President Barack Obama is poised to increase the U.S. debt to a level that exceeds the value of the nation’s annual economic output, a step toward what Bill Gross called a “debt super cycle.”
The CHART OF THE DAY tracks U.S. gross domestic product and the government’s total debt, which rose past $13 trillion for the first time this month. The amount owed will surpass GDP in 2012, based on forecasts by the International Monetary Fund. The lower panel shows U.S. annual GDP growth as tracked by the IMF, which projects the world’s largest economy to expand at a slower pace than the 3.2 percent average during the past five decades.
“Over the long term, interest rates on government debt will likely have to rise to attract investors,” said Hiroki Shimazu, a market economist in Tokyo at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc., a unit of Japan’s third-largest publicly traded bank. “That will be a big burden on the government and the people.”
Gross, who runs the world’s largest mutual fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, California, said in his June outlook report that “the debt super cycle trend” suggests U.S. economic growth won’t be enough to support the borrowings “if real interest rates were ever to go up instead of down.”
Dan Fuss, who manages the Loomis Sayles Bond Fund, which beat 94 percent of competitors the past year, said last week that he sold all of his Treasury bonds because of prospects interest rates will rise as the U.S. borrows unprecedented amounts. Obama is borrowing record amounts to fund spending programs to help the economy recover from its longest recession since the 1930s.
“The incremental borrower of funds in the U.S. capital markets is rapidly becoming the U.S. Treasury,” Boston-based Fuss said. “Do you really want to buy the debt of the biggest issuer?”
Monday, June 7, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Most Prosperous Country in the World?
Consider the following estimates. In any one year:
27,000 Americans commit suicide.
5,000 attempt suicide; some estimates are higher.
26,000 die from fatal accidents in the home.
23,000 are murdered.
85,000 are wounded by firearms.
38,000 of these die, including 2,600 children.
13,000,000 are victims of crimes including assault, rape, armed robbery, burglary, larceny, and arson.
135,000 children take guns to school.
5,500,000 people are arrested for all offenses (not including traffic violations).
125,000 die prematurely of alcohol abuse.
473,000 die prematurely from tobacco-related illnesses; 53,000 of these are nonsmokers.
6,500,000 use heroin, crack, speed, PCP, cocaine or some other hard drug on a regular basis.
5,000+ die from illicit drug use. Thousands suffer serious debilitations.
1,000+ die from sniffing household substances found under the kitchen sink. About 20 percent of all eighth-graders have "huffed" toxic substances. Thousands suffer permanent neurological damage.
31,450,000 use marijuana; 3,000,000 of whom are heavy usuers.
37,000,000, or one out of every six Americans, regularly use emotion controlling medical drugs. The users are mostly women. The pushers are doctors; the suppliers are pharmaceutical companies; the profits are stupendous.
2,000,000 nonhospitalized persons are given powerful mind-control drugs, sometimes described as "chemical straitjackets."
5,000 die from psychoactive drug treatments.
200,000 are subjected to electric shock treatments that are injurious to the brain and nervous system.
600 to 1,000 are lobotomized, mostly women.
25,000,000, or one out of every 10 Americans, seek help from psychiatric, psychotherapeutic, or medical sources for mental and emotional problems, at a cost of over $4 billion annually.
6,800,000 turn to nonmedical services, such as ministers, welfare agencies, and social counselors for help with emotional troubles. In all, some 80,000,000 have sought some kind of psychological counseling in their lifetimes.
1,300,000 suffer some kind of injury related to treatment at hospitals.
2,000,000 undergo unnecessary surgical operations; 10,000 of whom die from the surgery.
180,000 die from adverse reactions to all medical treatments, more than are killed by airline and automobile accidents combined.
14,000+ die from overdoses of legal prescription drugs.
45,000 are killed in auto accidents. Yet more cars and highways are being built while funding for safer forms of mass transportation is reduced.
1,800,000 sustain nonfatal injuries from auto accidents; but 150,000 of these auto injury victims suffer permanent impairments.
126,000 children are born with a major birth defect, mostly due to insufficient prenatal care, nutritional deficiency, environmental toxicity, or maternal drug addiction.
2,900,000 children are reportedly subjected to serious neglect or abuse, including physical torture and deliberate starvation.
5,000 children are killed by parents or grandparents.
30,000 or more children are left permanently physically disabled from abuse and neglect. Child abuse in the United States afflicts more children each year than leukemia, automobile accidents, and infectious diseases combined. With growing unemployment, incidents of abuse by jobless parents is increasing dramatically.
1,000,000 children run away from home, mostly because of abusive treatment, including sexual abuse, from parents and other adults. Of the many sexually abused children among runaways, 83 percent come from white families.
150,000 children are reported missing.
50,000 of these simply vanish. Their ages range from one year to mid-teens. According to the New York Times, "Some of these are dead, perhaps half of the John and Jane Does annually buried in this country are unidentified kids."
900,000 children, some as young as seven years old, are engaged in child labor in the United States, serving as underpaid farm hands, dishwashers, laundry workers, and domestics for as long as ten hours a day in violation of child labor laws.
2,000,000 to 4,000,00 women are battered. Domestic violence is the single largest cause of injury and second largest cause of death to U.S. women.
700,000 women are raped, one every 45 seconds.
5,000,000 workers are injured on the job; 150,000 of whom suffer permanent work-related disabilities, including maiming, paralysis, impaired vision, damaged hearing, and sterility.
100,000 become seriously ill from work-related diseases, including black lung, brown lung, cancer, and tuberculosis.
14,000 are killed on the job; about 90 percent are men.
100,000 die prematurely from work-related diseases.
60,000 are killed by toxic environmental pollutants or contaminants in food, water, or air.
4,000 die from eating contaminated meat.
20,000 others suffer from poisoning by E.coli 0157-H7, the mutant bacteria found in contaminated meat that generally leads to lifelong physical and mental health problems. A more thorough meat inspection with new technologies could eliminate most instances of contamination--so would vegetarianism.
At present:
5,100,000 are behind bars or on probation or parole; 2,700,000 of these are either locked up in county, state or federal prisons or under legal supervision. Each week 1,600 more people go to jail than leave. The prison population has skyrocketed over 200 percent since 1980. Over 40 percent of inmates are jailed on nonviolent drug related crimes. African Americans constitute 13 percent of drug users but 35 percent of drug arrests, 55 percent of drug convictions and 74 percent of prison sentences. For nondrug offenses, African Americans get prison terms that average about 10 percent longer than Caucasians for similar crimes.
15,000+ have tuberculosis, with the numbers growing rapidly; 10,000,000 or more carry the tuberculosis bacilli, with large numbers among the economically deprived or addicted.
10,000,000 people have serious drinking problems; alcoholism is on the rise.
16,000,000 have diabetes, up from 11,000,000 in 1983 as Americans get more sedentary and sugar addicted. Left untreated, diabetes can lead to blindness, kidney failure and nerve damage.
160,000 will die from diabetes this year.
280,000 are institutionalized for mental illness or mental retardation. Many of these are forced into taking heavy doses of mind control drugs.
255,000 mentally ill or retarded have been summarily released in recent years. Many of the "deinstitutionalized" are now in flophouses or wandering the streets.
3,000,000 or more suffer cerebral and physical handicaps including paralysis, deafness, blindness, and lesser disabilities. A disproportionate number of them are poor. Many of these disabilities could have been corrected with early treatment or prevented with better living conditions.
2,400,000 million suffer from some variety of seriously incapacitating chronic fatigue syndrome.
10,000,000+ suffer from symptomatic asthma, an increase of 145 percent from 1990 to 1995, largely due to the increasingly polluted quality of the air we breathe.
40,000,000 or more are without health insurance or protection from catastrophic illness.
1,800,000 elderly who live with their families are subjected to serious abuse such as forced confinement, underfeeding, and beatings. The mistreatment of elderly people by their children and other close relatives grows dramatically as economic conditions worsen.
1,126,000 of the elderly live in nursing homes. A large but undetermined number endure conditions of extreme neglect, filth, and abuse in homes that are run with an eye to extracting the highest possible profit.
1,000,000 or more children are kept in orphanages, reformatories, and adult prisons. Most have been arrested for minor transgressions or have committed no crime at all and are jailed without due process. Most are from impoverished backgrounds. Many are subjected to beatings, sexual assault, prolonged solitary confinement, mind control drugs, and in some cases psychosurgery.
1,000,000 are estimated to have AIDS as of 1996; over 250,000 have died of that disease.
