Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor

Friday 22 October 2010

by: Ellen Dannin, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor
(Photo: Sam Stroube; Edited: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t)

Two hundred thirty-four years ago, our country's founders concluded this country's founding document by declaring: "We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." How odd that the document we call the Declaration of Independence concludes as a Declaration of Inter-Dependence.

Furthermore, that interdependence was not just some feel-good, wishy-washy sentiment. Rather, it demanded that we put all toward the general good - not just money, but everything we are and ever will be.

As Americans, we are their heirs. They pledged this country's future as one built through the efforts of people who are willing to give their all to the common enterprise.

This wasn't a one-shot doctrine.

In 1787, the US Constitution picked up where the Declaration of Independence left off. Its Preamble speaks of unity, justice, peace, mutual support and solidarity from generation to generation:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The language is especially adamant, because this country was desperately trying to recover from the failed experiment set out in the Articles of Confederation, which came into force in 1781. Those articles declared this country to be a go-it-alone country, in which each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence and enters into a firm league of friendship with each other to assist each other against attacks.

We seem to be living in a second Articles of Confederation era, a time of suspicion of one another in which we pledge nothing to one another. Rather, we leave everyone to go it alone. Everywhere we look, we see the evidence that we are making a foray into a way of being a country that has already been a failure.

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Consider Social Security. Or consider it under its full name, "Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI)." It is not an individual investment scheme. Rather, it builds on a 200-year tradition of working for the common good. In the case of Social Security, 75 years ago, in 1935, we committed ourselves to support the welfare of the widow, the orphan, the sick, the poor, the aged - a tradition more than 2,500 year old. You can find versions in the Bible, only there, they are commandments from God, - not human commitments to one another.

If we were to take seriously the commitments we make as Americans, we must accept that, in everything we do, we are charged with taking up the challenge of meeting the standards of mutual commitment and interdependence our founders set for us. A "we are all in this together" commitment gives us the tools to solve what now seem like unsolvable problems.

Take Social Security, again. If we see it as private investments that will run out 30 or so years from now, then the problem is enormous and the best solution we can come up with is privatizing it and cutting the next generations loose with nothing.

In fact, in 30 years, if we change nothing in the meantime, Social Security can still pay 75 percent of promised benefits.

But it is easy to do more and keep our commitment to one another. When we look at the problem from a position of mutual responsibility, the solution is obvious. First, we assume that the very rich are as willing to pledge their fortunes as are the poor, so we change the law to tax all of us at the same percentage rate. Right now, employers and employees each pay Social Security taxes of 6.2 percent on earnings up to $106,800. This means that workers and employers each pay 6.2 percent on every dollar earned until a worker earns $106,801. From there on, no more Social Security taxes are owed and the percentage of tax paid declines. As a result, the tax rate for earnings of $213,602 is only 3.1 percent. The more the person earns, the lower the tax rate.

A society that has mutually pledged to one other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor sees the solution. Get rid of the cap and have everyone pay the same percentage. Fairness in this case means that we can keep our intergenerational pledge to one another.

The drafters of the US Constitution must have thought that promoting the general welfare was important, because it is mentioned twice - in the Preamble and in Article 1, Section 8 where it specifically gives Congress the power to collect taxes to provide for the general welfare: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."

There are so many ways that we can make this a more prosperous country if we, today, will only take on the commitment made on our behalf two centuries ago - and kept as a pledge through the ages.

Till now.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Ellen Dannin is Fannie Weiss distinguished faculty scholar and professor of law at Penn State Dickinson School of Law and author of "Taking Back the Workers' Law - How to Fight the Assault on Labor Rights."

Comments

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ME! OW!

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 13:24 — Vic Anderson (not verified)

ME! OW!

It is especially troubling

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 13:52 — CT (not verified)

It is especially troubling to see the acceptance by the retired and near retireds of these suggested changes to Social Security. Just because the reforms will hurt the young future beneficiaries and not the old, by raising retirement age and decreasing the benefits, does not excuse the old from the responsibility for protecting this social contract for the young. To not look out for the young is to say that breaking our promises is acceptable. Wrong. Weakening social security will make its demise more certain during future 'reforms'. If the old cannot protect this intergenerational promise to the young of the future, then the old will deserve to lose their Social Security when it comes time for the program reviews of the future!

