Dawning Awareness......

This is the first blog in almost 4 years.  For those of you who have read me in the past, I decried what I saw as the slow and steady corruption of our American system.  I repeatedly, with hope and belief, saw an opportunity to 'turn it around'.  Today, not so much......

I am a patriotic American.  I believe in, and revere the Constitution and honor the long road we have traveled as an experiment in democracy for 241 years.  And so I am trying to find an accommodation for what we seem to have become as a republic.

I can’t find my way.  And that is mostly because I have become acutely aware that the country I thought I belonged to has a large group of citizens who are not educated, are not critical thinkers and who are afflicted with herd mentality.  Their values are not the same as mine.  I am a man of integrity and honesty.  I believe in telling the truth; of accepting facts in the pursuit of reason and intelligent decision making. 

That is not the way the citizens I am describing view their world.  These citizens simply don’t want to accept facts that are proven.  They are happy to accept hearsay falsehoods and facebook as the true source of the truth.  They do not have  inquisitive minds.  They are oblivious to the actual fact that they are rabidly supportive of a movement led by an anti-intellectual who has no interest in their needs.

All one has to do is watch the news reports of the ‘rallies’ being held and see the assortment of citizens who stand in endless lines to attend these gatherings where they feel like their anger is being justified and assuaged.  These are not intelligent people who read and consider actions and their consequences.  These are followers; sheep; lemmings following a pied piper who is rude, crass, and narcissistic.

The true tragedy is the ‘party they belong to’.  Witness a collection of purportedly intelligent people who unfortunately do not understand liberty and whose priorities, in this order, are: power, money, re-election, party, the people, and finally the country.  Democracy is not a concept they truly understand, and so they are ambivalently happy to see it trampled, desecrated, and ignored.

The current USA is not what I thought it was.  It is a country without purpose anymore.  It is being led by people whose mission is to acquire power and make as much money as they can no matter the damage to the republic, the world , the climate, the environment, consumer protection, health care, jobs, etc. etc. etc.

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But the reality is that it may be too late to redeem these citizens.  They have sacrificed their independence on the altar of expedience.  They are humanoids who have lost the ability to be human.  That is the tragedy of the United States of America in 2017.  I am afraid.

A Truly 'Sick' System

How many of you have read Stephen Brill's article in Time Magazine about what is going on in the healthcare industry?  It details how the hospital system in this country is bilking the American people.  Brill chronicles several patient stories and reports in great detail how hospitals, while claiming to be non-profit, gouge us all to death-literally- with exorbitant prices for every one of their services and supplies.

As I am sure most of you know, insurance, whether it is Medicare or private insurance negotiate rates with hospitals because they actually know what things cost.  Unfortunately, those of us with no insurance or little insurance are presented with bills for care that are so outrageously beyond a reasonable profit margin, that many of our citizens are forced into bankruptcy or forced to pay off bills for years that are unreasonable.

I would urge all of you to take the time to read this article carefully.  It will change the way you think about hospital care.

The picture that emerges from this study is one of an institutional medical system gone rogue.  Incredibly greedy people with stratospheric salaries are running a system with no real accountability.  Charges for everything from simple supplies like gauze pads, blankets, sheets to sophisticated instrumentation are anywhere from 10 to 500 times what they really cost.  Brill details it all and it takes your breath away.

The horror of all this is that there is no compassion for the sick in this story.  When you have to go to the hospital for anything, do you EVER ask what the charges are?  No, of course not.  You are at the hospital because you have injured yourself or your loved one is in an emergent condition with disease or injury.  Are you going to stop and ask what it costs when the surgeon says, " We need to take you to surgery right away to stop the bleeding!"

I don't think so.

So what we have here is a system that favors the well to do.  If you have insurance, you at least have some protection, although with limits set by insurance companies, in todays hospital world your charges can easily exceed the limits and you are on the hook for the balance.  If you have no insurance you are in debt for the rest of your life.  The poorest and least covered among us are paying huge amounts of money because they have no one to negotiate the rates, and the hospital system is brutal in it's pursuit of its profits.

