People like new prisons.  It means we are tough on crime.  Providing basic necessities for prisoners is not important because these people are “Animals” who don’t deserve any consideration whatsoever.  They should just be, “locked up and forgotten.”  Well, the result of this attitude is that massive state and federal budget cuts have left prisons severely understaffed and so overcrowded that one prisoner characterized his facility this way, “This place is essentially run by inmates.  Guards or “officers,” simply direct traffic.”    

I am writing this blog because I have a grandson in prison in Stillwater, Minnesota and while I admit that he belongs there, I find it difficult to accept the conditions under which he and many other American prisoners are kept.  The worst part of the system is that almost all attempts at rehabilitation have been cut from budgets so the rate of recidivism (return to prison) is a little over 50%.  I’m hoping that by relating my experience, however limited, (one prison in one system of prisons) that readers can gain a better understanding of prisons, prison life and how our system really works against itself.

In 1965 there were 780,000 adults under correctional authority throughout the United States. Currently, there are well over 7 million people locked up in penitentiaries, county jails, on probation or parole. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tio-hardiman/the-prison-industrial-com_1_b_994221.html That’s more than any other country in the world.

U.S. prisons seem to be nothing more than breeding grounds for recidivism. You can bet that the majority of prisoners when released will wind up back in prison and the reason is that the only skills they acquired in prison were those that allowed them to survive.  They learn that the proper response to a problem is violence.  The reason for this mess?  We have cut prison budgets to the bone and we don’t even try to teach inmates the basics about how to live crime free lives. So rather than serving as places that seek to rehabilitate criminals all our prisons do is reinforce the offender’s proclivity toward criminal behavior.  We add to the crime rate because the one place where we have a captive audience for rehabilitation isn’t used for that purpose.

“The state of California has opened only one college since 1984 — and twenty-one prisons.”

Elliott Currie, Crime and Punishment in America

Here are some startling facts:

• Over 2.3 million Americans (about 1% of the population) are currently incarcerated in prisons alone.  That is the highest percentage in the world, ahead of Russia, China, Iran and even North Korea.
• It costs taxpayers about $23,000 a year to house and feed each prisoner.
• About seven percent of U.S. federal prisoners are female.
• Over 75% of women incarcerated in the U.S. are single mothers.
• Over half of all federal prisoners are there for drug offenses.
• About 73% of American federal prison inmates are U.S. citizens and 16% are Mexican.
• Whites make up 56% of all federal prisoners; 40% are black, 2% are Native American and 2% are Asian.
• Rikers Island in New York is considered the world’s largest penal colony.  There are as many as 15,000 inmates there at any one time.

http://people.howstuffworks.com/prison4.htm

The prison system in the United States is a mess and nobody cares.  Our prisons and jails have become nothing more than crumbling, overcrowded holding tanks…holding prisoners until they’ve served their terms, releasing them and then waiting for them to return.  And…return they will, because for the most part our prisons offer nothing in the way of rehabilitative services.  Unless we start paying attention to this forgotten dark side of our society the revolving door is just going to start turning faster and faster as prisons become more a place to refine criminal skills than to eliminate them in favor of abilities that would keep offenders from returning to the lives that got them into prison in the first place.  Right now in 2012 almost all prisons are overcrowded with some at nearly 40 % over capacity.

Contrary to some beliefs prisoners, for the most part, don’t get much in the way of creature comforts.  While all prisons have their own rules most do not provide TV sets for inmates.  In Stillwater Prison in Minnesota for example, they provide basic cable to cells. If you want TV or radio or an i-pod you must buy your own.  There is no internet available to prisoners so they are not online harassing people.  There is a lending library available to inmates but the selection of books is not wide.   If you want a specific book that is not in the library you have to find someone who will buy it buy it from Amazon and have them send it to you.  Health care is virtually non-existent. Yes, prisons have physicians and infirmaries but before you get to see them you had better be gravely ill.  A toothache, a sore back, even a case of flu won’t get you much if any attention.

My only real experience with prisons is just the one facility in Stillwater, Minnesota where my grandson is incarcerated.  I understand that the gopher state system is better than most and yet it is severely lacking.  While prisoners can get jobs in prison they are meaningless jobs that offer little in the way of skills that can be used in the outside world.  Disassembling old computers and serving food in a cafeteria are not occupations that lend themselves well to surviving in modern society.

In Minnesota if prisoners need something they must either buy it from the prison store or have it sent to them by the manufacturer.  I am not allowed to send my grandson a pair of tennis shoes.  I can send money to his account at the prison and he can buy tennis shoes through the prison store.  I can’t even send him a book.  I have to purchase the book from Amazon and have them send it to him.  I cannot send him food or clothing and when I see him I am not allowed to hand him anything.  Every letter we write is opened and read by someone before it gets to him and in some cases it is censored or not delivered at all.  Occasionally you can send something to an inmate that never gets to him.  There is no explanation and you are never notified that it happened unless the inmate tells you about it.

