Taking away rights of minorities

I'm organizing a petition drive and I need your help. I want to put a proposition before California voters to change the constitution once and for all. The new law is very simple : "All people in California will have equal access to all parking spots."

This may seem like a minor matter but let there be no mistake: the very fabric of our society is at risk. In the last 10 years, during this recent period of huge wealth growth, perhaps while we were all preoccupied with house flipping, activist judges agreed to allow the number of prime parking spaces and placards for people with disabilities grow at an astonishing pace.

I want to make things clear from the very start: This is not about handicapophobia! I have always been a friend of the blue placard; I have loved ones and family members who know people with disabilities. But this proliferation must stop!
It doesn't seem like an unreasonable demand. I'm sure it will handily get a majority vote.

And here's why:
1) We are headed for a serious recession, perhaps a depression. We know that in order to stimulate the economy it's important to eliminate as many barriers as possible between a consumer and a purchase.
How many of us will waste precious time driving in circles in a Safeway or Big Lots parking lot while handicapped people can just drive up to any blue spot (the ones closest to the door of course) and roll away in their wheel chair scot-free?
Imagine the devastating effect this is having on commerce, small and large. People are growing impatient, feel disrespected. Just this week Circuit City has announced it may go bankrupt and one need look no further than the 12 or so spots out in front of the stores that create a veritable wall of China between the store and the many able-bodied shoppers who could be in there stimulating if they had better access.
Did not George Bush himself say that shopping was the most patriotic thing we could do to save our country after September 11? Shopito ergo sum.
2) How many of us have tried to get to an important meeting, --a meeting that will stimulate the economy BTW-- and we've been delayed because a handicapped person who may or may not have a job, was taking the last prime metered spot? Here we are, pockets full of quarters ready to stimulate, and they're blocking the metered spots. And for no fee! How is that going to stimulate the economy?
3) More important than economics though: as handicapped people present themselves as more and more "normalized" our children are being taught in our schools that it's "okay to be handicapped". Zealous teachers have actually come out and proudly admitted to embracing these kinds of beliefs in first and second grade classes. It goes without saying that this is all part of the Handicapped Agenda.
And if we keep giving handicapped people special privileges, like more ramps and curbless street corners, and braille in the subway where will it stop? They'll just want more and more.
Soon they'll want to adopt children.
4) Focus on the Family leader Dr James Dobson, surely sees himself as a modern day prophet when he predicts to the millions who listen to him that gays getting married will lead to the collapse of our healthcare system and possibly social security. But prophet he is not! Because this is a preposterous notion. If his PhD were in public health he would know that allowing the Gays to marry is a good idea since it will actually save us all money. Studies show that ostracizing them causes them to have higher incidences of stress-related medical conditions. Imagine the savings!
On the other hand imagine what I predict truly WILL happen to the health industry: Right now an entire generation of children are being raised on the idea that it's normal to be handicapped and the idea that if they become handicapped themselves they will get choice parking spots in big box stores all over the nation. Imagine what will happen when they turn sixteen. Frightening thought, isn't it?
5) Finally, did our Lord not say that "He who is first will be last and he who is last will be first?" Could there be a clearer mandate? These people have been first long enough. By enacting this legislation to make ALL parking spots equal and putting an end to this ridiculous luxury acquired through wild-eyed judges and legislators we will in effect be enacting the law of God right here on earth.
And is that not our very birthright as God's children?

Join us next week when we hear from our friend Dr. Thomas Johnson author of "Separate Water Fountains: Why We should Subsidize Bottled Water for Recent Immigrants"

Deception as a National Pastime

Last week a new study showed over half of medical doctors use placebos on a regular basis.
Having worked with medical doctors and nurses for years, I wasn't exactly surprised. I'd heard the story a hundred times: patient comes to see doc, patient doesn't feel well, doc sees no signs of serious illness but knows patient won't feel satisfied if s/he walks away empty-handed. Caught in an ethical bind doc prescribes something innocuous.

