Category Archives: Social Issues

Talk is No Longer Cheap, It’s Dangerous

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“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.” – John Locke

Today, a Republican senator from Arizona – Jeff Flake – gave a speech on the Senate floor.  Oh, it was somewhat impassioned and seemed so, so sincere, criticizing the Idiot-in-Chief for trying to undermine the First Amendment of our Constitution by labeling every news item he (45) doesn’t like as “fake news”.

Pundits lauded this as “Senator Flake standing up to President Trump”.

Pffft.

A Google search quickly brought up Sen. Flake’s voting record on the site “Five Thirty Eight”, where we can see that this “courageous” politician voted in agreement 90% of the time with Not-My-President Trump (“Tracking Congress in the Age of Trump”, Aaron Bycoffe, FiveThirtyEight website, no date given).

What’s clear to me, after seeing how he votes, is Flake – who is retiring from his position this year – appears to be setting the stage for wresting control of the Republican Party away from 45.  And, of course, running for president in 2020.

He wants to be seen as taking the moral high ground, a “reasonable” and “moderate” Republican.

But he is just another dangerous politician.

For example, he voted for the horrendous tax bill just passed, that sets up the basis for curtailing or eliminating entitlement programs.

Aside #1: Kentucky was quick to start the ball rolling by making Medicaid recipients (up until age 64!) go to work if they want to keep their healthcare.  Never mind that 60% of Medicaid recipients already work, we gotta get Grandma and Grandpa out there too, the slackers!

That is just one example.  If you click on the link I provided you can see Flake’s record in all it’s disgustingness.

So we have one Republican pretending to spar with his leader.  I am not impressed, and you ought not to be, either.

It’s so tempting to cheer anyone appearing to stand up to the Bully-Elect, because things are so awful and most Republicans either don’t condemn anything 45 does/says or they flat-out lie for him (“Sens Cotton and Perdue are Outed for Lying on Trump’s Behalf”, Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post online, 1/16/18).

Also, I think that moderates, liberals, and other folks who lean left want to think the best of people, even Republicans.

That’s a mistake.  A dangerous mistake.

We have to judge people by what they do, not what they say, especially in this political climate where lying by the right-wing is as natural to them as breathing.

The Not-My-President lies, his press secretary lies, his Ass-Kisser-Assistant (Pence) lies, and, except for the people who are leaking information on what really goes on in the White House, everyone who works in this administration lies.

We can only judge them by what they do.  And hold them accountable, no matter how many times they insist we “misheard”, “misinterpreted”, “are making things up”, or “aren’t supposed to take the president literally”.  The reaction of Republicans to any criticism or confrontation is to gaslight the public.

I don’t think most people are falling for that now.

Before you yell, “But his base!” may I remind you of who 45’s base really is?

It’s the people who fund him.  The Russian SVR, and the 1%.  And wannabe 1%-ers.

So, while his base is small, even when you include who really is responsible for him, they are well-funded.  And you need to consider, part of the reason 45 goes on campaign tours still is to reinforce this idea that his base consists only of rural whites who come out to see him.

Because they’re just a bunch of dumb rednecks, right? Not particularly dangerous, and if they are…well…we have people on “our side” who will fight back.

As long as we continue to focus on this small section of the population, most of whom do not have two nickels to rub together, we are distracted.  Heck, most of us won’t even admit there are middle-class to upper-middle-class supporters who support 45 – that cuts too close to home.

Never mind, though, because our real opposition is the 1%.  We can never lose sight of that, we can never be manipulated into fighting each other.

Because as dangerous as their speech and actions can be, we’ve got to remember that they see our speech and actions as dangerous, too.  

The difference is, it’s much easier to shut us up or punish us for what we say and do.  And if we don’t get it together and unite, we might find ourselves unable to fight back.

Because they hold the power.

Remember Leonard Peltier, still in prison.  Think about Red Fawn Fallis, arrested for something she didn’t do – because she is a human rights advocate and a Lakota.

You want a window into the future about how the 1% and their servants will eventually come after us?  Look at how they have dealt with indigenous people since they landed here with their dreams of conquest right on up until today.  There’s your signpost.

Aside #2: That is not to diminish how other groups in American society are treated, such as the unjust imprisonment and/or murder of POC, or the violence against women and LGBTQ community, or…I’m sure you can think of others.

Focus.  On actions, not words.

Weird news of the week: Mind how you deal with sneezes…“Man’s Throat Ruptured After Holding His Nose During Forceful Sneeze”, Rebecca Taylor, Sky News website, 1/16/18.

Recommendation for this week: Website (GovTrack) listing all the committee meetings in Congress, for all you political junkies. I would bet you can see most of these on CSPAN.

Be good.  Be kind.  Watch what people do, not what they say.

 

 

The Upcoming Struggle to Defend Social Security…

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…and other entitlement programs.    

I want to start out by defining what the word “entitlement” means, in this context:

“A government program that provides benefits to any individual meeting certain eligibility requirements.” – Dictionary.com  (emphasis mine)

Notice that nowhere does it use the word “deserve”.  Because, in this case, “entitlement” is simply a word to describe a social program – albeit an unfortunate choice of a word, in my opinion.

Nevertheless, people who support programs such as Social Security and Medicare, as well as people who oppose those programs, tend to use the word “entitlement” as meaning this:

“The belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.” – Dictionary.com

(This does not usually apply to peoples’ attitudes about SNAP and TANF, however, as you have to be straight-up poor to get those.  The Social Security and Medicare people think of, especially these days when these programs are under attack, are the ones people “earned” by having money taken out of their paychecks.)

No one, except the poor and a few enlightened progressives, thinks that the poor are “entitled” to anything.

And, of course, that’s my beef with all this screaming about “hands off our Social Security” stuff I see on Facebook and elsewhere.  Because, well, you guys know me – always bringing it back to the poor folks, and how some of the not-poor progressives need to adjust their attitudes.

Side note #1: I think you already know this, but the “not-poor progressives” group I am referring to does not include my friends.  My friends already understand what I am writing about.

So…to continue…I see all kinds of memes on my FB page, posted by others, that encourage people to write their congresspeople and/or attend protests and meetings in order to express displeasure at the upcoming Paul Ryan-led decimation of Social Security (though he is going after Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF also).

Comments about these posts range from “Leave my Social Security/Medicare alone, I PAID for those and I am ENTITLED to them!” to…ok, just kidding, there are no other comments on posts like that.  It’s all about how people paid into Social Security/Medicare so they deserve to get them when they retire.

I want to tell you, I don’t actually dispute that.  It’s ok by me if people get Social Security/Medicare when they retire.

What I object to is the idea that only they are “entitled” to social support payments when they can no longer work.

It’s something that makes us poor folks cringe, the idea that one should only get benefits if one has paid for them.  And with that cringing comes the knowledge that, if saving their “paid-for” benefits and leaving us with none is an option, the working and middle classes will have no problem with doing that.

Because they deserve it, and we don’t.  This attitude is what causes many poor folks to think they don’t have the right to fight for their benefits, and also causes many of us to avoid organizations that are mostly filled with the “I-paid-for-my-benefits” crowd.

