In the ongoing struggle between the haves and have nots, people of faith need to ask, "Does God take sides?" Which does God favor? The Rich? The Poor? Or can God be said to "take sides" at all? How could we begin the search for an answer?
First a caveat. I've long thought there cannot be meaningful dialogue on any issue of faith until the parties involved come to some basically agreed upon understanding of what the word, "God," means. And there are myriad definitions. Eric Rust, my former philosophy professor, illustrated the dilemma thus: A professor was walking down the sidewalk when he passed an alley and overheard a tremendous ruckus from the windows above. Two women were hanging out of their windows, each shouting across the urban abyss from their respective apartments. Each was certain of her rectitude. Neither harbored a doubt as to the self-righteousness of her opinion. Having listened for a moment, the good professor looked to a fellow passer-by and said, "These two will never agree. They argue from different premises."
I've spent more than forty years in search of my own understanding of what the word "God" means. My early church years were spent in the Southern Baptist Church of my parents. Decades later, I describe myself, when I must, as an Episcopalian Tibetan Buddhist with slight Jewish and, to a lesser extent, Hindu leanings, who, on certain days of the week when the wind is right, enjoys reading Native American earth-centered spirituality and other sources to numerous to mention here. The more I've learned the less I'm sure of. To me, that's a good thing. "God" is a big word. And personal experience has taught me that whenever I have the misfortune of meeting anyone who is sure they have definitive knowledge of who and what the word "God" means is to run, not walk, mind you, but flee in haste in another direction. So I gladly accept the ambiguity of the term. As Jesus said to the rich young ruler, "Go thou, and do likewise."
For today, though, I'll stick with Jesus. He had his own distinct view of "God" and wished to broaden his followers understanding. His day was not entirely like our own. Poor equals not so good, not so fortunate, bad. Rich equals good, fortunate. More than a few thought that if you were rich it was a sign of God's favor. Poor, that meant the opposite. God didn't like you very much. Jesus turned this common understanding on it's head.
In Luke's Gospel (6:20-) we find, "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." Most of us have heard that so long it's lost it's impact. Allow me to help us regain the offensiveness of Jesus. Blessed are you when Bank of America files improper paperwork so they can foreclose on your house a few months sooner than the law allows. Blessed are you when your unemployment benefits run out. Blessed are you when your child is one of the seven living below the poverty line. Blessed are you when you are over fifty-five, out of work for two years, and not likely to ever, and I mean ever get a job making close to what you used to make. Blessed are you when you get evicted from your apartment. Shall I continue?
What's going on here? Well, the most I've ever been able to figure out is that being blessed has something to do with where God, as Jesus understood the word, puts God's primary concerns. To be blessed means to be the object of God's concern, God's interest, the focus of God's benevolent intentions, of grace. I'll be the first to tell you knowing that doesn't keep you from being an object of foreclosure, or pay your electric bill. At least it didn't work for me. What it does mean is that Jesus would like us to know that we're not alone.
There is Presence to sustain us, and, ultimately and most importantly, Presence to help us in the ongoing struggle for economic justice. The kingdom, the Presence, belongs to those who are the most in need of economic justice in an economically lopsided world. There's hope because God cares; at precisely the time your house is being foreclosed on; exactly when it feels like no one in government gives a shit about you or your kids or whether your mom's already inadequate social security is going to become even more inadequate.
As in contrast with the rich. "Woe to you who are rich," he says a couple of sentences later. Enjoy what you've got because it's the only thing you've got and that's pretty much going to be it. Deal with it because God is, apparently, not very pleased with the way you're running things. God is concerned with the poor. The rich, well, not so much...
This gives me a bit of hope, and, I must mischievously confess, more than a little to grin about as I reflect on the fact that I, who just returned from H and R Block, paid more federal taxes than GE, Exxon-Mobil, Bank of America, and quite probably more than a few fat cats sitting in the top two percent of our rich-getting-richer-while-the-poor-get-poorer society.
This on a day when, just after I got up, I walked into the kitchen and for the first time in my nearly sixty years on this earth heard my mother suggest a congressman should be taken into the streets and shot. Mom, it turns out, seems to have taken offense at Congressman Ryan's budget offerings. She was, of course, speaking facetiously. I think. Still, I paused for a moment of thanks that when dad died my cousin took all the guns to his house. Hell hath no furry like a mom who reads congressman Ryan and his Party-of-the-Rich colleagues are going to reduce her Social Security, her Medicare, and worthy social programs like Medicaid and Women Infants and Children. Talk about reading a budget as a moral document! I mean, Jesus Christ!....
Exactly....
What would Jesus, the Jesus who, poor himself, taught that the destitute are blessed and the rich, not so much, have to say about congressman Ryan's budget? Or any budget that favors the wealthy with tax cuts and corporations with zero tax liability while supporting an out of control military/industrial/congressional war machine?
Maybe God, as Jesus understood Her/Him/It does take sides in the sense that God has God's concerns. And for those of us who would try to take Jesus seriously, might that not mean that we should adopt Jesus' concerns as our own? Shouldn't our focus be on caring for the health and well-being of the ninety-eight percent of us who live in that Social Security Medicare Hourly-wage Medicaid and Middle Class enclave called the United States where 27 million are under or unemployed? 50 million without health insurance? public education remains underfunded? corporations get wealthier while their workers still can't get a decent pay raise?
The wealthy are not without hope. St. Paul, writing to Timothy (I Timothy 6-): "Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant (Are you listening, Donald?) nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life." Are you listening Mr. Congressman? Mr. Senator? Mr. President?
