For the first day I feared for my own life. What’s going to happen if I can no longer have health insurance? Though I’m not sure what the likelihood of that is. If there’s a lifetime coverage cap, I know I’m screwed. I had images in my mind of people who had MS before there was treatment to slow down the progress of the the disease. Will my quality of life decline in that way? That law became a burden for the working poor and the middle class because the health insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies made damn sure of it. Because they fund our lawmakers’ election campaigns, they held their leashes on both sides of the aisle. Though it’s slightly more complex than that, it’s true. I studied the very process of that piece of legislation for a college term. I know what I’m talking about.
The second day I feared for my family and the people I knew. What would happen if it all went to hell? What would happen in the face of a world of violence and conflict, the likes of which people in this country only see in the news. Don’t kid yourself. THAT has already started.
The man who won the election campaigned on a platform of blame transference. One would argue that the other lost the election by campaigning with her own level of blame transference. Would she really have helped us that much with more of the same? She might have bought us a little more time to wake up to reality a bit. I felt that she was our best chance for that given the choices laid out in front of us. And she at the very least wasn’t interested in kicking the hornet’s nest of bigots that were just waiting for permission to come out of hiding.
But that angry mob was always there and it was growing exponentially by the day. They’re packing firepower. And if you haven’t noticed, they were beginning to surface. Life sucks for a lot of people. People are broke and tired of working so hard just to be broke. So people are ready to believe that it’s not about the grotesque amount of wealth held by the so-called “job creators.” You know they make money with their money, right? And it works better for them than sharing it with us little people by creating jobs. The stock market pays out when profits are high, benefiting from the underemployment of the masses. Unemployment numbers are down, but did you know that they stop counting people who have given up looking for jobs?
They’ll tell you it’s not that they don’t want to loosen their tight fists on more money than they could ever need in 100 lifetimes in order to give a decent day’s pay for a day’s work. And how dare we ask to be able to afford to eat and go to the doctor too on 40-80 hours a week wages. We’re so conditioned to believe that somehow not having enough money to go around between us is our fault so we fight amongst ourselves. It’s a remarkable way to make certain that we’re too busy to look up.
And when we do look up for answers. Those same people who profit off of our poverty, use our poverty of soul to lead the desperate and the tired to believe that the REAL problem in this country is the LGTBQ community, or immigrants, or people who don’t have white skin, and those who don’t share our religious beliefs. Let’s not focus on the 1 in 5 women who fall victim to sexual assault. Instead, let’s turn our focus on micromanaging women’s healthcare, making it ALL about abortion. Or even better, lets get upset over the possibility that a transgender person would need to use the restroom. Ignore the fact that the average age of the homeless in America is NINE. Instead, of spending money to feed them, let’s drug test their mothers only to find out that “issue” is infinitesimal and a bigger waste of revenue dollars than it would be to simply let them eat.
When will the developed world learn that it’s horrible to let our own people starve to death, regardless of their circumstances? Politicians love to play the shell game with us when the majority of voters don’t want to take the time to watch for the ball. But if they looked beyond a pundit’s dollar amount quote and instead at the percentage that social welfare takes, comparing that to what it would cost the “job makers” to either pay enough that social welfare wasn’t our tax burden or maybe pay into that tax burden, would it make a difference?
I have to be honest. I thought we were better than this. I felt somehow protected from the hell that I’ve seen other people live all over the world. And I can honestly say I’m sorry that I hadn’t thought to notice the insidious beast that lurked within our very society. And today I’m afraid for everyone, what it means and the seemingly insurmountable challenge of changing things for the better. We need to start being productive members of society and working towards the greater good. And I’ll start by not letting fear silence me.
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