U.S. Politics

docsilence said:
Yeah. I actually did kind of a world tour of religions in college because I'd fully rejected religion as a kid but the school I went to required a couple of credits in religious studies so I was like fuck it, let's learn about how EVERYBODY is fucked up. And at the end of the day, almost all religions are saying "don't be a dick," and yet in almost every case, humans weaponize the organization of a religion to be absolute dickheads to other people. It's such a strange aspect of humanity, this desire to believe in something and then completely reject the things that tell you not to be a piece of filth. I think we're all very aware that modern Christians would stick Jesus in a hole in Venezuela and let him die of dysentery if he got in front of a podium and quoted himself. Of course the same people probably assassinate Ben Franklin too for quoting the declaration of independence.

I think a lot of people are monsters and just need an excuse to peel off the veneer of civility. Lately I feel like more people are monsters than not.
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I was born an atheist and that's never changed for a single second of my entire life. But I was raised among tons of Protestants and Irish Catholics (Boston, as some may recall). And I spent my early teenage years (13-16) in deeply religious bible belt Florida. It was, at times, unpleasant. So I spent probably from 13-22 really heavily invested in researching and understanding religion because it was something that had impacted my life a lot despite not being something I ever took seriously myself. By 15, I could quote the Bible better than a lot of the local preachers/pastors, and understood those quotes better as well.

I don't know if I came away with the same interpretation as you did, though. And that's, of course, the core, prime problem with religion; that you can walk away with interpretations at all.
That being said, I think most religions are actually pretty fucking terrible on their face, and just use common social norms and evolved behaviours to cloak how horrible they are. You can't say "treat your neighbor as yourself" in the same book where you give a detailed description of the correct way to treat your slaves.

Codified oppression and hatred is still such even if you throw in 'oh, and feed the hungry,' because that's in vogue at the time. In fact, I'd argue the Bible as a whole says 'don't be a dick' a LOT less than it says 'here's the best ways to be the worst kind of dick if you feel like you wanna be.' After all, every Westboro-style asshole is quoting the fucking Bible. They're not LYING about what's in it. Most of the time.

Wanna blow a Christian's mind, though? Tell them that at no point in the 'historical record' the Bible gives, does Jesus suggest that he IS God. If they disagree, tell them to name the passage. John 8:58 is all they can ever come up with, and that has different connotations that even legitimate theologians are still arguing over almost 2000 years later.
 
Makes you wonder if every religious text was written in much the same way every piece of legislation is written. All men are created equal (except those guys, we own those guys, they're a percentage human). Kinda like humans are just forever pulled toward the toilet drain of evil.

How's the saying go? A cynic is just an idealist who figured out how people truly are? I mean, we might be able find a few good inviduals here and there, but fuck, man. We're vicious old monkeys. Even on a micro level the number of petty cruelties you'll see in a single day makes me think we should just spin this rock into the sun.
 
Really dark day for a lot of people I know. Just an overall unshakable feeling of impending doom. They struggled to afford doctor's visits and medications as-is. And many of them are great, wonderful, strong people, but who were already at their wit's end and were sort of hinting at ending things- or at least stopping their fight- if things got any worse. As messed up as it may be to say, I really am so scared and so nervous to see how many of them are still here this time next year, and what condition they're in. I can only hope it'll be as many of them as possible, but that's the thing that just makes me sick- not that anyone deserves to die, per se (I'll keep my mouth shut on that), but the people who are most likely to die from actions like this are the good ones, the ones who already suffer so much as-is. And that's one of those painful realities that I just can never seem to accept.
 
With all this talk of bad people, I wanted to offer another point of view. The vast majority of people vascillate between good and bad actions throughout the day, much less their lives. That said, Trump's malignant narcicissm puts him squarely in the bad category.
 
I just saw someone say "I miss the person I was before Trump" and man... that hits. I've always been cynical and suspicious of the world, but the books I wrote in 2014 got labeled hopepunk. I thought we lived in a shitty world worth saving.

I mean, the most optimistic person I know called me in January and said "I'm sorry I ever gave you a hard time about being cynical. You were always right all along and I"m a fool." But I never wanted to be right. I wanted hope. I wanted to go to my grave wrong. It's been ten years of the growing bloodstain of human misery just growing across the carpet though.

Speaking of: yes, it has been confirmed that the Social Security Administration sent out an email tonight lying to citizens about a tax break for SS. We're in Nazi Germany propaganda machine territory now. All the worst people are in charge of everything.
 