The proposed cuts to Social

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 14:02 — CT (not verified)

The proposed cuts to Social Security are the final end product of years of 'free market' ideologues propaganda. The Deficit commission is focusing on strip mining Social Security not because it needs reform, but because there is no one in this administration who feels strongly that it needs to be defended. Alice Rivlin who sits on the Commission has been waiting for years to make these cuts. She also sits on Peter G. Peterson's Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform. Peter G. Peterson has spent millions creating these so-called think tanks in order to convince everyone that Social Security is bankrupt. His money is the force behind IOU-USA, the biggest conservative astroturfing scam run against government spending the US has ever seen. But President Obama is also responsible for setting up this Deficit Commission and for appointing cutters like Rivlin to make decisions regarding government spending.

I'm wondering if at every

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 14:35 — AML (not verified)

I'm wondering if at every candidate's rally, someone should read the Constitution, so everyone starts on the same page.

Social Security would have

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 15:27 — Anonymous (not verified)

Social Security would have no problem, had it not permited Congress to steal its trillion dollar reserve fund -- paid over years by millions of American Workers exclusively as reserve for future benefits -- and squander the money for S.S. unrelated, primarily catastrophic, unpaid wars.

Why, I ask, is this fact never recognized by either party and why is Congress not required to pay back the massive loan, now that Social Security will need the money? Let the deficit increase and openly illuminate Congress' shameful breech of contract with the American people !

Until this is done, I accuse all members of Congress of unsavory, sleazy behavior by their failure to live up to the letter and spirit of our Constitution -- so well documented in this article.

The funny, or insidious,

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 16:01 — Anonymous (not verified)

The funny, or insidious, thing is that we all know these truths. But there is something fundamentally happening to our collective psyches when these truths are turned 180-degrees on their heads in a propaganda-esque style coupe with the suicidal mantra of:

In order to save the baby, I had to kill it.

In other words, are we just experiencing the systematic mass-murder of the lower-class masses one chinese water-torture drop at a time?

We can still have good and

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 16:56 — Phil Dennany (not verified)

We can still have good and just Social Security if we stop our corrupted leaders from their ability to work in and keep secrets. Our government and corporate elite increase their rip-off profits while our suffering likewise increases for their gain.
I say no more! The elite must give back some of our funds they miss appropriated!

Hear, hear !!!

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 20:16 — Hans de Koning (not verified)

Hear, hear !!!

SS is a simple and easy

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 20:53 — Ken Hall (not verified)

SS is a simple and easy social safety net, and one I'm pleased to be paying into. My Scandinavian buddies enjoy many more benefits from their tax dollars, and a much better quality of life. They have a higher standard of living, too. Taxes in themselves are not the problem, every and anywhere you live on the face of the earth you are going to be taxed. The important consideration is "What do I get in return for my tax money?" In the US we get endless war, a militarily supported empire that benefits a few at the top, and crumbling infrastructure and education systems for the vast majority. In other industrialized nations the citizens enjoy nationalized healthcare, state supported education through graduate levels, good roads and schools, etc., etc.. The US could have these benefits but it will take a determined and relentless push to wrest control from the elite corporatocracy that are now pulling the strings. To the barricades, mes amis!

Boo hoo! Whaa! Social

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 20:58 — Tea Party Truth-out-er (not verified)

Boo hoo! Whaa! Social Security is a failure...I wonder why? Maybe because it was an unsustainable pyramid scheme to begin with. Maybe FDR was a Marxist. No. You think? No. Couldn't be. He's one best of the best presidents in history. You know, the New Deal and all that. He brought us out of the Depression...right? Or, was it all that war-time Capitalism? Hmmm. I do remember that we didn't waste any time passing a Presidential term-limit law so that an FDR presidency would never happen again.

Maybe Obama is our new FDR. Hmmm. Only happening on a much faster time clock. It only takes 2 years now for American's to wake up to Marxist uprisings. I love this new media era.

Looking forward to a major purge of Progressives in the Democratic Party this mid-term cycle.

The Constitution says "all men are created equal"....not "all mean will get equal stuff". Stuff is earned...it's not a right. The charity of the individual is greater than the charity of government bureaucrats who are so easily corrupted.

"The funny, or insidious,

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 21:13 — Tea Party Truth-out-er (not verified)

"The funny, or insidious, thing is that we all know these truths. But there is something fundamentally happening to our collective psyches when these truths are turned 180-degrees on their heads in a propaganda-esque style coupe"

Collective psyches? Collectives? Oh, like collective bargaining? Like, collective action and thought? Like, we can't have different thoughts? I need to pee...and I don't need to pee collectively. Otherwise, the bathroom will be very crowded.

