Repaying Our Heroes With Disease, Financial Hardship and Death.

The devastating death toll for 9/11 responders and other World Trade Center workers nears 1,000, and no one knows why. So, doctors and some New York legislators are urging the "federal Department of Health and Human Services to draft autopsy protocols to pinpoint 9/11-related fatalities."

Of those nearly 1,000 people who died from 9/11 exposure, only a handful of deaths were officially linked to the toxins generated by the collapsed towers. And not before some of them were labeled drug abusers by the city. That's the thanks they get.

"It was heart-wrenching," said Joe Zadroga, who watched his NYPD officer son, James, slowly deteriorate from scarred lungs until he died in 2007.

Relatives and friends know in their hearts what really killed the hero in their family - even if health officials refuse to recognize it.

"I mean, we knew what he died from. We dealt with it for four years," Zadroga added.

A medical examiner in New Jersey had ruled James Zadroga died from 9/11 exposure, only to have the city declare - for a time - that drug abuse killed him.

The city later relented, but Zadroga is one of only a handful of people whose death has been officially linked to the toxins of the ruined twin towers.

As of June 2009, the death toll was approximately 916 responders.  Doctors believe the total will be well over 1,000 in the next survey this year.

The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, a $7.4 billion bill that would re-open the 9/11 compensation fund for new payments, especially for claims based on health problems resulting from debris removal is currently waiting for Sen. Scott Brown's vote.    Meanwhile our 9/11 heroes continue to suffer, not only from the terrible physical and psychological symptoms that arose from all of the toxins they breathed in, as they labored endlessly, but from financial hardship, as well.Sept.

11 responders are headed for Massachusetts Tuesday, searching for the last vote they need to pass the 9/11 health bill in the form of Sen. Scott Brown.

Backers of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act believe they have 59 votes for the $7.4 billion measure, and they need one more to break any chance of a Republican filibuster of the bill. So far, just newly elected Sen. Mark Kirk is the only member of the GOP to get on board. Brown, responders hope, will be the second.

The Republicans are worried about bogus claims, illegal immigrants possibly getting help, and adding to the deficit. But isn't it funny how they're not worried about adding $700 billion to the deficit, should their Bush tax-cuts for the filthy rich get extended? 

A few words from just a few of the many 9/11 heroes:

"I'm a 40 year old retired cop from the First Pct. in lower manhattan. I was there the morning of 9/11 and worked over 2,100 hours in the pit the months that followed. My breathing ailments are too long to get into and I understand I will be heavily medicated for whatever time I have left. I'm writing this and urging passage of this bill for my kids sake. (Ages 8  and 6)What's done is done but at least give me the peace of mind of knowing they will be taken care of." --  Ret. PO Dave Smith (smitty 02/11/2009 2:54pm)

"This bill needs to be passed! My husband was there on 9/11 and suffered no ill effects until 2 years ago. He has had 3 operations and is now on all kinds of respiratory medications. It is a battle to get the medications covered and going to the doctors has become a full time job. He is waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is only the beginning, he can't even go anywhere without a WTC coughing fit. His quality of life has diminished rapidly and he is not the only one. He will ultimately be another casualtly of 9/11 and be degraded along the way. Please support this bill for all the workers who survived that horrific day only to suffer in the subsequent years.
Thank you from a wife who is watching her former hulk of a husband wither before her eyes." -- jkkdbm 02/09/2009 1:31pm

"I am one of the forgotten rescue workers who spent weeks and months in the "pit". I do not seek glory or a pat on the back for what I did. I live with the choices I made. I wouldn't change a thing except I hate to see my family watch me deteriorate. I can't do things I used to, I have no energy, I can't breathe, I can't sleep. I am waiting for the inevitable and it sucks. I never smoked and now I am on all kinds of respiratory meds and a machine at night. Please pass this bill, I am not the only one in this position. Passage will help the people and families of those who dedicated their time and for some, their lives, to help others in need. God Bless America!" -- smbfec 05/05/2009 1:38pm

