First of all, evidently, the term "Old Joe" is slang for... all kinds of things, none of them Joe Biden. However, "Old Joe Biden" does seem to be a nickname-ish for Biden. I suppose there are so many Old Joes out there that you have to add Biden to specify which Old Joe is meant. So, yes, I am indeed talking about Joe Biden.
I don't like him.
Not that I don't like him. He seems like a perfectly affable fellow and completely likable. He was a fine Vice President. Or fine enough, anyway.
But he's way past his expiration date.
And I don't just mean that he's old. He is old (and, god, I am so tired of old, white men in government), but it's that his ideas are old. His ideas are old, but he's still treating them as if they are as new as they were in the 90s. We're past all that, Joe. Get your foot off the step of the progressive bus if you're not going to get on. The rest of us have places to go.
Needless to say, I am unhappy that Joe is who we are left with as the presumptive Democrat nominee. Is this really the best we can do?
No, not really, but "we" forced all of the better candidates out of the race.
This may all sound like I'm a Sanders supporter, but, no, he, too, is way past his expiration date. Sure, I would take Sanders in a heartbeat over Biden, but why is it that old, white farts are what we seem to get stuck with way too often?
And, now, let me return to my initial thought that spawned this post, rather than go off in the myriad directions I'm tempted to go in.
Joe Biden is the fear choice. He's like... I don't know, a safety word. Everyone is convinced that if he had just run in 2016 that we wouldn't have ended up with the orange carrot shit of a #fakepresident that we currently have. [Look, my dog likes carrots. When she eats a lot of them, like she did a few days ago, she gets the carrot shits. They make me think of Trump.] I'm not convinced of that, but I'm not not convinced of that, either. But it doesn't matter.
Look, we are way past making the safe choice. We are in... oh, trouble doesn't cover it. The carrot shit "president" has created global crises in so many areas, and all we have left to fix all of this are bold moves, especially in regards to the environment. And healthcare. And immigration. Fuck, so many things. Biden is not a bold choice. He's the choice that will quit making things worse but won't do anything to make things better. He's the status quo choice. And not even the return to the previous status quo choice, because he's so milk toast that he won't fight the GOP to even get things back to the way they were. He'll try to work with them and compromise based on how things are now, and we'll sit in stasis for at least another four years.
Evidently, we are going to have to be at the actual edge of environmental collapse before people wake the fuck up and realize that everything is about to collapse. Not that we are not already there, but it really has to be slapping people in the face, hard, before they are willing to look at it. The last time we made any significant changes in our approach to the environment happened when there was actual acid coming out of the sky. The ice caps melting is just too far away for people to take it seriously. Maybe when New Orleans and Miami and New York are under water.
Will I vote for Biden? Of course, I will vote for Biden. If he's the option that is not Trump (#fakepresident), I will go with that, because the Democrats don't have an option that dips down into the sewer where the GOP seems to live. And the GOP had to reach into the depths to come up with Trump. What I'm saying is that I can't visually a Democrat option worse than Trump.
Will I be happy to vote for Biden? Only in relation to that he is the better option than Trump. But I won't really be happy. It makes me sad and angry that Biden seems to be what we're going to be stuck with. We really have to do better! But we also have to get Trump out of office and we have to vote out as many Republicans as possible. So it makes me more mad to see people who say they are against Trump talking about how they won't vote for Biden if he's the nominee. I'm sorry, we're way past that. Your protest abstention is how we make Trump a two-term destroyer of the US Constitution.
So man the fuck up and determine to vote for whoever the Democrat nominee is. It's more important to get Trump (#fakepresident) out of the White House than it is for you to hold onto some false moral imperative to only vote for the "progressive" candidate. You do what you can do without whining about what you want to do instead. If you're starving, you don't whine about not getting cake, you ate the fucking stale bread that you're given. Right now, we're all starving. Biden is the stale bread choice, but he's better than nothing.
Showing posts with label healthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthcare. Show all posts
Friday, April 24, 2020
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
Make America Great: Building a New America
Many of the lessons we learn in life are inadvertent. They're just things we pick up that stick with us somewhat like the gum on your shoe on a hot summer's day that gets all the way up in the cracks and you can't scrape it out no matter how hard you try. One of those moments for me was from my mom.
We were having a... disagreement about something: I don't remember what and maybe it's not really important; after all, it's what she said that matters. Well, it is important to know that it had to do with my performance on something or other at church in relation to the youth group. She was telling me how I wasn't doing a good job or not doing it to my potential or some such. It was the kind of thing my mother never really said to me, maybe because she didn't need to or maybe just because we didn't have those kinds of conversations -- I don't know. We never had those kinds of conversations, but I don't know if it's because we never needed to have them or not. -- but on that day she was, I felt, berating me for some imagined shortfall, and it pissed me off.
There were two things going on here:
The first was that I was doing better than everyone else involved in whatever it was that was going on. By a lot. I felt it was entirely unfair of her to be getting on my back by telling me I wasn't doing a good job when I was ahead of everyone else.
The second was that I knew she was actually right. Whatever it was we were doing, I was only doing just enough to stay in the lead. I wasn't doing a good job, I was doing a "good enough" job. That was what was making me mad, getting called on the fact that I was coasting. And I knew I was coasting, but, if I could get by with coasting and still be doing better than everyone else, why shouldn't I?
So, you know, I did what teenagers do, I yelled at her. Right there in the hall outside of the kitchen at church, because that's where she worked, as the cook at our church. So I yelled at her at church and at work. At least there was no one else around, though, right? I yelled something like, "I'm already doing better than everyone else!"
And she said, probably also yelling, though I don't actually remember, "But you're not doing your best!"
And I probably yelled back, "I don't care," and stormed off down the hall. I do remember the storming part. Because I was mad.
High drama, I know.
But, man, I have never been able to get that out of my head, the difference between being simply better and being best. Not "the best," because that's relative, but actually being at your best. Period. And that it's not enough to simply be better than everyone else, especially if that means you're not making any effort to be in that spot. What's the good of that?
Let's put it another way:
If 10 is "Best," you don't get to claim you're the Best merely by being a 6 while everyone else is a 5 or below. You're just being better than them, not actually being "Best.".
That said, America has never been "Great;" it's merely been "greater."
Even that has not been a claim it could consistently lay claim to, and it's certainly not a claim it can make now when we lead the world in... hmm...
We lead the world in gun deaths.
We lead the world in military spending. So that we can promote more gun deaths.
We lead the world in bullying. Because we have an administration that believes that power should be used to push people around to get what you want.
We do NOT lead the world in education.
We do NOT lead the world in health care.
We do NOT lead the world in science research.
We do NOT lead the world in renewable energy research or implementation.
The point, then, is that we cannot "make America great again," because it was never great to begin with. Which, you know, hurts me to actually say, because I have spent a lifetime, my lifetime, believing in "America."
Of course, I've believed in the ideal of America, not the way it actually turned out. I suppose I just have always we believed, until two years ago, that we were closer to that ideal than we actually were. Which is not close at all.
Having said all of that, America could be great. It could be Great.
We were having a... disagreement about something: I don't remember what and maybe it's not really important; after all, it's what she said that matters. Well, it is important to know that it had to do with my performance on something or other at church in relation to the youth group. She was telling me how I wasn't doing a good job or not doing it to my potential or some such. It was the kind of thing my mother never really said to me, maybe because she didn't need to or maybe just because we didn't have those kinds of conversations -- I don't know. We never had those kinds of conversations, but I don't know if it's because we never needed to have them or not. -- but on that day she was, I felt, berating me for some imagined shortfall, and it pissed me off.
There were two things going on here:
The first was that I was doing better than everyone else involved in whatever it was that was going on. By a lot. I felt it was entirely unfair of her to be getting on my back by telling me I wasn't doing a good job when I was ahead of everyone else.
The second was that I knew she was actually right. Whatever it was we were doing, I was only doing just enough to stay in the lead. I wasn't doing a good job, I was doing a "good enough" job. That was what was making me mad, getting called on the fact that I was coasting. And I knew I was coasting, but, if I could get by with coasting and still be doing better than everyone else, why shouldn't I?
So, you know, I did what teenagers do, I yelled at her. Right there in the hall outside of the kitchen at church, because that's where she worked, as the cook at our church. So I yelled at her at church and at work. At least there was no one else around, though, right? I yelled something like, "I'm already doing better than everyone else!"
And she said, probably also yelling, though I don't actually remember, "But you're not doing your best!"
And I probably yelled back, "I don't care," and stormed off down the hall. I do remember the storming part. Because I was mad.
High drama, I know.
But, man, I have never been able to get that out of my head, the difference between being simply better and being best. Not "the best," because that's relative, but actually being at your best. Period. And that it's not enough to simply be better than everyone else, especially if that means you're not making any effort to be in that spot. What's the good of that?
