I got an email yesterday from Move On . Org asking me if I would be willing to start a petition to my U.S. Representative on Social Security Cuts. Here is what it said:
Dear Minnesota MoveOn member,
We’ve recently heard from folks upset by President Obama’s proposal to cut Social Security benefits.
It sounds like MoveOn members would be interested in signing a petition urging Rep. Betty McCollum to oppose these cuts, but first someone needs to take the lead by starting a petition on SignOn.org, our online petition site. If you get the petition started, MoveOn will help you get it going. Can you take the lead?
I clicked yes and the link led me to a very user friendly page where I typed a few paragraphs and voila! Instant petition (kidding, it took me two hours of research and another hour of editing the description and petition, and then voila).
We implore you to take a stand against Chained CPI which would cause a reduction in benefits for Social Security recipients, including our veterans and more than 350,000 of their surviving spouses and children, and for our senior citizens, almost half of whom would live below the poverty line if not for Social Security benefits.
Please publicly commit to voting against any cuts to Social Security.
Here’s the Petitition Background that I provided:
Chained CPI, currently being disingenuously presented as a cost of living adjustment by President Obama and others, is a cut to Social Security benefits that would hurt seniors and veterans. According to Senator Bernie Sanders (VT), chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, the proposed change would also affect more than 3.2 million disabled veterans receiving disability compensation benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs. For example, vets who started receiving V.A. disability benefits at age 30 would have their benefits reduced by $1,425 a year at age 45, $2,341 at age 55 and $3,231 at age 65. Benefits for more than 350,000 surviving spouses and children would also be cut!
And, according to the Social Security Administration, 65-year-old retirees would lose more than $650 a year by their 75th birthday, and more than $1,000 a year would be cut from their benefits once they reach 85. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Social Security provides no less than 90% of income to more than one-third of America’s seniors. If it weren’t for Social Security, nearly half of Americans over 65 would live below the federal poverty level.
If President Obama is going to go back on his multiple campaign promises to both the elderly who rely on Social Security the most and those who love our country so much that they would risk their lives for it and their fellow Americans, then Congress is called through the system of checks and balances to stop him.
Voting against cuts to Social Security is not only the right thing to do, it is the only patriotic option. Please sign the petition to Congresswoman McCollum asking her to take a stand against cuts to Social Security.
Please sign and share if you have a moment! Remember, Chained CPI is a cut.CPI stands for consumer price index and it is how the COLA – Cost of Living Adjustment – is figured every December. Some years there isn’t even an increase in benefits the following January if inflation was low. What chained CPI does is reduce the amount of increase in COLA based on the ideathat if you give people less money, they will choose to consume less expensive items. Yes, this would save a ton of money. On the backs of the poor, the elderly, and our wounded vets.
First of all, since WordPress won’t let me embed the poll image inside a post and inside a widget, here’s the link to the poll or you can vote in the widget on the right hand side of this blog page.
The question is, should Social Security be funded via a flat tax instead of a regressive tax?
You probably know that income tax in the United States is progressive, meaning not only do you pay more dollars in tax the more you earn, you also pay a higher percentage of your income. A flat tax as an income tax would take one percentage — say 10% for easy math examples — and apply it across the board. So, the argument goes, yes, the person who makes $20,000 pays the same percentage as the person who makes $200,000, but the first person only pays $2,000 and the second pays the yearly income of the first person. The progressive tax takes into consideration that as you make more money, your quality of life is likely to increase as well and so from that stand point, the flat tax, although “consistent” is not “fair.”
Ironically, the Social Security tax of 6.2% is not even a flat tax. It does not come close to consistent, to say nothing of fair. It’s not fair. It is inconsistent and unjust. Here’s why:
The maximum amount anyone could possibly pay in SS payroll tax (6.2%) is $7,049: this is because only income up to $113,700 is taxed.
6.2% on $25k = $1550
6.2% on $35k = $2170
6.2% on $50k = $3100
6.2% on $75k = $4650
6.2% on $100k = $6200
6.2% on $113,700 = $7049 —-> the MAX anyone ever pays
Once you earn more than $113,700, you never pay more than $7049. From thereon out, the percentage of your income that you pay into social security goes down — it decreases; i.e. it becomes a regressive tax.
So if you make $150k then $7,049 = 4.7% of your income.
If you make $200,000 then $7,049 = 3.5% of your income.
If you make $250,000 then $7,049 = 2.0% of your income.