Maybe we have different ideas about things and that's OK. Maybe some of the ideas aren't progressive. Is that OK? I'm guessing no.

Truth. That's what this site claims to seek. Maybe it's only progressive truth...seen only through a biased prism. Is truth your opinion? Shouldn't truth be a constant.

02:13 — Tea Party

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 23:45 — Anonymous (not verified)

02:13 — Tea Party Truth-out-er:

"Is truth your opinion? Shouldn't truth be a constant."

Just saw Inside Job movie. That question is posed about a dozen or so times. Are truths actually truths when everybody says they are, or no one says they are?

@Tea Party Truth-out-er:

Sat, 10/23/2010 - 10:24 — Austin Loomis (not verified)

@Tea Party Truth-out-er: When you're ready to argue against positions that anyone is actually taking, or for positions that have a basis in reality, please wake me up.

Dont go to the VA, they will

Sat, 10/23/2010 - 11:20 — davidharvey13th (not verified)

Dont go to the VA, they will make you pay.

I was the only son, 13 times of an only son, of an only son of soldiers and a seminary student from Oral Roberts University. My name is David Michael Harvey the 13th, I am the 13th David Harvey, they were all soldieres. My name means Beloved of God, Who is Like God, Called to War. I wanted to break that father to son soldier lineage and I wanted be a preacher. Until my cousin came home from Vietnam in a body bag, with a closed casket from Pork Chop Hill Vietnam as we only had parts of him.

That same week I was robbed as I was working at 7-11 trying to support my school and wife. I thought, I need a gun to save myself from such, so I may as well join the military and fight back. An ear for an ear. I did not know it that ear would be my own body count: my health, my sanity and my cognitive functioning.

As luck would have it, I joined at the right time to qualify as a Vietnam ERA Veteran, although I wanted to go to Vietnam and take vengeance for my cousin, which means, I served, but not in Vietnam, just during the war. I qualified for Vietnam Veteran Benefits, but I volunteered and was not drafted.

My wife later joined the military as well, we were in hog heaven, we had a car and a motorcycle, I had 2 other jobs as a security officer and apartment manager. We had an apartment, and food to eat, the war ended, and all was good. I had 20 credit cards and thought I was rich, but did not know I was so far in debt that I was a slave of the bank.

My birthday 22 Dec 1978, I became 25 years old, my boss asked my wife and I out for b-day dinner, my wife did not want to go. I knew better, my dad being a company commander of 1st Special Forces, Company A, A Team for 26 years. I knew that you don't refuse socializing with your boss or superiors, if you want to be promoted, and I wanted to be promoted. In fact, my airmen performance reports said, "I was a credit to myself and the USAF, promote ahead of my peers, ... until my birthday."

On that day, I left my wife at home and went with my boss, making some excuse for her, to eat a steak dinner with my boss...hey break my arm...I like steak. We went to eat and have a few beers and he drove me home, as I had one too many beers, but we had planned for me not to drive. I now wished I had stayed home with my wife and forgot the career in the military, as I lost so much more than that.

However, when I got home, my wife was on the floor drowning in her own vomit. The album she played was still on the first song, so she had just fell hit her head on the living room table, knocked herself out after polishing a bottle of vodka off by herself, cut her chin, and could not breathe or vomit being unconscious, then I walked in the door.

I was really upset and did not know what to think or do, so I called her coworkers at the March AFB Hospital in the ER. Please send me an ambulance??? They said, you are off base by 10 miles, we can't come to get you. Had they sent that ambulance or called the civilian ambulance for her, my whole life would have been so different. I would have been an officer...I had passed the Army and Air Force Officer Qualifying Tests...

I said, what should I do with this problem? They said, "You bring her in to us." To me that was a direct command. They did not know it was my birthday, and my boss had gotten me wined and dined and I was not in good enough shape to drive. I picked her up, put her on my shoulder, and on the way down the stairs, bouncing on my shoulder, I cleaned out her vomit out of her lungs by pure luck and her breathing resumed.

On the way to the hospital, there is a elbow bridge before the base and a 90 foot embankment, I was so scared for my wife and I went too fast, so I straightened out the bridge and rolled the car over it 3 times. My glasses cut my head, I broke my nose and my neck, I damaged the blood flow to the white matter part of my brain.

