More CWA

April 8, 2008

This morning, the first panel session I attended
ran from 11 AM to 12:20 PM. It was titled "Poverty
American-Style." This was pretty depressing. Much
of what I heard was not new i.e. the prisons are big
business and the majority of inmates are black, teen-
age pregnancy more common in the poor communities and
so forth.

One story that made my hair stand up was the following:
There is an organization called "Small Smiles." They
are among the very few organizations or private dental
practiced that take Medicaid. All of their small clients
are on Medicaid. Sounds good, doesn't it, but how do
they do it. This is not a charity. They are making
a profit. How they do it...first, the parent is not
allowed into the room where the child will be examined
and/or treated. Second, they have "production" goals.
The more patients treated and the higher the bill the
happier the organization is and the more likely the
dentist or hygienist will get a good bonus. And, finally,
what do they do to these children? They are strapped down
to a "papoose board." They take multiple x-rays; they do
root canals; they fill teeth that don't need to be filled
and on and on and on. The Carlisle group which supports
this calls it "drilling for dollars!"

There were many other examples of how the poor in the
US are being mis-treated. Much of it through the baking
of Home Land Security! Another horror story was how
a young man who blew the whistle on one of the egregious
acts of Home Land Security was railroaded into prison for
harboring his girlfriend. In the process his car was
ceased by Immigration, much like property is taken in
drug cases although the speaker was not aware of any
law passed that would allow this.

The Plenary session followed this and was titled "Why
Africa is Poor." The speaker, from Africa, described
white Colonialism and that Africa has never really
gotten past that. The western world assumes that
all the countries need to do is have a Western-style
democracy, but Africa is such a tribal continent that

Western-style democracy doesn't work and corruption
is so rampant that there is no money left to do
anything for the people.

I attended two other panels, "Foreign Policy: The Shape
of Things to Come" and "Water, Water Every Where Nor Any
Drop to Drink." They were both very well attended and
very interesting. The issue was raised about the military
in space and how since Eisenhower the policy has been, "
Space for Peace," but that is changing. Another speaker
noted how quiet all the candidates are on foreign policy
and no one seems concerned about our obscene budget for
"defense."

The one about water discussed ways of producing water such
as desalinization, but the over-all discussion was about
the coming shortage of water through out the world and
what some countries are doing about it. Much of the
discussion centered on the western US and on how much
of the fish habitat has been spoiled throughout the west.
But that the dams are finally coming down. I didn't realize
how inefficient a way to store water that is. But, clearly
here where evaporation is powerful the storage of water
above ground doesn't make sense. Laws against rain barrels
as we have in Boulder County don't make sense either. It
was a lively discussion and very relevant in our dry area.
We have had very little snow this year so we are in for
a long dry summer!