If you make $500,000 then $7,049 = 1.4% of your income.
If you are a millionaire, you pay in 1/10th of one percent!
The Navy SEAL who shot and killed Osama bin Laden tells Esquire that he was thanked by the Federal Government for his 16 years of service and has now essentially been informed that, to paraphrase the President in an ironic way, “You’re on your own.”
If this is really true, it’s really horrifying and makes me sad. Let’s remember to extend the benefit of the doubt here (remember, the benefit of the doubt — the doubt of someone’s guilt until there’s proof of it beyond a shadow of a doubt — along with the presumption of their innocence are two of the most patriotic ideals we could ever uphold as Americans and as American Millennials who will eventually be predominant representative generation of our country to the world). And, if this degree of injustice really happened, which we can only know for certain once the evidence is out and available for full examination, let’s remember to request that the government make amends and do the right thing, a.k.a., petition it/them/ourselves for a redress of grievances (see the First Amendment).
Let me say first that running into Boomers at Nathan Hale Park at 10 o’clock at night is always a good time. In this case, it served as the impetus for getting the NHP Interviews out of stage 1, idea, and into stage 2, setting the date and time with various people to get the show on the road (getting the show on the road is stage 3).
Now, to me and many other Minnesotans, making it to February is practically to March which is practically Spring, so right around January 28 (yesterday), I start thinking about what I’m so excited to do once the snow melts.
And I am so excited to start these interviews! You’ll notice on my youtube channel that I already have talked with one person at NHP and the topic was voting (thanks, Rosebud!). My idea here is to try to amp it up a notch and talk to more people, other social justice lovers and constitution buffs, in the park and see what their opinions are on the issues.
Remember, this is the opposite of the Divide and Conquer energy that the mainstream media uses to keep us all thinking in terms of liberal and conservative, black and white, right and left, etc. This will be about real people and their real opinions about how we can object to abuse of power by authority and protest injustice (as affirmed in the 1st Amendment to the Constitution) in ways that get things done, in the Unite and Leave the World a Better Place way.
On the night I took the above photo (this past Sunday), I was walking home from work and the snow had just finished falling and everything around downtown was beautiful so I took a few pictures (one was the photo of the Landmark Center on my personal facebook page). As I climbed to the top of Ramsey Hill, it occurred to me that Nate might look good with a little snow on him so I headed right instead of left on Summit — only to discover two Boomers taking pictures of him!! What?!?! So I call out, “What are the chances that two people would want to take a picture of Nathan Hale on the same night?” So the woman — probably the same age my mom would be if she were alive — launches into the story about Nathan Hale and how he is a true American hero! HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I’m thinking – yes, I’ve heard this story before! (I think that’s what her husband was thinking too.) And she closed with, “I always tell people who don’t appreciate their rights that Nathan Hale died so you could vote.” I replied, “Yes, my mom told me the same story when I was little at this very park and it actually inspired me to start a blog called messages to millennials!” She then offered to take a picture of me and I thanked her and said I’d be okay with just a picture of Nathan by himself.
So far, I have two USPS mail carriers who have tentatively agreed to chat in the park about the challenges the postal service faces and some tricky 2006 legislation that heavily influences the way they do business and how that affect us, the People. And then I’m going to ask them if they have noticed the bunnies taking over Grand Ave. Oh, yes, those little rascals.
Cardinal Richelieu, born in France in 1585, was an expert in discerning how to manipulate or motivate the subjects of the Crown (King Louis XIII at that time and place in history). In his Political Testament, he noted that “… most people can be held to their duty through either fear or hope.” Leaders throughout human history, whether politicians, religious figureheads, or elders of a tribe, have long known the power of hope and fear in getting people to do what they otherwise would not have done by either terrifying them or inspiring them.
For this reason, the use of the phrase mind control is incomplete. The concept of controlling a group or civilization’s thoughts is rooted in influencing – asserting authority over – their emotions first. The two most primal emotions we feel, after love for our offspring (which is attachment, not desire for happiness) are hope and fear. Our emotions cause our thoughts; then, feelings and thoughts combine to lead to a specific perception of reality. For example, “life is what you make of it” is a perception of reality that doesn’t acknowledge the influence of people and events outside ourselves. “Shit happens” is a perception of reality that doesn’t acknowledge that good events happen randomly too. This three step recipe for influencing the feelings, thoughts, and complex perceptions of a people would more completely be described as behavior control. And it always starts with the planting of a seed: the seed of hope or the seed of fear.
