Of course, in order to be a good blogger, one has to be consistent, one has to post regularly. Obviously Ms. Sanity has been falling down in that regard. Ms. Sanity’s Mother has noticed this behavior for many a year now–she calls it the “Refusing to write a letter unless all the pencils in the house are sharpened, and you have the most beautiful stationery to use phenomenon,” when of course, the recipient would just be happy to get a durn letter from Ms. Sanity.

Mum’s right on the money there. One should just write the letter. And I know for a fact that I am not the only one with this phenomenon.

I was horrified and pretty annoyed with myself on this Thanksgiving Day when I realized that it has been 29 days since my last post. That’s simply not acceptable. See, when I make a post, I want it to be thoughtful. Original, well-written, preferably well (or at least marginally well) illustrated.

Here are some of my excuses. See if they mesh with any of YOUR excuses. (My father would say: There are always REASONS, but rarely excuses.)

• I’ve been busy.
  Well, we are ALL busy, in one way or another. If Ms. Sanity wants to be a blogger, she needs to blog, yes?
  
• I wanted my posts to be good. Exceptional, even.
  Well, my readers are looking for helpful, hopefully thought provoking information from me, and perhaps a little entertainment here and there, not proof of my substantial brilliance. (heh)
• I wanted to do research and provide LOTS of useful information in my next post.
  Well, even one piece or useful information or one link can make a difference to someone’s life. It doesn’t have to be fifty links! Helping out even a little is better than my silence, yes?

So, now: the flip side is this. I will do my best stop the habit of trying too hard, and perhaps you need to do the same. (Some of us, perhaps including yours truly, may need to watch out for “trying too hard not to try too hard,” but that’s a whole other post….)

Nike’s relatively inspired slogan “Just Do It,” is actually more than a good way to sell shoes. It’s a mantra many of us would do well to hold in mind, and act upon. So here’s my “Just did it” post… and I wish everyone, everywhere, a day or at least a moment of thanksgiving, as we celebrate here in the USA. Have a lovely day.. and don’t try too hard. Good enough is really, good enough, and something is almost always better than nothing…Nobody is perfect, anyway, no matter how hard one tries.

Anyway, ran across this, and it needed more eyeballs:

Apparently Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), explaining the Republican health care plan could pare it down to two little words:

“Die quickly.”
~Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)

Major hat tip to twitterist @Ander517 who brought this to my attention.  Said Mr. Anders also added the following link which has a video clip, lest you think we make all this stuff up: click here.

Personally I couldn’t watch it. One is wise to know when to limit one’s news consumption, and I hit that mark a while back….

Onward and upward folks. Personally, I hope none of you die quickly. But then I’m not afraid of health care reform. And it’s not because I expect the frigging government to take care of all my needs, either. But that’s another post…

Over and over and over ad nauseum I’ve seen blogs and “tweets” and letters to the editor filled with craziness, outright, bald-faced lies and inaccuracies not only about the intentions and effects of the (FOUR) potential, proposed bills/new systems – but also about what life is like in the rest of the civilized world where they DO have universal health care. (For you accuracy buffs, there’s no such thing as “Obamacare”… yet, anyway.)

Few people -if any – are idiotic enough to believe that having a system of universal health care creates instant nirvana, nor would any thinking people living in a country with such a system insist that their systems are perfect.

However, because of the work that I do and the fact that I am married to a man who was born in Europe, I know and work with- regularly and intimately- people all over the world. I also, obviously, have relatives by marriage living in other countries, and I am here to tell you that NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM would come here for health care, nor would they trade our system for theirs, nor do any of them have any desire whatsoever to come here to live. Period. In fact, none of them will even set foot on US soil without (expensive!) traveler’s health insurance, due to the fact that any sane person knows that a minor accident (much less a serious one) can BANKRUPT a person who doesn’t have health insurance.

Unlike what people have assumed elsewhere, and asked me about, these people/relatives/clients I am referring to – in various European countries – are not exclusively or even usually:

• Very Young
• Very Healthy
• Extremely Poor
• Incredibly Heavily Taxed
• Interested in coming to the USA for health care
• Of the belief that the US is the sole seat of innovation in health care and science in the world. (Check the facts! Other countries invent and produce things too!)

