So if Osama Bin Laden was around he would be very happy with the state of the union in the U.S. The government is taking away American's freedoms at an alarming rate. It is smelling like neofascism to me. The government is building hundreds of detention centers to house "terrorists" without trials or even charges. They are just holding cages and likely will turn into torture chambers. The military can hold and "interrogate" basically anybody they so choose.
Where are the checks and balances that keep government fair and honest in this scenario? When I was growing up these checks and balances were taught to me as the only way to run a government and I was told that only the mighty United States had such a fine arrangement. They taught us that places like Cuba, or at that time Argentina and Chile, Brazil and before that Spain under Franco or Italy under Mussolini did not have checks and balances but were fascist and under the rule of a single party or individual. They taught me about the Bill of Rights and touted that only the U.S had so much true freedom. They told us we could be free to choose how to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Now that all sounds like propaganda and lies to me. None of it is true anymore.
The pursuit of "terrorists" is now the rule of the land. We get searched everywhere we go. Our communications are intercepted. Our rights are gone. And now we can be thrown in FEMA cells and forgotten about forever. Round up the troublemakers and lock them up and throw away the key.
I remember the "disappeared" people in Central and South America in the 60s and on into the 80s. Thousands if not millions of people just disappeared after being picked up by the government police. Now that is going to happen here too and it is legal. This is so wrong.
Almost nobody is complaining about these lost freedoms and checks and balances. Sure a few "crazies" are marching around with signs and stuff or like me writing about it. Unfortunately nobody is paying attention to the signs or blogs like this. The population is afraid of more terrorist attacks like the World Trade Center 911 attack by good old Osama. The government is using that fear to take away all our rights one by one. This is following the historical path to fascism but this is neofascism.
Fascism may have started in Italy but it is evolving into a neofascism today in this country. Patriotic fever like that stoked by the 911 attack is the classic tool used to impose fascism. Take away individual rights for the collective good of the party in control is the usual path to fascism. Round up the usual suspects and eliminate them. Police power against foes, even small foes. Spy on the people going about their daily lives and those that do not toe the line...poof...disappeared. This is so very wrong. So un-American.
That is where we are today. I will be rounded up for sure. But I would rather die than live under these conditions. That is what most wars this country fought were supposedly fought for...to defend our freedom and rights. Those wars were a waste of time and lives now. We have seen the enemy and he is ourself. Osama Bin Laden must be loving it.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Raining Money
Here is a story that tells it all about the condition of the US today and who in the US controls the strings of this puppet government. The numbers relating to these dollar figures are so large that they boggle the mind. Yet it was all kept secret until now and even then did not even make front page news. The bankers took the cash and lied to the public about their financial security. Anybody else would be prosecuted for fraud like that by the SEC but since these people pull all the strings nothing has happened to them or will happen to them. If you are going to steal money steal enough of it to pay for your defense lawyer or just get into this group of super elite then you won't even need the lawyer because you already have the DAs, judges and politicians in your pockets so you won't need a lawyer.
It is a sad state of affairs for the general American public who pays for all this and still supports their government. These guys do a real slick job of conning the American patriots into believing that everything is fine and will stay fine if you just keep voting for our puppets and ignore that Occupy Wall Street group. This is serious criminal activity on a record smashing scale of heists and is just covered up as patriotic hogwash.
http://news.businessweek.com/article.asp?documentKey=1376-LVDMGO1A74E901-5CG1C7JPCU5J1O688G3J3C73JE
November 28, 2011 3:17 PM text size: TT
Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion Undisclosed to Congress
Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.
The Fed didn't tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required emergency loans of a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn't mention that they took tens of billions of dollars at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed's below-market interest rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.
Saved by the 2007-2010 bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.
While Fed officials say that almost all the loans were repaid without losses, details that emerge from 29,000 pages of Fed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and central bank records of more than 21,000 transactions suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger.
“When you see the dollars the banks got, it's hard to make the case these were successful institutions,” said Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. “This is an issue that can unite the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street.”
The size of the bailout came to light after Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, won a court battle against the Fed and a group of the biggest banks called Clearing House Association LLC. The amount of money the central bank parceled out dwarfed the Treasury Department's better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
Few people were aware of this, partly because bankers didn't disclose the extent of their borrowing. JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon told shareholders in March 2010 that his bank used the Fed's Term Auction Facility “at the request of the Federal Reserve to help motivate others to use the system.” He didn't say that the New York-based bank's total TAF borrowings were almost twice its cash holdings or that its peak borrowing of $48 billion came more than a year after the program's creation.
On Nov. 26, 2008, Bank of America Corp.'s then-CEO Kenneth Lewis wrote to shareholders that he headed “one of the strongest and most stable major banks in the world.” He didn't say that Bank of America owed the Fed $86 billion that day. Bank of America's borrowing peaked at $91.4 billion in February 2009.
Howard Opinsky, a JPMorgan spokesman, declined to comment, as did Bank of America's Jerry Dubrowski.
The Fed, headed by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, has been lending money to banks since just after its founding in 1913. Starting in August 2007, when confidence in banks began to wane, it created a variety of ways to bolster the financial system with cash or easily traded securities. By the end of 2008, the central bank had established or expanded 11 lending facilities catering to financial firms that couldn't get short-term loans from their usual sources.
“Supporting financial-market stability in times of extreme market stress is a core function of central banks,” said William English, director of the Fed's Division of Monetary Affairs. “Our lending programs served to prevent a collapse of the financial system and to keep credit flowing to American families and businesses.”
The central bank initially released lending data in aggregate form only. Who borrowed and how much were kept from public view. The secrecy extended even to top aides of then- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson who managed TARP, say two former senior Treasury officials who requested anonymity.
The six biggest U.S. banks, which received $160 billion of TARP funds, borrowed as much as $460 billion from the Fed, measured by peak daily debt. Morgan Stanley was the top borrower with a peak of $107 billion on Sept. 29, 2009.
That was eight days after then-CEO John Mack said the firm was “in the strongest possible position.” Mark Lake, a spokesman for the bank, declined to comment.
With the help of the Fed's secret loans, America's largest financial firms got bigger during the crisis. Part of the boost came from a hidden subsidy -- the Fed's below-market interest rates. The subsidy can be estimated using a figure banks call “net interest margin.” It's the difference between what they earn on loans and investments and their borrowing cost. To calculate how much banks stood to make, Bloomberg multiplied their tax-adjusted net interest margins by their average Fed debt during the time they took emergency loans.
The 190 firms for which data were available would have produced income of $13 billion, assuming all of the bailout funds were invested at the margins reported, the data show. Citigroup Inc. would have taken in the most, with $1.8 billion.
Total assets held by the six biggest U.S. banks increased 39 percent to $9.5 trillion on September 30, 2011, from $6.8 trillion on the same day in 2006, according to Fed data.
Six banks holding so many assets is “un-American,” said Richard W. Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “All of these gargantuan institutions are too big to regulate. I'm in favor of breaking them up and slimming them down.”
That wasn't the policy advocated by the Obama administration. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner opposed an April 2010 proposal by Brown, the Ohio senator, and Ted Kaufman, the former Delaware Senator, both Democrats, which would have forced the six banks to shrink.
The big six -- JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley -- took 63 percent of the Fed's emergency-loan money as measured by peak daily borrowing, the data show.
Combined, the six spent $29.4 million on lobbying in 2010, a 33 percent increase from 2006, according to OpenSecrets.org. Lobbying by the American Bankers Association, a trade organization, increased at about the same rate, OpenSecrets.org reported.
Lobbyists argued that bigger banks are more stable, better able to serve large companies and more competitive internationally, and breaking them up would cause “long-term damage to the U.S. economy,” according to a November 2009 letter to Congress from the Financial Services Forum, an advocacy group made up of the CEOs of 20 of the largest financial firms.
Kaufman countered that some banks are so big that their failure could trigger a chain reaction in the financial system. So-called too-big-to-fail banks have an advantage over smaller firms: Their borrowing costs are lower because lenders believe the government won't let them go under. The perceived safety net creates what economists call moral hazard -- the belief that bankers will take greater risks because they'll enjoy any profits while shifting losses to taxpayers.
According to Kaufman, Geithner visited his Capitol Hill office to argue that the issue of limiting bank size was too complex for Congress. The Treasury secretary preferred that international bank supervisors, meeting in Basel, Switzerland, make rules increasing the amount of money banks need to hold in reserve, Kaufman said. Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Geithner, declined to comment.
Geithner knew which banks received Fed assistance and how much they got. Lawmakers didn't. Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, and Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who co-sponsored the financial reform law that bears his name, Dodd-Frank, among others, said they were kept in the dark.
The Senate defeated the Brown-Kaufman proposal, 60 to 31. Bank supervisors meeting in Switzerland did mandate minimum reserves that institutions will have to hold. Those rules can be changed by individual countries. They take full effect in 2019.
Meanwhile, Kaufman said, “we're absolutely, totally, 100 percent not prepared for another financial crisis.”
--Editors: Robert Friedman, John Voskuhl
To write a letter to the editor, send an e-mail to bloombergmag@bloomberg.net or type {MAG}
-0- Nov/28/2011 15:17 GMT
Then here is another story where the judge must not have gotten the memo from the head bankers. I hope this judge has good personal security.
Associated Press
NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York has struck down a $285 million settlement that Citigroup reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission, citing a need for truth about the financial markets.
Judge Jed Rakoff rejected the settlement Monday. The deal would have imposed penalties on Citigroup even as it allowed the company to deny allegations that it misled investors on a complex mortgage investment. The SEC has accused the bank of betting against the investment in 2007 and making $160 million, while investors lost millions.
The judge wrote that there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth about the financial markets. He set a July 16 trial date for the case.
—Copyright 2011 Associated Press
It is a sad state of affairs for the general American public who pays for all this and still supports their government. These guys do a real slick job of conning the American patriots into believing that everything is fine and will stay fine if you just keep voting for our puppets and ignore that Occupy Wall Street group. This is serious criminal activity on a record smashing scale of heists and is just covered up as patriotic hogwash.
http://news.businessweek.com/article.asp?documentKey=1376-LVDMGO1A74E901-5CG1C7JPCU5J1O688G3J3C73JE
November 28, 2011 3:17 PM text size: TT
Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion Undisclosed to Congress
Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.
The Fed didn't tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required emergency loans of a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn't mention that they took tens of billions of dollars at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed's below-market interest rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.
Saved by the 2007-2010 bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.
While Fed officials say that almost all the loans were repaid without losses, details that emerge from 29,000 pages of Fed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and central bank records of more than 21,000 transactions suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger.
“When you see the dollars the banks got, it's hard to make the case these were successful institutions,” said Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. “This is an issue that can unite the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street.”
The size of the bailout came to light after Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, won a court battle against the Fed and a group of the biggest banks called Clearing House Association LLC. The amount of money the central bank parceled out dwarfed the Treasury Department's better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
Few people were aware of this, partly because bankers didn't disclose the extent of their borrowing. JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon told shareholders in March 2010 that his bank used the Fed's Term Auction Facility “at the request of the Federal Reserve to help motivate others to use the system.” He didn't say that the New York-based bank's total TAF borrowings were almost twice its cash holdings or that its peak borrowing of $48 billion came more than a year after the program's creation.
On Nov. 26, 2008, Bank of America Corp.'s then-CEO Kenneth Lewis wrote to shareholders that he headed “one of the strongest and most stable major banks in the world.” He didn't say that Bank of America owed the Fed $86 billion that day. Bank of America's borrowing peaked at $91.4 billion in February 2009.
Howard Opinsky, a JPMorgan spokesman, declined to comment, as did Bank of America's Jerry Dubrowski.
The Fed, headed by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, has been lending money to banks since just after its founding in 1913. Starting in August 2007, when confidence in banks began to wane, it created a variety of ways to bolster the financial system with cash or easily traded securities. By the end of 2008, the central bank had established or expanded 11 lending facilities catering to financial firms that couldn't get short-term loans from their usual sources.
“Supporting financial-market stability in times of extreme market stress is a core function of central banks,” said William English, director of the Fed's Division of Monetary Affairs. “Our lending programs served to prevent a collapse of the financial system and to keep credit flowing to American families and businesses.”
The central bank initially released lending data in aggregate form only. Who borrowed and how much were kept from public view. The secrecy extended even to top aides of then- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson who managed TARP, say two former senior Treasury officials who requested anonymity.
The six biggest U.S. banks, which received $160 billion of TARP funds, borrowed as much as $460 billion from the Fed, measured by peak daily debt. Morgan Stanley was the top borrower with a peak of $107 billion on Sept. 29, 2009.
That was eight days after then-CEO John Mack said the firm was “in the strongest possible position.” Mark Lake, a spokesman for the bank, declined to comment.
With the help of the Fed's secret loans, America's largest financial firms got bigger during the crisis. Part of the boost came from a hidden subsidy -- the Fed's below-market interest rates. The subsidy can be estimated using a figure banks call “net interest margin.” It's the difference between what they earn on loans and investments and their borrowing cost. To calculate how much banks stood to make, Bloomberg multiplied their tax-adjusted net interest margins by their average Fed debt during the time they took emergency loans.
The 190 firms for which data were available would have produced income of $13 billion, assuming all of the bailout funds were invested at the margins reported, the data show. Citigroup Inc. would have taken in the most, with $1.8 billion.
Total assets held by the six biggest U.S. banks increased 39 percent to $9.5 trillion on September 30, 2011, from $6.8 trillion on the same day in 2006, according to Fed data.
Six banks holding so many assets is “un-American,” said Richard W. Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “All of these gargantuan institutions are too big to regulate. I'm in favor of breaking them up and slimming them down.”
That wasn't the policy advocated by the Obama administration. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner opposed an April 2010 proposal by Brown, the Ohio senator, and Ted Kaufman, the former Delaware Senator, both Democrats, which would have forced the six banks to shrink.
The big six -- JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley -- took 63 percent of the Fed's emergency-loan money as measured by peak daily borrowing, the data show.
Combined, the six spent $29.4 million on lobbying in 2010, a 33 percent increase from 2006, according to OpenSecrets.org. Lobbying by the American Bankers Association, a trade organization, increased at about the same rate, OpenSecrets.org reported.
Lobbyists argued that bigger banks are more stable, better able to serve large companies and more competitive internationally, and breaking them up would cause “long-term damage to the U.S. economy,” according to a November 2009 letter to Congress from the Financial Services Forum, an advocacy group made up of the CEOs of 20 of the largest financial firms.
Kaufman countered that some banks are so big that their failure could trigger a chain reaction in the financial system. So-called too-big-to-fail banks have an advantage over smaller firms: Their borrowing costs are lower because lenders believe the government won't let them go under. The perceived safety net creates what economists call moral hazard -- the belief that bankers will take greater risks because they'll enjoy any profits while shifting losses to taxpayers.
According to Kaufman, Geithner visited his Capitol Hill office to argue that the issue of limiting bank size was too complex for Congress. The Treasury secretary preferred that international bank supervisors, meeting in Basel, Switzerland, make rules increasing the amount of money banks need to hold in reserve, Kaufman said. Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Geithner, declined to comment.
Geithner knew which banks received Fed assistance and how much they got. Lawmakers didn't. Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, and Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who co-sponsored the financial reform law that bears his name, Dodd-Frank, among others, said they were kept in the dark.
The Senate defeated the Brown-Kaufman proposal, 60 to 31. Bank supervisors meeting in Switzerland did mandate minimum reserves that institutions will have to hold. Those rules can be changed by individual countries. They take full effect in 2019.
