BROKEN SYSTEM? BROKEN RECORD

BROKEN SYSTEM? BROKEN RECORD

It’s very, very old news. We hear it everyday. Yet we’re forced to confront it everyday, because it impacts us everyday. It doesn’t leave us alone. If it did, just periodically maybe we’d all be just a little more amenable to events around us.

But reality converges like a wolf onto a piece of meat. If it doesn’t bite us directly, it bites something non-vital which then gets infected. Most bites are just reminders of corruption gone wild. But the wolf itself has spread his seed, procreated, and has trained its offspring to attack the most hidden parts of the body politic.

As good capitalists, there are many in Washington, unbeknownst to most of us, who actually (passionately) applaud greed. They say it’s “good business” and every person’s right (in our system) to take as much as he can regardless of the consequences. He who ends the day with the most marbles “wins.” It’s that simple. That’s the game. They call it “rugged individualism,” “entrepreneurialism,” and “free enterprise.” Tomorrow is “someone else’s problem,” because the mission today is to simply make money.

Most of us would be shocked out of our minds to know how many of these people still live and breathe in public office – even in 2021, with climate change, COVID, massive starvation and homelessness everywhere, drug epidemics, joblessness, and so on. They simply, utterly, don”t care. And, for sure, they make excellent politicians because they can literally cheat, steal, and betray that day, and then sleep very well that night.

This was brought to light just recently by two events. First, like many, I’ve had to consider the new “Medicare Advantage” insurance plan. I contacted an “independent broker agent” on this matter who advises clients on a wide range of companies. The first thing he did was advise me on how much my current provider was “screwing me to the wall.” He didn’t recommend anyone (not his job), but he did make useful comparisons to other companies.

The second thing he brought to light was the fact that when I was 65 I failed to sign up for a “drug plan.” I responded saying that I “didn’t need” drugs when I was 65. He still said it was a “big mistake” and my previous insurance agent “should” have warned me. I asked why. He said that anyone who does not sign up (at 65) but decides to later on will be “penalized” monthly “for the rest of his life.” I asked for a reason. His answer was that “There is none. They do it simply because they can.”

He also said there was/is one way to avoid the penalty: To not sign up for a drug plan, ever. Which means to pay for all drugs I might need hereafter, out-of-pocket. Yes, I’d be paying possibly hundreds, even thousands, of dollars if I needed serious drugs – but “hey, you won’t be penalized anymore.” This is Uncle Sam’s deal.

Had I signed up at 65, it would have cost about $1 per month. Since I didn’t, the penalty has multiplied each year since then. It will now begin at $30 a month and will go up each year – “forever.” Again, it’s not because Uncle Sam needs it. It’s because “he can.”

Walk next door, and you’ll find my 24-year old neighbor who lost her mother last summer, then her brother just a couple months later, who is on disability with severe diabetes, and had part of her stomach removed for an additional illness. She pays $1000 a month for meds and isn’t allowed to sell her house (stuck with her mother’s mortgage), because if she does, Uncle Sam says “you’re making money, which means you no longer need disability insurance.” She’s living on a thread and is still grieving over the loss of her mother and brother. She has “no” money. This, again, is Uncle Sam’s deal.

Farther away yet, there’s the recent hoopla involving the Manchin family, specifically “Maserati Manchin” himself – so representative of those hardcore capitalists mentioned above. Joe Manchin is the Senator from West Virginia who is officially a “Democrat,” which says volumes about the phony differences between political parties. As a so-called Democrat, Mitch McConnell himself said, “We’d love to have you, Joe.”

Why? Because he (and one other “centrist” Democrat) pushed to cut the “Build Back Better Act” from $3.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion – while 68% of voters in his own state wanted the full plan. West Virginia is 50^th in the nation in infrastructure, 48^th in its economy, 47^th in healthcare, 45^th in education – but Number One in the highest drug overdose death rates. Twenty-percent of their children live in poverty, and 93% are eligible for child tax credit payments. The “Build Back” plan would have provided childcare for 94,000 kids, rental assistance to 83,000 residents, health insurance to 31,000 uninsured, and union jobs as part of the effort to meet climate targets.

But ‘ol Joe has been the poster-child of coal, mining, and the fossil fuel industry for a very long time. Just since refusing to endorse the “Build Back” act, a flood of contributions have come into his office from the Koch brothers, private billionaires, American Express, Goldman Sachs, Lockheed Martin, United Health Group, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and CNK (a natural gas company). – And just to make sure nothing could be done to change what happened, he opposed the “For the People Act,” which would have made significant changes to elections.

But what caught my eye most of all through all of this was the announcement by the so-called “progressive” Democrats (including the White House), saying they “tried” working with Manchin and negotiated “in good faith.” – That immediately triggered a red flag. “In good faith” is another one of those vacuous catchphrases designed to evade and deny accountability for failure. The meaning is as clear as mud.

