?As Always, The UK Guardian has ideas for the US Legislators.
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22 April 2013
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{? HERE AN UNDERSTATEMENT: }
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The marathon bombs triggered a reaction that is at odds with last week?s inertia over arms control.
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he thriving metropolis of Boston was turned into a ghost town on Friday. Nearly a million Bostonians were asked to stay in their homes ? and willingly complied. Schools were closed; business shuttered; trains, subways and roads were empty; usually busy streets eerily resembled a post-apocalyptic movie set; even baseball games and cultural events were cancelled ? all in response to a 19-year-old fugitive, who was on foot and clearly identified by the news media.
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The actions allegedly committed by the Boston marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, were heinous. Four people dead and more than 100 wounded, some with shredded and amputated limbs.
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But Londoners, who endured IRA terror for years, might be forgiven for thinking that America over-reacted just a tad to the goings-on in Boston. They?re right ? and then some. What we saw was a collective freak-out like few that we?ve seen previously in the United States. It was yet another depressing reminder that more than 11 years after 9/11 Americans still allow themselves to be easily and willingly cowed by the ?threat? of terrorism.
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After all, it?s not as if this is the first time that homicidal killers have been on the loose in a major American city. In 2002, Washington DC was terrorised by two roving snipers, who randomly shot and killed 10 people. In February, a disgruntled police officer, Christopher Dorner, murdered four people over several days in Los Angeles. In neither case was LA or DC put on lockdown mode, perhaps because neither of these sprees was branded with that magically evocative and seemingly terrifying word for Americans, terrorism.
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To be sure, public officials in Boston appeared to be acting out of an abundance of caution. And it?s appropriate for Boston residents to be asked to take precautions or keep their eyes open. But by letting one fugitive terrorist shut down a major American city, Boston not only bowed to outsize and irrational fears, but sent a dangerous message to every would-be terrorist ? if you want to wreak havoc in the United States, intimidate its population and disrupt public order, here?s your instruction booklet.
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Putting aside the economic and psychological cost, the lockdown also prevented an early capture of the alleged bomber, who was discovered after Bostonians were given the all clear and a Watertown man wandered into his backyard for a cigarette and found a bleeding terrorist on his boat.
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In some regards, there is a positive spin on this ? it?s a reflection of how little Americans have to worry about terrorism. A population such as London during the IRA bombings or Israel during the second intifada or Baghdad, pretty much every day, becomes inured to random political violence. Americans who have such little experience of terrorism, relatively speaking, are more primed to overreact ? and assume the absolute worst when it comes to the threat of a terror attack. It is as if somehow in the American imagination, every terrorist is a not just a mortal threat, but is a deadly combination of Jason Bourne and James Bond.
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If only Americans reacted the same way to the actual threats that exist in their country. There?s something quite fitting and ironic about the fact that the Boston freak-out happened in the same week the Senate blocked consideration of a gun control bill that would have strengthened background checks for potential buyers. Even though this reform is supported by more than 90% of Americans, and even though 56 out of 100 senators voted in favour of it, the Republican minority prevented even a vote from being held on the bill because it would have allegedly violated the second amendment rights of ?law-abiding Americans?.
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So for those of you keeping score at home ? locking down an American city: a proper reaction to the threat from one terrorist. A background check to prevent criminals or those with mental illness from purchasing guns: a dastardly attack on civil liberties. All of this would be almost darkly comic if not for the fact that more Americans will die needlessly as a result. Already, more than 30,000 Americans die in gun violence every year (compared to the 17 who died last year in terrorist attacks).
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What makes US gun violence so particularly horrifying is how routine and mundane it has become. After the massacre of 20 kindergartners in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, millions of Americans began to take greater notice of the threat from gun violence. Yet since then, the daily carnage that guns produce has continued unabated and often unnoticed.