Prior to this, I had an IQ test, I scored 140 in abstract, non-verbal, & spatial relationships with a 125 IQ in verbal. On the 14 career cluster test, I scored an average of 92% with a 98% high score in medical and an 88% low score in mechanical, as I did not like to get my hands greasy. On the Defense Language Aptitude Test, I scored 136 out of 140. I had planned to do well in the military, I flat lined the Army and Air Force Officer Qualifying Tests, and had planned to go on to be an officer, until this fateful night.

I got out of the car, put her on my shoulder again and I tried to carry her away from the car before it caught on fire. I walked about 50 feet and fell into mud swamp with her on top of me. I could not push her off or get up, so I lay there I prayed to God to forgive my sins, and take my soul and that was when I passed out. While passed out, God told me my wife was pregnant and I told the ER that, my daughter was born the next Aug. I knew I spoke to an angelic being or I would not have known this info, I had a near death experience.

I also had TBI and PTSD, but did not know that for 32 years, until I asked my chiropractor what is wrong with my nose and neck veterbrae, he told me they had been broken, then I knew when it happened, in this car accident. Because of this accident, my Airman Performance Report read, "Do Not Reenlist."

Imagine that, the USAF commanded me do something that permanently damaged my body, my mind, my marriage, my career and my life, and then doesn't want to claim any responsibility for the actions they commanded.

Now my IQ is 100 after a 40 IQ drop and they don't consider me stupid enough to have TBI, yet I lost 40 IQ, so now they can deny me TBI and Permanent and Total Disability and only gave me 10% for PTSD, but now they give 50% to Afghan and Iraq vets and I only got 10%.

Now I only had a 100 IQ. Had I a normal 100 and lost 40 IQ, I would have been a moron at 60 IQ and they would have granted me a full military disability pension and retirement.

But I had a genius IQ, up to the accident and now I was just normal and the things that are bad with me are not visible, like my thinking processes, my memory, my insomnia, my emotions: manic/depressive, and bouts of anger, my new hostility to others. My near photo-graphic memory was gone. I felt like an idiot from where I had come from, I told the nurse, she said I had delusions of grandeur. I then had the intellect of 1 in 100, and now I am normal and don't worry about that. I am not the moron here. My worst day was better than your best day. I flat-lined two IQ tests at the top and not the bottom like she did, as I told one nurse, who disbelieved me until I showed her my test scores, where she apologized.

Since then, I am still unable to work, as proven by my State of Ohio permanent total disability retirement, who could plainly tell I was messed up and did something about it, gave me a pension the military owed me, as I further injured my back lifting as a word processing specialist. I am 20K below the federal poverty level and I really have screwed up my body, my brain and my cognitive abilities. I am very depressed over these events.

At 35 years old, I was NRTS, Not Repairable at This Station, in radio parlance. I could never get and hold another job. If you mess up your neck and back, it adversely affects your sleep, cognitive function, arms, legs and moods. I will never be able to get another job to make up the income I lost for life.

The truth be known, I was totally and permanently disabled on the day of my accident, the result of a military command, yet they blamed my brain injury on me and fired me for it, when they caused it. Why couldn't they have called a civilian ambulance for me? And to top it off with, Do Not Re Enlist???

I had broken my nose, neck and damaged the blood flow to the white matter of my brain, but no one told me for 32 years, how convenient. So now they can conveniently deny my injury was related to the car accident caused by following their orders. Imagine not being able to smell or taste food for 32 years. I got that part fixed with surgery. They had to rebreak my nose. Damn you that hurt like hell. Then I had another hole drilled into my nose as my tear duct was crushed closed, that hurt me all over again as I had to have another hole drilled into my head. But now I can cry normally and have my tears come out where they should and not get any more eye infections, sinusitis, and bronchitis. Yes, one car accident can really screw you up. The military commanders, DoD and the VA were not man enough to own up to the damage they had done to me and mine. They just leave the walking wounded to die on their own.

Since then, I incurred diabetes, 3 heart attacks, 2 heart failures, one kidney failure, and dangerously high blood pressure, 5 degenerated dics, 12 pinched nerves, that was incurred when I damaged my neck, C1-C2, C6-C7 with a bulging disc of 1/2 inch, 2 pinched nerves in each elbows, each wrist and one in each thumb, T-6 to T7, T10 and sciatica at L4-L5. No discs from L2-S1. How much more do I have to pay for my mistake of being an airmen for the USAF? Damn, I just got another cluster migraine thinking over how to write this out in a sane manner, which I am not at all.