That’s actually bad for the organizations – not only in terms of consciousness-raising, but it decreases their numbers significantly when they, say, want to conduct a mass action.  Or when voting is an issue.  Or when they need a lot of people to email their representatives.

“But why is this attitude so wrong?” you may ask.

Well, let me give you a personal example.

I worked on and off most of my adult life until my 40s.  I say “on and off” because I also had 3 kids before I was 30 (all planned), and I had them because I actually wanted to raise kids, so I attempted to work nights so my then-husband could watch them once he came home from his day job.

That would have worked brilliantly, except for the fact that my then-husband would be asleep when I got home from work, and the kids would be running around the house unsupervised.  This happened so often that I was not able to keep any job I had for very long.

After my kids were grown, I was in university getting my degree, then out of university I was working as a therapist for various organizations – and got fired from nearly all of them.

“Yeah, well, it’s your fault for getting fired.”

Unfortunately, in this for-profit healthcare system we have in this country, I always got fired for choosing the patients’ mental health over the hospitals’ profits.  I can explain all the ways in which I did that, but that’s another blog post (or you can search the blog for the times I have written about this already).

The point is, I never amassed enough work credits to be able to claim “conventional” Social Security – you know, the kind people state they worked for.  What I get is SSDI, Social Security Disability, and SSI (Supplemental Security Income). That’s for everyone who is unable to work, and who are poor.

And, by the way, FICA does not pay for SSI, so calm down.  It’s funded by general tax revenues – you know, the taxes paid for by richer folks than you, until recently (see the GOP’s tax bill they just passed).

Side note #2: Of course, having worked, I, too, paid into the system with FICA, just “not enough”.  They have some kind of formula they use.  I will never “get back what I paid”.

Ok, so what about mothers who did this?  I wasn’t the only one.  If we end up unable to work at all and on disability, are we just supposed to be homeless, without medical care, without food and so on?

Why would anyone with brains and a capacity for empathy think that?

I’ll give you another example.  Not a personal one this time.

What about kids who are born with problems?  Problems so severe that they cannot work when they come of age?  Are they just supposed to be on the streets, or in institutions?  I guess some people would prefer they just live in institutions, so they don’t have to see people like that.

Who is going to pay for these institutions?  And why do people with disabilities not have the right to live freely, not locked up?  We tried that years ago, just locking people up in institutions, and they were horribly mistreated plus no one deserves to be locked away just for who they are.

Because that’s what we as a society did – we locked people up in institutions just because of who they were.

Thankfully, until the Idiot-in-Chief and his cruel Republican friends (like the disgusting Mick Mulvaney) are successful in rolling back all the civil rights gains that people who are other-abled have won, we don’t live in a world like that presently.

Side note #3: There’s this, though (“Congress Wants to Change the Americans with Disabilities Act and Undermine the Rights of People with Disabilities”, Tyler Ray and Vania Leveille,ACLU website, 9/6/17).

“But people who don’t work don’t contribute to society,” some people argue.

Do people who get SSI and SSDI, SNAP and so on buy things?  We do!

We buy clothes and food and medicine and gas (those of us lucky enough to be part of the 85% of Americans who have a car, don’t be snooty), amongst other things.  Do people have jobs in order to provide goods and services?  They do!

Side note #4: The next time you turn up your nose at all the poor people you see in the stores you shop in, just think about how many people that business would lay off if it weren’t for customers.  Look at it for any business, even hospitals.

People do not exist in a vacuum.  Commerce continues whether the person participating in it is poor or not – no one asks for proof of income before you can buy a shirt, for example.  Money from SSI and SSDI is the same color as money from SSA.

So stop being such an “entitled” jerk about it all.  Go read some books on how capitalism works.  If you can’t be empathetic and compassionate, at least look at what “entitlement programs” actually do for you in terms of consumerism.

Maybe that will skew your beliefs a bit.

Weird news of the week: Yoga with Goats in Connecticut.  The idea is that you do yoga, and the goats do whatever they want, like climb on you and frolic around.  Better with cats, I think.

Recommendation of the week: Another tip for us poor folks – if you sign up for Red Robin rewards (free), you get a free burger during your birthday month.  You get anything free at Starbuck’s during your birthday month, and a free drink at Dunkin’ Donuts.  There are other programs, I’m sure, but if you know someone who is poor please tell them about these.

(My birthday is tomorrow but I am on a diet so no free goodies for me!)

Be good.  Be kind.  Everyone is entitled to respect and love (except Republicans heh).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dragon-Ridden Days, Nightmare-Ridden Sleep

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With apologies to Yeats, who wrote this in his poem “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen”:

“O what fine thought we had because we thought/That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.”

Here’s a link to the full poem: “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen” by Yeats

He was writing about Ireland, of course, but I think there are similarities with today’s political/social climate.  Plus, I love Yeats – he was the focus of my never-finished dissertation.

I haven’t written much, for a long time – not here, anyway.  But one of my New Year’s resolutions is to re-start this blog, and continue writing every Wednesday.

I can’t give you any good reasons or excuses why I have not been writing.  Some of it was this illness, some of it was a chronic state of upset over the election of the worst president in US history, and some of it was feeling overwhelmed in terms of subjects about which to write.  We here in the US are living each day in crisis.  Every day brings a new situation to worry about.

It makes sense in terms of narcissistic personality disorder, as 45 is responsible for creating chaos and crisis on a daily basis.  It’s what they do.  I’ve seen it time and time again in outpatient and inpatient settings, and usually was not sucked into it, but it’s hard not to howl at the TV when it’s happening to the entire country.  In a clinical situation, me ignoring behavior like this has an immediate impact on the patient; but, in the situation where the whole country is being played, me ignoring it or attending to it makes no difference.

That’s a hard thing to deal with.  And I didn’t want to deal with it in this blog.  Many clinicians and laypeople address this on a daily basis, and I can’t really add anything to the discussion.

So, briefly to start out, a health update: After many tests, and after switching endocrinologists (Dr. Asshat was pissing me off more and more), it appears as if I have hyperparathyroidism.  I am still taking Vitamin D and drinking copious amounts of calcium-fortified almond milk, and I get blood tests tomorrow.

My next endocrine appointment is Jan 16.  I am hoping it comes out that this is the actual problem, and that I don’t have to go see another specialist.  This endocrinologist thinks that it is secondary hyperparathyroidism due to Vitamin D deficiency, but the tests over time do not bear this out.  We’ll see.

The title of today’s post was chosen due to the imagery of dragons stampeding during the day – i.e., hearing and seeing all the wildly scary news on a daily basis – and having nightmares when finally crawling into bed, having no escape from the day’s insanity.  I imagine this scenario is true for the majority of the country right now.

I wonder, sometimes, what I would tell a client/patient if I were working right now, and was listening to the anxiety and depression that can be aggravated by societal upheaval.  Addressing the basis of the problem can, and does, get a therapist fired for “being too political”, but not addressing it and just suggesting the person medicate, meditate, and/or take up a new hobby just does not seem helpful.

We, as therapists, tend to put way too much responsibility on the client/patient, and not enough on the environment and other conditions that are aggravating or even causing symptoms in the first place.  Yes, we all can (to some extent) control how we deal with information, but we do not live in a vacuum where we can just “rise above it all”.