Meanwhile, Kaufman said, “we're absolutely, totally, 100 percent not prepared for another financial crisis.”
--Editors: Robert Friedman, John Voskuhl
To write a letter to the editor, send an e-mail to bloombergmag@bloomberg.net or type {MAG
-0- Nov/28/2011 15:17 GMT
Then here is another story where the judge must not have gotten the memo from the head bankers. I hope this judge has good personal security.
Associated Press
NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York has struck down a $285 million settlement that Citigroup reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission, citing a need for truth about the financial markets.
Judge Jed Rakoff rejected the settlement Monday. The deal would have imposed penalties on Citigroup even as it allowed the company to deny allegations that it misled investors on a complex mortgage investment. The SEC has accused the bank of betting against the investment in 2007 and making $160 million, while investors lost millions.
The judge wrote that there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth about the financial markets. He set a July 16 trial date for the case.
—Copyright 2011 Associated Press
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Cookie Monster's Occupy Explanation
This is an item I enjoyed on the web today. Very astute.
Occupy
"Cookie Monster" Offers Best Explanation Yet for Occupy Wall Street
By Alan Scherstuhl Fri., Oct. 21 2011 at 2:05 PM
Comments (214)
Categories: Occupy
Share
468digg
cookie_monster.jpg
"C is for Corporate Malfeasance"
A guy calling himself Cookie Monster has written what looks to us like the most clear and persuasive explanation for the Occupy movement we've seen anywhere, a copy-and-pastable screed that everyone should send to their crazy aunts and skeptical grandfolks.
Admittedly, we don't know for sure that the following bit of Cookie Monster/#OWS brilliance was penned by a guy. But it turned up in an Onion AV Club comment thread on an article about how some "Muppet insiders" are feeling squeamish about that upcoming new Muppet movie, and to argue the fundamentals of the American economy in such a forum seems awfully boyish, so the evidence is good enough for us.
(The Av Club, remember, is the not made-up Onion site that lavishes serious attention on everything that matters in pop culture, especially Community. And Cookie Monster, remember, is these days a reformed glutton, so who better to school the world on the ways of the 1 percent?)
Anyway, this "Cookie Monster" -- who writes in full-on, dead-perfect, no-article Cookie-ese -- has long been one of the AV Club's best gimmick commenters, but also one of the Internet's most astute and thoughtful writers, period. The AV Club should sign him (?) up immediately, because, seriously, he ranks right up there with Sean O'Neal and Steven Hyden -- the site's sharpest writers.
Anyway, here's a burst of Cookie truth that should be copy-and-pasted everywhere all across the Internet. Today, we are all Cookie Monsters!
(Note: We cleaned up one typo.)
Yes, there always going to be rich and poor. But we used to live in country where rich owned factory and make 30 times what factory worker make. Now we live in country where rich make money by lying about value of derivative bonds and make 3000 times what factory worker would make if factories hadn't all moved to China.
Capitalism great system. We won Cold War because people behind Iron Curtain look over wall, and see how much more plentiful and delicious cookies are in West, and how we have choice of different bakeries, not just state-owned one. It great system. It got us out of Depression, won WWII, built middle class, built country's infrastructure from highways to Hoover Dam to Oreo factory to electrifying rural South. It system that reward hard work and fair play, and everyone do fair share and everyone benefit. Rich get richer, poor get richer, everyone happy. It great system.
Then after Reagan, Republicans decide to make number one priority destroying that system. Now we have system where richest Americans ones who find ways to game system -- your friends on Wall Street -- and poorest Americans ones who thought working hard would get them American dream, when in fact it get them pink slip when job outsourced to 10-year-old in Mumbai slum. And corporations have more influence over government than people (or monsters).
It not about rich people having more money. It about how they got money. It about how they take opportunity away from rest of us, for sake of having more money. It how they willing to take risks that destroy economy -- knowing full well what could and would happen -- putting millions out of work, while creating nothing of value, and all the while crowing that they John Galt, creating wealth for everyone.
That what the soul-searching about. When Liberals run country for 30 years following New Deal, American economy double in size, and wages double along with it. That fair. When Conservatives run country for 30 years following Reagan, American economy double again, and wages stay flat. What happen to our share of money? All of it go to richest 1%. That not "there always going to be rich people". That unfair system. That why we upset. That what Occupy Sesame Street about.
See the original comment here.
(There's also a great Cookie Monster follow up, in which he says "In theory, this country a democracy, where everyone who share resources also have say in how resources used. In practice, ordinary monster have very little say, and super-rich basically do whatever they want and make government do whatever they want.")
And Sean O'Neal's piece on the Muppet movie is pretty hilarious.
And, hey, did you know that on November 17 Ann Coulter was talking about OWS on the radio and said "Remember the lesson from my book: It just took a few shootings at Kent State to shut that down for good."
Here's that and six other awful things she said.
--
Follow Alan Scherstuhl on Twitter at @studiesincrap, and SF Weekly's The Snitch blog @TheSnitchSF
Occupy
"Cookie Monster" Offers Best Explanation Yet for Occupy Wall Street
By Alan Scherstuhl Fri., Oct. 21 2011 at 2:05 PM
Comments (214)
Categories: Occupy
Share
468digg
cookie_monster.jpg
"C is for Corporate Malfeasance"
A guy calling himself Cookie Monster has written what looks to us like the most clear and persuasive explanation for the Occupy movement we've seen anywhere, a copy-and-pastable screed that everyone should send to their crazy aunts and skeptical grandfolks.
Admittedly, we don't know for sure that the following bit of Cookie Monster/#OWS brilliance was penned by a guy. But it turned up in an Onion AV Club comment thread on an article about how some "Muppet insiders" are feeling squeamish about that upcoming new Muppet movie, and to argue the fundamentals of the American economy in such a forum seems awfully boyish, so the evidence is good enough for us.
(The Av Club, remember, is the not made-up Onion site that lavishes serious attention on everything that matters in pop culture, especially Community. And Cookie Monster, remember, is these days a reformed glutton, so who better to school the world on the ways of the 1 percent?)
Anyway, this "Cookie Monster" -- who writes in full-on, dead-perfect, no-article Cookie-ese -- has long been one of the AV Club's best gimmick commenters, but also one of the Internet's most astute and thoughtful writers, period. The AV Club should sign him (?) up immediately, because, seriously, he ranks right up there with Sean O'Neal and Steven Hyden -- the site's sharpest writers.
Anyway, here's a burst of Cookie truth that should be copy-and-pasted everywhere all across the Internet. Today, we are all Cookie Monsters!
(Note: We cleaned up one typo.)
Yes, there always going to be rich and poor. But we used to live in country where rich owned factory and make 30 times what factory worker make. Now we live in country where rich make money by lying about value of derivative bonds and make 3000 times what factory worker would make if factories hadn't all moved to China.
Capitalism great system. We won Cold War because people behind Iron Curtain look over wall, and see how much more plentiful and delicious cookies are in West, and how we have choice of different bakeries, not just state-owned one. It great system. It got us out of Depression, won WWII, built middle class, built country's infrastructure from highways to Hoover Dam to Oreo factory to electrifying rural South. It system that reward hard work and fair play, and everyone do fair share and everyone benefit. Rich get richer, poor get richer, everyone happy. It great system.
Then after Reagan, Republicans decide to make number one priority destroying that system. Now we have system where richest Americans ones who find ways to game system -- your friends on Wall Street -- and poorest Americans ones who thought working hard would get them American dream, when in fact it get them pink slip when job outsourced to 10-year-old in Mumbai slum. And corporations have more influence over government than people (or monsters).
It not about rich people having more money. It about how they got money. It about how they take opportunity away from rest of us, for sake of having more money. It how they willing to take risks that destroy economy -- knowing full well what could and would happen -- putting millions out of work, while creating nothing of value, and all the while crowing that they John Galt, creating wealth for everyone.
That what the soul-searching about. When Liberals run country for 30 years following New Deal, American economy double in size, and wages double along with it. That fair. When Conservatives run country for 30 years following Reagan, American economy double again, and wages stay flat. What happen to our share of money? All of it go to richest 1%. That not "there always going to be rich people". That unfair system. That why we upset. That what Occupy Sesame Street about.
See the original comment here.
(There's also a great Cookie Monster follow up, in which he says "In theory, this country a democracy, where everyone who share resources also have say in how resources used. In practice, ordinary monster have very little say, and super-rich basically do whatever they want and make government do whatever they want.")
And Sean O'Neal's piece on the Muppet movie is pretty hilarious.
And, hey, did you know that on November 17 Ann Coulter was talking about OWS on the radio and said "Remember the lesson from my book: It just took a few shootings at Kent State to shut that down for good."
Here's that and six other awful things she said.
--
Follow Alan Scherstuhl on Twitter at @studiesincrap, and SF Weekly's The Snitch blog @TheSnitchSF
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Occupy Elections
I was talking to a great friend yesterday about the Occupy movement. She is a veteran demonstrator since the Vietnam war and anti nuke demonstrations of the 70's and 80's. She has been hauled off to jail from numerous demonstrations. She has marched and voiced her opinion for about 40 years. She also votes in every election. When I was talking to her I mentioned about how the press generally refers to the Occupy movement as an anarchist group of lazy spoiled parasites or something similar. She responded with a description of an organizing and planning meeting for the Occupy Oakland group.
The group makes all its decisions by consensus according to her. She described a meeting with about 1400 people present that was making plans for a future demonstration. Everything was put to a vote after the discussions were finished. They elected their platform for what to do and say as well as when and where. Each point was put to the vote of the entire group.
That does not sound very anarchistic to me. It sounds more like true democracy in action. Like the kind of democracy this country was founded on. Our founding fathers were considered radicals and called other names just like these Occupy members are being called names all the time in the media. The differences between the portrayal of the Occupy movement by the media and the reality of who they are and how they operate is astounding. Occupy members are generally well educated, hard working people who believe in the principles of our founding fathers and who vote regularly. Many of them are veterans of service in the military and professionals in many fields. They want to save this country not tear it down.
The media continues to try to spin them as anti-American spoiled idiots. Maybe the media should investigate their stories a little bit instead of just spouting politically motivated smear campaigns like they are doing. Occupy members will vote in future elections and there are lots of members. The few instances of violence associated with the Occupy movement are condemned by the vast majority of members. It would not surprise me at all if many of the violent acts were actually perpetrated by planted undercover anti-Occupy infiltrators as well as by individuals that just like to riot for any reason and who took advantage of the demonstration to get their kicks. I would like to see the arrests compared to other unrelated riots to see how many were common names in all of the riots.
The Oakland General strike is a good example of this. There were thousands of demonstrators marching most of the day with no violence but a few dozen individuals started violence after the main General Strike was over. The majority of the media only wanted to cover the small violent group. Several undercover police were photographed during the demonstration and were later identified. I seriously doubt if they were the only infiltrators present and active.
In the end it will come down to elections. The media is making a mistake thinking the Occupy members do not vote. They do vote and will vote in the future.
The group makes all its decisions by consensus according to her. She described a meeting with about 1400 people present that was making plans for a future demonstration. Everything was put to a vote after the discussions were finished. They elected their platform for what to do and say as well as when and where. Each point was put to the vote of the entire group.
That does not sound very anarchistic to me. It sounds more like true democracy in action. Like the kind of democracy this country was founded on. Our founding fathers were considered radicals and called other names just like these Occupy members are being called names all the time in the media. The differences between the portrayal of the Occupy movement by the media and the reality of who they are and how they operate is astounding. Occupy members are generally well educated, hard working people who believe in the principles of our founding fathers and who vote regularly. Many of them are veterans of service in the military and professionals in many fields. They want to save this country not tear it down.
The media continues to try to spin them as anti-American spoiled idiots. Maybe the media should investigate their stories a little bit instead of just spouting politically motivated smear campaigns like they are doing. Occupy members will vote in future elections and there are lots of members. The few instances of violence associated with the Occupy movement are condemned by the vast majority of members. It would not surprise me at all if many of the violent acts were actually perpetrated by planted undercover anti-Occupy infiltrators as well as by individuals that just like to riot for any reason and who took advantage of the demonstration to get their kicks. I would like to see the arrests compared to other unrelated riots to see how many were common names in all of the riots.
The Oakland General strike is a good example of this. There were thousands of demonstrators marching most of the day with no violence but a few dozen individuals started violence after the main General Strike was over. The majority of the media only wanted to cover the small violent group. Several undercover police were photographed during the demonstration and were later identified. I seriously doubt if they were the only infiltrators present and active.
In the end it will come down to elections. The media is making a mistake thinking the Occupy members do not vote. They do vote and will vote in the future.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Who reads This?
I checked out my stats for viewers of this blog and I admit that since I stopped blogging about my travels the number of visits has declined. That is no surprise to me. I wish I had the energy to continue the travel blog and maybe one day I will resume it but for now all I am doing is babbling about pretty much nothing. My recent posts are not exactly earth shattering insights into the depths of human interest. Such is life.
My health has been better for about three months with way lower pain and better mobility. My brain has bounced back from the edge of emptiness to almost normal. Of course normal is not exactly exciting. The heat in Bakersfield is responsible for my improved health. However, the heat is now gone. Winter is quickly settling in. This morning there was frost everywhere and the hills around town were snow capped. My car windows were iced over. With the drop in temperature my pain is already climbing back up. My mobility is decreasing and my muscles are starting to spasm much more than they have been for the last few months. Soon I will likely be back in high levels of pain. I am not sure I can survive this return. We shall see.
When I checked my viewer stats I also noted that only about one out of six readers is from the United States and the rest are from all over the globe. Also the non Americans tended to read the entire blog but the Americans just glanced at it and moved on. Why is this? Don't Americans search for anything but porn on the internet? Most of the American visits used searches like "Costa Rica Prostitutes" or "girls at the beach" or something similar to those. The rest of the world searches for various place names or famous tourist spots and activities like "San Andres Island," "History of the Incas" or "Aztec ruins." It seems to me like the American viewers just don't care about the rest of the world but rather just in their own personal pleasure. That is a bad sign for the future of the United States. The downfall of many civilizations has been self indulgence with little regard or care for others. It sank the Romans and it will also sink the U.S.
My health has been better for about three months with way lower pain and better mobility. My brain has bounced back from the edge of emptiness to almost normal. Of course normal is not exactly exciting. The heat in Bakersfield is responsible for my improved health. However, the heat is now gone. Winter is quickly settling in. This morning there was frost everywhere and the hills around town were snow capped. My car windows were iced over. With the drop in temperature my pain is already climbing back up. My mobility is decreasing and my muscles are starting to spasm much more than they have been for the last few months. Soon I will likely be back in high levels of pain. I am not sure I can survive this return. We shall see.
When I checked my viewer stats I also noted that only about one out of six readers is from the United States and the rest are from all over the globe. Also the non Americans tended to read the entire blog but the Americans just glanced at it and moved on. Why is this? Don't Americans search for anything but porn on the internet? Most of the American visits used searches like "Costa Rica Prostitutes" or "girls at the beach" or something similar to those. The rest of the world searches for various place names or famous tourist spots and activities like "San Andres Island," "History of the Incas" or "Aztec ruins." It seems to me like the American viewers just don't care about the rest of the world but rather just in their own personal pleasure. That is a bad sign for the future of the United States. The downfall of many civilizations has been self indulgence with little regard or care for others. It sank the Romans and it will also sink the U.S.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Occupy
Well this morning the police raided the Occupy sites around the country. The mere fact that they coordinated the attacks across the country demonstrates that this is a political act and not a local police action. I thought Americans had the right to freedom of assembly. What happened to that right? There have been many other demonstrations in support of various things supported by the government that were allowed to go on for very long periods of time. The government opposes this group so they shut them down with violent force. Why is the government not in support of a group that just wants a small group of major criminals prosecuted for gigantic sized crimes? Oh yea that's right, those criminals are paying the politicians big money for the "right" to loot the citizens of the world.
