For An Income Tax Labor Depletion Allowance

I received a notice from the IRS that all of my (and Jan's) income tax for 2007 will be refunded. This is the "keep the incumbent Congress members in office" tax refund of 2008. Supposedly to stimulate an economy that is mainly suffering from the after-effects of over-stimulation.

On the other hand, since I work freelance and Jan sells jewelry out of our home, we did pay over $5000 in Social Security taxes. If you are self-employed you get to pay both halves of the SS tax that are usually split between employers and employees.

But that is supposed to be a pension plan. So for 2007, my wife and I, middle-income people, paid not a penny for the war against the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc. No dough towards foreign aid. No subsidies for farming corporations. Nothing for food stamps, other federal welfare payments, or federal subsidies for education. No money for earmark boondoggles. But all that money was spent anyway, piling up in the federal deficit.

Sounds like Gun and Butter to me. The phrase means spending money on a war without cutting back on domestic consumption. Hitler is famous for doing that during World War II. Women were not asked to work in the war effort, and plenty of food was available for German house wives until the Russians were grinding up the Polish breadbasket and German husbands along with it.

Every nation that has done the guns and butter routine for very long has ended up bankrupt, with little military power and not much butter. So unless history is not prededent in this case, that is where the United States is heading.

The election over, I'll almost certainly go back to owing taxes for 2008. Plus there is that big old, scary national debt that at the very least needs to have its interest paid.

Which made me think of another case of not paying taxes in the good ol' United States of America. Between around 1920 and 1990 there was something called the oil depletion allowance. The theory behind it was this. There is oil in the ground, and someone owns it. It is worth money setting there in the ground. If you take it out of the ground, and sell it, you really have not made any money. Because the money just compensates for the lessening of the value of the oil in the ground. No income, no income tax. Simple. And fair as the sky is blue. Own oil land and become a multi-millionaire, even if you bought the land for $1 per acre, and you owe no federal income tax.

We ordinary people born to ordinary parents who are renters or maybe own some ordinary, non-oil holding land, should get a labor depletion allowance against income tax.

The reasoning here is that each person born has a certain lifelong capacity for labor. As you labor, you are depleting that capacity. So you are not actually netting any money. Any pay you get just offsets your total lifetime money earning ability.

Write your congressperson today, while its election year. Demand a labor depreciation allowance against income tax.

What is good enough for an oil man is good enough for me.

Cynthia McKinney Rallies Greens in Fort Bragg, California

On Saturday I drove up to Fort Bragg see Cynthia McKinney, who is seeking the nomination of the Green Party to run for President of the United States of America. Cynthia McKinney, a former Democrat, served in the Georgia state legislature and then four terms as Georgia's 11th district Congresswomen. Saturday night she was scheduled to speak in Ukiah, California, where she would be joined by another former Democratic Party congress person, Dan Hamburg, who is also now in the Green Party. Here I am with Cynthia:

Local singer/songwriter Chris Skyhawk started off with some political folk songs, and Cynthia pulled shakers out of her purse and got with the rhythm:

Peace activist Dr. Carol Wolman spoke next about why she decided to challenge the local Democratic Party incumbent for his congressional seat. She said that the possibility of nuclear war has increased greatly, that the incumbent (Mike Thompson) has voted for all funding bills for the war in Iraq, and that he also supported all of George W. Bush's tax cuts for the rich. She promised represent this mainly liberal district's pro-peace, pro-economic justice, pro-environment citizens. She also explained why we need to impeach both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Cynthia gave an excellent speech touching on many of America's problems and their solutions. She pointed out how racism can still be a problem in the United States. She recounted how she was attacked by the press and both the Republican Party and Democratic Party when she stood up on the floor of Congress and asked the obvious question after the 911 attacks on the World Trade Centers: "What did the administration know and when did they know it?"

She said history has shown a nation can't have both Guns and Butter without crippling its economy. Joining the Green Party was her own declaration of independence from participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity. She also talked about how hard it is to take on the political establishment. Her father had begun protesting against racism in Georgia (an all Democratic Party state back then) when he returned from serving in World War II. Supporting the Green Party now is difficult, but it is creating a path to a United States that is at peace with the world and where there is true democracy, social justice, and an environmentally sustainable economy.

