TO 70 MILLION JUDASES

 I'm not the first one to say this and I surely won't be the last: if we were serious about democracy and the rule of law applied to all equally, this election would never have been this close. It would have been a blowout repudiation of Trump, Trumpery and nearly all its enablers! Any enabler escaping with his/her political skin would need some serious mitigations to save them!
Instead, we had a close election, actually lost a few House seats (and we need to know if we lost progressives, Blue Dogs or something of each), gained no state houses, which may prove a serious setback as we can expect them to gerrymander ever more egregiously, and the Repiglicans may well even hold the Senate. We just got rid of Trump, which, I must admit, was the sine qua non of preserving a murmuring heartbeat of democracy. Still, much more needs to be done.
But why did this happen? Listen up, everyone. This is where I start with the political fire and brimstone, nearly all of it aimed at the tens of millions of palefaces who, with at least some real understanding of Trump's evil, still voted for more of him.
I understand that Trump also actually got a sizable chunk of the Hispanic vote--even in border communities which he would have gladly swept into the Rio Grande! Well, we expected Cubans and Venezuelans, both of whom were terrified by what I'd call 'pretzel' (that is, seriously twisted) varieties of socialism, to vote for the Great Anti-Socialist Cheeto. I have to scratch my head over other Latinos who went that way. Misinformation? Probably.
However, I concern myself with my purported 'tribe'. Most of you knew, surely, for what you were voting! Either one of three things applies here: first, you were so misinformed that you actually believed the lying stream of Trumpery from Faux News and OAN. I can at least pardon that. Second, that you lied to the pollsters like California palefaces did in 1982 when Tom Bradley ran for governor. Once in the voting booth, you showed that you weren't giving up on systemic racism and your privilege as whites! That you were NOT as Enlightened as you wanted the pollsters to think! And that you lied
about it clearly shows that you yourselves knew it was wrong to act on such feelings that way--and yet you did that!! I name all of you as traitors!!
Yes, that's right: TRAITORS!! First, traitors to the ideals of our country where the rule of law is supposed to apply to all equally and where we drift ever further from that ideal! And where racial, ethnic or national origin is not supposed to make a difference as to how we treat our fellow citizens!!
Second, you show yourselves traitors to the best in Western Civilization--where the same ideals are supposed to apply and transcend the tribalism of half-savage barbarians, be they Celts, Teutons, Arabs, Turks, Huns or Basques! We, and the West with us, are strong because we take in and test all kinds of ideas, inventions and people! And in reverting to tribalism based on skin color all of you show yourselves traitors to this noble inheritance! By this you show, except for the gadgets (especially the weapons!) you don't even want to be civilized!!
And that's not even your worst betrayal. This is your third and worst betrayal. Any 'Christians' among you remember this passage?
"There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28) And what have you done? You have reverted to tribalism unworthy of American citizens, unworthy of citizens of the West and above all unworthy of Christians or Jews. Now, I admit that we all, myself included, think and do things unworthy of Jesus and/or Moses from time to time. But seriously, folks, this does our fellow citizens, fellow Westerners, fellow believers and fellow human beings serious injury!
Third, last and worst: those of you who betrayed your birthrights for, unless you're seriously wealthy, a few pieces of silver, probably nowhere near even thirty of them! As Judases go, you're scandalously cheap into the bargain! No doubt your silent, treacherous bigotry was an incentive but you chose Trump because the tax cuts were putting twenty, fifteen or maybe even only ten more pieces of silver into your treacherous pockets and purses!! How many of you dough-colored slugs even silently agree with what Trump said of our brave men and women in uniform?!
I warned you that fire and brimstone were coming, and there it is. A word to my fellow liberals: it's time not to care about the feelings of these for-real 'snowflakes' and 'buttercups'. The next post will deal with the vast difference of some of we liberals who bleed for others and the snowflakes who wail at a paper cut.
This election has uncorked my fire and brimstone. More will come!

TIME TO BREATHE--BUT ONLY THAT!