"I am one of the very forgotten ones. I was a pure volunteer on 9/11, was one of the first on the scene to help rescue Will and John, have pics to prove it. But after going in circles with the powers to be about my health and what seemed to be a correlation between Mt.Sinai losing our info and my health care getting cancelled I wonder if I would do it again. It would be nice to know that it all wasn't for nothing. How quickly we were forgotten and treated like second class citizens. I never smoked and was in tremendously fit condition before my time at the WTC. Now I am plagued with respiratory and other health issues. All I hear is we're studying it and we'll let you know what if any help is available to you.So it's about time those of us who volunteered, weren't paid are remembered and at least given the dignity of good health care. We don't have union benefits to fall back on. It was bad for all of us that were there, we were there when you needed us now be there when we need you." - Drmini 07/13/2009 7:30pm

"I am a retired fireman who spent countless hours in "the pit". There are no pictures of me down at the site because i was deep in bowels of what was left of these buildings.
i used to run marthons now i can't walk up a flight of stairs with wheezing.i take eight medications and need a machne to sleep. i know there are men woman and children that are in worse shape than me, so i don't complain. i just want to urge our elected officials to to pass this bill.
Thank you and god bless" -- rescueman 06/25/2009 1:19pm

"Since my work at ground zero i almost died from mold infection in march 2002. I was in respiratory failure. I now have PTSD, Fibromyalgia, Thyroid cancer, chronic headaches, Acid reflux, Chronic fatigue, Sinusitis, Asthma,and concrete nodules in my lung. Wde share the same burdens. Many men are no longer able to work to support our familys.We cannot afford health insurance. I hope that as americans we are all united together. thank you and god bless -- wreckehead 09/04/2009 5:42am

"God bless Firefighter John Mcnamara E234 who passed in aug 09. Richie Mannetta E276 and PO's Diaz and Grossman from the 28 pct. All died this week of 9/11 related disease." -- jamesirc 10/11/2009 1:02pm

Sadly, almost two years later, I'm sure some of these brave rescue workers passed on, never having received the support they deserved.

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The Impoverished Elite

After watching, Johnson and Johnson heir, Jamie Johnson's documentary, The One Percent, which explores the "political, moral and emotional rationale that enables a tiny percentage of Americans - the one percent - to control nearly half the wealth of the entire United States" it reminded me of a conversation I had years ago, while attending college.

"Today's wealthy have become an increasingly isolated elite....rather than using their wealth for good, they have used it to restructure the economy, lower their taxes, cut social programs for the middle and lower classes, and amass ever more wealth." - Jamie Johnson

I remember talking to a very wealthy friend who told me how lucky I was to be middle class. In so many words, he told me that those born into great wealth have a lot in common with those born into poverty. Both sets of children starve for the basic necessities in life, that is, if you consider love, and a sense of purpose, a necessity. 

As we continued to walk along the tree lined streets of the campus, he then pointed to a building up ahead,  "You see that building?"  I nodded.   He said, "My father donated the money for its construction...to keep me in school... I was flunking out."  I asked him if  he improved his grades.  He shook his head, and told me, "Why? My father already paid."  As if getting good grades would render the money his father paid to keep him in school, a waste.  As if the only thing that really mattered was his father's money, and what it could buy.

In the film, Warren Buffet's severe response to his granddaughter, Nicole's participation in the documentary, The One Percent, illustrates just how "impoverished" the elite can be, and often are. You see, the value of money is lost if it becomes your master...your god. Nicole Buffet, much wiser than her grandfather, is one of the few born into the prison of immense wealth, courageous enough to break free.  

So, as much as we may feel like the shackled,  perhaps we're the fortunate ones, as most of us don't have enough of it to enslave us, whereas the wealthiest amongst us, are reduced to $erving it, as is very evident in Johnson's film.

"You might think I'm an idiot. My family's one of the richest families in the world. But not with money...with love, tolerance, kindness and patience...qualities worth more than money, and you can't buy that. They taught me how to love people as they are, not how I want them to be. They taught me how to get along with people. They taught me to treat people the way I want to be treated. They taught me to treat each person for who they are and not clump them together because we're all different in our own ways...that's the richness that I was brought up in." -- Truck driver in the documentary, The One Percent

Yep, there are riches, even more precious than money. And the best part is that these riches can't be taken from you by any robber, or any enemy, no matter how powerful.

