Today is not any different for me than it is for many citizens of the United States. I had tests…CT scans…that were requested by my primary care physician. Tests that would allow him to get a glimpse of what’s going on with my tonsils and my lymph nodes. They have been giving me fits for going on a week. This isn’t normal, even for a guy that seems to be the poster child for strep. Yes, I still have my tonsils at almost 49 years old. I know they should have been removed years ago and I wouldn’t have gone through all the shit that I’ve gone through in the past. I’ve had strep at least four times in my life as an adult. Granted, I could have done something prior, but I’ve been told that unless something was very wrong with them, don’t get them taken out. So that’s the advice I followed.
Here in the US, like everyone in the world knows, it seems, we have one of the worst medical systems in the entire world. Oh, if you ask people that make thousands of dollars a year if we have good medical care, they would probably answer with a resounding YES! For everyone else, however, that has to have all their money to live each day and to keep the services on at their homes, it’s not so wonderful. I have a full time job and I have insurance through my employer. That doesn’t mean what many think it does. I still pay $208 a month to have that. I also have a $1,000 a year deductible which means that until I get that paid, I will continue to pay for any tests other than the regular blood tests performed at the doctor’s office.
In a country that supposedly has so much money, people go into deep debt because of healthcare costs. It’s a fucking shame that in this country, to continue to be healthy, you have to have lots of money. And since women have much more plumbing than us guys have, their health insurance is even more than ours. We can’t push babies from our ctrotches, but we act more stupidly on the road. Car insurance is high for men than women. It kinda evens out in the wash, but that’s not saying much. You don’t technically have to have a car to live. You can ride a bike or a scooter and still get places. If you have a kidney stone or a heart attack, that’s a much different story. A couple hundred dollars to replace a starter or a timing belt is one thing. Paying thousands of dollars for a kidney transplant, dialysis, or a heart catheter can bankrupt a family.
On the continent of North America, there are three large countries. Canada. United States. Mexico. Guess which one, for some fucking reason, is the only one that can’t seem to get universal healthcare passed. It’s the United States. We’re the ones that get fucked over by our government each day we wake up….yet we get up and go to school or go to work in the hopes that we can keep the country running. Of course, there are people in our midst that keep voting for complete dumbasses for important positions of government. We can’t find all of them and line them up in front of a wall and empty a couple magazines of shells. I guess that would be inhumane and unconstitutional. Ugh, if only. We have three branches of government and all three are corrupt. The one branch that should be spotless because they control if laws are constitutional can’t be uncorrupted because at least two of them are beholden to others with money. At least one is getting ready to meet Jesus and he wants more people in this country to not have the right to vote….even though the race he belongs to has been shut out of the election process of this country, for the most part, for hundreds of years. I wonder what his white wife has to say about that. Maybe her slave owning ancesters are happy for her stance.
WHY THE FUCK ARE WE ALLOWING CERTAIN PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY TO WHORD MONEY FOR THEMSELVES OR WHY THE FUCK ARE WE SENDING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO A SMALL FACIST COUNTRY IN THE MIDDLE EAST SO THEY CAN KILL PEOPLE IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY? WE ALL WANT TO KNOW BECAUSE IT’S CAUSING OUR GOVERNMENT TO ALLOW US TO DIE WHILE BEGGING TO BE HEALTHY!
We have so many men and women in this country who hold the title of CEO of large corporations and, while sitting at a desk or going to extravagent dinners to celebrate, they aren’t working or getting anything done to change anything in this country. Hell, if any one of them leave said corporation, they get shit tons of money to send them away. God forbid Becky have to get out and find a regular job like any of us would have to. When we get asked to leave our jobs, we get escorted out the door and told not to come back. It’s up to us to find a job that can keep food on the table for us and our family. I often get mail from the few companies I have stock in and they ask me to vote for people on their board. Before I vote for anyone, I do a list of things:
1. Have any of these people been linked to the Republican Party?
2. Do these people have anything to do with Donald Trump?
3. How many other company boards do these people belong to?
4. Are these people considered millionaires/billionaires and how did they get their money?
5. Have these people done anything to change the world in a positive way?
6. Have these people done anything that would make me want them standing blindfolded in front of a wall?
Depending on the answers to these questions, I may vote for them. It never fails. They will ask you to vote affirmative for everyone in the list. There are plenty I have voted against. Does my vote count in these elections? For fuck sake, not in the slightest! These people could not give less of a fuck what I think about them. If they are going to sit on a board of a company that issues stock, they already have massive bank accounts and they already live in mansions and eat the best foods and get the best healthcare. Everyone else can fuck right off. My country ass from south Alabama means nothing to someone who could buy the small town I come from without thinking about it. Why should they? They have the money. Who’s gonna fight them over it? Let them try! I know it can be done because a movie star owns a town close to where I live in the north Atlanta area. She just fucking bought it. I think the people know her and are totally accepting of it. And that’s great. Happy for them. The last thing that we need is Musky to be buying up small towns and putting data centers in them all.
I hope I get to grow old. I hope I get to see a time when we advance as a civilization. I pray so hard that we can change our education system and get investors out of it. I hope that at some point, we get smart as adults and we vote in people that can make logical decisions for the greater population. I hope that we as a society can start making decisions that aren’t tied to characters we can find in a 2000+ year old book. I hope that one day, we can get a working document that matters to all people of all races and creeds and will not pick one over another in any form. It’s going to take a shit ton of work to get that, but I see people living on this Earth for thousands of years in the future. There’s time to change things. If you changes need to be made, and to make them means taking someone out, then go to the firing ranges. Shoot at targets. Get good at it before you go out and make a fool of yourself. Make sure that you only take down yourself when you do it and not a spouse, parents, or other family members. Make sure you made the choice to stick your body out a window of a building in Dallas, TX or lay flat on a small building in Butler, PA. Make sure that you don’t have anyone in your past that could meet you in the basement of a building while you’re getting moved to another government building and shoot you. Don’t allow history to repeat itself. If you do it in the streets of New York, don’t run to a McDonald’s where the people making $7.25 an hour can recognize you and call the cops.
Five times, that I can remember, in the history of this country, people in a position of power have been taken down by someone who sacrificed the rest of their lives for what they believed to be the betterment of this country. Whether it was good or bad, it did make a difference. Newscasters and others in the public eye have condemned such actions recently and I can believe why in some way. I can also agree with others in saying that if those actions had been fruitful, we could be going in a different direction. We might also say that things could have been different if the Bolshevik Revolution had gone in a different direction. History will tell us all in a couple of years when we either correct our country or it burns in a hell storm. Lets hope for the best.
Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash