Day two of the conference saw the first public signs of insurection. Delegates stood up in the middle of the afternoon session to present a petition in support of the 10% rule. It was "managed" by the organizers and security.
The morning session included apocalyptic prognostication by the Comptroller General of the GAO, and the session was cut short by a fire alarm incident.
The rules were changed. The resolutions were voted upon. The speakers advocated a vision of aging primarily for rich white Norto Americonos. But in spite of this, democracy is working.
Notes from the second day of the
White House Conference on Aging (No time for a real edit or spell check, as I must be up early. Apologies in advance.)
I'm tired and have had more than one drink this evening, but the events today are too interesting not to comment on. The speakers this morning at the conference were impressive. Bary C. Black, Ph.D., Chaplain of the U.S. Senate, gave a truly inspriational opening blessing, and I say that as someone not generally receptive to this type of thing. I am impressed by his mastery of oratory and his ability to connect with people and issues.
For me, the most important speaker of the morning session was David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States. David's message was very simple -- we are on a collision course with insolvency. Not just in Social Security or (more importantly) Medicare, but as a country. As he put it, we are heading for an ("Argintina" scenario -- one of national default. The only way to avert this is hard choices, including (but not limited to) raising taxes. Yes, there is a national fiscal crisis, but it isn't Social Security, it is the entire federal government.
Just before the end of the morning session there was a fire alarm and 1,200 delegates (plus observers, etc.) evacuated the plenary session. We got the all clear after walking down many flights of stairs.
The "box lunches" for the delegates turned out to be provided by Wal Mart. I found this out shortly before lunch, and declined to partake. Instead, I payed $16 for a burger and beer at the hotel pub. Mediocre "bistro" food at best (though the service was good) at fine dining prices. Still, better than eating Wal Mart's shit.
I attended the meeting of the Mass. delegaion. It only took me three tries to find the right "tower" to find the correct room. This hotel is huge -- there are many 7th floors. We had a good meeting, though I caught only the end. This is a great group.
The afternoon plenary session also had some impressive speakers, including Dirk Kempthorne, the governor of the state of Idaho. Wow, can this man speak. He is frighteningly good. Almost too good. I was completely blown away by his timing, delivery, his empathy and ability to work the crowd. He was so good that I became unoomfortable -- was he for real or not? I have since received assurances that he is really the involved, compassionate guy he makes himeself out to be. Which is good, because otherwise he would be an unstoppable force for evil. Really. Not that I agreed with his policies. But if he is just a sociopath, god help us all.
I could summarize the afternoon session as "retirement for rich people." If you make enough money to consider long-term health care insurance or medical savings accounts, congratulations. If you are poor, you are screwed. Full stop. Kind of depressing, but what else could you expect from this administration?
I was also impressed with the content of the presentation by Ken Dychtwald Ph.D. Makes me wish I had grabbed a free copy of his book while there were still some left. Very short version -- retirement needs to be retired. New model: cyclic periods of education, work, and leisure spanning a much longer lifespan.
During the afternoon session, A group of delegates stood up, interrupting the program, and demanded to present petition signed by over 20% of the delegates. This petition was in favor of the so-called 10% rule, which in the past has allowed delegeates to introduce a new motion, agenda item, or resolution if 10% of the voting delegates had signed a petition in favor. Security was called in. This minor insurrection was shut down. Hard. The program continued. That is what the official program of this conference is all about -- control, not access or addressing issues. Very depressing.
Later in the evening I attended the AARP reception and drank more than adequate free booze while munching on a somewhat paltry spread of food. The AARP has been leading the charge against privatization, and I am behind them 100% on this issue. There were yet more speakers, who had to compete with the cocktail chatter and total attendee speaker burnout. Good speakers, good message. But who was it? My brain was fried.
I then went to the Diversity in Aging Coalition meeting, which was a good, if small event. We'll find out tomorrow if there is any chance to get LGBT issues into the implementation of any resolutions. I'm not optimistic, but i'll try.
Afterwards, by chance, I had an opportunity for more high-level networking (and more drinking). This involved conversations with people involved in organizing and steering the conference. I had a great conversation with Katherine, Jon, and Bill. Bill and I, from very different ends of the ideological spectrum, really hit it off. It goes to show that with aging, we really are all in this together.
And now I am going to bed, without even a spell-check or an editing pass (I need to be up for the Mass. delegation meeting at 7am.)
Oh, we got the top 50 resolutions back, which I'll provide numerically, but not in rank order (we weren't told what were the all-important top ten). Here they are in resolution-numeric order:
1,4,5,7,9,10,11,12,14,15,17,18,19,21,22,23,24,25,26,28,29,30,
31,32,33,34,36,37,39,40,41,42,43,44,46,47,48,50,51,52,53,55,
56,59,61,63,67,69,71,72
Go to the WHCOA website and download the proposed resolutions to decode what these numbers actually mean.
Oh, and the rule change? We apparently won't be broken down by "track" or interest, but by resolution. This means that delegates will potentially have to make hard decisions about which implementation sessions to attend. This is frustrating. And it was announced the night before. sigh