I’m sorry that I’m screaming at you if you have read this far but I’m truly annoyed and sickened and disappointed in the way this health care debate thing is going. I despair at the apparent level of discourse and the seeming inability to think critically about this issue. It’s all fear, fear, fear, machismo, “we’re number one,” fear, money, fear, socialism strawmen, and “I’ve got mine, to heck with the rest of you.” (Oh yeah? Who’s going to perform the roles you take for granted if we little people all kick the bucket? You gonna take your own trash to the dump? Fix your own sewers, your own car, wait your own tables???)

Yes, okay, as someone once  said to me, reasonable people can disagree about the best way to solve the problem. It’s just that there seems to be precious little reasonableness around this issue in the public fora. From anywhere or anyone (quite frankly, at this moment, including Ms. Sanity!)

If you’ve been paying attention, and are living in the USA, you must have seen this stuff flying around also.

Here’s a quote from one of the more authoritative writers who has bothered to do research and to try to deconstruct some of the lies (which are being widely circulated!) One thing many of my fellow Americans are insanely failing to do is to consider the costs of DOING NOTHING. Here’s a glimpse, folks:

The US CBO {Congressional Budget Office} estimates that, with no changes to the {current USA} health care system, premiums will increase by $1,800 per year for the next ten years. That means a family will pay an average annual premium of more than $32,000 by then.

Oh, yeah, that’s going to be easy to handle with an average income in this country of about $48K or so. You really think that with this fabulous economy that your wages are going to go up that much in a decade? Think again.

Look, please, for your own good, for our collective good, for heaven’s sake, do some research, consider (shocking, I know) actually speaking to someone who lives in a country besides the USA about their experiences with their health care, read more than one source, don’t just believe the first chain email you get or the supremely unintelligent Sarah Palin stupidly telling you that we’re suddenly going to start killing off old people.

The simple fact is this: We ARE all in this life together. You do not live in isolation, you do not single-handedly completely create the prosperity and wealth that you have amassed, no matter how much you have–and you have a vested interest in the good health of your fellow man.

If a majority of people in this country cannot begin to grasp that simple fact, then our collective future is far darker than it seems.

In the meantime, cut the crap. There are a bazillion resources out there (factcheck.org is a good one, too) if you don’t trust the ones the government is putting out. But if you’re pulling your hair out over some chain email (or even blog posting, purporting to be from someone’s brother in law who is just “concerned” or from some dude the “health care ranger…”) first have a look here:  at the aptly named “Please Cut the Crap.”

My grandfather once, with a grimace,  years ago, said “People get the government they deserve.” (When the people of the state I live in elected – for his second term- a guy who if not a felon, was certainly “crooked.”) If that’s the case, then by the look of things at the zeitgeist, we are deserving not very much…since so many of you seem to believe you are all living on desert islands, and so on….

To riff on a lovely line from the movie Serenity:

You are not John Galt. Universal health care is not some Evil Empire or socialistic conspiracy leading us to the evils of communism. The Obama Administration is also not some Evil Empire. You people railing against health care are not the plucky heroes. This is not the grand arena.

Get a grip. Cut the crap. Read some stuff and don’t limit your information intake to Fox (Faux) news or, for that matter, Daily Kos or the Huffington Post.

If you don’t or won’t, don’t go crying to the rest of the world in a few years when only five perecent of the population has much access to health care, your premiums are $20 grand a year, and our trade imbalance and business competitiveness is even lower than it is at the moment.

I grew up in this land of hyperbole, these United States, and I know I am prone to overstating the case, (culture seeps in, inorexably, after all.) But these days I cannot escape near-constant visions that many, many thousands are going to have to literally lose their lives due to inadequate health care, before the “plucky heroes” of the right-wing begin to see it. And that quite literally breaks my bleeding heart. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Occasionally I see a thoughtful comment or an infomed and rational opinion about it, and to further that end for people that want to really do a bit of homework about this issue (rather than insanely repeat other people’s talking points…) here’s a few links where you can get some information and make up your own damn mind. Ms. Sanity suggests that instead of just  believing health insurer funded public relations/urband legend lies in your email (which might be said to be from someone’s brother in law)–check to see that the facts are straight.

