by Terry Plotkin

The way our country acts a one might think that we have real threats facing us. So fearful are we that we spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined. We have so many enemies, that we have been at war, almost constantly, for over 70 years. If it is not those pesky Russians, then it is those Asians that we felt compelled to invade so as to prevent them choosing their own path to development. And then there were those Panamanians, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Iraqis, Dominican Republicans, Guatemalans, Iranians, Afghanistanians, Lebaneseians, Somalians, and Yemenites that had to be bombed, occupied, or had their governments overthrown to keep us safe. I will never forget that awful threat we faced from the tiny island of Grenada who had the audacity to elect a President we did not approve of. I’ll bet our invasion taught them a lesson. And now we have the perfect enemy to deal with; the kind that can never be defeated; the war that can never end; the one that has no geography or standing army to confront; and it can be used to violate any of our civil liberties that the government deems necessary. This nameless, faceless enemy that will keep us in thrall as far as the eye can see is called the war on terrorism.

I shudder to think of what it would be like if we did not invest such a staggering amount of our resources to the defense of the country as we seek to rid the world of all the bad guys. (A bad guy is someone who doesn’t like us running their affairs, or doesn’t like us taking unfair advantage in the procurement of their natural resources, or who doesn’t agree with us about what they should do, or who doesn’t appreciate all the good we are doing for them while we occupy their country, or who disagree with us for propping up hated dictators who do our bidding, or who, like George W. Bush so astutely observed, simply hate our freedoms.)

Blessed as we are for having 2 oceans around us to keep our enemies away, abundant natural resources, and a vast amount of nuclear weapons to annihilate anyone who gets too big for their britches. Yet, it is still not enough security for us in this dangerous world we are trying to protect. What a burden we carry! I don’t know how the other nations do it with their tiny militaries, while living on continents where there are numerous, small countries. They must live in terror. I mean look how scared Americans are, and we have all these advantages they don’t have. It is a good thing we are the good guys, otherwise the world would be in trouble.

Perhaps, my sarcasm runs wild because I am just not scared enough of other people to think we need a colossal military machine. I actually believe that the wars we fight are about controlling scarce valuable resources, securing favorable terms of trade, and creating a profitable business climate.  Here is what I would do to try to extricate ourselves from ourselves, and in so doing stop spending so much money and making life so miserable for so many on this planet.

Let the Empire go. Bring the troops home and make civilians out of most of them. Close the bases and give the facilities to the host countries as expressions of our good will. Use the vast savings in money to invest in our people and give some back to the peoples we have hurt. We can easily defend our borders at a tiny cost compared to what we spend now, if we focus on the homeland. If corporations want us to make weapons so they can make money, or run other countries so they can conduct profitable business, then we can say “no” to them. They are not people you know. Here is how you can tell the difference: People have multiple bottom lines when looking for happiness: family, community, cultural pursuits, loving relationships, prosperity, security, creature comforts, friendships, art, music, purposeful work, and service projects to name a few. Corporations have only one bottom line: they want to make money.   Human beings are bigger and way more interesting than that.

Simplicity. Simplicity. Simplicity: Part 4

by Terry Plotkin

The way our country acts a person might think that we have real threats facing us. So fearful are we that we spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined. We have so many enemies that we have been at war, almost constantly, for over 70 years. If it is not those pesky Russians, then it is those Asians that we felt compelled to invade so as to prevent them choosing their own path to development. And then there were those Panamanians, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Iraqis, Dominican Republicans, Guatemalans, Iranians, Afghanistanians, Lebaneseians, Somalians, and Yemenites that had to be bombed, occupied, or had their governments overthrown to keep us safe. I will never forget that awful threat we faced from the tiny island of Grenada who had the audacity to elect a President we did not approve of. I’ll bet our invasion taught them a lesson. And then we have the perfect enemy to deal with; the kind that can never be defeated; the war that can never end; that has no geography or standing army to confront; it can be used to violate any of our civil liberties that the government deems necessary. This nameless, faceless, being that will keep us in thrall as far as the eye can see is called the war on terrorism.

I hate to think of what it would be like if we did not invest such a staggering amount of our resources to the defense of the country as we seek to rid the world of all the bad guys. (A bad guy is someone who doesn’t like us running their affairs, or doesn’t like us taking unfair advantage in the procurement of their natural resources, or who doesn’t agree with us about what they should do, or who doesn’t appreciate all the good we are doing for them while we occupy their country, or who disagree with us for propping up hated dictators who do our bidding, or who, like George Bush the 2^nd so astutely observed, simply hate our freedoms.)

Blessed as we are for having 2 oceans around us to keep our enemies away, abundant natural resources, and a vast amount of nuclear weapons to annihilate anyone who gets too big for their britches. Yet, it is still not enough security for us in this dangerous world we are trying to protect. What a burden we carry! I don’t know how the other nations do it with their tiny militaries, and live on continents where there are numerous, small countries. They must live in terror. I mean look how scared Americans are, and we have all these advantages they don’t have. It is a good thing we are the good guys, otherwise the world would be in trouble.

Perhaps, my sarcasm runs amok because I am just not scared enough of other people to think we need a colossal military machine, and thus end up believing that the wars we fight are about controlling scarce valuable resources, securing favorable terms of trade, and creating a profitable business climate.  Here is what I would do to try to extricate ourselves from ourselves, and in so doing stop spending so much money and making life so miserable for so many on this planet.