Cynthia McKinney with Carol Wolman while taking questions from the audience:

The audience of about 50 people gave over $500 to Ms. McKinney's campaign. Run Cynthia Run!

More data:

Cynthia McKinney's campaign web site: www.runcynthiarun.org
Carol Wolman's campaign web site: http://www.carolwolmanforcongress.com/

Goodbye Senator Clinton

The Senator from New York State, or as I have called her the Senator from Wall Street, was unable to manage a comeback of significant enough magnitude to win the Democratic Party's nomination for President. In her underdog role, however, she looked good. She came very, very close to becoming the first woman to win the nomination for the highest political office in the United States from a major political party.

Mrs. Clinton, according to news sources, was raised in a Republican family, but then went to a liberal, pro-Democratic Party college in the 1960's. The 60's did not radicalize her, but events did push her left of center. Apparently she decided to become a Democrat only after attending the Republican Party nominating convention in 1968, which nominated Richard Nixon. She believed the Republicans were racists. Which is pretty funny, in retrospect. The Democratic Party was founded explicitly as a slavery party by a man who traded slaves (and exterminated native America Indians) for a living. It was the party of the Confederacy during the civil war. It worked with the Klan to eliminate civil rights for African Americans after the civil war and then was the party of Segregation Forever until, well, 1964. Not that the Republican Party was great on civil rights issues after the Radical Republicans lost power in 1880, but if you had to pick a year that was an anomaly it was 1968. White working class Americans were mad, and the Republicans wanted their votes, especially in the southern states. Richard Nixon whispered some racist code words to win the election, but as President continued the good work on civil rights that he had begun as Vice-president in the 1950s.

There is still racism in our society, and even more important, the results of centuries of racial and economic discrimination against non-whites still affect many people in a negative way. This is the year that Democratic Party voters decided to compensate for past crimes by nominating a half-African American, well-educated son of well-educated parents, to lead the nation. It is not a bad thing, but it means we won't have a woman President. I think women will continue to be marginalized because of this.

Hillary Clinton was part of a team with Bill Clinton. They captured the White House in 1992, but I suspect Hillary would have done better if she had become, say, the state Senator from Arkansas and then ran on her own steam.

I disagree with Ms. Clinton on many, many issues. She nods towards environmentalism when the nation needs a fighter. Same with most issues.

If Barack Obama wins the White House, I hope there is a role for Hillary Clinton. She would make a good Secretary of State, or of Health and Human Services. "Good," meaning good within the allowable spectrum of U.S. politics at present. I'd put Green Party members in every cabinet post, and the Presidency, if I could.

Meanwhile, you can still vote for a woman for President. Cynthia McKinney looks set to take the Green Party nomination. Cynthia is speaking in my neighborhood tomorrow, and I look forward to that.

My Medical Last Straw

For the usual reasons, for a long time I have figured that if we are going to have a national government we might as well had national health care for all. It could be in the guise of a single-payer medical insurance plan (only one health insurer for all Americans) with independent health providers (doctors and hospitals) that could be privately run. Or it could be one big government run health system. Either would be fine by me.

However, health care has not been an important issue in my life, and since there seemed to be plenty of people working on passing single-payer health care, I have not been active in that area. Nor have I written about that much.

Last week that changed.

About 15 years ago my wife Jan and I got a catastrophic health insurance policy from Blue Cross of California, which was then a not-for-profit organization. We were both healthy, but Jan's dad bugged us about it, and the premiums were only a couple of hundred bucks a month. We both work freelance, so we don't have an employer and can't get the better insurance rates that big corporations negotiate with health insurers.

About 8 years ago Jan started treatment for high blood pressure. That locked us into our Blue Cross policies because, as you know, when you change policies even if you have something as common and innocuous as high blood pressure, then won't insure you for anything related to the pre-existing condition. And almost everything but cancer and broken bones are in the cardiovascular category.

Jan bought a home blood pressure monitor and I checked my blood pressure with it. For years I was in the high end of normal, then it crept up into the definitely high range and I sought treatment at the only local medical provider, Redwood Coast Medical Services, known as RCMS. My doctor is Thomas Bertolli, who is also the RCMS medical director.