 It is done.
Democracy in this country will continue. Biden and Harris have been declared the victors. This is a time to take a breath, offer up prayers of thanks and maybe whoop it up a bit in celebration. What it is not time for is to pat ourselves on the back and reaffirm American Exceptionalism.
We came hellishly close to killing our own democracy with our inattention, selfishness, sloth and racial paranoia. This is an eleventh-hour save we've just pulled off and which we owe in large part to our fellow citizens with skins darker than the unbaked dough shade which many of us show on our faces!
Had we been the only voters, democracy would have been a corpse after this election! To say that it is shame and disgrace to us and our country that the margin was so close--not to mention that the Repiglicans have actually gained seats in the House (although, thankfully, we still hold the majority), we have yet to flip any state houses and that the Greedy Oilmen's Party may well hold the Senate by the skin of Massa Moscow Mitch's wattles--is to understate the case to an almost absurd degree! If we are serious about democracy and freedom, this election should have been a blowout for the Democrats at all levels from presidential down to local! That it was a such a squeaker shows all too clearly that too many of us care only for our own liberties and, above all, the size of our wallets! Even while those who, were they paid higher than starvation wages, might have a chance to add to our civic strength, have to worry about money nonstop in order to keep on eating! That this happens in the richest country in human history is another shame and disgrace to us, but more of that in another post later.
Perhaps worst of all, in this election when we all knew (?) the evil of the Trumpery before us, more of us voted for this incubus than four years ago! And only enough Suburban White Women voted for Biden/Harris to put them over the top! OK, we should be grateful to all those who made this save. But a greater percentage of white women--52% then, 55% NOW--actually voted for Donald Pussygrabber this time around! My innards gurgle even as I type this!!
As I write, Massa Moscow Mitch is plotting to not even allow Biden the cabinet members he wants! Joe, if you will take a humble man's advice, no more bipartisan b.s., or as little of it as might be absolutely necessary. We want to be opponents, not enemies, but I defy you to find me a Repiglican officeholder who makes that anything but a vicious lie and acts with anything but fascistic bad faith!
I mean it, Joe: I am absolutely serious. I'm a straight (and straightly married) aging second-generation Anglo-Saxon race traitor who has watched politics since he was almost twelve. I started following politics during the 1968 campaign and have never stopped doing so.
Our 'opponents' care only for power and money and care nothing--repeat, NOTHING--for democracy, the rule of law, freedom, equality or even for the best in our country. Make any conciliatory gestures short and arrange them so that their rejection will tell you and Kamala all y'all need to know about these political gangsters!
I think it might be time for me to take more than a few breaths. Sighs of relief from the Peanut Gallery. But this is time for only that much relaxation. We have lots of hard work ahead to strengthen and expand democracy with a pan-racial coalition of working people as a cornerstone of it and of the Green New Deal. So let's be grateful now as we breathe, pray, make a little whoopee and gird our loins for the heard struggle against powerful and unscrupulous enemies (that is how they see themselves and us) which awaits us. We palefaces still have plenty of waking up to do!