My disgust with this situation is aimed at several groups.  First, the media.  How much have you heard about this problem since that particular issue of Time was released?  Except for one story, I have heard nothing.  This is a shameful national economic crisis and no one is saying anything about it.  Why not?   Probably because the hospital lobbyists are intimidating all our representatives in Congress with threats of withdrawal of support for their re-elections, or threats of withdrawal of consulting agreements or future employment opportunities.  People--sick people--are being fleeced and no one is advocating for them.  Where is our Fourth Estate?

Second, our Congress and Administration have failed to stop this outrage.  Why you may ask?  Do I really need to answer this point?

Third, the people running these systems have exorbitant salaries, most administrators and board member's pay exceeds six figures...that's right, over $1M.  Admittedly this is not an easy job, but where is their real oversight.   It is not hard to see the egregious nature of what their institutions are charging, so why don't they stop it?

The victims here are mostly powerless to stop this.  If you need the hospital, what is your alternative?....the healthcare system in a neighboring country??

This is a terribly depressing scenario.  Real change here will take some legislative muscle and as we know, there is only atrophy in that particular venue.

Smart Pills for America

I consider myself a pretty intelligent person, but for the life of me I don’t understand how it is possible for any intelligent person to think that by returning to policies that were instigated in 2000 by George Bush and with which we lived for 8 years; that gave us two wars (unpaid for, BTW); unequaled and unrestricted spending while reducing taxes and therefore reducing revenues to pay for everything; that brought the country to it’s economic knees by fostering an environment of non-regulation resulting in debt that is only now being fully realized;

will somehow be better than:

a reversal of the downward spiral in unemployment caused by those policies; a steady creation of jobs (albeit not as robust as we all would like); the salvaging of the automobile industry and the agreement by all major auto companies to increase average mileage to over 54mpg by 2025 and thereby reduce our dependence on foreign oil; the relentless pursuit of terrorists and the bringing to justice or killing of most of the bad guys; the passage of a health care law that will for the first time provide coverage for people with pre-existing conditions as well as create insurance options for 45 million people who currently aren’t insured under the old system; an administration that has reduced spending more than any of the last 50 years.

What am I missing?  Is the populace so misguided and susceptible to fallacious arguments and misrepresentations? 

Or are they just dumb people with no memory?

Sartre is Chuckling!

I am so sick of listening to all these politicians flap their lips and be without conscience when it comes to telling the truth.  It is so nakedly obvious that all of these people are pandering to whatever audience they speak to. 

What is missing from all the political debate is someone who actually can articulate what is wrong with our system and present concrete steps to fix things that are egregiously wrong.

What is also missing is that we as citizens have to admit to some of the things that are egregiously wrong and submit to solutions that are presented.

That takes a leader who can be compelling in his or her arguments, and persuasive to the American people.  They must have the personality to rally all of us to sacrifice and accept the reality of the things, that in our heart of hearts, we know are wrong with our system and our society.

In the entire of field of Republicans, there isn’t anyone like that.  The only two candidates who were even close were John Huntsman and Ron Paul.  Paul actually has a grip on what is wrong, but his solutions are too extreme.  Huntsman never displayed the charisma to lead.

So what we are left with are the people I referred to in the first paragraph of this essay.

Then there is Barak Obama.  Obama is the closest to my political orientation, but unfortunately he has been ineffective as a leader.  The simple fact is that he has been stymied at every turn by the minions of those whose mantra is ‘anything that Obama proposes needs to be crushed because it is Obama proposing it’.  Oh yeah, they also don’t like him because he is black.

There is no question that the man is an intelligent, capable potential President, but he is not the leader that is able to make all of us come together to accomplish what needs to be done to fix some of our worst problems.  He is ineffective.

The unfortunate truth is that if we elect him to a second term, he won’t be any more effective, because he just doesn’t know how to be.

So where does that leave us?

It means that on election day of this year, we have a Hobson’s Choice, instead of a path to solutions.  Unless……

Unless we all wake up and realize that we are the ones who elect our senators and representatives.  We must act to clean out the sludge that is gumming up all the works of our Congress.  Without real people who will grapple with the problems, in the spirit of compromise and rational actions, we are doomed.  We will forever be at the mercy of special interests and the legislators we elect who hold out their hands for the spoils of these interests in violation of the sacred trust we put in them to represent us.