I know that the "silent majority" in this country does not believe that there is any sort of corruption in their beloved country's government. These people have some serious blinders on. Their patriotic fever does not allow them to see the obvious right in front of their eyes. The right wing spends vast amounts to make sure this is the status quo. The usual key words like anti-american, communist, left wing, anarchist, socialist, atheist, spoiled, thankless, and all the other words thrown around on Fox News and the rest of the right's mass media are always used to incite the silent majority into hating anyone that dares to oppose them. The key words usually do not apply to the targets but they are always used anyway because they are so effective at turning the silent majority against whomever it is they are trying to smear.
The "Occupy Wall Street" movement is a typical victim of this right wing attack. All the usual talk shows etc are calling the group commies and anti-american atheists as usual despite the fact that this group is about as typical a group of average Americans as you could ever assemble. Just go to their website for the other 99% and read the biographies of the groups supporters. They are all typical "people next door" Americans most of whom love their country just as much as the silent majority claims to love it. They do not deserve the slurs aimed at them by the right's mass media. Most of the people I know involved are school teachers, nurses, white collar small business workers and so forth.
The message that Occupy wants out there is intentionally ignored by the media. The Occupy movement simply wants those criminals brought to justice who are responsible for raping the economy so heavily that the entire world's economy is on the verge of collapse. Of course none of these criminals will ever be prosecuted because they are just too powerful and rich to be touched by paltry governments around the world. These criminals control the media so of course they won't put out the message or if they do they will make a story that at first appears to be a fair report of the movement but then they will throw in their key word slurs and the story will work against the Occupy movement. Business as usual for the megacorporations of the world and their criminal owners.
Occupy will be crushed.
I know that the "silent majority" in this country does not believe that there is any sort of corruption in their beloved country's government. These people have some serious blinders on. Their patriotic fever does not allow them to see the obvious right in front of their eyes. The right wing spends vast amounts to make sure this is the status quo. The usual key words like anti-american, communist, left wing, anarchist, socialist, atheist, spoiled, thankless, and all the other words thrown around on Fox News and the rest of the right's mass media are always used to incite the silent majority into hating anyone that dares to oppose them. The key words usually do not apply to the targets but they are always used anyway because they are so effective at turning the silent majority against whomever it is they are trying to smear.
The "Occupy Wall Street" movement is a typical victim of this right wing attack. All the usual talk shows etc are calling the group commies and anti-american atheists as usual despite the fact that this group is about as typical a group of average Americans as you could ever assemble. Just go to their website for the other 99% and read the biographies of the groups supporters. They are all typical "people next door" Americans most of whom love their country just as much as the silent majority claims to love it. They do not deserve the slurs aimed at them by the right's mass media. Most of the people I know involved are school teachers, nurses, white collar small business workers and so forth.
The message that Occupy wants out there is intentionally ignored by the media. The Occupy movement simply wants those criminals brought to justice who are responsible for raping the economy so heavily that the entire world's economy is on the verge of collapse. Of course none of these criminals will ever be prosecuted because they are just too powerful and rich to be touched by paltry governments around the world. These criminals control the media so of course they won't put out the message or if they do they will make a story that at first appears to be a fair report of the movement but then they will throw in their key word slurs and the story will work against the Occupy movement. Business as usual for the megacorporations of the world and their criminal owners.
Occupy will be crushed.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
I reluctantly joined Facebook after getting booted from My Space. My Space decided that I must be a pedophile because I was only communicating with much younger people. They sent me a letter and told me this and that if I was not a pedophile then I would need to take a picture of myself holding the front page of a major newspaper in the pic and explain why I was messaging young boys and girls. Well I was communicating with my children and their friends in a totally harmless way but that was not important to me. I never re-established my account because the Big Brother concept was too much for me to want to rejoin My Space. Instead I switched to the then new Facebook.
At first Facebook was very good in my opinion. I could friend people and keep up on their life with little interaction needed. It was good for keeping up with my children and their friends but also other relatives and friends that I did not see often in person. They could keep up with me too by reading my posts. Everything went well for a few months. I felt that this method of communication was fair and equal to all with no cliques or gossip on it because everyone could see all the posts. Finally I felt, here was a place where people were all equal. Then Facebook started to mess with the feeds by deciding which posts I got to see. They formulated their own rules for which people I could follow. Suddenly the nephew's posts disappeared or my friend in Florida that I didn't post to for a while was gone. There was no notice given, people just disappeared on me by Facebook's design.
Then it changed more. Facebook allowed people to start forming private groups and cliques. That is fine and dandy if you liked high school. Myself I refuse to join a group or a clique. I hated them in high school and I still hate them. Suddenly gossip soared on Facebook because you could block the target from seeing the gossip or rumor or whatever while you spread it to everyone else. Facebook is just like real life now. I see people being much more careless of what they post because they think it is private. Nothing ever posted on the net is private. I see lots of turmoil ahead. I think that is just what Facebook intended to create. I hate it myself.
One other thing I hate is the app "do you still want to be my friend yes or no" or whatever it is called. To me friendship is not that cold. If you are my friend then you are me friend for life unless something drastic changes between us. I stand by my friends through thick and thin. This app is rude and insincere at the least. I could go on for hours about what is wrong with it but I am too lazy to rant right now. Instead, my account with Facebook will be closed soon because I just don't want to be a part of all that negativity. Personally I am glad to be out of highschool and have no intention of going back to that garbage. Such is life even on the net.
At first Facebook was very good in my opinion. I could friend people and keep up on their life with little interaction needed. It was good for keeping up with my children and their friends but also other relatives and friends that I did not see often in person. They could keep up with me too by reading my posts. Everything went well for a few months. I felt that this method of communication was fair and equal to all with no cliques or gossip on it because everyone could see all the posts. Finally I felt, here was a place where people were all equal. Then Facebook started to mess with the feeds by deciding which posts I got to see. They formulated their own rules for which people I could follow. Suddenly the nephew's posts disappeared or my friend in Florida that I didn't post to for a while was gone. There was no notice given, people just disappeared on me by Facebook's design.
Then it changed more. Facebook allowed people to start forming private groups and cliques. That is fine and dandy if you liked high school. Myself I refuse to join a group or a clique. I hated them in high school and I still hate them. Suddenly gossip soared on Facebook because you could block the target from seeing the gossip or rumor or whatever while you spread it to everyone else. Facebook is just like real life now. I see people being much more careless of what they post because they think it is private. Nothing ever posted on the net is private. I see lots of turmoil ahead. I think that is just what Facebook intended to create. I hate it myself.
One other thing I hate is the app "do you still want to be my friend yes or no" or whatever it is called. To me friendship is not that cold. If you are my friend then you are me friend for life unless something drastic changes between us. I stand by my friends through thick and thin. This app is rude and insincere at the least. I could go on for hours about what is wrong with it but I am too lazy to rant right now. Instead, my account with Facebook will be closed soon because I just don't want to be a part of all that negativity. Personally I am glad to be out of highschool and have no intention of going back to that garbage. Such is life even on the net.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Wall Street
So Occupy Wall Street protests have been going on for about a week now. At first there was a major news blackout on the topic. If we don't report it, it may just go away they seemed to think. The mass media in this country is controlled by just a few individuals now that almost all the outlets have been bought up over the years. These people control the flow of information to the public. To get news about this event I had to go to foreign news outlets and to the internet. A couple of days ago when it was clear that the event was expanding the mainstream press decided to cover the event but their coverage is anything but unbiased news reporting of events that are happening. Instead the coverage has been an organized spin aimed at discrediting the protesters by making them look unamerican to the general public by tagging labels on the protesters like left wing, communist, anarchist, nazi, anti-capitalists, anti-american, socialist and so forth. I find this behavior by the news outlets to be despicable. To see just who the protesters are just go to the website: http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
The press wants to defend as American the one percent of people who criminally raped this country and the rest of the world for their own greed and caused the current world financial crisis. They need the flag wavers to keep them in power so they praise them endlessly with mindless patriotic drivel. If these are the true Americans and not the protesters then I totally understand why the world is hating Americans more and more by the day.
The hypocrisy of the American press is so blatant to the rest of the world but the patriotic American is blind to this. These patriots constantly rally behind these time tested formulas that work so well to eliminate the competition of these true criminals so that those in control of the money can continue to reap the huge gouging profits that are making the world financial markets collapse. Then they want the little guys to pay back the money that was stolen by these big boys. The flag wavers will also have to pay this money back but they don't seem to get the connection because they are wallowing in the adoration of being patriotic to the greatest country ever. Blind is still blind.
This is what brought down the government in Greenland and is crushing governments around the world. I think the message is clear from the occupy wall street protests but the press wants to keep it muddled as they are collectively calling it. They don't want the general public too knowledgeable about what is really going on. They prefer that the general public just wave their flags and let them continue to plunder this country and the rest of the world. That is why they use the same tired old name calling tactics about anti-freedom and anti-american all the time. You have to be either a flag waving blind patriot or you are against them and that makes any non patriot the enemy as well. Jon Stewart on the Daily Show summed a lot of this up nicely on his recent show titled Parks and Demonstration. It can be found on the show website. http://www.thedailyshow.com/
It is possible to be against the big wall street criminals and still be a capitalist that believes in freedom and the good still possible in this country. The press just doesn't want anybody to think like that. The people in Greenland took their country back and I see the same thing happening in other countries and who knows maybe even in America.
The press wants to defend as American the one percent of people who criminally raped this country and the rest of the world for their own greed and caused the current world financial crisis. They need the flag wavers to keep them in power so they praise them endlessly with mindless patriotic drivel. If these are the true Americans and not the protesters then I totally understand why the world is hating Americans more and more by the day.
The hypocrisy of the American press is so blatant to the rest of the world but the patriotic American is blind to this. These patriots constantly rally behind these time tested formulas that work so well to eliminate the competition of these true criminals so that those in control of the money can continue to reap the huge gouging profits that are making the world financial markets collapse. Then they want the little guys to pay back the money that was stolen by these big boys. The flag wavers will also have to pay this money back but they don't seem to get the connection because they are wallowing in the adoration of being patriotic to the greatest country ever. Blind is still blind.
This is what brought down the government in Greenland and is crushing governments around the world. I think the message is clear from the occupy wall street protests but the press wants to keep it muddled as they are collectively calling it. They don't want the general public too knowledgeable about what is really going on. They prefer that the general public just wave their flags and let them continue to plunder this country and the rest of the world. That is why they use the same tired old name calling tactics about anti-freedom and anti-american all the time. You have to be either a flag waving blind patriot or you are against them and that makes any non patriot the enemy as well. Jon Stewart on the Daily Show summed a lot of this up nicely on his recent show titled Parks and Demonstration. It can be found on the show website. http://www.thedailyshow.com/
It is possible to be against the big wall street criminals and still be a capitalist that believes in freedom and the good still possible in this country. The press just doesn't want anybody to think like that. The people in Greenland took their country back and I see the same thing happening in other countries and who knows maybe even in America.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Dreaming while asleep
I am too tired to write anything this week so I am just going to pass on a well spoken rant.
George Carlin: Forget the politicians…
May 17, 2010 by prof77
Forget the politicians…
George Carlin
The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice … you don’t.
You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.
They got you by the balls.
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying … lobbying, to get what they want … Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want … they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking.
They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that … that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that.
You know what they want? They want obedient workers … Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin’ retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it … they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fuckin’ place. It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in The big club.
By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.
Good honest hard-working people … white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means … continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you … they don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all … at all … at all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it …
George Carlin: Forget the politicians…
May 17, 2010 by prof77
Forget the politicians…
George Carlin
The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice … you don’t.
You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.
They got you by the balls.
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying … lobbying, to get what they want … Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want … they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking.
They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that … that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that.
You know what they want? They want obedient workers … Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin’ retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it … they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fuckin’ place. It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in The big club.
By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.
Good honest hard-working people … white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means … continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you … they don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all … at all … at all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it …
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Visiting SF Bay Area
I took Amtrak to the Bay Area a few days ago. The train ride was interesting. My car was full of older Spanish speaking women from Puerto Rico, Mexico and Guatamala. They were very chatty for the entire five and a half hour ride. I just listened for the most part even though my Spanish is passable if I focus. The oldest woman was from an Indigenous area of southern Mexico which just happened to be where two sisters mother also came from. The two sisters knew some songs in her old native Indian language and sang them for the older woman. It made her cry to hear the same language that she remembered from her mother who had recently died. I also showed them pictures on my computer that I took during my travels through Mexico and South America which they seemed to enjoy.
When I got to Richmond I rode my bike over to my daughter's house to visit her and her five month old son. He is almost at a very fun interactive age for babies. I had a lot of fun playing with him. I did the usual rough house type of macho play and he loved it. He was laughing out loud and almost went into that uncontrolled laugh that babies tend to do at around six months old. They are moving to Germany in a couple of weeks so I won't see them for a long time.
For the next couple of days I visited with my old friends and spent more time with the Grandson and my children. For a couple of hours I wandered around the University of California Berkeley campus. I wanted to go to a bake sale they were having there to protest affirmative action. They were charging different prices depending on the race of the person buying the baked goods. It caused a lot of uproar which is exactly what they wanted to do. I then went back to the house and made some sourdough bread which turned out pretty tasty. I did a 30 hour double rise with it so it was extra sour which is how I like it. I toast it up and smother it in butter just to make sure my heart is still ticking. Then I went out to have a beer with my youngest son after which we had some Thai food.
I feel pretty good right now healthwise except for some balance problems for some reason. My pain was a bit elevated after the long train ride but after a couple of days rest it got better. I head back to Bakersfield on Saturday. I have enjoyed the cooler weather here but it will be nice to get back to bake in the Valley again in a couple of days.
When I got to Richmond I rode my bike over to my daughter's house to visit her and her five month old son. He is almost at a very fun interactive age for babies. I had a lot of fun playing with him. I did the usual rough house type of macho play and he loved it. He was laughing out loud and almost went into that uncontrolled laugh that babies tend to do at around six months old. They are moving to Germany in a couple of weeks so I won't see them for a long time.
For the next couple of days I visited with my old friends and spent more time with the Grandson and my children. For a couple of hours I wandered around the University of California Berkeley campus. I wanted to go to a bake sale they were having there to protest affirmative action. They were charging different prices depending on the race of the person buying the baked goods. It caused a lot of uproar which is exactly what they wanted to do. I then went back to the house and made some sourdough bread which turned out pretty tasty. I did a 30 hour double rise with it so it was extra sour which is how I like it. I toast it up and smother it in butter just to make sure my heart is still ticking. Then I went out to have a beer with my youngest son after which we had some Thai food.
