Eat The Rich

I don't care what some 30 year old movie says.  Greed IS NOT good.  Greed is bad.  Greed causes conflict and suffering.  Greed kills.  And you DO NOT get filthy rich by hard work or good fortune.  Those are lies.  The ONLY way to become a millionaire is to hoard wealth, to be greedy and take more than you need or deserve.   The ONLY way to get rich is to be selfish, willing to steal food from the mouths of children.  You aren't a saint because you're rich.  You aren't special.  You're an asshole because while you're living like royalty, someone out there is living in poverty BECAUSE of you.

The rich need to understand something and it's a very important thing.  You only get rich by exploiting the poor.  Your empire is built on the backs, on the labor and sweat of the working class. Without us, the rich cease to exist.  That deserves respect.  That deserves a wage we can live on. That deserves healthcare we can afford.  That deserves a cessation of outsourcing our jobs to third world slave labor.  We aren't asking for the rich to bless us with their charity.  We're asking for what we deserve and if we have to fight, we will do what we have to to survive.

The poor didn't start the class war.  The rich started the war by creating excessive poverty with their wealth hoarding.  Yet just like our ancestors before us, from the French Revolution to Occupy Wall Street, we will fight.  We will not bow down and worship the wealth hoarders.  It will be messy.  It may even be violent, but the day will come when we rise up against our masters yet again and it will ONLY be avoided by the wealthy recognizing what they owe us and treating us with the respect we deserve.

A Friend Request Doesn't Make You Friends

I don't entirely blame Facebook for the misconception we have as a society regarding the word "friend".  We've misunderstood the word long before Facebook came along.  But a friend request isn't the same thing as making a real friend.  You're actually just making an acquaintance.   You may share views, likes, dislikes et cetera, but you don't know them on a personal level and they don't know you.  You are associates, casually aware of one another in a continual social situation.

The misinterpretation is apparent in most of our social interactions.  We assume that because we see someone often that they are a friend.  We work with them.  We bowl with them.  We live next door to them. We see them at the coffee shop every morning.  But when are their birthdays?  Who are their parents?  What are the names of their children?  Do you know your way around their kitchen?  If disaster was to strike and you needed their help, would they be there or have some excuse why they aren't?  Would you lend them money?

To become friends requires history and the intimate knowledge of one another that only comes through that history.  To become friends requires more than mutual respect.  It requires love.  Yes, you can love someone without sex.  To love your friend is to accept them unconditionally through highs and lows yours and theirs.  It's to make them an extended part of your family.  Most importantly though, to become friends requires time and effort.

This is not only on your part, mind you. The person you are trying to become friends with must put in the work too or it isn't a friendship.  Anyone can do you a favor and expect something in return.  A true friend will do you a favor and not even think to ask.

We may have many associates and acquaintances in our lives, but there are very few in our circles who can, by definition, be called friends.  It is wise to know the difference.  That way, you know who you can count on and who you can't.

I prefer to be more cautious than most with who I allow to share my friendship with.  This means a smaller circle of trusted friends and by society's standards this small circle means I'm not as "popular" as I'm supposed to want to be.  Yet, popularity contests are won based on false pretenses and I prefer quality to quantity.  Does this make me antisocial?  If so, then I embrace my antisocial status and encourage others to do the same.

Anyone can say they're friends.  They probably aren't.  There is no crime in putting substance first in our relationships and if we all were to do this, we may find ourselves less popular but more fulfilled.

You're actually not entitled to anything

So many people out there feel themselves entitled to something.  It's not just the one percent feeling they're entitled to more than their fair share.  Whether it's minorities who feel entitled to a pedestal because of slavery or the working class who feel entitled to higher wages to escape poverty, EVERYONE feels entitled to SOMETHING.  I myself feel that if I'm forced to give my wages to Social Security and welfare services,  I should be entitled to use them when I need to.

But I can't.   I'm very poor, true, but I'm an able bodied single woman  with no dependents so even if I do have to live on Ramen noodles, I don't qualify for assistance.  The painful truth no one wants to admit is, NO ONE is entitled to ANYTHING.

We like to think we are.  We constantly bemoan our situation.  We say we're entitled to freedom, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  We deserve to make enough money, to live in a safe environment, to have goods and services.  We deserve the right to free speech and to have a democratically elected government.  We deserve good roads to drive on and enough food to eat, electricity and running water and libraries and even PBS.

But we're not.  Truth is, the things we want out of life, the things we think we deserve, they don't just magically appear.  SOMEONE at some point had to WORK to make those things happen.  SOMEONE built and maintains our roads and public services.  SOMEONE fought a war for our freedom.  SOMEONE created our government from scratch and SOMEONE created Social Security and welfare programs to help the poor.  SOMEONE is working right now to keep our neighborhoods safe.  EVERYTHING we have today is because someone WORKED to make it happen.

If you want a better life, you can't sit on your ass waiting for one to come along.  You have to make it happen.  Yes, you will struggle.  Yes, you may not get as far as you want to.  Yet if you don't do ANYTHING, then you don't get ANYTHING.