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Where is the Moral Courage of the West?

In addition to using massive layoffs of professionals, including academics, to try and crush the protest movement, still going strong after last June’s re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran hanged two dissidents last week and sentenced nine others to death. Yet, as Iran sends peaceful dissidents to the gallows, so many courageous Iranians continue to risk death to oppose the Islamist tyranny.

What is it that makes people, agents of moral courage? Is it the complete absence of fear? The mobilizing energy fear often engenders? The effort to transcend fear? Extraordinary perseverance? Or something else?

"Sixteen defendants currently facing a “show trial” in Tehran have been selected to intimidate specific groups of dissidents and pave the way for applying the charge of Mohareb, or “enemy of God,” to large numbers of dissidents and protestors, charges that can lead to their execution, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today. Five of the sixteen defendants prosecuted in the post-Ashura trials of 30 January face the death penalty, having been charged with that crime."

We, the people are free to express ourselves in the face of injustice. We can assemble, protest, and use just about any form of peaceful demonstration there is to speak truth to power, without the fear of violence and death as retribution. Yet, even though we have plenty of reason to balk, we rarely manifest our discontent. Rather, we watch as our government serves corporate and moneyed interests at the expense of the American people and rarely do we stand up and demand that our government serve us. Why?

Elie Weisel once stated, “Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.” Has America aligned herself with indifference, ignorance, and/or denial. Have we lost our critical thinking skills to the forces of consensus? Mistaken unity with uniformity? Has moral relativity eroded our sense of right and wrong? Or are we more oppressed than we would like to believe? Maybe a combination of all of the above.

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Firearms: Prosthetics for Defective Courage?

Back in March I wondered why guns were considered so manly. After all, anyone from a little child to an old woman can aim and fire, and with any luck, kill, so what's with all the machismo? And yes, I have fired a short barreled 44 Magnum and a .45 Magnum, at random times, and other than maybe a little tingling, I can't say it was all that brutal.

Anyway, here's my update to that oh so profound and inspiring post:

The Violence Policy Center began an ongoing research project to identify and tally killings in five separate categories, beginning in May 2007 to the present by individuals with concealed handgun permits. As the result of a massive campaign led by the gun lobby, almost all states maintain a veil of secrecy around those who have been issued permits to carry concealed handguns. Therefore, the VPC is forced to rely primarily on news accounts for reports of killings by concealed handgun permit holders and subsequent legal proceedings.

Concealed handgun permit holders have killed at least nine law enforcement officers and 98 private citizens (including 12 shooters who killed themselves after an attack) since May 2007

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I don't get it. Why do guns make for a manly man? With the exception of Dirty Harry, I don't see it. At least Dirty Harry made "good" use of his gun and tried to right wrongs by pursuing wrongdoers. Whether or not his actions were justified is another issue for another time.

However, firearms - pistols, self-loading assault rifles, shotguns, etc - were created in order to protect and defend us from danger...in other words, from what we fear.

Firepower allow us to feign self-confidence, and mask terror in bravado, sometimes desensitizing ourselves to what we fear. So many times, the weapons we stockpile are useless in the face of what we really fear, our own mortality. The truth is everyone of us is more fragile, limited, helpless, and dependent than we would like to admit. That in this great big world, all it takes is one small hiccup from nature, and in less than one millisecond, we could all evaporate as if we never existed.

I'll even go as far as to say, it would have been far manlier, if Dirty Harry carried a knife, brass knuckles, or the most manly of all, relied on his bare knuckles, rather than carry such a user-friendly, metal contraption that shoots deadly projectiles, so easy to use, even Paris Hilton could take over, and just might, if she thought that by doing so, she would attract more followers.