950,000 school children are treated with powerful mind control drugs for “hyperactivity” every year--with side effects like weight loss, growth retardation and acute psychosis.
4,000,000 children are growing up with unattended learning disabilities.
4,500,000+ children, or more than half of the 9,000,000 children on welfare, suffer from malnutrition. Many of these suffer brain damage caused by prenatal and infant malnourishment.
40,000,000 persons, or one of every four women and more than one of every ten men, are estimated to have been sexually molested as children, most often between the ages of 9 and 12, usually by close relatives or family acquaintances. Such abuse almost always extends into their early teens and is a part of their continual memory and not a product of memory retrieval in therapy.
7,000,000 to 12,000,000 are unemployed; numbers vary with the business cycle. Increasing numbers of the chronically unemployed show signs of stress and emotional depression.
6,000,000 are in “contingent” jobs, or jobs structured to last only temporarily. About 60 percent of these would prefer permanent employment.
15,000,000 or more are part-time or reduced-time “contract” workers who need full-time jobs and who work without benefits.
3,000,000 additional workers are unemployed but uncounted because their unemployment benefits have run out, or they never qualified for benefits, or they have given up looking for work, or they joined the armed forces because they were unable to find work.
80,000,000 live on incomes estimated by the U.S. Department of Labor as below a “comfortable adequacy”; 35,000,000 of these live below the poverty level.
12,000,000 of those at poverty’s rock bottom suffer from chronic hunger and malnutrition. The majority of the people living at or below the poverty level experience hunger during some portion of the year.
2,000,000 or more are homeless, forced to live on the streets or in makeshift shelters.
160,000,000+ are members of households that are in debt, a sharp increase from the 100 million of less than a decade ago. A majority indicate they have borrowed money not for luxuries but for necessities. Mounting debts threaten a financial crack-up in more and more families.
A Happy Nation?
Obviously these estimates include massive duplications. Many of the 20 million unemployed are among the 35 million below the poverty level. Many of the malnourished children are also among those listed as growing up with untreated learning disabilities and almost all are among the 35 million poor. Many of the 37 million regular users of mind-control drugs also number among the 25 million who seek psychiatric help.
Some of these deprivations and afflictions are not as serious as others. The 80 million living below the “comfortably adequate” income level may compose too vague and inclusive a category for some observers (who themselves enjoy a greater distance from the poverty line). The 40 million who are without health insurance are not afflicted by an actual catastrophe but face only a potential one (though the absence of health insurance often leads to a lack of care and eventually a serious health crisis). We might not want to consider the 5.5 million arrested as having endured a serious affliction, but what of the 1.5 million who are serving time and what of their victims? We might want to count only the 150,000 who suffer a serious job-related disability rather than the five million on-the-job injuries, only half of the 20 million unemployed and underemployed so as not to duplicate poverty figures, only 10 percent of the 1.1 million institutionalized elderly as mistreated (although the number is probably higher), only 10 per cent of the 37 million regular users of medically prescribed psychogenic drugs as seriously troubled, only 5 per cent of the 160 million living in indebted families as seriously indebted (although the number is probably higher).
If we consider only those who have endured physical or sexual abuse, or have been afflicted with a serious disability, or a serious deprivation such as malnutrition and homelessness, only those who face untimely deaths due to suicide, murder, battering, drug and alcohol abuse, industrial and motor vehicle accidents, medical (mis)treatment, occupational illness, and sexually transmitted diseases, we are still left with a staggering figure of over 19,000,000 victims. To put the matter in some perspective, in the 12 years that saw 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam, several million died prematurely within the United States from unnatural and often violent causes.
27,000 Americans commit suicide.
5,000 attempt suicide; some estimates are higher.
26,000 die from fatal accidents in the home.
23,000 are murdered.
85,000 are wounded by firearms.
38,000 of these die, including 2,600 children.
13,000,000 are victims of crimes including assault, rape, armed robbery, burglary, larceny, and arson.
135,000 children take guns to school.
5,500,000 people are arrested for all offenses (not including traffic violations).
125,000 die prematurely of alcohol abuse.
473,000 die prematurely from tobacco-related illnesses; 53,000 of these are nonsmokers.
6,500,000 use heroin, crack, speed, PCP, cocaine or some other hard drug on a regular basis.
5,000+ die from illicit drug use. Thousands suffer serious debilitations.
1,000+ die from sniffing household substances found under the kitchen sink. About 20 percent of all eighth-graders have "huffed" toxic substances. Thousands suffer permanent neurological damage.
31,450,000 use marijuana; 3,000,000 of whom are heavy usuers.
37,000,000, or one out of every six Americans, regularly use emotion controlling medical drugs. The users are mostly women. The pushers are doctors; the suppliers are pharmaceutical companies; the profits are stupendous.
2,000,000 nonhospitalized persons are given powerful mind-control drugs, sometimes described as "chemical straitjackets."
5,000 die from psychoactive drug treatments.
200,000 are subjected to electric shock treatments that are injurious to the brain and nervous system.
600 to 1,000 are lobotomized, mostly women.
25,000,000, or one out of every 10 Americans, seek help from psychiatric, psychotherapeutic, or medical sources for mental and emotional problems, at a cost of over $4 billion annually.
6,800,000 turn to nonmedical services, such as ministers, welfare agencies, and social counselors for help with emotional troubles. In all, some 80,000,000 have sought some kind of psychological counseling in their lifetimes.
1,300,000 suffer some kind of injury related to treatment at hospitals.
2,000,000 undergo unnecessary surgical operations; 10,000 of whom die from the surgery.
180,000 die from adverse reactions to all medical treatments, more than are killed by airline and automobile accidents combined.
14,000+ die from overdoses of legal prescription drugs.
45,000 are killed in auto accidents. Yet more cars and highways are being built while funding for safer forms of mass transportation is reduced.
1,800,000 sustain nonfatal injuries from auto accidents; but 150,000 of these auto injury victims suffer permanent impairments.
126,000 children are born with a major birth defect, mostly due to insufficient prenatal care, nutritional deficiency, environmental toxicity, or maternal drug addiction.
2,900,000 children are reportedly subjected to serious neglect or abuse, including physical torture and deliberate starvation.
5,000 children are killed by parents or grandparents.
30,000 or more children are left permanently physically disabled from abuse and neglect. Child abuse in the United States afflicts more children each year than leukemia, automobile accidents, and infectious diseases combined. With growing unemployment, incidents of abuse by jobless parents is increasing dramatically.
1,000,000 children run away from home, mostly because of abusive treatment, including sexual abuse, from parents and other adults. Of the many sexually abused children among runaways, 83 percent come from white families.
150,000 children are reported missing.
50,000 of these simply vanish. Their ages range from one year to mid-teens. According to the New York Times, "Some of these are dead, perhaps half of the John and Jane Does annually buried in this country are unidentified kids."
900,000 children, some as young as seven years old, are engaged in child labor in the United States, serving as underpaid farm hands, dishwashers, laundry workers, and domestics for as long as ten hours a day in violation of child labor laws.
2,000,000 to 4,000,00 women are battered. Domestic violence is the single largest cause of injury and second largest cause of death to U.S. women.
700,000 women are raped, one every 45 seconds.
5,000,000 workers are injured on the job; 150,000 of whom suffer permanent work-related disabilities, including maiming, paralysis, impaired vision, damaged hearing, and sterility.
100,000 become seriously ill from work-related diseases, including black lung, brown lung, cancer, and tuberculosis.
14,000 are killed on the job; about 90 percent are men.
100,000 die prematurely from work-related diseases.
60,000 are killed by toxic environmental pollutants or contaminants in food, water, or air.
4,000 die from eating contaminated meat.
20,000 others suffer from poisoning by E.coli 0157-H7, the mutant bacteria found in contaminated meat that generally leads to lifelong physical and mental health problems. A more thorough meat inspection with new technologies could eliminate most instances of contamination--so would vegetarianism.
At present:
5,100,000 are behind bars or on probation or parole; 2,700,000 of these are either locked up in county, state or federal prisons or under legal supervision. Each week 1,600 more people go to jail than leave. The prison population has skyrocketed over 200 percent since 1980. Over 40 percent of inmates are jailed on nonviolent drug related crimes. African Americans constitute 13 percent of drug users but 35 percent of drug arrests, 55 percent of drug convictions and 74 percent of prison sentences. For nondrug offenses, African Americans get prison terms that average about 10 percent longer than Caucasians for similar crimes.
