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THE SUCKER TAX

By R. Cort Kirkwood, Daily News-Record, Harrisonburg, Virginia

(12/27/2002)--When one person wins $315 million on a single lottery ticket, as the Powerball champ in West Virginia did, Americans bet even more on lotteries. It's a good reason to call lotteries "The Sucker Tax."

Yet lotteries are more than a levy upon the cerebrally challenged. They are a fraud upon taxpayers, who were told lotteries would bolster state and local government spending, particularly for education, without tax increases.

Unhappily, that promise was, like so many others we hear from politicians, a big, fat lie.

A typical player

Yet let's start from the beginning, with the lottery being a sucker's bet. Like casino gambling, the odds in lotteries are stacked against the player. Occasionally, they win a trifle, but long term, regular players lose money, unless they hit the bazillion-to-one shot.

The lucky building contractor in West Virginia was not a regular player. He buys $100 in tickets, news reports have it, when the Powerball jackpot exceeds $100 million. He buys on a lark, just for fun.

In short, the lottery is a sure loser. You don't have a better chance of winning if you play the same daily number, and you cannot predict, by following the numbers that do win, what number will come next. Each time the lottery machine juggles numbers to conjure the winning combination, you have the same chance of winning. Play once a day; play once a week. Play once a month or once a year. You have the same chance of winning as of getting kidnapped by aliens: zero.

One player profile is sadly typical. How often we see a poorly-clad woman in the 7-Eleven, toting a shoeless child, carton of cigarettes and six-pack of beer, plunk down $20 for lottery tickets. She can't read the first sentence of an eighth-grade reader without tripping, but she can rattle off lottery combos with the lingual alacrity of a professional auctioneer.

Those who can least afford lottery tickets are some of the lottery's biggest and best customers. They are the least educated and most dimwitted. Educated bureaucrats and politicians exploit their ignorance.

Thus, "The Sucker Tax."

The lie

But back to the big lie.

Across America, elected officials pitched the lottery as a certain measure to swell government coffers, particularly for education. But guess what? It didn't happen, Virginia being a fine example. Despite hundreds of millions in lottery revenues, the commonwealth suffers a catastrophic budget crisis, at least by the lights of the big spenders. A main problem? "Underfunded" public schools.

Other states tell similar stories. Everywhere, almost every day, we hear state officials and educrats whine about money problems that lotteries were supposed to alleviate. Even as the states unload trucks full of cash, the hue and cry for more spending gets louder.

If lotteries were as profitable as advertised, state lottery revenues should have eliminated the need for a federal education department. Its budget rises yearly.

Give them money, they will spend

The lottery's failure to ease budget woes is no surprise.

The Leviathan State inexorably grows and spends excessively. Give politicians and bureaucrats, particularly educationists, more money, and they will spend it ... then ask for more. That's what happened with lottery money. Budgets rose to spend what lotteries collect; now, politicians are hooked on the extra revenue.

Imagine the fiscal calamity if everyone stopped playing. Fat chance.

Barnum said it: A sucker is born every minute.

See also the original article at AgapePress. R. Cort Kirkwood is a syndicated columnist and managing editor of the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He can be contacted at kirkwood@shentel.net.

 

WHY NOT TRAIN ISRAELIS IN THE ART OF DE-COLONIZATION?

By Khaled Al-Maeena, Arab News editor-in-chief

(12/27/2002)--Recently I read a report that the daughter of US Vice President Cheney, Elizabeth Cheney, a deputy assistant secretary of state, had supervised a training program on democracy for some 50 Arab women from 12 countries. Among the women were two Saudis. (I did wonder what qualifications Ms. Cheney had for this particular job. Does she have one other than her father’s being vice president? To be fair to her, I admit that I have no idea about her qualifications. At the same time, it seems certain that her father’s job was not a liability in her being employed by the State Department. So the long arm of "wasta" is even alive and flourishing in the United States.)

Now throughout my life, I have always been an advocate of training. I have believed in it for years, going back to when I worked for Saudi Arabian Airlines. At the time--early 1980s--Saudia’s training facilities and procedures were among the best in the world, better even than those of Lufthansa and KLM, synonyms respectively for German and Dutch airline efficiency. What particularly drew my attention to the news item, however, was not only the word "training" but the word "democracy."