Not when the environmental stressors are due to actual things that might materially affect people, like cutting social programs and the like.  It’s really easy to be unaffected by 45’s policies when those policies do not affect you personally.

That seems really obvious, what I just wrote.  But it’s far too easy to put the entire weight of treatment on the client/patient alone, when a little bit of material relief would do a lot to ease symptoms.  Or when some kind of action the client/patient could take would make them feel as if they are trying to change the conditions that cause the symptoms.

I could see myself giving a client/patient the therapeutic assignment of “write an email to your representative”, if the person is overwhelmed with worry about his/her disability being cut, for example.

I could see this being relayed to another staff member or client/patient, who then writes up a complaint and sends it along to my supervisor.

Along with that, the client/patient is usually reassigned and/or talked out of writing an email to his/her representative, which is fine with them because, typically, clients/patients don’t like therapeutic assignments of any kind.  That’s why so few therapists assign them.

That’s also why so many therapists’ clients/patients don’t get better.

As I, hopefully, inch towards resolving my health issues and look to applying for jobs again, I am going to have to think a lot about where I can reasonably fit in.  I’m not seeing anyplace, to be honest.  And, without a car, my choices are really limited.

But that’s another blog post.

In weird news, Nebraska cops ruin Christmas by arresting elderly couple for weed.  The folks were trying to bring holiday cheer from California to Boston and Vermont.  The couple are the parents of the county prosecutor in Burlington, who has disavowed any knowledge of the felony his parents committed.  Jerk.  These people need a GoFundMe page.

Recommendation for today is for Schwan’s.  It is a food delivery service that’s been around for ages.  I am recommending them because they take the SNAP card.  Yeah, it’s expensive and you don’t get nearly the same amount of food you would get if you shopped at, say, Aldi, but it’s ideal for someone who is house-bound and it beats all hell out of Meals on Wheels (which, though free, has food that’s utterly disgusting).  So if you know someone who uses SNAP and has a hard time getting to the store, please tell them about this.

Be good.  Be kind.  Have a better year than the last one.

 

Mispauperism, Right and Left

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Update: I haven’t been keeping up with my blog.  I haven’t posted since I got out of the last long hospital admission I had in October, 2016.  Much of my absence is due to attempts to control my symptoms and possibly get a proper diagnosis, with limited success.  Some of it was just plan “bleh” due to the election that the Republicans stole.  At any rate, I will be writing weekly again.  Publishing early this week because I have more tests for pheochromocytoma again tomorrow.

I made up that word, “mispauperism”.  It means “hatred of the poor”.  I wasn’t able to find out if there is an actual word for this, and I invite any readers to let me know if there is.

There are multiple reasons to be concerned or downright scared of the political climate in this country right now.  To me, it’s different only in that it’s more visible than it’s been in a long time. Things that people used to say and do behind closed doors in public and private offices are now proudly being loudly proclaimed by our illegitimate president, his henchmen, most Republicans, and fascists/white supremacists/Christofascists.

You guys know that, though.  You pay attention.  You speak out and you demonstrate, write your congress people, sign petitions, vote, and so on.

What I want to write about today fits in with the theme of my blog, which is “what it’s like to live in poverty”.    I hesitated about this topic today, because I really don’t want to come down too harshly on anyone on “the left” (being a leftist myself and all) – now, more than ever, is a time for unity.

HOWEVER, having been nearly banned from the Raw Story comments section, and having people jump down my throat on other “left-wing” sites’ comments sections,  I want to address this.

We all know the right hates the poor.  From Libertarians to Republicans, there is a deep-seated mindset that people are poor because we are lazy, stupid, uneducated, and addicts/alcoholics. It’s our fault.  No one should help us because that’s just taking money from hardworking people and giving it to us, so we can buy iPhones, big cars, lobster and steak, and our drugs of choice.

Ok, done with them.  I have written about this extensively in my blog already.

What some of us don’t realize, or won’t admit, is that many on the left hate the poor, too. It seems to be on a continuum, though, because the farther left you go, the more compassion you find towards us.  This is where you find real community organizers, ones who come to our neighborhoods and help us lead our own mass actions and what-not.   They are from all kinds of cultural and racial backgrounds.

Nope, this hatred comes from white liberals and white “intellectuals” – strictly middle to upper middle class white “progressives”.

I am not going to give the standard disclaimer of “not all white people”, because if you are getting all defensive….well, I don’t care, actually.  If you don’t hate the poor then you won’t object to what I am writing.  If you do, you’re probably one of the people I am writing about.  And what I write won’t change your mind.  Also, if you hate the poor, you are not one of my friends or one of my family members, so again, I don’t care.

What got me started with all this was the media and the comments sections categorizing 45 supporters as toothless, uneducated rednecks who were virulently racist/sexist/homophobic/xenophobic and so on.  They think that all 45 supporters are on Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and SSI/SSDI (or “welfare”, as they ignorantly call it, not being aware that there is very little “welfare” as they heard of it – being middle to upper middle class and all, they don’t keep up with those things).

They think that all 45 supporters live in red states, as if not one single person in blue states voted for 45 – or that no one voted for Democrats in red states.  Even if those of us did vote for Hillary and we live in red states, well it’s our fault anyway because there weren’t enough of us.

And the kicker?  The “progressives” opined that every single poor person should lose their healthcare and die, because “they all voted for 45”.  Those inbred, genetically inferior (yes, they really do write that) yahoos who live so far into the country they have to pipe in sunshine – which is paid for by precious folks’ middle to upper middle class tax dollars, or something – are all “typical Trump voters”.

I thought, “Well, ok, these are supposed to be progressives, maybe they just don’t realize who 45 supporters really are – that the people who elected 45 are not the poor.”

So…I went researching.  And I found this:

The median household income of a Trump voter so far in the primaries is about $72,000, based on estimates derived from exit polls and Census Bureau data. That’s lower than the $91,000 median for Kasich voters. But it’s well above the national median household income of about $56,000. It’s also higher than the median income for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters, which is around $61,000 for both.

(“The Mythology of Trump’s ‘Working Class’ Support”, Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight website, 5/3/2016)

I have mentioned this on other blog posts, so it might not be new to many of you.

But, despite this oft-quoted and referenced source, and even some from other sources that say the same thing, the “progressives” didn’t believe it, wouldn’t accept it, and some even accused me of being a 45 supporter!

Even the Occupy Democrats told me to piss off, when I cited this and asked them to please stop publishing memes of hillbillies as the sole supporters of 45, because it wasn’t accurate and it contributed to hostility and fear of poor people at a time when we really need allies.

It defies logic.  Poor people make up 14% of the US population (“Basic Statistics”, Talk Poverty website).  Even if every single poor person voted, they wouldn’t make up even half of 45’s base.  But that assumes that there is no voter suppression, no gerrymandering, no economic barriers to voting, or the sense that no one gives a crap about the poor so why vote?  And it is backed up by research that poor people tend to vote for Democrats, when we do vote (“The Politics of Financial Insecurity”, Pew Research website, 1/8/2015).