And if we WANT to keep having the things we think we deserve, then SOMEONE will have to WORK to keep them.  Guess what.  That someone is you and me.

Retirement isn't for the poor.

You hear it all the time.  Old people aren't retiring the way they used to and it's keeping young people from finding jobs.  The young are so quick to blame the old for high unemployment, but the old have bills to pay too.  The problem isn't that 60 year olds don't WANT to retire, but that they CAN'T.

The days of pensions are gone.  The few jobs that have them are fazing them out.  Heck, pensions bankrupted Detroit and everyone is scrambling to keep that from being the new norm.   Your retirement savings is up to you and only you, like it or not.  But not all of us are in jobs that pay well enough to allow for savings.

And that's where the real threat to retirement is.  The majority of working people live paycheck to paycheck.  Every last dime is used.  We all want to save, but we all want the lights to stay on too.  Saving up for retirement requires money.  When you don't have spare money, you can't save.  When you can't save for retirement, you can't retire so you work either until your body gives up on you and you're forced out or you die.  That's reality.

It also takes money to play the stock market or buy rental property which are huge risks that most working class folks can't afford to take.

So I don't blame the old for needing to work longer.  I understand that I won't be able to retire either.  I even understand that Social Security isn't the answer to my future money woes.

Corporate America used to take care of their workers, valued their workers.  Not with pensions necessarily, but with fair pay.  Then they placed their own greed over their workers' well being and called it capitalism.  They kept making their fortunes, but at our expense.

So young folks complaining about old folks keeping jobs away from you, don't blame the old.  Blame their bosses.

Cashiers are human too

As a former cashier, I know all too well how horrible a job cashiering can be.  The hours are terrible, the pay is worse and to add salt to your wounds, then you have the customers to deal with.  I don't know what it is about being a customer, about shopping in general that makes us lose our humanity.  I've had customers scream at me, throw things at me and generally be hateful and unpleasant.  Maybe that's just the kind of people shopping in my part of the world, but I have a good feeling that the problem of the hateful customer is universal no matter where they are shopping.

There is a well known saying drilled into every cashier's head: The customer is always right.  Whoever came up with that never cashiered a day in their life.  The customer is only interested in one thing.  They want to get a lot, pay as little as possible for it and to do this as quickly as possible. Money and time consumes us all and it drives us to do some pretty ugly things. When we grab the wrong shampoo and realize at the register that it isn't the one on sale, we will throw a tantrum to force the cashier to give it to us on sale because we can't admit we're wrong and it's too big a hassle to go get the right item.  When the store is out of cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving Day, we will demand that someone pull a can out of their ass because we want our cranberry sauce.  And if the cashier is anything less than cheerful when we act like rude jerks and throw our tantrums, we don't hesitate to call a manager and demand they be fired.

We stop looking at people as human beings the moment they become our servants.  They exist solely to do what we tell them to no matter how irrational it is.  They don't have feelings.  They don't have dignity. Being a customer is the ultimate power trip and everyone likes feeling powerful- especially those who aren't used to it.  That doesn't make it right to treat someone like crap.  You, even when you're a customer at the most high end store ever, are just as human and no better than the cashier.

People tend to blame their anger at the register on poor customer service.  I say poor customers lead to poor customer service.  People don't go into cashiering wanting to be rude.  They're driven their by misuse.  There's only so much crap you can take at poverty wages before you get angry and stop caring about doing a good job.  It's human to rebel.

And it's easier to show kindness when kindness is shown to you.  It takes a better person to show kindness in the face of hate, but we aren't all better people, are we.  The bottom line this holiday shopping season is don't check your humanity at the door.  Think of the person on the other side of the register (whatever side you happen to be on) and treat them with the respect you would want them to show you.  Cashiers are humans too.

Obamacare: Missing The Point

I've often asked people who hate Obamacare what is the difference between being forced to buy car insurance and being forced to buy health insurance.  The answer is always the same.  People need to have car insurance because they can have an accident and need to be able to pay for it.  But we don't get sick and need to be able to pay the doctor?  They often say that it's taking away their freedom by forcing them to buy a type of product.  Again, mandatory car insurance is forcing you to buy a product.  They say that forcing insurers to cover a person regardless of their medical condition or ability to pay for insurance will drive the cost up.  I say, if it does, insurance companies are assholes and these are all stupid arguments. 

I don't fault Obamacare for wanting to change a broken system so that everyone can use it regardless of income.  I have a problem with mandatory health insurance because it doesn't solve the problem that is healthcare in the US.

Let's consider what an insurance company really is.  They're a middle man that you pay so that if you have an accident they can use the money you paid them to "help" you pay any expenses.  Question.  Why do you need the middle man?  Why is the cost of healthcare so exorbitant that you can't afford to pay your bills without using the middle man?