Sometimes I just need to take a quick reality check break, and who better to do that with than the late, great Carl Sagan. Man I wish we had leaders who could critically think the way he did. A great loss to modern society, but at least his wisdom lives on in different forms of media. I like this version because of the added music and edited spacing of the sentences. Gives it a bit more of a meditative feel:

 
Damien said:
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe the new budget puts ICE at around 45 billion dollars. That would put them, in the list of military budgets by country, somewhere around number 10-12. Still absolutely fucking appalling.

ICE essentially has the budget to beat Spain in a war. Totally normal.

Also, wouldn't it be a world to live in if Christians just did things that Christ said to do.
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Completely possible I was quoting someone that was playing with the numbers a bit, although it seemed like a credible source. There's a lot of comparisons and equivalencies floating around, like the budget is greater than the U.S. Marines and it could solve world hunger for the next four years.
 
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docsilence said:
But I never wanted to be right. I wanted hope. I wanted to go to my grave wrong.
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So very much yes to this.

I desperately wanted to be the curmudgeonly goth, shaking my fist at the failings of society, while younger folks chuckle at my antics and perhaps say to themselves “ahh, he’s from a different time when things weren’t as good as they are now, give him some grace”.
But no: I get to be fucking Cassandra in a world where barely anyone knows what “Cassandra” is in reference to anymore. It’s feels awful to get on the “I told you so” training, but: I motherfucking told you so.

Ehh, fuck. It’s the Fourth of July, and I am finding myself getting angry at anyone celebrating, and especially at the folks going “I’m going to celebrate the GOOD of America for today, even though times are tough.”

THERE IS NO “GOOD” TO CELEBRATE.

Stop participating in your own gaslighting.
 
Back in 2009, I was living in Wisconsin. I had just come off of my nursing "breakdown" and my girlfriend at the time supported me going back to school for illustration.

(When I had graduated high school, I was told to get a real degree for a real job if I was to have any family backing, so I opted for journalism. Then 9/11 happened a year later and I felt it was my duty, yadda yadda, then nursing after, again in the pursuit of "real adult job in demand").

So I had been back in school for a year when I developed a pain in my ear.

VA wouldn't/couldn't see me.

Civilian hospital wouldn't/couldn't take it seriously and also didn't like the student insurance I was on.

A day after this I went to the free clinic. It was a long wait. I finally got up front and they told me I was not poor enough to go. Specifically, I was told I needed to be on food stamps to be qualified. So they wouldn't see me.

But the front desk woman did take pity and she gave me an address and said there was a dude that would take a look at me for cash.

I went. I was in pain.

She sent me to a veterinary clinic. I had to go to the back alley and come in through the back door, and then the vet sat me on his table, and did everything a base doctor would do with the ear. Scoped it. Diagnosed it.

Ear infection due to wax. First and only time in my life. He sucked it out, gave me meds from his store, and also let me keep a syringe so I could flush myself in the future.

$40 cash.

And that's how I, a US Army veteran and American citizen, went to the back alley of an animal doctor because that was the best the system could come up with.

I'm not even mad about it. I like mentioning it to Canadians now, because to this day, there are still some who think Obama copy pasted the Canadian Health System and everyone benefits in the US. Because no one pays attention no matter where they are.
 
When I was living in Ireland I really only knew doctors and nurses, and when I'd describe the American healthcare system they'd be FUCKING APPALLED. "So if someone doesn't have the right insurance, you just let them die?"
"Oh not legally, but you can ignore someone long enough til they die and it's the patient's fault."

Also talking with my mother this morning reminiscing the death of her brother two years ago. "We haven't talked about it much, but the local hospital wouldn't accept his insurance and so he went to an underfunded VA hospital and they butchered him. He lost both legs because of a botched surgery and then was so despondent he did everything he could to let himself die for the two years after that."

Great fucking country we have here.

But on a (minutely) brighter note, I went to the least patriotic cookout ever, just an excuse to have a few beers with folks we don't see much, and the last few Trump holdouts I know said stuff like "can I admit I was wrong? I know I was wrong and this motherfucker fucked everyone." One guy even said his entire work team, who were all deeply MAGA, are ragingly pissed and feeling like they got lied to. It's too little too late, of course, but at least they have the self-awareness to say they regret it. It won't fix anything, but I just wanted to know if they were still rabidly MAGA and it was surreal to hear them change their toon. And several relatives who are not usually politically active were asking me to help them understand how much damage this bill will cause.
 
docsilence said:
When I was living in Ireland I really only knew doctors and nurses, and when I'd describe the American healthcare system they'd be FUCKING APPALLED. "So if someone doesn't have the right insurance, you just let them die?"
"Oh not legally, but you can ignore someone long enough til they die and it's the patient's fault."