So it’s not even statistically possible that the majority of 45 supporters are poor.

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Heart of Darkness: Not the Conrad Novel

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Before I begin this latest blog rant, I want to reply to a question I received about my recommendations, which I write about at the end of each post.

I do provide links to news stories, products, movies, TV shows, etc that I recommend.  I do this so you can find them easily.  I have never, ever been paid to do this, nor do I receive any compensation for it. In fact, it hadn’t even entered my mind until someone emailed me to ask.

So, no, if you click on those links they won’t do anything but take you to a site related to whatever it is I am recommending. And if a link is broken, please feel free to tell me so I can delete it and/or put up a new one.

Right.  I think it’s obvious to my Facebook friends that I am in a fairly bad mood these days.  It’s because I am so tired of waiting for people to grow up or shut up.

Ever since Trump announced his candidacy, and continuing to this very day, a certain percentage of people have decided that all their little resentments that have built up through the years can now be fully expressed everywhere, and often.  Even if they didn’t vote for Trump and think that he’s an ignorant narcissist.

Some of the same prejudiced remarks Trumpites and Trump himself and incidentally most Republicans and some Democrats and definitely 3rd party people express are now leaking out amongst people who claim to be free of that kind of hate.

“People should lose their benefits because they voted Trump in”.   This assumes that most people who voted for Trump are poor.  As I pointed out in a previous blog post, the average salary of the average Trump supporter is $72,000.   These are not poor people, not by a long shot.

“The Republicans now will make poor people work instead of getting benefits.”  This is just plain stupid.  There has been a work requirement for people under 55 who are not out of work due to a disability for a long time.

Of course, I suppose they could be talking about single mothers with children, the oft-used target of mean and ignorant people everywhere.  I thought that way of thinking went out with the “welfare queen” crap that died out years ago.

People who I never would have thought would harbor such erroneous and hateful thinking have been surprising me at a fairly constant rate since I have gotten into checking Facebook again.  Some of them I just unfriended.  Others I just accused of being mean-spirited.

Finally, I just posted a status that called them all dickheads.

Look, how many of these people ever had to rely on social programs?  How many of them are white and male?  Why, especially now that we have an incompetent president-elect who has surrounded himself by barely-humans whose main delight in life is dismantling every entitlement program there is, are the attacks on the poor and people of color increasing?

Almost as bad are the “progressives” who feel the need to apologize to indigenous and other people while at the same time attempting to hijack the same peoples’ movements because they think they “know better”.

Or they think they need absolution for their guilt, which is a hell of a lot easier than looking inward at their own shit and being aware of how their privilege plays out in American society – which they do nothing about.

These are the same people who run “non-violent protest training” (can you see me rolling my eyes?), or who finance their “activism” so they can make claims, such as one white male environmentalist did, that they are the leadership of the battle over the pipeline at Standing Rock.  Oh, PLEASE.

Even on “Giving Tuesday”, when I posted a plea on Facebook for people to do just ONE kind act for someone who really needed it, I got 2 “likes” and a comment from a friend (who is also on disability) who told me to “not hold my breath” waiting for people to respond.

No one – not one person – related a kindness they had performed.  Uh, except for me, because I took my EBT card and bought *gasp* holiday candy to give out to others on the bus – because in this area, everyone who rides the bus is poor.  Wasn’t much but it was what I could do.

I state that not to brag, but to point out that NO ONE ELSE reported making any attempt to do something nice for someone else.

Thank you, you know who you are, for doing something nice for me.  Which I am still enjoying to this day.

Instead, there were the usual snarky remarks about poor people (but none about Black Lives Matter, because I unfriended everyone who would post “Blue Lives Matter, Too!” and other clueless remarks long ago), even wishes that we all would lose our benefits, and other equally repugnant thoughts.

There were – and still are – dire warnings about how this new administration is going to screw everyone over.  They’re right, the warnings are mostly accurate.  And I have no problem with people pouring out into the streets to protest Trump and his policies.  I think that’s a good thing.

But let’s not make a cottage industry about it, ok?  Why in hell does anyone need “training” for a demonstration (which probably at some point includes passing the hat)?  I was 14 when I was a marshall at a demonstration, which meant I (and many others) walked along the sides of the demonstration and told people to stop agitating.  IT’S EASY.  NO TRAINING REQUIRED.

I even saw a post from someone who insisted she needed training to make a banner!  What??? Get a sheet, get poster paint, write your slogan.  Again, something I did often as a teenager, no training required.

Does anyone doubt that people charge for trainings or t shirts or banners or whatever?  Or at the very least decide they need entertainment at a demonstration, of all places?  That’s rather self-centered and besides the point, don’t you think?

The exception in the past would probably be the first Earth Day, but that wasn’t promoted as a demonstration.

My point is this: try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, really do it.  Really think about what his/her life is like day-to-day, life that I continually try to illustrate for y’all so you can truly understand what it’s like to be poor and ill.

I am trying to grab you by the shirt collar and pull you up to force you to look, to see, to notice. Not so you can feel guilty and/or ask for forgiveness, but so you can DO SOMETHING.  It can be a small something, or a large something, I don’t care.  It just has to mean something to someone else, to make a dent in the horror of existence that is poverty/illness/bigotry.

You can empower others instead of trying to lead, especially if the struggle is not yours.  Even if you justify your attitude by saying something pithy like, “Clean water is everyone’s struggle”, you need to look inside yourself and ask yourself why you think indigenous people are incapable of leading their own struggle.  Hint: it’s a form of racism, sorry to break it to you.

Because if you cannot look inward, if you cannot examine your motives/attitudes, you are more of a hindrance than a help.  You are not only getting in your own way, in terms of personal growth, you’re getting in other peoples’ ways without even being aware of it.

My main work as a therapist was to promote awareness of self.  It’s really not even hard or painful, it’s just change.   It takes practice, every day.  But it becomes a part of you, like driving a car or other “automatic” behavior.

Then you can pass that skill on to others, by example or even by pushing a bit.  In that way, there eventually comes a cultural/political shift – you know, like the one that enabled President Obama to be elected twice.

But make no mistake, it wasn’t enough of a cultural/political shift so we could celebrate the demise of racism.  Oh no, the latest election should have taught you that, if you weren’t already aware that we don’t live in a “post-racial” world.

It was movement in the right direction.  Just treating people as if they are human, recognizing suffering and trying to relieve it when you can, and at the very least not causing further harm.

You know, acting like a caring, intelligent adult.  Easy.

Today’s weird news isn’t really weird, but I like Grumpy Cat, so…from the website SeattlePi, Grumpy Cat’s Top 10 Pet Peeves:

http://www.seattlepi.com/entertainment/article/Grumpy-Cat-counts-down-to-the-new-year-with-top-10632403.php

Today’s recommendation is for something you probably already watch: the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC.  I like her because she does her research, explains things in historical context, and often knows things no one else does (or at least she knows them first).