The real problem with healthcare in the US and across the world is greed, that old crux of humanity that makes us act selfishly at the expense of others.  People don't become doctors because they genuinely want to heal the sick.  They become doctors because they want the large paycheck that comes with it.  Pharmaceutical companies make pills for pennies and charge hundreds of dollars for them in order to rake in billions in profits.  The healthcare industry is too busy profiting off the pain of others that they've forgotten they're supposed to be helping them.  Imagine a world where instead of doctors we had healers.  Imagine a world where healing was considered an honor, a noble profession that one took up because they wanted to help and not because they wanted a mansion.

In a world like that, where profit took a back seat, costs would be a lot lower.  There would still be a cost, but it would be a fair cost and not one over inflated to milk as much money from you as possible.  Remember the $12 aspirin?  What do you think the motivation behind that is?

Another aspect driving up costs are the status symbols associated with being a wealthy doctor.  Why do you need marble countertops and travertine floors in a doctor's office?  Why do you need giant flat screen tvs in every room?  Because if you're greedy enough to desire to be rich, you want to flaunt it and that means you need more money to pay for it all.  I would rather have linoleum floors and functioning equipment over travertine.   I want the money I'm paying to go to my care and not toward making the doctor look good. Plus eliminating unnecessary bells and whistles will bring costs down.

Another factor is that so many people are in such bad shape that they have to use the system no matter how bad it is.  If folks took better care of themselves, ate right and exercised, they wouldn't have all the health issues that keep them slaves to the industry.  Other than regular check ups and emergencies, they wouldn't use the system as much.  This puts the power in the hands of the patients because doctors can't be millionaires without patients to pay their salaries.  If they had to come to us, the competition could very well keep costs down. 

Perhaps the biggest problem facing us is the amount of apathy toward the problem.  People are afraid to shake up the status quo.  They fall victim to the industry's threats and shy away from anything that would hurt the industry's power in response.  As much as they complain, all the talk of death panels and what not keeps them from action.

And that is the problem with healthcare.  Greedy little bastards financially raping the sick and a populace that is too stupid to take care of themselves or fight back.

But if we could change it, if we could turn doctors into healers and remove the greed, then everyone could have healthcare when they needed it.  Once the costs were low, people wouldn't need insurance companies because they could afford to pay their bills on their own.

I'm told by those who hate Obamacare that we have the best healthcare system in the world and shouldn't mess with it.  What is the point of having the best healthcare in the world if no one can afford to use it?  Bringing costs down requires a radical change in thinking but it's a needed change and the only way to solve the healthcare problem.  Will Obamacare be that change?  No.  Because it misses the point.  We should be focussing on changing the people running the scam that is the healthcare industry and not on getting more people to use middle men to pay for it.

My low opinion of Syria

Syria is yet another backwards Middle Eastern country ruled by an evil dictatorship.  That appears to be the norm in that part of the world, but what do you expect when you allow religion to run your government?  But Assad, the evil power hungry tyrant that he is, may or may not have used chemical weapons on his own people and America, the world's savior, cannot tolerate that.

Here's the thing for me though.  Assad and his goons have been killing his detractors since they first began fighting for their freedom.  The rest of the world just gave the rebels some more guns and sat back and watched.  Suddenly chemical weapons come in the picture and we're like "Hey! That's not right!" and say we need to bomb them.  Why now?  Why not 2 years ago?  Does it matter how a massacre is carried out or that a massacre happens?

Let's be honest.  The US has never gone to war over something that didn't serve US interests and preventing chemical weapons from getting into the hands of their enemies is a very big interest.  It only took the possibility of Hussein having weapons to convince the world to attack Iraq.  We have incontrovertible proof that Syria has chemical weapons, but the rest of the world is fine not doing anything about that. So that is why America is beating the war drums now. Any lives they may save from Assad's tyrade is just a lucky happenstance.  The real goal is to protect the US from jihadists using chemical weapons on Americans.

But as much as I would like to see dangerous chemical weapons kept away from the crazy jihadists, I know that any US led military action in Syria is doomed to fail.  It will not stop the bad guys from getting the weapons.  It's a fact that a lot of the rebel fighters are affiliated with crazy jihadists.  It won't stop the war in Syria. There is no plan to remove Assad from power.  It WILL piss off the jihadists and increase anti west sentiment across the Middle East.   It WILL piss off Russia (and her tyrant in charge) into taking action against the US.  It WILL drag the US into another war it can't afford either financially or physically to fight.  It WILL cause tension and grief and wind up being as pointless as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So as noble as it may seem to want to stop the bloodshed and destroy the weapons, I can't support going to war in Syria.  It won't prevent innocents from dying and it won't serve the US well.

This shouldn't be America's fight.  The entire world should be dragging Assad out of office but they won't and why not? Because dictator Putin says no. Because it's in Russia's interest to keep Assad around.  Because Russia makes money off of Syria and making money is more important than stopping genocide.  The US can't fight this war alone and that is why they shouldn't. Russia needs to do the right thing, put the all mighty dollar aside and stop Assad from killing civilians. 

Sorry to the Syrians who are suffering.  Blame Russia.