Let's put it another way:
If 10 is "Best," you don't get to claim you're the Best merely by being a 6 while everyone else is a 5 or below. You're just being better than them, not actually being "Best.".
That said, America has never been "Great;" it's merely been "greater."
Even that has not been a claim it could consistently lay claim to, and it's certainly not a claim it can make now when we lead the world in... hmm...
We lead the world in gun deaths.
We lead the world in military spending. So that we can promote more gun deaths.
We lead the world in bullying. Because we have an administration that believes that power should be used to push people around to get what you want.
We do NOT lead the world in education.
We do NOT lead the world in health care.
We do NOT lead the world in science research.
We do NOT lead the world in renewable energy research or implementation.
The point, then, is that we cannot "make America great again," because it was never great to begin with. Which, you know, hurts me to actually say, because I have spent a lifetime, my lifetime, believing in "America."
Of course, I've believed in the ideal of America, not the way it actually turned out. I suppose I just have always we believed, until two years ago, that we were closer to that ideal than we actually were. Which is not close at all.
Having said all of that, America could be great. It could be Great.
- It could aspire to the ideal of itself!
- It could believe in education again. Believe that education is the door to the future.
- It could quit focusing on a past that never existed and actually work on making tomorrow a better place instead of trying to make tomorrow into something that resembles an old b&w TV show.
- It could promote equality for all people, the way it has always supposed to have been.
- We could actually become a country of the people, by the people, for the people and quit letting rich old white men and corporations run everything.
Look, today is the day we celebrate stepping away from one egotistical, rich white dude who just wanted to boss people around for his own gain. Maybe we should look at whom we've replaced him with and quit being bossed around by the current egotistical, rich white dude who just wants to boss people around for his own gain.
It's time to make America actually great. It's time to build a new America, the one that should have always existed.
"We hold these truth to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed [through creation] with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among [people], deriving their [powers] from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it..."
Don't give consent to the current administration, the current administration which is destructive to Life, to Liberty, and to the pursuit of Happiness.
#resist
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
The Alphabet of Politics (this week)
Writing the April poem was much more difficult than I thought it would be. Not because it was poetry and poetry is not my strength (I took that difficulty into account before I began and sought assistance from my wife, the Queen of Rhythm (credit where credit is more than due)) but because writing anything about politics right now is... is...
Writing politics right now is like trying to juggle eggs during a major earthquake while more eggs are falling from the sky. You can only deal with the egg in your hand and you can't make any plans about future eggs and you can't figure out why eggs are falling from the sky.
To put it another way: It's chaos.
Needless to say, many things in the poem changed during the month due to changing circumstances.
Like chickenshit Paul Ryan effectively resigning. He wants to run for President, I'm sure, and that will never happen unless he manages to climb out of the shithole he helped create.
Well, I'm not going to go through all the things that manipulated the end result. It is what it is at the moment.
Here's the whole thing all in one place with only a few minor edits here and there; however, there is an alternate version below reflecting things that had been planned then scrapped due to the aforementioned chaos.
Abortion is A, a right fundamental,
the Constitution says it's her choice.
B for the boomers, they've gone fully mental,
only heeding their own selfish voice.
C is for Congress and its very brown thumb
shoved eagerly up its own ass.
D is for data; Facebook plays dumb
while selling you out for hard cash.
E for the Earth, if we don't keep it cool,
we'll sink in a watery grave.
F is for fake news. Your feed is a tool
for Russia to make you its slave.
G are the guns that we buy without limit,
no matter the state of your mind,
and H, the health care and need of a clinic
you'll find you're already denied.
I is for I.C.E. on which they want to put you,
cold storage without any rights
or the J that is justice, which they eschew,
unless, of course, you're skin is all white.
K is for Kushner who doesn't have clearance,
but no one's crying you lost it.
L is the Left and its public adherence.
Be aware, we're not gonna quit.
M is for mass shootings and the Right's lack of care
about our kids dying in their schools,
which is why we have N for #neveragain
and why the Right will all look like fools.
O for Obama whom we'd like to have back.
He was never a laughing stock.
P is for porn star and her breathtaking rack
and Cohen behind a padlock.
Q is for quiet for which I long and pine.
If only they'd learn how to behave.
R is for racists and lyin' Paul Ryan.
Turns out he's like Robin the Brave.
S is for schools where we ought to have guns,
says DeVos, to keep out the bears.
T is for Trump; he believes he's "the one,"
but, really, he's just putting on airs.
U is for under, the water I mean;
Now is your time to go to the coast.
V is for violence which cops seem so keen
to use against black folks the most.
W is for "wag the dog" or maybe for war
all to keep you from looking at
X-rated tapes, but not the ones in your drawer,
the ones with Russian "pussycats."
Y is for you and how you need to go vote;
it's time to get out and fight
for Z, zero tolerance, not just a note
that we're through with this shit from the Right.
Also this:
Abortion is A, a right fundamental,
the Constitution says it's her choice.
B for the boomers, they've gone fully mental,
only heeding their own selfish voice.
C is for Congress and its very brown thumb
shoved eagerly up its own ass.
D is for Dreamers and how we've left them the crumbs.
It's time to give them a pass.
E for the Earth, if we don't keep it cool,
we'll sink in a watery grave.
F is for fake news. Your feed is a tool
for Russia to make you its slave.
G are the guns that we buy without limit,
no matter the state of your mind,
and H, the health care and need of a clinic
you'll find you're already denied.
I is for I.C.E. on which they want to put you,
cold storage without any rights
or the J that is justice, which they eschew,
unless, of course, you're skin is all white.
K is for Kushner who doesn't have clearance,
but no one's crying you lost it.
L is the Left and its public adherence.
Be aware, we're not gonna quit.
M is for mass shootings and the Right's lack of care
about our kids dying in their schools,
which is why we have N for #neveragain
and why the Right will all look like fools.
Oh Shit! We're all gonna die in nuclear fire!
How are we back in the 80s?!
P is for porn star and her breathtaking rack
and Cohen behind a padlock.
Q is for quiet for which I long and pine.
If only they'd learn how to behave.
R is for racists and lyin' Paul Ryan.
Turns out he's like Robin the Brave.
S is for schools where we ought to have guns,
says DeVos, to keep out the bears.
T is for Trump; he believes he's "the one,"
but, really, he's just putting on airs.
U is for under, the water I mean;
Now is your time to go to the coast.
V is for violence which cops seem so keen
to use against black folks the most.
W is for women and it's certainly time
for #metoo and all their voices heard.
Enough x-rated plant sex from Harvey Weinstein.
C'mon, you know he's a fat turd.
Y is for you and how you need to go vote;
it's time to get out and fight
for Z, zero tolerance, not just a note
that we're through with this shit from the Right.
Writing politics right now is like trying to juggle eggs during a major earthquake while more eggs are falling from the sky. You can only deal with the egg in your hand and you can't make any plans about future eggs and you can't figure out why eggs are falling from the sky.
To put it another way: It's chaos.
Needless to say, many things in the poem changed during the month due to changing circumstances.
Like chickenshit Paul Ryan effectively resigning. He wants to run for President, I'm sure, and that will never happen unless he manages to climb out of the shithole he helped create.
Well, I'm not going to go through all the things that manipulated the end result. It is what it is at the moment.
Here's the whole thing all in one place with only a few minor edits here and there; however, there is an alternate version below reflecting things that had been planned then scrapped due to the aforementioned chaos.
Abortion is A, a right fundamental,
the Constitution says it's her choice.
B for the boomers, they've gone fully mental,
only heeding their own selfish voice.
C is for Congress and its very brown thumb
shoved eagerly up its own ass.
D is for data; Facebook plays dumb
while selling you out for hard cash.
E for the Earth, if we don't keep it cool,
we'll sink in a watery grave.
F is for fake news. Your feed is a tool
for Russia to make you its slave.
G are the guns that we buy without limit,
no matter the state of your mind,
and H, the health care and need of a clinic
you'll find you're already denied.
I is for I.C.E. on which they want to put you,
cold storage without any rights
or the J that is justice, which they eschew,
unless, of course, you're skin is all white.
K is for Kushner who doesn't have clearance,
but no one's crying you lost it.
L is the Left and its public adherence.
Be aware, we're not gonna quit.
M is for mass shootings and the Right's lack of care
about our kids dying in their schools,
which is why we have N for #neveragain
and why the Right will all look like fools.
O for Obama whom we'd like to have back.
He was never a laughing stock.
P is for porn star and her breathtaking rack
and Cohen behind a padlock.
Q is for quiet for which I long and pine.
If only they'd learn how to behave.
R is for racists and lyin' Paul Ryan.
Turns out he's like Robin the Brave.
S is for schools where we ought to have guns,
says DeVos, to keep out the bears.
T is for Trump; he believes he's "the one,"
but, really, he's just putting on airs.