When you visit an inmate in Minnesota you do so in a very large room filled with other inmates and their visitors and under the watchful eyes of cameras and guards.  When my grandson knows he will have visitors he is brought to this room and told to stand still in an area watched by a guard until we arrive.  Upon entering we are allowed a brief hug and then must sit in chairs across from him that are about five feet apart.  Touching is not allowed.  If the inmate has children, they may touch and sit on the inmates lap until age six…after that, no touching even by a 7 year old child who doesn’t understand why all of a sudden he or she can’t sit on daddy’s lap.  When we leave he again must stand in a certain spot  close to a guard and we are allowed a goodbye hug as the guard watches to make sure nothing changes hands.

As in all prisons, gangs rule and belonging to one is dangerous.  Gangs offer protection (for a price and I don’t even want to know what it is) from other gangs.  If you are not in a gang, though, you are in even greater danger.

My experience in Minnesota is only as the relative of an inmate and as a visitor but I am always astounded at how much goes on that the guards either do not see or just ignore.  Security, from my perspective, is very tight.  When you visit you must empty your pockets (can’t even carry your car keys in) and place all your belongings in a locker that you have to pay for).  Then you must walk through a metal detector that is so sensitive it will pick up metallic lint if you have any.  If you look the least bit suspicious you can be taken aside and searched.  Then only very few people at a time are allowed through a double set of mechanical steel security rooms where you leave your ID and get your hand stamped with a special invisible ink.  Finally a mechanical door will open into the public visiting room and you have a maximum of one hour to visit.  Two hours if you are from out of town and only at certain times on certain days.  Sometime you may arrive to find that your inmate has been disciplined for some reason and you cannot see him even if you travelled a long distance and no one will call you to tell you not to come and you will never find out what the offense was unless the offender tells you.

I have no idea how people bring contraband into the prison but they do.  Illegal drugs, alcohol, drug paraphernalia, money, cigarettes all kinds of things find their way in and conjugal visits are not allowed so they certainly aren’t getting in that way.   Almost every prisoner is covered in tattoos…but tattoos are illegal in prison.  I don’t know where they get the tattoo pens, the ink or even find the privacy to actually do a tattoo but they do.  These skin drawings are illegal because of the potential for Hepatitis C and other diseases but apparently it is unstoppable because I see new tattoos every time I visit.

I hope this blog gives the reader something to think about. I am not asking for prisoners to be treated with kid gloves but rather that society consider doing more than just locking them up until release time.  Rehabilitation may not always work but I’ll bet it’s cheaper to try to rehabilitate even a few prisoners than continue to pay for the prosecution and incarceration of those who keep returning to the system because they didn’t have the tools to survive in a normal society.  While it is difficult for many “Law and order” people to get beyond the “animal” characterization of prisoners they must.  That term probably applies to a specific few like serial killers and child molesters but not to all.  All I ask is to think about it a little…think about how you’d feel if someone you knew and loved was in prison.  Generalizations can be very dangerous…give it a little thought before you make them.

Thanks for reading this.  Your comments are welcome in the space provided below or you can write to me personally at bob@aronson.org.

I am a heart transplant recipient and hope that you are an organ donor.  If not please consider becoming one because one donor can save or positively affect up to 60 lives.  You can read my blogs on the subject at www.bobsnewheart.wordpress.com and you can join our Facebook Group Organ Transplant Initiative.  The only requirement for membership is to have a desire to increase the number of transplantable organs in the United States.  Want more information about organ donation?  Visit www.organti.org and watch “From the Bottom of my Donors Heart.”

One of the great failings of our educational system is that they teach the language, the parts of the language, how to pronounce words and how to string them together into a sentence. In other words our schools teach people how to talk and write and even then students only learn enough to get by.  Not only do students not learn very well, they don’t think they have to because they know that when they open their mouths a bunch of words will fall out and they will have made their point. WRONG!!!!

What we fail to teach is communication and I believe that is what lies at the heart of most of our problems. Most people are so busy trying to be heard that they don’t listen, those who listen do so selectively and without concentration. For example, when someone else is talking, what are you doing? Chances are you are trying to think of how you are going to respond, therefore you are not listening. Even if you do listen are you listening objectively or listening for points to either agree or disagree with?

The problem in most communication exchanges is that they are all open to interpretation. As we listen we are thinking, “He thinks that I….” so there is a huge difference between what is being said and what is being inferred. Because we are human we will never be able to communicate without problems no matter how hard we try. The problem we have now is that people think, “I talk, therefore I communicate.” and that’s true except that what you are talking about and what you are communicating may be two different things.

