Votes Can Stop Hunger

The movie, "The Hunger Games", has something for almost everyone.  Romance, adventure, action, beauty, and characters that are captivating.  It is without a doubt entertaining.

As a dystopian vision of the future, it is also, for many, a warning, but it can be a warning of different things for different people.

It could be a warning about the dangers of reality based entertainment that, taken to its extreme, values entertainment over human life.

It could be a warning about the future given policies that are leading us in the wrong direction; the bottom of a slippery slope.  But defining the current policies that might cause this kind of dystopian future is fraught with hazzards.

The Right (Republicans, Tea Party, Libertarians) might see the movie as the end result of government power run amok; a government that has sucked the people dry to fuel it's insatiable desire for power and control.  The result could be an impoverished and desperate populace, disarmed, with a central government, the "Capitol", that is extravagant even as the people are starving.  Think Louis XIV.  A government that abrogates the rights of people as part of a strategy of centralizing power.

The recent scandal of the GSA (Government Services Administration) spending nearly a million dollars for a lavish meeting in Las Vegas typifies the kind of abuse of power and the people's money.  Some see the President's trips abroad, his lavish parties (which are normal for a president, but...), and any expenses for vacation, secret service protection for his family or even campaign trips supported by government money as evidence that the government seeks to enrich itself while impoverishing the nation.

The Left (Progressives, Democrats, liberals) might see the outcome of wealth disparity in the extreme where corporations dictate policy and huge concentrations of money are promoted by a fusion of government and corporations.  With a Right Wing agenda run amok, workers would compete for jobs that don't provide enough money to prevent hunger (no minimum or living wage), protections from dangers at work are eliminated (OSHA, EPA, etc.), and taxes are paid by everyone except corporations and the extremely wealthy (elimination of capital gains tax, elimination of corporate taxes).  Poverty would be criminalized (arrest the homeless, arrest the protesters, squatters, drug test the poor) and an arrest record would exclude one from voting.  Eventually, only land owners (not renters) would be allowed to vote, and only the wealthy would own land.  There would be no welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and if people starve, "it's their own fault."

The Ryan Plan is a step to the right.  Mitt Romney typifies the wealth disparity and lack of comprehension or understanding of poverty.  "I don't worry about the poor; they have a safety net" which he would eliminate.  Every Republican budget gives much to corporations and takes much from the poor and middle class.  Every Republican controlled state seeks to reduce the number of people voting, particularly the young, the poor, minorities and the elderly.

History gives examples of dystopia fostered by government policies.  Here are three:

The "gilded age" of industrial hegemony created "company towns" and ghettos for workers that struggled even with jobs to feed their families.  Work was dangerous and even deadly for the workers while the "capitalists" enjoyed luxuries that had only been experienced by royalty in the past.  Laborers and even child laborers were disposable assets, and there were plenty of poor that would take the chance of death or injury in order to feed their families.  Striking laborers were severely punished by either hired goons or police.

The Communist revolution centralized government and equalized income for the masses - thus creating mass poverty.  A few powerful people (the Apparatchik) maintained lifestyles of luxury and privilege protected by the Soviet military and police organizations that were themselves more privileged than the poorest citizens.  Wealth disparity was a result of government power rather than commerce.

Nazi Germany put increasing powers within the government purview, and the results are documented well in the book "They Thought They Were Free":  http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head."

There has never really been a perfect balance in history, but many would point to the 1950s or another post WWII decade as close to ideal (excluding the McCarthy era).  The trends, when objectively analyzed, have been moving towards the right generally.  There may be a "pendulum", but the swings to the left have been minor and insubstantial while the swings to the right have been structural and measurable.

Criminal records are rarely expunged, and their availability creates a new class of individuals that are treated with suspicion.  Recent Supreme Court rulings have eroded the 4th and 5th Amendment rights, and penalties for crimes have been escalating.  Voting rights are being restricted regularly in States that have recently seen Republican control.  Gerrymandering is another way to make votes not have equal importance.  In Michigan, local democratic control of government has been cancelled in several cities by the governor exercising an "emergency manager" option.  That states Republican legislature has also denied the Democrats the option of voting to not implement "immediate effect", thus violating their own constitution.  And a Republican appeals court is poised to support the Republicans' right to claim a 2/3 majority without counting the votes they clearly don't have for "immediate effect."