And, we must look for a third party individual who can lead….someone who can make us understand that we must take action in all our best interests.  That person must speak in a way that inspires and persuades.  So far, I don’t see that person on the scene, but we can hope….

In the meantime, at least in Obama we have a humanist and not a Republican.  Now if only he could lead……

"Ain't Nothin Virtual about this Circle!"

"President Obama has said he will not accept contributions from lobbyists, but at least 15 of his biggest fund-raisers work in lobby shops and are unregistered. Meanwhile, the Republican candidates have taken in hundreds of thousands of dollars from lobbyists. And there are no limits on donations to unregulated “super PACs”.

Congress has shown little interest in tightening these requirements, in part because lawmakers don’t want to close off a lucrative career in lobbying after they leave office. More than 400 former lawmakers have become lobbyists or consultants in the last decade.

Eric Lichtblau reported in The Times on Sunday that former Representative William Delahunt, a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, is making $15,000 a month lobbying for a wind energy project for which he personally earmarked $1.7 million while in Congress. Experts said they had never heard of a lawmaker benefiting so directly from one of his own earmarks. The practice of earmarking has largely been curbed, but the abuses of lobbying will continue to spread until Congress finally decides to act" 

I read this in the New York Times yesterday.  So let me get this straight----I pay my tax money and these bozos play with my money while they are in Congress.   Then they leave office with the hope and dream of continuing to receive my tax money in the form of fees for giving advice to the new legislators spending my tax dollars, who also have the hope one day of sucking fees from my tax money by giving advice to the next group of bozos in Congress who follow them.  This is an ‘industry’ that works at perpetuating its own existence using our tax dollars.  If they were terribly efficient and very productive, and truly governed with the country’s interests at heart, do you think we’d be in the position we are now?  This is corruption in it’s most pure form.  Election day is a chance for the average tax payer to take back control of our American Destiny.  Select wisely…..

A New American Revolution

The time has come for the emergence of a third party in this country, for no other reason than to save the Republic itself!

Surely there are enough people in this great land of ours who are not a party to the extremism on both sides of the aisle in Congress.  What we have now is a country paralyzed and divided artificially by the arch-conservatives on the right (Republicans and Tea Party imbeciles who are screaming for more and more budget cuts, repealing the health care law, not funding emergency agencies, pulling funding for middle and working class families, running from science and common sense and generally waving a political flag that has little basis in reality.) and some arch-progressives on the left (Democrats who won’t rest until we have the government doing everything but wiping our behinds, and who won’t bridge any chasm between a welfare state and what is really possible.)  Everyone else there is too concerned about their re-election and making sure they get a ‘recess’ every three weeks to focus on solving the staggering problems that need immediate and rational solutions.

There is stasis between these three groups who don’t represent the vast majority of sensible fair-minded Americans who understand that compromise must be found to solve the major problems that hinder our action and planning for a productive future in a changing world.  We are all out here scratching our heads and wondering where is the reality in our government.  Why are the emotional idiots in Congress who only think about their re-election posturing making decisions for all of us?  Watching the pronouncements by Republicans and Democrats about the nefarious motives of their adversaries is sickening.  None of them is thinking about the country---only themselves!

There is only one thing left to do…..we must elect all new congressmen and women who are rational; who don’t have vested interests and are not ‘bought and paid for’ by the various lobbyists and influence peddlers in Washington.  There needs to be a leader to spearhead this new movement—someone with some common sense who is not worried about a second term.  Someone who understands the founding principals of this democracy—that compromise, common sense and fair play are the best assets of a participatory democracy.  Let us reject the sniveling vitriolic, biased and basically stupid people who are power hungry and love to hear themselves speak.

We have a watershed year next year.  There is an election in November, which is the time we must do what many thought unthinkable and impossible.

  We must have an electoral revolution if we are to save ourselves from disaster. 

I urge all thinking people with at least one foot anchored in reality to start looking for people now who can carry the banner of a new party that wants to save America from the idiots.  Talk to your neighbors.  Talk to your friends.  Talk to anyone who will listen to reason and start formulating plans at a local level to seek out people who want to compromise, who understand that ALL citizens must participate and sacrifice.  We must cut wasteful expenses and find ways to increase our revenue by making everyone pay their fair share of the burden.

