we may be able to move toward real reform.

Good luck. Try to get involved.

The Politics of Drugs: International Aspects

by Jackson Dave

The fleeing killers, identified by authorities as members of the Mexican gang known as the Zetas, left behind a cargo truck packed with 700 pounds of cocaine. More stunning was the cache found in a brick warehouse: 11 M-60 machine guns, eight Claymore mines, a Chinese-made antitank rocket, more than 500 grenades, commando uniforms, bulletproof vests and thousands of rounds of ammunition."They were preparing for war," said the adjunct director of the National Civilian Police, Rember Larios.

Mexico’s drug wars are pushing gangs into Guatemala, where law enforcement is weak and corruption is even more hospitable. More than 6000 people were killed in Guatemala alone in 2008, most of whom were linked to the drug trade. Guatemalan police forces openly admit their 20,000 man force cannot stand up to the gangs, armed with 40 mm. grenades and .50 caliber, armor-piercing rifles. Ultimately, the success of Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s war on the drug cartels only moves them on to weaker neighbors. Many analysts say drug gangs, unchecked, could turn Guatemala into a full-fledged narco-state.

Despite efforts to clean up police forces, the criminal-justice system in Guatemala is rife with corruption and deeply mistrusted. Banking oversight is lax; and persistent poverty means a ready supply of potential helpers for the cash-rich drug gangs. While they wait for assistance, Guatemalan officials brace for more violence from Mexican traffickers.

Tension is obvious at the Guatemala City prison where Perez and the other suspected Zeta gunmen are held. Helmeted soldiers and Special Forces police in black berets guard the crumbling road leading to the main gate. Troops hide in the bushes on the steep hillside above it. Armored military vehicles, with .50-caliber machine guns front and back, make constant passes. A mobile anti-aircraft gun is stationed outside the entrance in the event of Mexican gangsters arriving by air.


And just what is this all about? These people are supplying our demand for drugs! We drive this madness, mayhem, killing. We are responsible for this!

And in Mexico itself? 10,000 people have been killed in the effort to rein in the drug cartels. In May twenty-seven elected officials were arrested in the state of Michoacan, under investigation for ties to trafficking. A drug cartel known as La Familia, controls virtually all politics. La Familia has undermined the electoral system and day-to-day governance, pushing an agenda that goes beyond the usual money-only interests of drug cartels.

Cartels, whether by intimidation, purchase or order, can dictate who the candidates are, as well as political agenda. Dozens of local and state-wide politicians have been abducted or tortured and killed in the last couple of years. No political party has been spared the determination and wrath of this organization.

In the meantime, this cartel is extending its roots beyond Michoacan to neighboring Mexican states. Beyond its reach in Mexico, La Familia has set up drug-running operations in U.S. cities, including Los Angeles. Many fear that Mexico could be sliding into widespread civil strife with incalculable consequences for the U.S., particularly the Southwest. It's an old story in other parts of Latin America, and for that reason, three of the region's former heads of state -- including onetime Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo -- recently issued a report urging the U.S. to consider legalizing at least marijuana.

In response to political pressure from gun activists, the U. S. cannot even muster the political courage to stem the annual flow of 60,000 guns to Mexico, including assault rifles, semiautomatic pistols and .50-caliber rifles, illegal in Mexico, which go to drug traffickers from an estimated 6,000 American gun dealers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. We legalize AK47s, but outlaw pot! Is this madness? We cry over Mexican people crossing into our country---people whom eager employers are ready to hire, while in return for the drugs that we demand, we send back weapons and $23 Billion per year, fueling corruption, mayhem, civil war.

The principle agencies that should be dealing with this flow of weapons are the ATF and “Homeland Security’s” Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. But auditors have said those agencies had not effectively coordinated their efforts, in part because they "lack clear roles and responsibilities and had been operating under an outdated inter-agency agreement". Politics! Rubbish. This shows the level of concern by our government and by us toward this tragedy. It also reflects the level of influence that the National Rifle Association has over our government.

For a country as proud of its cultural autonomy as Mexico has been, one of the bitter ironies is the way in which the pseudo-romantic culture of drug trafficking has captured so much of the nation's popular imagination. In the cities of Mexico's northern and western states, traffickers and wannabe narcos mimic the dress and tattoos of Los Angeles' street gangs. One of Mexico's most ubiquitous popular music genres is the narco-corrido, ballads built on traditional norteño dance music but with lyrics that romanticize the drug trade.