In the forwards I’ve seen, they’re not even close!An excellent post and analysis about the practice of “recission,” (based on recent comments to congress by a health insurer CEO)…which is when they DROP paying customers because they get sick. This is so well written that even people like me who struggle with wrapping their heads around the math can get what he’s talking about. Link is here.

Yes, there are some people who are worried, angry, totally against reform all on their own and who are not part of an “astroturfing effort.” However, it sure looks like some of the “I’m agin’ it…” stuff happening IS quite literally being run by some PR hacks. Witness this:

Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, the operation that’s running a national campaign against a public health care option, is now publicly taking credit for helping gin up the sometimes-rowdy outbursts targeting House Dems at town hall meetings around the country, raising questions about their spontaneity.

CPR is the group headed by controversial former hospitals exec Rick Scott that’s spending millions on ads attacking reform in all sorts of lurid ways, a campaign that’s being handled by the same P.R. mavens behind the Swift Boat Vets.

Link to the post I excerpted from is here. It’s a post (with some comments) worth reading.

A writer at the wonderfully named blog called “Please Cut the Crap” has posted a most excellent refutation and analysis on some of the email stuff  making the rounds. Here is a MOST excellent refutation of this specific email I’m talking about which is still  apparently flying around the intertubes…. see: http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/…

Yeah, exactly…. please cut the crap, okay? Yes, there are things to be concerned about with regard to health care and its’ reform in this country.  Yes, other countries have challenges as a result of their “health care as a human right” approach. But you know what? Every single person (and I know and talk to many because of the work that I do) who lives in a country with universal health care feels that they have it much, much better than any American but the uber-rich.  They pity us and they don’t understand why we are not effectively having a Bastille Day.

Let’s open our eyes, folks, and be sane. The UK has had universal health care since around the time my PARENTS were born (the late 1940′s.)

Having said that, we don’t have to follow anyone else’s model exactly. (Such as it doesn’t have to be structured like the UK’s exactly or Canada’s or whatever. ) But we do have to do something.  This situation cannot stand. It is up to we Americans to do something about it. But before you go screaming about how awful some sort of health care safety net might be. (Me, I advocate for single payer…) .. take twenty minutes and learn the facts behind all this stuff and the incredible amounts of money that the pharmaceuticals and health insurance companies and so on are playing to keep. The health insurance lobby–I kid you not–has been reported by several reputable outlets to be spending more than 1 million dollars a DAY to block this reform.

Do you think they’re spending all that money because they’re concerned about morality or anything of that nature??

In my mind the only question is whether we are going to collectively get saner about this in the very near future or whether a whole hell of a lot more Americans are going to be devastated or dead due to the health care status quo.  I’m having a hard time believing it’s anything other than the latter. If you are not well informed on this issue you better get that way real quick like your life depends on it. Because it might.

Please prove me wrong.

Of course the intelligent people who read this blog probably were already clear that this so-called explanation is utter BS.  Or, as they might say in Britain, total bollocks.  Here’s one study (printed in the reputable PubMed Central and also the British Medical Journal) which shows the above popular misconception for what it is… a lie promulgated by the people who stand to profit by the curent state of affairs. For my non-American buddies who may somehow not know this: the truth really is on the ground here that people, (and not just poverty stricken elderly people or people who have never had a job) often have to make choices such as whether to buy food or refill a prescription. I have been there many times myself. So the next time people trot out that misconception..call a spade a spade. If there were truth to this, drugs would cost the same or nearly the same in all industrialized countries. They don’t. Oh and not only that, drugmakers in other countries are still pulling in handsome profits, even with their lower (much lower) prices.

On a perhaps happier note, Ms. Sanity also just became aware that as I write this, there is under consideration a bill in the US Senate which would make it legal for Americans to “re-import” drugs from Canada by purchasing from Canadian pharmacies over the internet. If this actually happens, this could be a good thing for some Americans, (though our Canadian brethren might not be too happy about it…)

Not surprisingly, the conservative alarmists are, well, alarmed. They’re claiming with straight faces, even, that allowing Americans to “re-import” these drugs, is unsafe.