RAGE, COMPASSION & DISGUST AS THE COUNT GOES ON

 As the election remains undecided this Thursday (!) morning, I've read a fair number of columns and posts. It might be safe to say they inspire quite a few strong feelings in me which seem to boil down to these: first, rage--at more than one group and not all on the other side. Second, compassion coupled with an equally strong desire to avoid being patronizing. Finally, disgust at one particular well-off group alongside squaring my shoulders for whatever my part might turn out to be in the mountain of work ahead of us to preserve democracy, the biosphere and, thereby, save civilization as well.
First, the rage. I cannot digest that a sixty percent majority of my fellow dough-faces either want to keep systemic racism going or don't care one way or another! I want to roar to them, Don't you care that such systemic racism is the NEGATION of everything we claim for our country?! Don't you care how hollow and hypocritical our professions to be free ring in the ears of much of the world?! And don't you care what devastation we're leaving to our children and grandchildren?! Some, very likely most of you, are and have been very deliberately misinformed by others about how very real these problems are and that showing concern for these matters is no more than either hypersensitivity or, worse, an attempt to show how much better a person than you the 'fretter' is. On the other hand, the sources which also lie to you and keep your fears churning began by telling you what you wanted to hear, didn't they?
Misinformers who know their wicked business always mix some truth with their lies. So, I must admit that yes, there are some (one is too many for me) among us who mix 'virtue signaling' and/or 'see how much smarter I am' b.s. with, for the most part, some genuine concern for the issues involved. I have a bolt or two to shoot their way too. Such an 'addytood', as we say in Philly Town, is unhelpful and counterproductive. So change it!
I'll agree: no one really likes know-alls whether intellectual or spiritual, for that matter. Not to mention that to be the latter is the gravest sin of all. Funny thing is, I always thought it was your side that was and is overrun with and misruled by such grossly evil characters. FYI, I started to become a Christian when I was twenty (44 Years ago) and still am becoming one. And as a Christian, I understand I am expressly forbidden to think myself better than any other child of God. Including y'all, including any African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and even Jews. How about y'all? I mean, do you understand thinking of yourselves as 'chosen' (especially if you consider your pale skin and eyes signs of such 'chosen' quality) is wrong and how dangerous it is to others and, in the end, to yourself as well?
My compassion is for those of us who have been so grievously misinformed and so egregiously lied to. Some of you may have been turned off by being strongly discouraged from asking any questions about what you're supposed to believe. You're on the right track then; anyone who tries to forbid you asking any questions is of not God but of the Enemy. Remember that and share it with everyone else!
And when you've asked questions on our side that the nearest snotnose character on our side deemed 'stupid' or 'obvious', maybe that left you feeling a bit homeless. For all such incidents where you got a snotty answer to an honest question, my deep and sincere apologies. That excludes any incidents where either 1) your questions were not honest but an attempt to lay a trap and/or 2) where what you thought were your 'smarts' were reduced to humiliating rubble. In the first instance, you got what you deserved; the second is routine for us who've grown up with argument and debate and to which you need to be inured if you're to join an honest battle of ideas--not of ad hominem/mulieram insults or other such irrelevancies! In such cases, gotta ask: who are the real 'snowflakes' or 'buttercups' here? Do tell!
Finally, I reserve my disgust for those of us who know what the stakes are in this matter but simply do not care. The ones who know quite well how evil Trump and Massa Moscow Mitch are but, so long as their wallets continue to fatten further, really don't care and will continue to vote GOP so long as their wallets grow fatter. Never mind if half their fellow citizens become starven and gaunt because of those selfsame policies! You and the racist 'religious' fascists who demand a sacerdotal/race-based dictatorship are the two groups who may yet send me into exile--but that will depend in large part on how this election turns out as well. In any case, our America has room for you and the rest of us; your 'Myrkkka' has no room for anyone else but your own sorry selves.
I think a mark of Heaven is that, other people and creatures are very real to the person with that mark. And conversely, to those with Hell's claws on, or in, them, no one, and no other creature, is 'real' to them except themselves and 'theirs', whatever that might entail! Put that on a mental back burner and let it simmer a good long while, y'all!