I feel pretty good right now healthwise except for some balance problems for some reason. My pain was a bit elevated after the long train ride but after a couple of days rest it got better. I head back to Bakersfield on Saturday. I have enjoyed the cooler weather here but it will be nice to get back to bake in the Valley again in a couple of days.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Bigots
So I have been living in Bakersfield now for around six months. I have noticed that many people here consider themselves very religious. Many of them are very vocal about just how religious and good they are. That is fine by me. I don't give a rat's ass what other people believe in or don't believe in. The problem I am having is that the majority of these same people that claim to be so holy and perfect are also the biggest bigots I have come across since I left Wisconsin forty years ago. Most of these people are white and they seem to hate everybody that isn't just like them. They hate gays, blacks, Mexicans, Asians (they lump all people together that even remotely look like they might be from that part of the world because they are to lazy to learn about other cultures and ethnicities), Indians (from both America and India), homeless or poor people, people on welfare, bike riders, pedestrians, long hairs, punks, juveniles and the list goes on and on. The only real criteria being that the person is different than them.
I listen to them rant and rave about how communist social security is. They rave about how Obama is just a monkey and is ruining their fine country especially with his communistic Obamacare. They rave about how patriotic they are. They rave about how Christian they are and pat each other on the back. They seem to rave about just about everything. They sit in groups and shake their heads in agreement whenever one of them is spouting off against one of their target groups. They never really say anything of substance however. They just spout hate and criticism in generally vague terms using key words like socialist, communist, gay, all the derogatory slang terms for other races, and whatever is hot on Fox News or their favorite bigots on the radio.
I usually sit quietly and just listen to them rave on. I am way outnumbered here and I have no urge to change the world anymore. I would like to know how they justify their bigotry with their religious beliefs. Did Jesus really preach hate like this? Is this a Christian way to behave? Is it really alright in their religion to hate people because they wear different clothing or hairstyles or are in any other way different from them? Also, just why do they hate so strongly anyone or anything that is different from them. Are they afraid? Are they just lazy? Are they just ignorant?
One of these days I am going to explode from listening to their ignorant hateful ranting. Then I will call them out for being such evil people and they will probably gang up and kick the shit out of me because that is how they roll in their country, the land of freedom as long as you are one of them. Their government does the same thing to other countries, but then again this is a country run by the people for the people unless of course you are one of those people on the very long list of people, religions or countries that they hate.
There doesn't seem to be many decent, tolerant, peaceful and respectful people left in this country. This is why I have given up on the world and I don't care about anything or anyone any more. I am tired of all the animosity and I just want some peace and quiet. If I am lucky maybe their country will send one of their drones out to get me and send me on my way to their nights plutonian shore like they do to other dissidents around the world.
I listen to them rant and rave about how communist social security is. They rave about how Obama is just a monkey and is ruining their fine country especially with his communistic Obamacare. They rave about how patriotic they are. They rave about how Christian they are and pat each other on the back. They seem to rave about just about everything. They sit in groups and shake their heads in agreement whenever one of them is spouting off against one of their target groups. They never really say anything of substance however. They just spout hate and criticism in generally vague terms using key words like socialist, communist, gay, all the derogatory slang terms for other races, and whatever is hot on Fox News or their favorite bigots on the radio.
I usually sit quietly and just listen to them rave on. I am way outnumbered here and I have no urge to change the world anymore. I would like to know how they justify their bigotry with their religious beliefs. Did Jesus really preach hate like this? Is this a Christian way to behave? Is it really alright in their religion to hate people because they wear different clothing or hairstyles or are in any other way different from them? Also, just why do they hate so strongly anyone or anything that is different from them. Are they afraid? Are they just lazy? Are they just ignorant?
One of these days I am going to explode from listening to their ignorant hateful ranting. Then I will call them out for being such evil people and they will probably gang up and kick the shit out of me because that is how they roll in their country, the land of freedom as long as you are one of them. Their government does the same thing to other countries, but then again this is a country run by the people for the people unless of course you are one of those people on the very long list of people, religions or countries that they hate.
There doesn't seem to be many decent, tolerant, peaceful and respectful people left in this country. This is why I have given up on the world and I don't care about anything or anyone any more. I am tired of all the animosity and I just want some peace and quiet. If I am lucky maybe their country will send one of their drones out to get me and send me on my way to their nights plutonian shore like they do to other dissidents around the world.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Recovering Slowly
It has been almost six months now with Valley fever. For the last couple of months I have been extremely tired day and night. I have been sleeping twelve hours at night and still taking three naps a day of an hour or more each. Over the last few days though I have suddenly started to wake up again. I am down to one nap during the day and only sleeping around eight or nine hours at night. That is still a long way off from the three hours a day that I have slept for the last fifty years but it is a lot better than sleeping sixteen hours a day. My muscles and joints still hurt but that seems to be getting better also. The doctors told me it would take about a year to recover and even after that I could have relapses.
My advice to anyone that does not already have Valley Fever is to just never go into the areas in California and Arizona where it is found because it is just not worth the risk of getting this awful disease. Almost all the cases in California are in and around Bakersfield. In Arizona it is concentrated around Tucson. A friend of mine went golfing in Tucson then went home to the East Coast and when he started getting sick none of the doctors knew what was wrong with him and he ended up getting it in his brain and passed away from it. Of course the Chambers of Commerce in those areas do not want to hear anything about not going to their areas. Myself I think it is wrong that there are no warnings posted anywhere in the areas where this disease occurs. If I had know this could happen to me I never would have come to this area-just common sense to me.
I am taking the train back to the Bay area to see my kids and grandson this weekend. I actually seem to enjoy the train rides now. Five and a half hours to go only 223 miles seems like a slow way to travel but the time seems to go by quicker than that. I enjoy watching the world roll by and meeting some of the other passengers.
Summer is winding down now and winter is going to arrive sooner than I want it to. I live in fear of winter. The cold wet weather makes my pain go up--often times way way up. I am not so sure I am going to be able to tolerate the next spike in pain. I have had a couple months now of relatively low pain and my mood has gone way up. Lately every little twitch of pain makes me wonder if it will spike up this time. When my pain goes up my mood goes down an equal amount. I am trying to prepare myself as best I am able to for the inevitable pain return as the weather cools down but I sense a dark doom approaching this time. I am just tired of living with this monster on my back. We will see what happens when it hits the fan. Time is ticking.
My advice to anyone that does not already have Valley Fever is to just never go into the areas in California and Arizona where it is found because it is just not worth the risk of getting this awful disease. Almost all the cases in California are in and around Bakersfield. In Arizona it is concentrated around Tucson. A friend of mine went golfing in Tucson then went home to the East Coast and when he started getting sick none of the doctors knew what was wrong with him and he ended up getting it in his brain and passed away from it. Of course the Chambers of Commerce in those areas do not want to hear anything about not going to their areas. Myself I think it is wrong that there are no warnings posted anywhere in the areas where this disease occurs. If I had know this could happen to me I never would have come to this area-just common sense to me.
I am taking the train back to the Bay area to see my kids and grandson this weekend. I actually seem to enjoy the train rides now. Five and a half hours to go only 223 miles seems like a slow way to travel but the time seems to go by quicker than that. I enjoy watching the world roll by and meeting some of the other passengers.
Summer is winding down now and winter is going to arrive sooner than I want it to. I live in fear of winter. The cold wet weather makes my pain go up--often times way way up. I am not so sure I am going to be able to tolerate the next spike in pain. I have had a couple months now of relatively low pain and my mood has gone way up. Lately every little twitch of pain makes me wonder if it will spike up this time. When my pain goes up my mood goes down an equal amount. I am trying to prepare myself as best I am able to for the inevitable pain return as the weather cools down but I sense a dark doom approaching this time. I am just tired of living with this monster on my back. We will see what happens when it hits the fan. Time is ticking.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
I finally found a new place to live
After over a month of being homeless I finally found a room to rent that I can afford. I am done with couch surfing until the next inevitable time. The room I found is in a dangerous part of town of course because that is where poor people have to live. However, this place is a dead end street of owner occupied houses and the neighbors have all been here for decades. That makes this small enclave a relatively safe place as long as I don't go out walking a few blocks away at night.
My room mate owns the house and is renting a room out more out of boredom than because she has to due to financial reasons like most rented rooms. She is a quiet, stable, self employed woman that is easy to get along with and appears to be drama free which is a big plus. So I hope this works out and I stay here for a while.
I am still waiting for Medicare to change my paperwork to this new county. I can't see a doctor until the paperwork transfers. They told me it could take up to six months. Why? It is only a few simple strokes on a computer to transfer it. The real reason I presume is to save money by keeping people like me from being able to see doctors for the six months it takes. That is just unethically wrong in my opinion. I am sure all you rah rah patriotic twits that claim this is the number one country for healthcare disagree with me because you would just as soon see us all die off to save you your taxes.
I have suddenly started sleeping sixteen hours a day after sleeping only three hours a day for the last fifty years. Gee I think something might be wrong with me now. But I can't go to a doctor even thought this is the best medical care in the world ha ha. The locals all tell me I must have Valley Fever which is a local area infection caused by a fungus spore that gets in the lungs. There is treatment for it but the treatment is almost worse than the disease so they really only want to treat people that get the infection in their bone marrow or nervous system. The treatment otherwise is bed rest. The good part is that my long term chronic pain is low lately which is a welcome respite for me.
I am still enjoying life every chance I get. I am getting out here and there. I play some pool up at the corner bar some days. I also have a few girlfriends here now that I visit a couple times a week. I hang out with some friends almost every day now. My days of riding my bike sixty miles or more a day are over until I get healthy again. I still ride but only about five miles a day now.
I don't have much to post with only eight hours a day of awake time so until later, enjoy your life while you still are able.
My room mate owns the house and is renting a room out more out of boredom than because she has to due to financial reasons like most rented rooms. She is a quiet, stable, self employed woman that is easy to get along with and appears to be drama free which is a big plus. So I hope this works out and I stay here for a while.
I am still waiting for Medicare to change my paperwork to this new county. I can't see a doctor until the paperwork transfers. They told me it could take up to six months. Why? It is only a few simple strokes on a computer to transfer it. The real reason I presume is to save money by keeping people like me from being able to see doctors for the six months it takes. That is just unethically wrong in my opinion. I am sure all you rah rah patriotic twits that claim this is the number one country for healthcare disagree with me because you would just as soon see us all die off to save you your taxes.
I have suddenly started sleeping sixteen hours a day after sleeping only three hours a day for the last fifty years. Gee I think something might be wrong with me now. But I can't go to a doctor even thought this is the best medical care in the world ha ha. The locals all tell me I must have Valley Fever which is a local area infection caused by a fungus spore that gets in the lungs. There is treatment for it but the treatment is almost worse than the disease so they really only want to treat people that get the infection in their bone marrow or nervous system. The treatment otherwise is bed rest. The good part is that my long term chronic pain is low lately which is a welcome respite for me.
I am still enjoying life every chance I get. I am getting out here and there. I play some pool up at the corner bar some days. I also have a few girlfriends here now that I visit a couple times a week. I hang out with some friends almost every day now. My days of riding my bike sixty miles or more a day are over until I get healthy again. I still ride but only about five miles a day now.
I don't have much to post with only eight hours a day of awake time so until later, enjoy your life while you still are able.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Lost Friends
I guess I am getting to the age where more and more people I am close to are passing away. Another friend died this last week of a heart attack at 61. He was in a very stressful job and that along with the diet he had of high roller cocktail lunches and his smoking all contributed to his death. I was sad to hear of him passing but he lived his life hard and enjoyed it most of the time as far as I could tell. I will miss him.
Which life is better the long and safe but boring life or the hard fast high energy burnout? Who is to judge? We all have to be our own judge of how we want to live our life. Is the pleasure derived from smoking and drinking worth the shortened life span? Does the pleasure of eating a high fat diet and drinking a bit in excess make up for a shorter life expectancy? Is taking risks in life worth the danger of injury or death? Who wants to die from nothing? Not me.
I have taken a lot of high risks in my lifetime. Wandering around Africa, Asia and South East Asia were all extremely dangerous places and I could easily have died of sickness or violence. I don't regret doing it though. I got a lot out of my choices in my life and I would not change much if anything if I had a do over. Sure I made mistakes, we all do. I don't worry about the mistakes. If I died in ten seconds from now I would have no qualms with it. Nobody ever will have to mourn my passing. I lived my life along the hard and fast path and enjoyed myself along the way. Sure I have health problems now with the high chronic pain that makes my life miserable sometimes but I still enjoy myself every chance I get. I suffer from depression which is triggered by the pain. I am aware of the connection and try to deal with it as well as I can. It might cost me my life one day, in fact I am sure it will, but I don't care because my life has been chock full of life and living.
I think about those that have passed on and think about their lives sometimes. Of course I don't know everything about their lives but nobody does. I try not to judge them as having had good lives or bad lives but it still creeps into my mind here and there. I hope that their lives were worthwhile to them at least.
I see way too many of my friends and family very stressed out and I know it is shortening their life expectancy. I would love to be able to help them reduce their stress and enjoy their lives more. Life can be short or long, you can never know when you are going to go. Please everybody learn to enjoy life no matter what the circumstances you are faced with. Otherwise I am not sure of the point of being alive. PURAVIDA
Which life is better the long and safe but boring life or the hard fast high energy burnout? Who is to judge? We all have to be our own judge of how we want to live our life. Is the pleasure derived from smoking and drinking worth the shortened life span? Does the pleasure of eating a high fat diet and drinking a bit in excess make up for a shorter life expectancy? Is taking risks in life worth the danger of injury or death? Who wants to die from nothing? Not me.
I have taken a lot of high risks in my lifetime. Wandering around Africa, Asia and South East Asia were all extremely dangerous places and I could easily have died of sickness or violence. I don't regret doing it though. I got a lot out of my choices in my life and I would not change much if anything if I had a do over. Sure I made mistakes, we all do. I don't worry about the mistakes. If I died in ten seconds from now I would have no qualms with it. Nobody ever will have to mourn my passing. I lived my life along the hard and fast path and enjoyed myself along the way. Sure I have health problems now with the high chronic pain that makes my life miserable sometimes but I still enjoy myself every chance I get. I suffer from depression which is triggered by the pain. I am aware of the connection and try to deal with it as well as I can. It might cost me my life one day, in fact I am sure it will, but I don't care because my life has been chock full of life and living.
I think about those that have passed on and think about their lives sometimes. Of course I don't know everything about their lives but nobody does. I try not to judge them as having had good lives or bad lives but it still creeps into my mind here and there. I hope that their lives were worthwhile to them at least.
I see way too many of my friends and family very stressed out and I know it is shortening their life expectancy. I would love to be able to help them reduce their stress and enjoy their lives more. Life can be short or long, you can never know when you are going to go. Please everybody learn to enjoy life no matter what the circumstances you are faced with. Otherwise I am not sure of the point of being alive. PURAVIDA
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Looking for a place to live
Well I am in Bakersfield today looking for a room to rent that I can call home. I left the San Francisco Bay Area because it was too cold for my old painful body. Bakersfield is plenty warmer by about 40 degrees. The temps have been over 100 most days lately but this week it is predicted to go just under the century mark for about a week. The heat has done what I needed it to do for me ie lower my pain. My pain is almost tolerable finally.
When I first arrived I found a room to rent for $300 a month including utilities and everything was going well until the landlord got evicted for failing to pay his bills. Since he got evicted so did I. I lost my security deposit and my last month's rent that I had paid in advance. The landlord had no money to return it to me. That is illegal and I could have filed a complaint and maybe gotten at least some of my money back but the stress involved in all that is just not worth it to me. So now I am homeless and looking for a new room to rent.