15,000+ have tuberculosis, with the numbers growing rapidly; 10,000,000 or more carry the tuberculosis bacilli, with large numbers among the economically deprived or addicted.
10,000,000 people have serious drinking problems; alcoholism is on the rise.
16,000,000 have diabetes, up from 11,000,000 in 1983 as Americans get more sedentary and sugar addicted. Left untreated, diabetes can lead to blindness, kidney failure and nerve damage.
160,000 will die from diabetes this year.
280,000 are institutionalized for mental illness or mental retardation. Many of these are forced into taking heavy doses of mind control drugs.
255,000 mentally ill or retarded have been summarily released in recent years. Many of the "deinstitutionalized" are now in flophouses or wandering the streets.
3,000,000 or more suffer cerebral and physical handicaps including paralysis, deafness, blindness, and lesser disabilities. A disproportionate number of them are poor. Many of these disabilities could have been corrected with early treatment or prevented with better living conditions.
2,400,000 million suffer from some variety of seriously incapacitating chronic fatigue syndrome.
10,000,000+ suffer from symptomatic asthma, an increase of 145 percent from 1990 to 1995, largely due to the increasingly polluted quality of the air we breathe.
40,000,000 or more are without health insurance or protection from catastrophic illness.
1,800,000 elderly who live with their families are subjected to serious abuse such as forced confinement, underfeeding, and beatings. The mistreatment of elderly people by their children and other close relatives grows dramatically as economic conditions worsen.
1,126,000 of the elderly live in nursing homes. A large but undetermined number endure conditions of extreme neglect, filth, and abuse in homes that are run with an eye to extracting the highest possible profit.
1,000,000 or more children are kept in orphanages, reformatories, and adult prisons. Most have been arrested for minor transgressions or have committed no crime at all and are jailed without due process. Most are from impoverished backgrounds. Many are subjected to beatings, sexual assault, prolonged solitary confinement, mind control drugs, and in some cases psychosurgery.
1,000,000 are estimated to have AIDS as of 1996; over 250,000 have died of that disease.
950,000 school children are treated with powerful mind control drugs for “hyperactivity” every year--with side effects like weight loss, growth retardation and acute psychosis.
4,000,000 children are growing up with unattended learning disabilities.
4,500,000+ children, or more than half of the 9,000,000 children on welfare, suffer from malnutrition. Many of these suffer brain damage caused by prenatal and infant malnourishment.
40,000,000 persons, or one of every four women and more than one of every ten men, are estimated to have been sexually molested as children, most often between the ages of 9 and 12, usually by close relatives or family acquaintances. Such abuse almost always extends into their early teens and is a part of their continual memory and not a product of memory retrieval in therapy.
7,000,000 to 12,000,000 are unemployed; numbers vary with the business cycle. Increasing numbers of the chronically unemployed show signs of stress and emotional depression.
6,000,000 are in “contingent” jobs, or jobs structured to last only temporarily. About 60 percent of these would prefer permanent employment.
15,000,000 or more are part-time or reduced-time “contract” workers who need full-time jobs and who work without benefits.
3,000,000 additional workers are unemployed but uncounted because their unemployment benefits have run out, or they never qualified for benefits, or they have given up looking for work, or they joined the armed forces because they were unable to find work.
80,000,000 live on incomes estimated by the U.S. Department of Labor as below a “comfortable adequacy”; 35,000,000 of these live below the poverty level.
12,000,000 of those at poverty’s rock bottom suffer from chronic hunger and malnutrition. The majority of the people living at or below the poverty level experience hunger during some portion of the year.
2,000,000 or more are homeless, forced to live on the streets or in makeshift shelters.
160,000,000+ are members of households that are in debt, a sharp increase from the 100 million of less than a decade ago. A majority indicate they have borrowed money not for luxuries but for necessities. Mounting debts threaten a financial crack-up in more and more families.
A Happy Nation?
Obviously these estimates include massive duplications. Many of the 20 million unemployed are among the 35 million below the poverty level. Many of the malnourished children are also among those listed as growing up with untreated learning disabilities and almost all are among the 35 million poor. Many of the 37 million regular users of mind-control drugs also number among the 25 million who seek psychiatric help.
Some of these deprivations and afflictions are not as serious as others. The 80 million living below the “comfortably adequate” income level may compose too vague and inclusive a category for some observers (who themselves enjoy a greater distance from the poverty line). The 40 million who are without health insurance are not afflicted by an actual catastrophe but face only a potential one (though the absence of health insurance often leads to a lack of care and eventually a serious health crisis). We might not want to consider the 5.5 million arrested as having endured a serious affliction, but what of the 1.5 million who are serving time and what of their victims? We might want to count only the 150,000 who suffer a serious job-related disability rather than the five million on-the-job injuries, only half of the 20 million unemployed and underemployed so as not to duplicate poverty figures, only 10 percent of the 1.1 million institutionalized elderly as mistreated (although the number is probably higher), only 10 per cent of the 37 million regular users of medically prescribed psychogenic drugs as seriously troubled, only 5 per cent of the 160 million living in indebted families as seriously indebted (although the number is probably higher).
If we consider only those who have endured physical or sexual abuse, or have been afflicted with a serious disability, or a serious deprivation such as malnutrition and homelessness, only those who face untimely deaths due to suicide, murder, battering, drug and alcohol abuse, industrial and motor vehicle accidents, medical (mis)treatment, occupational illness, and sexually transmitted diseases, we are still left with a staggering figure of over 19,000,000 victims. To put the matter in some perspective, in the 12 years that saw 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam, several million died prematurely within the United States from unnatural and often violent causes.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
I couldnt agree with this more.
This article is going to be short. It will contain one main message. It's an important one. The message is this:
No emotional communication via email, text or voicemail (AKA asynchronous media). Ever.
You should use email, text and even voicemail to transmit straight data only. "What time are we meeting," "what's the address," that kind of thing. The occasional compliment or flirty message is okay, but even those can be misunderstood.
Now let me explain why emotional communication via text or email is a terrible idea.
1) Error rate in message generation is high.
Communication has three phases:
Message generation: Did you compose it accurately?
Message transmission: Did it fly through the air and safely get there?
Message interpretation: Did the recipient understand it the way you meant it?
When you talk to someone face-to-face, all three things happen in real time, more-or-less simultaneously. You say "I like your shirt." It flies through the space between the two of you at 330 meters per second; she hears it and processes it. Generation, transmission and reception complete in 0.25s, with high fidelity.
Disrupt any of those three phases, and you've got miscommunication.
Now what would happen if you were eating a muffin while attempting to generate the message? It just might come out garbled enough to sound like "You look like dirt," and that's what she'll hear.
But that's not such a big deal in person, because you'll see her frown, you'll finish swallowing your muffin, restate your compliment, and all's well with a chuckle. If you were doing the same thing over the phone, you wouldn't have the benefit of body language feedback.
Typos are rampant over text because of clumsy fingers, predictive text software and over-abbreviation. "I like ur shirt" can become "I lick up shorts," a somewhat different animal.
2) Message transmission is unreliable.
Let's say you live in 15th century Morocco. You're upset about something and you want to convey that to your significant other. The only way to do that is to write a note and give it to a messenger. Except that the messenger is a notorious and disorganized drunk who's liable to lose the message en route. Will you still hand him the message?
Emails get lost, stuck in spam filters or accidentally deleted. Text messages sometimes never get sent. They can also get to their destination fine but sit ignored in the inbox while someone's busy. If you don't get a response, can you tell the difference between technical failure or being ignored? You can't -- but you'll be stewing in your own juices in the meantime.
Email and text are like disorganized drunk messengers. If the message has time-sensitive emotional content in it, wait till you can deliver it in person, or at least in real time over phone.
Also, it's pretty easy to send a message to the wrong person. One of my readers sent "omg did u see how fat suzy looked in those pants" to Suzy instead of Susan when she clicked her contacts list, with predictably hilarious results.
3) Message interpretation is super-unreliable.
A vast portion of our communication happens nonverbally. Facial gesture, body language, tone of voice all encode essential information that are missing in text-based communication. Without the nonverbal contextual cues, how would you interpret a statement like "That was just brilliant?" Is it genuine praise or sarcasm? You simply can't tell.
This is fertile ground for misunderstanding and disaster. So resolve to do all emotional communication in real time.
4) Asynchronous communication catalyzes cruelty.
Ever wonder why there's so much nastiness online? People seem to have no problem eviscerating one another on a website or via email. And yet, we don't experience nearly as much of that in person.