So much for the unrestrained sins of laiessez-faire capitalism. When the rich young ruler asked what else he could do, Jesus told him to go sell everything he'd accumulated, give the proceeds to poverty relief, and follow him. The story ends there. We're never told whether the young man did, or didn't. Only that he went away sorrowfully, because he had many possessions.
People of faith need to choose. We need to take sides. And it would seem to me that the side we need to take, the concerns we need to adopt as our own political and economic and social agenda are those of Jesus. And in his economy, the rich don't seem to fair very well.
Mahalo, (Feel free to tweet and facebook)
Alan
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
United Health Group; Bank of America; Lisbeth Salander; Anonymous
Meet Lisbeth Salander, heroine of the late Stieg Larson's Millennium Trilogy; three novels, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. A world-wide publishing phenomenon like none before.
Salander sits in a pitch dark, scantily furnished apartment. She has been victimized, abused, physically, emotionally, economically, betrayed by almost everyone she thought she could trust. She's angry, and has every right to be. The only light in the room is the faint green glow that emanates from the only weapon she can fight back with--her laptop. In her hands, and in the hands of her compatriots buried deeply in cyberspace, the secret network of those dedicated to bringing their own brand of vigilante justice to the bad guys, it proves more formidable than any firearm. Lisbeth is a super hacker. And she may be a literary heroine for our time.
************
Meet Anonymous. The real life version of Lisbeth and her associates. Anonymous and friends managed to get inside Bank of American, no paragon of financial honesty, and not only uncover but expose for all the world to see yet another one of the many, many frauds BofA has long been known to perpetrate on its unknowing customers.
Nice going, folks. Many thanks from those of us who don't have your gifts of stealth. Those of us tax payers who are sick and tired of being abused, lied to, financially screwed over in every way imaginable. Thanks especially from those who lost their homes to foreclosure while BofA filed improper paperwork, not giving the working stiffs who are busting their asses everyday for hourly wage a chance to just maybe save the roof over their heads. Let's hope there's Hell to pay.
BofA, isn't alone. We've read the news. Citibank. Morgan-Stanley. Chase. The list of criminals goes on. Crime in the street will get you locked up. Crime in the suite will get you a fine bonus. We're putting the wrong people in jail. The execs in these companies should have a room beside Mr. Madoff, who, it's interesting to note, now says, "Of course the bank knew about it. They had too!"
And BofA has the temerity to cry "Foul!" when Anonymous raises the cyber rock and shines the light of day into the darkness where these roaches scurry for cover. I understand there may be a few laws against getting into someone else's computer. But what if, on the other hand, the only way to expose the criminals is to break a couple of rules yourself? Interesting question. Maybe the cyber ethics question of our time.
************
Getting from the outside to the inside to expose the bad guys breaks one set of rules. But there's another rule breaker, one even more feared by those in the corporate world who want us to look the other way while they stack the deck against those of us who work rather than steal for a living. The guy who breaks the rules from the inside. The whistleblower. The list of heroes abounds.
Remember a few years back, when those good folks down at the tobacco companies swore on their mother's graves that they weren't boosting the nicotine in their already deadly products to increase addiction? "Trust us," they said. "We'd never do anything like that. It would be illegal, not to mention immoral." So one guy with a conscience steps out of the darkness into the light with the documents to prove tobacco execs had been lying all along.
Then there's Bradley Manning, the alleged leaker of Pentagon documents to WikiLeaks. He's not the first, of course. Those of my vintage will remember the Pentagon Papers. Right now he's sitting in a military jail. I think the guy deserves a medal.
Since I've started writing about my time spent in the belly of the healthcare beast--United Health Group--I've heard from all sorts of people who've blown their own whistles. Lest anyone jump in on UHGs side, let's be clear: this is a company that was fined fifty million back in 2009 for underpaying claims, more than a few for those struggling with cancer. One, Jerome, interviewed on the Today Show, pointed out how, just when you've fought with everything inside you just to stay alive, UHG refuses to pay up. Check out "Today's" archives. It's a story worth keeping alive, and one UHG would rather we forget about.
Just Google United Health Group, click on complaints, and start reading the plethora of information from patients, from lawyers, the lawsuits, the fraud. But due to the power of the internet, we just may be getting to a place where it's more and more difficult for the pepetrators of these moral and civil crimes to find a flat rock to hide under.
Welcome to the Age of Transparency, when any person of conscience has the power to stand up in the middle of the parade and say, "The CEO has no clothes!!"
Micah L. Sifry, in "The End of Secrecy," writes: "...the reason the recent confrontation between WikiLeaks and the US government is a pivotal event is that, unlike these other applications of technology to politics, this time the free flow of information is threatening the establishment with difficult questions." (The Nation, March 21st edition) Much of what Sifry says about government secrecy and WikiLeaks is equally applicable to the corporate secret keepers. Indeed, the military, corporate, Congressional/government complex is all part and parcel of the same entity dedicated to nothing but it's own survival and the keeping of privilege--mostly at our expense.
"...they (the government) probably understand that the conditions for maintaining their monopoly on critical information have been broken. But they apparently still hope that the next Bradley Manning... will be dissuaded from an act of conscience if he believes either that the personal cost will be too high or that his actions won't make a difference... neither approach will work, as long as millions of other government (and, I would add, corporate) employees have access to the information..."
"The threat of massive leaks," says Max Frankel, former New York Times editor, "will persist so long as there are massive secrets."