Just as I am an advocate of training, so I am also an advocate of democracy. And believe firmly that it is our God-given right to express ourselves freely and without fear on any subject. Islam stresses human rights, the need for dialogue and the need to be compassionate and kind to our fellow human beings. It focuses on tolerance and many political ideals which the West today claims as its own are in fact also Islamic ones. If Arabs and Muslims unfortunately choose not to follow these ideals, that is their problem and the results are too familiar for me to comment on.

What seems strange to me is that the State Department decided to conduct such a program at this very sensitive time. On its agenda were meetings with the vice president’s wife (Miss Cheney’s mother?), Condoleezza Rice and other senior officials. Education in any form is good and I am in favor of it. Though I am not a medical doctor, I sometimes attend medical conferences and seminars just to keep up with what is going on.

With the desire to disseminate information ever present, I must respectfully offer a suggestion to Mr. George W. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Ms. Rice and the entire American administration: Why not sponsor a similar training program for Sharon, Peres and the other blood-thirsty Israeli politicians and generals? The Arabs may need to learn what democracy is all about but the Israeli need to learn some basic lessons in humanity is far greater. They could be taught the meaning of "Peace through Withdrawal." They might also have a class or two on "Rage Control," "How to Treat Children" and "How to Deal with Those who Clamor for the God-given Human Rights of Self-Determination and Self-Government." Surely these items could be included in the extremely generous annual American aid package to Israel. After all, American economic and military aid to Israel over the past 50 years is approaching $90 billion! With a budget that size, the State Department will surely be able to hire the best psychologists, analysts and PR people to educate Sharon and his supporters. Why not try Qorvis Communications!

With any luck, the State Department might even slip in a few experts who would be able--or who could at least try--to change the Israeli mindset and attitudes which bear a large share of responsibility for the present situation in the Middle East. In the event of a failure to appropriate funds from the usual US government sources, there are surely quite a few Arabs who would willingly pull out their checkbooks. Wouldn’t they consider that a worthy cause?

Now speaking of worthy causes and aid to the region, do you know what the Americans--in fact Colin Powell himself--have just announced? The United States, ever willing to take on new and virtually impossible burdens, has decided to undertake a program "to modernize Arab society." Exactly what this means and encompasses, I cannot say nor do the articles I have read give a very clear idea. Does it mean the "Americanization" of the Arab world? The amount that is mentioned--$29 million--is ludicrously small for the 22 Arab countries if the aim of the program is genuinely "to deflect radicalism and help educate Arab children and liberate women from illiteracy and poverty." Those are noble aims though one suspects that "radicalism" is defined as not agreeing 100 percent with the American line or way of doing things. Along with many Arabs, the Americans have rightly been worried and very uneasy about a recent UN report revealing the extent of illiteracy and the low level of education in the Arab world. No doubt, these need to be addressed--immediately and in all seriousness. If we are to get value for that $29 million, we need some more details, some idea of how things are to work and be implemented. It might even be possible that those same Arabs who would reach for their checkbooks to enlighten the Israelis would be equally willing to help the Americans in "modernizing Arab society." Isn’t that also a very worthy cause?

See also the original article at Arab News. The writer can be reached at almaeena@arabnews.com.

 

OUR PRAYER FOR PHIL
Philip Berrigan: October 5, 1923 - December 6, 2002

By Robert M. Smith, Brandywine Peace Community staff coordinator

(12/27/2002)--A whole generation of activists have the photograph etched in their memory. Two Catholic priests, Philip and Daniel Berrigan, setting ablaze hundreds of draft files that they, along with 7 others, had just removed from a draft board in Catonsville, Maryland.

Seven months before the act of the "Catonsville 9" in which the resisters stated that it is better to "burn papers instead of children" in Vietnam, Philip Berrigan, along with 3 others, entered a draft board in Baltimore, Maryland, and poured blood on the 1A draft files in protest of the Vietnam War. Philip Berrigan received a seven year jail sentence and became the first Roman Catholic Priest to be jailed for political acts.

Philip Berrigan became the standard-bearer for conscience and nonviolent resistance, first to the war in Vietnam, then the war culture of militarism and nuclear weapons . Decades later, as Phil stood in a Maine courtroom charged with hammering on the missile hatches of a Aegis warship, the judge in the case referred to Phil as "the conscience of a generation." That conscience, and it was red hot (I know, having experienced it in acts of civil disobedience and time spent in jail with Phil), was born of what Phil experienced and saw.