DEMOCRACY NEEDS INEQUALITY NARROWED

 Which of these two thoughts do you experience as truer?
"If everyone had 'enough' money anyway, who would work?"
"Is no good to have too much time. Must have work."
I experience the latter as much, much truer and I don't think I'm alone in that. I say, nearly all of us hoomins want and need some kind of regular work, even if we don't necessarily need the pay, although nearly all of us do need that too.
Let's pause and ask ourselves here: what do each and all of us need from our work? Certainly we all need to be able to support ourselves and, if we're lucky enough to have one, to at least help to support our families. But don't we all really need more than that from our work? I suggest that the following are things we need from our work, each and all of us:
1) We need to feel that we make a positive difference for our jobs, workplaces and workmates.
2) We need the mix of routine and novelty with which our work often presents us. We need this in our overall life and, ideally, our work should be of a piece in that.
3) We need to feel the dignity work gives us. This is why tyrannical bosses are such a spoiler and bearable only under severe threat of privation without that particular job or that the job offers high chance for advancement. Sometimes both.
But most of us have  known bosses who enjoy being unaccountably tyrannical, haven't we?
Let me make something clear here: a boss who drives herself at least as hard as she drives her underlings is not necessarily a tyrant. I've had two such bosses and was married to one of them (she died 11 years ago) and I would've followed either one down Hell's mouth!
It seems to me that a tyrant's perverse joy in his tyranny is in direct relation to how wealthy that tyrant is. When power, especially the power of the purse, is accountable to no one else on any regular basis--it is then that Lord Acton's dictum about power's tendencies are the most true.
And does anyone remember a survey about how much satisfaction money affords most of us, pun partially intended? I remember it quite well. It was done some years ago and it showed that, after money allowed enough to be well-clothed, sheltered and nourished and enough so that neither serious illness nor educating the children would be a financial catastrophe and to take decent vacations twice a year, the satisfaction money gave dropped pretty sharply for most people who lack the lust to be among today's slave masters. Back when this survey was made, that meant for most of us, $75,000 per year would be enough for everything. And perhaps when we've made it really possible (meaning without incurring a mountain of debt) for everyone to get the education they want and to have the health care they need, maybe that figure will drop.
One saying too many of the already-too-wealthy seem to disregard but is none the less true is, when we all do better, we ALL do better. This means that, so far from employment going down when the minimum wage goes up, it will likely go the other way. Spending is what drives the economy, and when more people have more money they spend more. Especially on things which they couldn't afford before. And, in absolute terms, the wealthy actually do better too. But when they feel too many others, perhaps especially those with darker skins, do better, the already-too-wealthy seem not to want to do that much better themselves. It would seem that they'd actually be content to be, in raw numbers, less wealthy provided that the non-wealthy were either abjectly, wretchedly poor and under the cruel necessity of being toadies, servants and slaves to them!
Could there be a clearer picture of the corrupting effects of gross inequality?!
Theology common to (at least) the Abrahamian faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) speaks warningly of the corrupting effects of too much wealth, especially wealth which is unaccountable to other humans! Who has the chutzpa to stand and tell me, or anyone else, that they are any less corruptible than the rest of us? We used to believe that the rich, because they had what they wanted, were less corruptible than the poor or middling. What I see before my eyes in this year of Grace two thousand and twenty gives me very, very serious doubts about that. Now, it looks as if, for a few anyhow, riches do not dull the lust for more power, which makes the riches they already have very, very dangerous to democracy. Very possibly, they could prove lethal to democracy and indeed to human civilization as well.
We need some new criteria for leadership. Bernie is a good prototype; so might Joe and Kamala be. In any case, they are far better than the alternative which stands to prove to be cyanide to both democracy and civilization. But I cite Bernie because he is one who shows he really understands that politics is not all about him, it's about US and the programs we need to, really, stabilize and strengthen both democracy and human civilization. We need more leaders who understand that and who are far more activated by the desire to serve rather than their own greed for wealth and/or power. And bear in mind that leaders of small parties might be ego-driven too. But if I have any way to 'spot' them, that'll have to be in another post. Do I hear sighs of relief?

FOR MY FELLOW PALEFACES--WAKE UP NOW!!

It's down to us now.
This election will show whether we are still a free country or whether we're headed straight for fascism. Considering all that the fascists have done to try and delegitimize this election and indeed the whole democratic process, the margin still feels too narrow to me. So, to those either still hypnotized by Trump-ery, or soured by cynicism or who think they just don't have time for democracy and citizenship, let me acquaint you with what's in store for all our children and grandchildren and further posterity (if any of them will be alive by then) if we don't utterly trounce Trump-ery and the Repiglicans who have so eagerly embraced it.
The air and water will get dirtier. Clean air and water will get costlier as will medical care, decent food and education. All the 'basics' for life will become rarer and costlier even while basically useless gadgets stay the same price or even go to a lower price. This will mean that all of us frantically running on our hamster-wheels will have to go faster. There will be battles to get the essentials of life; the battle lines will be partially drawn by skin color. A large paleface minority, myself among them, will be on the side of people of color. God willing, the palefaces who FINALLY realize they really are no better off than anyone else of any other color will join us 'racial renegadoes'.
But what about my fellow-palefaces who have tangible excuses for thinking themselves 'better' and 'more hardworking'? Let me address a question to you: what do you really value the most? Surely it isn't anything material like that McMansion for which you went into hock, am I right? Isn't it your children and grandchildren? Do you want them to have to fight off hungry and desperate bands of people who have literally nothing left to lose for life's survival basics? Or do you think the answer is enough firepower to mow all those lazy n***er, s**c and 'Injun' grasshoppers down? Who will bury or cremate all of them then?
And do you want your children and grandchildren to have to work ever harder to have those basics? Get a few things straight here for a change: Trump and the too-wealthy people he serves are no friends of yours any more than they're friends to people of color. But the people of color mostly already know this. You need to learn this fast, along with the fact that the upward mobility rate in our country is now the second-lowest in the 'developed' world. At this rate, our upward mobility rate will soon be close to that of pre-Revolutionary France. Which means your children and grandchildren's chances of being even as well off as you, never mind better off, are going down, DOWN, down, down. (Thanks, Boss.) And that is because of the overweening greed of the already far-too-wealthy, NOT because of the needs of the poor, whether they're white, black, brown or red.
And imagine a planet where half the population, not to mention countless animals, have died of either famine, floods, fires and other natural disasters or of ever-newer pathogens. Who will bury or otherwise attend to all those corpses? How many of them do you think will probably just lie where they fell and rot right there? Perhaps this, more than anything else, will drive home to the already-too-wealthy how little they can insulate themselves from the rest of us in the end: the smell.
Yes, the smell. Imagine a planet where the smell of decomposition never, or almost never, leaves the air. You won't like this fact at all, but it remains a fact: if you don't vote, and vote the straight Democratic ticket, this election season, you are ultimately voting for a planet where the smell of rot will never leave the nostrils of our children and grandchildren. Just think that over. And don't take my word for it; do your own research. If you want to tell me I'm mistaken, go right ahead--but first show me hard evidence that I am mistaken. The only way it occurs to me I could be mistaken is if, once half the humans are dead and rotting, nature returns with a vengeance: forests and savannas are regenerated and expanded and pump new oxygen into the atmosphere.
Let's leave our posterity a planet where they won't have to smell rot every day, every hour, maybe every minute. Trounce Trump. Regenerate and expand democracy! WAKE UP, FELLOW PALEFACES!