So what’s the difference between Motivation and Manipulation?
Regret.
When we use our Power of influence to get someone to do something they would not have otherwise done, and they are glad they did it, we have motivated them. When we use our power of influence to get someone to do something they would not have otherwise done, and they regret it, we have manipulated them.
• People (regardless of whether or not their hearts are open or closed) will often feel motivated, safe and/or protected by that display of confidence, even if it is also an attempt to assert dominance, under certain circumstances. You probably know that a con artist is someone who convinces you to take part in an activity that you would not have participated in had you been aware of the true nature of the activity. Con is short for confidence. Why? Because the con artist gains your confidence before he convinces you to take part or gains your consent to act (illegally) on your behalf. Confidence indicates a low level of fear, and fearless people can make other people feel safe. Their intrepidity inspires (or convinces) us to trust them. Trust is another inversion, a practice that allows us to deny the symptoms instead of treating the underlying cause. In this case, trust is the denial of risk. Because we don’t want to be afraid as human beings, because fear is uncomfortable, we are eager to deny its presence in our bodies. When someone says, “trust me,” they are holding up a red neon sign that says, “deny the feeling in your stomach that something is not right.”
Want to read more about trading in trust for calculated risk? Click here.
President Obama won re-election on Tuesday night and I was overwhelmed with relief. The next morning, I was filled with resolve.
There are humanitarian and constitutional rights issues where the President has taken actions I morally object to, the first being the use of weaponized drones; and the second being the unlawful detention of alleged criminals — that is indefinitely detaining them without charging them of a crime in the first place and then denying them a trial in a court of law (denying “due process”) in the second place.
I don’t have a problem with the collection of information that aids the government in preventing terrorist attacks, a.k.a. intelligence gathering. Maybe be it’s sneaky and shady. And maybe it IS. (Yeah, it is.) I do have a problem with killing innocent civilians by dropping bombs on them. It makes a kill list look like a grocery list you’d jot down for a going away party on a post-it note. At least the kill list doesn’t say, “A. Smith and everyone else in a 1 mile radius who happens to be there. And B. Jones and everyone else in a 2 mile radius who happens to be there.” Wow. The moral compass on meth. Using weaponized drones is immoral, unethical, unjust and absolutely unconstitutional in the absence of a declaration of war (which requires an Act of Congress) on the country whose people our government is killing.
And Gitmo. Guantanamo Bay. It’s time for this “detention facility” to get shut down. Charge everyone there with a crime in a federal court of law (the good people of Texas or New York would be happy to be on that jury, so send ’em over), get them convicted or acquitted and let’s be done with it. The system is awesome. The system is not broken. But there are people — like the President — who are either being threatened in order to keep them from allowing the system to work and achieve justice or too morally weak to uphold its innate greatness.
Yesterday morning, I made a little video. Inspired by my experiences volunteering on Saturday mornings with the Minnesota for Obama grassroots campaign, I have often wondered if people would be even more motivated to vote if I burst into song. But … I hold it in.
The song is to the tune of a slightly rearranged “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson of course! Side note: I don’t generally give people directions to their polling place but I happened to look it up for Natalie the previous night and then mapped it. And she really didn’t know — she thought she was going to the same place as 2010 and 2008. A lot of people’s polling place changed with the nationwide redistricting and you don’t want to accidentally show up at the wrong place on November 6. Just google “where do I vote in (your state)” and a website for your state will pop up that allows you to enter your address and find out if it’s the same place as last time or somewhere else. Then, march down to the polls and embrace that ballot in the most intimate of ways.
In Sarah’s fantasy realm (not to be confused with my vision of world joy which — admittedly — is a reach goal), we throw out the whole idea of a “debate” and call in a joint CIA-FBI task force to subject the candidates to lie detector tests and interrogate them until their actual views on the issues and their real plans for our country are revealed in their entirety on live national television. And why not? The members of both federal agencies work for us — we pay their salaries. And the truth is a matter of national security. Besides, if Romney gets his way, it sounds like they’ll soon be one merged entity anyway. Will it be called the FIA? the CIB? Oh, no!! Although, yes, please, let’s do away with the TSA child molesters and the DHS a.s.a.p. Plus, we already have a Department of Homeland Security. You’ve probably heard of it — it’s called the Military.