Why? Because it's much harder to be an asshole in person, that's why. When confronted with a real person, your mirror neurons are active, which allow you to empathize with others and feel what they feel. When you're cruel to them and see them wince, you feel it too. This is a natural internal brake to otherwise gratuitous cruelty. Thus your neurology builds empathy, cooperation and civility into society.
Additionally, all animals have submission signals which tell an assailant to stop attacking: "You win! I lose! Please don't kill me!" You've probably seen dogs roll over and expose their belly, or other animals expose their necks. Humans put up the white flag, too. Submission signals are an essential survival feature of any species. Otherwise they'd annihilate their own race.
This is why modern warfare has massacred so many people. If you're miles away from your victims and can't see their faces or their kids' faces, it's pretty trivial to press a button and launch some missiles. We weren't able to kill 100,000 people in a flash in the days when people engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
A nasty email or text message can be the modern communication equivalent of that missile. You don't see the recipient. Your mirror neurons are not engaged and you don't have to bear their reaction, so you can afford to be cruel. You launch it, and boom, it can destroy without your having to be around to watch and feel. Except that once you've done that, you've compromised your humanity and the real damage is done to you: you lose a little bit of your soul.
I'm being a tad dramatic here, but you're usually the one who regrets sending the message after the air clears and you sober up from your fit of passion. This is the principle of enlightened self-interest, straight out of The Tao of Dating for Women: always choose the action that keeps you in good stead for the long term. It ends up being better for you and for everyone around you.
So if you like pointless relationship-eroding drama, go ahead and conduct your arguments over email and text. But if you value your peace of mind, never communicate emotionally via email, text or other asynchronous media. In the long run, the sanity you'll save is your own.
No emotional communication via email, text or voicemail (AKA asynchronous media). Ever.
You should use email, text and even voicemail to transmit straight data only. "What time are we meeting," "what's the address," that kind of thing. The occasional compliment or flirty message is okay, but even those can be misunderstood.
Now let me explain why emotional communication via text or email is a terrible idea.
1) Error rate in message generation is high.
Communication has three phases:
Message generation: Did you compose it accurately?
Message transmission: Did it fly through the air and safely get there?
Message interpretation: Did the recipient understand it the way you meant it?
When you talk to someone face-to-face, all three things happen in real time, more-or-less simultaneously. You say "I like your shirt." It flies through the space between the two of you at 330 meters per second; she hears it and processes it. Generation, transmission and reception complete in 0.25s, with high fidelity.
Disrupt any of those three phases, and you've got miscommunication.
Now what would happen if you were eating a muffin while attempting to generate the message? It just might come out garbled enough to sound like "You look like dirt," and that's what she'll hear.
But that's not such a big deal in person, because you'll see her frown, you'll finish swallowing your muffin, restate your compliment, and all's well with a chuckle. If you were doing the same thing over the phone, you wouldn't have the benefit of body language feedback.
Typos are rampant over text because of clumsy fingers, predictive text software and over-abbreviation. "I like ur shirt" can become "I lick up shorts," a somewhat different animal.
2) Message transmission is unreliable.
Let's say you live in 15th century Morocco. You're upset about something and you want to convey that to your significant other. The only way to do that is to write a note and give it to a messenger. Except that the messenger is a notorious and disorganized drunk who's liable to lose the message en route. Will you still hand him the message?
Emails get lost, stuck in spam filters or accidentally deleted. Text messages sometimes never get sent. They can also get to their destination fine but sit ignored in the inbox while someone's busy. If you don't get a response, can you tell the difference between technical failure or being ignored? You can't -- but you'll be stewing in your own juices in the meantime.
Email and text are like disorganized drunk messengers. If the message has time-sensitive emotional content in it, wait till you can deliver it in person, or at least in real time over phone.
Also, it's pretty easy to send a message to the wrong person. One of my readers sent "omg did u see how fat suzy looked in those pants" to Suzy instead of Susan when she clicked her contacts list, with predictably hilarious results.
3) Message interpretation is super-unreliable.
A vast portion of our communication happens nonverbally. Facial gesture, body language, tone of voice all encode essential information that are missing in text-based communication. Without the nonverbal contextual cues, how would you interpret a statement like "That was just brilliant?" Is it genuine praise or sarcasm? You simply can't tell.
This is fertile ground for misunderstanding and disaster. So resolve to do all emotional communication in real time.
4) Asynchronous communication catalyzes cruelty.
Ever wonder why there's so much nastiness online? People seem to have no problem eviscerating one another on a website or via email. And yet, we don't experience nearly as much of that in person.
Why? Because it's much harder to be an asshole in person, that's why. When confronted with a real person, your mirror neurons are active, which allow you to empathize with others and feel what they feel. When you're cruel to them and see them wince, you feel it too. This is a natural internal brake to otherwise gratuitous cruelty. Thus your neurology builds empathy, cooperation and civility into society.
Additionally, all animals have submission signals which tell an assailant to stop attacking: "You win! I lose! Please don't kill me!" You've probably seen dogs roll over and expose their belly, or other animals expose their necks. Humans put up the white flag, too. Submission signals are an essential survival feature of any species. Otherwise they'd annihilate their own race.
This is why modern warfare has massacred so many people. If you're miles away from your victims and can't see their faces or their kids' faces, it's pretty trivial to press a button and launch some missiles. We weren't able to kill 100,000 people in a flash in the days when people engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
A nasty email or text message can be the modern communication equivalent of that missile. You don't see the recipient. Your mirror neurons are not engaged and you don't have to bear their reaction, so you can afford to be cruel. You launch it, and boom, it can destroy without your having to be around to watch and feel. Except that once you've done that, you've compromised your humanity and the real damage is done to you: you lose a little bit of your soul.
I'm being a tad dramatic here, but you're usually the one who regrets sending the message after the air clears and you sober up from your fit of passion. This is the principle of enlightened self-interest, straight out of The Tao of Dating for Women: always choose the action that keeps you in good stead for the long term. It ends up being better for you and for everyone around you.
So if you like pointless relationship-eroding drama, go ahead and conduct your arguments over email and text. But if you value your peace of mind, never communicate emotionally via email, text or other asynchronous media. In the long run, the sanity you'll save is your own.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Happy B day to me
Let me just say something simple on this anniversary of my birth
YOU ARE ALL DISEASED.
YOU ARE ALL DISEASED.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Net Neutrality takes a big dump
So yeah fellow trollers ... the US is Boned.
Net Neutrality is finished and guess who won?
FCC Loses Key Ruling on Internet `Neutrality'
Net Neutrality is finished and guess who won?
FCC Loses Key Ruling on Internet `Neutrality'
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Meet the Palin's
Sarah Palin is making the most of her time in LA.
Fresh off her appearance on the "Tonight Show," Palin is meeting with network executives to pitch a reality show alongside "Survivor" creator Mark Burnett.
Entertainment Weekly's Lynette Rice reports that Palin and Burnett are shopping a "TV docudrama about Alaska" to executives at Fox, CBS, and NBC. According to one of Rice's sources, the show is a "planet-Earth type look" at Alaska.
The Live Feed's James Hibberd reports that Palin and her family would appear on-camera on the show.
Palin has been a ratings magnet almost every time she's been on TV. Her appearance on the "Tonight Show" Tuesday night drew 5.8 million viewers and helped Jay Leno beat David Letterman in his first week back on the show. Palin also lifted Oprah's ratings as well as the ratings of various shows on Fox News, where she recently signed on as an analyst.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
REALLY????
Can someone PLEASE make this stop? Guess what ... if we ignore her she WILL go away. I wonder if anyone including Mark Burnett has ever read Empire of Illusion. Probably not. I don't know WHAT Sarah reads, but I bet it's not a book. I realize the irony, of course, that by telling everyone to NOT discuss it, that I'm still putting her name out there. Trust me when I say this ... flavours of the week don't become that way because they're news worthy, but because they're ratings gold. But who am I kidding?
Fresh off her appearance on the "Tonight Show," Palin is meeting with network executives to pitch a reality show alongside "Survivor" creator Mark Burnett.
Entertainment Weekly's Lynette Rice reports that Palin and Burnett are shopping a "TV docudrama about Alaska" to executives at Fox, CBS, and NBC. According to one of Rice's sources, the show is a "planet-Earth type look" at Alaska.
The Live Feed's James Hibberd reports that Palin and her family would appear on-camera on the show.