How nice it is to have a healthy intelligent volunteer army, sign up for duty, screw up our bodies and minds and emotions, and cast us on the street and deny us medical and pension benefits. I just want to die, except for my second wife, I would kill myself.

I lost my wife, my 3 kids, my family, my job, my house, my car, my career, my health and I soon fear my mind. Let me tell you, 120 mg of morphine does not cut it either. In fact, morphine is the only thing keeping me in the loop.

The hardest thing I ever did in the military was to join the Honor Guard and blow taps at a veterans funeral as I cried and never broke a note. His demise meant something to me, but I can plainly see, the VA and DoD does not care for me like that. I cried for a brave man's honor and burial. Why not help us while we yet live?

Yesterday, as I was going to the VA Clinic, there sat 3 vets from Iraq, one was a tank gunner from OEF and OIF, yet here they were, homeless, jobless, and drinking beer on the curb to self medicate their pain as our illustrious VA and country did not give a damn about us. They got nothing from the VA.

They did not even get a VA card. I don't know how I lucked out, as they steal my 10% or $124/mo to pay for my pill bill. I cut the 30 kinds of pills down to ten pills at $8 a script and they still manage to rob me monthly. I gave them $50 and they took $90, leaving me $24 a month. How hard is it to divide 437 by 12 and come up with something more than 35 dollars?

I guess I am lucky, I got 10% disability from the VA, but you have to fight them tooth and nail, some gave all and got nothing in return. I only got that when I took my yellow nylon rope and told the VA rep I was going to the roof and tie it off and hang myself if they did not right this wrong. I had to do that to stop them from seizing $1400 for 5 years of meds that they forgot to charge me for those 5 years, which they promptly wrote off all but $500, and then rob me of the proper monthly payments, so I can't plan a budget with my paltry $125 or 10% of my disability pension?

They gave me 120 mg of morphine, but the doctor could not find it in his heart to give me anti-vomiting and a laxative drug to counter-effect the side effects of morphine? I had to fire that doctor and see a pain specialist to prove I am in deep kimchee pain.

Let me see, which is worse, buy their pills and starve, starve and then get constitpated, eat and then vomit, and finally I get all their pills worked out and they screw with my finances. The VA is more pain than they are worth. I would walk away from the VA, but now I am addicted to morphine. Man that is a damn good gig, what a way to make our vets pay and pay again for being so stupid enough to join the military in the first place.

I thought the US Constitution did away with slavery, which they did in the 14th Amendment, by making us all Federal citizens, but the bankers they make us so poor that 80% of the blacks are either enslaved in prison or the military, why not kick us down to poverty and then enslave us in prison or the military, either way, they get to steal our wages and services. The military is nothing but a continuation of slavery, so we can fight their wars, come home dead or disabled, and then cheat us of our disability and pensions. It makes me wonder, how could I have been so stupid to sign up.

I cannot wait for Jesus to come back and take me home and promote me to mister for apparently, I am not with a damn thing to anyone, except my wife, on this earth. She asks me, why do your punch and kick in your sleep, and I tell her I had a bad dream, no one could dream this up. I wish I had a chance to go to PakAf and go out in a burst of glory with my brothers in arms at my side and then I would get a Congressional Medal of Honor and I would be worth something then.

Tell me one more time my accident was NOT due to the military and a military command, because the Pentagon, DoD and Congress are too cheap to help us out, do you think I am in my right mind? I don't think so. My remuneration is now 32 years too late and I got no interest on zero.

At least when I go to the VA and I see my brothers, and I see them in wheel chairs with no arms and legs, I feel lucky I still have mine, I just don't have the brain and emotions to use them. I wished I had died in that car wreck, as it caused my divorce and the lose of my wife, family of loss 3 kids, my job and my self worth and esteem. Marantha - Lord come quiickly, I am ready now.

There is too much

Sat, 10/23/2010 - 14:27 — Anonymous (not verified)

There is too much unnecessary suffering in this world. The inhumanity....

God bless and serve you some peace in your next life, dear soldier.

@15:24 Austin Loomis "When

Sat, 10/23/2010 - 17:18 — Tea Party Truth-Out-er (not verified)

@15:24 Austin Loomis

"When you're ready to argue against positions that anyone is actually taking, or for positions that have a basis in reality, please wake me up."

Perhaps you and your buds are the ones living in FantasyLand. Your reality check arrives in the mail in 10 days. Mid-terms baby!

Love this new media. God Bless America.