MORE TREASON TO DEMOCRACY

 Yesterday, a very disturbing executive order was issued. If pursued, it can lead to an end of a non-partisan civil service doing its necessary jobs and its replacement by a jumble of servile neo-feudal wards of political and/or corporate oligarchs enriching only themselves and their personal masters. This confirms my suspicion: what the Repiglican party in DC has in mind is the extinguishing of democracy and replacing it with an oligarchic, neo-feudal tyranny! And they hardly even 'cover' it anymore!
Some Repiglicans (the political ancestors of those that now rule the party) used to characterize the FDR and Truman administrations as 'twenty years of treason'. What they meant then and mean now is no betrayal by Democrats to foreign powers but that they (the Repiglicans) were no longer seen as God's Anointed Rulers and that, like kings of old, they could do no wrong because of who they were! But they were never really replaced (that was a mistake!) but only supplemented by people who had been examined to see that they could do the jobs for which they applied and who were sworn to defend no particular person but only the American People and the Constitution.
This is what these would-be Lords and Ladies hate the most: that allegiance is given to the country and its people as a whole and to our basic law, aka the Constitution rather than to Worthy Persons like, of course, themselves! And that sort of personal liege-lord (or lady) tie is what they wish to bring back, albeit in 21st century clothing that won't creak and clank as armor would! The only thing they hate more than allegiance given to the people and their Constitution are co-operative government programs that actually work and erase the need for Great Lords and Ladies--like Social Security! Let me also say that the Repiglicans appear to have committed actual treason in pursuit of power and done it on an alarmingly consistent  basis from the time that Nixon dangled the prospect of a better deal for Thieu of South Vietnam if he, Nixon, won the 1968 election through the Reagan campaign's dealings with Iran for them to keep the hostages until Reagan was inaugurated and the Iran-Contra shenanigans right up to the present election where Trump is soliciting foreign aid to help his campaign as he did four years ago. Never mind twenty years; the Repiglicans seem to have committed treason with alarming consistency for FIFTY years! Emblazon this on the heavens and on our brains: FIFTY YEARS OF TREASON!!!
I now appeal to every Democrat and every progressive now running for office, perhaps especially to the top of the ticket. Joe, I hate to tell you this but if you think there'll be a return to bipartisan collegiality once the Trump incubus is gone, you're fooling yourself. The Repiglicans have been behaving with progressively less honor since Gingrinch was in the House and now they behave with none. You, and all the rest of us, need to treat them like the fascisti traitors that they are and ride over them (whenever possible) they way they seek to ride over our country: as roughshod as possible! Sorry to have to say this but, for the foreseeable (to me) future, bipartisanship is and will remain a thing of the past. Only if and when the Repiglicans become Republicans again, with a commitment to democracy at least equal to our own, can bipartisan collegiality return without endangering democracy!
Nor will we be able to afford incrementalism. If we are to save our planet and civilization in time, your administration will need to take long, bold steps and hit the ground running doing so. Let's deal fairly with the Lincoln Project and their associates as they have chosen country and Constitution over party and neo-feudalism but also with a few grains of salt. Change needs to be far-reaching now. Let's get ready to start implementing it the hour after (God willing) we win the election.