While I still had a room I was perusing the listings on Craigslist for rooms to rent and there were typically about six good new listings a day that were suitable for me. Now that I am out of my old room and homeless there are suddenly no rooms listed on Craigslist or any of the other room share listing services either. I guess it is just Murphy's Law kicking in and screwing it up for me. It has been five days now without a single place being listed that I could afford on my income of $900 a month. I do have a place to stay but the arrangement was for a few days. Now that it looks like it will be longer before I find a place to rent the nice woman that put me up so that I wasn't sleeping outside under a bridge is wondering if she made a mistake letting me stay at her place. I may yet end up under a bridge if I don't find a place soon.
I don't worry about the situation because I am honestly trying to do the best job I am able to at looking for a place. What bothers me though is that there is basically no help from the government to provide low income housing for seniors and disabled poor people like me. With the baby boomers rapidly getting into this group now there is going to be a very serious shortage of available housing for them. I see nothing being done to improve the situation. Renting right now costs more than owning. I am not able to own because I am too poor and that makes my credit rating to low for getting a loan. Houses around here are selling for as low as $40,000 now with the recession. The mortgage on a house like that including insurance and taxes is about $350 a month. Yet to rent a room in the same house is more like $450. So why aren't more investors stepping up and making more rentals available at a lower price? Greed I guess is the only thing. That is why the government should step up and either help people like me get into a home like that or help investors or maybe just buy them and rent them at their cost so that we could have a roof over our heads. It is only going to get worse as far as I can see.
I just hope I find a place to live soon. Sleeping under a bridge might make my life just not worth living anymore.
When I first arrived I found a room to rent for $300 a month including utilities and everything was going well until the landlord got evicted for failing to pay his bills. Since he got evicted so did I. I lost my security deposit and my last month's rent that I had paid in advance. The landlord had no money to return it to me. That is illegal and I could have filed a complaint and maybe gotten at least some of my money back but the stress involved in all that is just not worth it to me. So now I am homeless and looking for a new room to rent.
While I still had a room I was perusing the listings on Craigslist for rooms to rent and there were typically about six good new listings a day that were suitable for me. Now that I am out of my old room and homeless there are suddenly no rooms listed on Craigslist or any of the other room share listing services either. I guess it is just Murphy's Law kicking in and screwing it up for me. It has been five days now without a single place being listed that I could afford on my income of $900 a month. I do have a place to stay but the arrangement was for a few days. Now that it looks like it will be longer before I find a place to rent the nice woman that put me up so that I wasn't sleeping outside under a bridge is wondering if she made a mistake letting me stay at her place. I may yet end up under a bridge if I don't find a place soon.
I don't worry about the situation because I am honestly trying to do the best job I am able to at looking for a place. What bothers me though is that there is basically no help from the government to provide low income housing for seniors and disabled poor people like me. With the baby boomers rapidly getting into this group now there is going to be a very serious shortage of available housing for them. I see nothing being done to improve the situation. Renting right now costs more than owning. I am not able to own because I am too poor and that makes my credit rating to low for getting a loan. Houses around here are selling for as low as $40,000 now with the recession. The mortgage on a house like that including insurance and taxes is about $350 a month. Yet to rent a room in the same house is more like $450. So why aren't more investors stepping up and making more rentals available at a lower price? Greed I guess is the only thing. That is why the government should step up and either help people like me get into a home like that or help investors or maybe just buy them and rent them at their cost so that we could have a roof over our heads. It is only going to get worse as far as I can see.
I just hope I find a place to live soon. Sleeping under a bridge might make my life just not worth living anymore.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Foreign Aid
I have been hearing a lot of tea party members and republicans calling for an end to foreign aid because the US is so hard up right now. I agree that a lot of foreign aid is wasted and given out for a lot of wrong reasons. Giving aid including arms to insurgents in countries the US doesn't like is a common example of misguided aid. That has happened all over the world from Cuba to Afghanistan. I would like to see that "foreign aid" stopped.
However, large portions of the world's poorest areas that are in serious need of aid like Somalia (29,000 children starved there recently due to a major ongoing drought) or the area around Northern Democratic Republic of the Congo near Rwanda and Burundi (a forty year plus long war going on where women are being raped and mutilated as a form of genocide), Sudan (another long running war with starving masses) and there are many more areas around the world in serious need of help just to survive.
Somalia is in the news lately because of the drought there. Thousands of men women and mostly children are starving there right now. It is in extremely bad shape with no real government but rather a bunch of vicuous warlords running their own horrendously violent anarchistic self centered fiefdoms. The world is mostly ignoring this. The small amount of aid arriving there mostly through the United Nations is frequently stolen by the warlords instead of going to the starving people. The warlords then use the food to lure starving children into their armies to strengthen their position in the scramble for power in Somalia.
The US weakly tried to intervene in Somalia a few years ago but the warlords shot down a couple helicopters and the US quickly pulled out. I do not expect them to try again because the American people just don't care.
I doubt if very many Americans have ever seen a starving child. South Park just makes fun of them and that is about as close as Americans get to understanding the plight of a starving child. Sure there have been ads on TV since I was a kid showing pictures of needy kids that you can save for 17 cents a day or whatever the going rate is today. But Americans do not seem to have any empathy when they see those ads. Some people must be sending in cash because they are expensive ads to run so I am not saying no Americans care. I am mostly talking about the government when I say Americans do not care.
I was in Ethiopia during the war and drought there back in the 70s. Mothers tried to give me their starving limp silent babies to save them. I was overwhelmed by the reality of the suffering going on. I could not take their babies then and have harbored guilt about it ever since. I give money to UNICEF regularly but that is a drop in the bucket. So I am not much different than the average American. I wish I could help more.
I was also in Zaire when the fighting and genocide was going on. I saw truckloads of stinking dead bodies being carried to mass graves. The people were killed mostly by machetes and mutilated at the same time. It was and still is a gross war. Today there is less large scale open warfare but instead they are raping as a form of genocide (by raping I mean raping women and girls so hard that they become infertile). This has been going on for decades and the world doesn't seem to care at all. Very little aid is going on there.
Sudan has recently been broken up into two countries but that has not yet ended the genocide there either. Again warlords there have used violence and starvation to gain power over their little areas at the cost of thousands of lives. The world has done little to help.
These are just some of the places where foreign aid could help out. To deny these areas assistance when they are in such desperate need is not defensible with the argument that America is too needy to be able to afford to help. Americans just do not know what needy really is with all the overweight children and adults here. Starving here means they haven't eaten a 1500 calorie meal in over three hours.
Just think about this is all I ask and if you can help please do. Please, also let your government know you want them to help these people too. Stand up against these selfish tea party members and republicans that inhumanely want to ignore this problem. America can afford to help and should be doing it already.
Thanks PURAVIDA
However, large portions of the world's poorest areas that are in serious need of aid like Somalia (29,000 children starved there recently due to a major ongoing drought) or the area around Northern Democratic Republic of the Congo near Rwanda and Burundi (a forty year plus long war going on where women are being raped and mutilated as a form of genocide), Sudan (another long running war with starving masses) and there are many more areas around the world in serious need of help just to survive.
Somalia is in the news lately because of the drought there. Thousands of men women and mostly children are starving there right now. It is in extremely bad shape with no real government but rather a bunch of vicuous warlords running their own horrendously violent anarchistic self centered fiefdoms. The world is mostly ignoring this. The small amount of aid arriving there mostly through the United Nations is frequently stolen by the warlords instead of going to the starving people. The warlords then use the food to lure starving children into their armies to strengthen their position in the scramble for power in Somalia.
The US weakly tried to intervene in Somalia a few years ago but the warlords shot down a couple helicopters and the US quickly pulled out. I do not expect them to try again because the American people just don't care.
I doubt if very many Americans have ever seen a starving child. South Park just makes fun of them and that is about as close as Americans get to understanding the plight of a starving child. Sure there have been ads on TV since I was a kid showing pictures of needy kids that you can save for 17 cents a day or whatever the going rate is today. But Americans do not seem to have any empathy when they see those ads. Some people must be sending in cash because they are expensive ads to run so I am not saying no Americans care. I am mostly talking about the government when I say Americans do not care.
I was in Ethiopia during the war and drought there back in the 70s. Mothers tried to give me their starving limp silent babies to save them. I was overwhelmed by the reality of the suffering going on. I could not take their babies then and have harbored guilt about it ever since. I give money to UNICEF regularly but that is a drop in the bucket. So I am not much different than the average American. I wish I could help more.
I was also in Zaire when the fighting and genocide was going on. I saw truckloads of stinking dead bodies being carried to mass graves. The people were killed mostly by machetes and mutilated at the same time. It was and still is a gross war. Today there is less large scale open warfare but instead they are raping as a form of genocide (by raping I mean raping women and girls so hard that they become infertile). This has been going on for decades and the world doesn't seem to care at all. Very little aid is going on there.
Sudan has recently been broken up into two countries but that has not yet ended the genocide there either. Again warlords there have used violence and starvation to gain power over their little areas at the cost of thousands of lives. The world has done little to help.
These are just some of the places where foreign aid could help out. To deny these areas assistance when they are in such desperate need is not defensible with the argument that America is too needy to be able to afford to help. Americans just do not know what needy really is with all the overweight children and adults here. Starving here means they haven't eaten a 1500 calorie meal in over three hours.
Just think about this is all I ask and if you can help please do. Please, also let your government know you want them to help these people too. Stand up against these selfish tea party members and republicans that inhumanely want to ignore this problem. America can afford to help and should be doing it already.
Thanks PURAVIDA
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Trip to the Bay Area
I took the train to the San Francisco Bay Area last week. It was certainly cooler there by about 30 degrees which was a nice short change. I enjoyed seeing my friends and family while there. The one thing I really noticed was how stressed out almost every one of the people I came into contact seemed to be. That is no way to go through life.
Stress kills and steals quality of life while it is doing it. I asked some of them why they were so stressed and got reactions that did not make sense to me. They blamed everything from the debt crisis and the economic downturn to job stress and lack of control over their lives. I can understand some concern over all of their issues but the extreme stress that was so evident in their speech and interpersonal relationships is ruining their lives. Please! Learn to just take the world as it comes on a day to day basis people. There is no point in worrying about things that you have no control over like the debt crisis. Maybe some meditation to slow down your overstressed over stimulated minds and return to a calmer happier state of being would help you. We all have problems, such is life but don't allow the problems to take over and crowd out enjoying life.
I have my problems too. My physical health issues are something I can do very little about so although they negatively impact my life to a large extent, I work at not letting it take me over. I go out of my way to relax and enjoy life as much as I am able to. My financial picture is bleak. Trying to exist on $900 in California is all but impossible and leaves me little for entertainment expenses but such is life. I meditate daily and try to focus my mind over the pain and financial problems to allow myself to still enjoy my small slice of life.
Don't get me wrong, I have serious depression problems from all the pain. Pain rewires the brain and releases very strong drugs so it causes depression all by itself. It takes a large amount of my mind to overcome this physical problem but I do alright considering. Even so, I never worry about anything. Worrying is a waste of effort. I look at my problems, try to figure out the best solution then make a plan to solve it and then I follow the plan. It doesn't always work for me but it usually does. Sometime the depression wins out because the chemicals the brain emits are very strong but most of the time I can control it.
The worst time for me is when the pain first starts going up. The rising pain causes an inverse depression slide, or in other words when my pain goes up my mood instantly and violently goes down. This is my most dangerous period because I lose control of my thoughts and my actions until either my drugs like morphine take effect or the pain stabilizes or drops again. After almost 20 years of experience with this relationship I would think I should have a better handle on this but the truth is I am pain's bitch. That is why I so appreciate this respite I am experiencing right now from the most severe pain I get so often. I do have valley fever too but I don't worry about that at all because it is something I have no control over. I just do what I can and try to calmly enjoy life every chance I get.
So enjoy life and take Bobby McFerrin's advice, "Don't worry. Be happy." PURAVIDA
Stress kills and steals quality of life while it is doing it. I asked some of them why they were so stressed and got reactions that did not make sense to me. They blamed everything from the debt crisis and the economic downturn to job stress and lack of control over their lives. I can understand some concern over all of their issues but the extreme stress that was so evident in their speech and interpersonal relationships is ruining their lives. Please! Learn to just take the world as it comes on a day to day basis people. There is no point in worrying about things that you have no control over like the debt crisis. Maybe some meditation to slow down your overstressed over stimulated minds and return to a calmer happier state of being would help you. We all have problems, such is life but don't allow the problems to take over and crowd out enjoying life.
I have my problems too. My physical health issues are something I can do very little about so although they negatively impact my life to a large extent, I work at not letting it take me over. I go out of my way to relax and enjoy life as much as I am able to. My financial picture is bleak. Trying to exist on $900 in California is all but impossible and leaves me little for entertainment expenses but such is life. I meditate daily and try to focus my mind over the pain and financial problems to allow myself to still enjoy my small slice of life.
Don't get me wrong, I have serious depression problems from all the pain. Pain rewires the brain and releases very strong drugs so it causes depression all by itself. It takes a large amount of my mind to overcome this physical problem but I do alright considering. Even so, I never worry about anything. Worrying is a waste of effort. I look at my problems, try to figure out the best solution then make a plan to solve it and then I follow the plan. It doesn't always work for me but it usually does. Sometime the depression wins out because the chemicals the brain emits are very strong but most of the time I can control it.
The worst time for me is when the pain first starts going up. The rising pain causes an inverse depression slide, or in other words when my pain goes up my mood instantly and violently goes down. This is my most dangerous period because I lose control of my thoughts and my actions until either my drugs like morphine take effect or the pain stabilizes or drops again. After almost 20 years of experience with this relationship I would think I should have a better handle on this but the truth is I am pain's bitch. That is why I so appreciate this respite I am experiencing right now from the most severe pain I get so often. I do have valley fever too but I don't worry about that at all because it is something I have no control over. I just do what I can and try to calmly enjoy life every chance I get.
So enjoy life and take Bobby McFerrin's advice, "Don't worry. Be happy." PURAVIDA
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Hate mail
Well my post about my lack of patriotism sure brought out the haters. I will not post their hate because they like to see themselves in print. I never mentioned anything about religion in the post but I guess the haters assume that lack of faith goes along with lack of patriotism. They were right in my case but it is still faulty logic. And I am not a communist or marxist either which was assumed by them as well. Why are the people that spend the most time trying to convince the world that they are the righteous also the most hate filled. Is the hate taught in their religion? I don't think so. Is it because they question their own faith and someone openly saying that they have no faith makes it harder for them to accept their faith? Personally I don't give a rats ass what religious beliefs anybody holds as long as they leave me to my personal choice also. I am not preaching against anyone. My anti patriotic feelings come from historical perspectives that clearly demonstrate the dangers of blind patriotism. "My country right or wrong" is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. Then there is the "you are disrespecting the brave soldiers who sacrificed their lives for my freedom" thrown in there too. Excuse me but where is my freedom to not have any religion or patriotic feelings? I am not disrespecting any soldiers even though I have disagreed with the wars that they died in. The soldiers did not start the wars. They are victims of wars. The war to end all wars won't happen until the world is entirely blown to bits. War is inevitable and patriotic feelings contribute to the desire for war. Live and let live. Diversity is a good thing, celebrate it.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Memories of my travels
My last post brought me some hate mail. The fact that I consider myself a citizen of the world rather than a patriotic American brought out the hate in some people. No wonder there are so many wars with patriots like them around.