Palin has been a ratings magnet almost every time she's been on TV. Her appearance on the "Tonight Show" Tuesday night drew 5.8 million viewers and helped Jay Leno beat David Letterman in his first week back on the show. Palin also lifted Oprah's ratings as well as the ratings of various shows on Fox News, where she recently signed on as an analyst.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
REALLY????
Can someone PLEASE make this stop? Guess what ... if we ignore her she WILL go away. I wonder if anyone including Mark Burnett has ever read Empire of Illusion. Probably not. I don't know WHAT Sarah reads, but I bet it's not a book. I realize the irony, of course, that by telling everyone to NOT discuss it, that I'm still putting her name out there. Trust me when I say this ... flavours of the week don't become that way because they're news worthy, but because they're ratings gold. But who am I kidding?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Tribute to Blair House
Ladies and gentlemen
Welcome to Washington DC
Home of the Ass Clown
Step right up into the 3,000 ring circus of The Beltway
And witness the impossible
See them grovel, see them lie, see them crawl on their bellies
See real live white collar terrorists in their own natural
habitat
See the Department of Homeland Security perfecting new ways of
drowning black people
While our health care is subsidizing corporate drug dealers
aiding big government and
Spying on everybody
I want to go to the circus
The circus of power
The circus they call Washington
A circle of dishonor
I want to round up the senators
Just like they did in Rome
Feed these Ass Clowns to the lions
Then I can go home
I wanna see it go up in flames
Ass Clown
You’re going down
I want to blow up the circus
Bring down the circus of lies
The ultimate goal and purpose
Is no Ass Clown survives
I want to line up the congressmen
And strap them to their missiles
Then I’ll point them at their temples
Then I’ll wave goodbye!
I wanna see it go up in flames
Ass Clown
You’re going down
See them stroke each other with bribes as they try on new shades
of brown lipstick
See them circle jerk to the latest photos of torture victims
Ass Clown
I hate the three-ring circus
Under the bigtop of deceit
The circus maximus of arrogance
The circus maximus of greed
I want to line up all the judges
And take a gavel to their heads
Only then will there be justice
When all these Ass Clowns are dead
I wanna see it go up in flames
Ass Clown
You’re going down
See how it’s really done
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Never mind the fact that separation of church and state ... it's no big deal. Fox News ... all the right wing slant .. and none of the sanity.
Other cogent retorts heard on FauxNews:
" I know I am but what are you"
"I'm rubber your glue..."
"Am NOT!"
"Moooommyyy, he's touching me tell him to stop touching me"
When Only The Best Democracy Will Do ... We Bring You ...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns.
By a 5-4 vote, the court on Thursday overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.
It leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.
Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an unconstitutional restraint of free speech, and the court majority apparently agreed.
"The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion, joined by his four more conservative colleagues.
However, Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting from the main holding, said, "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation."
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens' dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom.
The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.
Advocates of strong campaign finance regulations have predicted that a court ruling against the limits would lead to a flood of corporate and union money in federal campaigns as early as this year's midterm congressional elections.
By a 5-4 vote, the court on Thursday overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.
It leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.
Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an unconstitutional restraint of free speech, and the court majority apparently agreed.
"The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion, joined by his four more conservative colleagues.
However, Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting from the main holding, said, "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation."
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens' dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom.
The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.
Advocates of strong campaign finance regulations have predicted that a court ruling against the limits would lead to a flood of corporate and union money in federal campaigns as early as this year's midterm congressional elections.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Democrats To Cut Health Care Bill
WASHINGTON – Chastened by the Democratic Senate loss in Massachusetts, President Barack Obama and congressional allies signaled Wednesday they may try to scale back his sweeping health care overhaul in an effort to at least keep parts of it alive.
A simpler, less ambitious bill emerged as an alternative only hours after the loss of the party's crucial 60th Senate seat forced the Democrats to slow their all-out drive to pass Obama's signature legislation despite fierce Republican opposition. The White House is still hoping the House can pass the Senate bill in a quick strike, but Democrats are now considering other options.
No decisions have been made, lawmakers said, but they laid out a new approach that could still include these provisions: limiting the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage to people with medical problems, allowing young adults to stay on their parents' policies, helping small businesses and low-income people pay premiums and changing Medicare to encourage payment for quality care instead of sheer volume of services.
The goal of trying to cover nearly all Americans would be put off further into the future.
Obama urged lawmakers not to try to jam a bill through, but scale the proposal down to what he called "those elements of the package that people agree on."
"We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people," the president said in an interview with ABC News. "We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don't then our budgets are going to blow up. And we know that small businesses are going to need help."
One potential Republican convert for health care legislation remained an enigma. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who has been in regular contact with Obama, roundly criticized the Democrats' hard push to pass their bill. But she would not rule out voting for something in the end.
Asked if the Democratic bills are dead, Snowe responded: "I never say anything is dead, but clearly I think they have to revisit the entire issue."
Some Democrats weren't ready for that, despite the president's new words.
One option, still alive and stirring strong emotions, called for the House to quickly pass the Senate version of the broader bill — simply accepting it and therefore bypassing the Senate problem created by the loss of the Massachusetts seat to Republican Scott Brown. But that appeared to be losing favor.
"That's a bitter pill for the House to swallow," said the No. 2 Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois.
"Full speed ahead is off the table," said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, a moderate Democrat from North Dakota. "We are still very much in the exercise of drawing meaning from the public disquiet."
Nevertheless, the quick approach remained on the table, despite some House members' deep misgivings. In fact, administration officials were working behind the scenes on that idea, which would be the fastest and cleanest route to getting a bill to Obama, said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe private talks.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders were gauging support for the idea among liberals and moderates. The initial reaction was not encouraging.
"If you ran that Senate bill right now on the House floor, I'll bet you would not get 100 votes for it," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich.
It takes 218 votes to pass legislation. A majority of House Democrats oppose a tax on high-cost insurance plans in the Senate bill that unions see as a direct hit on their members. Stupak and other abortion opponents, backed by Catholic bishops, say the Senate bill falls short in restricting taxpayer dollars for abortion.
A week ago, House and Senate Democrats were working out the differences in their respective bills, and a quick resolution seemed likely. But feuding broke out after Brown's upset victory secured the seat held by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy for the GOP.
Some Democratic senators suggested it was up to the House to save the day by passing the Senate bill.
"The Senate has passed the health care bill. The House has to make a decision how they want to proceed," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of the leadership.
Republicans said that would make their day.
Trying to push the Senate bill through would be a desperate ploy seen as such by voters, said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Obama's 2008 presidential rival. "If they try to jam it through the House, they'll pay a very heavy price."
As the day wore on, those urging moderation seemed to be winning the argument.
"We're not going to rush into anything," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "We will wait until the new senator arrives."
Many Democrats are wary of starting over with the goal of drafting a bill that reaches for the political middle. They doubt they'll get any cooperation from Republicans.
"You cannot dance with someone if they are not willing to dance with you," said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ. He called GOP complaints that the Democrats wrote a partisan bill "pretty lame, when they have made a political calculation that their path to victory is to have the president fail."
But House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said a more modest approach would be a "reasonable alternative" that could appeal to the public even if Republicans still oppose it.
"Given the public concern, I think that we ought to focus on that which...the public can support and will be positive in terms of making health care more affordable and obtainable," he said.
Instead of one big bill, health care overhaul could be broken into chunks and passed over time.
"Medicare wasn't done in one fell swoop," said House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. "You lay a foundation and you get this thing done over time."
A simpler, less ambitious bill emerged as an alternative only hours after the loss of the party's crucial 60th Senate seat forced the Democrats to slow their all-out drive to pass Obama's signature legislation despite fierce Republican opposition. The White House is still hoping the House can pass the Senate bill in a quick strike, but Democrats are now considering other options.
No decisions have been made, lawmakers said, but they laid out a new approach that could still include these provisions: limiting the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage to people with medical problems, allowing young adults to stay on their parents' policies, helping small businesses and low-income people pay premiums and changing Medicare to encourage payment for quality care instead of sheer volume of services.
The goal of trying to cover nearly all Americans would be put off further into the future.
Obama urged lawmakers not to try to jam a bill through, but scale the proposal down to what he called "those elements of the package that people agree on."
"We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people," the president said in an interview with ABC News. "We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don't then our budgets are going to blow up. And we know that small businesses are going to need help."
One potential Republican convert for health care legislation remained an enigma. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who has been in regular contact with Obama, roundly criticized the Democrats' hard push to pass their bill. But she would not rule out voting for something in the end.
Asked if the Democratic bills are dead, Snowe responded: "I never say anything is dead, but clearly I think they have to revisit the entire issue."