Instead of Jim Lehrer opening up the debate with a polite request for silence, let’s have a masked CIA agent appear out of thin air to get the party started. In the sketch comedy version, could this role of Primary Interrogator be played by Will Ferrell, using the same voice he used when he played the retail store manager who dressed all in black and pulled out his teeny tiny phone while riding on a scooter (it was called Jeffrey’s Clothing Store)? He could face the crowd and greet them with, “Splendid. You’re all here. So I’ll begin the interrogation now.”
Can the Primary Interrogator wear this terrifying mask? Oh, please?
Meanwhile, a [very long buffet style] table would fill with ten FBI profilers who would sit behind the Primary Interrogator and take notes on the facial expressions and hidden communication patterns of the candidates so that they could deliver their personality analyses of the two Presidential candidates to us, the People, at the end. And tag team interrogate the candidates during Round Two. Ah, yes. Good cop, good cop, good cop, good cop, good cop, good cop, good cop, scary masked cop, good cop, good cop, good cop. Every time the lie detector test detects “untruthfulness,” a gigantic red neon sign behind the candidates would blink a warning, alternating between bright crimson, “Lying Liar” and neon orange, “Lying Liarpath.” I imagine Will Ferrell with his terrifying golden mask and a megaphone announcing a lie: “LIAR.” And the profilers firing follow-up questions, such as:
“Which loopholes, Governor?”
“Would you be willing to name one?”
“Would you be willing to name one, right now?”
“Would you be willing to specify, tonight, one loophole that you would close?”
“When we say tonight, we do mean tonight, before midnight, because at that point in time, it will officially be tomorrow — do you think you could describe a particular tax write-off that you would eliminate, and describe it in five words or fewer within in the next five minutes? It could be one for a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars or even one dollar or ten cents …. No, the answer has to be yes or no. Yes or No, Governor. The word yes or the word no. One or the other. Right now.”
“Then we’ll sit here and wait till you can think of one.” (Oooh … awkward!)
And none of this Lehreresque, “I’m sorry, we’re way over 15 minutes.” No, bring on the Will Ferrellian, “Time is up. I said time is up. If you don’t stop talking, I’ll waterboard you on live national television. Raise your hand if you want to be waterboarded on live national television. Oh, not so much? Splendid. Shut your mouth. We’re moving on to the next topic.” (To which President Rockstar could point out that he outlawed the use of waterboarding just 2 days after taking office, I suppose!)
And I want major demands for clarification when Romney says he’s going to “give $716 billion back to seniors” on Medicare. Obama missed an opportunity here to explain that the $716 billion reduced from Medicare costs to fund Obamacare was cut out by lowering the amount of money to be paid to doctors and hospitals per service. So if Romney were going to reverse Obama’s action, the $716 billion would go back to doctors and hospitals, not to seniors. When Romney says, “back,” I want the interrogators to demand the form. Via a check? A voucher? A deduction? An extra dessert off the Senior Menu at Perkins? Someone, please, make Romney say — disclose — that he doesn’t want to give a penny back to seniors, he wants to give the profitback to doctors and hospitals.
If we had national health insurance — and I am still sad that not even a public option was included in Obamacare — the health needs of everyone in our nation could and would be met: seniors, the young, the poor, rich, the healthy, the sick, and everyone before, after or in between. And the program could be designed so that your family doctor would be paid the same way FBI profilers and CIA agents are: on salary! Not per service. It is true — conservatives are not lying when they say this — that nearly a third of doctors are no longer taking on Medicare patients because of the rate at which those doctors are being reimbursed per service compared to a private insurer. They miss the point (and oh, how I want the Presidential Interrogators to help them see it … so so badly, my friends …) that, to reference the example in this blog post on Forbes’ website by Avik Roy,
“Wertsch billed Medicare $217 to care for a Medicare patient with a sinus infection whose appointment ran late, because the patient required more time. Medicare reimbursed the clinic for $54.38. Later in the day, a younger patient with the same sinus infection, requiring half the time, was charged the same $217. But his private insurer reimbursed the clinic for twice the amount of Medicare: $108.04,”
the reason the private insurer, as an insurance company — which is a profit-motivated organization — can afford to pay more to the doctor is because many young and healthy people are paying in the same premium for coverage but needing less care than the elderly because they are so healthy. So the insurance company has more money to pay out to the service providers (doctors) because they are making a profit — unlike the government. And the reason the insurance company has so many healthy people? They deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions (unhealthy people) and drop people in the middle of terrible sickness once they’ve received the lifetime maximum dollar amount in treatment. So who picks up the tab for the unhealthy people? The government. (Ironic, right? The government as the FBI and CIA is also picking up the tab on people who are unhealthy in a “different” way, unhealthy people who want to auction children and fly airplanes into tall buildings. Talk about sickness. And preexisting conditions.)