How many people ever enter an argument with this mindset, “I really want to hear what she has to say, I could probably learn a thing or two.”   More likely we tend to enter an argument by thinking, “Damnit, I’m going to be heard and I don’t care what she thinks.  I’m tired of listening to her.”  Fact is…he probably never really listened to her.  He heard her but he didn’t listen.  Chances are she’s as guilty as he is because both of them just want to be heard but neither enters the exchange with a willingness to listen.

What needs to be taught, then, in our schools is how to more precisely choose words so that the margin for potential error is significantly reduced. My bottom line is this, when what is inferred is the same as what was implied, then we will better understand each other and….and…maybe live in peace.

Posted: Mon, Jan. 9, 2012, 10:05 AM

High court backs foreign campaign contribution ban

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal seeking to expand the ability of foreigners to contribute to American political campaigns.

The justices on Monday upheld a federal court ruling in favor of the ban on foreign contributions from all but immigrants who permanently live in the United States.

Washington lawyer Michael Carvin wanted the justices to extend their 2010 decision in the Citizens United case allowing greater political participation by corporations and labor unions. Carvin sued on behalf of two people with visas to work in the United States.

A three-judge court in Washington said Congress was well within its powers when it prohibited most foreigners from making campaign contributions.

Today’s Bobservation:

We’ve got to get the big money out of our political campaigns and this is a step in the right direction. I propose going much, much farther though. If I could write the law there would be no contributions by corporations, unions, PACs, non-profits, any other special interest or special interest front groups.  While lobbyists could continue to work, their influence would diminish considerably due to an inability to “buy” favors. 

The campaign finance story is staggering in its depth and mystifying in the fact that so few want to change it when it is so obvious that our elections and elected officials are in many cases being bought by the highest bidder. This nation’s government does not represent the people who trudge off to the voting booths every November.  The government represents those who spent enough money to buy access to key officials so they can privately convince them how to vote “correctly” if they want campaign money to continue to flow to them. That is hardly government that represents the people, it is government that represents the influential.

From the publication Open Secrets (http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/06/will-12-million-a-day-convince.html)

• “As an industry pharmaceutical and health products has long been the top dog on K Street. Since 1998, the industry has spent more than $1.6 billion on federal lobbying. Last year alone, it spent more than $234 million — a sum that translates into roughly $125,000 every hour that Congress was actually in session.”
• Overall, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce maintained spent $14.4 million to increase its 2011 lobbying expenditures to more than $46.2 million.
• The nation’s largest labor union, the AFL-CIO, for example, has given federal candidates, parties and committees $17.4 million since the 1990 election cycle, 96 percent of which has gone to Democrats. The group has spent $36 million in that time, however, on independent expenditures (ads that expressly advocate the election of a specific candidate but that are not in coordination with that candidate).  And this is just he AFL-CIO…it doesn’t include the teamsters, IBEW, and dozens of other major unions.

If you want more, detailed information on how much money is spent to influence the people who are supposed to be representing your interests click on this site. http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/index.php  

Here’s what I would do to end this corrupt and corrupting behavior:

1. Eliminate campaign contributions of any kind from corporations, organized labor, Political Action Committees (PACS) or any other special interest group including not-for-profit organizations like the U.S. Chamber, the Red Cross, or the United Way.
   
2. I would only allow contributions from registered voters and no contribution could exceed $150 per voter per election period. Send it all to one person or spread it out over many but total only $150.  Public financing is another consideration.   I would also:

• Shorten campaign periods
• Eliminate “Soft” money (phone banks, people to make calls, pizzas etc)
• Require that debates follow strict National Forensic League (NFL) debate rules (read more about the NFL http://www.nflonline.org/AboutNFL/YearbyYear )
• Require that debates be non-sponsored events on public broadcasting,
• No paid advertising.  Candidates would have to depend on “Free” standard news media coverage.  If you’ve got a good idea you’ll make news…if not..
• Disallow wealthy people from spending their own money on campaigns (they, too, would have to depend on the $150 contributions)
• Require that office holders (and their staffs) running for re-election forgo the pay and other perks of their office while campaigning. 
• Eliminate the congressional franking privilege (free postage) during campaigns and
• Make office holding candidates pay for their own trips to and from Washington during their campaigns.

Obviously my points need refining and there’s a lot more that can be done but until we fix campaign financing we will be unable to control any of our other national problems because they are all symptoms of the same disease. 

Your answer to this one question will tell you if I’m right or wrong.  If Wal-Mart gives a candidate $5,000 and you give the same candidate $25.00 which of you will get faster action when you call for assistance or want to meet with the official?

Special interests own our political system and we will not have government of, for and by the people until we run the big money out of campaigns and make politicians pay attention to voters…yes real voters.

And…..an additional strike for freedom. 