NRA "from my cold dead hands" gun owners, so quick to label gun-control liberals as sissies, must wear these "bravado" masks to cover up the trembling men of fear that they really are underneath. Gun ownership, in this country is more often a sign of cowardice than bravery, as they are an easy way to assuage fear for people too frightened to face the world without a a prosthetic device that allows them to remain erect and stand "strong".

Unless your address is 123 Front Line Blvd, Brutal Warzone, Planet Earth, 45678, it's hard to understand why a big, strong, courageous, manly man needs to stockpile pistols, self-loading assault rifles, and shotguns, for any other reason than he's a big ol' sissy, afraid of his own shadow, or perhaps, he is compensating for something lacking in size or potency.

Since when is brute strength, virility, honor, chivalry, bravery, and/or any other manly qualities, required to operate most firearms? Any grandma with enough strength and coordination to operate an old-fashioned can opener, more than likely, can pull a trigger. Shouldn't big strong, courageous manly men, living in a civilized society, be able to function without the protection of so many powerful artificial devices of courage?

Former President George W. Bush would definitely disagree, as "a federal judge blocked a last-minute rule enacted by President George W. Bush allowing visitors to national parks to carry concealed weapons."

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The Dangerous Coward

I always thought of President Bush as a fox in sheep's clothing. How could one man start a war; unravel the Constitution; increase the power of the Executive Branch; complete the Reagan mission of transforming this country from democracy to oligarchy; increase the gap between the rich and the poor beyond our wildest imagination (think hedgefund manager: $3.5 billion/year), and get elected to office twice, all the while, harboring the brains of a "sheep"? It's not possible, or is it?

Is George W. Bush a puppet? Do the real brains belong to Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives who have worked incessantly since the 1970's to achieve the aforementioned that I just gave President Bush full credit? We may never know who deserves the "credit", however, most of us do know the President's lion-king, military bravado, masquerades the cowardly innards of a sheep. So, why did we elect him twice?

Picture the word "coward". The first thing that may come to mind is someone lacking an ego... someone apparently frail, timid, maybe cowering in a corner, afraid of his own shadow. What are our expectations when we see that kind of person? Pretty low, right? Therefore, if he is indeed a coward, he poses very little danger to anyone, because his chances of winning a position of power are slim to none.

However, whose to say that underneath that "cowardly" veneer may beat the heart of a hero... think Clark Kent, Dennis Kucinich. Someone's unpresumptuous and unassuming appearance just might camouflage a man who faces adversity and injustice head on, sacrificing his self-interest for the noble cause...a man who is not afraid to acknowledge his own mistakes, and realizes that leaders accept responsibility for the mistakes of their subordinates -- "the buck stops here". He then fully engages himself and stops at nothing to make amends for "his" defective judgment.

If we stop and think, we understand that the truly courageous do their very best not to bully, not to deceive, not to evade responsibility, or engage in thoughtlessly bold behavior. They do not risk the safety and lives of others unnecessarily, or condemn people to death without batting an eyelash. Yet we knowingly elect people into positions of power whose very character is defined by this kind of behavior. For ex. John Kerry, the war hero vs. George W. Bush the draft dodger... just one example of what we knew about George W. Bush beforehand and elected him anyway.

George W. Bush had big ideas, big goals, a big ego and an unflinching certainty that refused to question himself, as if he were incapable of making a mistake. Like a small child who tackles the ocean without the faintest idea of how to swim, George W. Bush tackled the world without the faintest idea of how vast, complex, how far beyond his comprehension...and most importantly, how infinitesimally small he and "We, the People" are in comparison. However, unlike the child who innocently risks only his own life, George W. Bush, without the excuse of innocence, risked the lives of millions of people without any risk to his own life or the lives of the people who matter, the "power elite".

Bob Woodward confirmed what most of us suspected, on Fresh Air, a few days ago, when he said President Bush knew we were "losing" the Iraq war but told the American people how well things were going anyway. President Bush told Mr. Woodward, 3 1/2 years into the Iraq War, "this is not something you rush," from the comfort of his plush surroundings.

