All animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others

I have been following Venezuela politics a little bit through my friend from college. Francisco Toro, who writes the excellent blog Carcacas Chronicles. What I’ve learned is how little I knew and still know. I’ve been inundated with sound bytes from the right (Chavez is a oppressive dictator) and the left (Chavez is a hero who saved his people). There are elements of truth in both these views.

What it’s gotten me thinking about is why these two things seem to necessarily go together. The communism experiments in China, Cuba, and Venezuela all show how what started off with good intentions (strong social infrastructure, reducing or eliminating poverty in their own countries) ended up with an oppressive regime that never left power, and/or some compromises with their original communist dogma. Whereas, in the United States and Europe we’ve had democracies with varying degrees of socialized infrastructure, but managed to avoid totalitarian reigns — at least for the last fifty years or so.

The absence of a totalitarian reign in the United States, and the absence of a coup against the government, is much more remarkable than it seems, when you look at the rest of the world.

The most divisive election and period of time in American history in my lifetime was 2000, during the Bush/Gore election. Whether Florida was rigged is sort of secondary. For an election to be so close as to come down to a few ballots one state is pretty scary, when you think about it. For all the talk about how the election was going to be close in 2008 and 2012, it wasn’t. Obama won by hefty margins, both in popular and electoral numbers.

And I think, looking back, that Justice Stephen Breyer was right when he wrote (in Making Our Democracy Work, 2011) that the most important thing that happened at the time was Gore graciously accepting the Supreme Court’s decision and encouraging people to do the same. Had he put up a fight, this country could easily have disintegrated into another civil war. We may be heading towards on anyway, if the far right continues to refuse to participate in our democratic process and accept the outcome of elections even if they don’t agree with the current leaders. The only thing that makes us a country is our shared belief in our democratic system, and the only thing that holds that democratic system together is the peaceful transition of power from one leader to another, regardless of political views. The only other alternatives are civil war or dictatorship.

Back to Chavez. As much as I’d like to believe that widespread social reform can happen without having one dictator to implement it and enforce it, history tells me otherwise. And the price of not living in a dictatorship seems to be that a functional democratic system needs to constantly seek out the center, the middle ground.

Post-election thoughts

I am so relieved to have Obama for another four years. I am SO FUCKING EXCITED about our new senator, Elizabeth Warren. Obviously she’s going to have a learning curve but I think her outsider status to the fucked up mess that is the U.S. Senate has the potential to be a breath of fresh air. And yet, she’s been in academia, so she knows how to navigate political landmines.

I hope that Republicans will swing back toward the middle, and practically speaking they will have to if they ever want to control the presidency again. But I am struck by the loss of moderates on both sides – Ben Nelson, Olympia Snowe, Richard Lugar, Scott Brown. All were replaced by people further to the left or further to the right of them, further polarizing things.

I wrote last night on Facebook that I was most struck last night about how excited I was to have my son, who is now just six months and has no idea who or what a president is, grow up learning to walk, talk, and have some awareness of the world around him with Barack Obama as president. For an African-American boy adopted to two white moms, this is so, so important.

But I also remembered a series of conversations I had before and after he was born. No one in the southern state where he was born blinked an eye about two white moms adopting a Black boy, but multiple people reacted to the news that we were from Boston: “Oh,” they said, clearly crestfallen, “He’s going to be a Yankee.” And up in New England, more than one friend said to us “oh, you’re rescuing him” when we told them about the adoption plan.

These comments were all meant as jokes, but they belie a deeper truth about this country – these divisions are real. The division between “North” and “South” in this country is as deep as racial divides and class divisions, which are both so, so deep. We are, in many ways two or perhaps three different countries with very different values and cultures. We have been since the Civil War, perhaps since even earlier. Yet the only thing that makes us a country is our shared Constitution, the document that binds us together and says “this is who we are as America, this is what we believe, this is the kind of country we are going to be.” Do we all still believe in that? Do we have enough to hold us together still? Can we survive as individual states or regions if we don’t?

I am genuinely hopeful that Barack Obama is the president to try and bridge these divisions, but he will need partners to do this. I hope he will find some in the new U.S. Congress.

Guns and America

As a liberal, the default position has long been to be for gun control. Here’s why I don’t think that’s actually the right answer.

1. Guns are not really the problem. How do I know this? Because in Israel, everywhere you go there are people with semi-automatic weapons, because everyone has to serve in the army, and soldiers are frequently seen just hanging out in public places. Yet they don’t have the same kind of epidemic of mass shootings that we have. They’ve learned to be responsible with guns. Moreover, the one stat I remember most clearly from Michael Moore’s documentary Bowling for Columbine is that Canada has more guns than we do – yet again, they don’t have the same epidemic of mass shootings. That means that our proclivity for violence and mass shootings is less about the guns, and more about US. That’s just the uncomfortable truth. Now that we’ve said it, let’s try and deconstruct it. Why are we such a violent, hateful nation?

