The Roots of Our Problems, Part 2

Problem No. 2: Fear.

It's so easy to be afraid, and so easy to adjust to living in that state until you hardly notice it.

Someday, when you are on your deathbed (assuming that Fate grants you the luxury), I hope you will not look back and look at a whole list of things that you knew you should have done but were held back by fear: fear of standing out among your peers, friends, or family.  I hope there are not a lot of things that would cause you to think, "You know, if I had the chance to do or say that right now, I wouldn't hesitate.  How foolish that I didn't take the opportunity then.  What was I protecting?  Just my ego."  (Of course, I'm talking about doing or saying good, constructive things, not blowing up a bridge or something insane like that.)

We are here for such a brief visit, and then the rest of history will be written without us.  If there is something you would like to see change in this world for the better, why not decide to be the agent of that change?  Why wait for someone else to come along and tackle it?  Maybe it's supposed to be you!  Susan B. Anthony never saw the change she fought for realized in her lifetime, but we commend her for making the struggle - she strove to do something about it, and paved the way for those who would follow.  Even if the change you seek looks insurmountable, why let that keep you from at least trying?  If nothing else, your effort makes a statement - and you never know who you might inspire or influence down the road.

Say no to fear and give that person the constructive criticism they need, or write to that Senator or CEO and voice your complaint, or plant a tree.  Use that sense of humor to benefit others, give the encouraging smile and pat on the back, take the unpopular stand if you think it's the right one, challenge the mundane thinking that surrounds us.  If you were on your deathbed looking back at all the things you might have done, in your mind you would see an active you, unhesitating, unashamed, vibrant - you would see you living. 

So get busy!  Make hay while the sun shines!  Look ahead in your mind to "dying you" and give yourself a "thumbs up"!  "Look at me doing the things that dying me would have wished I'd done.  But now there will be no wishing on that day.  Just a sense of satisfaction that I did it - or at least tried!"  That's the way we want to go out.  Satisfaction - not regrets.

Don't live your life as a slave to fear.

True and Falsies

The income tax is the price we pay for living in society.

False.  There is no price for living in society.  We are born into society and spend our entire lives in it.  It is our natural state and therefore comes without a price tag.

The income tax is the price we pay for civilization.

False.  Our country had schools, sewers, streets that were lit and paved, public health services, libraries, police, firefighters, a military, etc., before we had an income tax.  Civilization and its bells and whistles preceded the income tax.

The income tax redistributes wealth from the top down.

False.  "Since 1980...interest payments [on the national debt] have represented the largest transfer of wealth ever, from the people who pay taxes to the people who own the debt and collect interest on it. More accurately, the money goes from middle-income and lower-income taxpayers to upper-income investors."  (from America: Who Really Pays the Taxes?, Barlett & Steele, 1994)

According to the New York Times, in 2011 there were over 100,000 individuals with incomes over $200,000 who paid no income tax.  How can the income tax redistribute wealth from the top down if the wealthy aren't paying it to begin with?  The fact is, they hoard theirs and collect ours.

The income tax is the price we pay for our own ignorance, and our apathy regarding our own freedom.

True.

The income tax was a great idea and should go on forever.

False.  It only looks good in theory.  It was sold as a tax that would help close the gap between rich and poor, that would only be applied to the wealthiest 2% of the population.  If you've been keeping up with the news at all, you should be laughing right now.  The income tax has had a 100-year run and has never delivered on its lofty promises.  In fact, it operates in complete opposition to those promises.  At its best, it enriches the wealthiest Americans and feeds the military/industrial complex (which is simply another tool used by the rich to increase their wealth).  At its worst, the income tax pushes down the standard of living for the rest of us and increases the gap between rich and poor.  The income tax should be abolished.

The Price of Freedom Is Eternal Vigilance

Picked up a book yesterday that I am excited to be reading.  I have found that, in order to better understand freedom, it is instructive to study its opposite - slavery.  The book is Bury the Chains, by Adam Hochschild (2005).  It covers the abolitionist movement in England beginning in the late 1700's.  I wanted to share a few passages from the introduction and talk about them.

