[Personalize it]
Meet Ezra Freeman
[insert picture of friendly black woman – the type who was the nanny raising abandoned children of rich liberals]
Ezra never expected her Golden years to be like this. Born in Detroit in 1946, she worked for 42 years preparing healthy meals in the cafeteria of Martin Luther King Jr High School on Gratiot Avenue. She struggles now to just survive on her meager pension of $423 a month and now the State of Michigan may try to take even that away.
She remembers the good times of her youth growing up in Detroit when she and her friends would cruise Woodward Avenue celebrating life, playing Motown music on the car speakers for all the world to hear. Now she spends summers without air conditioning and winters without heat. The streetlights on her street stopped working years ago, and every night she fears some home invader could make it her last.
It didn’t used to be like this, but after her fire captain husband died in 1997 in a building fire, she was left to survive only on her pension. Her only child, a son, died in 2004 in Afghanistan.
[The problem]
One of the reasons Ezra’s pension is at risk is that Detroit’s pension system is broken, and out of money. One of the big factors in the insolvency is that there are a few individuals getting pensions that are as much as $150,000 a year. The pensions were put in place by the same managers who now loot the pension fund for their own obscenely large pensions, while Ezra hides in her closet at night, and can’t afford her arthritis medication so she keep doing her volunteer work at her church.
[The Solution]
Any person with a sense of social justice can see this situation is unfair. We have a responsibility to provide security to Ezra in her retirement. Since the Michigan Consitution protects the bloated pensions of the elite managers who make up the top 1% of pension recipients – many who started getting their pensions as early as age 50 after only working a few years. Fairness and equity demand that this situation of unequal pensions must end.
Since the benefits handed out to the rich retirees can’t be cut, the solution to this inequity is to impose a 90% equity fairness tax on any government retiree who has a pension exceeding 400% of the Federal Poverty Level (that would be around $40k a year). Those funds could then be used to keep the pension fund solvent so Ezra does not have to worry that her lifeline will suddenly vanish one day.
Any person with a shred of compassion has to agree with this plan. Don’t you agree?
Hmm.. Perhaps she should apply for social security and an Obamaphone?
No, no. The point is not to help Ezra! It’s to stir up resentment of those rich retirees!
Better than Ezra. 😉
Ah, yes the Detroit Dialectic!!! The case against pension inequality and Ezra Freeman’s poor situation. This is the dialectic at work on a local scale. Spot-on. Brilliant research, Art.
Thesis, the greed of the few who are receiving bloated pensions versus the poor pensioners like Ezra Freeman who are in a tragically poor situation through no fault of her own.
Antithesis, the social injustice of the few receiving bloated pensions. The elite managers who are the top 1% of pension recipients.
Synthesis, the solution is to tax the rich pensioners and distribute it to the poor pensioners and keep the pension fund solvent a little longer.
Anyone remember reading stories about Robin Hood while attending public school? It is the quintessential example of a Hegelian Dialectic, bringing about change in a three-step process: Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis. We were so fortunate to have a public school system overseen by our benevolent Federal Government to indoctrinate, er… to teach us so well.
One of my little annoying questions – the Bible says “Thou shalt not steal”. How is it not wrong that Robin Hood steals?
There you go again, Art. You’ve posed a difficult question, which requires a complicated response. Because of our indoctrination over a lifetime of learning from various teachers, and certain nefarious leaders, we have all been conditioned to exhibit certain behaviors or think certain thoughts by reflex. Sorta like the reflex conditioning training that, Ivan Pavlov used to train dogs to drool on command.
In order to affect a change in tax policy the Detroit Dialectic is pitting a population of poor pensioners who probably do adhere to traditional religious views on morality, against the rich ‘greedy’ pensioners. So what if the “Bible” says, ‘Thou shall not steal’? There are many people who do not adhere to traditional religious view of morality, certainly not by those who employ the Dialectic.
So the Robin Hood ‘stories’ were written to supplant traditional religious teachings by presenting a situation where greedy elites became rich and powerful only because they ‘stole’ from the poor. Entering from stage right was Robin’ Hood, a ‘do-gooder’ who extracts money from the rich elites and distributes it to the poor serfs. So technically it wasn’t really stealing, or was it? Depends on the situation, right?
Now, moving forward a few hundred years we find ourselves in modern America. Land of the free, home of the brave, baseball, apple pie and television. For sure, TV was an invention that changed virtually everyone’s perspective on just about everything, but especially with regard to the SITUATION. Entering from stage left, the SITUATION COMEDY. Now the Dialectic could really get rolling, no more of that harsh, right or wrong traditional religious stuff. Everything changed and it’s all better now, right?
So the question is, “How is it not wrong that Robin Hood steals?” Answer, “Well it depends on the situation.”
Here doggie, doggie, I have some wonderful delicious food for you to eat, and it’s FREE!!!
One of my Aha! moments was an interview with Mary Tyler Moore (did you know she has diabetes?). She was proudly explaining how Carl Reiner created the Dick Van Dyke show specifically to build acceptance of the notion of a JFK presidency and that Laura Petrie was specifically modeled after Jackie Kennedy. The brainwashing runs very deep.
The Flintstones were a parody of the Honeymooners.
And the Jetsons was a way to recycle Flintsone scripts
If the Jetsons were a way to recycle Flintstones scripts, how does one explain the episode where the Jetsons meet the Flintstones? 😉
The TV showed dehydrated Katrina survivors baking in the New Orleans sun without any help and without any fresh water. Some did break into abandoned stores and stole bottled water. Sometimes theft is the right thing, it really does depend on the situation.
See: situational ethics – welcome to the slippery slope
So we come to the place where this sort of argument always ends up, splitting hairs, folks begin to take sides, intractable position are developed, etc…….
Oh, Lord. We are Fluked unless we can somehow agree to who or what is the enemy or adversary and overcome our own failings. Perhaps the ultimate enemy is our own selfishness acting in a way that is a detriment to our neighbor or brother.
A wise man once said, “Lord, forgive my trespasses, as I forgive those who trespass against me.”
One of my favorite pictures:
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/RuDFcsqdCD0/maxresdefault.jpg
Hope our Ezra is safe…
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2013/08/03/third-womans-burned-body-found-on-detroits-west-side/
Wrong woman.
Ezra’s senior housinhg project finally got around to kicking out all the white suburban drug dealers living next door
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2013/07/30/police-id-drug-dealers-arrested-at-senior-housing-complex/
Sad.
parrott