"If all it takes," writes Sifry," is one person with a USB drive, the 'least trusted person' whose conscience may be pricked by a contradiction in his or her government's (or corporation's) behavior, that information can move into public view more easily than ever before. That is the reality of the twenty-first century."
Bank of American, United Health Group, the Pentagon; no one need fear the Age of Transparency, unless, of course, they happen to be committing fraud, theft, or some other crime. What they do need is to keep in mind that the game has changed. We, like Lisbeth, like Anonymous, like any whistleblower on the inside, have a new and powerful weapon in our arsenal. And it's only a click away.
Inside? Got the goods? Let's see 'em. Darkness fears nothing more than light.
Facebook this....
Mahalo
Salander sits in a pitch dark, scantily furnished apartment. She has been victimized, abused, physically, emotionally, economically, betrayed by almost everyone she thought she could trust. She's angry, and has every right to be. The only light in the room is the faint green glow that emanates from the only weapon she can fight back with--her laptop. In her hands, and in the hands of her compatriots buried deeply in cyberspace, the secret network of those dedicated to bringing their own brand of vigilante justice to the bad guys, it proves more formidable than any firearm. Lisbeth is a super hacker. And she may be a literary heroine for our time.
************
Meet Anonymous. The real life version of Lisbeth and her associates. Anonymous and friends managed to get inside Bank of American, no paragon of financial honesty, and not only uncover but expose for all the world to see yet another one of the many, many frauds BofA has long been known to perpetrate on its unknowing customers.
Nice going, folks. Many thanks from those of us who don't have your gifts of stealth. Those of us tax payers who are sick and tired of being abused, lied to, financially screwed over in every way imaginable. Thanks especially from those who lost their homes to foreclosure while BofA filed improper paperwork, not giving the working stiffs who are busting their asses everyday for hourly wage a chance to just maybe save the roof over their heads. Let's hope there's Hell to pay.
BofA, isn't alone. We've read the news. Citibank. Morgan-Stanley. Chase. The list of criminals goes on. Crime in the street will get you locked up. Crime in the suite will get you a fine bonus. We're putting the wrong people in jail. The execs in these companies should have a room beside Mr. Madoff, who, it's interesting to note, now says, "Of course the bank knew about it. They had too!"
And BofA has the temerity to cry "Foul!" when Anonymous raises the cyber rock and shines the light of day into the darkness where these roaches scurry for cover. I understand there may be a few laws against getting into someone else's computer. But what if, on the other hand, the only way to expose the criminals is to break a couple of rules yourself? Interesting question. Maybe the cyber ethics question of our time.
************
Getting from the outside to the inside to expose the bad guys breaks one set of rules. But there's another rule breaker, one even more feared by those in the corporate world who want us to look the other way while they stack the deck against those of us who work rather than steal for a living. The guy who breaks the rules from the inside. The whistleblower. The list of heroes abounds.
Remember a few years back, when those good folks down at the tobacco companies swore on their mother's graves that they weren't boosting the nicotine in their already deadly products to increase addiction? "Trust us," they said. "We'd never do anything like that. It would be illegal, not to mention immoral." So one guy with a conscience steps out of the darkness into the light with the documents to prove tobacco execs had been lying all along.
Then there's Bradley Manning, the alleged leaker of Pentagon documents to WikiLeaks. He's not the first, of course. Those of my vintage will remember the Pentagon Papers. Right now he's sitting in a military jail. I think the guy deserves a medal.
Since I've started writing about my time spent in the belly of the healthcare beast--United Health Group--I've heard from all sorts of people who've blown their own whistles. Lest anyone jump in on UHGs side, let's be clear: this is a company that was fined fifty million back in 2009 for underpaying claims, more than a few for those struggling with cancer. One, Jerome, interviewed on the Today Show, pointed out how, just when you've fought with everything inside you just to stay alive, UHG refuses to pay up. Check out "Today's" archives. It's a story worth keeping alive, and one UHG would rather we forget about.
Just Google United Health Group, click on complaints, and start reading the plethora of information from patients, from lawyers, the lawsuits, the fraud. But due to the power of the internet, we just may be getting to a place where it's more and more difficult for the pepetrators of these moral and civil crimes to find a flat rock to hide under.
Welcome to the Age of Transparency, when any person of conscience has the power to stand up in the middle of the parade and say, "The CEO has no clothes!!"
Micah L. Sifry, in "The End of Secrecy," writes: "...the reason the recent confrontation between WikiLeaks and the US government is a pivotal event is that, unlike these other applications of technology to politics, this time the free flow of information is threatening the establishment with difficult questions." (The Nation, March 21st edition) Much of what Sifry says about government secrecy and WikiLeaks is equally applicable to the corporate secret keepers. Indeed, the military, corporate, Congressional/government complex is all part and parcel of the same entity dedicated to nothing but it's own survival and the keeping of privilege--mostly at our expense.
"...they (the government) probably understand that the conditions for maintaining their monopoly on critical information have been broken. But they apparently still hope that the next Bradley Manning... will be dissuaded from an act of conscience if he believes either that the personal cost will be too high or that his actions won't make a difference... neither approach will work, as long as millions of other government (and, I would add, corporate) employees have access to the information..."
"The threat of massive leaks," says Max Frankel, former New York Times editor, "will persist so long as there are massive secrets."
"If all it takes," writes Sifry," is one person with a USB drive, the 'least trusted person' whose conscience may be pricked by a contradiction in his or her government's (or corporation's) behavior, that information can move into public view more easily than ever before. That is the reality of the twenty-first century."