U is for under, the water I mean;
Now is your time to go to the coast.
V is for violence which cops seem so keen
to use against black folks the most.
W is for "wag the dog" or maybe for war
all to keep you from looking at
X-rated tapes, but not the ones in your drawer,
the ones with Russian "pussycats."
Y is for you and how you need to go vote;
it's time to get out and fight
for Z, zero tolerance, not just a note
that we're through with this shit from the Right.
copyright Andrew and Sarah Leon 2017
Also this:
Abortion is A, a right fundamental,
the Constitution says it's her choice.
B for the boomers, they've gone fully mental,
only heeding their own selfish voice.
C is for Congress and its very brown thumb
shoved eagerly up its own ass.
D is for Dreamers and how we've left them the crumbs.
It's time to give them a pass.
E for the Earth, if we don't keep it cool,
we'll sink in a watery grave.
F is for fake news. Your feed is a tool
for Russia to make you its slave.
G are the guns that we buy without limit,
no matter the state of your mind,
and H, the health care and need of a clinic
you'll find you're already denied.
I is for I.C.E. on which they want to put you,
cold storage without any rights
or the J that is justice, which they eschew,
unless, of course, you're skin is all white.
K is for Kushner who doesn't have clearance,
but no one's crying you lost it.
L is the Left and its public adherence.
Be aware, we're not gonna quit.
M is for mass shootings and the Right's lack of care
about our kids dying in their schools,
which is why we have N for #neveragain
and why the Right will all look like fools.
Oh Shit! We're all gonna die in nuclear fire!
How are we back in the 80s?!
P is for porn star and her breathtaking rack
and Cohen behind a padlock.
Q is for quiet for which I long and pine.
If only they'd learn how to behave.
R is for racists and lyin' Paul Ryan.
Turns out he's like Robin the Brave.
S is for schools where we ought to have guns,
says DeVos, to keep out the bears.
T is for Trump; he believes he's "the one,"
but, really, he's just putting on airs.
U is for under, the water I mean;
Now is your time to go to the coast.
V is for violence which cops seem so keen
to use against black folks the most.
W is for women and it's certainly time
for #metoo and all their voices heard.
Enough x-rated plant sex from Harvey Weinstein.
C'mon, you know he's a fat turd.
Y is for you and how you need to go vote;
it's time to get out and fight
for Z, zero tolerance, not just a note
that we're through with this shit from the Right.
copyright Andrew and Sarah Leon 2017
Monday, April 9, 2018
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Monday, February 12, 2018
The Rich Man Who Went To Hell
There was once a rich man. 1% for sure. In fact, if you're not the 1%, I don't think the term "rich" should be applied. The gap between the 1%, maybe 2%, and everyone else is getting so wide that there's not much left to be called "rich" among people not up there at the top.
So there was this rich man who liked to wear expensive clothes. The most expensive he could get his hands on. He was known for it.
He also ate pretty well.
There was also a homeless man. The homeless man was Lazarus, and he was suffering greatly from being homeless, so much so that he wasn't able to get around on his own anymore. He had oozing sores because he didn't have any healthcare, and he couldn't keep the dogs and flies off of them. The dogs because they like to lick gross stuff and the flies because... well, for the same reason, I suppose.
The homeless man had a few of his friends, if you could call them that -- people willing to give him a hand, at any rate -- drag him over and leave him in front of the rich man's house. Not right in front, you know, because that would be trespassing, but on the sidewalk near the gate. Maybe, just maybe, the rich man would allow him some of the leftover food from his amazing dinners, though, really, any food at all would have been amazing to the homeless man. To Lazarus.
Lazarus lived out his days there on the sidewalk in front of the rich man's house. I'm going to just assume that those days were not very many, though I don't know for sure. But we know that he was starving, that he was unable to seek shelter because he wasn't strong enough to walk, that he was suffering from oozing sores that wouldn't heal. None of those things bodes well for a long life. When he died, the angels came and carried him away. Or maybe those were just the first responders who showed up when they got the call about about a body.
Some time later, the rich man also died. I'm going to go ahead and assume that it was some years later, though I don't know for sure. After all, we don't know how old the rich man was, and we don't know what he died from. Maybe he lived decades because he probably had great healthcare or, maybe, he died the next day in a car crash. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that the rich man got sent straight to Hell. I imagine this rather like a game of Monopoly: He did not pass "Go" and he did not collect his $200.
Now Hell is a pretty awful place. Or so they say. Evidently, it's hot, or there wouldn't be a saying about it being "hot as hell." It seems there is also no water, because the rich man was dying of thirst. Okay, sure, he was already dead, but it sure felt to him as if he were dying of thirst. At any rate, he looked up toward Heaven (because you can see it clearly from Hell), longing for water, and, what do you know, there was Lazarus, the guy who died in front of his house, just hanging out and having a good time.
And drinking water.
The rich man wanted some, and he wanted Lazarus to bring it to him. The answer, of course, was no. Not just no, but, "Hell, no!" heh
Some of you may be familiar with this story. It's pretty popular in churches and comes from the book of Luke. Yes, that's in the Bible. So let's look at some things about this particular story, shall we? Yes, we shall.
Jesus was telling this story to the Pharisees because he liked to tell stories that were also lessons. That he was telling the story to Pharisees presents us with a small problem: The Pharisees were all rich, hyper-uptight, religiously educated dudes. Let me make one distinction, though: when I say they were religiously educated, that means they were educated in Jewish law. And they knew it backwards and forwards but, basically, it made them lawyers. They weren't actually interested in spirituality; they were interested in the law and how to keep the letter of the law.
So Jesus was speaking to a bunch of lawyers, experts, about an intersection of religious law and spirituality, and today's church-goers are hardly experts in, well, anything to do with the Bible at all.
Jesus was speaking to the 1%. When pastors are preaching this particular message, they are most assuredly not speaking it to the 1%.
Jesus was speaking to hyper-uptight... Oh, well, that's still the same.
But, really, pastors today are not delivering this message to the intended audience. Let's look at why that matters:
Jesus was delivering his message to the rich. Based on other things he said to the rich, like "give away to the poor everything you own," I'm going to take this story as a warning to the 1%. I think that warning is, "Don't be rich," which is a warning that rather flies in the face of the oh-so-popular prosperity doctrine. [For those of you who don't know, the prosperity doctrine says that "god" will make you rich if he likes you. Conversely, if you are rich, "god" likes you.]
Of course, pastors tell this story as if the rich man was being punished because he didn't do anything to help Lazarus, and I can see the temptation in telling it that way, but we don't know that that was true. The story Jesus tells says nothing about whether the rich man offered Lazarus food or not. Or what he did or did not do for the man. What I do find interesting, though, is that the rich man knew Lazarus' name, not something I would expect if he had taken no interest in Lazarus at all or if his interest had only extended to, "Get that wretch away from my gate!" In fact, we know that Lazarus lived in front of the rich man's house until his death. Maybe the rich man kept Lazarus fed all along but Lazarus was just too sick for it to do any good. We really don't know.
Pastors also tell this story to the poor of the world as a comfort story rather than to the rich as a warning. Not what Jesus intended if we look at the audience Jesus delivered this particular message to. No, the message pastors today want to deliver is this: Don't worry about being poor and sick and abandoned; you will get to go to heaven. As if Lazarus got to go to heaven because he was poor and sick. That also doesn't follow from the rest of the accumulated teachings ascribed to Jesus.
Basically, what we have here are two completely divergent messages.
The first, by Jesus:
Hey, you, rich people, watch out. You're going down.
The second, by modern pastors:
Hey, you, downtrodden people, be accepting of your fate. You'll get rewarded for your suffering after you die.
That second message is kind of sick if you ask me.
What I do know is this: No matter what you believe, the 1%, after they die, are going to end up in the same place as the rich man from the story. I suppose they better hope that "christianity" doesn't turn out to be true, because an eternity of nothingness has to be better than an eternity in hell.
So there was this rich man who liked to wear expensive clothes. The most expensive he could get his hands on. He was known for it.
He also ate pretty well.
There was also a homeless man. The homeless man was Lazarus, and he was suffering greatly from being homeless, so much so that he wasn't able to get around on his own anymore. He had oozing sores because he didn't have any healthcare, and he couldn't keep the dogs and flies off of them. The dogs because they like to lick gross stuff and the flies because... well, for the same reason, I suppose.
The homeless man had a few of his friends, if you could call them that -- people willing to give him a hand, at any rate -- drag him over and leave him in front of the rich man's house. Not right in front, you know, because that would be trespassing, but on the sidewalk near the gate. Maybe, just maybe, the rich man would allow him some of the leftover food from his amazing dinners, though, really, any food at all would have been amazing to the homeless man. To Lazarus.