Montana High Court Says ‘Citizens United’ Does Not Apply In Big Sky State |

www.alternet.org

State Supreme Court Issues Remarkable Ruling Against Corporate Speech

I don’t know about you, readers, but I lived through WW ll.  I remember the terror of it all, the nightly blackouts, the fear that we could be a country without freedoms like the right to free speech and the right to vote.  Japan and Germany wanted to take that away from us.

I remember seeing grieving widows watching their loved ones return home in boxes and families being reunited with loved ones who were missing arms, legs, eyes and yes, even their own sanity.  We were viciously and cruelly attacked by the Japanese who killed nearly 1,500 Americans on a peaceful Sunday morning at Pearl Harbor, should we have let that pass?

I remember listening to President Truman on the radio as he told us what had been done in Hiroshima and I remember hearing people shouting with joy that this awful, terrible war could soon be over.  I remember hearing mothers say, “Maybe Ronnie, or Jim or Stan won’t have to be part of the invasion of Japan.”  They were so relieved…and then I remember how it took many days after the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki before the Japanese finally surrendered and everyone wondered what it would take to find peace.

Had we not dropped those bombs, our troops would have been met by 2 million well-armed japanese troops and nearly 2,000 Kkamakazi planes that had already taken a heavy toll on our Navy.   It has been said that we would have suffered a million casualties had we invaded Japan but there are some who say the figure is much too high.  Ok — .would it have been acceptable to invade Japan if we only lost 500,000, 200,000, 20,000?  How many American lives should we have given up in order to avoid using the bombs?  It is quite easy to sit back 60 some years after the war and criticize President Truman, but if you lived through that time, as I did, you probably would have been right out in the middle of the street of your home town celebrating the end of the war as did everyone in America.

Usually I am a bleeding heart liberal, but not in this case.  Japan deserved what it got and Americans deserved a quick end to the war.  Do you doubt that the Japanese or the Germans would have used the bomb if they had it?   If you are going to have a bleeding heart then let it bleed for the half a million American soldiers who died fighting for your right to criticize President Truman.  Let it bleed for the estimated 70 million people who died worldwide because of Japan and Germany’s treachery.  You weep for the Japanese, I weep for all the people they killed, injured and tortured.  Having said that, I strongly defend your right to exercise your opinion no matter how wrong I think you are.  I defend it because that’s what all those Americans died for and who am I, or who are you to say we should have let more of them die in order to save people in the nation that would have killed every one of us if they had the opportunity.  Truman did the right thing, he saved American lives and that’s what the President of the United States is supposed to do. ‘ He swears to that when he is sworn in.  Should he have violated his oath of office?  Nuff said.

Comments can be left in the space provided on this blog or you can reach me at jaxbob@gmail.com

It is all the result of a new patriotic movement called FREACS.  They are a tough bunch of tea drinking, bible quoting defenders of the rich and persecutors of the poor.  They embrace the “Whatever is wrong with our society is the fault of poor people and the unemployed” philosophy and follow closely the teachings of Arizona’s Queen of Cruelty Jan Brewer.  It was Brewer, remember, who told terminally ill transplant patients to go home and die.  It is Brewer who wants to kick a quarter of a million poor people out of Medicaid and proposes to charge those who smoke, are too heavy or have diabetes $50 each for having those afflictions (just where does she expect poor people who need medical assistance to get $50?).  She likely will use the money she collects to pay for tax breaks for rich people who own businesses in foreign countries that pay no U.S. taxes.

These “Anti-tax, anti-government, anti-sex, pro-rich people folks are a tad frightening.  So, you ask, what does FREAC S stand for?  FREACS (Far Right Extremist and Christian Society) is a group you already know because so many of them are your neighbors, work partners or, heaven forbid, spouses or significant others.  You can always identify a FREAC because they wear crosses around their necks, carry guns under their shirts, home school their kids and always make sure they emphasize President Obama’s middle name when they question his place of birth.   

People who are FREACS do not like my kind or me because they consider compassion for your fellow citizens to be socialistic and the obsession of “sissies.”   They believe government should be limited to things like settling property disputes and sending people to jail.  They also believe that anyone who has financial or health problems should “pull themselves up by the boot-straps.  Unfortunately, there are millions of Americans who have no bootstraps. They don’t even have boots. Now, there are people who possess all the bootstraps that others need but the FREACS believe that those bootstrap rich people should be given a “Strap” break so they’ll hire more people.  But…but…that’s exactly why they have all the boots and straps.  Knowing their prospective employees are barefoot and can’t work in their broken glass recycling plants, they feel free to go overseas to hire workers who have never owned shoes, have feet like hard leather and will work for the price of two straps a day and some cool imported water.  It’s good water, too, clearly labeled, Bottled in Chernobyl, Ukraine by Koch Enterprises.”   But, I digress.

