Greg Hartnett

Yesterday was a bummer.

I received a phone call from my sister-in-law Friday afternoon informing me that my Golden Retriever, Simba, had taken a turn for the worse. In early April, I noticed a large (lemon sized) bump on his back. After bringing him in to see a vet, he was unfortunately diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer. The vet informed me that it would be foolish to try to battle such an aggressive strain of cancer for a dog in the twilight of life.

So for the last few months, we had watched Simba transform from a strong, energetic dog into a shell of his former self. The tumor on his back grew to the size of a small watermelon, and Thursday night actually broke through his skin. Friday morning he woke with a fever, and could barely move. So after a long conversation, my wife and I decided that it was time to euthanize him. His condition was only worsening, and we couldn’t bear to have him suffer.

So I woke early Saturday morning, and made the 110 mile trip to San Francisco (Simba had been staying with my sister-in-law for the last week) to put my dog down. Most of the drive I spent in contemplation, remembering the times we spent together, and how I could have been a better owner, and provided him with a better life.

I picked him up shortly before 10AM at my sister-in-law’s, and after lifting him up and putting him in the back of my pick-up, we made the journey to the vet’s, just 10 blocks away, though it seemed an eternity to get there.

Upon arrival at the vet, we waited in the reception area until they were ready for us. Simba wanted to mingle with the other dogs in the office, completely oblivious to his imminent demise. After waiting for approximately 15 minutes, we were ushered into a small examination area, equipped with little more than a x-ray machine and an examination table.

After speaking briefly with the vet, I gently picked Simba up and placed him on the examination table. The vet told us what to expect (it’s basically an overdose of anesthesia), and assured us that he would experience no pain whatsoever during the process. So we spent the next couple of minutes saying our goodbyes while the doctor prepared the solution.

And then came one of the most difficult and powerful moments I have yet to experience. As the doctor administered the lethal injection, I held Simba’s head in my arms, and whispered “I love you” over and over again into his ear. I placed his nose against my mine, and felt the warm, salty tears begin to flow freely down my cheeks and onto my lips. I squeezed tightly and assured him that everything was going to be OK. And then, he was gone. His eyes, though still open, were completely unresponsive, and his body was limp. I peered into his eyes, only to see a small refection of myself staring back at me (I wish I hadn’t done that - that image will haunt me). I couldn’t get his eyes to stay shut, so in an attempt to avoid that death stare, I folded his left ear over his eye. I then held him for another minute or two until my sobbing had subsided.

Once the ordeal was completed, I hopped into my truck and sped home as fast as I could. My in-laws wanted to take me out to lunch, but all I could think of was returning home to sulk on my couch. So I drove home - silently the entire way. When I got back, I held Simba’s collar in my hand, and took one last trip where we used to take our daily walks. When I got home, I couldn’t contain the emotion, and stood bawling in my kitchen for a few minutes - it felt great to let it out, alone and unfettered.

Simba, you were truly a great dog, and you will be missed. Thank you for all the great times we had. Thanks for letting my kids pull your ears, ride on you, and treat you as their own amusement park. I could not have asked for a better dog - I love you Simba.

In the debate over Social Security, President Bush’s handlers have already won some victories, at least in the short term.

Bush and Karl Rove, his deputy chief of staff, have succeeded in convincing most of the US population, including more than two-thirds of college students, that there is a serious problem with Social Security, which opens the way for considering the administration’s program of private accounts instead of relying on the public pension system. The public has been frightened, much as it was by the imminent threat of Sadaam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. The pressure on politicians is rising as leaders in the US House of Representatives hope to draft Social Security legislation by next month (June 2005).

For perspective, perhaps it should be noted that Social Security is one of the least generous public pension systems among advanced countries, according to a new report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The Bush administration wants to “reform” Social Security - meaning dismantle it. A huge government-media propaganda campaign has concocted a “fiscal crisis” that is mostly imaginary. If some problem does arise in the distant future, it could be overcome by trivial measures, such as raising the cap on the regressive payroll tax.

The official story is that the baby boomers are going to impose a greater burden on the system because the number of working people relative to the elderly will decline, which is true. But what happened to the baby boomers when they were zero to twenty? Weren’t working people taking care of them? And it was a much poorer society then.

In the 1960s the demographics caused a problem but hardly a crisis. The bulge was met by a big increase in expenditures in schools and other facilities for children. The problem wasn’t huge when the baby boomers were zero to twenty, so why when they’re seventy to ninety?

The relevant number is what’s called the dependency ratio of working people to population. That ratio reached its lowest point in 1965. It won’t reach that point again until 2080, according to Social Security Administration figures. Projections that far ahead are meaningless.

Furthermore, any fiscal problem that might arise in caring for the elderly boomers has already been paid for, by the payroll tax rise of 1983, designed for this purpose. And by the time the last boomer has died, the society will be far richer, with each worker producing far greater wealth.

In other words, we’re already past that crisis. Anything that comes is just a matter of one or another kind of adjustment.

Meanwhile a very real fiscal crisis is looming: namely medical care. The United States has one of the most inefficient systems in the industrialized world, with per capita costs far higher than other nations and among the worst health outcomes. The system is privatized, one reason why it’s so inefficient, with administrative costs far higher than Medicare or public programs in other countries, among many other severe flaws inherent in privatized health care.

But “reforming” the health-care system is not on the agenda. So we face an apparent paradox: The real and very serious fiscal crisis is no crisis, and the non-crisis requires drastic action to undermine an efficient system that is quite sound.

Rational observers will seek differences between the Social Security and health-care systems that might explain the paradox.

Some of the reasons seem clear. You can’t go after a health system under the control of insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations. That system is immune, and will remain so even if it is causing tremendous financial problems (quite apart from the human cost), until some other sector of concentrated power, probably manufacturing industry, throws its weight into the fray on this issue - or better, until formal democratic institutions function sufficiantly well for public opinion to become a factor in policy formation.

A further reason is that Social Security is of little value for the rich though it is crucial for survival for working people, the poor, their dependents, and the disabled. And as a government program, it has such low administrative costs that it offers nothing to financial institutions. It benefits only the “underlying population,” not the “substantial citizens,” to borrow Thorstein Veblen’s acid terminology.

The medical system, however, works very well for the people who matter. Health care is effectively rationed by wealth, and enormous profits flow to private power thanks to management practices geared to profit, not health care. The underlying population can be treated with lectures on responsibility.

The US Congress has recently enacted bankruptcy reform that tightens the stranglehold on the underlying population. About half of US bankruptcies result from medical bills.

Opinion and official policy are once again in conflict. As in the past, most Americans favor national health insurance. To cite just one of many illustrations, in a 2003 Washington Post-ABC News poll, 80 percent regarded universal health care as “more important than holding down taxes.”

Quite apart from these considerations, Social Security is based on an extremely dangerous principle: that you should care whether the widow across town has food to eat. The Social Security “reformers” would rather have you concentrate on maximizing your own consumption of goods and subordinating yourself to power. Caring for other people, and taking community responsibility for things like health and retirement - that’s deeply subversive.

- Noam Chomsky, Interventions pp 129-132