This is a follow up to my last post, perhaps more succinct but no promises. (i also ask for pardon as I preach to the choir)
PLEASE respect the millions of Americans who do not have so much as a nickel to give at this time of year. Not even to themselves. not even, any time of the year.
The price of food rises as food stamps drop to dirt level. Health care, (or the dirty word “insurance”, still misses as many as 44 million Americans ie. NO medical care. If one cannot afford insurance, how is it possible to cash pay the cost of a single doctor visit or prescription meds or diagnostics to give those meds when we have the highest cost of care in most of the developed world? Nay, not high, outrageous. I am, and grateful for, “covered” despite being hit by 2 deductibles in a row for equally outrageous reasons which will not get detailed here. That is a different diary involving the military-industrial complex. Back to the medical industrial complex. I have heard, from way too many doctors, that I should keep my financial concerns to myself. One doctor even hit me with the painful accusation that I simply do not care to live because i raised the issue of cost for an expensive diagnostic, as if greed alone guided my decision. Being without an income thereby renders me a “difficult patient”, one they would just as soon be rid of. While it may be easy to know the dollar amount billed for medical services, and only weeks after the fact, has anyone calculated the actual cost of care? It is a safe bet this is well known since embedded in those figures would be “profit”. But as patient, If you want to feel cheap or be ridiculed for the bare mention, just ask. Do you ever interface with Big Pharma for example to ask them for a break on high cost meds?Remembering that capitalism renders profit as priority legitimate, a number one priority lies in “blockbuster” meds. One of which can be found in the dreaded malady of low testosterone. A living nightmare for some in the male population waiting for yet another choice, can I say, to keep them 'alive'?
How about almighty giants like Boston Scientific who charge in the range of $36,000 for a spinal stimulator intended to treat pain; whether it works or helps entirely aside. (I have one slightly used for sale. I may have to send up a flare for help when their team of legal eagles come after my near carrion flesh for that remark).
Try, if you dare, to get to the bottom of those clusters of complex numbers, codes, networks, allowables, definitions etc of this particular complex. Be warned, you better block out many days to do so...which can still leave you clueless, along with billing offices and pharmacies leaving a few people pissed off that you wasted their time for such triviality.
Putting health care aside, (give that a whirl, in case you are 'covered'... which can mean next to nothing).….While at the grocery store, I had a thunder bolt awakening. It would seem that climate change was staring me right in the face. I listen, read, understand some and speak to the few who will even bother with those two words. I could only stand in stark reality, frozen nowhere near frozen foods, seeing produce prices I have never seen before. Long discussion ensued with like-minded produce worker (who sadly doesn't belief our economy could survive a living wage of $15 per hour, mislead by the liars on the corporate side). He said “Get used to it. You will never see prices like you once did, along with foods you won’t see at all”. Here is one more thing to get over, I was advised. Buying from producers in the US. Are you able/willing to pay $2 or $3 an apple? My personal staple was/is now $5.99. I had grown accustomed to the creeping up of the price to $3.99, just not all the time. Everything around me in one of my favorite places screamed “told you so!” with a flashback to an old scary movie that I hoped I would never see come to pass. “Soylent Green”. Familiar? Big Ag is frightening enough. When did fiction and horror become non-fiction fright? Be sure to peek at the tiny labels on produce that tells where it was grown. Wonder what the TPP will do with that when it becomes the law of the... OY no... planet?
Looks like the only low price premium for the holidays is the price of GAS. And loads of new car sales certain to pump more carbon into our air. I feel I deserve a beating every time I use that pump.
This would lead me to endorse the only candidate who is familiar with what I describe and has been warning us for a long time. As Bernie Sanders says, the economy has NOT improved for the vast majority. As Elizabeth Warren says “the game is rigged and the American people know it”. I damn sure hope enough of the clueless, who are screwed along with those who pay attention, will “get it” come the election. I still want an answer as to how anyone can earn a single billion...dollars that is. A billion in my own mind and life was unimaginable until I was ordered to take top shelf probiotics. Finally I had, not just one billion but FIVE. All in bifidobacterium. Billion finally means something to me and it has to do with bacteria??
The economy stinks while government benefit shrinks, Take disability benefits ... if you can. I am waging a battle in its' 6th year for that, with attorney, who can scarcely believe a judge who rules with a 90% denial rate. They really wish you would just die and leave them alone. And who is counting how many do? Pile on the defunding of Planned Parenthood by the ignorant and purchased self-righteous republicans who can't seem to get their hands off the female body…. In between attempts to dismantle Obamacare.
Now a word on billionaires. I have had yet another awakening, this time at the optometrist. $500 for a single pair of eyeglasses, no designer frame. Enter Walmart. Full disclosure, the optometrist was good and only rents the space in the money making big box. This was not the only source of my price quote. My guess, however, is I am not an outlier but one of many baby boomers who have need for more than a single vision no frills lens. All parts to this essential are typically sold separate so advertising easily fools and draws you in the door.
Along the way of my shopping experiences, I learned that Walmart never truly had “guaranteed lower prices” with the exception of canned goods and one other minor item. They were sued for years and in that time, judiciously advertised their retail ass off claiming to have guaranteed low prices. The minute they lost, they were prepared with new signage that said “everyday low prices”.
The selling and the begging hands grow to a frenzied pace as the holidays plow ahead to capture your dollars. The season means very little having no kids, no income and a husband in a dangerous overseas location getting very underpaid. So would it be fitting to introduce here and now the seasonal industrial complex?
Happy whatever you wish it to be, or can afford it to be. This seasonal industrial complex (if you want to be employed fit into any one of them... there are loads) gives you unmissable ‘direction” with gifts galore from drones to colognes. Sells a zillion cards to send; which at least supports our postal service that reptilians (oops that error was the fault of spell check, spell check even gets it!) have tried to destroy while Sanders proffers them as banks for those who haven't a nickel to give. And of course, the most important feature this complex throws about with exceptional ease: good will and joy! It comes with a built-in back hand if you choose, intended to invoke guilt. Remember? a name which I will gladly claim, Scrooge. Or if you prefer, Grinch. So as we remember that it IS “the thought that counts” give some thought and respect to those with no money. But especially thought to those of other faith, some of which are being harmed with xenophobic inspiration from the campaign trail. They have holidays and wishes too. Whether it be Hanukkah or Eid or Kwanzaa or fill in the blank. Personally, I am leaving it blank. No religion is going to tell me when I can light a candle, glorify a tree (which obviously we do not) plug in lights that sparkle or give a gift. I wish to give to all of my loved ones, especially my spouse, along with worthy causes for which there are many, but when you cannot, how does one feel? Then you hear “oh that is okay, you don't have to give back” how does that feel? As you bow low with ingratiating thankfulness. Along with unspoken embarrassment or sadder yet, shame.
I make a personal gift to myself to use tiny white lights throughout the house adorning my plants every single day of the year. I light them to honor humanity. Peace and joy to the world!
But will we ever make it peaceful and non-toxic? Can we not raise the low standard of tolerance to respect, even honest concern or love for greater humanity? which is the supposed intention of this season rather than the exchange of pretty packages? If we do not, we will all be awakening to the great calamity of the industrial complex aplenty that rules our current world and tells us when we must give. That is a lesson we damn sure ought to know without needing 'guidance'.
Somehow, some hope, is the fleeting image that so often comes to mind from a classic film that only frightened me as a child.... When the curtain finally parts revealing the true Oz. In my imagination you see the Oz for every industrial complex that now rules. We must pull back that curtain or it is Oy to the world and curtains for us all.