My friend Julie, the one who sends me the bulk of the jokes I post in the Forwards section of this site, and I go way back. We met in College in 1987 when we were Freshmen.

Way back then, we were both heavy into activism ( I was chair of Amensty International, she was chair or at least a member of everything else). We were raging idealists who erected and lived in shanty towns, marched on Washington, wrote letters to heads of state, staged sit-ins and walked around with petitions. While a lot of our ranting went unnoticed, we did manage to affect some change. We got enough students together to get our University to divest from South Africa. We got a political prisoner, Rev. Simon Farasani, released from prison, and he came to visit us. We kept a McDonald's out of our college town. Stuff like that makes me not regret one single bit of energy I spent in my teens and 20s.

These days, I pick my causes very carefully, don't tend to protest much, and spend more money than time with Amnesty International. That's kind of sad.

Anyhow, Julie sent me the following letter today - I don't think she wrote it herself, and perhaps it is an old forward that I just never saw before. It spoke to the part of me that used to go to, well, political meetings that probably have me on F.B.I. lists today. The part of me that still says, "what the fuck?! A government for the people BY the people? WHERE?!" Rather than forward this to everyone, which just gets annoying, I thought I'd put it in my blog. It is short and to the point.


SOCIAL SECURITY: Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years. Our Senators and Congressmen do not pay into Social Security and, of course,do not collect from it. Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. They felt they should have a special plan for themselves.

Many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan. In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan. For all practical purposes their plan works like this: When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die, except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments. For example, former Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight Hundred Thousand), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives. This is calculated on an average life span for each.

Their cost for this excellent plan is $00.00. This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds--our tax dollars at work! From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into--every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employers) --we can expect to get an average $1,000 per month after retirement. In other words, we would have to get benefits for 68 years and one month to equal Bradley's benefits!

Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made. And that change would be to jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us and then watch how fast they would fix it. If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe good changes will evolve.

The question is - how fair is it that our politicians don't have to live by the statues they mandate for us? What can we do about it?