Bank of American, United Health Group, the Pentagon; no one need fear the Age of Transparency, unless, of course, they happen to be committing fraud, theft, or some other crime. What they do need is to keep in mind that the game has changed. We, like Lisbeth, like Anonymous, like any whistleblower on the inside, have a new and powerful weapon in our arsenal. And it's only a click away.
Inside? Got the goods? Let's see 'em. Darkness fears nothing more than light.
Facebook this....
Mahalo
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
UNG; Bank of America; Lisbeth Salander; Anonymous
What could United Healthcare, Bank of America, Lisbeth Salander--for those of you who may have been living on another planet and haven't been home for a while, she's the heroine/anti-heroine known as Steig Larson's, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--and Anonymous, possibly have in common?
Awaiting for a bit more info to arrive... Stay tuned.... There is a thread of commonality here that can be neither dismissed or denied. We may have discovered the most powerful, perhaps the only, available weapon the workers and middle class have left with which to combat the corporate, congressional, military complex.
If you're on the inside.... dump it.
Mahalo
Awaiting for a bit more info to arrive... Stay tuned.... There is a thread of commonality here that can be neither dismissed or denied. We may have discovered the most powerful, perhaps the only, available weapon the workers and middle class have left with which to combat the corporate, congressional, military complex.
If you're on the inside.... dump it.
Mahalo
Friday, February 25, 2011
On Knowing When to Quit: Moral Man, Immoral Society, and United Health
Guess I should begin by saying, "See previous blog," or this won't make sense. Presuming you just did that, or are about to.... here goes with a few thoughts to ponder...
Okay, I realize some of my friends, maybe a lot of them, will read this and say something like, "Jesus, do you really sit around and think about this stuff?" Yea, I do... a lot. Call it a quirk, but then I've always been a bit excentric.
Back near the middle of the last century, Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, Moral Man, Immoral Society. As the title implies, this is a central dilemma any person of faith must wrestle with. How do I live as a moral person in the midst of what is in so many ways an immoral society?
Okay, so "society" is a big subject. Let's break it down. That was essentially the topic of my last blog on United Health Group screwing your grandmother out of her insulin while putting billions in profits into their corporate and executive pockets. I reached the point where, as a Christian/Buddhist person of faith, I could no longer in good conscience justify--live with myself--working at a job where I'm on the phone telling grandma we're not paying the extra fifteen a month her insulin is going up, then attending a sales meeting where top execs are gleeful over UHG having made 2.7 billion last year, not to mention their six figure incomes. So I walked back to my corporate cubbyhole, scooted my chair across the aisle to my super and said, "I don't belong here. You have my notice."
Granted, not everyone can do that; at least, not immediately. The difficulty, however, in finding ethical employment cannot be avoided merely by saying, "times are tough." Being a person of faith demands we continually evaluate whether the way we earn our daily bread comes down more on the side of the moral than immoral side of the equation.
Put a bit differently, when does it become time for a person of faith to tell the corporate plantation owner to, "Take this job and shove it!"
There are no simple answers. I do have to eat. If I have a family, they too have that nasty and getting more expensive by the day habit. And no one can live without seeking shelter from the storm. Freezing to death is not an option. So we find ourselves in a quandry. If I really think what my company is doing is unethical, do I risk everything and quit without another job? Or is my greater responsibility providing food and shelter and college to my kids, even if it means participating in something I think is wrong, if not even--to this in a moment--evil?
This is not merely an academic exercise in splitting ethical hairs. Be absolutely certain, human history can turn on seemingly insignificant acts of defiant morality. Remember the African-American lady who refused to move to the back of the bus? How she inspired some young preacher to take a stand? And those black kids who had the audacity to order and burger and fries at an all-white lunch counter?
Deciding it was time to pursue more ethical employment was, for me, an act of moral defiance. I just decided I couldn't participate in what was happening to our customers any more; especially when I knew what was happening behind the scenes at UHG. I mean, really, couldn't these corporate types help grandma out by at least being willing to split the difference for her increased costs?
Had I stood up in that meeting and said, "Hey, how can you guys justify making all that money when the lady I got off the phone with is going to have to skip a meal to pay for her insulin?" Doubtless I would have gotten the response, "Look, we get it. This isn't personal. It's just business." And there's the problem Niebuhr recognized: As a person of faith it's impossible to separate the personal from the social.
As a person of faith I must share at least some moral responsibility for the impact of the decisions I make on my job. Those decisions effect the rest of humanity. So if you're my boss, don't tell me to quietly go out back and dump toxic chemicals down the city sewer. Poisoning the global water table is a bit much to ask a person of faith to do.
Yet, here again, there's the temptation to say it's just business.... I'm not responsible... Hey, I was just following orders... Hummm, where have I heard that sentence? And is there really any difference between, "it's just business" and "I was only following orders?"
I'm sure these execs are great guys. They go to church. They tithe. They don't beat their spouses and help the kids with their homework. They bought us a terrific lunch that day! Great private morality. Problem is I can't have one set of values at home, in my private life, and another when I sit down at my work desk. I have to make an honest effort to be morally consistant. My buisness decisions, those decisions I make at work every day, have an impact that goes well beyond my own backyard.
Another mid century thinker, Hannah Arendt, wrote of what she called, "the banality of evil." Evil can be very subtle, very ordinary, very every day and banal. So we have to ask ourselves about the larger picture. What impact does my company, my job, my actions have on the larger environment? How does it impact the people down the road whose well I may have just poisoned because I followed my boss's orders to dump paint thinner down the drain?
How do I live out the balancing act between being a moral person of faith and participating in what is in so many ways an immoral corporate and political environment?