"But this was the world - our world - just two centuries ago, and to most people then, it was unthinkable that it could ever be otherwise.  At the end of the eighteenth century, well over three quarters of all people alive were in bondage of one kind or another, not the captivity of striped prison uniforms, but of various systems of slavery or serfdom...The era was one when, as the historian Seymour Drescher puts it, 'freedom, not slavery, was the peculiar institution.'  This world of bondage seemed all the more normal then, because anyone looking back in time would have seen little but other slave systems.  The ancient Greeks had slaves; the Romans had an estimated two to three million of them in Italy alone; the Incas and Aztecs had slaves; the sacred texts of most major religions took slavery for granted.  Slavery had existed before money or written law...

"If, early that year [1787], you had stood on a London street corner and insisted that slavery was morally wrong and should be stopped, nine out of ten listeners would have laughed you off as a crackpot.  The tenth might have agreed with you in principle, but assured you that ending slavery was wildly impractical: the British Empire's economy would collapse."

Really, the only thought I wanted to share was this: We are foolish to take for granted whatever freedoms we have, and foolish to neglect their protection.  Historically speaking, we are just coming out of the woods where slavery is concerned - at least, the type of slavery that our country is now famous (infamous) for.  Yet, the path to true freedom still remains murky, unsure, and in some cases (human trafficking, manipulative laws written and enforced by the wealthy ruling class) blocked altogether.

True, looking at the difficult path to freedom may cause feelings of anxiety, fear, uncertainty - icky feelings to be sure, feelings that we can easily chase away by surfing through 500 channels of cable nonsense.  But please keep one thing in mind that is very important - the path to freedom will never be found and successfully navigated by burying our heads in the sand.  And if you had to protect your child from an intruder, ignoring the intruder and hoping he will go away would be the stupidest line of defense, wouldn't it?  You'd endure the icky feelings you would experience in fighting him off (anxiety, fear, uncertainty) because you know your child is worth it.

The freedoms we live with are relatively young on the world's stage; they are, historically, quite new.  They are fragile and vulnerable.  And they were gained by fighting off powerful usurpers who had taken them centuries ago.  Our country scrambles to enact anti-bullying legislation to rein in 8th-graders, but we treat with kid gloves those bullies who never quite grew out of their immature mentalities and who now make the decisions that control so many of our legislators.  Of course, I'm talking about Big Money.  Look at the news over the last few years - it is the wealthy and corrupt who pose the biggest threat to our liberties, not a few poor, disenfranchized, radicalized Muslims.  It's time to arrest the real terrorists, like they recently did in Iceland.

Thanks For Stopping By, Hank!

Henry David Thoreau stopped by today and asked if he might contribute a little something to my blog, and I said, “Have at it, Hank!” This is what he had to say:

“To be strictly just, [government] must have the sanction and consent of the governed.  It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it.  The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.  Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire.  Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government?  Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man?  There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.  I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellowmen.  A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.” –Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1849)

A black & white candid
I took of Hank
with my iPod.

The Roots of Our Problems, Part 1

My mother once said she regards the world as one giant kindergarten – we’re all still kids, basically; just bigger.

I think if we start with that premise, we can begin to figure out some of the issues that face people worldwide when it comes to the haves and have-nots.  Being on the lower end of the income spectrum, I speak from the perspective of the have-nots.  (I am aware that the have-nots in America are doing pretty damn well compared to the have-nots in other countries, but still, my perspective is my perspective – in America, I’m one of the have-nots.)