Studies show not only that placebos are effective (and cheap!) but also more expensive placebos work better than cheap ones and dark-colored placebos work better than white ones. Go figure!

Docs usually frame it along these lines: "I'm going to give you something not usually prescribed for this but I think it will help." As dishonest as this is, it seems to me like a healthy way to harvest the power of the mind to help the body heal without using unnecessary chemicals.

But according to a NY Times article: "The American Medical Association discourages the use of placebos by doctors when represented as helpful", stating it might undermine trust.

This notion of trust and people in powerful positions got me thinking about my own life.

Before working as a therapist I worked as a journalist and occasionally as a copywriter. Basically I sold my writing skills to big corporations. The job was simple: find all the positives about a product or service and omit all the negatives. Here in America it's our national sport. We call it marketing when we're happy, spin when we're angry. Students come from all over the world to study business and learn "le marketing." It's what we do.

And yet, it's still dishonest.

In my neighborhood hangs a poster with a 1950's sepia photo of a Latina-looking woman holding a babe in her arms. The tagline reads: "Because if I graduate it's like a part of her is making it too." Naively I thought this was an ad for a foundation offering scholarships for under-served populations. Then one day I bent down and read the fine print at the bottom: it's an ad for the US Navy.

Here's an example of the marketing that Defense creates with our tax dollars in times of war. It's dishonest. But somewhere there's a study and a focus group that showed that this dishonest approach would get people in a uniform.

Maybe it's just me but when I think about it I realize the list of subtle, socially-sanctioned lies is pervasive in my life from headlines to credit card mailers, from church pulpits to the White House.
Here are just a few of the recent examples that come to mind:

• "Yes, you can own with no money down..."
• Insurance companies refusing to pay up when you arrive with your claim.
• Axis of evil
• Sex-craved evangelical millionaires swearing they're pious.
• Not-to-be-beat mortgages for poor people.
• Weapons of Mass Destruction.
• "Sand-swept beach with an unobstructed view..."
• Political-favor-style home renovations.
• "This isn't about homophobia, it's about protecting our children".
• "This tax stimulus will turn things around".
• "We want to help working class people".
• Finally The Real Truth about Brad and Jen

And the list goes on and on...

I'm exhausted. I'm tired of being lied to. I'm tired of being given political and corporate Vicodin when all I'm really getting is sugar pills.

And of course spokespersons, politicians and CEO's spend tens of thousands of dollars on consultants who train and rehearse them so that they can tell us these lies in believable ways, without their body language betraying them. It's called 'effective communication skills'.

We know why people lie: because they benefit from it somehow. Power and profit tend to be the two big motors behind dishonest representation.

According to the OECD, a non-profit social and economic observatory that we belong to with 29 other relatively rich countries, our wealth gap has widened considerably since the beginning of the Bush administration. Today, of the 30 member countries, only Mexico and Turkey have a wider wealth gap than ours. A stagnant middle income and a rampant upper income has made it so that seventy-one percent of the wealth belongs to the top 10% of the population.

Clearly the lying has helped some people.

And that feeling of being manipulated by leaders who are way too close to those with money and only seem to be working to sustain one another has been pervasive.

It will be interesting to see how those alliances will shift now that the party has been seriously crashed by a recession that will not speak its name.

In a recent article the ex-Nixon speech writer/investor/actor/pro-lifer Ben Stein wrote about a talk he gave to disgruntled investors in comfy La Jolla, California. He finished by asking just whose side the government is on.

Funny I've been asking myself that for years...or more precisely: "When will I live under a government which I feel is on my side?"

One of the many things that gives me hope is, in my experience working with hundreds of people, most folks educated or not figure out when they're being lied to. It may take them time to figure it out...but they do.

I believe people's lie-fatigue is an important part of what's driving their choices in the many electoral races today.