The one thing that has kept us from slipping down one slope or the other has been the vote.    When we lose that, we can expect the slide down that slippery slope to begin in earnest.  One way or another.

There Is No Excuse For Rape

It should be self-evident that a doctor does not examine a competent patient without their permission – their consent.  This fact can be lost when one considers that a doctor takes certain liberties with his patients, both male and female, in the course of an office visit.  An office visit might involve the doctor’s visual inspection of every inch of skin, touching the breasts or genitals, and even inserting a speculum or his (gloved) fingers into the vagina or rectum (or both). 

It should be clear that, although a doctor may have implicit permission to do each or all of these things, permission must be granted and, should a patient choose to refuse any part of the examination, the doctor that proceeds to do that part of the examination has committed assault. 

Permission granted by patients to doctors is not carte blanche.  There is an understanding that the physician is acting in the best interests of the patient.  When this is no longer true, and the physician is doing something for reasons other than the patient’s interest, that is de facto assault.

Assault can be any unwanted touching.  It can be any unjustified measure.  A podiatrist that asks a female patient to undress completely, or an eye doctor that, in the course of an examination generally limited to the eyes, puts his hands under a woman’s blouse or skirt has exceeded the permission generally granted for an examination.  Here are some actual examples from our court system:

1.  “Prosecutors said Brown performed unnecessary breast and pelvic exams on 11 patients, including a 15-year-old girl.”

2.  “Dr. Alan Dubelman was front and center on Inside Edition in 1994 during his appearance at the Adams County courthouse. He faced multiple counts of sexual assault, accused by female patients who said he molested them during routine visits and even pelvic exams.”

3.  “Doctor convicted of sexual assault

Judge finds he groped patient under guise of medical exam”

4.  “One woman described nine incidents of being groped by Udani at his Redondo Beach office and at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance and Torrance Memorial Medical Center.

Another 22-year-old woman testified during the weeklong trial that Udani rubbed and caressed her breasts during her only visit to his office for an ulcer on Dec. 8, 2004.”

Even for justified measures, consent is required, and that consent must not be obtained by deception, fraud or coercion. 

If the State orders a physician to rape a patient, that is still rape.  The claim that “I was just following orders” has never been an acceptable defense, but it is true that the entity abusing their authority by ordering a rape should also be held accountable for this crime.

You may say, “The State would NEVER order a rape,” but you would be wrong.

Rape is any genital penetration without consent, by an instrument, finger or penis.  Several states have mandated transvaginal ultrasound examinations of pregnant women before they undergo an abortion.  This procedure involves the insertion of a “wand”, the ultrasound probe, deep into the vagina of the patient.  Some legislation has stated that “consent is not required” either written in the law or by voting against amendments to allow for consent.  Medically, these examinations are unnecessary.

The defense that a woman who is pregnant has already been “penetrated” and should therefore have no say about a second penetration mandated by the state at the hands of a physician is ludicrous.  It is the same as saying that a pregnant woman cannot be raped.

Physicians do not have the right to perform unwanted and unnecessary examinations of their patients.  Even external examinations of the breast, genitals, abdomen, back or extremities must be done with the tacit approval of the patient, and that may be withdrawn at any point during an examination.

The intentions of laws mandating transvaginal or even transabdominal ultrasounds are irrelevant.  They constitute unwanted touching or penetration if they are done without consent, they are medically unnecessary, and they force physicians to violate the law, their conscience and their sacred oath.

State ordered rape is an egregious abuse of legislative authority, and if and when there is an accounting, every legislator and governor that has ordered or facilitated this crime will be tried for crimes against humanity.

For the physicians participating in this crime, they should find the strength to oppose it.  Weakness in this circumstance is criminal negligence.  Doing something they know is wrong because they are complying with an illegal order does not excuse them, and it won’t protect them from charges of assault or rape.