Where is that line? (And why do they keep moving the damn thing?) Because be sure, there is a line. It's inside, or should be inside every person of faith. The first step in learning when to cross it, and when not to, is in knowing where it is.
I'm no pillar of virtue. I simply reached the line, for me, and decided not to cross over. Aiming at moral balance hasn't done much for my checkbook. I do, however, sleep better--at least until the next time.
Okay, I realize some of my friends, maybe a lot of them, will read this and say something like, "Jesus, do you really sit around and think about this stuff?" Yea, I do... a lot. Call it a quirk, but then I've always been a bit excentric.
Back near the middle of the last century, Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, Moral Man, Immoral Society. As the title implies, this is a central dilemma any person of faith must wrestle with. How do I live as a moral person in the midst of what is in so many ways an immoral society?
Okay, so "society" is a big subject. Let's break it down. That was essentially the topic of my last blog on United Health Group screwing your grandmother out of her insulin while putting billions in profits into their corporate and executive pockets. I reached the point where, as a Christian/Buddhist person of faith, I could no longer in good conscience justify--live with myself--working at a job where I'm on the phone telling grandma we're not paying the extra fifteen a month her insulin is going up, then attending a sales meeting where top execs are gleeful over UHG having made 2.7 billion last year, not to mention their six figure incomes. So I walked back to my corporate cubbyhole, scooted my chair across the aisle to my super and said, "I don't belong here. You have my notice."
Granted, not everyone can do that; at least, not immediately. The difficulty, however, in finding ethical employment cannot be avoided merely by saying, "times are tough." Being a person of faith demands we continually evaluate whether the way we earn our daily bread comes down more on the side of the moral than immoral side of the equation.
Put a bit differently, when does it become time for a person of faith to tell the corporate plantation owner to, "Take this job and shove it!"
There are no simple answers. I do have to eat. If I have a family, they too have that nasty and getting more expensive by the day habit. And no one can live without seeking shelter from the storm. Freezing to death is not an option. So we find ourselves in a quandry. If I really think what my company is doing is unethical, do I risk everything and quit without another job? Or is my greater responsibility providing food and shelter and college to my kids, even if it means participating in something I think is wrong, if not even--to this in a moment--evil?
This is not merely an academic exercise in splitting ethical hairs. Be absolutely certain, human history can turn on seemingly insignificant acts of defiant morality. Remember the African-American lady who refused to move to the back of the bus? How she inspired some young preacher to take a stand? And those black kids who had the audacity to order and burger and fries at an all-white lunch counter?
Deciding it was time to pursue more ethical employment was, for me, an act of moral defiance. I just decided I couldn't participate in what was happening to our customers any more; especially when I knew what was happening behind the scenes at UHG. I mean, really, couldn't these corporate types help grandma out by at least being willing to split the difference for her increased costs?
Had I stood up in that meeting and said, "Hey, how can you guys justify making all that money when the lady I got off the phone with is going to have to skip a meal to pay for her insulin?" Doubtless I would have gotten the response, "Look, we get it. This isn't personal. It's just business." And there's the problem Niebuhr recognized: As a person of faith it's impossible to separate the personal from the social.
As a person of faith I must share at least some moral responsibility for the impact of the decisions I make on my job. Those decisions effect the rest of humanity. So if you're my boss, don't tell me to quietly go out back and dump toxic chemicals down the city sewer. Poisoning the global water table is a bit much to ask a person of faith to do.
Yet, here again, there's the temptation to say it's just business.... I'm not responsible... Hey, I was just following orders... Hummm, where have I heard that sentence? And is there really any difference between, "it's just business" and "I was only following orders?"
I'm sure these execs are great guys. They go to church. They tithe. They don't beat their spouses and help the kids with their homework. They bought us a terrific lunch that day! Great private morality. Problem is I can't have one set of values at home, in my private life, and another when I sit down at my work desk. I have to make an honest effort to be morally consistant. My buisness decisions, those decisions I make at work every day, have an impact that goes well beyond my own backyard.
Another mid century thinker, Hannah Arendt, wrote of what she called, "the banality of evil." Evil can be very subtle, very ordinary, very every day and banal. So we have to ask ourselves about the larger picture. What impact does my company, my job, my actions have on the larger environment? How does it impact the people down the road whose well I may have just poisoned because I followed my boss's orders to dump paint thinner down the drain?
How do I live out the balancing act between being a moral person of faith and participating in what is in so many ways an immoral corporate and political environment?
Where is that line? (And why do they keep moving the damn thing?) Because be sure, there is a line. It's inside, or should be inside every person of faith. The first step in learning when to cross it, and when not to, is in knowing where it is.
I'm no pillar of virtue. I simply reached the line, for me, and decided not to cross over. Aiming at moral balance hasn't done much for my checkbook. I do, however, sleep better--at least until the next time.
Friday, February 18, 2011
How United Health Group is Screwing Your Grandmother
I'm the guy who just told your grandmother that she's going to have to come up with an extra fifteen dollars a week out of pocket to cover her insulin. I sat at my computer and patiently listened while she told me how Social Security is her only income and she just didn't know how she was going to pay for these increases in food costs and prescriptions and the electric bill. But after all that all I could say was, "I'm sorry, but United Healthcare just isn't going to pay for the increase."
I cut off your grandmother after attending an employee meeting with the big wigs of UHC where they gleefully told us how great a job we were doing and how terrific the Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug sales were going and how wonderful it is to be taking such good care of our old people. And how United Health Group just made 2.7 billion dollars. We should be so proud of ourselves!
