December 8, 2010 THE VILLADOM TIMES care is a basic human right.” Good! My one objection is that, while the government should cover accidents and illnesses not brought on by selfabuse, it should simultaneously ban cigarette production, distilled liquor, and prescriptions of mind-altering drugs except in terminal cases, and not cover diseases brought on by chronic overeating or extreme promiscuity. Those of us who don’t do these things shouldn’t foot the bill for those who do. “Reduce the military budget 25 percent in 2012. Savings will fund health care, education for the young and unemployed, and the rebuilding of our country’s infrastructure.” Mostly good. With Stalin being dead and communism discredited, we don’t need huge masses of troops. Hightech weapons of the kind that won the wars against Iraq will suffice if bolstered by enough military personnel to hold the high ground. Parenthetically, using education programs to warehouse people who won’t serve and can’t learn is a huge waste of money. “Tax the top one percent ($1,400,000+ in average income) more and the bottom 90 percent less. Impose tax on security portfolios exceeding $1,000,000.” Excellent! Don’t send your son or daughter to die defending Bernie Madoff, either. I also wonder: Is anybody’s stock portfolio still worth more than $1 million? “Remove all U.S. troops and contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan in 2011.” Good. In a popular book now read in high school, Afghans spend a lot of time bragging about their exploits with women and boys. The author is an Afghan. There’s one way to reform people like that. If you aren’t ready for it, leave them alone. I think it was Aristotle who said most people get the government they deserve. Ditto with Iraq. The people we went there to help mostly wiped out the local Jews long before we got there and are wiping out the local Christians despite the presence of American troops. Save any Jews and Christians who are left. Save American lives by not looking for “weapons of mass destruction” that don’t exist. Mind our own business. “Rescind the Patriot Act.” Wrong. People with something to hide shouldn’t be here. Neither should “students” who come from countries that hate the West, arrive without wives or children, and say they want to be airline pilots. I’ve had my phone tapped twice because I’m a journalist. I wasn’t a terrorist or a criminal, so I had nothing to worry about. Overdone fear of surveillance probably has more to do with sexual paranoia or off-track betting than an obsession with constitutional rights. The feds don’t care IV • Page 23 In 1992, I was mostly working nights, so when the school system asked for a couple of men to join the women and the bus driver on a trip to the Bronx Zoo – protecting the animals from the kids, no doubt – I jumped at the chance. On the rather noisy bus ride with my daughter’s class, I heard Petra Kelly had been found dead. Kelly, born Petra Lehmann, was a Bavarian a few years younger than I. Her father didn’t want her, and sent her to town with a sign that said anybody who wanted the child could have her. Her stepfather, an American military man, gave her his name and a more supportive home life. Kelly was educated in a Roman Catholic convent school, and later studied in the United States as an exchange student. She spoke perfect English and returned to Europe with ideas based on Christianity, Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and some European socialists. She opposed the American war in Vietnam. She opposed the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. She opposed communist China’s brutal treatment of Tibet. She was right three times. As a full-time civil servant with the European Economic Community, she helped found the Green Party, which supported environmental and pacifist solutions to the problems of Europe and the world. She was supported in most of this by her older lover, General Gert Bastian, who was, incongruously enough, a general in the Bundeswehr. Bastian had survived a slander attack in which he was accused of being a homosexual, but was able to prove it was a frame-up. Kelly and Bastian were both depressed by world conditions. At some time in the autumn of 1992, Bastian appears to have shot Kelly and then himself, or so it was said. Their bodies were not found for several days. The Green Party suffered the fate of many other groups outside the money-grubbing mainstream. The mainstreamers borrowed some of their ideas, but disowned the leaders. The ideas weren’t all bad. Some of them were excellent. They didn’t lend themselves to corporate profits or to the adulation of voters who have been assiduously trained not to think by sports, flag-waving, and quick-flash advertising. This fall, I received a flyer from Ed Fanning, the Green Party candidate, to see how he reflected my personal biases. I can’t mention all of them, but a few key concepts follow. “Americans need to earn a living wage. Increase the minimum wage to $10 in 2011 and $12 in 2013.” Yes! The minimum wage in the United States is so absurdly low that it forces employed people to rely on food kitchens and forces people who don’t want, or can’t absorb, higher education to go to college. Given the collapse of manufacturing, most of them aren’t going to find jobs anyway. “Pay for elections directly. Stop paying for favors to big campaign donors.” Yes again! Knee-jerk votes for the Talking Head who spends the most on campaign ads got us where we are today. The alternative could have been just as bad or worse. “Provide universal, single-payer health care. Health Is ‘Green’ really right for America? when you call for a pizza. “Assume leadership to halt global warming by investing billions to develop solar, wind, hydro, agricultural, and other renewable energy.” Very good. Using some of the unemployed to work on constructing these sites is also a good plan, but the oil companies won’t go for it, and guess who helped get us into Iraq. “Restrict handguns and ban automatic weapons.” Duh. New Jersey already does both. To own a handgun, you have to be at least 21 years of age and have a letter from your police chief. To carry a concealed weapon, you need a letter from a judge. Automatic weapons are banned just about everywhere in the United States, unless you’re making Hollywood gangster movies and shooting blanks. “Substitute life without parole for the death penalty.” Good for the wrong reason. Some years ago, a police detective (who is now facing criminal charges for extortion) used fear of the death penalty to get four terrified young sailors – the Norfolk Four -- to incriminate one another and confess that they were rapists and murderers. DNA and polygraphs were all wrong for their conviction, but coerced confessions sent them all to prison until the real rapist and murderer wrote a letter bragging about the crime and his DNA matched. Irresponsible police interrogation has probably sent quite a few innocent people to death row. Much of what the Green Party of 2010 America wants to do makes good sense. It is, of course, all socialism, but socialism of one kind or another is virtually unavoidable once brain power replaces brute strength, because most people aren’t smart enough, or perhaps greedy enough, to thrive in a free-market economy once agriculture goes industrial and the repair service trades are replaced by the availability of cheap imports. Who still darns socks? Much of the good sense flounders on a few kindly delusions. A significant number of Americans are not smart enough or self-disciplined enough to absorb a meaningful college education. Institutional and religious scholarships for those who are smart enough already exist in considerable numbers. The daunting fact is that IQ and family background are the two dominating factors in educational success. If you haven’t got one or both, there is really no point in trying. I think the Green people have their hearts in the right place, and they could well be smarter than the average voter. We need to take care of the environment and offer a realistic minimum wage. However, if overpriced education under the present system were the answer to all our problems, we wouldn’t have had the problems in the first place. Safe surfing! Mahwah Police Detective Guido Bussinelli recently presented a workshop on Internet Safety to all fourth and fifth grade students at the Joyce Kilmer School. Pictured (front row) are fourth grade students. Back row: Officer Horn, Principal Andrea Petho, and Detective Bussinelli.