Crimes Against Humanity

Since torture no longer seems to qualify as a crime, our government has decided to go after another group of people with little or no power.

SEASON OF SHARING / Suddenly, no income / Government checks end abruptly for disabled Bayview man, 82: "After paying Omer Mixon workers compensation for two decades, the federal government told the 82-year-old by mail in August that his medical conditions caused by degenerating discs in his back 'have ceased,' so his workers compensation would too.

Mixon, who lives with his wife, Eddie Lee, 83, in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood and was forced by his doctor to leave his job at Naval Air Station Alameda in 1984, can't lift a bag of groceries without pain.

The cutoff meant that the couple suddenly had no income to buy food or pay bills or the rent on the apartment where they have lived since 1978. The federal Office of Personnel Management did say Mixon would begin receiving his government pension instead -- in three months.

Four months later, the Mixons still have no income. "

What does this mean in real terms?

"In the three decades Richson has lived with the Mixons, he has never seen an empty table for Sunday dinner. Richson, whose biological father asked the Mixons to raise his baby boy when he was 16 months old, serves as a caretaker for the couple.

The other children help, too, paying water and power bills when they can, but other bills are mounting. For example, medical expenses that were covered by workers compensation insurance now are the Mixons' responsibility.

Recently, a cancer medicine Omer Mixon needed was so expensive he went without."

Once you start taking medicine for prostate cancer it is not a wise idea to stop since for most men the cancer seems to grow faster since it was held in check.

These people are the tip of the iceberg. The generation that suffered and survived the Depression and World War II, who built this country, paid their taxes and set aside for retirement are getting the big shaft while the extremely spoiled, self-centered, ungrateful generation that benefited from their hard work and sacrifice makes a mockery of their contributions while co-opting the language and the "values".

They made it possible for us to become the greatest nation on earth and we repay them by denying them the rewards promised them and expect them to suddenly be able to survive on nothing. This country is going to learn a very hard lesson.

You are only as strong as your weakest link and ours seems to be compassion and consideration with a distinct lack of consideration for our elders.

How Christian of us.