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The same day of the marathon bombing in Boston, 11 Americans were murdered by guns. The pregnant Breshauna Jackson was killed in Dallas, allegedly by her boyfriend. In Richmond, California, James Tucker III was shot and killed while riding his bicycle ? assailants unknown. Nigel Hardy, a 13-year-old boy in Palmdale, California, who was being bullied in school, took his own life. He used the gun that his father kept at home. And in Brooklyn, New York, an off-duty police officer used her department-issued Glock 9mm handgun to kill herself, her boyfriend and her one-year old child.
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At the same time that investigators were in the midst of a high-profile manhunt for the marathon bombers that ended on Friday evening, 38 more Americans ? with little fanfare ? died from gun violence. One was a 22-year old resident of Boston. They are a tiny percentage of the 3,531 Americans killed by guns in the past four months ? a total that surpasses the number of Americans who died on 9/11 and is one fewer than the number of US soldiers who lost their lives in combat operations in Iraq. Yet, none of this daily violence was considered urgent enough to motivate Congress to impose a mild, commonsense restriction on gun purchasers.
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It?s not just firearms that produce such legislative inaction. Last week, a fertiliser plant in West, Texas, which hasn?t been inspected by federal regulators since 1985, exploded, killing 14 people and injuring countless others. Yet many Republicans want to cut further the funding for the agency (OSHA) that is responsible for such reviews. The vast majority of Americans die from one of four ailments ? cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease ? and yet Republicans have held three dozen votes to repeal Obamacare, which expands healthcare coverage to 30 million Americans.
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It is a surreal and difficult-to-explain dynamic. Americans seemingly place an inordinate fear on violence that is random and unexplainable and can be blamed on ?others? ? jihadists, terrorists, evil-doers etc. But the lurking dangers all around us ? the guns, our unhealthy diets, the workplaces that kill 14 Americans every single day ? these are just accepted as part of life, the price of freedom, if you will. And so the violence goes, with more Americans dying preventable deaths. But hey, look on the bright side ? we got those sons of bitches who blew up the marathon.
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WOULD IT NOT BE IN PLACE TO CHECK THE MENTAL HEALTH OF CANDIDATES FOR THE UN SENATE?????????? HOW STRANGE THEIR VOTES OUGHT TO SEEM TO THE MAJORITY OF HONEST AND SANE PEOPLE OF THEIR CONSTITUENCIES?
THE FOLLOWING ARE ARTICLES THAT HINT TO THE AMOUNT OF DAMAGE CAUSED BY EASY-GET-YOUR-GUN AMERICA!
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?www.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/us/for?
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Stan Honda/Agence France-Presse ? Getty Images
Victims of the Boston Marathon bombings waited to be treated on April 15 at Brigham and Women?s Hospital in Boston.
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By ABBY GOODNOUGH, The New York Time
Published: April 22, 2013
WASHINGTON ? For victims of the Boston Marathon bombings, the terrible physical cost
may come with a daunting financial cost as well.
Many of the wounded could face staggering bills not just for the trauma care they received in the days after the bombings, but for prosthetic limbs, lengthy rehabilitation and the equipment they will need to negotiate daily life with crippling injuries. Even those with health insurance may find that their plan places limits on specific services, like physical therapy or psychological counseling.
Kenneth R. Feinberg, the lawyer who has overseen compensation funds for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the shootings at Virginia Tech and other disasters, arrived in Boston on Monday to start the difficult work of deciding who will be eligible for payouts from a new compensation fund and how much each person wounded in the bombings and family of the dead deserves.
The One Fund Boston, which Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston and Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts created a day after the bombings, has already raised more than $10 million for victims and their families. At the same time, friends and relatives have set up dozens of smaller funds for individual victims.
For at least 13 victims who lost limbs, including William White of Bolton, Mass., expenses may also include renovations to their homes that make it easier for them to get around.
?What if his stairs are at the wrong incline, or he needs a ramp, or the cobblestones in his backyard are uneven?? said Benjamin Coutu, a friend of the White family who helped create a donation page on a fund-raising Web site for Mr. White and his wife and son, who were also wounded in the blasts. ?People who are insured in these situations think, ?Wow, I?m O.K., I?m covered.? It?s not until a month or two later that they realize, ?I?m covered for the bare bones.???