In World War II, he was an artillery officer. After discharge from the military, he was ordained a Catholic priest, in the Josephite order which is devoted to ministry among African-Americans in the inner city. He was the first priest to ride in a Civil Rights Freedom Ride. After his first book, No More Strangers, was published, Stokely Carmichael said that "Philip Berrigan was one of the few white people who understood." After the Vietnam War and more than three years in jail, Phil, having married Elizabeth McAlister, co- founded the Jonah House community of war resisters in Baltimore, MD which for the past 30 years has been the spiritual center of nonviolent resistance to war-making.

So much owes its life line to Jonah House (I know that because the Brandywine Peace Community, which I co-founded more than 25 years ago, would not have existed without Jonah House). In 1974 and 1975, his children, Frida and Jerry, were born. In 1975 with Jonah House at the center, the Altlantic Life Community was formed by communities of resistance on the East Coast. All the while, the arrests and jailings continued to mount.

Then something else, something new, something even more prophetic happened. On the morning of September 9, 1980, Phil along with his brother, Dan, and six others, entered a General Electric plant (now:Lockheed Martin) in King of Prussia and hammered on Mark 12A nuclear warhead casings. The "Plowshares 8" was the first act of nuclear disarmament for peace and the first in more than 72 Plowshares disarmament actions around the world. In 1981, Phil's daughter, Kate, was born. Between 1980 and 1999, Phil organized and partook in 5 more Plowshares actions, resulting in 7 years imprisonment.

In 1996, Phil published his autobiography, Fighting the Lamb's War. On December 14, 2001, Phil was released from a prison in Elkton, Ohio after nearly a year of imprisonment for his final Plowshares action. Phil spent eleven of his 79 years in prison. On December 6, 2002, surrounded by family and friends at Jonah House, Phil died from kidney and liver cancer.

Many years ago, while serving a 30 day sentence for civil disobedience with Phil at the Pentagon and at a time when I was feeling low, I asked him "if this ever gets any easier?". He responded: "sure, when you stop asking yourself that!". That was Phi Berrigan. You don't give up, no matter what, because as he use to say "we can't let them burn the planet down."

Good bye, Phil, ("ole buddy", as we use to say). Our prayer for you now is that we continue.

If you're against a war, the Brandywine Peace Community offers you so many opportunities to learn more and express your opposition that you're sure to see an event announcement that grabs you, if you'll join the Brandywine announcement list by sending an e-mail to brandywine@juno.com.

 

FAMILIES IN BURKINA FASO PARTICIPATE IN EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

From CHURCH WORLD SERVICE

KOUNTAABO, Burkina Faso (12/27/2002)--Eighty women and seventy men are participating in a community garden project that is producing extra food and income during the long annual dry season. The president of the women's association, Mrs. Kabré Sibri, stresses how important the garden is to the village. "Before we had the garden, it was often difficult to find food to eat. People would spend their entire day looking for food, not knowing what they would find to eat the next day."

The people of Kountaabo can now produce additional food to augment their grain stocks. Through the CWS TOOLS OF HOPE & BLANKET Program, they have received garden tools, an initial supply of vegetable seeds, fencing for garden protection, and funds to construct wells for water supply. They have learned new gardening techniques and how to compost, and they have been encouraged to plant Moringa trees between rows of vegetable beds to provide an additional source of nutrition.

This project has been implemented by a local NGO called Promo-Femmes/ Développment-Solidarité (Promotion of Women / Development and Solidarity), a CWS partner since 1994. PF/DS promotes women's rights and the participation of women in decision-making.

PF/DS helps develop community gardens, operates a small credit program, installs wells for village water supply, creates village health and maternity centers, provides women access to labor-saving technologies such as cereal mills, runs adult literacy classes, and provides training seminars in civil rights, and management of cooperatives.

Under a tree at another village, a theatre group presents a skit before an audience of men and women from the village. The skit presents questions about the roles of men and women in traditional and modern society. This theatre group is the PF/DS entry point to a series of seminars that will take place here. The community will be encouraged to explore and debate civil rights, the importance of education for girls, HIV/AIDS, and the need for changes in traditional practices such as female circumcision.

PF/DS invites local authorities to come to the village to help couples legally register their marriages and for women to obtain national identity cards with which they can vote, travel freely, and more easily enroll their children in school. PF/DS also conducts training in civil law for the members of local tribunals responsible for settling legal disputes. Often these tribunals are composed of people with no formal education and little knowledge of the law they are responsible for administering.

