I'd like some feedback on this rant I just composed.

[StellaBlue]

I know it's not news to most of you, but our government sucks. I came to this conclusion afresh this morning, at lunch, and this afternoon.



I am dealing with some health insurance bullshit at the moment. To quote the Bulldog, it's total BS! But you already knew that.

The thing that really got me going was when I was considering what to do when my temporary morning job runs out, and how much I have to make just to barely float along (which I am doing at the moment - not even paying my student loans! arggggh). Then I started thinking about if I can't make it on $12 an hour, with my tin apartment and cheap electricity and ability to walk to work and love for Ramen noodles, there is no way anyone could live on minimum wage. But you already knew that, too.

If you work 40 hours a week at minimum wage, you're going to be taking home something like almost 800 dollars a month. Scandalous. You couldn't live on that in a tent. Then there are, of course, all the fabulous services we get in this country, like, uh... uh... help me out here. I stand by my longtime statement, that goes like this: I am paying a mere 1.5% less per year in income tax than I did in the UK, where I got free healthcare (as a visitor), halfway decent public transportation, almost free (and academically superior) education for any children, a minimum 20 days paid vacation a year (even if you work at McDonald's), 6-9 months paid maternity leave, and neighbors who don't ever say things like "homosexuality is an abomination" or "George Bush is busy fighting the war on terra! TERRA!". What do you get here? Well... you get big refridgerators, good highways (they have those in Europe, too, but ours are a bit less congested, believe it or not), cheap gas (yes, it's cheap - comparably - I was paying about $7/American gallon when I was driving a diesel in the UK!), and a whole, whole bunch of bombs. All these perks are related, too (just in case you hadn't strung that all together yet, bless you). Oh, yeah, and you get Paris Hilton and Donald Trump and Toby Keith, too. U-S-A! U-S-A!

Point is, other countries, including European socialists paradises, have plenty of problems, and people there have plenty of legitimate complaints, too, sometimes more. But it continues to astound me how little people in this country are satisfied with, how happy they are to go on being totally unrepresented, to have issues that are absolutely central to their lives (healthcare, a living wage, family leave, tort reform) decided for them by the oligarchs. I guess most Americans don't realize we're the only industrialized country that doesn't provide some basic form of universal healthcare, and that we have the least legal-minimum holiday time...? Sure, we have a higher standard of living than any people ever to walk the earth. But it's nigh impossible to actually accrue any capital if you're starting out without any, at least in today's America. And you're especially fucked if you don't have a two-income household (which used to not be necessary, somehow!). I never thought I'd be scraping by like this at 27, hopeless and disillusioned completely, just desperately wanting to hold on to my tenuous grasp on self-sufficiency from payday to payday.

The thing is, the discrepancy between us worker bees and the people at the top is almost incomprehensible. Look at those guys on CSPAN, just look at them, you don't even have to listen to the inane shit that spews out of their thin-lipped, gorged-cheeked little faces. They have no clue. You'd think the Ken Lays and the Bush Crime Families and the Darth Cheneys could spare just 1% of their precious profits to allow the rest of us a little, tiny sense of security. Say, maybe, that if we have a medical problem, we aren't afraid we'll lose our house (if we're lucky enough to own one to being with).

I don't get the deal with Cheney, either, btw. How can you be so sickly, and have faced death down so many times (maybe he's immortal? he does spend an inordinate amount of daytime in an underground undisclosed location... I'm just saying...) go on thinking that the most important thing in the world, in life, is to make more money for his Halliburton pigpals? Hmm? I don't get it. He must have no soul. That's all I can figure. And I don't believe in 'em to begin with. I mean, what is he thinking, everytime he has those heart palpitations, and he has to press his little button to call his team of 20 traveling heart specialists? "Oh... no... must... increase... profit... share... for... Monsanto... must... must... no, I'm... not... ready... to go, Lord". Well, actually... we are a country that has books like this one for sale at stores that won't carry music albums containing curse words:



And who are all the people who live in the hideous McMansions in Round Rock and Plano - tell me, I beg you. I figure 99% of them are mortgaged to the hilt, like that guy in the commercial, riding his fancy lawnmower, "I'm in debt up to my eyeballs." He's average, I figure. People run the treadmill, buy the shittily-constructed house with plywood on three sides, and an SUV, and the wife gets her acrylic nails done every week for $30 a pop, and the little girls are fake cheerleaders who never actually cheer on any actual sports. And what is up with the 110% mortgages?! Hello?! That should be illegal. And we ought to be able to declare bankruptcy and include credit card debt.

It's time for these fuckers to be taken out. But, like they figured it, I'm too tired. (Btw, agent Mike, if Pat Robertson can say "take them out" and mean something other than assassination, I certainly can. FUCK YOU!)

Right now, I think it's time to listen to some John Lennon, or I'm gonna go crazy. Instant Karma and Ramen; my own private paradise.



That's all.

[Arkham House]

1. "Who Will Bell the Cat"?

*How* does all this crap change? I honestly dunno...I've been waiting since 1980 for the American people to react against all this garbage. I'm wondering now if I'm waiting in vain...maybe the pendulum *isn't* going to swing back again. I know one thing--the Dems are almost as bad as the Repubs. They just don't get it, to use a phrase I hate...they're part of the problem, with few exceptions. I think the best we can do for now is try to get thru it all the best we can, and tentatively try to build oases in the desert. One nice thing about the Internet is that it makes the building of oases easier...like us, at DU... Just try and hang in there, SB, in the meantime...

[xmas74]

2. Try making it on $7 an hour

while raising a kid and not qualifying for aid.

The only thing I could do was move back in w/ my parents and I'm almost 32.

[mdmc]

4. hang in there

:hug:

[GOPisEvil]

3. I used to think Republicans wanted to go back to the 1950s. I was wrong.

What they really want to go back to is the time before Taft-Hartley when corporations ran amok and workers got the shaft. Sadly, I think they've pretty much made it.

If you come to Keep Austin Blue on Wednesday, I will buy you the drink of your choice. :beer:

[BlueJazz]

5. I hear ya....and I understand. I have several friends in Europe and..

..whenever they visit, I get to hear phrases like:
"Dear God..I must have seen 30 homeless people today" (I tell them: Then you saw about 1 percent of the homeless in this town)...they're Appalled.

and:

Why do Americans put up with all this "No Health-care" business?
(because they are stupid enough to believe the crap put out by the insurance industry)

and Why are your rents so high?

Greed..Greed...Greed.

[Deja Q]

6. My sig line sums my opinion up.

Not the pic. The text beneath it.