My friends who are FREACS want fire and police protection.  They want criminals to be put in jail…forever.  They want a strong, I mean really strong defense department that can with the flick of a switch selectively wipe out any particular belief system, race or religion they don’t like — but they are outspoken in their support of our constitution…well, at least parts of it.  OK, one part — the one about guns that is known as the second amendment.  How can you protect the beloved right to carry a bazooka under your coat if you don’t have a bazooka?  Sheeez people you never know when some lunatic liberal from down the block is going to come in unarmed and demand you give him your guns.  Those commie rat bleeding hearts are dangerous.  I personally have intimidated and taken the weapons of several FREACS armed with AK 47s by calling them scaredy cats and threatening to tell their spouses about the hidden porn films in their garages.

Yesssssireeee the FREACS want all those things but without government involvement and without using tax money (no consideration is given to how you would pay for these things without tax dollars).  Well, that’s another story but those are the main “Wants” of the group.

Following is a list of a few of the things that they feel we don’t need.

Public assistance.  “Why should they pay for these lazy bums who sit around all day with nothing to do but read the paper and drink coffee” (didja ever stop to think that they were reading the “Help wanted” ads, or looking for new construction sites they could visit to apply for work?).  By the way, many of these “Bums” were laid off by the Boot Strap company that just opened a new facility in Bangladesh.  It is hiring three times as many people as were employed in the U.S. for less than half the price with no benefits, no health and safety laws, no unions to contend with and a ready supply of very young employees (they must prove they are over 16 of course).

Health care.  “Things are just fine as they are; let the private sector handle it.  We don’t need the Government getting involved where they don’t belong all they’d do is screw it up.”  Hmmm — claims denied regularly, procedures not approved, no coverage for medicine because a bean counter read bad things about it in Readers Digest, no coverage for pre-existing conditions (by the time you see a doctor isn’t the condition already pre-existing?) and no drugs for the mentally ill.  We absolutely should not change any of that, right?  Let me see if I understand.  It is the private sector that has been screwing you but you don’t want the government to make it stop because …because…why?

 Social Security, “Our tax money should not be used for entitlement programs like Social Security.”  They seem to forget that people are entitled to Social security because they paid into it all of their working lives.  It’s their money FREACS!

 Medicare.  “The purpose of government is to defend its people, not give them free health care.” We need to be prepared to kill millions of foreigners.  You never know when countries like Zimbabwe will attack you.  You have to be ready and not spend  money on useless programs like helping the disabled, the retired and particularly those old and dying senior citizens who take way too much expensive medicine.  They’re going to die anyway, why spend the money?

The environment.  “It’s all a big myth perpetuated by a bunch of tree huggers who don’t like lumber, mining and manufacturing companies.   Our air is clean (cough, cough).”  But what about the 40 percent of deaths worldwide that are caused by water, air and soil pollution (Cornell University research).  The World Health Organization says environmental conditions  combined with population growth contribute to the malnourishment and disease susceptibility of billions of people.  You must realize, though, that if the Koch brothers say it’s a myth it must be after all, they look pretty healthy.

Religion.  “Christianity is the only true religion and we are a Christian nation.”  (It makes no difference to FREACS that most of the founding fathers were Deists not Christians and made a point of keeping religion out of government).  Being a “Christian”  of course,  does not include anyone who is Catholic, Methodist, Episcopalian, some Lutherans, certainly Mormons and even those who go to the real Christian church but associate with any of the above. Baptist churches are usually Ok unless they allow a lot of singing, clapping, dancing, loud music and black preachers who carry on endlessly about civil rights abuses.  At FREACS churches they preach “Love they neighbor as you love yourself” every Sunday unless the neighbor is of a different religion, sexual preference, age, sex, color or non-pit-bull animal. 

Well, now you know about FREACS.  If you are one and are offended by this piece, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of comfort among your FREACS friends.  If you are not a FREACS member and want to join them, you’ll get no tips  here on how to do that.  But…you could probably get some information from the next guy you see who has a huge, loud pickup truck with a confederate flag on the back, mud all the way to the roof and a gun mounted in the back window. 

As for me, I will continue to associate with evil, socialistic, unarmed, non-violent, bleeding hearts as I’ve done in the past.  Funny I think there was a major religious figure who liked the same things but that must have been a fairy tale because it never really caught on.   

Please view our 7 minute video “A Promise Broken” on www.savethearizona98.com.  Also…there is more information on this blog site about other donation/transplantation issues.  We would love to have you join our Facebook group ORGAN Transplant Initiative. The more members we get the greater our impact on increasing life-saving organ donation

Please comment in the space provided or email your thoughts to me at bob@baronson.org.  And – please spread the word about the immediate need for more organ donors.  There is nothing you can do that is of greater importance.  If you convince one person to be a donor you may save or positively affect over 60 lives.  Some of those lives may be people you know and love.  

