Bureaucratic Battles in the Belly of the Beast – My Aunt Eve
My aunt Eve, 86, is an intrepid activist in the radical, pacifist community of Washington, DC. She goes to all kinds of protests against war and torture, and has been arrested often for crimes involving wearing an orange jumpsuit or sack cloth, or holding up a sign. My aunt is well known in the DC Courts and Jail, where she is something of a favorite among the guards.
But doing this activity year after year has its costs. While incarcerated in the DC Jail for an anti-war action she had a major health scare, and my mother (a year her senior and her major support person) begs her not to get arrested anymore, because in jail they always confiscate her medicine and she really can’t be without it.
And there are other costs. A few years ago, when Eve was 83, she and a comrade were arrested protesting the School of the Americas, in Georgia, where the U.S. military trains Latin American dictators and thugs. In what her lawyers and fellow protestors considered a victory, she did not get jail time. But she did get a fine of $5,000.
She doesn’t hear well and gets flustered on the phone, so sometimes I help her call the phone company, the bank, the place that sends her medication orders. I give her a hand with Windows 10 and her smart phone, listen to her frustrations about the Lyft app, inquire whether Medicare will pay for a replacement walker–answer: “no”.
All this is normal stuff everyone deals with as they age. But Eve faces extra tribulations resulting from her activism. She has often been arrested at protest actions, and has gone to jail numerous times. Challenging for anyone, but especially for someone who is elderly and frail.
So where are the services for activist elders?
Her righteous indignation at the injustice in the world is boundless, but her energy is not. nome elders are familiar sights on neighborhood walks or at the local school or store, But doing this activity year after year has its costs. While incarcerated in the DC Jail for an anti-war action she had a major health scare, and my mother (a year her senior and her major support person) begs her not to get arrested anymore, because in jail they always confiscate her medicine and she really can’t be without it.
And there are other costs. A few years ago, when Eve was 83, she and a comrade were arrested protesting the School of the Americas, in Georgia, where the U.S. military trains Latin American dictators and thugs. In what her lawyers and fellow protestors considered a victory, she did not get jail time. But she did get a fine of $5,000.
For a person living on a modest fixed income, this is a huge sum, which has been taken (they call it “offset”) from her bank account every month over the past three years. Now, she had received an incomprehensible letter about the status of her case..
So I began wading through Eve’s overstuffed folder full of notices and letters about the court case, fines, warnings, admonishments, from the Georgia department of the Treasury, her bank, and much more. Her eyesight has been poor for a long time, so it has been extraordinarily difficult for her to get through all this material, much of it incomprehensible to me, though my reading vision is 20-20.
I spent over an hour on the phone with a person from the Debt Management Dept of the US Treasury, as well as with somebody from GA Prosecutor’s office, trying to find out what is going on with this $5,000 fine, which they have been docking (they call it “offsetting”) from her social security check for years.
In frustration I tried to find out how much she owes in all, how much she has paid, or what she has left to pay. After half a dozen calls I managed to find the right department, and once I found it, the person I spoke to, while very polite, could not answer these questions. She told me I would have to submit letters to the Georgia department of Corrections. I held my tongue, but reflected that the institution that had executed Troy Davis in cold blood, despite tons of evidence of his innocence and appeals from a host of world renowned people, was unlikely to have much consideration for a random, out-of-town, elderly activist Jew.
They did, however, graciously “allow” her to pay what they said was, coincidentally, the last payment of the $5,000. Eve was happy to learn this, although, frankly, it was impossible to know if they had “only” charged her the original exorbitant sum or gouged her even more.
The clerk informed us in an austere but pleased tone that this was the very last day the office was accepting credit card payments. My aunt and I expressed our gratification (the clerk seemed to expect it) but even this meager victory was soon snatched away. Eve’s card was declined, and it took another half an hour to transact a check payment
Then I tackled the credit card company. After another hour on the phone with them, I learned that they had decreased her credit limit to $500 a month. Even though she is the most frugal of souls, Eve had exceeded this paltry limit.
And why, I queried the second or third person I spoke to, was her limit so drastically slashed (it had been ludicrously high before, $15,000). Well, they told me regretfully, it is because she has delinquencies on her credit report. The “delinquencies” in fact, of the longtime fines from her activism, even though they have been automatically docking her account for them for all this time.
When I told her about this, she didn’t hesitate. Just cancel the card. I was delighted to do it, –they tried to cheat me out of $400 a few years ago. Bank of America! Ugh.
I hope you’re more careful now!