In addition, President Bush did not attend critical meetings when the level of violence in Iraq was at its peak...six to eight attacks an hour, where one attack could result in a body count of fifty or twenty-five throats slit. In other words, prior to the surge, when Iraqis and Americans were dropping like flies, President Bush had "other things to do", as he told Mr. Woodward.

Now, more than ever, we cannot afford to rely on superficial and sparkly appearances. Cowards come in all shapes and sizes, however, the dangerous ones, the truly cowardly, take cowardice one step further. They conceal their lilied livers by disguising themselves in lion's skin, roaring slick slogans, and simple ideas to extraordinarily complex problems, and bash anyone who might reveal the tail between their legs.

With information literally at our fingertips, we have no excuse for not taking the time to dig beneath the surface before we decide who should lead the way.

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A Profile in Cowardice

As usual Frank Rich hits the nail on the head.

"THERE was never any question that President Bush would grant amnesty to Scooter Libby, the man who knows too much about the lies told to sell the war in Iraq. The only questions were when, and how, Mr. Bush would buy Mr. Libby’s silence. Now we have the answers, and they’re at least as incriminating as the act itself. They reveal the continued ferocity of a White House cover-up and expose the true character of a commander in chief whose tough-guy shtick can no longer camouflage his fundamental cowardice.

The timing of the president’s Libby intervention was a surprise. Many assumed he would mimic the sleazy 11th-hour examples of most recent vintage: his father’s pardon of six Iran-contra defendants who might have dragged him into that scandal, and Bill Clinton’s pardon of the tax fugitive Marc Rich, the former husband of a major campaign contributor and the former client of none other than the ubiquitous Mr. Libby. But the ever-impetuous current President Bush acted 18 months before his scheduled eviction from the White House. Even more surprising, he did so when the Titanic that is his presidency had just hit two fresh icebergs, the demise of the immigration bill and the growing revolt of Republican senators against his strategy in Iraq. That Mr. Bush, already suffering historically low approval ratings, would invite another hit has been attributed in Washington to his desire to placate what remains of his base. By this logic, he had nothing left to lose. He didn’t care if he looked like an utter hypocrite, giving his crony a freer ride than Paris Hilton and violating the white-collar sentencing guidelines set by his own administration. He had to throw a bone to the last grumpy old white guys watching Bill O’Reilly in a bunker. But if those die-hards haven’t deserted him by now, why would Mr. Libby’s incarceration be the final straw? They certainly weren’t whipped into a frenzy by coverage on Fox News, which tended to minimize the leak case as a non-event. Mr. Libby, faceless and voiceless to most Americans, is no Ollie North, and he provoked no right-wing firestorm akin to the uproars over Terri Schiavo, Harriet Miers or “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. The only people clamoring for Mr. Libby’s freedom were the pundits who still believe that Saddam secured uranium in Africa and who still hope that any exoneration of Mr. Libby might make them look less like dupes for aiding and abetting the hyped case for war. That select group is not the Republican base so much as a roster of the past, present and future holders of quasi-academic titles at neocon think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute. What this crowd never understood is that Mr. Bush’s highest priority is always to protect himself. So he stiffed them too. Had the president wanted to placate the Weekly Standard crowd, he would have given Mr. Libby a full pardon. That he served up a commutation instead is revealing of just how worried the president is about the beans Mr. Libby could spill about his and Dick Cheney’s use of prewar intelligence. Valerie Wilson still has a civil suit pending. The Democratic inquisitor in the House, Henry Waxman, still has the uranium hoax underlying this case at the top of his agenda as an active investigation. A commutation puts up more roadblocks by keeping Mr. Libby’s appeal of his conviction alive and his Fifth Amendment rights intact. He can’t testify without risking self-incrimination. Meanwhile, we are asked to believe that he has paid his remaining $250,000 debt to society independently of his private $5 million “legal defense fund.”

The president’s presentation of the commutation is more revealing still. Had Mr. Bush really believed he was doing the right and honorable thing, he would not have commuted Mr. Libby’s jail sentence by press release just before the July Fourth holiday without consulting Justice Department lawyers. That’s the behavior of an accountant cooking the books in the dead of night, not the proud act of a patriot standing on principle.