Early this morning I finished production on a six minute slide show called “A Promise Broken — Life Denied.  It tells the story of how the 98 found themselves without promised Medicaid coverage for the life saving transplants they so desperately need.

Also included in the slide show are the criteria for qualifying for an organ transplant and why these 98 needed Medicaid to help them because they had already used up all their resources to stay alive.

You’ll find another section “Arizona – 100% Fact Free”  which clearly shows how the claims made by Governor Jan Brewer have been distorted.

Finally you’ll find some suggestions on what you can do to help.  There really is no need for anyone else to die because of lack of  money.  

If you go to www.savethearizona98.com you’ll find some links on the left side of the page.  Click on “A Promise Broken” slide show and let it roll.  The slide will change automatically.  When you’ve finished vieweing it you are invited to tell others about it.  I did not copyright the show so no permission is needed for it to be used by others.  Also, we’d appreciate if you returned here to Bob’s NewHeart and wrote a comment about what you’ve seen.

Please visit my other blogsite Bob’s NewHeart http://bobsnewheart.wordpress.com  and join my Facebook site, ORGAN Transplant Initiative http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=152655364765710  OR — my Facebook home Page http://www.facebook.com/?sk=messages&tid=10150094667020070#!/ . 

 The more members we get the greater our impact on increasing life saving organ donation

Please comment in the space provided or email your thoughts to me at bob@baronson.org.  And – please spread the word about the immediate need for more organ donors.  There is nothing you can do that is of greater importance.  If you convince one person to be a donor you may save or positively affect over 60 lives.  Some of those lives may be people you know and love.

Arizona Medicaid denies organ transplants to dying patients

My thesis is simple.  The American Tea Party is a conjoined twin of the John Birch Society (JBS) and the Christian right-wing.  The two are intent on taking over the Republican party and the U.S. Government and are determined to wreck the foundation of our system — the U.S. constitution.

For years the JBS, once a loud, if not strident and radical voice against communism, lay dormant.  With the cold war over and communism on the decline their favorite bogeyman was gone. Then came Ron Paul, the Libertarian who ran for president in 2008, followed by a Democratic sweep and the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. Paul’s candidacy was popular among conservatives and it gave birth to the Tea Party. Paul was a JBS darling and the affection transferred to the Tea Party.

In case some of our readers are too young to know what the JBS is, let me offer a brief history lesson. The group was founded by Robert Welch in 1958, the height of the communist witch hunt in the United States. He called President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was a genuine American hero, a “conscious, dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy.” He also said that the U.S. government was “under operational control of the Communist party.” Famed conservative William F. Buckley argued that such paranoid rantings had no place in the conservative movement or the Republican Party, but the Birchers wormed their way in anyway. If you really want to know more about them go to their website http://www.jbs.org

When Billionaire David Koch ran to the right of Ronald Reagan for the presidency (he got 1% of the vote) he called for the abolition not just of Social Security, federal regulatory agencies and welfare but also of the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and public schools. Koch and his brother Charles have given over $100 million to right-wing causes.  Their father, Fred, was one of the original members of the John Birch Society http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html. and neither son rejects their father’s political bent. 

The Koch brothers are not publicity seekers so many people haven’t heard much about them other than some of their generous gifts to charitable organizations.  Here’s a quick refresher on who they are and how they use their money or, as Paul Harvey used to say, “Here’s the rest of the story.”

NewYorker magazine published a scathing report in October of this year (2010) that outlined the wealth of the Koch brothers, their radical right-wing beliefs and their immense wealth.   http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer The Koch brothers own Koch Industries which has annual revenues of about a hundred billion dollars. The Kochs operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline.  They also own, Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country, after Cargill, and its consistent profitability has made David and Charles Koch—who, years ago, bought out two other brothers—among the richest men in America. Their combined fortune of thirty-five billion dollars is exceeded only by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

NewYorker goes on to quote a study released this spring by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute that named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States

The magazine also discusses a David Koch funded organization called Americans for Prosperity Foundation.  The group honored several Tea Party “citizen leaders” at their recent summit meeting where the Texas branch of Americans for Prosperity gave its Blogger of the Year Award to a young woman named Sibyl West. On June 14th, West described President Obama as the “cokehead in chief” and speculated that he was exhibiting symptoms of “demonic possession.

Then there’s Dick  Armey former GOP congressman and now a Tea Party leader and fundraiser.  His characterization of Social Security pretty much describes the tea party agenda and it’s JBS philosophy.  Armey called Social Security, “A corrupt government practice that steals people’s money “under false pretenses.” He went on to call Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.”  So much for SS, Medicare and the Obama Health plan if Tea Partiers take control.  If senior citizens, in particular, are concerned about so-called “death panels” this one’s for real. 