What the hell does “in good faith” mean? It’s similar to when Obama tried working with Republicans “in hopes” they would compromise (if he compromised). Of course they stomped all over him, so naive and gullible was he. Or was he? Is/Was the White House really that stupid? – I think not. I think the Democrats and Republicans work jointly (complicitly) to maintain a corporate status quo that benefits only them and their “constituents.” They even depend on members of their own party to veto legislation they say they want, but really don’t. They knew Manchin’s record and what his response would be. “Good faith” presumes an incredibly “naive and gullible” trust in cooperative government, when in fact it’s code for a much deeper conspiracy – or as I said in my previous entry, “truth maintenance.”

In their own defense, they would say that West Virginia (a strong Trump state) elected who they wanted and simply sent their representative to Washington – legally. Everything was on the up-and-up. But the problem started way before that, out of sight, with the electoral process itself – which is why, again, Manchin opposed the “For the People Act.” Money and power install who they want at the very beginning of every election. We are “handed” an edited/trimmed-down spectrum of political views to vote on, and it’s why we always end up voting for the “lesser evil.”

Then there’s Manchin’s own daughter. Heather Manchin Bresch became CEO of a very powerful (Fortune 500) pharmaceutical company, called Mylan, in which she became a price-gouging profiteer. She also married a fossil fuel executive.

One of her first decisions as CEO was to take the EpiPen product, something that costs literally only a few dollars to make, and raised the cost 400%. In 2007 the price went up to $100, then up to $600. (In Cuba, by the way, where they have Universal Healthcare, an EpiPen costs $6). – Meanwhile, Joe Manchin’s own wife then lobbied for federal legislation to “require” schools to stock EpiPens. – Jack up the price, then force it onto everyone. That was Manchin’s plan.

In 2017 Mylan was fined $465 million for ripping off Medicaid. But Bresch herself made off with $37.6 million. The Bresch’s live in a $10 million house. – Such is the family of a US Senator.

Everyday I end up putting pieces like this together and formulate a bigger picture of where we live. I don’t intend to, but it comes to me by its momentum. There’s an old saying (a caveat actually) that says that if we knew just a fraction of what goes in Washington, Americans would mutiny and expatriate en masse. Or, there would be an insurrection the likes of which would make January 6^th look like a cake walk. – “Can’t allow too much democracy.” And they simply can’t allow people to become too informed. Citizens would actually demand fair representation. This is why they own (and pay) media to do “truth maintenance” for them.

Like I said in the top, this is not news I consciously want to pursue – ever. But it converges and devours like a ravenous beast. I can’t get away from it. It’s either right at my door, my neighbor’s door, or on the Six O’clock News. So, where does one go? What does one do to save himself from the wolf at the door?

There’s no changing it, so one’s only recourse is to leave it. And at this stage I would settle for just about anywhere in the northern hemisphere. Other governments are just as corrupt and consumed with greed, but at least they let you know it. They say, “This is the way it is, if you don’t like it, leave.” I respect that much. much more than a government that’s just as corrupt but goes to incredible lengths to lie about it. – As I’ve said many times, I’m not a good American. I don’t like it here.

I think about Joseph K being accused of “nothing,” who never knows what he’s charged with. Such is the state’s penalty for committing the offense of voicing an unpopular viewpoint. If it’s not the state, then it’s “good” Americans who take offense – always searching out scapegoats. And in this “gung-ho, All-American, uniformed, extremely right-wing, Christian, pro-John Wayne/Donald Trump, Q-Anon, gun-obsessed fucking nation, an unpopular opinion is met with more and more violence and intolerance. Violence is the ideological solution to dealing with the undesirable – “depopulating” societies to “save” them.

Evangelicals, law enforcement, and military unite no differently than how the Crown and Vatican united in the 12th^th century under the “Doctrine of the Two Swords” – to carry out their “killing for Christ.” Like today, the Church has a “third purpose” (to divide the rulers from the ruled).

Indeed, to do what Arnaud-Amalric, the Cistercian abbot appointed by Pope Innocent-III, did when leading the Albigensian Crusade (routing the Jews and pagans in Spain). When the abbot’s troops burned the city of Beziers in 1209 and made prisoners of its 15,000 inhabitants, they asked their commander how they were to distinguish between the “still faithful” and those deserving punishment. In what eventually became a twenty-first century doctrine of “mutual assured destruction,” he said, “Kill them all! God will recognize his own.”

Violence is violence, anyway you cut it. And it’s passed down most eagerly by the most rigid, intolerant, and self-righteous (i.e., religious). In 1209 it was called “killing for Christ.” Today it’s called killing to “save democracy” and the “American Way.” Meanwhile, Joseph K is showing up in more and more of us each day.

To which I have one recommendation (for everyone): Read up on the “Dunning-Kruger Effect.” In short: ignorance breeds certainty, and knowledge breeds more and more uncertainty. I’ll let you figure it out. It answers many questions and even offers a solution. Make it a New Year’s resolution.

© 2021 Richard Hiatt