The first thing we have-nots must do if we are to “build a better tomorrow” is to get over the fact that we are the have-nots.  I’m 47 years old, have a Master’s degree from Northwestern University, and live in a one-bedroom apartment with second-hand furnishings.  I drive around Chicago’s North Shore and realize that the people who live in those big houses are, in many cases, less educated, less talented, and less intelligent than I am (that’s not boasting – I know a lot of them).  But there they live, and I’m “a renter.”  I look at where I live and think, “That’s where I live,” but I don’t live there.  See the difference?  I live in a lower-income neighborhood, but that isn’t what defines me.  It would be really easy for me to look at “where I’m at” in life and consider myself a failure, get angry at the world, grow depressed, and turn into a piece of white trash and call it a day.  But I am more than where I live; I am more than what I have or don’t have; I am more than a renter; I am more than my job.

Because that is my perspective on me, it is also my perspective on everybody.  The billionaire I am supposed to envy is more to me than his money, than his job, than his house and yacht.  He is a man.  The great equalizer we are searching for in this world is not a progressive income tax, ladies and gentlemen.  In case no one has noticed over the last hundred years, that doesn’t work – at all.  The great equalizer is nothing more than self-respect.

So, problem No. 1: envy.

Our envy of the wealthy has been eating at us and blurring our sense of justice for centuries.  The very idea that we have some twisted duty to take from the wealthy and distribute it all around creates a divide, creates that “us and them” mentality which breeds conflict.  A better tomorrow has us standing side-by-side with the wealthy as equals, as brothers – not as enemies.  Wealth equals power only because we envy what the “haves” have.  We want what they have – cash – and the wealthy use that envy against us.  Their power to influence our governments, their power to write the rules that govern us, is bought.  We want the money, and we take it in exchange for our own power.  Our Congress has been handing over the power of legislating in exchange for money for a long time.  It’s no secret.  Envying wealth is killing our country.  Self-respect kills envy.   

When we stop envying the wealthy, their power over the have-nots will disappear.  Their wealth will be only that – wealth.  It will only mean they can spend more than we can when they go to market – that’s all.  It will no longer mean they can rule us.

We are all aware of man’s weakness when it comes to greed (which is born out of envy).  For those members of Congress who simply cannot find the self-respect to rise above a greedy nature, there is an answer: term limits for all members of Congress.  There is no other way.  The People must insist.

We are also aware that some who have great wealth have come by it illegally or unjustly.  If there is credible evidence against them of wrongdoing, the answer for them is a court of law.  If they are found guilty after a trial, then we have reason to confiscate whatever of their wealth is deemed appropriate in their case.  This is the only wealth we can legitimately go after for redistribution.  If the laws are found to be unjust and allow for injustice where amassing wealth is concerned, then the People need to find the will to change those unjust laws.  We will never find justice by blindly “soaking the rich” through taxation or otherwise.  This will never answer.  In fact, the taxation (the progressive income tax) that was put in place to “soak the rich” a hundred years ago has been turned against us by the rich.  The sooner we unplug everyone from that scam, the better.

One final note on the income tax before we move on (because, believe it or not, this post isn’t really about the income tax, though that subject is an important part of the bigger picture): no one will ever convince me that forcing one person to pay more for an available government resource than what another person has to pay falls under the definition of “just.”  Ironically, I find that my own experience provides a prime example of this.

Most years as a piano tuner, my annual income tax liability hovered around $3,000.  The year after I took over another tuner’s business (he moved out of state), the liability jumped to $15,000 (years later, it’s back to what it had been, if not a little lower).  However, I don’t recall ever receiving a notice in the mail that year that went anything like this: “Sir, the United States government is pleased to inform you that you now have available to you five times more police and fire protection, five times more roads available to travel on, education for your children that is five times better than what you have been accustomed to, five times more street lighting and sewer service, five times more public health benefits, an armed Marine guard when you travel overseas…”, etc., etc., etc.  The fact is, with five times as much tax liability, the amount of government services available to me as a citizen didn’t change in the least, but suddenly those services were five times more expensive.  The rich know there is no justice in this.  When one individual pays $1,000 annually in income tax and another is told to pay $2 million for the same government services that are available to every citizen, you can bet the one who has to pay $2 million will find any way he can to avoid it.  And if you can kill the envy inside, you won’t be able to blame him.  And look at it this way: if you were expected to put $2 million a year into the coffers, would you not have some sense of entitlement when it came to writing the rules of the game?  Would you, for that kind of money, not feel entitled to having more say in the process than the one who contributes $1,000?  Of course you would!  It's human nature.  It’s time to kill the individual income tax – an unjust system that has never been the great equalizer it was pitched as by its earliest proponents.