2. Pragmatically speaking, Democrats and liberals benefit from dropping gun control from their platform, or at least de-emphasizing it. Because Americans love their guns, and they don’t like being told what to do. And since guns are not really the problem, it’s not helping anything to push for further gun control. See #1.

3. This doesn’t mean I support the NRA. I think they’re just about the sleaziest, most disgusting special interest group in America today. They prey on people’s fears and oppose things they SHOULD support, if they were really about promoting the “right” to bear arms – like gun responsibility classes and bans on clips to allow people to fire off a dozen shots at one time. They’re a corporatist tool of the gun industry, and don’t really care whether it’s terrorists or hunters who are buying their guns.

4. Let’s come back to #1. Why are we such a violent, hateful nation? It’s not because we have our roots in slavery and imperialism – lots of countries (hell, MOST countries) were founded on slavery and imperialism, yet have settled into a day to day reality that is less violent. And it’s not violent video games and television and movies – that’s a symptom, not a cause. So what is it? Why are Americans so prone to mass shootings and murder?

This is the real question we should be asking ourselves.

The problem is bigger than you think

So there’s this story, about the elderly, hearing impaired woman who was bullied and harassed by students on the bus she drove.  The story’s gone viral – people have been understandably outraged. But a few things about this story seem to be getting overlooked.  Really, they’re things about the school systems in this country in general, about our attitudes toward children and elderly and people. 

1.Kids should not be riding to school for more than 15-20 minutes.  It’s just not a reasonable expectation, and it’s a recipe for problems to break out.  But because of the changes that happened when schools were integrated, because not all schools in public system are equally good or well-funded and run, kids are often traveling for HOURS just to get to school. In Boston, it’s not unusual for kids to sit on the school bus for 1-2 hours in the morning and afternoon.  It’s a wonder shit like this doesn’t happen every day here.

2. Parents are working too hard outside the home.  What a difference it would make if all employers had to allow parents flexibility in hours so they could be there to take their kids to school, and pick them up? And to allow them to not have to put their kids in after schools every day.  What a difference it would make if parents got to spend more time with their kids.

3. Parents aren’t working hard enough in the home.  This may be related to #2 -maybe they’re exhausted. But too many parents minimize when their kids are inappropriate or hurtful to others, especially when they’re boys.  Kids need to know where the limits are. And if we don’t want to have a society of abusers, we need to start teaching kids that abusive behavior is not OK.

4. That being said, these are still kids. They are not hardened criminals.  Which one among us hasn’t done something stupid when we were kids? The idea of adults mocking or doubting the sincerity of the students’ apologies — well, that just makes me as sick as the original incident itself.  We need to model a culture of forgiveness if we expect people to take responsibility for themselves and try to change their behavior. What motivation do people have to change if you’re already vilified them? 

5. Finally, WOW to the amount of money that has been raised for the bus monitor’s “vacation fun” or whatever it’s being called.  Over $400K? I wish I had made that kind of money in my whole lifetime. And while I appreciate people being moved by the story and wanting to reach out, I can’t help thinking it’s a little misplaced.  There are organizations out there that are trying to improve schools and help young people – perhaps all the people who have donated to the mistreated bus monitor could explore the options in their own communities to make things better on a much bigger scale. 

Thoughts on Wisconsin

My great-great grandfather John M. Maxwell was involved in unionbusting in the 1800′s.  He ran a tannery in Woburn, MA (Maxwell Tannery) which was involved in a number of labor disputes, one of which culminated in a “suspicious fire.”   

What would he think if he knew that his great great granddaughter served as union president in the 1990′s?  I was president of Local 987 of SEIU in Oregon, the newly organized union at the Parry Center for Children.  Our struggle to unionize was hard fought, including having to threaten to go on strike just to get management to come to the table to bargain our first contract, but at least we didn’t have to resort to setting fires and no one got hurt.   

The recent Wisconsin recall election worries me, because I think much like with the right to have an abortion, Americans have become complacent about our right to unionize and what this means.  We are allowing the ultra rich 1% to steamroll over our rights as workers, under some failed American dream that we can someday become part of that elite group too.  And we won’t truly know what we are missing until it’s gone, until we have returned full circle to the days when we have to fight to the death for our jobs, and for our right as workers to be treated like human beings.  

And that day is coming, I am sure.  If union strength continues to erode, workers will eventually find their way to fighting to get them back – remember, they didn’t care whether it was illegal to unionize or strike when they first had to fight for their rights.  Right wing government like Scott Walker in Wisconsin. John Kasich in Ohio, or Rick Snyder in Michigan can try to criminalize unionization — all in the name of “smaller government” just for irony’s sake — but they cannot take away a worker’s will to be treated like a human being, which is ultimately what the struggle is all about. 