Would it be so bad if primary care physicians — general practitioners we go to when we want a check up or have an infection — and ER doctors were government employees? Paid on salary? And were offered bonuses for preventing recurring accidents and illnesses, and maintaining the existing good health of their patients? Everyone, sick or healthy, would be in the same pool, causing an average between the two figures mentioned above for the treatment of sinus infections (which were $54.38 and $108.04; the average works out to be $81.21) but it would probably be even higher because, just as in the insurance company pool, there are more healthy than unhealthy people in the pool of our country. But we’d remove the profit motive for the physician to patient-load (like carb-loading before a marathon) in order to make more money by taking as many patients as possible and shorten visits to the minimum required, and the other profit-motive which is to skip any lifestyle change recommendations that could prevent more billable, charge-able, profit-from-able visits in the future? Doctors, really consider this: a 5% matching savings account (Thrift Savings Account) and only 6.2% social security tax instead of the 12.4% you pay when you’re self-employed, and other great benefits like paid vacation and sick time, and how awesome would it be to have no overhead costs, such as paying rent for the clinic space, the wages of your receptionist, nurses, etc.? No, it wouldn’t be ideal for specialists, in my opinion, but if we think of how the CIA and FBI work — for the greater good of the entire country — then you can see how establishing an agency of highly trained physicians, motivated to protect the People from illness and serve them by helping them to achieve and sustain excellent health, could be considered a success strategy. And wise. Especially if we want to really truly take down type 2 diabetes and heart disease, two totally preventable diseases that are killing people! In the same way WMD’s do.
This kind of system would restore the healing element of practicing medicine to the doctor’s lifestyle too. Instead of feeling impelled to drive up the number of patients and the number of visits and treatments, the doctor would truly act as a conduit for healing. Still not convinced? Consider the fact that no one has to pay Due Process Insurance which would be calculated on how likely you were to eventually have criminal charges brought against you at some point or other in your life. The 5th Amendment guarantees everyone the right to due process in a court of law (a trial where evidence has to presented that proves guilt) and the 6th Amendment guarantees that, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” Yes, you get a lawyer, and if you remember from TV, “if you cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you.” So, we get a lawyer if we need one. Why not a doctor? The Justice System is socialized: our tax dollars pay for criminals (er … alleged criminals) to have a public defender. And all the judges and clerks and everyone else involved in the process part of due process are paid their salaries with money that was collected through taxes. What is a doctor but a judge of disease, coming up with an opinion/diagnosis and a sentence/treatment plan?
Obamacare is a great start, and I was amazed the President got that much transformation of the system passed into law. And as far as the popular ideas for single payer health care currently stand, I’m glad none of them were on the table because the greed element remains as long as primary care doctors who would ideally feel called to prevent illness still have a financial incentive (a motive if it were a crime, which it ought to be) not to. There’s still a lot to be done and I look at it in the light of, “Look how much the President accomplished in four years with a divided Congress during the second half. How much more will he accomplish in four more years?”
On a primal note, what’s interesting about how the President did not defend himself — or counter-attack Gov. Romney — on Wednesday night is that the lack of the act of self-defense often indicates that we simply do not feel attacked. So we might truly be experiencing an attack — with words as weapons in this case — but in the very confident person’s perception of what’s happening, there is no genuine threat, thus no genuine need for self-defense.
Some said that the President’s manner could only be described as “subdued” during the first presidential debate, but I saw a man granted the acceptance of things he cannot change. He was surprised by the bald-faced lies from his opponent, but only slightly and only for a second. I saw a man resigned to his fate, one who knows that in the end, his occupation for the next four years will be determined by the collective caprice of a nation. After all, he can’t make us google the lies. And no one’s going to force us to see the truth either; after all, we don’t live under a fascist regime. Wednesday night, I saw a man (not a perfect man, as he reminded us) who has come to terms with the inevitability of life’s whims, and who, with a shrug of consent, knows that either way, what was true before he became president will be true after: he was and will be a husband, he was and will be a father, and every Oct 3, he will celebrate the anniversary of his marriage to the woman he adores and the woman he mentions every time he speaks in public directly to the people. She was the first thing he said. Literally, his first point: “There are a lot of points I want to make tonight,” said the President straight out of the gate, “but the most important one is that 20 years ago I became the luckiest man on Earth because Michelle Obama agreed to marry me.” This matters to me, possibly as much as my gratitude for the good parts of Obamacare and my disappointment over his reneging on the promise to close Gitmo. It matters because it means that the President finds his identity primarily in his ability to love and is, perhaps unconsciously, acknowledging that although everything else about life is transitory, love isn’t.