Yeah, right, spare me. You’ll notice that there aren’t throngs of Canadians and British folk dropping dead left and right from the medication they’re taking…..

Allowing re-importation (which thousands of Americans are doing or trying to do right now anyway) is all well and good, but shouldn’t we freaking fix our own broken so-called system, rather than sponging off of countries such as Canada and the UK who have been taking better care of their citizens healthwise for decades?

Well, at the very least, US citizens should stop telling themselves (and each other) the lie that we pay such exorbitant and usurious prices for medication because we are politely covering the R & D costs for the entire world.

We pay these prices because we want to keep the big US Pharmaceutical companies really, really, really well-to-do.  I shudder to think what those in management at, say Pfizer, are paid for a year of work. (Yes, they save lives, and so on and so forth, but they also end them, thanks to the crazy prices people are asked to pay for the medication here.)

I don’t have the stomach to look up their salaries right now, though I’m sure the information is available. If one of you trusty readers wants to do so and report back, by all means…feel free.

Executives of three of the nation’s largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders…

Note that these are POLICY holders–who have been paying premiums.  To continue from this same story, located here:

An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.

Are you clear on what that means? It means that, by God, they feel perfectly justified in dropping you from your health care if the care you need is too expensive.

A little more from the story:

The executives — Richard A. Collins, chief executive of UnitedHealth’s Golden Rule Insurance Co.; Don Hamm, chief executive of Assurant Health and Brian Sassi, president of consumer business for WellPoint Inc., parent of Blue Cross of California — were courteous and matter-of-fact in their testimony.

But they would not commit to limiting rescissions to only policyholders who intentionally lie or commit fraud to obtain coverage, a refusal that met with dismay from legislators on both sides of the political aisle.

So, again, these people losing coverage are not liars are fraudsters, it could be you or your Aunt Mabel.

And there’s ANYONE in America who would prefer the status quo rather than some sort of Universal Health Care?

Now from the “not much hope” department, here’s some info on our Congresspeople who are currently trying to draft some sort of bill for universal health care.  Have a little look at THIS:

Almost 30 key lawmakers helping draft landmark health-care legislation have financial holdings in the industry, totaling nearly $11 million worth of personal investments in a sector that could be dramatically reshaped by this summer’s debate.

And there’s more…

The first big congressional moment on health care comes Tuesday in the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which will consider a liberal-leaning proposal that includes the creation of a “public plan” meant to be a government-administered alternative to private health insurance.

On that 22-member panel, at least eight senators have financial interests in the health-care industry worth a minimum of $600,000 — and potentially worth as much as $1.9 million. The investors include  Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), a senior member of the panel, who holds at least $165,000 in pharmaceutical and medical stocks, and freshman Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), who holds at least $180,000 in investments in more than 20 health-care companies.

And the list goes on, see the link above if you want to see the full list. Sure, it’s very possible that these folks can have all this investment in companies which “refuse to stop dropping sick people off of their health insurance!” and still do the right thing–e.g. provide health care to everyone who needs it.

My point is only that each of us had best be watching, that we need to keep our eyes on the ball here. It’s well past time that they stopped throwing their hands in the air (they meaning our so-called leaders) and crying “We can’t do this, it’s too hard...”

Your life may hang in the balance, folks. Whether you have health insurance or not. If you’re sane, you’re going to be paying very close attention to this issue – and you’ll be investigating it, and letting your representatives know what you think.

But the insurance companies? How can you read the first article and feel for two seconds that they are NOT the bad guys? Especially when, say, the CEO of WellPoint, Angela Braley, was paid $9,844,212 in 2008…. for running a company that denies claims to people who have health insurance! How nice!

By the way, that didn’t include her private plane or an additional “$10,000 for legal services relating to her employment agreement and cash credits.”

If you’re not outraged, you are not paying attention. This situation cannot stand. And if you think it “couldn’t affect you” or someone you love because you have health insurance, THINK AGAIN. It’s the only sane way to go.