Can't make that extra fifteen for you insulin, grandma? United Health Group executives have some advice. Try skipping lunch an extra day a week. Screw you, grandma.
How did this happen? When I moved back to my home town of Roanoke, Va., a couple of years ago after an almost forty year absence, I needed a job. United Health Group has a very large call center here and, despite my extreme dislike for health insurance companies, I applied, got hired, went to class for three days, took a state test, and became a licensed health insurance sales agent in all fifty states. My experiences there did not improve my opinion of the industry, to say the least. There was never any doubt about the number one priority: get the sale.... period.
This was during the height of the health care bill debate, and we would get regular emails from company execs about how we should write our representatives and tell them this, that, and the other about what was good or bad about the bill. Of course somewhere in the email would be the proviso, and I quote... "(this is voluntary)." We were coached on how to explain why the company was discontinuing coverage, called Service Area Reduction, which basically meant that UHG didn't make enough profit there that month so we were dumping our seniors, who we're so happy to be taking such good care of, in the street.
Whenever the customer service lines got overloaded we in sales ended up taking their calls. Time and again we sat there listening to grandma and grandad telling us their stories of how food was going up and how uncle Henry had to have his medicine and there just wasn't enough money.... on and on and on.
Our lunch room conversations centered around things like, "I can't believe the shit I'm having to tell people." I started to feel dirty, I mean really filthy, about even being in the building. When my shift ended I couldn't wait to get home and take a shower.
I realize not everyone there was in my position. After seven months of cajolling people into buying a Medicare Advantage Plan that had a higher deductible than last year and would pay for even less, I quit. It encourages me to know that not a single person who was hired with me is still there, mostly for the very same reasons.
The experience raises some interesting questions. Given the economic and medical situations of our elderly, how much is too much money to make? individually as a corporate exec, or employee? How much is too much for a company to make? Couldn't some of that 2.7 billion be used to help cover a few dollars more of grandma's insulin? And how much moral responsibility does an employee incur working for a company that, despite it's protestations and cloaking it's every action in the mantel of corporate righteousness, is screwing grandma? How do these people sleep at night?
The long term answer is universal health insurance, single payer system, with a strong public option to compete with companies like UHG that have essentially no competition. Yes, there are other health care companies. But if you compare their prices online you'll find they're price fixing. You pay the same price for the same coverage no matter what company you choose.
With fewer and fewer of us being able to afford any kind of health insurance, forcing premiums up; with hospital and doctor and drug costs going through the roof; the system as it is will not last a lot longer. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Especially in the US, a country ranked by the World Health Organization as thirty-seventh in providing health services to it's citizens--just behind Costa Rica. Not to mention our having one of the highest infant mortality rates in the industrialized world. I could go on.
Sorry to break it to you grandma, but that company that's telling you how much they care and how well they're going to take care of you.... that's a sales pitch.... and nothing besides. It's an empty promise some guy or girl sitting behind a computer screen reading a script is getting paid to tell you, knowing all the while that what's hidden in all that fine print they're required to read you is what's not going to get paid this year. Believe me, they can't wait to get home and shower off the filth.... and find another job.
I cut off your grandmother after attending an employee meeting with the big wigs of UHC where they gleefully told us how great a job we were doing and how terrific the Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug sales were going and how wonderful it is to be taking such good care of our old people. And how United Health Group just made 2.7 billion dollars. We should be so proud of ourselves!
Can't make that extra fifteen for you insulin, grandma? United Health Group executives have some advice. Try skipping lunch an extra day a week. Screw you, grandma.
How did this happen? When I moved back to my home town of Roanoke, Va., a couple of years ago after an almost forty year absence, I needed a job. United Health Group has a very large call center here and, despite my extreme dislike for health insurance companies, I applied, got hired, went to class for three days, took a state test, and became a licensed health insurance sales agent in all fifty states. My experiences there did not improve my opinion of the industry, to say the least. There was never any doubt about the number one priority: get the sale.... period.
This was during the height of the health care bill debate, and we would get regular emails from company execs about how we should write our representatives and tell them this, that, and the other about what was good or bad about the bill. Of course somewhere in the email would be the proviso, and I quote... "(this is voluntary)." We were coached on how to explain why the company was discontinuing coverage, called Service Area Reduction, which basically meant that UHG didn't make enough profit there that month so we were dumping our seniors, who we're so happy to be taking such good care of, in the street.
Whenever the customer service lines got overloaded we in sales ended up taking their calls. Time and again we sat there listening to grandma and grandad telling us their stories of how food was going up and how uncle Henry had to have his medicine and there just wasn't enough money.... on and on and on.
Our lunch room conversations centered around things like, "I can't believe the shit I'm having to tell people." I started to feel dirty, I mean really filthy, about even being in the building. When my shift ended I couldn't wait to get home and take a shower.
I realize not everyone there was in my position. After seven months of cajolling people into buying a Medicare Advantage Plan that had a higher deductible than last year and would pay for even less, I quit. It encourages me to know that not a single person who was hired with me is still there, mostly for the very same reasons.
The experience raises some interesting questions. Given the economic and medical situations of our elderly, how much is too much money to make? individually as a corporate exec, or employee? How much is too much for a company to make? Couldn't some of that 2.7 billion be used to help cover a few dollars more of grandma's insulin? And how much moral responsibility does an employee incur working for a company that, despite it's protestations and cloaking it's every action in the mantel of corporate righteousness, is screwing grandma? How do these people sleep at night?