Let the Empire go. Bring the troops home and make civilians out of most of them. Close the bases and give the facilities to the host countries as expressions of our good will. Use the vast savings in money to invest in our people and give some back to the peoples we have hurt. We can easily defend our borders at a tiny cost compared to what we spend now, if we focus on the homeland. If corporations want us to make weapons so they can make money, or run other countries so they can conduct profitable business, then we can say “no” to them. They are not people you know. Here is how you can tell the difference: People have multiple bottom lines when looking for happiness: family, community, cultural pursuits, loving relationships, prosperity, security, creature comforts, friendships, art, music, purposeful work, and service projects to name a few. Corporations have only one bottom line: they want to make money.   Human beings are bigger and way more interesting than that.

If something is bought economists consider it a good thing, as it supports business. Advertising teaches us that buying things brings happiness. (It actually works for me once in a while for a few moments until the thrill wears off. Of course, you then have to buy something else to keep it going. Thankfully, I’m not that interested in stuff or that addicted.) Strangely, when we buy something collectively we often feel bad about it. People gripe that we bought something together, and it seems like there is no thrill at all. When we buy something collectively we have to pool our money and purchase the product or service. This is what taxes are. The problem is that people don’t feel connected to their society so when we try to do something as a group it is given begrudgingly.

Taxes don’t bother me at all as long as it is spent for the common good. My local taxes help to run the schools, collect the garbage, maintain the tennis courts, pave and plow the roads, and send police or firemen over when something is going wrong. I feel good about collectively buying these services. I like living in a nice town. I don’t like my taxes going to unnecessary wars. But then again, I’m not a multinational corporation who benefits from such things. Regardless, towns don’t make wars. Powerful, bad men, far away from the action and who dream about power and empire, initiate wars.

Even if there was no corruption of politicians, no empire to maintain by the military, (To those of you who believe otherwise, the war budget is not about spreading freedom and democracy around the globe, nor is it a school building program for poor countries.) even if we turned our back on wars, and all people had good health habits and needed less health care, there would still be a need to buy things collectively. I say, let’s stop grumbling about taxes and instead focus on making it fair, sensible, and simple to operate.

Here goes: A few consumption taxes, added to the price of items to cover the social costs and a progressive income tax with no deductions would do the trick.  The consumption taxes already exists on some vices items like cigarettes and to that I would add a few items that have high social costs to help cut down on their use and minimize their impact. Gasoline, green house gasses, junk food, and pesticides come to mind.  A progressive income tax where the wealthy pay a higher percentage of their income than a poor worker could easily be devised. Get rid of all deductions and pay taxes according to your income. A 6^th grader should be able to figure out the taxes of a wealthy man in a few minutes. I don’t want to waste any more time on those IRS forms. Do you?

One more thing, while we are raising money to purchase the things we need, let’s be fair and kind to our children and grandchildren and pay for what we buy instead of borrowing and leaving them the bill. I don’t plan on leaving my own children a mountain of debt to deal with from my own indulgences. On the contrary, I would like to leave them something so as to lessen their future burden. Almost any parent would feel the same. Since we are all parents of the next generation, let’s act like the adults we are suppose to be and pay our collective bills and stop complaining about it. Whining is for spoiled children.

I got the title for this series of posts form Thoreau. Here is the full quote. “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand. Instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”

The concept can apply to issues of governance even on a large scale.  Along with making everyday life less complicated, policies can be made to make the people’s lives more just and better.  Please do not accuse me of waxing idealistic as you read my ideas. I’m just pretending for a little while that we live in an enlightened democracy, where the good of the whole is always considered, and the citizens are intelligent, well adjusted, and informed. No need to show me evidence to the contrary. Why state the obvious?

Problem 2: The issue of affordable health care for all. (If you remember, last week the employment problem was addressed.)

There are numerous studies to show, and the lesson of every developed nation to prove, that universal health care for a nation can be accomplished and done cheaper than we do it here.  Congress and the President passed a health care reform act that was 1200 pages long that found ways to leverage most everyone into a private health insurance plan. The health insurance corporations would then supposedly have your best interests at heart when it came time for you to get medical care. It is like the way things are now, just with more people in the system. At present, without this reform, 50 million people live without any insurance at all and the human, social, and economic costs of this are catastrophic. The operating assumption of private-for-profit health care is the corporation must be more invested in your health than they are in making money. HAAA! Ya right! That sounds likely. And people think I’m idealistic.

I will not debate this crap about whether we are better off with or without the reforms that were passed, that’s for people who don’t know what its like to go without health care. The insurance industry has way too many lawyers, lobbyists, and money for advertising to ever win an argument against them. What follows is what I would do if corporations did not dictate our health care options to us. I know, I know I’ll be called a socialist, communist, utopian fool. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Health care is based on the premise that most everyone is going to need medical care at some point in their life and if by some bizarre coincidence they don’t, they will know plenty of people who do. This would be true even if Americans had good health habits, which they clearly don’t. But I’m not going to get started on that topic. I’ll save that rant for another day.

Here goes – simplicity in action. When you are born you are given health care when needed and you keep it until you die. Oh yes, you have to pay for it. That’s what taxes are for.

This is no different than how we pay for healthcare now, except that at present we give our money to a middle person, called an insurance corporation, (The Supreme Court has taught me that a corporation is a person.) and they take a big cut off the top for themselves, make things way more complicated and bureaucratic, and, if you get sick, they might throw you off your plan.  Other than that it is the same as my solution, except in my solution health care becomes affordable and goes to everyone that needs it, not just to those that can afford it. I like my idea better.