When the furor followed Mr. Bush from Kennebunkport to Washington despite his efforts to duck it, he further underlined his embarrassment by taking his only few questions on the subject during a photo op at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. You know this president is up to no good whenever he hides behind the troops. This instance was particularly shameful, since Mr. Bush also used the occasion to trivialize the scandalous maltreatment of Walter Reed patients on his watch as merely “some bureaucratic red-tape issues.” Asked last week to explain the president’s poll numbers, Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center told NBC News that “when we ask people to summon up one word that comes to mind” to describe Mr. Bush, it’s “incompetence.” But cowardice, the character trait so evident in his furtive handling of the Libby commutation, is as important to understanding Mr. Bush’s cratered presidency as incompetence, cronyism and hubris. Even The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, a consistent Bush and Libby defender, had to take notice. Furious that the president had not given Mr. Libby a full pardon (at least not yet), The Journal called the Bush commutation statement a “profile in non-courage.”

What it did not recognize, or chose not to recognize, is that this non-courage, to use The Journal’s euphemism, has been this president’s stock in trade, far exceeding the “wimp factor” that Newsweek once attributed to his father. The younger Mr. Bush’s cowardice is arguably more responsible for the calamities of his leadership than anything else.

People don’t change. Mr. Bush’s failure to have the courage of his own convictions was apparent early in his history, when he professed support for the Vietnam War yet kept himself out of harm’s way when he had the chance to serve in it. In the White House, he has often repeated the feckless pattern that he set back then and reaffirmed last week in his hide-and-seek bestowing of the Libby commutation. The first fight he conspicuously ran away from as president was in August 2001. Aspiring to halt federal underwriting of embryonic stem-cell research, he didn’t stand up and say so but instead unveiled a bogus “compromise” that promised continued federal research on 60 existing stem-cell lines. Only later would we learn that all but 11 of them did not exist. When Mr. Bush wanted to endorse a constitutional amendment to “protect” marriage, he again cowered. A planned 2006 Rose Garden announcement to a crowd of religious-right supporters was abruptly moved from the sunlight into a shadowy auditorium away from the White House.

Nowhere is this president’s non-courage more evident than in the “signing statements” The Boston Globe exposed last year. As Charlie Savage reported, Mr. Bush “quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office.” Rather than veto them in public view, he signed them, waited until after the press and lawmakers left the White House, and then filed statements in the Federal Register asserting that he would ignore laws he (not the courts) judged unconstitutional. This was the extralegal trick Mr. Bush used to bypass the ban on torture. It allowed him to make a coward’s escape from the moral (and legal) responsibility of arguing for so radical a break with American practice.

In the end, it was also this president’s profile in non-courage that greased the skids for the Iraq fiasco. If Mr. Bush had had the guts to put America on a true wartime footing by appealing to his fellow citizens for sacrifice, possibly even a draft if required, then he might have had at least a chance of amassing the resources needed to secure Iraq after we invaded it. But he never backed up the rhetoric of war with the stand-up action needed to prosecute the war. Instead he relied on fomenting fear, as typified by the false uranium claims whose genesis has been covered up by Mr. Libby’s obstructions of justice. Mr. Bush’s cowardly abdication of the tough responsibilities of wartime leadership ratified Donald Rumsfeld’s decision to go into Iraq with the army he had, ensuring our defeat. Never underestimate the power of the unconscious. Not the least of the revelatory aspects of Mr. Bush’s commutation is that he picked the fourth anniversary of “Bring ’em on” to hand it down. It was on July 2, 2003, that the president responded to the continued violence in Iraq, two months after “Mission Accomplished,” by taunting those who want “to harm American troops.” Mr. Bush assured the world that “we’ve got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.” The “surge” notwithstanding, we still don’t have the force necessary four years later, because the president never did summon the courage, even as disaster loomed, to back up his own convictions by going to the mat to secure that force.

No one can stop Mr. Bush from freeing a pathetic little fall guy like Scooter Libby. But only those who paid the ultimate price for the avoidable bungling of Iraq have the moral authority to pardon Mr. Bush."

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