Lazarus lived out his days there on the sidewalk in front of the rich man's house. I'm going to just assume that those days were not very many, though I don't know for sure. But we know that he was starving, that he was unable to seek shelter because he wasn't strong enough to walk, that he was suffering from oozing sores that wouldn't heal. None of those things bodes well for a long life. When he died, the angels came and carried him away. Or maybe those were just the first responders who showed up when they got the call about about a body.
Some time later, the rich man also died. I'm going to go ahead and assume that it was some years later, though I don't know for sure. After all, we don't know how old the rich man was, and we don't know what he died from. Maybe he lived decades because he probably had great healthcare or, maybe, he died the next day in a car crash. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that the rich man got sent straight to Hell. I imagine this rather like a game of Monopoly: He did not pass "Go" and he did not collect his $200.
Now Hell is a pretty awful place. Or so they say. Evidently, it's hot, or there wouldn't be a saying about it being "hot as hell." It seems there is also no water, because the rich man was dying of thirst. Okay, sure, he was already dead, but it sure felt to him as if he were dying of thirst. At any rate, he looked up toward Heaven (because you can see it clearly from Hell), longing for water, and, what do you know, there was Lazarus, the guy who died in front of his house, just hanging out and having a good time.
And drinking water.
The rich man wanted some, and he wanted Lazarus to bring it to him. The answer, of course, was no. Not just no, but, "Hell, no!" heh
Some of you may be familiar with this story. It's pretty popular in churches and comes from the book of Luke. Yes, that's in the Bible. So let's look at some things about this particular story, shall we? Yes, we shall.
Jesus was telling this story to the Pharisees because he liked to tell stories that were also lessons. That he was telling the story to Pharisees presents us with a small problem: The Pharisees were all rich, hyper-uptight, religiously educated dudes. Let me make one distinction, though: when I say they were religiously educated, that means they were educated in Jewish law. And they knew it backwards and forwards but, basically, it made them lawyers. They weren't actually interested in spirituality; they were interested in the law and how to keep the letter of the law.
So Jesus was speaking to a bunch of lawyers, experts, about an intersection of religious law and spirituality, and today's church-goers are hardly experts in, well, anything to do with the Bible at all.
Jesus was speaking to the 1%. When pastors are preaching this particular message, they are most assuredly not speaking it to the 1%.
Jesus was speaking to hyper-uptight... Oh, well, that's still the same.
But, really, pastors today are not delivering this message to the intended audience. Let's look at why that matters:
Jesus was delivering his message to the rich. Based on other things he said to the rich, like "give away to the poor everything you own," I'm going to take this story as a warning to the 1%. I think that warning is, "Don't be rich," which is a warning that rather flies in the face of the oh-so-popular prosperity doctrine. [For those of you who don't know, the prosperity doctrine says that "god" will make you rich if he likes you. Conversely, if you are rich, "god" likes you.]
Of course, pastors tell this story as if the rich man was being punished because he didn't do anything to help Lazarus, and I can see the temptation in telling it that way, but we don't know that that was true. The story Jesus tells says nothing about whether the rich man offered Lazarus food or not. Or what he did or did not do for the man. What I do find interesting, though, is that the rich man knew Lazarus' name, not something I would expect if he had taken no interest in Lazarus at all or if his interest had only extended to, "Get that wretch away from my gate!" In fact, we know that Lazarus lived in front of the rich man's house until his death. Maybe the rich man kept Lazarus fed all along but Lazarus was just too sick for it to do any good. We really don't know.
Pastors also tell this story to the poor of the world as a comfort story rather than to the rich as a warning. Not what Jesus intended if we look at the audience Jesus delivered this particular message to. No, the message pastors today want to deliver is this: Don't worry about being poor and sick and abandoned; you will get to go to heaven. As if Lazarus got to go to heaven because he was poor and sick. That also doesn't follow from the rest of the accumulated teachings ascribed to Jesus.
Basically, what we have here are two completely divergent messages.
The first, by Jesus:
Hey, you, rich people, watch out. You're going down.
The second, by modern pastors:
Hey, you, downtrodden people, be accepting of your fate. You'll get rewarded for your suffering after you die.
That second message is kind of sick if you ask me.
What I do know is this: No matter what you believe, the 1%, after they die, are going to end up in the same place as the rich man from the story. I suppose they better hope that "christianity" doesn't turn out to be true, because an eternity of nothingness has to be better than an eternity in hell.
Monday, December 11, 2017
A Pocketful of Marbles
Not, do you know what is a marble, but do you remember marbles? Like from when you were a kid. Back when marbles were magical and sprang into existence through spontaneous generation and you only acquired new ones by finding them, trading for them, or having some benevolent Being gift some to you. When I was a kid, I did, in fact, have a special bag just for marbles. And acquiring new marbles was always cause for trading with my friends, some of whom also had marble bags though some just had jars.
Marbles were like trophies. When you're a kid, trophies also are like magical totems that come into existence for the sole purpose of being awarded to kids who have risen to the level of trophydom. After all, you can't buy trophies at the store, so they must be special. Unless, you know, there are special trophy stores... which there are... but you don't find that out until you're older. Like that whole Santa Claus thing.
But marbles! Marbles were better than gold. Of course, mostly, you could only trade them for other marbles... unless you had some super-cool marble, and, those, you could trade for almost anything. They were magic baubles. You could do a lot when you were a kid with a pocketful of marbles.
Not so much anymore, probably, but the philosophy is sound.
Because, in the end, marbles are worthless. Just bits of polished glass.
Dazzling, polished glass.
Right now, Republicans, the voters, are being dazzled by these bits of polished glass. GOP congressmen have filled their pockets with marbles and are trading them for your freedom. For our freedom, and you Republicans keep handing us over to them in exchange for shiny baubles that mean nothing.
They offer you a wall to keep out all of those dirty illegals,
and you give them your healthcare.
They offer you a tax break,
but they raise your taxes so that the rich can continue to get richer.
They offer you jobs
but give you a ruined environment.
They offer you guns
but give those to you as mass shootings, because the US is #1 in the world in mass shootings, the GOP is determined to keep us that way. After all, America has to be great at something, right?
They offer you marbles,
and you give them your freedom.
Unless your idea of freedom is the freedom to pay them more money. For everything.
Because that's what the GOP is all about, pricing the poor out of life and making slaves of them. And if you're not super rich, you're the poor. In the Republican world view, there is no middle class, and they're doing everything they can to siphon all of that money up to people who already have too much.
So if you're a Republican or if you vote Republican, especially if you voted for Trump (#fakepresident), I hope you have fun playing with your marbles. Maybe one day you'll open your eyes (or get your heads out of your asses) and see that you gave away everything of value for a few bits empty promises and polished gas.
Monday, July 31, 2017
1984 (a book review post)
Oh, how wrong we were.
No, I'm not saying we're full on living in Big Brother world, but, in many ways, we have taken our first steps toward it. And I'm not just talking about how we're (the USA) the most surveilled nation on the planet, either.
Here's an example:
In the book, the proles (the mass of common people) are kept uneducated, just enough education so that they can do the menial labor jobs they need to do. This serves multiple functions, but the primary ones are that the uneducated tend to question authority less and do as they're told more. It makes them unquestioning of their lots in life so that they don't rise up in revolt. When they're told that their lives are better than the people's of days past, they accept it and are thankful.
For the past several decades, the Republicans have been working at undermining education and preaching the worthlessness of education to their followers for these exact same reasons. When they tell their followers something like "the Republican healthcare bill is better for you than Obamacare," their followers swallow it whole and think it's yummy because they don't have the facilities to question what they're being told. The Republicans have discredited science in favor of dogmatism, and that's straight out of 1984.
At this point in my life, though, the thing I probably find most interesting about the book is the stuff about language, because Orwell has been proven, yet again, to be ahead of his time. The idea of Newspeak in the book is to reduce language to a point where things like freedom and equality aren't even concepts, and we, today, tend to think that that's kind of a dumb idea. I mean, you can't get rid of concepts, right?
Well, let me give you another example:
Anthropologically speaking, all cultures started out with only two colors: light and dark, or white and black, depending on how you want to say it. Other colors didn't exist for those people. You might think that's crazy talk because, if you look out the window, clearly, you can see a whole range of colors: blues and greens and reds and all of these colors that are just part of our world. Clearly, those colors exist, right? Well, sure, from an objective, scientific standpoint, those colors, the wavelengths for those colors, exist, but those people didn't see those colors, not the way we see them; conceptually, they were just lights and darks. But over time, other colors got added in, and it was actually an expansion of the world for those people.
See, here's the thing, and this is a science fact: Language changes our brains. How we speak and what we speak affects our brains and how we see the world and interact with the world. Learning other languages and new patterns of speech changes the "wiring" in brains and causes us to see the world differently. [So does reading, by the way.] So this concept in 1984 where they remove the ability from people to think of freedom and independence by removing the concepts from the language is not very far-fetched. It's not far-fetched at all.