It seemed to me that in settling on a blood-pressure medicine for me I was being involved in a number of expenses talks with Mr. Bertolli at $75 a pop (remember my medical insurance covers absolutely nothing but hospital care, and then has a high deductible). The only relevant information was my blood pressure readings. But I started taking medication and we upped the dose until I was getting good readings. After resisting his trying to get me to come in for unnecessary lectures, I found that RCMS did give free blood pressure readings. So I got those and my prescription was renewed without seeing Mr. Bertolli and paying $75 each time.

I knew from my wife and other patients that if you let them, they would schedule a doctor visit every time you needed a prescription renewal.

My time was running out, however, and I knew it. But my wife actually found a loophole in our favor. Our insurance, which now runs $350 a month, would pay for an annual physical. Would pay $131 for that. So I figured here was a win-win situation. I would schedule an annual physical instead of a mere office visit with Mr. Bertolli. RCMS would get more money and I would not be out of pocket.

When I called for the appointment, however, they said I would have to have a blood draw a week before hand. That means paying for the blood draw and lab tests. Well okay, I would pay for that. Who knows, maybe something would show up in the blood test. However, my wife warned me that her nurse-practitioner had popped her head in during the blood draw, chatted for a minute, and then charged us for a doctor's visit! So I was prepared to head off that scam.

I go for my blood draw. The nurse started telling me what would happen, and she said I would see Mr. Bertolli for a couple of minutes before the actual blood draw. I said I did not want to pay for a doctor visit when I would be seeing him for as long as he wanted a week later. She sent me back to the waiting area while she waited to tell Bertolli of this possible peasant rebellion.

The nurse came back with the news that to get a blood draw I would have to see Bertolli and pay for it. I said no. Then she took me back to the blood draw room anyway.

Bertolli came in and said it was medically necessary for me to see him before a blood draw. I asked him what the medical necessity was and he could not give an answer. He said he was not trying to just run up the charges. He told me medicine costs money like everything else and I would have to pay for it or leave. The fact that I have paid for it, to RCMS and my medical insurer, did not matter. I told him I elected to not see him, not have a blood draw, and not have a physical. He said fine and I walked out.

But of course, the AMA (American Medical Association) has made sure that they control the dispensation of all pharmaceuticals. I thought I could go to Tijuana, Mexico (I live in northern California, but visit San Diego once in a while), and buy my medicine without a prescription. But apparently that was old information. Now customs is seizing medications bought in Mexico unless you have a prescription from a doctor in the United States.

It is simply blackmail. Bertolli thinks he has control of my life because I would have to do hours of driving to get to a non-RCMS doctor. And his AMA gangsta friends are probably all doing this, if RCMS made it policy.

And our elected officials specialize in doing nothing, because doing nothing keeps things profitable for the AMD and the private insurers.

And despite this extortion of people who have no insurance or inadequate insurance, RCMS is widely reputed to be going under financially. The reason for this is twofold. When insurers have to pay, they bargain RCMS down to an unprofitable level. And moreso, when Medicare and Medicaid patients come in, RCMS is reimbursed by the government for less than the cost of treatment. Our area is now heavily populated with retirees, so RCMS sees a disproportionate number of Medicare patients.

And that tells you my probable health trajectory. I am 53 years old. At the age of 65 I will be able to go on Medicare and get my blood pressure treated. In the meantime, I will have high blood pressure, which increases the risk I will have a heart attack or a stroke. It isn't that I don't have $75 to donate to RCMS. It is because I don't trust someone who would blackmail me to tell me what is good for my health.

It is notable that my untreated blood pressure readings are not atypical for a man of my age. The blood pressure medicine was really preventative medicine. Unless it is provided for a reasonable cost, I have to consider it optional.

And cholesterol medicine, I suspect, is one of the biggest scams ever put over on the human race. The only people who seem to benefit from it are people who have already had a stroke or heart attack. I believe tens of millions of Americans are taking it just to enrich doctors and pharmaceutical companies.