As to the Tea Partiers, they find nothing wrong with the Koch brothers, Dick Armey or the John Birch Society association.  In Grand Rapids Michigan they hold their meetings in the JBS American Opinion bookstore.  Of all the places they could choose for meetings, why a John Birch Society bookstore?

In the late 1950s until the end of the cold war, the John Birch Society exhibited their paranoia by identifying every opponent as a “conscious agent of the communist conspiracy.”  Now, they are doing it again but the difference is that many main-stream republicans are using the same language along with the old Birch tactic of guilt by association.  They often use socialist and communist as interchangeable terms but their intent is clear, by labeling opponents as un-American they believe they can win the support of the majority of American voters.  Watch the news and you’ll see how well and often they smear opponents with lies about their patriotism, religion and/or place of birth.  These are evil people, many of which accept and support the goal of making the U.S.an extreme right-wing Christian theocracy. 

To quote Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society, “This is a world-wide battle, between light and darkness; between freedom and slavery; between the spirit of Christianity and the spirit of anti-Christ for the souls and bodies of men.”  You are hearing similar language today from some conservatives and no wonder, R.J. Rushdoony, the founder of the American Dominionist movement was one of the original members of JBS.  And…in case you didn’t know, the John Birch Society was one of CPAC’s (Conservative Political Action Committee) major sponsors at their recent yearly gathering.  

Just to illustrate how off the wall the Birchers are, I refer to Alan Stang’s book, The True Story of Civil Rights.  It was published by the Birch society and portrays the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. as an agent of a massive communist conspiracy to agitate among otherwise “happy” Negroes to foment revolution and/or at promote demands for more collectivist Federal government Intrusion. Some readers will immediately suggest that this is all nonsense and a false alarm.  It isn’t.  If the ultra right-wing Christian movement takes control of the Republican party and subsequently the U.S. Congress and Presidency, and they are mighty close, every American’s life, liberty, property and future is at risk and the United States would become a mirror image of Iran only we would be Christian not Muslim led.    

Our country has survived monumental threats and catastrophes before and we’ve always come out stronger — but the great threats of the past were from external forces.  This time the threat is from within and if the elements I described are successful they will scrap the very principles upon which we were founded.  That, my friends, is not survivable. 

Coulter and Limbaugh and Beck

Say all liberals are going to heck

They lie and distort and fail to report

on any news with a liberal speck.

They lie about Barack and his birth

to enhance their personal worth

“Truth be damned,” they say,

“We must make some hay and we’ll tell any lie we unearth”

Anne Coulter’s a tall blonde and tart

But no one would say she’s smart.

Being gay is a choice — in her head

So they’ll all go to hell when they’re dead.

Limbaugh spouts racism, anger and hate

Saying, “liberals have sealed our fate.”

“They’re killing the nation,” says the king of sensation,

“Let’s nuke Iran or Korea or Kuwait,  

But with Obama and Kerry and Gore

We’ll never have another “good” war,

and that, dittoheads, is not healthy

‘Cause war makes conservatives wealthy.”

And finally there’s the ubiquitous Beck — not as smart as the loveable Shrek

But he’s willing to twist and distort all the news on his Fox report.

He’s sick of the families 9-11

Due to their passion with loved ones in heaven.

Glenn Beck is a very bad man

And his show is a battering ram

For those on the right who only have spite

For people who eschew eating ham. 

Each member of this nefarious trio gets a big check and thinks they’re a hero.

But so did another, who fiddled with fame and his name was emperor Nero.

I’m done now and ending this miserable rhyme,

It’s a sign of a frustrating time.

If you liked it that’s fine, if you didn’t go whine

To the group whose last name sounds like dreck.  

I am writing this at two o’clock in the morning on Monday September 20, 2010 because I want to report it while everything is fresh in my addled mind.

Facebook can be a wonderful tool to interact with the rest of the world, but don’t depend on them to be of any help if you ever have a problem with the service.  Yes, they have a so-called “Help Center” http://www.facebook.com/help/  that looks impressive until you try to use it.  There is no way you can actually talk to anyone.  I have come to believe that Facebook is nothing more than a giant supercomputer like “Hal” in the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey.  There are no people there, just Hal and he does not communicate with mere mortals.  I’ll bet shareholders can talk to him but not us measly members.

 You see, I am a heart transplant recipient and the administrator of ORDER Transplantation Initiative  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15612565382  a Facebook site dedicated to helping organ donors, caregivers, those who need transplants and patients who have had them.  In three years we’ve attracted over 2,300 members.  Many of these people are in life and death situations, desperately waiting for life saving organ transplants that may never come.  This is no breezy, lightweight page, it deals with issues and people who depend on the information we offer to make important life decisions.