At the end of the day, Chris Rock says it best.
“If you’re voting against Obama because he can’t get stuff done it’s kind of like saying, “This guy can’t cure cancer. I’m gonna vote for the cancer.”
In Russia, if you criticize the government in public, you end up in prison. What will the charge be? “Hooliganism.” The women of the Rock Group “Pussy Riot” did exactly this in February of 2012 by shouting, “Mother Mary, please drive Putin away,” in a protest act inside Christ Savior Cathedral in Moscow. Today, October 1, is their appeal trial. Before taking action and signing the petition below, let’s reflect on how lucky we are in the United States to have our multiple rights to freedom of expression (specifically, freedom of speech, the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and freedom of religion) protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. Now let’s reflect on the irony. These women were praying for mercy from the tyranny of a fascist regime, out loud, in public.
“Facing 2 years in jail for singing a song criticizing President Putin in a church, a member of Pussy Riot gestured to the court and said in her show-trial’s closing statements, “Despite the fact that we are physically here, we are freer than everyone sitting across from us … We can say anything we want…”
Russia is steadily slipping into the grip of a new autocracy — clamping down on public protest, allegedly rigging elections, intimidating media, banning gay rights parades for 100 years, and even beating critics like chess master Garry Kasparov. But many Russian citizens remain defiant, and Pussy Riot’s eloquent bravery has galvanized the world’s solidarity. Now, our best chance to prove to Putin there is a price to pay for this repression lies with Europe.”
Please join me in signing the petition from my friends at Amnesty International:
“As an Amnesty activist, you know we don’t need a bulldozer to free a prisoner – just the power of our voices. And we need your voice more than ever as [the women of members of the rock band] Pussy Riot face[s] an appeal hearing on October 1st.
Nadya and the other members of Pussy Riot went to the cathedral to give Russia – and the rest of the world – a wake-up call. They felt it was their civic duty to expose the corruption and repression they saw.
Pussy Riot stood up for their ideals. As artistic expression. Nonviolently. Legally.
Except, of course, in Putin’s Russia, where their dissent was stifled and condemned as “hooliganism.”
But there is hope. The world is watching. Last week, Pyotr Verzilov travelled with his daughter Gera to the United States to work with Amnesty to raise awareness for his wife’s case. During the Amnesty International Youth Town Hall, Aung San Suu Kyi met with Pyotr and Gera and called for the release of the women. With Amnesty at her side, Yoko Ono gave the band the LennonOno Grant for Peace to honor their courage.
During their visit, Pyotr expressed how moved he was by your advocacy on behalf of his wife and the other courageous women imprisoned for expressing their opinions peacefully:
“We are grateful to Amnesty International for your work on the case and all of your support. The most important thing you can do is rally people. We need your voices.”
Michelle Ringuette Chief of Campaigns & Programs Amnesty International USA”
Here’s the letter I sent to Russia’s Prosecutor General today:
“I am deeply concerned about the imprisonment of Maria Alekhina, Ekaterina Samutsevich and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova for performing a protest song in a cathedral as part of the feminist punk group “Pussy Riot” on February 21, 2012.
The two-year prison sentence handed down to Maria Alekhina, Ekaterina Samutsevich and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is far too severe. The cathedral performance was a peaceful protest against President Vladimir Putin and those leaders of the Orthodox Church who have supported his repressive tactics.
While it is true that many Russians were offended by Pussy Riot’s actions, the women never incited violence and they do not deserve prison terms. They were prosecuted for political reasons and they are prisoners of conscience.
I call on you to immediately and unconditionally release the three imprisoned members of Pussy Riot. It is up to you to uphold the fundamental right to freedom of expression in Russia and ensure that there are no additional arrests or trials related to this case.”
Let’s take action and join our voices in protesting injustice and objecting to government abuse of power anywhere and everywhere on Earth.