Some Democrats weren't ready for that, despite the president's new words.
One option, still alive and stirring strong emotions, called for the House to quickly pass the Senate version of the broader bill — simply accepting it and therefore bypassing the Senate problem created by the loss of the Massachusetts seat to Republican Scott Brown. But that appeared to be losing favor.
"That's a bitter pill for the House to swallow," said the No. 2 Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois.
"Full speed ahead is off the table," said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, a moderate Democrat from North Dakota. "We are still very much in the exercise of drawing meaning from the public disquiet."
Nevertheless, the quick approach remained on the table, despite some House members' deep misgivings. In fact, administration officials were working behind the scenes on that idea, which would be the fastest and cleanest route to getting a bill to Obama, said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe private talks.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders were gauging support for the idea among liberals and moderates. The initial reaction was not encouraging.
"If you ran that Senate bill right now on the House floor, I'll bet you would not get 100 votes for it," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich.
It takes 218 votes to pass legislation. A majority of House Democrats oppose a tax on high-cost insurance plans in the Senate bill that unions see as a direct hit on their members. Stupak and other abortion opponents, backed by Catholic bishops, say the Senate bill falls short in restricting taxpayer dollars for abortion.
A week ago, House and Senate Democrats were working out the differences in their respective bills, and a quick resolution seemed likely. But feuding broke out after Brown's upset victory secured the seat held by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy for the GOP.
Some Democratic senators suggested it was up to the House to save the day by passing the Senate bill.
"The Senate has passed the health care bill. The House has to make a decision how they want to proceed," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of the leadership.
Republicans said that would make their day.
Trying to push the Senate bill through would be a desperate ploy seen as such by voters, said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Obama's 2008 presidential rival. "If they try to jam it through the House, they'll pay a very heavy price."
As the day wore on, those urging moderation seemed to be winning the argument.
"We're not going to rush into anything," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "We will wait until the new senator arrives."
Many Democrats are wary of starting over with the goal of drafting a bill that reaches for the political middle. They doubt they'll get any cooperation from Republicans.
"You cannot dance with someone if they are not willing to dance with you," said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ. He called GOP complaints that the Democrats wrote a partisan bill "pretty lame, when they have made a political calculation that their path to victory is to have the president fail."
But House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said a more modest approach would be a "reasonable alternative" that could appeal to the public even if Republicans still oppose it.
"Given the public concern, I think that we ought to focus on that which...the public can support and will be positive in terms of making health care more affordable and obtainable," he said.
Instead of one big bill, health care overhaul could be broken into chunks and passed over time.
"Medicare wasn't done in one fell swoop," said House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. "You lay a foundation and you get this thing done over time."
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Insurance Companies Can ...
Los Angeles resident Stacey Owens found out after a recent doctor's visit that her health insurer, Aetna, had canceled her coverage, ostensibly because she'd missed a monthly payment.
Never mind the heartlessness of leaving people uninsured because of something as potentially trivial as a misplaced bill.
No, the problem in this case is that Owens, 25, never missed a payment -- and she has the bank records to prove it.
Yet when she confronted Aetna with what clearly appeared to be a clerical error on the company's part, Owens said, the insurer dug in its heels and refused to reinstate her coverage.
This wasn't a minor inconvenience. Owens is a thyroid cancer survivor and requires medication to keep her body running smoothly. She also sees an endocrinologist for regular checkups.
"I'm not a person who can go without health insurance," Owens said last week. "I need to be able to see the doctor."
As lawmakers continue wrestling with -- and watering down -- bills intended to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, stories like Owens' illustrate the need for change. Just about all Americans are just one bureaucratic bungle away from going without coverage.
Owens was insured by her parents until she graduated in 2006 from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts with a degree in film and TV production. She was covered by Aetna after being employed as a production assistant at Warner Bros. in mid-2007.
The job ended about five months later when production finished for the TV show she was working on. Owens continued her Aetna coverage under COBRA, the federal program that allows people to maintain health insurance for at least 18 additional months, albeit paying substantially higher premiums.
Owens said she found out that her coverage had been canceled only after a doctor's bill was rejected by Aetna in November.
She called the company and asked what was up. Owens said she was told by a service rep that her policy had been terminated because of a missed payment for October.
This simply wasn't the case. According to bank records produced by Owens, she wrote a check for $472.99 to Aetna on Sept. 28. The check was deposited by Aetna into a Citibank account in Delaware on Nov. 1.
Yet even when Owens appealed Aetna's cancellation of her coverage and asked to be reinstated, she was told -- via a form letter -- that there was nothing the company could do to help her.
While she pressed for reinstatement, Owens said she was careful to continue mailing monthly payments to Aetna. And Aetna kept mailing them back.
Finally, Owens brought her case to me. I took it back to Aetna.
"We could have done a better job with this situation," admitted Anjie Coplin, a company spokeswoman, after reviewing Owens' file.
The problem, Coplin said, resulted from a roughly $32 increase in Owens' premium that took effect in August. Although Owens continued sending in monthly checks, she neglected to pay the higher amount for two months.
She began paying the higher premium -- $472.99 a month -- as of October. But by then, at least in Aetna's eyes, it was too late. She was short by about $64 for the previous two months combined, and that was reason enough to have her join the 47 million other people in this country lacking health coverage.
Owens said she never received advance word that her premium was going up. She said she received a letter from Aetna in October saying that her rates had risen as of a couple of months earlier.
"That was the first I heard of it," Owens said.
Again, the paperwork backs her up. Aetna sent me a copy of the letter it sent Owens. It's dated Sept. 30 -- two months after the rate increase took effect.
I asked Coplin why Aetna didn't simply untangle the situation after Owens appealed her canceled policy. After all, the company's letters repeatedly told Owens she hadn't paid her bill, even though she knew she had -- and the company had even deposited her October payment.
"That was our mistake," Coplin acknowledged. "We took the check. It should have been returned."
So why wasn't Aetna more proactive in reaching out to a customer who clearly was making a good faith effort to pay her bills?
"I wasn't part of the appeals process," Coplin replied. "But in the future, we need to make sure our communications are more clear."
She said Aetna would reinstate Owens' coverage -- providing she now submits nearly $1,900 to cover four months of returned payments.
Coplin also said Aetna would retroactively cover any medical costs that accrued while Owens was uninsured. About $330 in prescription drug costs were run up during this time.
As for whether Owens' trouble represents a systemic problem, Coplin said Aetna did the best it could. The payment process is automated, she said, making it impossible for the company to contact customers personally in the event of a missed or insufficient payment.
Regarding Owens' appeal, Coplin said Aetna had been looking for any extenuating circumstances that would have explained why a customer failed to pay the full amount due. It didn't see any, she said.
That's just harsh, canceling someone's almost $473-a-month coverage over a matter of $64. And to then blow that customer off after she appealed the decision -- is it any wonder people think health insurers are only in it for the bucks?
"I did everything I was supposed to do," Owens said. "I tried to communicate with them. All I got back were form letters."
She said she's glad that Aetna (after some gentle prodding by the media), agreed to reinstate her coverage. And she'll likely pay the almost $1,900 just so her records show no lapses in health insurance -- you can never be too careful.
But Owens said she's already applied for alternative coverage offered by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the people behind the Emmys.
The new policy would cost about half as much as the old one, which Owens likes. There's just one thing:
It's offered by Aetna.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With what looks like the impending defeat of Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, it's likely that any move towards Health Care Reform is now RIP. Welcome to the New Welfare States of America.
No insurance ... Fuck you
No job .... Fuck you
No house .... Fuck you
No accountability ... Fuck you
No future ..... No kidding
Never mind the heartlessness of leaving people uninsured because of something as potentially trivial as a misplaced bill.
No, the problem in this case is that Owens, 25, never missed a payment -- and she has the bank records to prove it.
Yet when she confronted Aetna with what clearly appeared to be a clerical error on the company's part, Owens said, the insurer dug in its heels and refused to reinstate her coverage.
This wasn't a minor inconvenience. Owens is a thyroid cancer survivor and requires medication to keep her body running smoothly. She also sees an endocrinologist for regular checkups.
"I'm not a person who can go without health insurance," Owens said last week. "I need to be able to see the doctor."
As lawmakers continue wrestling with -- and watering down -- bills intended to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, stories like Owens' illustrate the need for change. Just about all Americans are just one bureaucratic bungle away from going without coverage.