But the main point of this first part is envy: envy is the enemy, envy divides, envy blurs what is truly just or unjust, envy leads to greed which stupidly trades power for cash.  Self-respect kills envy and creates true equality (whether the wealthy want it or not).  And let’s not forget Congressional term limits – the only real protection we can offer members of Congress; protection from themselves.  If we don't provide this protection (give them a couple of terms to do some good and then get them the hell out of there), how can we, knowing human nature, really blame them for the folly they engage in year after year?    

A Rolling Stone Article

This article from Rolling Stone Magazine adds fuel to the fire of any freedom-loving person.  Entitled "The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia," it is well worth the 10 or so minutes it will take to read it.  There is arrogance, and then there is arrogance that is like a disease.  At some point, I wonder if these people just lose control of their actions.  They're sick.

On the Connection Between the Income Tax and Dead Soldiers

No matter how strongly I may disagree with someone, I rarely, if ever, use the full and more colorful range of the language.  But in this case, I think it is warranted.

First, the quote (taken from a statement on the Senate floor a few days ago):

“So, yes, we're going to have to ask the wealthiest people in this country to start paying their fair share of taxes.  I saw a piece in the paper the other day – it was quite incredible.  Some billionaires apparently are leaving America; they're giving up their citizenship and they're going abroad.  These great lovers of America who made their money in this country, when you ask them to start paying their fair share of taxes, they're running abroad.  We have 19-year-old kids in this country who've died in Iraq and Afghanistan defending this country – they went abroad not to escape taxes; they're working-class kids who died in wars, and now some billionaires want to run abroad in order to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.  What patriotism!  What love of country!”  -Senator Bernie Sanders, June 27, 2012.

At first it sounds so good, so right.  The indignation, the anger – the whole speech points the finger at the big banks and big business and big money, while standing up for the little guy, the American worker.

But there was something in this part of the speech that hit me.  I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but I knew there was something in it, so I decided to spend part of my morning reflecting on it – something about billionaires and taxes and working-class soldiers and Marines losing their lives overseas.  These things were being lumped together for some reason.

Well, a few minutes ago it struck me.  Your rhetoric, Senator Sanders, and the rhetoric of your colleagues, is meant to make me think ill of billionaires.  I am supposed to envy them; I am supposed to not like them.  After all, we are so different, and what can be more natural than not liking people who are different from you?  They have vast wealth – I have little to none.  They are terrible examples of patriotism – I am a good example of patriotism.  They are evil – I am good.  They don’t pay taxes on their income – but I DO!  Those bastard billionaires might shirk their patriotic duty, but not me!  Oh, boy, not ME!  I’ll pay mine!

You fucking propagandist!  You’re not talking to the billionaires in that speech – you’re talking to ME!  You’re telling ME, the American worker, that I don’t value the sacrifice of those who’ve lost their lives in war if I don’t pay my income tax.  You’re telling ME, the American worker, that I am unpatriotic if I don’t pay my income tax.  You’re telling ME, the American worker, that I don’t love my country if I don’t pay my income tax.  How fucking dare you?!  Men and women haven’t died overseas to guilt me into paying the damned income tax!!  Even stupid billionaires know that!

You know who the income tax is for, Senator?  Those billionaires we’re all supposed to hate and envy!  “Since 1980...interest payments [on the national debt] have represented the largest transfer of wealth ever, from the people who pay taxes to the people who own the debt and collect interest on it.  More accurately, the money goes from middle-income and lower-income taxpayers to upper-income investors.”  (America: Who Really Pays the Taxes?  Barlett and Steele, 1994)  We all want to stick it to the billionaires, Senator, but we unwittingly fork it over every April 15^th, don’t we?  American worker, you want to see the billionaires break a sweat?  Eliminate the income tax.  That’s YOU ("the good guy") making THEM ("the bad guys") rich.