September 25 is National Voter Registration Day! In honor of such a beautiful day and in celebration of the freedom to vote granted to me by the 19th Amendment, which states that “the rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” and granted to everyone else who is a U.S. citizen by the United States Constitution and the 15th Amendment, I made this video with my friend Rose.
What if I told you that you can’t trust other people — and not because there aren’t awesome, wonderful, reliable, true-to-their word individuals in the world — but because trust is not a concept anchored in reality?
Let’s define risk: the possibility or probability of danger or loss. This is why lenders will call the history of your borrowing and repayment patterns a “credit report” but have their in-house Risk Management department evaluate it when you come knocking for a mortgage or line of credit or car loan, etc. Your consumer credit score is, in all its statistical error (because it is calculated by human beings who are not omniscient), a pretty good predictor of your future behavior, but let’s acknowledge here that no lender “trusts” any of their borrowers. Instead, they assess the risk that they may not be repaid and if the risk (the statistical probability) is low enough, they choose to lend the money anyway. The use of the word “credit” makes it sound like the lender believes in you or has faith in you. Rest assured, they see your repayment history in the light of wholeness and have chosen to take the financial risk (which is the definition of a gamble) because of your “good” past behavior and despite the slew of unknowns that may affect your behavior in the future. Imagine for a moment what the credit/risk report of every relationship in your life might look like. Who always comes through and does what they say they will do? Whose credit/risk scores would be low?
When our hearts are open, we take risks anyway. Why? Because we know that even if those risks don’t pay off, and we end up experiencing loss, delay, sadness, and/or danger, we will have all the strength, perseverance, inspiration and drive to keep going and succeed the next time. And before we risk the possibility of having an unsuccessful love relationship, we acknowledge that probability, whether low or high, and reflect on whether or not we want to spend our time on this person, time (in the currency of hours and minutes) that no repo agent can get back for us. When the heart is open, we are filled with faith in ourselves and know that no matter the risk, we will make it through any pain caused by a financial or emotional risk that ends up going sour.
The next time someone asks you to trust them or asks why you don’t trust them, you’ll know how to explain that trust is not a true concept in reality. It is an illusion that allows us to deny the risk of loss — of time, money, love, or life. Now imagine if your parents and any other authority figures on whom you were dependent for guidance, food, shelter, and survival while a minor (or if you are a minor, are still dependent on) had never said, “just trust me,” and instead had consistently provided you with a logical reason to follow their directions. Imagine how you might view life and chance and luck and autonomy if they had separated their desire for your happiness from their desire for your compliance. Instead of hearing, “because I said so” or “just trust me on this one — someday you’ll understand,” you’d gotten guidance along the lines of, “I love you and desire your happiness. That’s why I’ve measured the risk in this situation and want you to take precaution to reduce it (by driving carefully, not hanging out with criminals, not flying a kite during a storm, not playing hide and go seek in a meth lab, etc.). This has nothing to do with trust and everything to do with risk. I wouldn’t be telling you to (wear a life jacket/helmet/mittens, save 10% of every dollar you earn, look both ways before crossing the street, etc.) if I didn’t think it would increase the quantity and quality of your life. I love you, I desire your happiness and that’s why I’m telling you these things: in order to take action to ensure that your happiness is the most probable outcome.”
Going back to repossession, there’s no telling when we could lose someone we love. One day they’re gone from our life and eventually we realize they were never truly ours to begin with. And any time we bring new life into the world, we are taking a risk. The probability is low, but remains nonetheless, that a child’s life could end before ours. When our heart is filled with faith, we know that even if we end up experiencing loss, delay, sadness, and/or danger, we will have all the strength, perseverance, inspiration, and drive to keep going. Whenever we give love, we’re taking a risk that it won’t be returned or reciprocated, just as when we give time or money. When the heart is open, we give love freely rather than lend it which is why forgiveness is the most generous gift of love we can present to another person. While the heart is closed, you may feel the need to “be able to trust” someone. When the heart is open, not only will your risk detector (your survival instinct via physical reactions in your gut, stomach, heart, or via the hairs on the back of your neck) be more accurate, sometimes you may choose to take the risk anyway, with full faith in yourself and the knowledge that you will confidently handle any outcome (even a default or total loss).
I use the word faith a lot and aren’t faith and trust the same? I would say no. Trust is the denial of the possibility of disappointment. Faith acknowledges the possibility and indeed its probability.