Be good.  Be kind.   “Life is real only then, when I am.” – Gurdjieff  (ask)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make No Mistake: This Was Never About Jobs

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Brief health update: I am being tested – for the 3rd time – for pheochromocytoma, which is an adrenal gland tumor, and also being tested for carcinoid syndrome, which is a tumor ‘somewhere’. The endocrinologist thinks the tests will be negative, judging from my past test results, but he wants to make sure because my symptoms indicate one of those two diseases. He told me as I left that he might have to send me to Pittsburgh, which is the default answer for doctors here when they don’t know what’s wrong with you.  I can’t go to Pittsburgh, as I have no way to get there nor money for a plane or train (plus taxi, plus motel, etc).

At this point I would just be happy if they found a way to control the symptoms.  This illness has completely derailed my life.

Anyway, on to the subject at hand: the election.

I was dismayed that Trump won, and I was very disappointed that the Democrats didn’t get the turnout they should have.  I should mention, I live smack dab in the middle of “Trump country”, which is Central Pennsylvania.  The polling place I voted at had very long lines, and that should have been the first clue that Clinton wouldn’t win – my polling place never has a line, usually.

I also noticed a lot of apparent first-time voters, judging by how many people needed to have their hands held as they were walked through the process of using a voting machine.  No further comment on that.

So…Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but lost in the electoral college.  This is the 2nd time in 16 years that this has happened to a Democrat running for president.  But since she won the popular vote, this indicates – at least to me – that Trump doesn’t exactly have an overwhelming mandate from the American people.

Now, I have been watching news shows all through this election and beyond, and I have to say I disagree with the general consensus that Trump won because people have “economic anxiety” and that we “have to listen to them”.

No.  And no.

I live amongst the people who voted this guy into office.  I have heard their views – unwillingly, mostly – on the bus, on the senior van, in the hospital, in the shops, and so on.  Not one of them ever mentioned jobs when they went on their “I love Trump” rants.

They mentioned getting back to “the way things were, when no one was politically correct”. The translation?  “When I could be disrespectful and mean to anyone not like me, and no one would challenge me.”

They mentioned “taking our country back.”  Translation?  “I don’t want all these brown and black folks in my neighborhood/town, and I certainly don’t want to have to look at them or interact with them.”  Similar to that is “I don’t want these thugs coming to live here from Philadelphia, selling their drugs.”  Translation?  “African-Americans who live in this area are thugs and drug dealers, and are responsible for the drug epidemic.”

Never mind that the heroin problem here is multi-generational.  I worked as a drug and alcohol counselor and most of the heroin addicts I treated got the habit from parents, grandparents, cousins, etc – in other words, this heroin problem has been around for many, many years.

But it’s just another thing to blame on minorities, another justification for racist thought.  That is never acceptable, no matter what form it takes.

Not one time did anyone mention jobs, except as an afterthought about when this area had a lot of factories.  It was part of the landscape, not the central reason these people are so angry.

The closest I heard to anything like that was at a talk some man gave about his life as a machinist for Slinky.  He mentioned that he had seen machinery jobs leaving this area for many years, but he still told his kids that they should be machinists, too, and not be “lazy, like those kids who do programming.”

As far as I am concerned, if he saw the writing on the wall and still steered his kids towards being machinists instead of learning marketable skills (like a good parent would), then that’s on him.  He has some hang-up about certain skills and certainly about higher education, and his stubbornness hurt his kids.  It’s his fault.

No one in this area thinks Trump – or anyone else – can bring back the factories that dotted the landscape in Central PA.  That ship sailed long ago, in the 1970s.   The owners of the means of production decided they could make more money overseas, it’s as simple as that.  They weren’t and aren’t going to come back just because people want them to.

The people here know that.  A lot of them, too, are retired military people who have never worked a production job in their lives.  And the average Trump supporter pulls down $72,000 per year (“Trump Voters Earn a Lot More Than You Might Think”, Josh Hatner, USA Today online, 5/5/2016).

These are not poor folks.  They own houses, and cars, and bitch about how much they have to pay for Medicare (which is based on their income, so I really don’t feel sorry for them).  They are comfortable in their little world and they resent non-white people moving into the area.

They complain about “having to be politically correct” even as they say hateful things when other white people are around (I hate that, their assumption that because someone is white they will agree with whatever bigoted shit they care to spout – and I make that reaction clear to whomever tries that with me).

They don’t even want to discuss race or gender, because then they would have to examine their own racist and sexist viewpoints…and let’s face it, they don’t want to do that because it makes them feel uncomfortable.

Luckily, they feel, someone came along who would say all the stuff they were thinking, and now he’s president!  Now they have carte blanche to be as ugly and horrible to others as they want to be, and it’s ok because Trump got elected.

In some ways, as much as people get on the news shows and express disgust with Trump’s and his supporters’ racist/sexist/xenophobic/lgbt-hating ideas, backward and wrongheaded ideas have now been normalized.  This is what bugs me about people, liberals all, who keep insisting that Trump supporters are not bigoted, and we need to “understand them.”

Most progressives already do understand these people.  It’s why we won’t stand to let them get away with anything – not their rhetoric, or certainly not their hateful actions.  What liberals like Michael Moore – who, to me, is just a blowhard even if I agree with some things he says – want us to do is pander to bigots and racists.

They want us to “reassure” these hateful people that they are not under attack.  I won’t, and I can’t, do that.

They are under attack for a reason.  Well, for several reasons, actually.  Their viewpoints that they hold represent:

Racism

Sexism

Xenophobia

Anti-Semitism

Anti-LGBT

And on and on.  These ideas, this yearning to return to a time when only straight, white men were listened to, and everyone else was either vilified or ignored, are not compatible with the values our country is supposed to stand for.

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October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

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domesticviolence1…and also breast cancer awareness month.  I lost a sister to breast cancer, years ago, and I would encourage all my female readers to get regular mammograms.

My focus on domestic violence is mainly because my life was almost lost to it 6 1/2 years ago, so I have first-hand knowledge of the effects it can have on someone.

The night I left my abuser, he had fallen asleep holding a tire iron.  I had no doubt that, once he woke up, he would have beaten me to death with it.  And so I tip-toed out of the house and out to my car, where I had stashed a packed bag in the trunk.

If I had not had a car, I don’t know what I would have done.  I had actually asked 2 people for help leaving (in the form of “come get me”) but both of them let me down.  They ignored my pleas and I was on my own.  Now the car is gone, due to a catastrophic engine failure, and I find myself in a different kind of dire situation due to lack of one – being able to move closer to one of my kids so they can help me in an emergency.

Very soon after, I found the apartment I still live in today, and I was able to get the 2 kittens away from my abuser by “trading” them for the computer I had left behind (the kitties have been living with me happily ever since).

The nightmares have stopped.  I feel safe in my home.  I am ok.  Kitties are happy and healthy.

But I have always thought about other people who have gone – or are going through – the same kind of abuse I did, and how there are still not many services around for them.  I think about how I would run a shelter – one that included pets and also adult children with disabilities – that could really address this problem of domestic abuse.

To have someone endure abuse, and then have to decide if he/she can leave pets behind is an additional burden placed on an already stressed-out survivor.  As far as his or her adult children go, most survivors choose to stay and not leave their child behind.  Most shelters – and this includes the one I fled to – will not allow adult children to stay in the shelter with the survivor.