Owens was insured by her parents until she graduated in 2006 from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts with a degree in film and TV production. She was covered by Aetna after being employed as a production assistant at Warner Bros. in mid-2007.
The job ended about five months later when production finished for the TV show she was working on. Owens continued her Aetna coverage under COBRA, the federal program that allows people to maintain health insurance for at least 18 additional months, albeit paying substantially higher premiums.
Owens said she found out that her coverage had been canceled only after a doctor's bill was rejected by Aetna in November.
She called the company and asked what was up. Owens said she was told by a service rep that her policy had been terminated because of a missed payment for October.
This simply wasn't the case. According to bank records produced by Owens, she wrote a check for $472.99 to Aetna on Sept. 28. The check was deposited by Aetna into a Citibank account in Delaware on Nov. 1.
Yet even when Owens appealed Aetna's cancellation of her coverage and asked to be reinstated, she was told -- via a form letter -- that there was nothing the company could do to help her.
While she pressed for reinstatement, Owens said she was careful to continue mailing monthly payments to Aetna. And Aetna kept mailing them back.
Finally, Owens brought her case to me. I took it back to Aetna.
"We could have done a better job with this situation," admitted Anjie Coplin, a company spokeswoman, after reviewing Owens' file.
The problem, Coplin said, resulted from a roughly $32 increase in Owens' premium that took effect in August. Although Owens continued sending in monthly checks, she neglected to pay the higher amount for two months.
She began paying the higher premium -- $472.99 a month -- as of October. But by then, at least in Aetna's eyes, it was too late. She was short by about $64 for the previous two months combined, and that was reason enough to have her join the 47 million other people in this country lacking health coverage.
Owens said she never received advance word that her premium was going up. She said she received a letter from Aetna in October saying that her rates had risen as of a couple of months earlier.
"That was the first I heard of it," Owens said.
Again, the paperwork backs her up. Aetna sent me a copy of the letter it sent Owens. It's dated Sept. 30 -- two months after the rate increase took effect.
I asked Coplin why Aetna didn't simply untangle the situation after Owens appealed her canceled policy. After all, the company's letters repeatedly told Owens she hadn't paid her bill, even though she knew she had -- and the company had even deposited her October payment.
"That was our mistake," Coplin acknowledged. "We took the check. It should have been returned."
So why wasn't Aetna more proactive in reaching out to a customer who clearly was making a good faith effort to pay her bills?
"I wasn't part of the appeals process," Coplin replied. "But in the future, we need to make sure our communications are more clear."
She said Aetna would reinstate Owens' coverage -- providing she now submits nearly $1,900 to cover four months of returned payments.
Coplin also said Aetna would retroactively cover any medical costs that accrued while Owens was uninsured. About $330 in prescription drug costs were run up during this time.
As for whether Owens' trouble represents a systemic problem, Coplin said Aetna did the best it could. The payment process is automated, she said, making it impossible for the company to contact customers personally in the event of a missed or insufficient payment.
Regarding Owens' appeal, Coplin said Aetna had been looking for any extenuating circumstances that would have explained why a customer failed to pay the full amount due. It didn't see any, she said.
That's just harsh, canceling someone's almost $473-a-month coverage over a matter of $64. And to then blow that customer off after she appealed the decision -- is it any wonder people think health insurers are only in it for the bucks?
"I did everything I was supposed to do," Owens said. "I tried to communicate with them. All I got back were form letters."
She said she's glad that Aetna (after some gentle prodding by the media), agreed to reinstate her coverage. And she'll likely pay the almost $1,900 just so her records show no lapses in health insurance -- you can never be too careful.
But Owens said she's already applied for alternative coverage offered by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the people behind the Emmys.
The new policy would cost about half as much as the old one, which Owens likes. There's just one thing:
It's offered by Aetna.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With what looks like the impending defeat of Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, it's likely that any move towards Health Care Reform is now RIP. Welcome to the New Welfare States of America.
No insurance ... Fuck you
No job .... Fuck you
No house .... Fuck you
No accountability ... Fuck you
No future ..... No kidding
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Satan writes to Pat Robertson
Dear Pat Robertson,
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action.
But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished.
Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"?
If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.
You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.
Best, Satan
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action.
But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished.
Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"?
If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.
You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.
Best, Satan
Great quote from Sam Jackson
"Enough is enough. I've had it with these monkey fighting snakes on this monkey fighting plane"
As heard on FX's "family friendly" version of Snakes on a Plane.
As heard on FX's "family friendly" version of Snakes on a Plane.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Wing Nut Alert
By posting this ... I'll just let it stew in your minds. You can't escape the images. You won't be able to un-see this. It's Michelle Bachmann, sent to save us from ourselves by Jesus.
Truly Disturbing
From The Gate
Did you know that everything you and those in your network do and discuss online may be compiled and provided to creditors? If your settings are tuned to public, it's true. This includes your Facebook status updates, Twitter "tweets," joining online clubs, linking a Web site, and even posting a comment on a news blog (such as, well, this one).
It's fascinating stuff. Here is my full story that came out today, Social networking: Your key to easy credit?, but in brief -
What's going on: In hopes of identifying good credit customers, some financial institutions are tapping into the information you and your friends reveal online. The idea is that the friends you keep and data you disclose may help them make more accurate business decisions.
Who is doing it: Companies such as Rapleaf hunt and gather social networking transmissions, turning the conversations you have in your network into consumer profiles. These profiles provide banks with insight into your behavior patterns - what you like and dislike, want and don't want, do well and do poorly.
How it's being used: There are a couple of ways this information may be applied. It can help creditors promote certain products, cutting down on marketing waste. Why sent pre-approval letters to people not interested, right?
Lowering lending risk is another reason. Creditors can see if people in your network have accounts with them, and are free to look at how they are handling those accounts. The presumption is that if those in your network are responsible cardholders, there is a better chance you will be too. So, if a bank is on the fence about whether to extend you credit, you may become eligible if those in your network are good credit customers.
Having a robust online social network can also expedite loan acceptance. If you're connected to a lot of people who are great credit risks, it can speed you through the process. Amazing, isn't it?
What you can do. While financial institutions and companies that gather your online data are emphatic that the idea is to increase the odds of a person getting credit, what you reveal online can have unintended consequences. Therefore, if you want to opt out, turn all of your settings to private. Other best practices:
- Don't accept invitations to your social networking site from people until you check their profiles out first.
- Be acutely aware of what you write. Don't make public anything you don't want public.
- Take an annual inventory of all your social networking sites and delete people and information that can potentially damage you in the eyes of a creditor or employer.
There is a problem to going completely underground, of course. If you're like me and want to be found (I couldn't conduct my business as well without being public), you won't be.
Did you know that everything you and those in your network do and discuss online may be compiled and provided to creditors? If your settings are tuned to public, it's true. This includes your Facebook status updates, Twitter "tweets," joining online clubs, linking a Web site, and even posting a comment on a news blog (such as, well, this one).
It's fascinating stuff. Here is my full story that came out today, Social networking: Your key to easy credit?, but in brief -
What's going on: In hopes of identifying good credit customers, some financial institutions are tapping into the information you and your friends reveal online. The idea is that the friends you keep and data you disclose may help them make more accurate business decisions.
Who is doing it: Companies such as Rapleaf hunt and gather social networking transmissions, turning the conversations you have in your network into consumer profiles. These profiles provide banks with insight into your behavior patterns - what you like and dislike, want and don't want, do well and do poorly.
How it's being used: There are a couple of ways this information may be applied. It can help creditors promote certain products, cutting down on marketing waste. Why sent pre-approval letters to people not interested, right?
Lowering lending risk is another reason. Creditors can see if people in your network have accounts with them, and are free to look at how they are handling those accounts. The presumption is that if those in your network are responsible cardholders, there is a better chance you will be too. So, if a bank is on the fence about whether to extend you credit, you may become eligible if those in your network are good credit customers.
Having a robust online social network can also expedite loan acceptance. If you're connected to a lot of people who are great credit risks, it can speed you through the process. Amazing, isn't it?
What you can do. While financial institutions and companies that gather your online data are emphatic that the idea is to increase the odds of a person getting credit, what you reveal online can have unintended consequences. Therefore, if you want to opt out, turn all of your settings to private. Other best practices:
- Don't accept invitations to your social networking site from people until you check their profiles out first.
- Be acutely aware of what you write. Don't make public anything you don't want public.
- Take an annual inventory of all your social networking sites and delete people and information that can potentially damage you in the eyes of a creditor or employer.
There is a problem to going completely underground, of course. If you're like me and want to be found (I couldn't conduct my business as well without being public), you won't be.