Also talking with my mother this morning reminiscing the death of her brother two years ago. "We haven't talked about it much, but the local hospital wouldn't accept his insurance and so he went to an underfunded VA hospital and they butchered him. He lost both legs because of a botched surgery and then was so despondent he did everything he could to let himself die for the two years after that."

Great fucking country we have here.

But on a (minutely) brighter note, I went to the least patriotic cookout ever, just an excuse to have a few beers with folks we don't see much, and the last few Trump holdouts I know said stuff like "can I admit I was wrong? I know I was wrong and this motherfucker fucked everyone." One guy even said his entire work team, who were all deeply MAGA, are ragingly pissed and feeling like they got lied to. It's too little too late, of course, but at least they have the self-awareness to say they regret it. It won't fix anything, but I just wanted to know if they were still rabidly MAGA and it was surreal to hear them change their toon. And several relatives who are not usually politically active were asking me to help them understand how much damage this bill will cause.
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Those kinds of stories are what non-Americans hear and think of what could be if our systems aren't funded properly. Here in Canada it is less likely that someone will go bankrupt, or have to choose what to save on their body because of our system. However it isn't a perfect system and there are things that aren't covered and can cost people their homes still. Again though that is less common than it seems in the US.

Saw this mentioned on the WOJM podcast (GI Joe podcast):

https://www.gofundme.com/f/please-help-my-husband-jamie-save-his-foot

It is terrible to think that an insurance company has decided it is better to amputate a person's foot after 8 years, rather than pay for the surgery that will apparently save it. So another family has to go the gofundme route to afford care.
 
canprime said:
Those kinds of stories are what non-Americans hear and think of what could be if our systems aren't funded properly. Here in Canada it is less likely that someone will go bankrupt, or have to choose what to save on their body because of our system. However it isn't a perfect system and there are things that aren't covered and can cost people their homes still. Again though that is less common than it seems in the US.

Saw this mentioned on the WOJM podcast (GI Joe podcast):

https://www.gofundme.com/f/please-help-my-husband-jamie-save-his-foot

It is terrible to think that an insurance company has decided it is better to amputate a person's foot after 8 years, rather than pay for the surgery that will apparently save it. So another family has to go the gofundme route to afford care.
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Yeah. Nobody's perfect but nothing, NOTHING makes me specifically angry the way America has turned crowdfunding into supplemental health insurance. And they learn nothing. A health insurance CEO is assassinated and receives not just zero sympathy but people on Linked In, BOOTLICKER CENTRAL, telling horror stories about lack of coverage where normally they'd be saying thoughts and prayers.

I can't remember the exact stats but basically the average American will die penniless now because at end of life you WILL get sick, and our system WILL bleed you dry before you die. I have a provision in my advance directive that I do not want my family spending money on me to keep me alive if I'm ever incapacitated and insurance won't cover it. They'll need the money more than I will, just let me die in dignity. When I put it in there, the lawyer jokingly said "but it's not about the money, right?" The lawyer had a yacht. I said in America everything is about the money. Put the fucking clause in. I'm worth more dead.

Ironically when I was in Ireland telling all these horror stories, my partner at the time, a public health physician, was working on a program to get BETTER COVERAGE for seniors. And you could see people who sort of wanted to push back on it feeling visible shame at not wanting to agree. Here? Fuck it, take the foot, it's cheaper.
 
docsilence said:
But on a (minutely) brighter note, I went to the least patriotic cookout ever, just an excuse to have a few beers with folks we don't see much, and the last few Trump holdouts I know said stuff like "can I admit I was wrong? I know I was wrong and this motherfucker fucked everyone." One guy even said his entire work team, who were all deeply MAGA, are ragingly pissed and feeling like they got lied to. It's too little too late, of course, but at least they have the self-awareness to say they regret it. It won't fix anything, but I just wanted to know if they were still rabidly MAGA and it was surreal to hear them change their toon. And several relatives who are not usually politically active were asking me to help them understand how much damage this bill will cause.
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The problem is, not only is this too little too late, but it also only might mean anything, at all, if they STOP VOTING REPUBLICAN. Which they won't. They'll talk about their regrets. And they'll whine about being lied to and feeling like things are happening that they don't want to happen. And next election they'll vote Republican again. Because that's just what they do. And the Democratic party is too much of a worthless, corrupt boogeyman for them to ever consider it.
I mean sure.. the Republican party murdered my entire family and sent my neighbors to a foreign torture prison without even whispering the words 'due process' - but Democrats want to let women have abortions so.... sorry, Juan, it's to the concentration camp you go while I complain about how nothing I vote for ever makes my life better even though I never, ever vote differently.
 
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