Am I over my head here? Am I just talking nonsense? See my What I Know About Healthcare for my qualifications for analysing the health industry.

Nancy Price v. 10,000 Demon Lawyers

My wife, Jan Edwards, was talking to an activist friend today, Nancy Price of the Alliance For Democracy. Nancy is known (and should be better known) as a water activist. So she gets asked to speak about water issues (especially who owns it and how it should be distributed). But what she really wants to speak about, she says is an extension of NAFTA called the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership).

Basically, the SPP is going to globalize parts of the United States. Globalize in the sense of ridding these areas of local control, including environmental and labor regulations. Apparently workers who are not U.S. citizens will be brought to these zones to work for sub-minimum wage.

SPP sounds horrible for people and the planet. It is based on the principle that economies must always expand. It was created with no input from 99.9% of the citizens of the U.S., Mexico, or Canada. It is corporate rule, international corporate rule, pure and simple.

So why don't people know about this? Sure, citizens in the U.S. are used to being ruled like sheep without consultation, but usually once something this big is set up, the New York Times and other hyenas that pretend to be a free press in this country gloat about it, if only in the Business section.

I read the financial pages every day. I have for years. I don't read every article, but I look at the headlines at the New York Times and CNN/Money online. I read The Economist, in the paper edition, every week.

Not only did I know little about SPP (though I did know about the Canada to Mexico superhighways they are building), I did not even know that in 2006 Congress passed, and George W. Bush signed, a law allowing the Federal Reserve to pay interest to banks for the money they are required to keep in reserves. I found this out yesterday because the Fed is thinking of actually implementing this option. It is an outrageous scam. But I'll have to write more about this later, because I want to present an even larger scale picture of our social-economic-political-environmental problem.

The rich people and their corporations have an army of lawyers, lobbyists, consultants and their demonic helpers to pass treaties and legislation, and to litigate in the courts. We have Nancy, an unpaid, volunteer activist. Nancy is a formidable person. In a fair fight I'm sure she could take on 10 spawn of Stanford Law School and defeat them. And there are a few more Nancies in the U.S., and even some paid activists in groups like Public Citizen.

But my side loses, over and over again, because of the Armies of Hell. The campaign donations. The phony "progressive" candidates for high office. Highly paid lawyers who can scare the brave and creep quietly like deadly fungi into the very fabric of American government.

We need to take their money away, first and foremost. By any means necessary. Money has always been the root of their power. Leave them with their money and nothing is safe.
I am tired of hearing from aging ex-corporate lawyers, generals, CIA agents and politicians that the system is bad and they wished they had not done the dirty deeds they did.

If we are going to save this planet and a scrap of dignity for ordinary human beings, it is time to declare war. We seem to be incapable of seizing the government; the two-party system is designed to prevent that. I suggest that we make America ungovernable by the parasitic elite.
You don't have to be a lawyer to disrupt a lawyer. You just have to put in the effort.

People have hopes for Barack Obama. Let us use that hope. Let us give Barack, or Ms. Clinton if she wins, and even John McCain if we wins, a to do list with some deadlines. And if they can't meet the deadlines, let's fire their asses. The whole lot of them. Let's burn their wicked laws and issue new law that is healthy and wholesome.

Six months, I think, is sufficient to dash any reasonable hope. So here is what I demand, and suggest that you demand, that Barack Obama and Congress sign into law within 6 months of Barack's inauguration:

1. All U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan (except the customary guards at U.S. embassies).
2. A single-payer health insurance plan for all Americans.
3. A required 40 mpg highway fleet average for new non-commercial automobile/SUV sales.
4. Repeal of NAFTA and the WTO trade agreements.
5. An 80% income tax on all persons' income of over $50 million a year, with all securities held by people in this category marked to market for tax purposes.

Of course my list could be longer and more detailed, but if they achieve those five things, I'll be very impressed and have to shut up for a while about what a bad lot the Democrats are.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet 5 to 1 that not a single one of these goals will be achieved by the deadline, and 2 to 1 that none of them will be achieved during Barack's four years in office.

For more of my opinion, visit my Politics page.

Water Drop Jewelry at Peaceful Jewelry

Goodbye, Pope

The Pope came to the United States. He raised money. He left. He's a celebrity, like Paris Hilton, but craftier and less honest.