That is absurd, my friends. I knew the number would be high–but 62%?

It is also important to point out that OF those 62%, guess what percentage actually HAD health insurance when their illness happened?

78%. Let me say that again. 78% of the people who ended up having to declare bankruptcy–many of whom would have lost their houses, etc., as a result–HAD HEALTH INSURANCE at the time they (or a family member) got ill.

This article will be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

Obviously, I think this report blows huge, gaping holes in the idea which many of us hold about people who declare bankruptcy. I too thought until I came across this story that most bankruptcies were related to people being irresponsible, living well beyond their means, etc., and that’s obviously not the case.

The conservatives like to imply that everything in the world is, well, under an individual’s control. Let’s see how they spin that one with this upcoming report. I can hear it now.

“People who have illnesses should be responsible enought to have them in countries where their health care is reasonably priced!”

This situation MUST be changed, it cannot be allowed to continue. No one should have to worry about losing their house because their child or their spouse gets cancer.

If you don’t agree, please tell me why. And what your fears are, about the possibility of changing our so called “system” so that people don’t have to lose their  decent credit history, not to mention possible loss of their home, because of an illness.

Before you say, well, these people should have availed themselves of charity or indigent care–I’m here to tell you, having been in this situation, (the only thing which prevented me declaring bankruptcy – not that I owned any assets – was my parents gift of paying some of the bills for me,) is that there is nowhere near ENOUGH charity to even come close to meeting the need of affordable healthcare, it’s nowhere near enough in this country, and certainly not enough in other countries, either….

We have to do something.  Yes, WE have to…. not “someone has to do something.”

The Bankers are Not Your Friends

I don’t know that much about Senator Dick Durbin, (though I am glancing over his voting record as I write this) but I did run across this interesting little quote from him today.

Durbin is a Democratic Senator from IL, and apparently he said recently:

“And the banks – hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created – are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”

Senator Dick Durbin

How interesting.  I suppose it’s hardly surprising,  since even after the freaking financial meltdown, the banks are still “where the money is…” but it sure seems to me that essentially the banking boys ought to be personae non grata on Capitol Hill, since by nearly all accounts, they directly caused this crap.

Looking at Durbin’s evaluation by special interest groups (courtesy of “Project Vote Smart,”) in 2008 the National Tax Limitation Committee gave Senator Durbin a grade of F in its special report. Hmm, I can venture an educated guess that the National Tax Limitation Committee is a conservative leaning organization in large part centered around keeping the collective wealth of this nation in the pockets it currently resides in. (That is, under the control quite literally of far less than 1% of the population.)

So, if that organization thinks Durbin is no good, my guess is, that he probably has a good head on his shoulders.

At any rate, the quote from Durbin ought to be thought provoking, and since he’s been “On the Hill” since 1996, I would think that he knows what he’s talking about.

The bankers were not the “friends” of this country in 2003, or 2007, or in 1999, when they successfully got the Glass-Steagall act of 1933 repealed under the Clinton Administration…which led directly–if convolutedly–to the current financial meltdown.

They certainly are not the friends of this country (or for that matter, of the world) today.

Oh, yeah, wait. They do make huge campaign contributions.  That’s why they’re still listened to, I suppose. Never mind, my bad. That makes it all right then…

How Is This Sane?

Tipsy Dazy has a comment here that challenged me to think long and hard about, well, everything, and particularly about communication.

Most of the people I have ever known do all tend to make assumptions regarding what is meant by a particular turn of phrase or word usage, (not to mention tone of voice, and so forth…) rather than listening carefully and attempting to think logically or critically or to ask the communicator for more information. I’d be lying if I pretended for one nanosecond that I don’t exhibit that kind of behavior on a regular basis, but hey, I’m working on it.  Read on if you want to know more about my (sane, though I say it myself… heh) ….assumptions.

In thinking about this sort of thing, and as I am today attempting to think about the issues of equality or inequality in American society, Tipsy made me remember that I should at least attempt to consider what some of the assumptions are behind my statements and my “world view.” It may be clumsy but here’s my attempt at some definition.

