Labor Day Has Gone to the Dogs

The way this country's going, Labor Day should be called Dog's Day. Not only is that rich woman's dog getting a big chewy chunk of her fortune - with more generous tax breaks than working people get - but workers in the Third World don't get treated much better than Michael Vick's dogs. Canines are in the lap of luxury, because politicians are a Dog's Best Friend.

Everybody knows that Leona Helmsley left $12 million to her little furball, but here's some Purina for thought: The pooch named Trouble will get better tax treatment for her unearned wealth than working Americans will get for their hard-earned and stagnating income. And if the GOP had its way, the poodle would pay no taxes at all.

Let's say Trouble were a rich human kid who had never worked a day in her life - like Paris Hilton, without the sex tape (or at least let's hope so). In that case she would have received the first $2 million of that $12 million completely tax free, while working stiffs trying to raise families on inadequate wages would pay their full share (and do it without guaranteed health care, too.) But Trouble's an animal. She can't directly inherit money, because nonhuman living things don't have the same legal rights that humans - and corporations - do.

(This point is covered in the new environmental documentary The Eleventh Hour, which we saw yesterday and is strongly recommended. But it was also addressed many years ago in a famous legal essay called "Should Trees Have Standing?")

Don't worry about Trouble, though. Ms. Helmsley did what Doris Duke and others before her have done, and created a trust to care for her pet. It is my understanding that the dog's trust will also receive more favorable tax treatment than working people get. (If any CPAs reading this want to clarify, please do.)

Michael Vick tortured and killed dogs, and for that he should fry in hell. (I'm with Richard Belzer and not Lawrence O'Donnell on that one.) But why did he torment them? Because they were employees who had underperformed at their job, which was fighting. He would have been better off tormenting human workers. If Vick ran a large corporation whose employees worked in Third World sweatshops, under conditions not fit for - well, a dog - he could still hold his head up in polite society.

(Not that we're naming - any - names or anything.)

But hey, it gets better - for dogs. Just down the road in Santa Monica, the town Harry Shearer aptly calls "The Home of the Homeless," they're opening a "Three Dog Bakery" this weekend. There, bakery patrons will be able to buy Lick 'n Crunch Carob Cookies with Peanut Butter Flavor Filling for $4.79, or pay $11.95 to join the "Bone of the Month Club."

Don't get me wrong: It's all pretty cute, what with their "Dogalog" instead of "Catalog" and all. And pets should eat healthy food, too. But there's something a little Marie Antoinette-ish about it all. When I walked past their new location the other day a homeless guy was sleeping in their doorway.

I wish I'd had my camera (and more photography talent). That street person looking for shelter in a dog's luxury bakery was an icon of the new America, one that's being built with a massive upward redistribution of wealth. (Money quote: "The only group for which earnings in 2006 exceeded those of 2000 were the households in the top five percent of the earnings distribution. For everybody else, they were lower.")

Roll over, Walker Evans, and tell Margaret Bourke-White the news.

Leona Helmsley's housekeeper says that Trouble kept biting the employees, and that Helmsley and her managers did nothing to stop her. Why should they? It's a perfect illustration of the relationship that exists today between workers and their bosses' pets.

Oh, and Happy Labor Day.

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The Sentinel Effect: Healthcare Blog
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RJ Eskow at the Huffington Post

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Comments

[KidSister]

Good points... thank you. Especially the contrast between the "Three Dog Bakery" and the homeless man. I look after several aging animals on a meager budget... you won't catch me in some extremely outlandish store. It's cute, but not at all pratical.

"Michael Vick tortured and killed dogs, and for that he should fry in hell. (I'm with Richard Belzer and not Lawrence O'Donnell on that one.)"

....enuf said.

=^..^=

[BenjitheWolfdog]

I agree with the premise of the post. One of the things we need to do is stop basing taxes on income but rather on ability to pay. I heard a comment on CNBC the other day that the rich pay the most of the taxes in this country. Odd it seemed to me so I did a bit of research as to what basis this statment was made. In fact I found the top 20% pay about 36 % of taxes. The problem is they control about 80 % of the wealth in this country. So the truth is the bottom 20 % of wealth supports about 2/3 of the cost of running this nation. Guess its true, you can make statistics prove anything.

[researcher]

Hey middle class Americans have lined up to put these repubs into office and the repubs only offer a trickle down theory, which the middle class bought lock stock and barrel.

Now they bitch because that trickle down theory was a con and the middle class bought the con.

Want to know what the future of America looks like you only have to drive south a few miles after you cross our southern border. The haves in Mexico are smart very smart as they send their have nots to America so we can use them for cheap labor further destroying the middle class in this country. The battle cry of the naïve American middle class is capitalism forever baby as they sink into a sea of have not status.