This is unacceptable.  This policy prevents people from getting the help they need.

In an ideal shelter – in a shelter I envision – there wouldn’t be one house with bunk beds in each room.  It would be more like a compound, with individual units (like motel rooms) where each family and their pet(s) could stay while transitioning to permanent housing.

Counselors would be assigned to the units (maybe 1 counselor to 4 units, for example), and they would help the survivor obtain whatever was needed to help him or her start a new life – whether it be permanent housing, a job, further education, medical assistance, or other resources.

That is my vision.  Unfortunately, I am unable to move on this due to my recurring transportation and illness issues, but maybe this will spark some action from someone who is able to help.

This vision is one of the things that motivates me to continue to push to get well.  Clearly, a shelter that operated as I think it should would cost more than how they are run today, but that’s where grant writing and fundraising come into play.  It also would help to have a paying job on the side.

That’s where the motivation is for me to go back to school and either get my PhD, or find some way to get a license (licensed professional counselor).

So much to do, so little time.  But I have to get well first.  And I may have to travel out of state (or at least to Pittsburgh or Hershey) to get the medical care I need.

On Friday I will see one of my primary care physicians and see how quickly I can get an appointment with an endocrinologist.  Medicare being what it is, I can’t even try for an appointment without a referral from my pcp.  Fingers crossed that I can get an appointment soon, and that it’s in Blair County where I live.

I am a dreamer.  I am a survivor.  And right now, I can use all the help I can get.

Today’s recommendation, if you can stomach it, would be the 3rd and final presidential debate tonight at 9 PM EST.  I watched the other 2 but am not sure how much of this final one I will watch – my blood pressure is high enough, thanks.

The Saturday Night Live parody this Saturday should be quite funny, however, and no doubt we will have every channel doing post-debate analysis anyway, so if you don’t watch it live I don’t think you will miss anything.

In the meantime, here is a short clip of our president that illustrates, for me, how much I will miss him when he leaves office:

I will miss First Lady Michelle Obama, too:

Be good.  Be kind.  Take care of one another.

Blood Pressure’s Insane, Out With Whole Grain, and the Presidential Campaign

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It’s been about 3 months since I last wrote in my blog.  I’ve been ill.

My blood pressure doesn’t want to come down, and the doctors will keep switching my meds until they get it under control.  And, YES, I’ve already tried meditation and all the other “natural” remedies…there seems to be some problem in my body that’s causing this and the other symptom of flushing.

The stomach problems I have been having are finally being properly addressed – I have a hiatal hernia, an inflamed esophagus, and something called gastroparesis.

Aside #1: Gastroparesis means that my digestive system is really super slow.  As in, it takes about 16-18 hours to digest a meal.  The symptoms are: feeling full after only a few bites, reflux, nausea, and sometimes vomiting.

Sometimes it is due to diabetes, but not in my case.  Mine is “idiopathic”, which means they don’t know why this is happening.

The solution to this gastroparesis is to change what and how I eat.  I am to eat 4-6 small meals a day (so far, not been able to eat that much), and I have to ditch my entire way of eating, grrrr.

My “normal” diet has included raw fruits and vegetables and food high in fiber.  Those foods aggravate my condition so…

Out with brown rice, in with white rice.  Out with whole wheat bread, in with white bread.  Out with raw fruits and vegetables, in with cooked-to-death products like applesauce and canned pears.

Basically, I have had to scuttle everything I know about a “healthy diet” and replace it with low fiber food so my stomach can get better.  That also means a lot of vegetable broth, Jello, yogurt, and other easily digested food.  Ugh!

The other symptoms I am having – high blood pressure and flushing – are still unsolved and now I have to go see an endocrinologist.  Might be a tumor somewhere, or some adrenal issue. So, the search continues.

Since July, I have been in the hospital about every 2 weeks, mostly due to the stomach issues but being kept in hospital because my blood pressure would not go down.

If the systolic number (the top number) is 180 or over, and/or the diastolic number (the bottom number) is 110 or higher, then I have to go to the hospital.  I’ve been out of the hospital a week now and so far my blood pressure hasn’t consistently gotten that high, so maybe I can finally keep out of the hospital for longer than 2 weeks.  It approaches that, and so far has been “very high”, but not a hypertensive crisis.

Aside #2: I really want to get back to my volunteer work, but have to give things time so I can make sure I can actually meet my volunteer commitment before I go back.  I need the stipend, I will admit. 

Meanwhile, as I have had a LOT of down-time, I have been watching a great deal of news, and also of course I have watched both presidential debates.

Wild, isn’t it?  I can’t recall a time when we’ve had such a dumbass like Trump running for president, and I certainly can’t recall a time when the sexism flew so freely – oh, except for the time when Hillary Clinton was first lady and had the nerve to propose a healthcare plan (that’s sarcasm).

I am convinced that much of the opposition to Hillary is due to the sexist idea that women can’t be presidents.   The reaction to her is too vitriolic and hateful to be anything else.

And, as usual, when you empower the far right to speak their minds, what you get is ugly rhetoric and hatred of anything that is, say, modern or post-1950.

Ah, the 1950s – when people “kept in their place”.  White men had the final say in everything, and everyone else was told to shut up.

To those people I say, “Shut up and crawl back under your rocks.  You can’t stop progress and, like it or not, one of the absolute best things about our country is its diversity.”

The thing that gets to me is how smug the right is.  They have those smirks on their faces as they talk about their “moral superiority”, even as their candidate confesses to sexually assaulting women because “when you’re a star, they let you do what you want” (“Trump Recorded Having Extremely Lewd Conversation About Women in 2005”, David A. Farenthold, Washington Post online, 10/8/16).

They spread lies about Hillary Clinton that are based solely on the trash that comes out of their candidate’s mouth.  If they would bother to fact-check, they would see that the liar is their candidate, not Hillary.  But…fact-checking is harder than just repeating outrageous gossip on Facebook, and apparently not as fun, either.

My sisters!!  What is wrong with you?  Did your parents not teach you critical thinking skills?

I often wonder which generation raised these idiots.  I guess maybe the one that came before mine, the ones who preferred to defend the Vietnam War and who spread fear about African-American citizens having the same rights and opportunities as white people enjoy.

That would kind of square with the “elderly vote” – Trump’s base of 70-90 year olds.  You know, my generation has been referred to as “the me generation”, but our attitudes pale next to the entitled, selfish, hateful ones of the people who came before us.

As for those who came after us, I have no idea why they are so reactionary and frightened.  I’m sure, though, dear readers, that you will be happy to comment about that on this blog.

Again, I feel it all comes down to the inability or unwillingness to take in multiple forms of information (not Breitbart or Fox News), evaluate, and form an educated opinion.  After all, it’s so much easier to react emotionally and commiserate with others of like minds than to form an independent opinion based on facts.

A cursory look at the most popular blogs and Facebook pages bear this out.

“Let’s all get hysterical!  Let’s spread fear!  We can get thousands of “likes” if we do!”

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Lives Ended, Nearly Everyone Offended, and a Wedding Unattended

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This post was written over several days, so might seem a little choppy.  I am still really sick.