One of the assumptions that I believe underlie some of my thinking about the world is the idea that it almost certainly is not possible in human society to “legislate equality.” I can remember in my youth as part of my education in literature, reading the story “Harrison Bergeron” originally published by Kurt Vonnegut in 1961.  (available in full here.) I remember marveling as a child at Vonnegut’s brilliantly made point that it simply is not possible–and it is silly to try– to pass laws that will supposedly somehow make everyone “equal” in any real, meaningful way. We are all born with different skills, talents, interests, and capacities, and no amount of law-making is going to change that.

Having said that, I also in my youth digested the famous line from “Animal Farm,” which states: ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL. BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.

Whether I and my liberal brethren like it or not, (even though Orwell, of course, was speaking out against “some being more equal than others,”) the truth of the matter is that we are not in any way truly equal in the world except in the metaphorical sense of the worth of a human life which is immeasurable, of course….. and that this inequality does now and always will  include our incomes and cash assets. To oversimplify, our conservative brethren seem to me to also oversimplify, and that they worry that libruls (misspelling intentional, sorry) miss that point–e.g. that income, too, is not equal and never will be.

Actually we liberals/progressives, we understand that last point. Really. Anybody that’s tried to make an actual LIVING in America in the last twenty years or so, can hardly have missed it.

I also assume that conservatives (and too, libertarian types…) tend to think that liberals, and/or “progressives” furthermore have some deluded idea that somehow it is possible to wave our non-existent magical wands and make us all equal, in income or by any other measure. We aren’t equal, not in abilities, not in opportunities etc. etc. etc.

Another assumption that I hold, though I don’t think as a general rule that the majority of my countrymen would agree with me…(my friends, yes, and family… but most of the country? doubt it…. )….is that we ARE all equal, however, in terms of WORTH. (Inner, metaphysical, human-dignity type worth.)

Personally, I hold it to be self-evident too that (although, of course, it’s a slippery slope that requires much caution)  just because someone is in possession of assets – cash or other ones – does not mean that they acquired them legally or in any sort of morally acceptable fashion. This seems to be one assumption tenderly nurtured by the Republicans and Libertarians – e.g. that the assumption is that if someone has something today, that they are entitled to keep it in perpetuity.  (Witness the implosion of the entire financial world partly as a result of leveraging and re-leveraging “assets” that were backed by nothing or not very much or .0001 % of not very much… and the continuing clamor of investors to “be made whole.”)

On the other hand just because I might not think, for example, that Alan Greenspan has come by whatever assets he has in his bank account in any sort of moral, acceptable, or legal way,  does NOT give me the right to just ride in and seize his assets. That’s why we have due process, that’s why we have courts, and that’s why the framers tried to limit (not eliminate) the openings for “mob rule.”

Mobs are notoriously not great at critical thinking.

Back to what I think that conservatives and such assume; I think they assume that liberals think that assets can be/should be just taken away willy nilly from the have-mores and given to the have nothings. I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who really believed that.

However what I do assume – and think is self-evident- though again I do not think the majority would agree with me in the United States - is that the inequalities of income CAN and should be leveled at least to a degree.  Take a close look at the graph on this post. How the hell does that make sense in a civilized society?

Oh yeah, that’s another thing. I do not assume that this really is a civilized society. Maybe never has been, when you take even a moment’s glance at our history.

And I certainly do not assume that this country is a representation of “the good guys” in the world, or that we have any right whatsoever to tell other countries how to run their affairs. Clearly our own “house” is not now and perhaps never been in order.

Two last ones before I stop… I DO also assume that taxes are part and parcel of the dues I and anyone else have to pay for living in a society. I do not assume that taxes are bad. Even if I do not think that the people I pay taxes to are stewarding them the way that I would steward them.

Last, and perhaps most important  assumption: I assume, with few and narrow exceptions, that there is not such a thing as “US” and  “THEM,” at least not on this planet. We live in a literal fishbowl – I assume that it is ALL  US. We are all in this damn life together. That seems pretty damn self evident to me.

