Tom Wright celebrated his 93rd birthday November 22. He often publishes a poem about his window on the world and the tree he watches out his window. Here is a conceit with the tree watching him back:
A Tree Sees…
Behind its leaves
Into the windows that squint
out upon the world,
Through bifocals, trifocals,
and cataracts.
Theirs are the heroic faces
of the septuagenarians,
the octogenarians,
and the merely elderly
but not yet old.
Not old like the tree that
watches,
the observant tree,
whose life cycle has its own
seasonal rhythm and perspective.
Aside from the 56 million paid to an incompetent foreign web design company to set up the ACA log on system, Obama messed up by omitting two simple words when he promised people they could keep their old health plan if they liked it. Those words were "if legal."
Anyone with the sense to read the provisions of the ACA should know that certain provisions made some old policies illegal, like not covering preexisting conditions, like putting a lifetime cap on coverage, like not including maternity benefits, not providing for annual examinations, etc. Failing to live up to those ACA provisions makes an old policy illegal under the law. But people don't read their own policies and don't pay attention.
Politically savvy readers will realize the passage of the ACA with the cooperation of lobbyists from insurance companies, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies was possible because they were promised a pool of 47 million new customers, many subsidized by the US government. Who could pass up that deal? So it passed, barely.
Now the insurance companies are scrambling to cash in and the melee is causing confusion and anger. Eventually the public will say, "Screw the insurance companies! We want Medicare for all." Then we will finally have a single payer plan.
In Denmark where I have access to the tax forms being a potential payer of Danish income taxes I see they have a 5% income tax for health, just as we have a Social Security tax. That pays the so-called premiums for health in Denmark. So why can't we be that smart?
Your invitation and information have arrived here
and been given careful, thoughtful consideration. As you are no doubt aware,
nowadays we get a great number of offers and requests. What we have to do is
put them in perspective in consideration of our own financial limitations. What we are prepared to do is make a counter
offer.
I am Harley Sachs, a professionally published
author for more than fifty-five years. I retired from teaching in1986 and in
the years since have published more than thirty books ranging from memoirs and
short stories, to serious novels and mystery “entertainments.” In that long
career I have never begged for donations or applied for grants. I am not now
asking for money from you, either.
It is important to support the arts, not only the
visual arts, but the art of the written word, for little has more staying power
over the centuries than the book. However, being an author is a tough business.
Thanks to the digitizing of entire libraries, an American author today is in
direct competition with every other author who ever lived whose works are
published in English.
The only way you can significantly support this
author is to buy a book. I do not personally sell books. I do not have the
capital or the space for an inventory of printed copies. I depend on my
vendors, such as Amazon.com, B&N, and lulu.com for actual sales.
If you’d like to have the personal satisfaction of
having supported an elderly American author in poor health, this is your
opportunity. Take a careful look at the enclosed list. Visit one of the vendors
and read a free sample. I know you will find a title you will enjoy. The price
is right. Some are priced under $3.00! How can you go wrong?
When you download a new computer program or upgrade,
you have to first agree to the terms of the contract. By clicking on “I
agree.”you are bound to its terms,
though you can bow out by canceling all use of the product. Hidden in that fine
print no one reads is a clause that says you agree not to use the program for
unlawful purposes, a long list of which is usually spelled out. The point is,
if there is illegality involved, the contract is void. In case of a dispute or
lawsuit about damages yada yada yada there is usually an agreement to binding
arbitration.
Business contracts often use agreements of
confidentiality to protect proprietary information, patents and such. The same
goes for other contracts, but here’s where it gets sticky. What if you contract
with an organization that then, unbeknownst to you, engages in criminal
activity? Surely you should elect to bow out to avoid culpability and
liability. You could be swept up as a co-conspirator.
But what if that organization that has sworn you to
secrecy is a government agency that is involved with criminal activity? Are you
bound by your signature to hold to the contractual terms? That’s the dilemma
faced by whistle blowers like Ellserg, Manning and Snowden who exposed the
illegal activity of government agencies.
Violations of the Geneva Convention, assassinations,
torture, and violations of the 4th Amendment against unlawful search
and seizure are crimes the government seeks to conceal behind the Official
Secrets Act. So for speaking out are
those men criminals, conscientious citizens, traitors or heroes?
If you observe a crime being committed, what is your
responsibility? When we watched apparent drug deals going town in the house
across the street, we notified the police. That was our responsibility. If you
are a witness to a crime and refuse to speak out, you are sheltering the
criminals and are complicit in their crimes. You become willing
co-conspirators. Should you withhold evidence, like the two friends of the Boston bomber who threw away his laptop
and backpack, you are obstructing justice and may go to prison.
Of course, if the criminals in your neighborhood are
likely to kill you for speaking out,
what do you do then? Keep silent and reinforce their authority to
continue to commit crimes? Or take your chances and possibly end up dead or in
the Witness Protection Program, WITSEC, forced to take a new identity and live
in a distance place along with an estimated 40,000 other hidden witnesses?
But what if the criminal acts you have observed are
committed by your own government? Who do you turn to? That’s the dilemma faced
by Manning and Snowden. Manning turned to Wikileaks. Snowden went to the press.