For 3 years the site was named Organ Transplant Patients, Families and Friends but because we have expanded our horizons so greatly in that time I decided a name change that properly defined our group was in order so I performed the very simple Facebook function of changing the name and notifying all the members of the action. 

The message I sent to members was that we had changed the name to ORDER Transplantation Initiative, along with an explanation of the meaning of the acronym ORDER.  Everyone got the message.  Then….Facebook or Hal sent out another message, this one announcing that I had changed the name of the group from what it was (Organ Transplant Patients, Families and Friends) back to Organ Transplant Patients, Families and Friends.  Obviously the message made no sense.  But the worst was yet to come.  Facebook didn’t just send one bogus message to all members it continued to send the same message over and over again, hour after hour after hour.  Some members got as many as 100 or more of the same message and many become very angry.

I did my best to tell everyone that the spamming was not the fault of our group but that it was Facebook that was to blame.  I think my clarification got lost in the Facebook maelstrom of emails because members began to drop out of the group despite my repeated efforts to calm and reassure them.

In the meantime, just to be sure it was a Facebook caused problem I ran four sweeps of my computer with malware and virus destroying software.  The sweeps found nothing. Then I checked Facebook and found that over the months scores of group administrators had complained of the same thing happening and got no, nada, niente response from Facebook.  Some administrators said they lost most of the members they had worked so hard to get.  Now it was very clear that Facebook was at fault and I again reported the fact to my members but to no avail, they continued to leave the group. That’s when I went back to the Facebook “Help Center” and found that you cannot reach a person there, there is no “Contact Us” icon.  All you can do is choose from a list of problems, probably written by Hal, and if yours isn’t there you are out of luck. 

Finally, after many internet searches and digging into the Facebook ‘Help Center” site, I found a well-hidden link that allowed you to report a “bug.”  I reported it four times.  Once I got a return form-letter email, thanking me for bringing it to their attention, the other times I received nothing.  It is now 36 hours later and I’ve still heard nothing and we are now down some 700 members.

After about 18 hours of this nonsense I decided that the only way to stop the never-ending stream of email that was going to members was to shut down the site.  That meant we’d lose all the information we had accumulated and ALL of our members,. But I determined that shutting it down and attempting to get members to re-join was a better tactic than continuing to irritate them and run the risk of losing them forever.  Before doing that, however, I made one more effort to keep it open.  We posted a notice on the site, telling members how to turn off the notification process on their member page so they could stop getting the Hal generated emails.  The jury is still out on whether that’s working.  I will write a follow-up to this blog.  

How to Stop the Bogus emails.  For those of you still getting the bogus emails here’s how to stop them. Go to your Facebook page, click on “Account” in the upper right hand blue bar, click on “Application Settings,” scroll down to “Groups” then click on “Edit Settings,” when it opens click on “Other Permissions, ” scroll down to “Changes the Name of One of Your Groups” and remove the check mark. that will do it.

In the meantime, a friend who is the administrator of another Organ donation/transplantation Facebook site, Rex Maus of Transplant Community Outreach , http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=222020559306#! was trying to help me by telling his and my members that it was a Facebook problem and we were working on it.  As a result, his group started losing members and then because of his vigorous efforts on my behalf, Facebook (Hal actually because there are no people there) banned him yes, banned him, from the service.  They let an angry woman write “F— You” on my group’s wall but banned Rex because he was trying to help.

Rex’s group and mine are life saving groups.  People depend on and look to us for answers on how to help their dying loved ones get organs for transplantation, how to take care of them, how to register to be organ donors, new advances in medicine, science and technology and information on research into new ways to help the over 110,000 people in the U.S. who are awaiting transplants.  Many of them will die waiting.  For Facebook to ignore our problem is criminal. 

By way of this blog we are asking readers to contact Facebook at their Corporate Headquarters, 1601 S. California Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94304 (650)543-4800,  express your outrage over this situation and urge them to offer a link to reach real people who can help solve real problems.  Pick up the phone ASAP and let them know that their concentration on profitability over all other issues is offensive, wrong and may even be responsible for the further suffering of our members.  I, for one, am mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!  

Please comment in the space provided or email your thoughts to me at bob@baronson.org.  And – please spread the word about the immediate need for more organ donors.  Whenever you can, help people formally register even if you have to drive them to a driver’s license office.  There is nothing you can do that is of greater importance.  If you convince one person to be a donor you may save or positively affect over 50 lives.  Some of those lives may be people you know and love.

Also…visit and join my Facebook site, Organ Transplant Patients, Families and Friends at  http://tinyurl.com/225cfh  OR — my Facebook home page  http://www.facebook.com/home.php.  The more members we get the greater our impact on increasing life saving organ donation