On Sunday, June 12, a gunman stormed a gay nightclub and shot 102 people, killing 49 of them. He called 911 and a tv station – and even posted a Facebook message – pledging his allegiance to “ISIS” and said he was killing people because of American foreign policy in Iraq, amongst other things.  I don’t want to get into specifics because I don’t think his “message” is anything more than the hateful ravings of an extremist.

He chose “Latin Night”, and there was some suggestion that he had some problem with Latinos. One of the survivors – Patience Carter, an intern at a Philadelphia Fox TV affiliate – was told by the shooter that she was safe because he wasn’t targeting African-American people (“Patience Carter: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know”, Heavy website, Daniel S. Levine, 6/15/2016).

Other than that, no one is sure why the popular gay nightclub was selected by this creep.  His wife, who is cooperating with the FBI, has stated that she helped her husband “case” the nightclub and also Disney World, and apparently she knew what he was planning to do.

Her excuse for not telling anyone?  She was trying to talk him out of it, she says.

I think – and this is my opinion only – that she knew, she approved of what he was doing, and only after the feds traced the cell phones she and her husband used during the attack (because some self-absorbed young people, no matter how insane, have to jabber on the phone and post things online no matter what they’re doing) did she “cooperate” because she knew they had her dead-to-rights and she didn’t want to get the death penalty.

There is no excuse for not telling anyone when you know for sure that someone is going to kill another person (or 49!).  None!  Some have suggested that maybe she was afraid of him, a battered woman.  But there is no evidence of that, and let me tell you, that as a survivor of some horrific physical abuse…

…one thing – sometimes the ONLY thing – that we survivors have in common is that we are much more likely to run off and tell on the abuser if he is going to target someone else.  I don’t mean “maybe some future victim at some point”, I mean “this person is going to be hurt or killed if I don’t do something”.

Like our kids.  Like our pets.  Like someone the abuser has named to us as his target.  So I don’t buy that she knew but was too afraid to tell the police or the FBI.  I would bet others in his family knew, too.

And this guy was American.  He was born here to immigrants from Afghanistan.  What a way to pay back a country that took your parents in.

His father supports the Taliban and has run for president of Afghanistan, all from the safety of his American home.  He has bank accounts in Germany, and has solicited funds online, according to investigators.  No one seems to know how he supported his family (“Omar Mateen’s Father ‘s Bank Records Eyed, Says Source”, Newsday website, Newsday Staff, 6/16/2016).

But we don’t arrest people for how they think, or for soliciting funds online.  That’s not how our country works.  We don’t hassle people for expressing political views, usually (many on the left might disagree, and I would be one of those I guess).  Some political views.

So there wasn’t really any way to prevent this event, law enforcement says currently.  A few people have stated they told the FBI that this killer was making “radical” statements, or expressing violent ideas and plans, but so far…we hear no response from the FBI.

Of course, this all just fuels xenophobia and anti-Islamic sentiment, both of which I do not feel/think/support.  And, of course, Trump uses this to crow about how he keeps warning the American people about “Islamic terrorists”.  He would just lock everyone up, according to what they believe.

And…the House and Senate argued over 2 gun control bills – and didn’t pass either one. Conservatives made the “slippery slope” argument, and also insisted that semi-automatic assault weapons are “recreational”.

I don’t think we ought to allow anyone – besides our military – to have weapons that are designed to be used in military conflicts.  The idea that the American people have to arm themselves because their own government is going to one day declare martial law and then somehow confiscate over 3 million guns is beyond ridiculous – it’s paranoid and scary that so many people (like the NRA) actually believe this.

Aside #1: Of course, I would prefer not to have any war, ever.  I don’t like the thought of war and I pretty much oppose all of it.  WWII was the only legitimate reason for us to go to war, and I wish we had gone sooner because we might have prevented the Holocaust.  I don’t think, though, we ought to have bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Every war since WWII has been for the sake of money, and I oppose that vehemently.  Life – all life – is too precious.

These “patriots” actually think that their government is going to attack them, militarily.  And take their guns.  And put them in some kind of camps.  Because the government is their enemy.

They have survivalist organizations.  They have training camps.  They are ignorant, scary people.

You want these people defending you in bars and other public places?  You want more people to die in the crossfire because these “Muricans” feel they have to kill everyone in sight?

Their supporters are Trump, the NRA, Mitch McConnell, and others who spout their support of such lunacy – though usually they couch it in different words.  They imply, they hint, but their crazy gun-nut fans know what they mean.

Why?

When did “patriotism” come to mean “hatred of our own government”, “twisting the constitution so that only certain people have rights”, and “stockpiling assault weapons to shoot anyone I deem suspicious”?

Who lives that way?  And why do people with money and power, i.e., gun manufacturers and politicians, care what these stupid yahoos think?  Certainly they aren’t a majority; most Americans do not want people to own assault weapons (57%, according to a recent poll by CBS news; “Poll: Majority Backs Assault Weapons Ban”, The Hill website, Jessie Hellmann, 6/15/20160).

This gunman got his assault gun (AR 15) and handgun legally, even after passing background checks and some kind of psychological exam (though I can tell you, those are useless) – so “stricter” laws won’t help with this.  The weapon needs to be completely unavailable.  There’s no legitimate use for it besides killing people.

But, despite some elderly Democrats staging a sit-in at the House of Representatives until they get some bills debated and passed, nothing’s being accomplished.  It’s painful to see this group of people – older than I am – sitting on a floor that you know is causing them a lot of physical pain (“A Sit-In on the House Floor Over Gun Control”, The Atlantic website, Nora Kelly, 6/22/2016).

The House has no filibuster rules as the Senate does, so this is what the politicians came up with.  I guess, for some, it’s a throwback to the old days of protesting.

Oh well, if it works…ok.  I will support anything that gets any kind of gun control laws passed.  I am sick of the NRA and their cult of death.

In the background of all this important stuff, we have Trump reading a speech off a teleprompter – part of his “improved, more presidential” so-called change – attacking Mrs. Clinton with no proof of anything he’s said. The only difference now is he yells less.  He is still trying to blame her for everything he thinks her husband did 20 years ago, calling her “lyin’ corrupt Hillary”, blaming her for every conflict the US has gotten into, bringing up things the Republicans have tried to indict her with but can’t (after many investigations and so on), and just making things up.

MSNBC, normally a somewhat liberal channel, is gushing all over this “new Trump”, stating he now has a chance to win and so on.  Claiming that Mrs. Clinton is personally attacking him, rather than pointing out that she is merely exposing his history of failed businesses and quoting him verbatim all the evil that spews forth from his mouth.

Aside #2: It seems to me that MSNBC doesn’t really care who wins, as long as they can get entertainment value out of the candidacy (except maybe for Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, who really do seem to care). CNN is not much better, as it seems they have nearly doubled-down on the amount of Trump surrogates they have on their shows.  Really sickening.

Let this idiot pay for his air time, like every other candidate.  Oh wait, he can’t – he only has $1 million left, because he spent much of his campaign money paying himself and his family (“Donald Trump’s Self-Funding Includes Payments to Family and His Companies”, NY Times website, Alan Rappeport, 6/21/2016).  I guess he must still be manipulating the TV press for his own purposes.