This story---this scenario could well have been presented from the perspective of a number of countries in South America. It may have been presented from the opium-dominated economy of Afghanistan, or any country in the “Golden Triangle” of Southeast Asia. All over the world we see violence, strife and civil war, destroyed economies and mayhem in the countries that fill our demand for drugs. We demand their drugs; then our government tells them (and us) that they are responsible for our drug problems. We pressure them to wage war on their own people to stop supplying our demand. At the same time we send in arms and billions of $ to fuel the armies that we're supposedly trying to stop. You and I are completely deluded if we think this problem can be solved at the source. It can only be solved here! Our government is not going to change its policy (in the absence of bold and enlightened leadership) because politically it's too risky.

And as always, our government’s hypocrisy is epic. The substance causing the most wide-spread health problems in the world, by far, is tobacco. But this is our largest agricultural export. In the 1980s China began a government-sponsored program (similar to our government-mandated program) to discourage smoking. They began by restricting the tobacco companies’ advertising. The Reagan state department brought enough diplomatic pressure to coerce them to drop the campaign. Welcome, again, to “American Exceptionalism”. It’s perfectly OK for us to export dangerous narcotics, but we give our government permission to destroy other countries to stop them from exporting drugs in return. You and I stand back, or we claim apathetic ignorance.

But what goes around comes around. According to a Justice Department report, Mexican drug-trafficking organizations have established a presence in 230 U. S. cities, from Anchorage to Phoenix to Sheboyga, Wis. Killings are beginning to escalate. In the last 14 months we’ve seen more than 500 drug-related kidnappings in Phoenix alone. Roving Mexican gangsters called bajadores (take-down crews) are responsible for most of these crimes. They are notorious for cruelty, often smashing fingers and pistol-whipping victims, sometimes to death, to send the message to others. It’s common now that the victims are as deeply involved in the trade as the bajadores; but it’s only a small step before bank presidents begin to need body guards.


This mess can be cleaned up in one swoop: legalize drugs. Drugs are plentiful and cheap. If we import drugs as we import televisions or peaches, the supply routes go above ground, prices and profits tumble, drug gangs and cartels crumble. Or do we continue to wallow in “American Exceptionalism”, believing that our domestic policies trump the welfare of the rest of the world?

You might say that "your son's grip on sanity is so fragile that the small act of legalizing drugs might increase the chances by 21% of him going over the top". This may be true. But whose fault is that? Is it the fault of Mexico or Guatemala? Or is it the fault of our own culture's sickness? How many lives, other mothers' sons in far-away lands, do we have the moral authority to destroy with our raging demand for drugs and insane policies?

End the madness. Please write to your representatives.

Jackson Dave is a Robbinsense staff writer

GOD: abridged

In April we began a discussion on religion. Going on,

God has been with man since he was able to conceive the concept. Early man used God to explain a bewildering world. The development of science opened the door for man to accept the notion that there may be no god. This has led to the controversy over whether God invented man or man invented God.

Opinions over the nature of God are extremely varied, but people tend to congregate around certain bodies of belief, forming “religion”. There’s great contagion in “group-think” and many have used it through history to control large groups of people.

Ironically, though we focus on inter-faith conflict, the prominence and violence associated with intra-faith conflict is greater. Generally, a religion must have cohesion within itself before it can gain the momentum necessary to wage war on other faiths. In the case of Christianity, the 325 (CE) conference at Nicaea is credited with resolving the abstract notion that Jesus was a god, while the bible of the time dictated worship of only one god. This conference was also successful at abating much of the bloodshed between Christian sects over such matters.

Early religions were polytheistic in nature. Judaism became the first (of the major religions) to accept the concept of one universal God. Christianity, then Islam followed in the mono-theistic tradition. We consider, perhaps naively, that the polytheistic religions are “primitive”.

Many are repulsed by the notion that humans evolved from apes. The noble creature, man, could only have been created in a stroke by the hand of God. The Christian contention that “man is created in God’s own image” is a display of considerable arrogance. The idea that God wishes to be "worshiped", or even acknowledged (we call this "faith"), ascribes human frailty to the nature of God. The notion that man might “know” God, or understand his (its) “thoughts” is fantastic.