But I was asked a good question the other day, "What favorite memories do you have from all your travels?" I have lots of memories I have to admit. I can sit for days and rehash my travels. It has been a long time since I first started to travel in the late sixties until now so my memories have slipped somewhat. There are still a few moments that stand out in my memories and here are a few of them in brief descriptions and in no particular order.
The first day I landed in Scotland and I could not understand two young boys speaking to me in English with thick accents was probably the first memory seared into my brain. I was totally taken aback by the sounds of their voices and my inability to understand a single word they spoke. I ended up sitting down with them at the airport coffee shop drinking coffee and hot chocolate while they taught me to understand their English. That day I learned a lot about communicating with people without words that served me many more times around the world.
The next moment was Christmas eve in London when I came across a group of homeless men singing carols along to one of them playing the piano in a cafe. I was struck especially by the piano player, a large shaggy man wearing filthy clothes who played the piano entirely by ear never having had a music lesson in his entire life. He was so happy playing away with the rest of the men. His infectious enthusiastic personality was absorbed by the dirty looking street bums from young men to very old toothless ones singing their hearts out. I stopped and stared as I was walking by and was pulled into their group for the entire night of singing. The shop owner gave us all free coffee and some snacks as he and the staff all joined in with the singing. It was my favorite xmas ever.
On the island of Ibiza after taking the ferry there and spending the afternoon drinking wine and eating seafood with a group of locals and a couple tourists I walked up a twisting path to the top of the village and looked back at the village built on the hillside with the bright blue sea, anchored fishing boats, white rocky beach and bright blue cloudless sky contrasting the whitewashed buildings and I was in love with the day. I frequently think of that moment when I need to get away in my brain.
Morocco was the next time I experienced a similar moment. I stepped off the ferry and was rushed by all the little boys hustling to make a living. They spoke all the languages needed to get whatever edge would work for them to make a little money to keep them alive for another day or whatever. I tried to imagine my own younger brothers the same ages as these streetwise urchins doing the same thing and it was a moment of awesome awareness of the reality of living in different places that struck me. The easy life back home where people complain about the smallest things versus these kids enjoying their life and death struggle to survive. I saw this in other places as well but I always thought back to my first thoughts on the disparity of life around the world that began at that ferry landing.
The next time I experienced another moment was on my way to Timbuktu in Mali. I was camping alone in my tent along a sandy riverbank in after leaving Senegal the day before. The sun had just come up in the desert. I was sitting on the ground in front of my tent eating some oatmeal and drinking tea when a naked young black girl about twelve years old came running over the top of the sand dune near my tent. She was laughing loudly and smiling with a huge grin as some naked younger kids chased her around. When she saw me she stopped suddenly and stared at me frozen in time and space for a moment. The kids chasing her bumped up behind her and they all stood silently staring at me as I was at them. I tried to match her smile still frozen on her face as I looked up from my breakfast and then she continued running back in the direction she had come from with the other kids trailing behind her looking over their shoulders in my direction as they ran off. I stood up and looked over the rise to watch them going and I saw their mothers standing naked in or near the river washing clothes. The older girl told them about me and they stopped and looked off in my direction. Then the whole group walked over and stared at me as I took my tent down and packed my things to continue my journey. I realized at that moment as the naked girl stood in front of me that yes I was now in the black Africa that I had seen in so many National Geographic magazines. I kind of shuddered at the thought. Lots of things raced through my mind about the future dangers and pleasures ahead for me in Africa. It was only a brief moment but so many thoughts were crammed into that short span of time as the girl and I looked at each other for a few seconds that I find it hard to believe that time did not freeze while all the thoughts tumbled around in my head. This was probably the single moment in all of my memories that I go back to over and over again.
I was walking though the jungles along a narrow trail heading toward East Africa one day when I heard a loud drum like thumping sound. I followed the sounds to a small thatched mud hut in a small clearing of trees. A mother and her daughters were standing in a circle around a heavy wooden base which was a large mortar and pestle. They had the large wooden pestles, that looked like giant baseball bats, in their hands and were taking turns pounding down on whatever it was they were grinding up. They worked as a well oiled machine taking turns so that there was a constant stream of hits pounding into that mortar. The sounds echoed through the jungle. I stood there unseen by them and watched as they worked away. I could not hear them talking but I could see that they were as they chatted and laughed as they never stopped pounding away. I finally walked further along the path until they could see me and they stopped pounding and stared at me. I am not sure if they were afraid of me or not but they stared at me motionless before they again started talking and laughing as they resumed their work. As I got closer I realized that they were singing not talking and I stopped to listen for a minute. I was reminded of railroad workers singing blues songs as they worked. I walked on past the scene and continued my journey but the sight and sounds of them has stuck with me ever since.
I had lived in India for almost a year by the time I got to Calcutta. We had taken a very crowded train up from the south. The words very crowded do not begin to describe just how overcrowded this train was. We arrived at the station in Calcutta in the early morning hours and we were struggling through the mass of humanity packed into the station. The crowd was literally moving us so strongly that it would have been impossible to stop. We were flowing toward the exits to the overcrowded streets caught up in a pedestrian traffic jam so to speak. Then in the station near the exit I notice the people in front of me glancing down at the ground so I looked down as I got to that spot and there was a dead body on the ground. People were just continuing their push behind us and in a second we stepped over the body and were pushed into the street. The image of the thin ragged body on the floor stuck with me. It epitomized how hard and calloused I had become by the year spent in the poverty of India. Later that night as I tried to sleep I was struck by that realization and I broke down in tears for a couple of hours. A few weeks later as I was taking off out of Calcutta in a jet for Burma I again broke down thinking about the dead body and just how hard life had been over the last year in India. I saw starving people, twisted deformed beggars, sick stick like children with bloated bellies and more. Although to survive while I was still in India I had acquired a thick skin, the moment I stepped over that body I started to soften again until on that plane where my tears again returned me to the reality of what I had witnessed in India.
There were lots more moments in my travels but these stand out in my memory for various reasons. I relive these snapshots frequently. My mind has probably reshaped them somewhat over all this time as well. But they are why I love to travel. I can't wait to get back on the road again.
But I was asked a good question the other day, "What favorite memories do you have from all your travels?" I have lots of memories I have to admit. I can sit for days and rehash my travels. It has been a long time since I first started to travel in the late sixties until now so my memories have slipped somewhat. There are still a few moments that stand out in my memories and here are a few of them in brief descriptions and in no particular order.
The first day I landed in Scotland and I could not understand two young boys speaking to me in English with thick accents was probably the first memory seared into my brain. I was totally taken aback by the sounds of their voices and my inability to understand a single word they spoke. I ended up sitting down with them at the airport coffee shop drinking coffee and hot chocolate while they taught me to understand their English. That day I learned a lot about communicating with people without words that served me many more times around the world.
The next moment was Christmas eve in London when I came across a group of homeless men singing carols along to one of them playing the piano in a cafe. I was struck especially by the piano player, a large shaggy man wearing filthy clothes who played the piano entirely by ear never having had a music lesson in his entire life. He was so happy playing away with the rest of the men. His infectious enthusiastic personality was absorbed by the dirty looking street bums from young men to very old toothless ones singing their hearts out. I stopped and stared as I was walking by and was pulled into their group for the entire night of singing. The shop owner gave us all free coffee and some snacks as he and the staff all joined in with the singing. It was my favorite xmas ever.
On the island of Ibiza after taking the ferry there and spending the afternoon drinking wine and eating seafood with a group of locals and a couple tourists I walked up a twisting path to the top of the village and looked back at the village built on the hillside with the bright blue sea, anchored fishing boats, white rocky beach and bright blue cloudless sky contrasting the whitewashed buildings and I was in love with the day. I frequently think of that moment when I need to get away in my brain.
Morocco was the next time I experienced a similar moment. I stepped off the ferry and was rushed by all the little boys hustling to make a living. They spoke all the languages needed to get whatever edge would work for them to make a little money to keep them alive for another day or whatever. I tried to imagine my own younger brothers the same ages as these streetwise urchins doing the same thing and it was a moment of awesome awareness of the reality of living in different places that struck me. The easy life back home where people complain about the smallest things versus these kids enjoying their life and death struggle to survive. I saw this in other places as well but I always thought back to my first thoughts on the disparity of life around the world that began at that ferry landing.
The next time I experienced another moment was on my way to Timbuktu in Mali. I was camping alone in my tent along a sandy riverbank in after leaving Senegal the day before. The sun had just come up in the desert. I was sitting on the ground in front of my tent eating some oatmeal and drinking tea when a naked young black girl about twelve years old came running over the top of the sand dune near my tent. She was laughing loudly and smiling with a huge grin as some naked younger kids chased her around. When she saw me she stopped suddenly and stared at me frozen in time and space for a moment. The kids chasing her bumped up behind her and they all stood silently staring at me as I was at them. I tried to match her smile still frozen on her face as I looked up from my breakfast and then she continued running back in the direction she had come from with the other kids trailing behind her looking over their shoulders in my direction as they ran off. I stood up and looked over the rise to watch them going and I saw their mothers standing naked in or near the river washing clothes. The older girl told them about me and they stopped and looked off in my direction. Then the whole group walked over and stared at me as I took my tent down and packed my things to continue my journey. I realized at that moment as the naked girl stood in front of me that yes I was now in the black Africa that I had seen in so many National Geographic magazines. I kind of shuddered at the thought. Lots of things raced through my mind about the future dangers and pleasures ahead for me in Africa. It was only a brief moment but so many thoughts were crammed into that short span of time as the girl and I looked at each other for a few seconds that I find it hard to believe that time did not freeze while all the thoughts tumbled around in my head. This was probably the single moment in all of my memories that I go back to over and over again.
I was walking though the jungles along a narrow trail heading toward East Africa one day when I heard a loud drum like thumping sound. I followed the sounds to a small thatched mud hut in a small clearing of trees. A mother and her daughters were standing in a circle around a heavy wooden base which was a large mortar and pestle. They had the large wooden pestles, that looked like giant baseball bats, in their hands and were taking turns pounding down on whatever it was they were grinding up. They worked as a well oiled machine taking turns so that there was a constant stream of hits pounding into that mortar. The sounds echoed through the jungle. I stood there unseen by them and watched as they worked away. I could not hear them talking but I could see that they were as they chatted and laughed as they never stopped pounding away. I finally walked further along the path until they could see me and they stopped pounding and stared at me. I am not sure if they were afraid of me or not but they stared at me motionless before they again started talking and laughing as they resumed their work. As I got closer I realized that they were singing not talking and I stopped to listen for a minute. I was reminded of railroad workers singing blues songs as they worked. I walked on past the scene and continued my journey but the sight and sounds of them has stuck with me ever since.
I had lived in India for almost a year by the time I got to Calcutta. We had taken a very crowded train up from the south. The words very crowded do not begin to describe just how overcrowded this train was. We arrived at the station in Calcutta in the early morning hours and we were struggling through the mass of humanity packed into the station. The crowd was literally moving us so strongly that it would have been impossible to stop. We were flowing toward the exits to the overcrowded streets caught up in a pedestrian traffic jam so to speak. Then in the station near the exit I notice the people in front of me glancing down at the ground so I looked down as I got to that spot and there was a dead body on the ground. People were just continuing their push behind us and in a second we stepped over the body and were pushed into the street. The image of the thin ragged body on the floor stuck with me. It epitomized how hard and calloused I had become by the year spent in the poverty of India. Later that night as I tried to sleep I was struck by that realization and I broke down in tears for a couple of hours. A few weeks later as I was taking off out of Calcutta in a jet for Burma I again broke down thinking about the dead body and just how hard life had been over the last year in India. I saw starving people, twisted deformed beggars, sick stick like children with bloated bellies and more. Although to survive while I was still in India I had acquired a thick skin, the moment I stepped over that body I started to soften again until on that plane where my tears again returned me to the reality of what I had witnessed in India.
There were lots more moments in my travels but these stand out in my memory for various reasons. I relive these snapshots frequently. My mind has probably reshaped them somewhat over all this time as well. But they are why I love to travel. I can't wait to get back on the road again.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Some feedback response
I have been getting some feedback about some of my posts. One topic that keeps coming up is I am accused of being anti-American and less than patriotic. I agree with that feedback to a large extent. I am not patriotic and I don't want to be patriotic because I do not believe in patriotism as being a good thing. Sorry all you flag wavers but there has been way to much harm done to humankind through patriotism so I do not support it. I don't support any other country either for that matter. I prefer to be a citizen of the world sans label. If that makes me un-American than so be it. I am critical of a lot of American things because I live here and know them well. One thing all my travels have taught me is the difference between culture and human behavior. Lots of quote American patriotic things are simple cultural icons and not intrinsic human truths but many Americans (and other nationalities also) seem to think their way is the only way. I have seen lots of different ways for lots of different things. I try to accept the differences without bias.
I also do not believe the U.S. should be trying to force feed their cultural ideology on the rest of the world. Lots of wars this country has been engaged in were all about money and not about saving the world which is how they are always sold by the American government. I am very opposed to this type of warfare and I am vocal about it. I do not support the my country right or wrong philosophy rah rah wave your red white and blue. Hitler is a good enough example of patriotism gone bad. Most of the wars have been about money and nothing else despite all the patriotic rhetoric used to sell these wars.
Afghanistan is a classic example of a war all about money and nothing else. It is a fruitless waste of soldier's lives that is impossible to win. What would constitute a win there? KFC and Big Macs on every corner? They have a right to live their lives the way they want to lead them without Americans interfering, even if Americans do not like their culture. I know lots of Americans were furious after 911 went down and think the wars since have been justified to stop those mad terrorists but in fact the main target is already dead and all the wars are just creating even more anti-American animosity which just breeds more terrorism in the future not less. There are no talks going on anywhere to try to solve this "dispute" with words. Why is that?
The other thing that keeps coming up is the veracity of my posts. I am constantly accused of making all this up. I do not care if people think that way. I have been writing for myself not to impress anybody. If you don't believe it then go away. I do not care if anybody at all reads this. What is truth anyway but one person's view from their point of view. Any number of people can watch something happen and each will see their own truth. Cada cabesa esta un mundo or in English, each person's head is a world. This is my head and my world.
Then the last thing I hear is that I hurt people or make them look bad in my posts which makes me mean. My response to that is again the same as before I am writing this for me not for them. My intentions are not to hurt anybody but things have happened that I talk about that are not always flattering to those involved. My extended family all seem to be angry at me for things I have said about my father or my exwives or whatever. Such is life. I will continue to say whatever I want to in my writing. I say lots of things that make me look bad also. I am open about my "vices" and I talk about my own mistakes as much as I talk about others. If I did not then the veracity would be diminished. Bad things happen in the world and we all make mistakes. This writing reflects me and if somebody read it all they would know much more about who I am and how I got to be who I am today.
So keep reading or not, that is your choice. My choice is to do just like I am doing and write whatever I feel like. Enjoy life while you still can. PURAVIDA
I also do not believe the U.S. should be trying to force feed their cultural ideology on the rest of the world. Lots of wars this country has been engaged in were all about money and not about saving the world which is how they are always sold by the American government. I am very opposed to this type of warfare and I am vocal about it. I do not support the my country right or wrong philosophy rah rah wave your red white and blue. Hitler is a good enough example of patriotism gone bad. Most of the wars have been about money and nothing else despite all the patriotic rhetoric used to sell these wars.