The long term answer is universal health insurance, single payer system, with a strong public option to compete with companies like UHG that have essentially no competition. Yes, there are other health care companies. But if you compare their prices online you'll find they're price fixing. You pay the same price for the same coverage no matter what company you choose.
With fewer and fewer of us being able to afford any kind of health insurance, forcing premiums up; with hospital and doctor and drug costs going through the roof; the system as it is will not last a lot longer. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Especially in the US, a country ranked by the World Health Organization as thirty-seventh in providing health services to it's citizens--just behind Costa Rica. Not to mention our having one of the highest infant mortality rates in the industrialized world. I could go on.
Sorry to break it to you grandma, but that company that's telling you how much they care and how well they're going to take care of you.... that's a sales pitch.... and nothing besides. It's an empty promise some guy or girl sitting behind a computer screen reading a script is getting paid to tell you, knowing all the while that what's hidden in all that fine print they're required to read you is what's not going to get paid this year. Believe me, they can't wait to get home and shower off the filth.... and find another job.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
What Keith Richards and Barack Obama Have in Common
"Alan, I swear I'm not kidding. It's true. Everybody who was ever close to the Rolling Stones will tell you it's true."
"Scott," I said, trying to keep a straight face while speaking with a first-rate guitar player who lists Ringo Star's All-Star Rock and Roll Band on his resume; "it's not true. It's an urban legend, pure and simple. Even if it did come from someone inside the Stone's inner circle, how could that be considered reliable? God knows what their blood alcohol, cocaine, grass, heroin content was when they said it. It's an urban legend."
"No way, Alan. No way, man. Keith Richards really does have to have all the old blood flushed out of his body and replaced with new once a month or he'll die. Hell, why do think he looks the way he does?"
After a while, there are some things you just don't argue with a true believer. It's like banging your head into the proverbial brick wall.
Keith Richards, guitar player, singer, songwriter, recent author of the best selling autobiography, "Life"; recovering booze, heroin, and by his own admission damn near everything else addict; the guy who, along with buddies Mick Jagger and Brain Jones founded rock and roll's longest lasting, arguably most creative band: The Rolling Stones. The man who, some remain convinced, has his blood flushed every month.
Then there's Barack Obama, President of the United States. Barack Obama, whose resume commands respect from all but the most incomprehensible dullards the rest of us have the sad misfortune of having to put up with. A resume that includes Harvard Law, the United States Senate, the new START treaty, the first comprehensive health care reform bill in our nation's history. I could go on. But you get the idea.
Two incredibly accomplished individuals. Keith Richards, Rolling Stone. Barack Obama, President of the United States. What could these two possibly have in common?
I've given this considerable thought. Turns out it's not so difficult to figure out. My first clue came when I was watching the tube last night and saw this Fox News guy interviewing a group of Iowa voters. Turns out about half of this focus group believes, despite Obama's repeated affirmations that he's a Christian, that he is nonetheless a Muslim. No doubt these same folk would number themselves among those "birthers" who, again, despite all evidence to the contrary, firmly believe the President really can't be the President because he's not a native born U.S. citizen.
Okay... Here's the connection... Keith Richards, Rolling Stone. Barack Obama, President of the United States. Both men are living proof that if a story, a lie, a myth, or an urban legend gets passed around enough, no matter how shit-all-stupid it is, there are plenty of shit-all-stupid people who will believe it.
This is especially true if they hear it and see it being repeated by members of the official Shit-All-Stupid Leadership Council: St. Sarah the Simple, Glenn John the Bircher Beck, and Rushdumb the Drug Addled Gasbag.
For those of you fortunate enough not to have, prior to this, heard of the Shit-All-Stupid Leadership Council and their minions of morons, let me take this opportunity to point out that it is an offshoot of the Flat Earth Society, the Sun Revolves Around the Earth Consortium, and the Nobody Ever Really Walked on the Moon Fellowship of Bible Thumping Fundamentalists.
What is truly sad about all this is the apparent fact that the Shit-All-Stupid Leadership Council is apparently running the Republican Party.
Where are the voices from Right of Center who are willing to speak out and say, quite simply, "Look folks, if it looks like shit, smells like shit, squishes like shit, and you heard it from the Shit-All-Stupid Leadership Council, it's probably shit?" More traditional Republicans should remember that silence is always taken as agreement.
There will always be those who, despite evidence to the contrary, persist in believing urban legends, myths, lies and the lying liers who tell them. In a free society, they are to be heard, tolerated, and their speech protected. That, however, is not to say we should let the idiots run the country.
Mahalo
"Scott," I said, trying to keep a straight face while speaking with a first-rate guitar player who lists Ringo Star's All-Star Rock and Roll Band on his resume; "it's not true. It's an urban legend, pure and simple. Even if it did come from someone inside the Stone's inner circle, how could that be considered reliable? God knows what their blood alcohol, cocaine, grass, heroin content was when they said it. It's an urban legend."
"No way, Alan. No way, man. Keith Richards really does have to have all the old blood flushed out of his body and replaced with new once a month or he'll die. Hell, why do think he looks the way he does?"
After a while, there are some things you just don't argue with a true believer. It's like banging your head into the proverbial brick wall.
Keith Richards, guitar player, singer, songwriter, recent author of the best selling autobiography, "Life"; recovering booze, heroin, and by his own admission damn near everything else addict; the guy who, along with buddies Mick Jagger and Brain Jones founded rock and roll's longest lasting, arguably most creative band: The Rolling Stones. The man who, some remain convinced, has his blood flushed every month.