If you look at the field of potential people who currently hold the reins of power, or think they have the capacity to intelligently govern, there can only be despair in your  hearts. 

Rise up Real Americans!  Put on your thinking caps and actually think!

The Valley of the Shadow of Death

We have waited for this day with eagerness and trepidation, and now it is here.  We turn the car out of the Homewood Suites parking lot at 4:30am and head to the Duke University Hospital.  It is pitch black and there is not a car on the roads.  We want to be there before they take her to surgery at 5:15 to give her one last kiss before she goes into battle for her life.

On Friday my sister Paula was admitted to the hospital to 'embolize' her cancerous left kidney in preparation for its removal this morning.  The idea is to cut off the kidney's blood supply by blocking the renal artery so the tumor gets no blood.  After about 72 hours they will remove it and there will be much less blood loss we are told.  Unfortunately the tumor has grown into her main vein returning blood to the heart and they also must open her chest, put her on a heart lung bypass machine and remove all the tumor from her vena cava as well.  No small task, and we all are aware of the magnitude of the insult to her body that will happen today.

It doesn't seem possible that only 5 short weeks ago we got the phone call from Paula telling us she had this monster growing inside her.  Much has happened since then, with trips to Duke for consults and scheduling the surgery as well as trying to plan for Paula's recovery.

And now as we silently cover the few miles to the hospital in the darkness, I hear Cecily quietly asking for comfort and protection as we 'pass through the valley of the shadow of death'.  I always wondered about that phrase when I would hear the 23rd psalm as a child.  I couldn't imagine what that was like; I just heard the poetry of the words.  Today, I know.

Now we all are sitting in Paula's room at 5am.  She is dozing off and on.  The last several days have been difficult.  The embolization has caused her some real discomfort and pain since Friday.  The drugs have helped, but it was more than any of us expected. This is the quiet before the storm, and we are gathered around her watching her in the dark.  I step outside with Scott, her son, and we listen as the 6th floor slowly comes to life--people arriving and activity increasing as we stand there.   We look to the left and there is the orderly coming around the corner to take her down to the third floor.  We all stand in the hall while they disconnect her from the IV and monitors and wheel her out into the hall.  We follow behind the bed like some strange silent parade as we make our way to the elevator bank.  The silence is punctuated by the rhythmic sound of the unevenness of the wheels on the tile floors.  All five of us cram into the elevator with Paula and the orderly and we are smiling and trying to find the right words.  When we arrive on the third floor, the orderly tells us to sign in with the waiting room desk and we will be called into the Pre-op room when they have her situated and the preliminary IV is in.  At the desk, they give us one of those beepers with lights that you get at Carrabbas when you go out to eat and tell us that we will be buzzed when they are ready.  Looking to the right I see a waiting room that is over 100 yards long!  Easily the length of a football field!  Comfortable chairs are everywhere, and about a fourth of them are filled already with sleeping adults and children.  The surgical wing at Duke has 36 operating suites and 8 Cardiovascular suites!  The size of this operation is staggering!

Within 10 minutes our buzzer lights up and Ed, Jamie and Scott go in to see Paula.  Cecily and I stay in the waiting room.  We know our turn will come.  After about 15 minutes, Jamie and Scott emerge and Cecily and I go in.  In a bay about a third of the way down a wide hallway is my sister.  Her anesthesiologist introduces himself.  He is a very energetic young man named Jerricola who has already inserted an arterial monitoring line and is about to insert another IV for her anesthesia.  Paula looks so small in the bed.  In January she weighed close to 160 lbs and went on Weight Watchers.  Now she is 125 lbs.  The tumor has sucked so much of her life force from her already.  We can't wait for this thing to be out of her.

The time has come.....they are ready to take her in and one by one we all lean down and have a private moment with Paula.  I look into her eyes and see the fear that has consumed her for the last four weeks.  I smile, kiss her forehead and say, "Be brave, my sweet sister, God is with you--you will prevail!" (I will fear no  evil for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff will comfort me).  It all makes sense.

So now we are in the waiting room and they are removing the evil from her body.  We are all walking through the valley, and we pray for divine guidance for the surgeon's hands.