One salient reason for this is language. The study of primitive cultures or any culture that is very different from our own is hindered by a language gap. People’s thinking is a function of their language, and broad cultural distinctions lead to words and concepts that cannot be translated. This leads to communication impasse. A primary axiom of anthropology is that language precedes intelligence. We're unable to think thoughts that we cannot verbalize. (To pursue this subject see a discussion by Raphael Gamaroff. Russian developmental psychologist, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, describes language as “thought’s crowning glory.” “Intelligence” would necessarily follow.) Animals without language operate on instinct. “Notions” that may come to us are sensed as feelings or emotions; only wild speculation turns feelings into a body of "knowledge".

In that vein, when considering that communication gaps exist even between members of our own species, it’s difficult to fathom that we might be able to “understand” God---whatever that is. Our language doesn’t contain the words to describe God, much less what [he] thinks. I suggest that the gap in cognitive function between man and God is probably greater than that between man and insect.

As for “Intelligent Design”, discussed in Robbinsense April, it’s noteworthy that [perhaps all] proponents of this belief seem to be Christians. We don’t hear of Buddhists or atheists subscribing to this “science”. The contention that we must accept either evolution or religious belief is naïve. Aside from the possibility that God chose evolution to create [his] beings, there are many other possibilities that we haven’t, or cannot consider.

Those who say that the Bible is the source of their belief, and certainty, are hiding behind a smoke screen. Beyond being self-contradictory, the Bible is largely written in abstraction and parables, leaving virtually anything to be interpreted from its contents. It was not until modern times that some began interpreting the Bible literally. Evangelistic Christians claim that the obvious metaphors, such as a man surviving ingestion by a whale, are allegorical, then contend that the rest is factual history. (Even if Jonah weren’t crushed by jaws or gullet, he would quickly asphyxiate in stomach gasses.) An observer without predilection toward Christianity, would conclude that the book is advertising material for the religion---a sort of “infomercial”. We might see the Bible as similar to the advocacy of a Bush administration program, presented fully-spun to lead the reader to accept the author’s premise.

As a side-note, maybe some helpful reader could inform us all how the family tree of man extended beyond Adam and Eve. They didn’t seem to have any daughters.

Some believe that God talks to them---personally. Others believe it’s an impersonal force. Some believe that it’s an absurdity. Some believe it’s what makes us strive toward our best selves.

As for my assessment: God may be a patronly, bearded dude, on a celestial throne, with a fair-skined, blue-eyed Palestinian sitting next to him, over-looking minions and judging all (I’ll give it 0.1%) The heavenly bodies (stars and planets) throughout the universe may be gods (0.5%). God may be a vast, ethereal soup, the “cosmic deity” (25%). This “spiritual force” might even be somewhat within the grasp of a person with highly sophisticated spiritual gifts (such as Jesus). Other prominent religions may contain the reality of God (1%). Or it’s possible that we all “create” our own destiny (as we create our own living reality), and that our personal belief establishes our reality in death through eternity (This is my own theory, 2%). (In the movie After Life, by Hirokazu Kore-eda, the dead arrive at a way-station where counselors instruct them to choose their favorite memory from life, which they will then re-live in an eternal loop.) It's possible that the universe as we know it (including us) is God---that the "big bang" was the emergence of God into physical form (3%). It’s possible that there’s no god (30%). This leaves 38.4% for “other”.

I hope you will share your “probability profiles” in comments.

Considering that the nature of God is beyond our comprehension, does it really matter what exactly that nature is? We're left with our own beliefs. Beyond a drive to manipulate others, who would be so naïve, or arrogant, as to dictate what others should believe? It's indefensible that in free society government might dictate religious sanctions.


Obviously for some the existence and nature of God is relevant, while for others, it is not. We will look into that next month:

Why do people of similar education and intellect come to significantly different conclusions about issues like religion and politics?
--and--
Why do intelligent people resist the obvious gifts and the joy that Jesus Christ can bring to their lives? --or-- Why do some intelligent people gorge themselves on fantasy and superstition?