Then there's Barack Obama, President of the United States. Barack Obama, whose resume commands respect from all but the most incomprehensible dullards the rest of us have the sad misfortune of having to put up with. A resume that includes Harvard Law, the United States Senate, the new START treaty, the first comprehensive health care reform bill in our nation's history. I could go on. But you get the idea.
Two incredibly accomplished individuals. Keith Richards, Rolling Stone. Barack Obama, President of the United States. What could these two possibly have in common?
I've given this considerable thought. Turns out it's not so difficult to figure out. My first clue came when I was watching the tube last night and saw this Fox News guy interviewing a group of Iowa voters. Turns out about half of this focus group believes, despite Obama's repeated affirmations that he's a Christian, that he is nonetheless a Muslim. No doubt these same folk would number themselves among those "birthers" who, again, despite all evidence to the contrary, firmly believe the President really can't be the President because he's not a native born U.S. citizen.
Okay... Here's the connection... Keith Richards, Rolling Stone. Barack Obama, President of the United States. Both men are living proof that if a story, a lie, a myth, or an urban legend gets passed around enough, no matter how shit-all-stupid it is, there are plenty of shit-all-stupid people who will believe it.
This is especially true if they hear it and see it being repeated by members of the official Shit-All-Stupid Leadership Council: St. Sarah the Simple, Glenn John the Bircher Beck, and Rushdumb the Drug Addled Gasbag.
For those of you fortunate enough not to have, prior to this, heard of the Shit-All-Stupid Leadership Council and their minions of morons, let me take this opportunity to point out that it is an offshoot of the Flat Earth Society, the Sun Revolves Around the Earth Consortium, and the Nobody Ever Really Walked on the Moon Fellowship of Bible Thumping Fundamentalists.
What is truly sad about all this is the apparent fact that the Shit-All-Stupid Leadership Council is apparently running the Republican Party.
Where are the voices from Right of Center who are willing to speak out and say, quite simply, "Look folks, if it looks like shit, smells like shit, squishes like shit, and you heard it from the Shit-All-Stupid Leadership Council, it's probably shit?" More traditional Republicans should remember that silence is always taken as agreement.
There will always be those who, despite evidence to the contrary, persist in believing urban legends, myths, lies and the lying liers who tell them. In a free society, they are to be heard, tolerated, and their speech protected. That, however, is not to say we should let the idiots run the country.
Mahalo
Friday, February 4, 2011
Glenn Beck, Fundamentalist Preacher
We've long passed the point where Glenn Beck in particular, and Fox News in general, can be considered serious, fact based reporting and thoughtful analysis. His most recent explicating of "the coming Caliphat," where he illustrates how the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt is plotting to take over Europe. In Beck's world, every event is reduced to the most simple terms.
Growing up in the very conservative Southern Baptist Church, I remember traveling evangelists who would come for a week of services designed in every detail to accomplish one thing. Convince everyone the world was going to end in just a few months and you'd better come running down the aisle at the hymn of invitation, accept Jesus as your personal savior, and "avoid the wrath of God that's surely coming upon you!"
Like Beck, every evangelist had their charts and blackboards where they would painstakingly illustrate how current events most surely pointed to the end of the world, the second coming, the Book of Revelation coming literally true in our time. How nice to know human history is reducable to such simple interpretations of scripture and current events. According to the old time evangelists who shamelessly used fear tactics to further their religious agenda, there are only good guys and bad guys, right and wrong. What's tragic is that so many people buy into such shallowness.
But then, what can we expect in a country where, by some estimates, more than half of adults can't read beyond an eighth grade level? Now I understand the appeal of Beck, and, of course, Palin.
Beck is like the traveling evangelist, the fundamentalist preachers utilized fear and simplicity to offer comfort in a complex and often frightening world that appears always on the edge of spinning out of control. Why worry? Glenn and company have it all figured out. It's all unfolding according to some sort of divinely ordained plan. How convenient, and reassuring, to believe the people in the streets of Cairo are mere pawns in the Caliph's game. Economics, justice, jobs, food shortages, lack of authentic free and fair elections; too much trouble to think of all that!
Sorry guys, it's just not that simple.
Mahalo
Growing up in the very conservative Southern Baptist Church, I remember traveling evangelists who would come for a week of services designed in every detail to accomplish one thing. Convince everyone the world was going to end in just a few months and you'd better come running down the aisle at the hymn of invitation, accept Jesus as your personal savior, and "avoid the wrath of God that's surely coming upon you!"
Like Beck, every evangelist had their charts and blackboards where they would painstakingly illustrate how current events most surely pointed to the end of the world, the second coming, the Book of Revelation coming literally true in our time. How nice to know human history is reducable to such simple interpretations of scripture and current events. According to the old time evangelists who shamelessly used fear tactics to further their religious agenda, there are only good guys and bad guys, right and wrong. What's tragic is that so many people buy into such shallowness.
But then, what can we expect in a country where, by some estimates, more than half of adults can't read beyond an eighth grade level? Now I understand the appeal of Beck, and, of course, Palin.
Beck is like the traveling evangelist, the fundamentalist preachers utilized fear and simplicity to offer comfort in a complex and often frightening world that appears always on the edge of spinning out of control. Why worry? Glenn and company have it all figured out. It's all unfolding according to some sort of divinely ordained plan. How convenient, and reassuring, to believe the people in the streets of Cairo are mere pawns in the Caliph's game. Economics, justice, jobs, food shortages, lack of authentic free and fair elections; too much trouble to think of all that!
Sorry guys, it's just not that simple.
Mahalo
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