Faith says, Yeah, and I’ll take the chance anyway. Bring it on.
The distance between point a and point b we measure in space. The distance between moment a and moment b we measure in time.
So the shortest distance — measured in space — between 2 points might very well be a straight line, but the shortest amount of time between 2 points could involve a very wavy trajectory.
Go around! Go around other people who are in the way. It always takes more time to stop and deal with them than to go around.
Your time is measurably valuable. Spend it on taking action to achieve your personal goals, making the world a better place, and enjoying life while you’re still healthy and have the fewest obligations, obligations which could, later in life, keep you from traveling, taking calculated risks, and meeting new and interesting people (obligations such as raising children and maintaining owned property).
What action are you going to take today to leave Earth a better place for future generations? And what part of being alive on this amazing planet are you going to enjoy most, so that when you look back on your life at the end of it (or afterwards, if you believe in an afterlife), you’ve also prevented regret?
Trying killing two birds with one stone today and prevent regret bygoing around.
I just signed the petition to end “too big to fail” banks who had gotten so big in 2008 that when their risky investments went bust, their ruin threatened our entire economy. And instead of demanding a return to the commonsense and time-tested Glass-Steagall Act (which was passed in 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression because of the banks’ role in causing it), President Bush and Congress handed the banks big bailouts, paid for with our tax dollars and inflation of the money supply by the Federal Reserve.
Now, the consummate Wall Street insider, Sandy Weill, who successfully lobbied Congress to tear down the walls between Main Street banks and Wall Street by repealing the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 (after which he proceeded to build Citibank into the financial behemoth Citigroup), has come out on national television against the very changes he had advocated, the changes which helped create the “too big to fail” financial giants, saying:
What we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking…Have banks do something that’s not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that’s not too big to fail.. That means we need to press our solution hard enough for them to hear us on the rest of Wall Street — and in Washington.
Let’s NEVER let these behemoth banks hold our economy hostage again. Let’s end “too big to fail.” Please join me in protesting the tragic injustice of the repeal of Glass-Steagall in ’99 and objecting to the abuse of power by authority that Congress and President Clinton perpetrated against an entire nation by not doing everything in their power to stop it.
This image came from the website of economic journalist Barry Ritholtz.
I just learned from my friends at The Other 98% that Justice Clarence Thomas, along with Justice Antonin Scalia, has accepted paid vacations and speaking engagements at conservative think tanks, Koch Brother strategy retreats, and other conflict-of-interest-laden gatherings, just weeks before ruling on cases involving these groups, including Citizens United. This is a true tragedy, my fellow millennials and activists. How did we get here, to a reality where a United States Supreme Court Justice, while checking his online bank account in the morning, asks himself, “Hey, where did this million dollars come from? Oh, yeah, the health insurance company lobbyists who ‘suggested’ I decide the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.” We got here on the smooth road of Apathy and it was paved courtesy of a small group of people whose hearts are closed and cannot feel Love. After forgiving them, we are filled with all the passion for Truth and Justice that every member of the Supreme Court would ideally embody. With this passion and faith in the checks and balances of The System, I urge you to join me in signing this petition.
We have a right to expect our Supreme Court to be impartial, fair, non-partisan and uncorrupted by money and access – but Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has so flagrantly betrayed these expectations, that there is no recourse left but to introduce articles of impeachment.
Justice Thomas “neglected” to report nearly a million dollars in household income made from lobbying related to cases before the court – and then, only made the disclosures when forced by legal obligation.
Justice Thomas ignored the calls of 75 members of Congress (and over 100,000 Other 98% activists) to recuse himself from the Affordable Care Act ruling, despite standing to gain millions of dollars in household income through future anti-healthcare lobbying. He then ruled in a way that would make himself richer anyway.
Justice Thomas, along with Justice Antonin Scalia, has accepted paid vacation junkets and speaking engagements at conservative think tanks, Koch Brother strategy retreats, and Tea Party gatherings – in a few cases just weeks before ruling on cases these interests had before the court, including Citizens United.
Justice Thomas has made his partisan allegiances clear. And we must act. It is time to remove this corporate servant from a position where he can continue to cripple our democracy.
Any member of the House of Representatives can introduce the motion to Impeach – it literally takes a single member of Congress brave enough to do the right thing.
This simple step could do wonders for our national discourse – sending a clear message to members of the Court that they act in the public eye, and can no longer let their lifetime appointment be a cover for blatant corruption.
Messages to Millennials 