And, hey, Trump is doing a great job of reducing language. And rewriting facts and history to suit his own agenda, another thing covered in the book.
I mean, it's like the GOP read 1984 and decided that they could use it as their own, personal playbook.
"...a hierarchical society [is] only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance."
That sounds like them to me.
"...human equality [is] no longer an ideal to be striven after, but a danger to be averted."
So, yeah, this book is still vitally important and everyone should be reading it. The thoughtpolice, though not quite real in the sense they are in the book, are growing in power, and a huge segment of the population have fallen under their sway and believe every fabrication and alteration that comes out of their mouths. Right now is a time for clinging to facts and truth and upholding them because "reality" isn't as objective as we'd like to think it is. In fact, reality is only as objective as we make it, and we can't allow Trumpism to bend and warp the truth of the world around us into the madness he'd like to make it.
Monday, July 10, 2017
We Are Not Your Machine
Let's imagine for a moment that you have a great machine. When I say machine, I mean machine. This is a purely mechanical contraption, no electronic parts. No internal computer. Nothing digital about it.
It's all gears and cogs and nuts and bolts.
Machines are fairly straightforward devices, even the delicate and complex ones. I mean that from the stance of that when a piece wears out or breaks, you remove it and put a new piece in its place. The old piece is, at that point, a piece of trash.
Machines are built with a purpose, to do a particular task, even if that task is purely ornamental. But they only work if all the parts are good.
And herein lies the problem, the corporate view of people, and, thus, the Republican view of people, is that we are all parts of some great profit machine. We are all here to generate money for them. For them, and that's the part you have to understand. We, the people, are all parts. Cogs. Gears. Pegs.
It is this view, the inherent view of people from corporate America (and the Republicans), that makes them disdainful of the "unproductive members" of society. "Unproductive members" equates to "broken pieces" of the machine. And what do we do with broken pieces? We throw them away. We do not keep them around as clutter, and we certainly don't "take care of them." That's just wasted resources.
And you wonder why the healthcare plans being offered up by the Republicans are so bad for the sick and elderly and poor...? Really? You wonder about that? These "people," because the Republicans barely view them as people, are a waste, a drain. They suck up resources that are more deserved by "productive members" of society, i.e., the rich, the 1%, the [leaches]. [Yes, let's feed the parasites even more.] So you're cries of, "But people will die if you take away their healthcare," do really fall on deaf ears because, you know what?, that's the actual idea.
Get those broken pieces of the machine out of society!
Of course, then, the problem (it's not a problem) is that we are not a machine. We are not some great biological wealth machine for the rich despite the fact that we've allowed them to turn us into one. [Over and over and over again throughout history, I might add.] That's the actual problem, we have allowed them to use us as this, and we need to stop.
Well, that's part of the problem. There's also the part where the "Christian" (because they're not really) Right, the Evangelicals, have abandoned charity and mercy in favor of the more hard-line Pauline philosophy of "if they don't work, don't let them eat." And they've taken up this philosophy because it fits in with the whole "God rewards [with money!] the just and worthy, and punishes [by taking away their money] the sinners." So, you know, if you're having financial difficulties, it's because you're a lousy sinner being punished by God and, if you'd just "get right with God," he'd reward you financially and you wouldn't need any charity or mercy. [These people are fully behind Trump and the Republican agenda, just by the way.]
All of it is about money, and,while I don't really agree with Paul on the whole "money is the root of all evil" thing, it is the root of an awful lot of evil.
No, I don't have "an answer" to all of this or how to deal with it, but I think "the answer" begins with people realizing that they've been "turned into" a money-printing machine for the wealthy. People need to realize that they are not cogs, not pegs, at least not round ones. Not even square ones.
If people are pegs, they are all strange pegs. At least, that's how we all start out, with weird little growths and arms and awkward angles and edges. Unfortunately, many of us spend our years as parents trying to take of the edges and angles of our kids and make them into these unified little round pegs that can grow up and fit into any hole. If not that, we don't do anything to stop the education system from doing that for us.
But it's time to stand up for the things that diversify us, differentiate us, make us unique. We are not pieces of a machine, and it's time that we stopped acting like we are.
Machines are fairly straightforward devices, even the delicate and complex ones. I mean that from the stance of that when a piece wears out or breaks, you remove it and put a new piece in its place. The old piece is, at that point, a piece of trash.
Machines are built with a purpose, to do a particular task, even if that task is purely ornamental. But they only work if all the parts are good.
And herein lies the problem, the corporate view of people, and, thus, the Republican view of people, is that we are all parts of some great profit machine. We are all here to generate money for them. For them, and that's the part you have to understand. We, the people, are all parts. Cogs. Gears. Pegs.
It is this view, the inherent view of people from corporate America (and the Republicans), that makes them disdainful of the "unproductive members" of society. "Unproductive members" equates to "broken pieces" of the machine. And what do we do with broken pieces? We throw them away. We do not keep them around as clutter, and we certainly don't "take care of them." That's just wasted resources.
And you wonder why the healthcare plans being offered up by the Republicans are so bad for the sick and elderly and poor...? Really? You wonder about that? These "people," because the Republicans barely view them as people, are a waste, a drain. They suck up resources that are more deserved by "productive members" of society, i.e., the rich, the 1%, the [leaches]. [Yes, let's feed the parasites even more.] So you're cries of, "But people will die if you take away their healthcare," do really fall on deaf ears because, you know what?, that's the actual idea.
Get those broken pieces of the machine out of society!
Of course, then, the problem (it's not a problem) is that we are not a machine. We are not some great biological wealth machine for the rich despite the fact that we've allowed them to turn us into one. [Over and over and over again throughout history, I might add.] That's the actual problem, we have allowed them to use us as this, and we need to stop.
Well, that's part of the problem. There's also the part where the "Christian" (because they're not really) Right, the Evangelicals, have abandoned charity and mercy in favor of the more hard-line Pauline philosophy of "if they don't work, don't let them eat." And they've taken up this philosophy because it fits in with the whole "God rewards [with money!] the just and worthy, and punishes [by taking away their money] the sinners." So, you know, if you're having financial difficulties, it's because you're a lousy sinner being punished by God and, if you'd just "get right with God," he'd reward you financially and you wouldn't need any charity or mercy. [These people are fully behind Trump and the Republican agenda, just by the way.]
All of it is about money, and,while I don't really agree with Paul on the whole "money is the root of all evil" thing, it is the root of an awful lot of evil.
No, I don't have "an answer" to all of this or how to deal with it, but I think "the answer" begins with people realizing that they've been "turned into" a money-printing machine for the wealthy. People need to realize that they are not cogs, not pegs, at least not round ones. Not even square ones.
If people are pegs, they are all strange pegs. At least, that's how we all start out, with weird little growths and arms and awkward angles and edges. Unfortunately, many of us spend our years as parents trying to take of the edges and angles of our kids and make them into these unified little round pegs that can grow up and fit into any hole. If not that, we don't do anything to stop the education system from doing that for us.
But it's time to stand up for the things that diversify us, differentiate us, make us unique. We are not pieces of a machine, and it's time that we stopped acting like we are.
Friday, July 7, 2017
La Boheme (an opera review post)
Giacomo Puccini, having been himself a starving artist at one point in his life, felt a great affinity for the characters of his opera and, evidently, caused a lot of frustration with his librettist because he kept changing the words. He seemed to be a believer in the "ask forgiveness, not permission" philosophy. You can't argue with the results, at any rate. La Boheme is one of the top operas in the world more than a century after it's introduction and has been the most performed opera at the San Francisco Opera House.
As such, any production of it seems to have a really high bar it needs to meet with the critics. This being my first viewing of it, I have no such bar, and I thought this production was great.
First, the set was great.They did a great job of putting together something that looked like a studio apartment being shared by four poverty-stricken artists: a poet, a painter, a musician, and a philosopher. But, even better! The apartment piece of the set separated and turned around to form the city streets. It looked nice and gave the right feel.
Then, the cast was great. All of them. The opera has a lot of comedy in it despite the fact that it's a tragic love story and, as such, requires some serious acting. This is definitely not an opera that would work if the performers just stood in place when they were singing. They were all great. I can't even pick out a favorite.
Here's where it really works for me:
When Picasso first went to Paris, he was exactly one of these starving artists. His first winter was so hard that he was forced to burn all of the paintings he had thus far produced so that he wouldn't freeze to death. It's a horrible thought. The opera opens with Rodolfo and Marcello burning the manuscript to one of Rodolfo's plays just so that they can have a little heat. This production did a good job of making that real, of making the poverty and the desperation that goes with it real.