The overall medical costs are difficult to estimate, especially since it is not yet clear how much rehabilitation or future surgery the victims with the worst injuries will need. But as a basis for comparison, medical costs for shooting victims average about $50,000, said Ted Miller, a senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation who studies the costs of injuries.
For Mr. Feinberg, whom city and state officials asked to administer the One Fund Boston, the first task is to determine how much money is going to be available through it. Most donations typically arrive in the first month after a disaster, he said, adding that the fund-raising window should ideally be brief. ?I?m a big believer, in most of these programs, that the fund should be a very small duration,? Mr. Feinberg said in a phone interview. ?Because you?ve got to begin to get the money out the door to the people who really need it, and you?ve got to know how much you?re going to distribute.?
The thornier job, though, will be figuring out who qualifies for the funds and how much each victim who survived ? as well as the families of the three who died ? should receive. More than 170 people were wounded in the blasts, and more than 50 remain in the hospital.
Mr. Feinberg said that he would seek input from victims and their families before deciding on a formula. For victims of the Virginia Tech shooting, he said, compensation amounts were based on how long they were in the hospital. After the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., victims who were paralyzed or suffered traumatic brain injuries received just as much as the families of those who died.
?You can?t pay everyone the same if someone has a broken ankle versus a brain injury,? he said. ?There?s got to be some sliding scale.?
After the shootings in Aurora, some of the hospitals who treated victims agreed to limit what they charged and to waive charges entirely. Tim Gens, executive vice president of the Massachusetts Hospital Association, said that the hospitals treating the Boston victims had not yet discussed how to handle billing, but that it would be decided case by case.
For the uninsured, Mr. Gens said, Massachusetts has a charity care fund that covers all or part of their costs, depending on their income. Each hospital also has its own policies for waiving costs in certain situations, he said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gens said, ?For those who have insurance, there really shouldn?t be an issue.? Massachusetts requires most of its residents to have health insurance, ?although a small number refuse to comply or get waivers. It is not yet clear how many of the wounded were visiting from other states, or how many were uninsured.
?Massachusetts has been the leader of ?let?s create health insurance for everyone,??? said Dr. Miller of the Pacific Institute.?So it will be very interesting to see how that plays out in terms of how the costs get borne.?
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Charlie Baker, a former chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, one of the state?s largest insurers, predicted that given the circumstances, most insurance companies and employers would cover as much care as victims needed, regardless of what their policy allowed.
?If, say, they have a physical therapy benefit with an annual limit of 30 visits, I just don?t see a lot of employers saying, ?Stick to the benefit,??? Mr. Baker said. ?They?re going to say ?go for it? as long as the treatment is medically helpful.?
Rich Audsley, special adviser to a committee that helped distribute $5.4 million raised for victims in Aurora, said he wished there had been enough money to cover the needs of people who were not physically injured but suffered emotional trauma from witnessing the shootings or having victims die in their arms. Mr. Audsley said that he hoped some of the One Fund Boston money would go to community agencies that can provide counseling.
?We?re talking about emotional scars for many people that will be with them for the rest of their lives,? Mr. Audsley said.
Mr. Coutu, the family friend of some victims, said that while Mr. Feinberg figures out a formula for distributing money from the larger compensation fund, smaller fund-raising efforts could provide crucial interim help. The one for the White family has raised more than $55,000 so far.
?The great thing about these sorts of micro-fundraisers is they can access the funds immediately,? Mr. Coutu said. ?This is theirs.?
After the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Feinberg compensated victims? families by calculating the likely lifetime earnings of the dead. He won praise for his handling of the fund, which was created by Congress and paid more than $7 billion in taxpayer funds to more than 5,000 survivors and families of the dead. But it was an emotionally charged process.
?When people come to see me,? he said of disaster victims and their families, ?I?d be better off with a divinity degree or a degree in psychiatry.?
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