In the days of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers in the Vietnam War, the
information was turned over to the New York Times. Ellsberg went to prison.
Breaking the code of silence has consequences. If
you are a Mafioso and rat someone out, your body may be found in the trunk of a
stolen car abandoned in the long term lot of the airport. If you have sworn to
the Government Secrets Act you may go to prison or even, possibly executed if
your acr is determined to be treason.
So when is a crime not a crime? Are the victims of
the Boston bombers, killed or maimed simply “collateral
damage” And how are they different from the women and children killed in a
house struck by a drone flying over Pakistan? In the case of the Boston bombers, they constructed
and brought their pressure cooker bombs to the crowd and set them off. In the
case of the drone strikes, the anonymous persons who launched the smart bombs
and missiles were thousands of miles away, sitting safely on our soil.
We are not at war with Pakistan or Yemen. Their air space is
sovereign territory, just as the air space over New York is ours. To fly over a
foreign country and launch bombs and missiles is an act of war. To aim those
weapons at approximately specific alleged targets is assassination, another
name for murder.
In the case of our calling the police about the drug
deals going on across the street our recourse was our dependence on law and
order and the Constitution. If we had no law and order, as is the case in Iraq where those essential parts
of a civilized society have broken down or are non-existent, the alternative is
revenge. Hence the frequent car bombings intended to terrify and cow the
neighbors into silence or submission, just as our neighborhood gang of Mafioso
hope to achieve through intimidation.
So now we have Manning and Snowden who both signed
the Umberto Code of Silence known as the
National Secrets Act and then observed what they interpreted as crimes. If the
criminal acts are committed by your own government, who do you turn to?
Whether you believe him or not, President Obama has
said he had already taken steps to reign in the excesses of surveillance by the
NSA, violations of the Constitution rules against unlawful search and seizure,
issues which were our grounds for the Revolutionary War against the British
Empire. Obama claims Snowden’s public revelation simply hastened the changes.
The dilemma remains. Whoever fired the drone
missiles and killed those innocents are removed only by miles and intent from
the drunken soldier who burst into homes in the middle of the night and
murdered children in their beds. The anonymous
drone “pilots” will not be charged, but they generally pay a price of guilty
conscience and PTSD for what they have done. They have to live with themselves.
Some cannot and commit suicide out of remorse for what they have done and the
people they have killed..
But the issue remains of who do you turn to to
report a crime committed by your own government? The United Nations? A
complicit Congress that voted in favor like the Nazi government who passed the
Nuremberg Laws that made genocide of Jews legal?
With 90% of the American public in favor of background
checks for would-be firearm purchasers, the failure of our government to pass
such a requirement is a betrayal of the public interest and a stain on the
integrity of our representatives.
Since the Newtown
massacre of school children and their teachers there have been more then six
thousand victims of firearm violence in this country. Here in Oregon
we have more deaths from firearms than from automobile accidents. Think about
it.
Though anyone can buy an automobile, in order to drive it
off your own property you must pass a driver’s test and have a license. Yet
without background checks any idiot with the cash can buy a deadly weapon. God
help us.
It may not be obvious to you, but this country is the largest
manufacturer and exporter of weapons in the world. The military-industrial
complex Eisenhower warned us about has taken over. Arms companies sponsor the
NRA. With their contributions to the election campaigns of our representatives
it sure looks like they are owned by the gun makers. They have sold their souls
in order to be reelected. The Senate is so bound up by partisan bickering and
conflict that no one wants to run for office. It reminds me of the last days of
Rome described by Gibbon in his “Decline
and Fall.” In those days it wasn’t the weapons makers who were the cause, but
the fact that people ran for the Roman Senate in order to glean all they could
from the system before they were poisoned. No one worth his salt would run.
It’s time that congress stood up for the safety of Americans
they represent by supporting sensible background checks for firearm
purchasers.
The United States has a sad history of racism and intolerance that may be repeated if we are not vigilant.
Remember, the so-called New World was colonized for two purposes: for gold and to convert the indigenous peoples to Christianity.The Spanish conquerors made every effort to obliterate all traces of the previous cultures and religions.
As the new United States expanded westward, native peoples were displaced and even slaughtered. One tribe was hunted like animals until none remained.Surviing native American Indians had their children taken from them and put in missionary schools to convert them to Christianity and eliminate their native habits, language, and religion.
When the Chinese laborers came for the Gold Rush and to build the trans-continental railway, they were eventually expelled for fear of the "yellow peril."
The United States was one of the last countries to officially abolish slavery and indentured servitude, though the latter still exists in sweat shops and aur pair girls.
The Mormons were persecuted and had to flee to the west and settle in Utah.
At the outbreak of World War II Japanese-Americans were interred in concentration camps.
Today thousands of so-called illegal immigrants are being reported and held in camps pending their expulson.
Now, since the 9/11 attack by fifteen Muslims, chiefly from Saudi Arabia, he country is at war against Muslim extremists, using drones flying over countries we are not at war with to assassinate alleged terrorists. Each so-called "collateral damage" of innocents adds to the recruitment of others seeking revenge.
Given that history, it is essential that all American Muslims speak out against terrorism and identify potential bombers. The risk is that besides being spied upon by FBI informants, we might see an American repeat of the Nazi Nurenberg Laws.