Not just in that they had no fuel for the fire and no food but, also, they had no access to healthcare. You could make a case for this being a play about poverty and how people with no access to healthcare deal with illness: They try to pretend it isn't there. Rodolfo knows immediately upon meeting Mimi that she's not well, but what are they going to do? There's no money for a doctor. And Mimi? Evidently, she's been dealing with her illness for so long that she's able to pretend even to herself that she's perfectly fine -- "It's just a little cough." -- so she's surprised, later, to find out she's sick.
But, you know, no one has ever died from lack of access to healthcare.
The only complaint, and it was a small one, was from my wife. She said Mimi and Rodolfo spent too much time looking at the audience during their love duets rather than at each other. I didn't notice, but, because they provide viewing screens for those of us up in the nosebleed section, I may have been watching the screen instead of the stage and I wouldn't necessarily have noticed that particular issue.
What I can say for certain is that La Boheme is definitely an opera I want to see again. In fact, I would go back to see it again today if I could, and we just saw it last night (as I write this, not as you read it). Puccini is my wife's favorite opera composer, and I can definitely see why. I don't know that I have a favorite at this point, but Puccini definitely wrote some of the most memorable opera music ever written.
Monday, May 22, 2017
LIFE, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness (Part 2)
Okay, so, we're talking about the Declaration of Independence and how it laid the foundations for what came after it. It itself is not a legal document, but we refer to it as a foundational piece of our history, our ideals, and, yes, our government. Last week, we were talking about the pursuit of Happiness, and how we, culturally, have messed that all up, but, really, you should just go back and read last week's post. This week, let's move on a bit and, by doing that, go back to our first principle: Life.
Let's look again at the Declaration:
The very first Right he lists is the Right to Life. [Remember from last post, I'm talking about adults. There is nothing Pro-Life in any of this. That's a completely separate matter.] Yes, I'm going to talk about healthcare.
See, we have these Rights, and we institute Governments to make sure that the things themselves that we have a Right to are not taken away from us by someone stronger or more powerful than us. Including that government itself. What that means in this context is that the government, our government, is here to protect our Life and our Right to that Life.
Which is what makes it so insulting when a GOP asshole, a member of our Government who has been mandated by the fact that he is a part of that Government to protect our collective Right to Life, says something inane like, "Nobody dies because they don't have access to healthcare." That was Raul Labrador, by the way, part of the Right-wing Nutjob sector of the government defending the new death warrant the GOP call the "American Health Care Act," a bill which clearly favors the insurers over the insured and the very wealthy (who don't really need the help) over the average citizen. It is, in short, a bill that says, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Way more equal.
The GOP has clearly demonstrated that they have become "destructive of those ends" of securing our Right to Life.
In fact, the GOP has been clearly demonstrating that for, well, decades, what with their destructive environmental policies, their stance against safety net social programs, their support of hazardous industry over the welfare of communities, their support of the NRA and "stand your ground" laws, and their general willingness to assume that if a cop shoots a black man, even an unarmed black man, he must have had good reason. The whole healthcare thing? That's just them spitting in the faces of the people who got them where they are and saying, "No, we don't like you either."
Government to the GOP has become about how to make a profit and no longer has anything to do with securing our "unalienable Rights." Their Form of Government has become destructive of those ends which secure for us our Right to Life; as such, "it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it." We are "the People." "We the People."
Look, the Republicans continue to say that healthcare is not a Right but a privilege. It's that stance which allows someone like Labrador to say things like nobody dies from lack of healthcare, but people die from lack adequate healthcare ALL THE TIME. In fact, it's the lack of access to healthcare that causes people to die from preventable or manageable illnesses. They can't afford to go to the doctor until it's too late. And, no, I don't have the numbers for that, but I don't really think I need to have them.
What I'm saying here is that the GOP is just plain wrong on this. If we're going to refer to the Declaration as one of our Founding Documents (and the GOP loves to claim how they stand by our Founding Documents), then you can't really get around the fact that it proclaims that WE ALL have the Right to Life. That is, after all, why hospitals can't send anyone away. And, at one point in time, that was the best we could do, but it's not anymore.
And here's the thing, we don't have the right to the best healthcare we can afford; that doesn't work with all men being created equal. If the wealthy have access to better healthcare, that means that we are not being treated equally. The Truth is that we have the Right to the best healthcare available. All of us, all the time. The kind of healthcare you get should not be dependent upon your wealth. That is NOT equality in our Right to Life.
Seriously, it's time for us, the People, to alter our Government. We have a Right to equal healthcare and equal Life. If gaining access to that means abolishing the GOP and their stagnant and destructive ways, well, that's what needs to happen. I do not consent to be governed by the assholes currently holding the reins of power, and it's time we took them back.
Let's look again at the Declaration:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...So... Let's reaffirm the Rights we're talking about. There are only three: Life, Liberty, and the PURSUIT of Happiness. Jefferson is saying here that these three things in particular (there could be more than three, but these three in particular) are innate. They have been created within us and the Right CANNOT be taken away. The thing itself can be taken away, but the Right to have it cannot be. To safeguard these Rights, mankind (humankind) institutes Governments, and those Governments only exist through the consent of the people.
The very first Right he lists is the Right to Life. [Remember from last post, I'm talking about adults. There is nothing Pro-Life in any of this. That's a completely separate matter.] Yes, I'm going to talk about healthcare.
See, we have these Rights, and we institute Governments to make sure that the things themselves that we have a Right to are not taken away from us by someone stronger or more powerful than us. Including that government itself. What that means in this context is that the government, our government, is here to protect our Life and our Right to that Life.
Which is what makes it so insulting when a GOP asshole, a member of our Government who has been mandated by the fact that he is a part of that Government to protect our collective Right to Life, says something inane like, "Nobody dies because they don't have access to healthcare." That was Raul Labrador, by the way, part of the Right-wing Nutjob sector of the government defending the new death warrant the GOP call the "American Health Care Act," a bill which clearly favors the insurers over the insured and the very wealthy (who don't really need the help) over the average citizen. It is, in short, a bill that says, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Way more equal.
The GOP has clearly demonstrated that they have become "destructive of those ends" of securing our Right to Life.
In fact, the GOP has been clearly demonstrating that for, well, decades, what with their destructive environmental policies, their stance against safety net social programs, their support of hazardous industry over the welfare of communities, their support of the NRA and "stand your ground" laws, and their general willingness to assume that if a cop shoots a black man, even an unarmed black man, he must have had good reason. The whole healthcare thing? That's just them spitting in the faces of the people who got them where they are and saying, "No, we don't like you either."
Government to the GOP has become about how to make a profit and no longer has anything to do with securing our "unalienable Rights." Their Form of Government has become destructive of those ends which secure for us our Right to Life; as such, "it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it." We are "the People." "We the People."
Look, the Republicans continue to say that healthcare is not a Right but a privilege. It's that stance which allows someone like Labrador to say things like nobody dies from lack of healthcare, but people die from lack adequate healthcare ALL THE TIME. In fact, it's the lack of access to healthcare that causes people to die from preventable or manageable illnesses. They can't afford to go to the doctor until it's too late. And, no, I don't have the numbers for that, but I don't really think I need to have them.
What I'm saying here is that the GOP is just plain wrong on this. If we're going to refer to the Declaration as one of our Founding Documents (and the GOP loves to claim how they stand by our Founding Documents), then you can't really get around the fact that it proclaims that WE ALL have the Right to Life. That is, after all, why hospitals can't send anyone away. And, at one point in time, that was the best we could do, but it's not anymore.
And here's the thing, we don't have the right to the best healthcare we can afford; that doesn't work with all men being created equal. If the wealthy have access to better healthcare, that means that we are not being treated equally. The Truth is that we have the Right to the best healthcare available. All of us, all the time. The kind of healthcare you get should not be dependent upon your wealth. That is NOT equality in our Right to Life.
Seriously, it's time for us, the People, to alter our Government. We have a Right to equal healthcare and equal Life. If gaining access to that means abolishing the GOP and their stagnant and destructive ways, well, that's what needs to happen. I do not consent to be governed by the assholes currently holding the reins of power, and it's time we took them back.
Friday, May 5, 2017
Addiction: It's a Mindset
On Monday, I was talking about how providing free housing to homeless people reduces healthcare expenditures on those people and mentioned an experiment with providing free housing for homeless people, an experiment which has been duplicated with positive results in several different cities, by the way. Well, this experiment yielded a separate, unlooked for result. It showed that providing housing to homeless people also "cured" the majority of them of their addictions and/or addiction behaviors.
Whaaat?
Yeah, you heard me.
This shouldn't have been as surprising as it was because we've known for a long time that one of the drivers of addiction is hopelessness and despair. It should be obvious that people with nowhere to live instead dwell with hopelessness and live in despair. Take those things away -- yes, I know; it's not always that easy -- and suddenly the impetus to "drown your sorrows" is gone.
But it's about more than that. It's about purpose.
So let's take a step back a moment.