And don’t expect him to debate Mrs. Clinton, ever.  I can’t see how he can do that, because she has knowledge about the world and how the US works, and he doesn’t.  He doesn’t even seem to understand the concept of the branches of government and what each one does.  He doesn’t seem familiar with the Constitution.  He doesn’t understand foreign policy or how to treat other world leaders with respect.

She will wipe the floor with him.  Unless he somehow can negotiate to have some aide standing right next to him, passing him notes or whispering in his ear.  Or maybe he can feign having a cold…for months.  Or laryngitis, so his surrogate has to literally speak for him.  I don’t know how he’s going to get out of debating her, but he will try, because he’s stupid.

Yep, he is. He’s not intelligent, he’s not savvy, he’s not educated.

He’s just a guy who inherited a shitload of money from his daddy, who only continues to be rich because he stiffs people, defaults on loans, and pulls his money out before the businesses he mismanages fails.  He also was an obnoxious TV “star” – one of those outrageous and disgusting individuals that a certain percentage of Americans find so amusing (I have never watched any “reality” TV like that, because I find people like that aggravating).

He is free market capitalism personified.  Why anyone, especially working people, would think this guy won’t exploit anyone and anything if he became president, is beyond me.  That’s what he does.  He is in it for HIM, no one else.  He has no love for the people.

Mrs. Clinton needs to keep pointing these things out, things Trump has done to hurt people.  If she and Elizabeth Warren continue to poke his sore spots this way, they will cause him to blow up again and again, until no one can stand to listen to him whenever he opens his mouth.

Already, 70% of Americans hate him.  And still he continues to take every criticism of him – his greed, his arrogance, his hatred of the poor – and says “Oh no, that’s HER, not me!”  As if just saying that makes it true.

I am so proud of Hillary Clinton.  She keeps her cool, her humor, and she hits back and hits back hard.  I cannot wait to see what our president does to Trump!  He will eviscerate him!

And finally…the wedding.  My lovely, wonderful daughter is getting married on Friday the 24th. In Seattle.  And I can’t go, because I am sick.  I am so sad about this, I can’t even express it.  But I can’t even go 5 minutes in a car without vomiting, let alone travel for hours on a plane.

She understands, of course, because she’s that kind of person.  I am, of course, beating myself up about it and crying as I read about her wedding preparations on Facebook.  I hate living so far away and would do anything to move to Seattle to be closer to her and my grandson (who is a teenager now).

This living far from your family really sucks…and to think one of the reasons I moved here from Memphis was because I couldn’t get healthcare to get a kidney stone removed (because Tennessee chooses to not participate in either the ACA or Medicaid).  Now I am stuck here…yes, the healthcare is decent, so is the mass transit, so is the low crime rate…but I miss my kids.  I miss working, I miss having a car, and now I am missing the most important thing of all – my daughter’s wedding.

Be good.  Be kind.  Don’t move far from your family, if possible.

 

 

 

 

Oh, Brothers!

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Health update: I called and requested sick leave from my volunteer gig (unpaid, of course) because I am spending most days feeling horrible (imagine motion sickness, 24/7).   I am housebound right now, unless I run out of water or ginger ale (thank goodness for food stamps!), in which case Nancy Downstairs drives me to the store (I have a sick bag in her car, it’s that ridiculous, for a 2 mile car ride!).  I didn’t ask the doctor how big the main gallstone was, he just said it was “enormous” and that I should call the surgeon to get my appointment moved up if possible.  I call every few days, no luck. Life, right now, is miserable.

This puts me in a bad financial situation, as this month I cannot pay all my bills due to the cost of medications (I think I have tried every prescription anti-nausea medication known to humankind – except, of course, for marijuana), and now am short on my bills with no stipend from my volunteer job.  I take ginger caps, which, though not cheap, are still cheaper than prescriptions and they seem to work just as well.

After I wrote my last post, I got some feedback from some fellas I know, so I decided to write this to explain.

The thing that bothered them was my implication that Bernie Sanders is a sexist.

I don’t know him.  I can’t assume that.  I was trying to point out what I see are sexist behaviors, or behaviors that might strike people as such.

It didn’t help that the news reported that Sanders had requested a meeting with President Obama today.  According to the Washington Post, which is apparently based on “sources” in the Sanders campaign, the subject of the meeting will be “how Sanders can assure that his campaign’s agenda has a central place in the Democratic Party’s general-election strategy” (“Bernie Sanders Returns to Vermont Ahead of Meeting with President Obama”, Robert Costa, Washington Post website, 6/8/2016).

On the face of it, and in my opinion, this strikes me as “I’m losing the primary so I am going to meet with the President instead of the DNC chair to talk about the party platform.”  This, despite the Sanders campaign having 5 seats on the platform committee (5 out of 15 seats).

The DNC chair is, of course, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.  This is the woman Sanders got upset with because he blames her for bias (see last post or read PolitiFact for the info on this).  He wants to remove her from her position.

Well, why not then go talk to the vice chair of the DNC then?  Because she resigned, stating the she cannot be neutral as she supports Sanders (“Meet the Force Behind the Democratic National Committee Whom You’ve Never Heard Of”, Maxwell Tani, Business Insider website, 3/2/2016).

But why not her replacement, Amy Dacey (Ibid.)?  Certainly, if there are platform issues that need to be discussed, it makes more sense to talk to the DNC National Committee, doesn’t it?

All 3 are women, obviously.  I can see why the second one resigned, but what did the third one do?  She’s been in politics since she was 8, for goodness sake (Ibid.).

Just doesn’t set right with me.  So, while I would not call Sanders a sexist, I do notice signs of some men on the left, from long ago – who did happen to have a blind spot on “the women’s question” – that are similar to Sanders’.

It’s as if Sanders is, again, making this a “boy’s club” decision.  Let’s leave the women out of it. That’s one way of interpreting this.  Unfortunately, it isn’t the first time Sanders has “left women out of it”, as I detailed before.  He may not mean it, but it comes off as exclusionary and sexist.

Of course, I don’t definitively know why Sanders requested a meeting with the President.  But it made me go “hmm”.  Had it been the President who requested a meeting I would have assumed some sort of advice Mr. Obama would have for Mr. Sanders, regarding bowing out.

Here is what I wanted to say regarding the men who contacted me:

None of you, and indeed none of any of my male friends, have ever treated me or any woman I know with anything but respect and on equal footing.   Especially my Falls Church brothers! Known for their sometimes loud singing and boisterous partying – thankfully most of them sang well – they are some of the most fun people I know.  I remember thinking how respectful of me (and my sister Ginny) they were, and, contrasted with the “more leftist” guys I knew back then, there was really no contest.

It’s as if it just never occurred to them to be sexist, which is wonderful when you think about it. Even the one who classified himself as a conservative.  Not. one. peep. of. sexism.

To be able to say that about a good-sized population of men (we did have some extremely large parties of 100 or more sometimes), in the late 60s and early 70s, is just short of astounding.

So, no, my brothers, I don’t default to the “all men are sexist” point of view.  I look at behavior, and words.  And I would never, ever, classify any of you in that way.

Just wanted to make that clear.

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