See also Tools of Hope: Hopeful Harvest at CHURCH WORLD SERVICE.

 

AS JOBLESS BENEFITS RUN OUT, 'WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO?'

By Stephanie Armour, USA Today

(12/23/2002)--Many Americans who lose their jobs are confident that safety nets such as severance packages or unemployment benefits will support them until they find another job.

Think again. Tens of thousands of unemployed workers are now finding the money's run out, and the situation is worsening.

The percentage of unemployed workers exhausting their regular unemployment benefits before finding work has reached a record and is continuing to rise. Three days after Christmas, about 800,000 workers will see their federal benefits cut off. That's because Congress adjourned in November without passing legislation that would have extended temporary federal unemployment benefits.

An additional 95,000 jobless workers will run out of state unemployment benefits each week, according to the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a non-partisan research and policy group.

Some job seekers are facing homelessness, living on credit cards or draining retirement funds.

Food-service supervisor Miriam Haigler lost her job in June 2001, and the $286 a week in unemployment benefits she was getting ran out in August. Now Haigler, 60, can't afford health insurance. She's living on maxed- out credit cards. What she does earn working five hours a day at a vocational center isn't enough to cover her mortgage and groceries.

''I see why there are so many homeless people,'' says Haigler of Philadelphia. ''For the first time, I see that could be me.''

According to November data from the Department of Labor, about 1.7 million people have been out of work six months or longer -- the most since 1994.

But with economists projecting a weak economic rebound in 2003 and 8.5 million people now out of work, labor advocates say the benefit cutoffs couldn't come at a worse time. The unemployment rate in November reached 6%, up from 5.7% in March, when federal emergency unemployment benefits were enacted by Congress.

In the last recession, in the early 1990s, Congress approved five benefit extensions, which kept the federal program in place for 30 months. At the peak, individuals in high unemployment states could receive up to 33 weeks of federal unemployment benefits. This time, there has been one extension with a maximum of 26 weeks in high unemployment states.

And during the last recession, federal benefit programs were ended when the long-term unemployment rate was declining. This time, the rate is still going up. Those unemployed more than six months increased again in November, to 1.7 million people, up from 1.3 million in March. That's also up from 696,000 when the recession began in March 2001.

The unemployed who are hardest hit right now include lower-income, less educated and minority workers -- those who are often least prepared financially to weather extended unemployment.

See also the original article with photo and a table showing the number of people losing unemployment benefits, by state at USA Today.

 

PROTESTING IS GOOD FOR YOU, SAY PSYCHOLOGISTS

From the University of Sussex

(12/16/2002)--A study by psychologists at the University of Sussex has found that as well as potentially changing the world, participation in protests and demonstrations is actually good for you. This is one of the findings of a large-scale interview study led by Dr John Drury, Lecturer in Social Psychology, into protest crowds and social movements, often known as 'collective action'.

"Many published activist accounts refer to feelings of encouragement and confidence emerging from experiences of collective action," says Dr Drury. "But it is not always clear how and why such empowerment occurs, so we aimed to explain what factors within a collective action event contribute most to such feelings."

The study involved in-depth interviews with nearly 40 activists from a variety of backgrounds, in which over 160 experiences of collective action were described. The range of events described by interviewees included traditional marches, fox-hunt sabotages, anti-capitalist street parties, environmental direct actions, and industrial mass pickets.

"The main factors contributing to a sense of empowerment were the realization of the collective identity, the sense of movement potential, unity and mutual support within a crowd," says Dr Drury.

"However, what was also interesting was the centrality of emotion in the accounts. Empowering events were almost without exception described as joyous occasions. Participants experienced a deep sense of happiness and even euphoria in being involved in protest events. Simply recounting the events in the interview itself brought a smile to the faces of the interviewees."

Psychologists have become increasingly interested in the role of positive experiences and emotions not just in making people feel good but also in promoting psychological and physical health. Uplifting experiences are associated with a variety of indicators of well-being, such as speed of physiological recovery; ability to cope with physical stressors; and the reduction of pain, anxiety and depression.

"Collective actions, such as protests, strikes, occupations and demonstrations, are less common in the UK than they were perhaps 20 years ago," says Dr Drury. "The take-home message from this research therefore might be that people should get more involved in campaigns, struggles and social movements, not only in the wider interest of social change, but also for their own personal good."

See also the original article with press contacts at the Press and Communications Office of the University of Sussex.

 

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