When this experiment, the one about providing free housing to homeless people, was first proposed, many of the critics said it would never work because all of the drug addicts (including those addicted to alcohol) -- and face it, a majority of those who are homeless suffer from some kind of substance abuse issue -- would just sell off all of the furnishings (which are also provided) to buy drugs and end up living in what amounted to no more than a flop house or a drug den. While it was acknowledged that that was a distinct possibility, enough people wanted to see what would happen to go through with it. After all, it was an experiment.
I don't think what happened was what anyone really expected to happen but it is, nevertheless, what happened, and that's that people cleaned up. Not gradually, either, but almost immediately. Sure, there were some people who did sell off all of the furniture for drugs or whatnot, but those cases were relatively few and, when they did, the furniture was replaced -- yes, even over and over again -- and many of those people also cleaned up, as soon as they realized that what was happening was real.
The consensus was that it was about more than hope; it was about purpose. These people, these people who had been living on the streets, some for years and years, had had no purpose. They had simply been existing but, given a place they could call home, they suddenly found purpose in their lives and the need for the drugs (including alcohol) dissipated. They had something to live for, even if it was just caring for their new living space, which the vast majority took great pride in.
So now let's get a little philosophical.
For a long, long time we've know that our current method of trying to break people from drug addiction doesn't work. That method amounts to taking the drugs away from them and telling them "no!" Most people who go through rehabilitation programs relapse because the programs, though they get they drugs out of the addict's system, don't do anything to address the causes of the abuse. What we really expect is for people to just "power through it" and through an effort of willpower to say "no" to the drug everyday. Even when that's not what they want to do.
I use that term "want" in the same way someone who is overweight might say, "I want to lose weight," while never taking any actual action to accomplish that. Or someone might say, "I want to have a clean house," while never actually cleaning up. Or, "I want to write a book," while never putting pen to paper. What these statements really mean is, "I want to have done it," but the people saying them don't really want to expend the necessary energy to accomplish their "goals."
Most addicts who go through programs "want" to be clean in that same kind of way. Generally, they are not there by choice but because someone they care about has somehow coerced them into it. So, sure, they "want" to have never gotten hooked to begin with but they don't really want to quit.
And they don't really want to quit because they have no reason to quit.
Look, when you talk to any addict who has cleaned up his/her life, you'll find it's because the person found something else to live for, even if that something else is actually being sober. That can be the purpose; it's just usually not.
Oh, by the way, another big contributor to everything that happened in these free housing experiments was community. Suddenly, the homeless didn't feel alone. They lived in communities with each other, and that helped with... everything. Loneliness and alone-ness are big factors in addiction. And, even when you love someone, even when you believe that person is not alone, that may not be how the addict feels.
So what is it I'm saying? I'm saying two things:
1. As with healthcare costs, we can cut addiction among the homeless population (which also affects healthcare costs) by doing the simple thing of providing them living spaces. For free. No strings.
2. We can cut addiction in the rest of the population by striving to help these people find purpose. It's not so simple as just taking away the drugs and saying "no." And, yes, I realize this is not an easy thing I'm saying here. It's not an easy fix with a one-step solution like taking away the drugs and saying "no." It's a solution that would take some work, but it's a better solution.
And it's why I said, "Let's get philosophical," because the solution will be different for every person. What is "purpose" for one person is not necessarily so for another. Maybe I should have said, "Let's get psychological."
Look, I'm not saying that addiction is all in the mind and that you can just think your way out of it. If that were true, addiction wouldn't be a problem at all. However, we can do much more to approach addiction in a mentally appropriate way, and that starts with getting to reasons why addiction happens in the first place.
Whaaat?
Yeah, you heard me.
This shouldn't have been as surprising as it was because we've known for a long time that one of the drivers of addiction is hopelessness and despair. It should be obvious that people with nowhere to live instead dwell with hopelessness and live in despair. Take those things away -- yes, I know; it's not always that easy -- and suddenly the impetus to "drown your sorrows" is gone.
But it's about more than that. It's about purpose.
So let's take a step back a moment.
When this experiment, the one about providing free housing to homeless people, was first proposed, many of the critics said it would never work because all of the drug addicts (including those addicted to alcohol) -- and face it, a majority of those who are homeless suffer from some kind of substance abuse issue -- would just sell off all of the furnishings (which are also provided) to buy drugs and end up living in what amounted to no more than a flop house or a drug den. While it was acknowledged that that was a distinct possibility, enough people wanted to see what would happen to go through with it. After all, it was an experiment.
I don't think what happened was what anyone really expected to happen but it is, nevertheless, what happened, and that's that people cleaned up. Not gradually, either, but almost immediately. Sure, there were some people who did sell off all of the furniture for drugs or whatnot, but those cases were relatively few and, when they did, the furniture was replaced -- yes, even over and over again -- and many of those people also cleaned up, as soon as they realized that what was happening was real.
The consensus was that it was about more than hope; it was about purpose. These people, these people who had been living on the streets, some for years and years, had had no purpose. They had simply been existing but, given a place they could call home, they suddenly found purpose in their lives and the need for the drugs (including alcohol) dissipated. They had something to live for, even if it was just caring for their new living space, which the vast majority took great pride in.
So now let's get a little philosophical.
For a long, long time we've know that our current method of trying to break people from drug addiction doesn't work. That method amounts to taking the drugs away from them and telling them "no!" Most people who go through rehabilitation programs relapse because the programs, though they get they drugs out of the addict's system, don't do anything to address the causes of the abuse. What we really expect is for people to just "power through it" and through an effort of willpower to say "no" to the drug everyday. Even when that's not what they want to do.
I use that term "want" in the same way someone who is overweight might say, "I want to lose weight," while never taking any actual action to accomplish that. Or someone might say, "I want to have a clean house," while never actually cleaning up. Or, "I want to write a book," while never putting pen to paper. What these statements really mean is, "I want to have done it," but the people saying them don't really want to expend the necessary energy to accomplish their "goals."
Most addicts who go through programs "want" to be clean in that same kind of way. Generally, they are not there by choice but because someone they care about has somehow coerced them into it. So, sure, they "want" to have never gotten hooked to begin with but they don't really want to quit.
And they don't really want to quit because they have no reason to quit.
Look, when you talk to any addict who has cleaned up his/her life, you'll find it's because the person found something else to live for, even if that something else is actually being sober. That can be the purpose; it's just usually not.
Oh, by the way, another big contributor to everything that happened in these free housing experiments was community. Suddenly, the homeless didn't feel alone. They lived in communities with each other, and that helped with... everything. Loneliness and alone-ness are big factors in addiction. And, even when you love someone, even when you believe that person is not alone, that may not be how the addict feels.
So what is it I'm saying? I'm saying two things:
1. As with healthcare costs, we can cut addiction among the homeless population (which also affects healthcare costs) by doing the simple thing of providing them living spaces. For free. No strings.
2. We can cut addiction in the rest of the population by striving to help these people find purpose. It's not so simple as just taking away the drugs and saying "no." And, yes, I realize this is not an easy thing I'm saying here. It's not an easy fix with a one-step solution like taking away the drugs and saying "no." It's a solution that would take some work, but it's a better solution.
And it's why I said, "Let's get philosophical," because the solution will be different for every person. What is "purpose" for one person is not necessarily so for another. Maybe I should have said, "Let's get psychological."
Look, I'm not saying that addiction is all in the mind and that you can just think your way out of it. If that were true, addiction wouldn't be a problem at all. However, we can do much more to approach addiction in a mentally appropriate way, and that starts with getting to reasons why addiction happens in the first place.
Monday, May 1, 2017
The Homeless/Healthcare Connection
Healthcare is a big deal. It's probably a bigger deal these days than it's ever been. Or maybe that's just my age talking. Maybe it's always been a big deal but, for most of my life, I just didn't pay attention to any talk about healthcare. Certainly, young people, unless something bad just happens to happen, don't give healthcare a second thought. They just assume the health part and don't stop to think about it.
Which is not an indictment against the youth of today. I certainly didn't think about healthcare, ever, until after I had kids. Or, really, until we were trying to have kids and my wife almost died from a miscarriage. But, certainly, once we had kids, it was a big deal.
There was this period when we didn't have any health coverage. I was working in a church making next to nothing and with no health benefits. Our coverage came through my wife's job, then her department was dissolved, and we were suddenly without any kind of health insurance.
Which would have been fine except that my younger son, maybe a year and a half at the time, got sick. Not a little sick, either. He was running a temperature of 105-106, and we were freaking out, because we couldn't get it to come down. And, well, no one wanted to see us.
The first day he was sick was the last day of our coverage, so I took him to his doctor. They were worthless, gave us some ibuprofen, and told us to keep an eye on him and bring him back the next day if he wasn't better. The second day was when his temperature topped 105. I called them about an appointment, but they said they wouldn't see him because we didn't have coverage anymore. I took him to the office anyway (remember, freaking out), and they actually locked the door when they saw me coming in with him and told me to go away.