In researching this form of taxation (because I do more with my nights than watch fucking cable TV), I have stumbled upon a history which reveals over a century of the wealthy ruling classes in England and the rest of Europe literally just making shit up.  Having discovered this mighty windfall, year after year and decade after decade found them tweaking and rewriting and amending the income tax because they could never get it quite right – it was never quite “fair,” never truly “equitable.”  Schedules and liabilities were constantly being changed and updated in an unending effort to “make it better.”  What never changed is its potential as a HUGE stream of revenue, and though always introduced and promised as a “temporary measure” (usually to pay for a recent war), it became a permanent fixture – the ruling class just couldn’t let go of that gravy train!  Oh, and throughout the history of this tax, the wealthy – the people who made it all up and put it in place – always seem to be able somehow to avoid it.  It staggers the imagination!

Let’s connect these fucking dots once and for all, America, so we can get this shit over and done with: the wealthy ruling class make the rules governing the income tax.  The wealthy ruling class exempt themselves from the income tax and always will (see: history).  The American worker is forced – by laws written by the wealthy ruling class – to pay the income tax under threat of imprisonment and/or confiscation of property.  This money goes from the American worker to the wealthy ruling class, and keeps them wealthy and ruling, and keeps the American worker in his or her place through fear and intimidation.  How many American workers are aware of a certain segment of the slave population in Maryland whose only tie to slavery was the requirement by their masters to hand over a certain portion of their income every year?  That was it!  Other than that, these slaves worked whatever jobs they could find in the community and bought their own homes, food, and clothing.  The only thing that separated them from their free black neighbors was that one requirement.  Just hand over a portion of your hard-earned income, or we’ll sell you down the fucking river.  Does that ring any goddamn bells with anyone?

The patriotic thing to do, Senator Sanders, is not to pay the income tax, but to eliminate it.  If we truly love our country – or what’s left of it – we will eliminate the income tax.  But you and your colleagues wouldn’t dare propose that, or you’d be biting the hand that feeds you.  I think it's time for the People to bite the hand that's been forcing them to feed it.  Bite it off.  A hundred years is enough.  And for God’s sake, Senator, please don’t ever again try to connect the sacrifice of our sons and daughters to a fucking revenue stream!!  There is no connection!

Fireworks Are So Cool!

America celebrates another birthday, and we have a day off from work (if we're among the fortunate who have a job), and we spend time with friends and family, and we have cookouts and hang at the beach or park or backyard, and we watch fireworks.  It's all good, and it's all fun!

For 56 men back in 1776, declaring America's independence from Great Britain and putting their names on the document was equivalent to signing their own death warrants.  All but two of those men had families, which meant that far more than 56 people were suddenly vulnerable.  They were putting themselves, their wives, and their children at risk.  How much easier would it have been for them to simply roll along with Mother England and pay the extra three pennies per pound on tea?  Would life really have been so bad?  Was it worth all the fuss and danger?

Perhaps we could pose the same question to certain runaway slaves from Maryland who, under their masters, were allowed to hire themselves out for employment in their particular trade to the local population, buy their own homes, clothing, and food, take care of their own medical expenses - in short, allowed to live the same life as the free blacks who lived among them.  All they had to do was give a portion of their earned income to their masters.  That's it.  Other than that, they lived like freemen.  Yet, some of them still ran away, placing themselves and their families at great risk.  Was life really so bad?  Was it worth all the fuss and danger?

What is freedom worth to you?  If you trade yours for convenience, for routine, for familiarity, for laziness, for a sense of security, for apathy - you not only deprive yourself, but you rob those who innocently come after you. 

If we fail to preserve and pass on our freedom to the next generation, we condemn them to chosing between doing without, or fighting for it.  But at least we can count on one thing: if they decide to fight for it, they will be far more dedicated to preserving it than we were.

Would you have signed?