State of Massachusetts Health Care, 2012

In 2006, then Governor Mitt Romney enacted health care reform in Massachusetts. What we have in Massachusetts is the foundation for what became the national health care reform President Obama enacted in 2010. That doesn’t mean what Massachusetts now have is similar to what will eventually happen in other states – the federal legislation passed by Obama means that each state will choose what kind of system works for them. Several states, such as Montana and Vermont, have suggested they will simply implement a single-payer, government subsidized system for all residents, and in low population states like those there’s good reason to think that will be cheaper for them in the long run. But in Massachusetts we have a private-public hybrid health care system. I’m here to analyze what’s working about that system, and what’s not, from the perspective of a provider (I’m a mental health therapist) and a patient. I currently have health care through my employer.

What’s working:
1. Most people have health insurance. 98% of the people in this state have health insurance: An astonishing, impressive stat. Let that sink in a minute.

2. People no longer have to worry about health insurance if they lose their job, become disabled, or their employer drops their coverage. There are several safety nets in place – unemployment insurance offers health insurance, the state system (Mass Health/Commonwealth Care) offers health insurance through the exchange. People can either buy health insurance on their own, or their employers can buy for their employees at a lower rate.

3. Kudos to Massachusetts, home of 68 different colleges, for forcing the colleges to provide comprehensive health insurance to their students, rather than all those students being dumped on the state system. And the rule that allows people to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they are 26 has been a huge relief to many people.

What’s not working:
1. The system is confusing. Half the time, the people on the other end of the phone when you call with questions don’t know the answers. The other half of the time they make you wait upwards of an hour just to talk to them. People are anxious when they can’t access their doctors, and people are unemployed. There is no reason why we can’t hire more people and train them well to be able to walk people through the system.

2. The system is inefficient. Why can’t people apply for health insurance online? Why do people, in 2012, need to fill out a paper application and submit it by mail, which can get lost, or take weeks or months to process? That is ridiculous. If we can have electronic medical records for health care, and we do, there is no reason in the world why we can’t have a more streamlined, online system for applying for health insurance when you lose it or move to Massachusetts.

3. Costs are still out of control. As in, because our health is still being managed by private companies who want to make money, they are doing everything they can to jack up costs for doctors, hospitals, and consumers. The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office and governor Deval Patrick are already working on this, but change is not coming fast enough. Massachusetts has more regulation than the only other state with a health insurance exchange already set up (Utah) and that’s good – but it needs more tightening up. Because they only ethical way to have health insurance managed by private companies is to regulate the hell out of them – because they don’t really care about you. They just don’t. Insurance company CEO salaries need to be capped, rates for different procedures need to be the same wherever you go, preventative and holistic care need to be reimbursed more.

4. Finally, the biggest problem I see is that still there are people who fall through the cracks. Right now, the people I see falling through the cracks the most are students whose parents don’t have employer-subsidized insurance and yet make too much money to qualify for Mass Health, and elderly people who qualify for federally-funded Medicare but then get dumped by state-funded Mass Health. Since Medicare doesn’t include as comprehensive coverage, this winds up putting our most elderly and disabled residents at risk. What happens is they get tossed around like hotcakes from the federal system, the state system, and private companies trying to determine who “has” to pay for their care. Often they get dumped into “Health Safety Net” – a woefully underfunded, overused network of community health centers that get money to serve people who can’t be seen anywhere else, because the insurance companies have said they won’t. The community center for my neighborhood, Joseph Smith Center, has one therapist on staff. How likely do you think you are to get seen quickly and comprehensively when you are one of hundreds of patients that one therapist is trying to see? Why isn’t there money to hire more people at these health centers, and why can’t those people qualify for any other coverage? The people I’ve seen get dumped into this pool include a 19-year-old daughter of a day care worker, supporting a family of four on one income, and a 50-year-old disabled woman who makes just under $15K a year in Social Security. Really? This is how low we’ve set our bar for who qualifies as “poverty level” in this country – these people are excluded.

So, in conclusion, Massachusetts has taken the brave step of being the first state to implement massive health care reform, and it’s had some tremendous positive effects. But the system still needs addressing. I call on states all across the country, as they look to fulfill the federal mandate to supply their residents with health insurance by 2014, to convene panels of citizens from their states, who either suffer without health insurance, or who have struggled with problems with their health insurance. Make decisions about policy after listening to the people, not the shareholders. The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office should begin hearings in every city in this commonwealth to allow citizens to report their concerns about how the system is working so far.

Costa Rica, in haiku form

1.
Long drive from airport
Sit in hammock by the sea
A beer in my hand.

2.
Bright colored orchids
Video game-like bird call
coatis gather.

3.
The ocean calls me
Leatherback turtles nest here
Crocodiles lurk.

4.
Float down the river
Herons, egrets, iguanas
Past the sugar cane.

5.
Mountain in the clouds
I wait for a little peek
Just please don’t erupt.

6.
Stray dogs in the road
All the food is so fresh here
Three cows stop traffic.

7.
Cool and dry by coast
Twelve different climates here
Muggy mountain air.

8.
Butterflies fly here
Each ficus has its own wasp
Killer manmade dam.