We ended up in the emergency room where they left me sitting with him for hours because, well, no coverage. They didn't want to see him either, but they couldn't actually tell me to leave, so, instead, they let me set with him while he burned up in my lap. For HOURS. While I sat and worried about brain damage. [This is the son who is super smart, the one I did the education series on a while back, so you might think, "Well, it seems like everything was fine with that, then," but I sometimes wonder if he would have been even smarter if they hadn't left him with that fever for so long.] Eventually, I kind of forced someone to bring him something for the fever, and, hours after that, a doctor finally saw him.
Not that they offered any better advice or anything to do other than keep his fever down. We didn't take him back again and, a couple of days later, he got better. We still don't know what he had. However, we did get a bill from the hospital for over $1000.00 when he saw a doctor for less than 30 minutes and all they did was give him some liquid ibuprofen and leave us sitting around for something like eight hours.
And that's what it's like not to have health insurance.
And it's the kind of thing homeless people deal with all the time when they're sick, because they have no other alternative. They have no other alternative because there is this sort of endemic belief that "those" people don't deserve healthcare. I mean, why should we pay their medical bills when they're just going to end up back out on the street with their drugs and their alcohol and sick again. They should just get it together, get themselves jobs, earn their keep, and be worthwhile human beings, right? Then they can pay their own medical bills. After all, that's what the rest of us do, isn't it?
Well, actually, no, but I'm not going to get into that, right now.
I'm also not going to try to convince you from any kind of humanitarian argument about how providing healthcare to people is "the right thing to do." Clearly, that argument has not worked and the people (Republicans) who do not want to provide universal healthcare are not going to be swayed by it.
So let's take one brief, very practical look at dealing with healthcare for the homeless.
One of the issues with the way we do healthcare is what are called "super users." This is the small percentage of users who use the system way more than everyone else, essentially using the most dollars from the system. These users tend to be older, chronically ill, and, yes, frequently homeless with no kind of healthcare coverage. This means that when a hospital sees one of these people (through the emergency room because they have no other option), the hospital passes on the costs to everyone else. I don't have the exact figures in front of me and I'm not going to look them up right now, but let's say (because this is a pretty close to correct number) these people spend 90% of all healthcare dollars.
There are two solutions to this issue:
1. Give everyone healthcare.
But let's toss that one away because, obviously, with the Republicans in charge, that's not gonna happen. (Why would they ever provide anything to anyone who "doesn't deserve it"?) But, also, that doesn't keep those same people from being super users. It does lower the cost of them being super users, and that's good, but it doesn't address they actual issue.
2. Get rid of the homeless issue by giving them free housing and food.
Oh, no, I hear you already. If we're not going to give them healthcare, why would we give them housing?! That's crazy talk!
And, yeah, I agree that it sounds like crazy talk. BUT!
There have already been some experiments done with this and, from just a practical standpoint, this is the most efficient way to eliminate unwanted healthcare costs. See, just from providing housing to homeless people, it automatically makes them healthier people! No kidding. There are lots of whys and wherefores of this and you're free to go do the research if you'd like, but I'm going to let that statement stand and you can go do the research yourself. [Trust me; it's good for you.] For those with chronic conditions (like diabetes, which is very common), it allows for preventative healthcare (because we know where they are) rather than always having to resort to emergency care. Preventative care is always cheaper.
But what abut the housing costs? Sure, there are housing costs, but there are plenty of options for low coast housing, and all of them cost much, much less than what is currently being spent on healthcare for the same pool of people. Much, much less. Hundreds of millions of dollars less, even with the food costs.
"But they don't deserve it!"
Sure, and why don't you continue to stab yourself in the nose to spite your face, because now you're at the point of choosing to keep these people homeless as nothing more than punishment, and that's totally on you.
Look, if nothing else, you wouldn't have to complain about the homeless cluttering up your streets anymore. It's a win-win. Maybe even a win-win-win.
Which is not an indictment against the youth of today. I certainly didn't think about healthcare, ever, until after I had kids. Or, really, until we were trying to have kids and my wife almost died from a miscarriage. But, certainly, once we had kids, it was a big deal.
There was this period when we didn't have any health coverage. I was working in a church making next to nothing and with no health benefits. Our coverage came through my wife's job, then her department was dissolved, and we were suddenly without any kind of health insurance.
Which would have been fine except that my younger son, maybe a year and a half at the time, got sick. Not a little sick, either. He was running a temperature of 105-106, and we were freaking out, because we couldn't get it to come down. And, well, no one wanted to see us.
The first day he was sick was the last day of our coverage, so I took him to his doctor. They were worthless, gave us some ibuprofen, and told us to keep an eye on him and bring him back the next day if he wasn't better. The second day was when his temperature topped 105. I called them about an appointment, but they said they wouldn't see him because we didn't have coverage anymore. I took him to the office anyway (remember, freaking out), and they actually locked the door when they saw me coming in with him and told me to go away.
We ended up in the emergency room where they left me sitting with him for hours because, well, no coverage. They didn't want to see him either, but they couldn't actually tell me to leave, so, instead, they let me set with him while he burned up in my lap. For HOURS. While I sat and worried about brain damage. [This is the son who is super smart, the one I did the education series on a while back, so you might think, "Well, it seems like everything was fine with that, then," but I sometimes wonder if he would have been even smarter if they hadn't left him with that fever for so long.] Eventually, I kind of forced someone to bring him something for the fever, and, hours after that, a doctor finally saw him.
Not that they offered any better advice or anything to do other than keep his fever down. We didn't take him back again and, a couple of days later, he got better. We still don't know what he had. However, we did get a bill from the hospital for over $1000.00 when he saw a doctor for less than 30 minutes and all they did was give him some liquid ibuprofen and leave us sitting around for something like eight hours.
And that's what it's like not to have health insurance.
And it's the kind of thing homeless people deal with all the time when they're sick, because they have no other alternative. They have no other alternative because there is this sort of endemic belief that "those" people don't deserve healthcare. I mean, why should we pay their medical bills when they're just going to end up back out on the street with their drugs and their alcohol and sick again. They should just get it together, get themselves jobs, earn their keep, and be worthwhile human beings, right? Then they can pay their own medical bills. After all, that's what the rest of us do, isn't it?
Well, actually, no, but I'm not going to get into that, right now.
I'm also not going to try to convince you from any kind of humanitarian argument about how providing healthcare to people is "the right thing to do." Clearly, that argument has not worked and the people (Republicans) who do not want to provide universal healthcare are not going to be swayed by it.
So let's take one brief, very practical look at dealing with healthcare for the homeless.
One of the issues with the way we do healthcare is what are called "super users." This is the small percentage of users who use the system way more than everyone else, essentially using the most dollars from the system. These users tend to be older, chronically ill, and, yes, frequently homeless with no kind of healthcare coverage. This means that when a hospital sees one of these people (through the emergency room because they have no other option), the hospital passes on the costs to everyone else. I don't have the exact figures in front of me and I'm not going to look them up right now, but let's say (because this is a pretty close to correct number) these people spend 90% of all healthcare dollars.
There are two solutions to this issue:
1. Give everyone healthcare.
But let's toss that one away because, obviously, with the Republicans in charge, that's not gonna happen. (Why would they ever provide anything to anyone who "doesn't deserve it"?) But, also, that doesn't keep those same people from being super users. It does lower the cost of them being super users, and that's good, but it doesn't address they actual issue.
2. Get rid of the homeless issue by giving them free housing and food.
Oh, no, I hear you already. If we're not going to give them healthcare, why would we give them housing?! That's crazy talk!
And, yeah, I agree that it sounds like crazy talk. BUT!
There have already been some experiments done with this and, from just a practical standpoint, this is the most efficient way to eliminate unwanted healthcare costs. See, just from providing housing to homeless people, it automatically makes them healthier people! No kidding. There are lots of whys and wherefores of this and you're free to go do the research if you'd like, but I'm going to let that statement stand and you can go do the research yourself. [Trust me; it's good for you.] For those with chronic conditions (like diabetes, which is very common), it allows for preventative healthcare (because we know where they are) rather than always having to resort to emergency care. Preventative care is always cheaper.
But what abut the housing costs? Sure, there are housing costs, but there are plenty of options for low coast housing, and all of them cost much, much less than what is currently being spent on healthcare for the same pool of people. Much, much less. Hundreds of millions of dollars less, even with the food costs.
"But they don't deserve it!"
Sure, and why don't you continue to stab yourself in the nose to spite your face, because now you're at the point of choosing to keep these people homeless as nothing more than punishment, and that's totally on you.
Look, if nothing else, you wouldn't have to complain about the homeless cluttering up your streets anymore. It's a win-win. Maybe even a win-win-win.
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