Afghanistan is a classic example of a war all about money and nothing else. It is a fruitless waste of soldier's lives that is impossible to win. What would constitute a win there? KFC and Big Macs on every corner? They have a right to live their lives the way they want to lead them without Americans interfering, even if Americans do not like their culture. I know lots of Americans were furious after 911 went down and think the wars since have been justified to stop those mad terrorists but in fact the main target is already dead and all the wars are just creating even more anti-American animosity which just breeds more terrorism in the future not less. There are no talks going on anywhere to try to solve this "dispute" with words. Why is that?
The other thing that keeps coming up is the veracity of my posts. I am constantly accused of making all this up. I do not care if people think that way. I have been writing for myself not to impress anybody. If you don't believe it then go away. I do not care if anybody at all reads this. What is truth anyway but one person's view from their point of view. Any number of people can watch something happen and each will see their own truth. Cada cabesa esta un mundo or in English, each person's head is a world. This is my head and my world.
Then the last thing I hear is that I hurt people or make them look bad in my posts which makes me mean. My response to that is again the same as before I am writing this for me not for them. My intentions are not to hurt anybody but things have happened that I talk about that are not always flattering to those involved. My extended family all seem to be angry at me for things I have said about my father or my exwives or whatever. Such is life. I will continue to say whatever I want to in my writing. I say lots of things that make me look bad also. I am open about my "vices" and I talk about my own mistakes as much as I talk about others. If I did not then the veracity would be diminished. Bad things happen in the world and we all make mistakes. This writing reflects me and if somebody read it all they would know much more about who I am and how I got to be who I am today.
So keep reading or not, that is your choice. My choice is to do just like I am doing and write whatever I feel like. Enjoy life while you still can. PURAVIDA
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Such is life
So about thirty seconds after I finished my last post about how good I felt and how I was feeling better there was a loud knock on my door and I was greeted by the police to be evicted from my house. The landlord was behind on payments and did not inform me of the problems. So I now have a thirty day notice and I will lose my last month's rent and the security deposit. Isn't life just grand...
A Bit of Respite
Well for over a week now my pain level has been very low. I have actually regained a bit of a life. Over the last week I have gone out and been social, even so far as to have a couple of dates finally. I can laugh and play. My mind is much sharper again and my wit has returned to some extent. Some of my friends asked me what came over me to make me so much more fun all of a sudden. Being social, laughing and enjoying people are all things that I am incapable of doing when my pain is high and controlling my entire mind/body experience. Being social, even basic small stuff is next to impossible with high pain. Very few people seem to understand this. I try to go through the motions of being social even when my pain is high but I come out stiff and cold as well as dull and boring. I try to be social all the time even when I have high pain. I pretend that the pain is not there and don't talk about it or anything but I can not hide the fact that my brain is elsewhere making me appear to be cold and aloof.
It has been almost two years since my last respite like this. For two very long years I have been focused on nothing but surviving my pain warped life on an hour to hour and sometimes minute to minute scale. I still have limited mobility due to nerve damage and loss of motor control in my leg but the pain is way more controlling than the loss of mobility. I could have a good life even out of a wheelchair but the acute pain sucks life right out of me. Later today I am going river tubing with some friends. I would not be able to do that with high pain. The high heat here in Bakersfield has a lot to do with my feeling better all of a sudden. It has been over a hundred degrees everyday for going on two weeks now. When it is this hot my pain melts away.
But one day the pain will return...probably very suddenly too. When it returns is when I am most at risk of losing this battle. All I can hope for is for this respite to last long enough to rebuild some small reservoir of hope that will keep me going until the next respite. Meanwhile I am going to go for the gusto and live life like it should be led, enjoying myself. I hope you are enjoying life too. PURAVIDA
It has been almost two years since my last respite like this. For two very long years I have been focused on nothing but surviving my pain warped life on an hour to hour and sometimes minute to minute scale. I still have limited mobility due to nerve damage and loss of motor control in my leg but the pain is way more controlling than the loss of mobility. I could have a good life even out of a wheelchair but the acute pain sucks life right out of me. Later today I am going river tubing with some friends. I would not be able to do that with high pain. The high heat here in Bakersfield has a lot to do with my feeling better all of a sudden. It has been over a hundred degrees everyday for going on two weeks now. When it is this hot my pain melts away.
But one day the pain will return...probably very suddenly too. When it returns is when I am most at risk of losing this battle. All I can hope for is for this respite to last long enough to rebuild some small reservoir of hope that will keep me going until the next respite. Meanwhile I am going to go for the gusto and live life like it should be led, enjoying myself. I hope you are enjoying life too. PURAVIDA
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Some like it hot
So for more than a year I have had constant relentless high pain and almost eighteen years of pain problems. I left the San Francisco Bay Area to go to Bakersfield Ca to warm up to try to get a handle on my pain which tends to go up in cold weather and down in hot weather. It worked. The temperature here in Bakersfield has been about 104 degrees lately. My pain has gone down by the day until now where I am almost pain free. The first respite in over a year. I love it. There is no complaining on my part of how hot it is. Everyday I hear people complaining about the heat and all I can do is smile at them as I drip in sweat. I would much rather be hot and sweating than be in pain. Pain is very destructive to the human brain. Heat and sweat are just irritating not destructive.
I am very thankful for the respite but I dread the return of the pain. My mood these days is very high but when the pain returns I will crash big time. I dread that day. No amount of drugs will protect me from the return of the pain and the resulting crash. All I can do is wait and enjoy my days right now. When the pain returns I will lose it big time. There is nothing I can do to protect myself from the crash. It is like a light switch, when the pain returns my mood plummets. Period. No question about it. I may or may not survive the crash. I wish I could control the response but it is so strong that there is nothing I can do to prevent the inevitable crash. Does that mean I am weak? Am I helpless? Well I am not helpless or weak but the truth is that the pain is more in control of me than I am and I am aware of that fact. Knowledge is power in most cases but here in this situation the wave of response to the pain returning is actually out of my control. I am trying to avert disaster by acknowledging the situation but through many years of experience I now know that I am just a puppet on a string. I know other people have experienced this type of fault but not many people will actually admit the helplessness of the situation. I am not a fatalist in any manner. I seriously try to protect myself with positive thinking and all sorts of other methods but it is all a fallacy. I will lose the battle not because I am weak but because the response to pain has rewired my brain and that is merely the way it is. You people out there that are judging me as you read this have never experienced the devastation of chronic pain. Twenty years of the brain rewiring itself is just flat out impossible to fight. Maybe if I could get a long enough respite I might be able to build up some defenses but I am not counting on that. What happens happens and that is just the way it goes sometimes. Such is life. Enjoy it while you are still able to.
I am very thankful for the respite but I dread the return of the pain. My mood these days is very high but when the pain returns I will crash big time. I dread that day. No amount of drugs will protect me from the return of the pain and the resulting crash. All I can do is wait and enjoy my days right now. When the pain returns I will lose it big time. There is nothing I can do to protect myself from the crash. It is like a light switch, when the pain returns my mood plummets. Period. No question about it. I may or may not survive the crash. I wish I could control the response but it is so strong that there is nothing I can do to prevent the inevitable crash. Does that mean I am weak? Am I helpless? Well I am not helpless or weak but the truth is that the pain is more in control of me than I am and I am aware of that fact. Knowledge is power in most cases but here in this situation the wave of response to the pain returning is actually out of my control. I am trying to avert disaster by acknowledging the situation but through many years of experience I now know that I am just a puppet on a string. I know other people have experienced this type of fault but not many people will actually admit the helplessness of the situation. I am not a fatalist in any manner. I seriously try to protect myself with positive thinking and all sorts of other methods but it is all a fallacy. I will lose the battle not because I am weak but because the response to pain has rewired my brain and that is merely the way it is. You people out there that are judging me as you read this have never experienced the devastation of chronic pain. Twenty years of the brain rewiring itself is just flat out impossible to fight. Maybe if I could get a long enough respite I might be able to build up some defenses but I am not counting on that. What happens happens and that is just the way it goes sometimes. Such is life. Enjoy it while you are still able to.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Terror roots
Today the Western world is concerned with stopping those crazy terrorists from the Middle East and surrounding areas. How did this all begin? That all depends on how far back you want to go in the history of the world. There are lots of theories about the origins of war in human history but the simple fact is that signs of warfare are evident from our earliest known humans.
Wars have also been fought for lots of different reasons from people needing more room for an expanding population to needing to move because of droughts or other disasters wrecking their homelands and lots of other reasons. Societies sometimes clashed due to cultural differences and sometimes that cultural reason was religious in nature.
Our clashes today are mostly based on economics, politics or religious differences between Muslims and Christians. The history of clashes between these two groups goes all the way back to the earliest days of these religions. They fought wars back and forth over control of the city of Jerusalem. Then there were invasions or wars by Alexander the Great, Chandragupta Maurya, and Genghis Khan. All of these groups acted like terrorists invading, looting and pillaging the areas they entered and sometimes defeated. Then there were all the Crusades which were the Christian equivalent of Jihad or holy war. I hear people today talking about how Muslims must be terrible vicious people to declare holy wars but the Christians were doing it first. Both groups consider Jerusalem a part of their holy history and so does the Jewish religion. Holy wars are nothing new and neither is harsh brutal terrorism of invading armies. Some people say terrorism only relates to activities since dynamite became readily available to equal out the powers of destruction between large armies and smaller ones. Dynamite has been replaced by C4 plastic explosive today. But come on if you were farming and a few thousand knights came marching toward your farm burning everything in their path and raping and murdering I think you would experience some terror. The power they used included the implied threat of if you do not bow down to us this is what we will do to you and your people. So they used threats to intimidate their intended targets, just like terrorists do today.
In the mountains of Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan with its difficult terrain it was fairly easy to build small compounds and defend them from invaders. That is what we have today in these areas, a bunch of anarchistic warlords ruling over their small compounds. They haven't really ever been defeated and they likely never will be so fighting a war over there to defeat them is not going to be successful. So why are we there? The British and the Russians have already demonstrated how impossible it is. What makes the U.S. think that they will fare any better? Sure the U.S. wanted to go in and punish them because of 911 but where does it end? Why is there no dialogue going on between the religions to come up with a peaceful solution? Is humanity just doomed to forever engage in Holy warfare until there is a once and for all world war and there is just one religion left? I hope not. It is time to start talking, settle the differences, stop killing each other and learn to live in peace.
Wars have also been fought for lots of different reasons from people needing more room for an expanding population to needing to move because of droughts or other disasters wrecking their homelands and lots of other reasons. Societies sometimes clashed due to cultural differences and sometimes that cultural reason was religious in nature.
Our clashes today are mostly based on economics, politics or religious differences between Muslims and Christians. The history of clashes between these two groups goes all the way back to the earliest days of these religions. They fought wars back and forth over control of the city of Jerusalem. Then there were invasions or wars by Alexander the Great, Chandragupta Maurya, and Genghis Khan. All of these groups acted like terrorists invading, looting and pillaging the areas they entered and sometimes defeated. Then there were all the Crusades which were the Christian equivalent of Jihad or holy war. I hear people today talking about how Muslims must be terrible vicious people to declare holy wars but the Christians were doing it first. Both groups consider Jerusalem a part of their holy history and so does the Jewish religion. Holy wars are nothing new and neither is harsh brutal terrorism of invading armies. Some people say terrorism only relates to activities since dynamite became readily available to equal out the powers of destruction between large armies and smaller ones. Dynamite has been replaced by C4 plastic explosive today. But come on if you were farming and a few thousand knights came marching toward your farm burning everything in their path and raping and murdering I think you would experience some terror. The power they used included the implied threat of if you do not bow down to us this is what we will do to you and your people. So they used threats to intimidate their intended targets, just like terrorists do today.
In the mountains of Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan with its difficult terrain it was fairly easy to build small compounds and defend them from invaders. That is what we have today in these areas, a bunch of anarchistic warlords ruling over their small compounds. They haven't really ever been defeated and they likely never will be so fighting a war over there to defeat them is not going to be successful. So why are we there? The British and the Russians have already demonstrated how impossible it is. What makes the U.S. think that they will fare any better? Sure the U.S. wanted to go in and punish them because of 911 but where does it end? Why is there no dialogue going on between the religions to come up with a peaceful solution? Is humanity just doomed to forever engage in Holy warfare until there is a once and for all world war and there is just one religion left? I hope not. It is time to start talking, settle the differences, stop killing each other and learn to live in peace.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Travel blog is not returning
Well I guess it is time to announce the end of my travel blog. I haven't been able to write in it for almost a year now so I am admitting to myself that I will never be finishing it. I love to travel and I love to write about it but my brain just will not let me do it any longer. My pain levels have been too high to focus on anything like remembering what happened and when it happened. Also the depression from the pain leads me to focus on the darker side of life leaving my writing too bleak, devoid of the zest for life I used to have during my travels and before pain took over control of what's left of my brain.
Pain messes with your brain big time I have discovered. Over the last week my major high pain has been relatively low but instead of feeling good about that all I notice is all the smaller pains like my sore joints and my arthritis. I don't feel those pains when I have high pain even though they are still there. It is just that when the high pain takes over that is all I feel. Then the other problem when my pain goes down like this is that I live in fear of my major pain returning because when it does my depression plunges into an abyss that is horrible. It is actually easier to adjust to a constant pain level, even if it is high, than to a pain that varies in intensity like mine does. But the end result is that because of these health problems, I just don't have it in me to continue the travel blog. I will continue to blog on days when I have enough energy and mental strength to actually say something. From now on I will just blog about nothing...just whatever mood or topic strikes me. Don't expect any earth shattering essays.
I know my writing is discombobulated these days but I am not writing for anyone except myself so I don't really care. If you don't like what I write, comment on it, or just leave. I don't care about anything anymore so my inhibitions are only slightly moderated and I could say just about anything about anyone (if I haven't already) or about anything. (go ahead and ask me a question about something if you want to see what I mean) I am not doing this to offend anyone. I have already heard back from some of those that have felt offended. Privacy for me has become a rather moot point. From the way I have been feeling lately due to the pain and depression, I may slide into total insanity for all I know. That could be interesting to an outside observer or it could be troubling but either way I just don't care. So you have been warned, read on at your own peril especially if you have messed with me at some point in my life.
I never defend myself by the way. I have been that way most of my life. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing I am not sure. I brush off attacks from others about my integrity or character and things without comment. So name calling at me doesn't really hurt me. It does, however, tend to make me think less of a person that calls that communication. That is why I always post those negative name calling comments, they make me laugh when I read them. A better way would be to state an opposing viewpoint in a clear concise argument that might make me change my point of view which I am ready and willing to do if you convince me. I could and have made some mistakes in my writing but I do correct them when I find them or they are pointed out to me. For instance I used Johnson instead of Nixon by mistake at one point and when it was told to me I checked my dates and I was wrong. I also don't respond well to statements from people that try to say something did or did not happen when that person was not even present at the event under discussion or they were physically present but they were three sheets to the wind under the influence of drugs and alcohol which does not make for a very accurate eyewitness report. Just because someone doesn't like or agree with something I say does not make it a lie or mistake or something like that on my part.
So on with the new format...