And I assume that some day we will all assume that – but I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime.

What do YOU assume? What is self evident to you? I really would want to know.

Diogenes, Like Obama, Was Looking For an Honest Man!

I know I’m late on the uptake here but I just had to mention that it seemed that President Obama is unwittingly being called to behavior right up there with one of the original cynics, Diogenes. I’m speaking in the context of President Obama’s attempts to get his cabinet populated.   In case you don’t know, Diogenes was the guy who went around with his lantern lit at midday way back in the day (This was in the time period of Ancient Greece.) Of course his community thought he was crazy. People didn’t walk around with lit lanterns in the day time!

When they finally got around to asking Diogenes what the heck he was doing with the lantern (most likely after having made fun of him for a few years behind his back…but that’s just a guess…)

The story goes that he replied earnestly, “I’m looking for an honest man.”

Centuries later, we’re still repeating that story,  not to mention finding honest people few and far between, particularly politicians in the good ole USA.  Follow me on the flip for more…. So it was what, three, or even FOUR of Obama’s cabinet pics who turned out to have either not paid or severely underpaid their damn taxes? What’s the deal with that?

Daschle was the one I was paying the most attention to, since he was by all accounts a good guy, and he was a great hope for fixing the morass that passes for a health care “system” in this country. So, Daschle said, apparently, that he “DIDN’T KNOW” that a car and driver provided to him by someone at no charge was taxable. What the heck??? My unemployment  benefits will be taxable, (if and when I ever get any…) So it’s a safe frickin’ bet that one’s limo, even if it is ummmm donated by some ahhhhhhhhhh grateful constituent or whatever–gets taxed at market value. Sheesh. I mean, I’m no tax expert,  you know? and I would have known that I couldn’t just ride around in a limo at my leisure, and not expect to pay the taxes on the value of it.

And then, what, there were at least two, maybe three other appointees who screwed up their taxes one way or another? I mean, really. And some, if not all of them were Democrats–widely regarded to be the “good guys.”

Is there not an honest man or woman left in DC? One has to wonder, sometimes….

Obama, to his credit, somewhere recently said something along the lines of “One does not go into public service to enrich oneself, one does it to help the public.”

Ah, if only half of them saw it that way, this might be a whole other kettle of fish.

I hate to fan the flames of discontent when they are already higher than I’ve seen them in my lifetime (not that tons of people read Manic  Meltdown anyway…..yet…) but it really is ridiculous.

If you want to go into public service, and yet you aren’t prepared to pay the very same taxes you’d throw any of us in jail for not paying…. and if you don’t expect to have your “stuff” gone over with a fine tooth comb, then that is patently insane.

Yes, our leaders are just people, and we don’t have to worship the ground they walk on- nor should we (that’s  insane too.) And yes, people make mistakes, even  Ms. Sanity here. Still, I have grown more than a little weary of the folks making more in a year than I have in my entire life not living on the up-and-up. How about the IRS audits every single member of the federal congress every year and it becomes part of their job description? Now there’s an idea.

It seems to me that the “powers that be” ought to get it figured out soon that ‘we the people’ are not likely to just accept this kind of behavior indefinitely. Not when millions of us are worried about where our next meal or prescription or mortgage payment is going to come from.

I suggest that while this country is in a meltdown too, and people losing their jobs every day, etc., that Congress do the right thing (at least the US Congress, that is) and vote themselves out of their regular $4500 a year “cost of living” increase for their salaries. If they REALLY want to be impressive (and they don’t, of course…) they could also go ahead and let go of their (free) stellar health insurance paid for by the taxpayer and opt to try and purchase their OWN health insurance on the open market. That would really be a gesture of solidarity with their constituents (and an eye opening experience for them, too, but that’s beside the point.)

The cynical side of Ms. Sanity says (particularly after one Dick Cheney’s appalling “So?” statement) that our congressional representatives outside of election time don’t really care what we think or feel.

That is a situation that cannot stand, or be allowed to stand, forever. Those people work for US. NOT big corporations, not lobbyists, they work for you and me. Eventually I think they will be reminded of that in no uncertain terms,  one way or another.