SOCIAL SECURITY, DEMOCRACY & FEUDALISM

        A day or two ago, I asked Nick Hanauer a question on FB. Considering how obvious it is that, when we all do better, we all (including the rich) do better and the adamant opposition of most of the obscenely rich to any measure which helps anyone other than themselves alone, this is what I asked:
Would most of these unimaginably rich people choose to be less rich if, by being so, they could also see the rest of us reduced to a new feudal state of dependency upon them? I suspect the answer is 'yes' but I don't know for sure and wanted to check it with Mr. Hanauer. I haven't heard back from him yet and I just checked FB.
In any case, the most powerful witnesses for an unfortunately affirmative answer to my question seem to be the obscenely rich themselves, led by one who wants us to think he's obscenely rich but who, according to the NYT and other credible news outlets, is actually much closer to being bankrupt for what will probably be the final time in his misspent life.
If (God and the people forbid!) Trump is re-elected, he will seek to eliminate the payroll tax which funds Social Security. And not only decades from now but also right here. right now! This would mean that Social Security would run out of money in 2023--well within the lifetime of senior citizens largely dependent on that program. Trump also says Social Security will be financed other ways. I don't believe the lying bastard for a New York nanosecond, but for argument's sake let's allow he might actually be telling the truth. How would it be done? I certainly don't know, but Trump himself provides a clue to how it would be shaped and delivered. Remember how he wanted his signature on all the relief checks?
Based on that and certain other characteristics common to him and other members of our new Ignobility, I think he'd like to send out boxes of coins of middling worth (at best) as often as necessary and to have every coin struck with the image of Emperor Trump! With some sort of message that, if you want to continue having regular meals with a decent roof overhead, you'd better be the Emperor's Loyal Subject! Most of those most wealthy love this sort of thing. It flatters their vanity and allows them to troll around with the sort of self-satisfied, self-righteous smirk which Trump and others may have forever rendered infamous. Anyhow, let's hope so. By being Generous For Service, the rich can deceive themselves about being generous and big-hearted. And they adore doing this. Almost as much as many of them are addicted to gambling on the stock market with other people's money--another reason they hate Social Security. Their greed drives them to want to put their filthy fingers on our money!
The far right has always hated Social Security not because it doesn't work but because it DOES work and works very well indeed!!! It shows how well government for, of and by the people can work for a huge majority of the people! It checks the power of the wealthiest among us and also hints that maybe it's not really necessary to have a small number of obscenely wealthy people. And this last probably shivers the timbers of the wealthiest among us right down to their splinters!
Let no one mistake me here: I do not support any idea which says we all must be absolutely equal; there will always be great and small among human beings. But if democracy is to live and flourish, democratic societies have to have not only strong floors below which no one is allowed to fall but also ceilings above which no one is allowed too much privately held wealth--which means, no one, nor any small group, should be powerful enough to endanger anyone else's human rights.
Mutual support and aid programs by citizens to citizens, with all contributing according to their ability  to pay, end the need for patronage from the wealthy when they are worked and used as they should be. The Swiss, so I understand, have been doing this for centuries. They've even taxed themselves to support the arts, no less. And the Gnomes among them have the good sense to pay their fair share as Swiss citizens. At least it looks that way from a 4000-mile distance.
For at least the last forty years, we have flattered the rich in increasingly abject ways with our politicians in the lead. That needs to stop right here, right now! We need to distinguish between wealthy persons as regards 1) how they got their wealth and 2) what they do with it. And no, we don't all want to be obscenely rich either! There's another lie to scrap pronto! A few years back, someone did a study as to how much satisfaction wealth afforded anyone (pun intended) and it turned out, once people had enough to 1) maintain themselves and family in reasonable comfort, 2) not worry about an unexpected illness being a financial catastrophe, 3) to educate one's children, have OK vacations twice yearly and retire in modest comfort--more than necessary for this afforded only diminishing satisfaction for most people. But there will always be those psycho/sociopaths who enjoy reducing human beings to the status of marionettes. And we need to make sure that they will they will never, or as near to it as humans can manage, be able to do so outside of their own little circles.
The payroll tax ought to be increased. Social Security should be expanded as should all social programs which help the middle classes and the poorer classes as well!