Pain messes with your brain big time I have discovered. Over the last week my major high pain has been relatively low but instead of feeling good about that all I notice is all the smaller pains like my sore joints and my arthritis. I don't feel those pains when I have high pain even though they are still there. It is just that when the high pain takes over that is all I feel. Then the other problem when my pain goes down like this is that I live in fear of my major pain returning because when it does my depression plunges into an abyss that is horrible. It is actually easier to adjust to a constant pain level, even if it is high, than to a pain that varies in intensity like mine does. But the end result is that because of these health problems, I just don't have it in me to continue the travel blog. I will continue to blog on days when I have enough energy and mental strength to actually say something. From now on I will just blog about nothing...just whatever mood or topic strikes me. Don't expect any earth shattering essays.
I know my writing is discombobulated these days but I am not writing for anyone except myself so I don't really care. If you don't like what I write, comment on it, or just leave. I don't care about anything anymore so my inhibitions are only slightly moderated and I could say just about anything about anyone (if I haven't already) or about anything. (go ahead and ask me a question about something if you want to see what I mean) I am not doing this to offend anyone. I have already heard back from some of those that have felt offended. Privacy for me has become a rather moot point. From the way I have been feeling lately due to the pain and depression, I may slide into total insanity for all I know. That could be interesting to an outside observer or it could be troubling but either way I just don't care. So you have been warned, read on at your own peril especially if you have messed with me at some point in my life.
I never defend myself by the way. I have been that way most of my life. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing I am not sure. I brush off attacks from others about my integrity or character and things without comment. So name calling at me doesn't really hurt me. It does, however, tend to make me think less of a person that calls that communication. That is why I always post those negative name calling comments, they make me laugh when I read them. A better way would be to state an opposing viewpoint in a clear concise argument that might make me change my point of view which I am ready and willing to do if you convince me. I could and have made some mistakes in my writing but I do correct them when I find them or they are pointed out to me. For instance I used Johnson instead of Nixon by mistake at one point and when it was told to me I checked my dates and I was wrong. I also don't respond well to statements from people that try to say something did or did not happen when that person was not even present at the event under discussion or they were physically present but they were three sheets to the wind under the influence of drugs and alcohol which does not make for a very accurate eyewitness report. Just because someone doesn't like or agree with something I say does not make it a lie or mistake or something like that on my part.
So on with the new format...
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Father's Day
Well it is approaching Father's Day again. I do not celebrate it with my father. My father and I have not gotten along for as far back as I am able to remember. During my days growing up, all I remember of him are his biting hurtful words to me and his totally negative attitude toward me. He also often enough resorted to physical demonstrations of his dislike for me. For whatever reason he only acted like this to me not the rest of my siblings. Although now he treats my older brother with pretty much the same contempt. That surprised me because growing up my older brother was the pride and joy who could do no wrong. I think our father changed his attitude to my brother over differing political points of view but I am not able to say exactly.
I have no idea what triggered my father's animosity aimed in my direction. As a young adult I often wondered about what his motive was for this behavior. My first thought was maybe he isn't my biological father or something but I quickly stopped trying to figure it out since by then I was no longer living under his roof. I thought what the hell difference does it make now anyway if we don't get along. We don't have to get along. We can just go our separate ways and live our own lives and forget the past animosity. Well that doesn't work out so well. He always was very good at acting in public like he was the nicest guy in the world but then when he was alone with me outside of the hearing range and sight of others he would start digging at me as meanly as he could. When I was finally old enough and large enough to fight back it was too late to ever have even a civil relationship with him. The day that happened was when I returned home from Madison after the police had wrongly arrested me during the antiwar riots in the late sixties. He very harshly mouthed off at me then charged me like he was going to get physical but I stood up to him and he backed down. I left that day and never looked back. We went for years without any contact. I wandered around the world for years and became a father myself. My parents came out to visit after the birth of my first son. I got along well with my mom but my father was still the same spiteful mean spirited person. Some things just never change.
Today, my siblings do not understand why I am so "mean" to their loving father by talking openly about my experiences with him. They do not believe their father could have ever acted so cruelly to me. They accuse me of making up lies about him. It is true that he treated them much differently than he treated me. I am happy for them. I am the bad guy now in their eyes. My father very carefully cultivates that with them. He knows exactly what he is doing. I do not understand the why of his motives for his continuing animosity and I never will but it is the reality for now and for ever as far as I can see. So I have pretty much lost any relationship with the rest of my siblings and extended family over this. There is nothing I can do about that since it is their decision. I guess that was what my father wanted, me out of the family. I won't say it doesn't hurt but I have gone past this to just live my life in peace. I don't want any animosity in my life. There is entirely too much of it in the world. My children are also losers in this silly situation because they miss out on lots of extended family contact. There will be no Father's Day celebration between my father and myself. To everybody else though, Happy Father's Day!
I have no idea what triggered my father's animosity aimed in my direction. As a young adult I often wondered about what his motive was for this behavior. My first thought was maybe he isn't my biological father or something but I quickly stopped trying to figure it out since by then I was no longer living under his roof. I thought what the hell difference does it make now anyway if we don't get along. We don't have to get along. We can just go our separate ways and live our own lives and forget the past animosity. Well that doesn't work out so well. He always was very good at acting in public like he was the nicest guy in the world but then when he was alone with me outside of the hearing range and sight of others he would start digging at me as meanly as he could. When I was finally old enough and large enough to fight back it was too late to ever have even a civil relationship with him. The day that happened was when I returned home from Madison after the police had wrongly arrested me during the antiwar riots in the late sixties. He very harshly mouthed off at me then charged me like he was going to get physical but I stood up to him and he backed down. I left that day and never looked back. We went for years without any contact. I wandered around the world for years and became a father myself. My parents came out to visit after the birth of my first son. I got along well with my mom but my father was still the same spiteful mean spirited person. Some things just never change.
Today, my siblings do not understand why I am so "mean" to their loving father by talking openly about my experiences with him. They do not believe their father could have ever acted so cruelly to me. They accuse me of making up lies about him. It is true that he treated them much differently than he treated me. I am happy for them. I am the bad guy now in their eyes. My father very carefully cultivates that with them. He knows exactly what he is doing. I do not understand the why of his motives for his continuing animosity and I never will but it is the reality for now and for ever as far as I can see. So I have pretty much lost any relationship with the rest of my siblings and extended family over this. There is nothing I can do about that since it is their decision. I guess that was what my father wanted, me out of the family. I won't say it doesn't hurt but I have gone past this to just live my life in peace. I don't want any animosity in my life. There is entirely too much of it in the world. My children are also losers in this silly situation because they miss out on lots of extended family contact. There will be no Father's Day celebration between my father and myself. To everybody else though, Happy Father's Day!
Friday, June 10, 2011
Obamacare
The title of this post is misleading. I am appalled that the United States has such a messed up medical care distribution system. The rest of the world has already come around to treating healthcare as a human right that is best served up on an equal footing to everybody without regard to ability to pay or any other criteria. But here in the U.S. care is only doled out based on your ability to pay or by your insurance provider's rules. If you have neither you are stuck. Sure the claim is that no one is turned away that needs medical care in an emergency but the reality is totally different than that standard.
I have been having medical problems for the last twenty years. At first when I was earning good money and had good insurance through an HMO my healthcare was great. But then I got worse and became totally disabled. I could no longer work so I no longer had income to pay the premiums on my HMO. I was converted to Medi-care/Medi-cal coverage. At first that went fine because they paid for my same HMO coverage that I had been buying myself all along. But then one day the HMO was allowed to dump me because I was costing them too much. Suddenly I had to resort to county provided healthcare. Sure the theory is that you can choose your own provider and pay through medi-care but the fact is there are no longer any doctors or facilities that accept the low payments paid by Medi-care so your only choice is the county hospital. So that is where I ended up.
My first appointment took over a year to get. They screened me at that appointment and told me to make a followup appointment. That was another ten months later. I was able to go to a small community clinic to keep my prescriptions filled for all my pain control meds but my health problems were beyond the capabilities of the physicians assistants and the overworked general practitioner at the small clinic. I needed specialists and surgeons not a shot for measles.
After a few years of almost no medical care at all I was finally referred to the specialists I needed. They each checked me out and passed me on to another specialist with each new doctor or clinic or hospital having their own lengthy wait for new patients to get in. I ended up most recently at Stanford Hospital for diagnostics and treatment. For the last two years I have been wading through their system getting lots of tests and being seen by various specialists. I never made it to the end of their system because my health coverage changed yet again.
When Obama announced his recently passed ObamaCare he gave a great speech in which he said that now all Americans would get healthcare equal to the quality of care he himself or the senators that passed the bill were getting. Well that is not true in any sense.
I have now been assigned to a County of Alameda HMO called Alliance for Health. As soon as I was assigned to the HMO Stanford Hospital told me I was no longer able to be seen there to finish my assessment and treatment at their Stanford Cancer Clinic. I have spent about 40 hours on the phone trying to contact the new HMO I was assigned to but have only spoken to a human twice and each time I was told that they would have to call me back. They have never returned my calls despite my verification of the correct phone number etc. I have given up now. I refuse to spend another minute of my life grovelling for healthcare. I would rather just let cancers and anything else just kill me. If this is the kind of healthcare the president and senate enjoy I would be shocked.
I do not blame Obama for this situation. I put the blame on the American Medical Association. They have manipulated the state of medical care in this country for decades by limiting the number of doctors available and price fixing medical care. Medical care in this country is about six times more expensive than the rest of the developed world. Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that the U.S. has the number one medical care in the world when by any impartial study it is more like 37th or 38th from the top. The AMA is the entity behind the brainwashing. They have done a very good job. But they do not do a very good job of providing medical care to those that need it...only to those who can shell out the high fees they extort. Anybody like me that complains is made out to be a fool or worse some kind of communist or socialist or something. But the truth is that medical care in this country is not based on a free and open market. The entire market is manipulated. From the number of doctors allowed to the fees charged it is all planned to drive the price as high as it is able to go. Well I give up in defeat. I am too weak to do anything about this situation. When my current meds run out I will just die and the system will go on. It is as simple as that--just modern genocide of the poor and medically indigent. It is the American way.
I have been having medical problems for the last twenty years. At first when I was earning good money and had good insurance through an HMO my healthcare was great. But then I got worse and became totally disabled. I could no longer work so I no longer had income to pay the premiums on my HMO. I was converted to Medi-care/Medi-cal coverage. At first that went fine because they paid for my same HMO coverage that I had been buying myself all along. But then one day the HMO was allowed to dump me because I was costing them too much. Suddenly I had to resort to county provided healthcare. Sure the theory is that you can choose your own provider and pay through medi-care but the fact is there are no longer any doctors or facilities that accept the low payments paid by Medi-care so your only choice is the county hospital. So that is where I ended up.
My first appointment took over a year to get. They screened me at that appointment and told me to make a followup appointment. That was another ten months later. I was able to go to a small community clinic to keep my prescriptions filled for all my pain control meds but my health problems were beyond the capabilities of the physicians assistants and the overworked general practitioner at the small clinic. I needed specialists and surgeons not a shot for measles.
After a few years of almost no medical care at all I was finally referred to the specialists I needed. They each checked me out and passed me on to another specialist with each new doctor or clinic or hospital having their own lengthy wait for new patients to get in. I ended up most recently at Stanford Hospital for diagnostics and treatment. For the last two years I have been wading through their system getting lots of tests and being seen by various specialists. I never made it to the end of their system because my health coverage changed yet again.
When Obama announced his recently passed ObamaCare he gave a great speech in which he said that now all Americans would get healthcare equal to the quality of care he himself or the senators that passed the bill were getting. Well that is not true in any sense.
I have now been assigned to a County of Alameda HMO called Alliance for Health. As soon as I was assigned to the HMO Stanford Hospital told me I was no longer able to be seen there to finish my assessment and treatment at their Stanford Cancer Clinic. I have spent about 40 hours on the phone trying to contact the new HMO I was assigned to but have only spoken to a human twice and each time I was told that they would have to call me back. They have never returned my calls despite my verification of the correct phone number etc. I have given up now. I refuse to spend another minute of my life grovelling for healthcare. I would rather just let cancers and anything else just kill me. If this is the kind of healthcare the president and senate enjoy I would be shocked.
I do not blame Obama for this situation. I put the blame on the American Medical Association. They have manipulated the state of medical care in this country for decades by limiting the number of doctors available and price fixing medical care. Medical care in this country is about six times more expensive than the rest of the developed world. Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that the U.S. has the number one medical care in the world when by any impartial study it is more like 37th or 38th from the top. The AMA is the entity behind the brainwashing. They have done a very good job. But they do not do a very good job of providing medical care to those that need it...only to those who can shell out the high fees they extort. Anybody like me that complains is made out to be a fool or worse some kind of communist or socialist or something. But the truth is that medical care in this country is not based on a free and open market. The entire market is manipulated. From the number of doctors allowed to the fees charged it is all planned to drive the price as high as it is able to go. Well I give up in defeat. I am too weak to do anything about this situation. When my current meds run out I will just die and the system will go on. It is as simple as that--just modern genocide of the poor and medically indigent. It is the American way.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Immigration raid
I share my living situation with some illegals. These 18 and 19 year old kids have lived in California since their parents came here right after they were born. They grew up here, went to local schools speak "American" English but they have no legal standing.
They were shopping with their little brother who was born here and is thus a citizen when the younger 14 year old boy shoplifted a small item. The older girls were all charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and then one of the three girls was deported to TJ Mexico. She was back here the same day she was deported. She has lived her entire life in California. Why was one deported but not the rest of them? Who knows? The fact that she had a five month old son that is an American citizen made no difference to immigration or maybe that is why they deported her and not her other two friends that also got arrested with her. Did they know the 14 year old was shoplifting? They tell me they did not. Even if they did know he was shoplifting why is their treatment so arbitrary?
Lots of teenagers shoplift and then become fine citizens later on in life. It seems to be a stage of development many teens need to go through. I don't think it is fair or cost effective to do this deportation shuffle. It costs the State a lot of money and gets nothing in return. It is time the U.S. did another amnesty program for these unfortunate kids to make them legal tax paying immigrants instead of wasting so much money on the current merry go round system. One day other countries are going to start treating American citizens traveling abroad the same unfair way their citizens get treated here. Brazil is already doing that to travelers going there. I think that is fair. Be careful traveling abroad so that it doesn't get you in big trouble. Enjoy your travels. PURAVIDA
They were shopping with their little brother who was born here and is thus a citizen when the younger 14 year old boy shoplifted a small item. The older girls were all charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and then one of the three girls was deported to TJ Mexico. She was back here the same day she was deported. She has lived her entire life in California. Why was one deported but not the rest of them? Who knows? The fact that she had a five month old son that is an American citizen made no difference to immigration or maybe that is why they deported her and not her other two friends that also got arrested with her. Did they know the 14 year old was shoplifting? They tell me they did not. Even if they did know he was shoplifting why is their treatment so arbitrary?
Lots of teenagers shoplift and then become fine citizens later on in life. It seems to be a stage of development many teens need to go through. I don't think it is fair or cost effective to do this deportation shuffle. It costs the State a lot of money and gets nothing in return. It is time the U.S. did another amnesty program for these unfortunate kids to make them legal tax paying immigrants instead of wasting so much money on the current merry go round system. One day other countries are going to start treating American citizens traveling abroad the same unfair way their citizens get treated here. Brazil is already doing that to travelers going there. I think that is fair. Be careful traveling abroad so that it doesn't get you in big trouble. Enjoy your travels. PURAVIDA
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