Capitalism by it very nature is designed to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

We are becoming a country of deep debt and a population of haves and have nots and the entire time this is happening to middle class America our politicians tell us what a robust economy we have. These are the same liars that told us Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and had wmd's.

We Americans are naive, arrogant, and have shown the world how incompetent we are.

The entire time the housing market was going thru the roof our capitalist economists told us how great this was for Americans when if fact it was a loss of wealth for most Americans. We bought the capitalist con again.

Americans want their unchecked capitalism now we must live with it as the middle class dissolves right before our eyes into a sea of have nots.

[John]

I have a dog and I can tell you with certainty that many poor could be fed with the money we've spent so far on vet bills. What racket pet ownership has become! I'm not ready to toss our beloved pet into the woods, but the injustice of this is actually staggering if you really think about it. A lot of people don't realize that we spend billions on health care for pets in this country, while 47 million humans and rising are without a minimum level of standard health care.

Isn't this one of the signs of the apocalypse? If it isn't, it should be.

[KidSister]

Yes taking a pet to the emergency vet clinic can be very expensive, but taking a human to the emergency room is umpteen times more expensive.

If there is racket on medical prices... it starts with the insurance companies and the medical industry for humans.

If it's billions on health care for pets, then it's trillions on humans with health insurance.

The insurance companies are making a killing.

Me, I don't have insurance. And because of that, I actually get better health care from a local charity clinic.

=^..^=

[Yourtalkingtoyourself]

Great post. It is indeed sickening the priorities this nation has developed, and our disgusting worship of dogs is just a glaring example that a lot of folks are having to come to grips with the last few days.

[steeleye]

"But there's something a little Marie Antoinette-ish about it all."

May i please point out that Marie Antoinette's remark, widely misinterpreted as callous cynicism, was, in fact, clueless naivete on the part of a woman who had never been confronted with the realities of life for the poor in her time and place?

She literally did not understand that it was possible to be so poor one could not afford to buy even bread; to her, bread and cake both were something that simply appeared on her plate when she wanted some.

If there happened to be no bread on her plate, she would eat cake.

And, she assumed, genuinely puzzled, the peasants could do the same.

[t-party]

Oh thank you. You have just unraveled the enigma of the seeming cognitive dissonance between George W. Bush's tax cuts and “compassionate conservatism”.

[itolduso]

Nothing funny about your statement. That "clueless naivete" is much too common among the wealthy today. I often volunteer to raise funds for our local food bank, and in my discussions with potential wealthy donors their complete lack of comprehension of the difficulties that the working poor face is mind-boggling. I was explaining to one gentleman that the majority of the people served by our food bank had at least one member of their family working a full time job, and 43% had to choose between buying food and paying for medical care or medicine. He gave a few sympathetic murmurs and stated that lots of young families go through 'trying times' and recalled a particularly bad time when he was first married-he had been forced to sell off one of his original Norman Rockwells to pay for his children's school! Yes indeed-y! There is a widening chasm in this country-& it's gonna suck us all in and drop us straight to hell.

[Nommo]

You can't be serious. You would lynch Michael Vick as was Emmitt Till/Amadou Diallo? Watsa matta, they were not enough? Your president is killing hundreds of thousands human beings, what's your suggested punishment for that, if any at all? Oh, and dogfighting thrives despite the bloodthirsty nationalist siege against Michael Vick. The nation has gone to the dogs, fighting or no.
Did you love dogs as much when they were keeping civil rights protesters in check?
How's the puppy mortality rate in this great nation? Is it equal to, higher, or lower than, say, that of Sri Lanka?
Sick fucks.

[flatus]

"Lynch" Michael Vick? I didn't read that part. I did read the "burn in hell" part though and I must admit, that as an atheist, burning in hell is not a good enough punishment.

[Nommo]

Well, where have you been? The lynching has been going on throughout. I wonder how much love there is in people who suggest ugly and vile punishments for a man over some dogs. I suspect that even your atheist beliefs are subject to compromise over the same matter.
But belief is just a game anyway, subject to tomorrow's whims, right?
Anyone who suggests, and there have been many here, that dogs are some kind of equal to humans, more trustworthy or what ever have you, ought not to comment on any human endeavor at all.
Once again, despite the blood lust for Michael Vick, the practice of dogfighting continues to thrive--all over the world, I might add. All the lusts for Vick's punishment has not put a dent in the dogfighting. On any level.

Now, here in a nutshell, is the crux of the matter. America has never advocated for certain of its citizens, those who provided two and one half centuries of free labors, fought in all of its wars, but have the wrong color skin or grade of hair. All of that to say, mostly Black folk. But you go nutz over dogs--and you used dogs to attack American citizens who just wanted to not be subject to jim crow laws. Dogs and fire hoses were the answer.
Y'all "love" dogs more than you do people. Personally, I think that's sick.
And after 10,000 documented lynchings of Black men, women and children, what's one more?