Some 2000 years before the bishops of Rome [the ruling city of the Roman empire hated by Jews and early Christians alike] started peddling the idea that they were dictators-for-life of the Christian churches, Ikhnaton, an emperor of Egypt (Egypt ruled the upper Nile then, and what we now call the nations of Israel (or Palestine), Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) declared there was only one God, Aton, which he identified with all of nature. Eventually Ikhnaton was overthrown and other gods were given their due, but the idea of one god (but not the identity with nature) eventually spread to the Jews, the Christians, and the Moslems. Christians are a bit weak on the idea, with their three-gods-in-one theology, but however much the boys might argue among themselves, the Trinity has always been willing to smite all other gods.

The Pope is a fraud and just about everyone knows it, including many of the nominal Catholics in the U.S. He preaches morality, but if he were moral himself the first thing he would do is stop pretending there is any holiness in clawing your way to the top of the church hierarchy. He might try a few reforms, a little consistency within the framework of Catholicism. He might note that invoking Mary as the Mother of God, and then saying women can't be priests, is a bit off. He might acknowledge, as most Protestant Christians have done, that celibacy and sexual hypocrisy are linked. He might allow priests to marry.

When Luther challenged the Church and lived to tell about it (unlike his heretical predecessors, the Hus and Wycliffe), the Church hierarchy noted that any deviation from Catholic dogma would lead straight to atheism. They were wrong. Honest and truthful enquiry may indeed lead to rejecting the Catholic concept of God, but religious splits are usually thinly disguised political power struggles. Each new faction claims to represent the true God.

The major fascist powers (Germany, Italy, France, Spain), Catholic all, last systematically murdered non-Catholics in the 1930's and 1940's. But things are heating up. Much of the butchery in former Yugoslavia had religious tones as well as ethnic aspects. The possibility of another round of militant Catholicism is quite real.

I suppose if we were all taught to believe in Nature, and to try to be objective and ethical in our lives, someone would invent religion and it would spread like wildfire among the imbalanced personalities of the world. The thing I saw growing up Catholic was that the Church was an engine of craziness. It was designed to make people crazy. And yet it had to keep people somewhat functional. Too crazy of a congregation and no one is going to be together enough to tithe. Channeled craziness, that is what religious institutions are looking for. General Franco's soldiers saw no contradiction in thinking of themselves as good Catholics and shooting people in cold blood because their names were on lists of people who had not been attending Mass, compiled by priests who were supposed to be the protectors of their communities.

See my religion pages for more commentary.

Not Quite Random Thoughts

I've been busy for several weeks creating an index for a 1300 page book on a very tight schedule. During this time there have been a lot of things I have wanted to write about. The sad state of politics in the U.S., of course. The Pope's visit to the U.S. The rebellion of the monks in Tibet. Developments in the economic and business world. Essays inspired by some books that I managed to read parts of during this trying period. And my philosophy of natural liberation, in particular the idea of natural revelation.

Here's a list of books I have finished reading, sitting in a stack, waiting for reviews and commentary:

The Cosmic Code by Heinze R. Pagels
The Outline of History by H. G. Wells
The Fifties by David Halberstam
Chiang Kai-Shek by Hollington K. Tong
Memoirs by Harry Truman
Vietnam by Stanley Karnow

And I'm part way through reading:

On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins
A History of Egypt by James Henry Breasted
The Great Wave by Christopher Benfey

But it is easier to find energy to read than to write. I have barely kept up with my gardening, which I want to write about both in and of itself and because it inspires thoughts on natural revelation. I am behind in my regular paid work (the book index was extra work). I am writing this on my old, backup computer because the new one needs repairs.

Oh, yes, the global famine is gathering steam, something I have been warning people about with my population articles at www.iiipublishing.com

Still, in the next few weeks I hope to produce some interesting writing for the readers of this blog, my Dissecting the Bull blog, and my assorted Web sites. Yikes! What has Congressman Mike Thompson been doing? Not even I know, because I have not had time to post to Mike Thompson Watch, and it takes some research to find out.

William P. Meyers