Worst Song Ever
So I was watching VH1 late last night and came upon this car crash. It's called Fireflies by a band called Owl City.
You would not believe your eyes
If ten million fireflies
Lit up the world as I fell asleep
Cause they fill the open air
And leave teardrops everywhere
You'd think me rude, but I
Would just stand and stare.
I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly.
It's hard to say that I'd
Rather stay awake when I'm asleep,
Cause everything is never as it seems.
Cause I'd get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightening bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance.
A foxtrot above my head,
A sock-hop beneath my bed,
The disco ball is just hanging by a thread.
I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly.
It's hard to say that I'd
Rather stay awake when I'm asleep,
Cause everything is never as it seems.
(When I fall asleep.)
Leave my door open just a crack.
(Please take me away from here.)
Cause I feel like such an insomniac.
(Please take me away from here.)
Why do I tire of counting sheep?
(Please take me away from here.)
When I'm far too tired to fall asleep
To ten million fireflies.
I'm weird, cause I hate goodbyes
I got misty eyes as they said farewell.
But I'll know where several are
If my dreams get real bizarre
Cause I saved a few,
And I keep them in a jar.
I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly.
It's hard to say that I'd
Rather stay awake when I'm asleep,
Cause everything is never as it seems.
(When I fall asleep.)
I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly.
It's hard to say that I'd
Rather stay awake when I'm asleep
Because my dreams are bursting at the seams
THIS is what passes for music these days. What a LOAD of shit.
You would not believe your eyes
If ten million fireflies
Lit up the world as I fell asleep
Cause they fill the open air
And leave teardrops everywhere
You'd think me rude, but I
Would just stand and stare.
I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly.
It's hard to say that I'd
Rather stay awake when I'm asleep,
Cause everything is never as it seems.
Cause I'd get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightening bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance.
A foxtrot above my head,
A sock-hop beneath my bed,
The disco ball is just hanging by a thread.
I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly.
It's hard to say that I'd
Rather stay awake when I'm asleep,
Cause everything is never as it seems.
(When I fall asleep.)
Leave my door open just a crack.
(Please take me away from here.)
Cause I feel like such an insomniac.
(Please take me away from here.)
Why do I tire of counting sheep?
(Please take me away from here.)
When I'm far too tired to fall asleep
To ten million fireflies.
I'm weird, cause I hate goodbyes
I got misty eyes as they said farewell.
But I'll know where several are
If my dreams get real bizarre
Cause I saved a few,
And I keep them in a jar.
I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly.
It's hard to say that I'd
Rather stay awake when I'm asleep,
Cause everything is never as it seems.
(When I fall asleep.)
I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly.
It's hard to say that I'd
Rather stay awake when I'm asleep
Because my dreams are bursting at the seams
THIS is what passes for music these days. What a LOAD of shit.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Clusterf#@k to the Poor House - Wall Street Bonuses | ||||
| ||||
I owe money to Bank of America. I used a credit card to live off of a few years ago, but screw them if they think they'll ever get another dime from me. The reason? I think they have enough money from me already. And then there's this:
Bank Of America CEO Moynihan: 'No Disconnect' Between Lavish Exec Bonuses And The Crumbling Economy'
Pardon me BOA ... but FUCK YOU!
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Finally ... I understand the Health Care Debate
Thank you Rep. LaTourette for explaining it to me. I would have NEVER understood this without your mature reasoning skills.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Hey Fox News ... You Stay Classy
Just when you thought that the drumbeats of banality just couldn't be elevated any higher:
Sarah Palin to Fox News: Former Alaska Gov., 2008 GOP VP nominee, inks multi-year deal.
Said Ms Palin:
"I am thrilled to be joining the great talent and management team at Fox News," "It's wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balance news."
I think at this point, Fox has stripped ALL veneer off of the idea that they are a "fair and balanced" network. With the addition of Ms. Palin the lies that she espoused in both her book "Going Rogue" and the multitude of falsehoods she continues to spout, she'll be a welcome addition to the line up at Fox. I can imagine Carl Rove and Bill O'Reilly are working to organize a loofah party in her honour now.
Sarah Palin to Fox News: Former Alaska Gov., 2008 GOP VP nominee, inks multi-year deal.
Said Ms Palin:
"I am thrilled to be joining the great talent and management team at Fox News," "It's wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balance news."
I think at this point, Fox has stripped ALL veneer off of the idea that they are a "fair and balanced" network. With the addition of Ms. Palin the lies that she espoused in both her book "Going Rogue" and the multitude of falsehoods she continues to spout, she'll be a welcome addition to the line up at Fox. I can imagine Carl Rove and Bill O'Reilly are working to organize a loofah party in her honour now.
Are Americans a Broken People? Why We've Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression.
From Alternet:
Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?
Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?
What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?
Can anything be done to turn this around?
Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?
Yes. It is called the "abuse syndrome." How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims' faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker. So the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.
Does knowing the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes?
No. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing; it can feel shameful -- and there is nothing more painful than shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.
Has such a demoralization happened in the U.S.?
In the United States, 47 million people are without health insurance, and many millions more are underinsured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage. But despite the current sellout by their elected officials to the insurance industry, there is no outpouring of millions of U.S. citizens on the streets of Washington, D.C., protesting this betrayal.
Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry, yet only a handful of U.S. citizens have protested these circumstances.
Remember the 2000 U.S. presidential election? That's the one in which Al Gore received 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. That's also the one that the Florida Supreme Court's order for a recount of the disputed Florida vote was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a politicized 5-4 decision, of which dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens remarked: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." Yet, even this provoked few demonstrators.
When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice. Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how they have been victimized can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame, like fear, is one more way we become even more psychologically broken.
U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses: They feel helpless to effect change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get. And ultimately to deal with the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to shut-down mode and use escape strategies such as depression, substance abuse, and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious cycle of all abuse syndromes.
Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?
Maybe.
Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions of Americans saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of people, "What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves-more. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." Yet, even with these kind of inflammatory remarks, the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who had come to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive in the face of the 2000 non-democratic presidential elections.
Perhaps the "political genius" of the Bush-Cheney regime was in their full realization that Americans were so broken that the regime could get away with damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot slamming on their faces, the weaker people became.
What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?
The U.S. government-corporate partnership has used its share of guns and terror to break Native Americans, labor union organizers, and other dissidents and activists. But today, most U.S. citizens are broken by financial fears. There is potential legal debt if we speak out against a powerful authority, and all kinds of other debt if we do not comply on the job. Young people are broken by college-loan debts and fear of having no health insurance.
(read the whole post here.)
Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?
Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?
What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?
Can anything be done to turn this around?
Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?
Yes. It is called the "abuse syndrome." How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims' faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker. So the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.
Does knowing the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes?
No. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing; it can feel shameful -- and there is nothing more painful than shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.
Has such a demoralization happened in the U.S.?
In the United States, 47 million people are without health insurance, and many millions more are underinsured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage. But despite the current sellout by their elected officials to the insurance industry, there is no outpouring of millions of U.S. citizens on the streets of Washington, D.C., protesting this betrayal.
Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry, yet only a handful of U.S. citizens have protested these circumstances.
Remember the 2000 U.S. presidential election? That's the one in which Al Gore received 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. That's also the one that the Florida Supreme Court's order for a recount of the disputed Florida vote was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a politicized 5-4 decision, of which dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens remarked: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." Yet, even this provoked few demonstrators.
When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice. Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how they have been victimized can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame, like fear, is one more way we become even more psychologically broken.
U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses: They feel helpless to effect change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get. And ultimately to deal with the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to shut-down mode and use escape strategies such as depression, substance abuse, and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious cycle of all abuse syndromes.
Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?
Maybe.
Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions of Americans saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of people, "What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves-more. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." Yet, even with these kind of inflammatory remarks, the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who had come to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive in the face of the 2000 non-democratic presidential elections.
Perhaps the "political genius" of the Bush-Cheney regime was in their full realization that Americans were so broken that the regime could get away with damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot slamming on their faces, the weaker people became.
What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?
The U.S. government-corporate partnership has used its share of guns and terror to break Native Americans, labor union organizers, and other dissidents and activists. But today, most U.S. citizens are broken by financial fears. There is potential legal debt if we speak out against a powerful authority, and all kinds of other debt if we do not comply on the job. Young people are broken by college-loan debts and fear of having no health insurance.
(read the whole post here.)
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