We Are All In This Together?

Weeks of being home forces us to find ways to pass the time.  My wife now works from home, so she has business hours five days a week.  Both my sons are in school, one in college and one in middle school -they are given daily work and have various online activities.  For them, the ability to just hang out is moderated by their daily activities.  Free time is still sweet to them, it’s a break from doing work.  My situation is very different.  My business is home-based but all my events have been cancelled for the foreseeable future.  I do what I can from home, I constantly am in contact with potential customers and retailers looking to make sales.  It’s not easy in the reality of a socially distant world.

I find myself watching TV, YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.  With the amazing variety you would think this would be a wonderful way to pass time.  Instead I feel like a victim of a campaign to brainwash me into thinking that we in society are all in this pandemic together.   In this new reality, first responders are heroes and those who fail to follow social distancing protocols are bad.  Every news station tells citizens of the importance of staying home and wearing a mask, and that “We are all in this together!” I want to know: Since when have we been anything together?

The world has moved towards a capitalistic system where resources are of prime focus, and the plight of individuals are for local areas and regions.  Capitalism doesn’t care about winners and losers, it just wants to utilize resources to produce goods and services to create wealth.   There is a hidden fact about this system - it’s fixed! Those who control the wealth, control society’s resources, politics, and economics.  If we truly were in this together, it would be a communist government of the people, not a representation republic where money buys influence. 

If we were in this together, then food wouldn’t be wasted.  How is it possible we have so much food waste but have millions of individuals who are food insecure?  How is it that we have whole cities and communities with empty houses and buildings and in other places have homeless and overcrowding?  It sounds like we aren’t in this together, it seems like we serve those who control society.  If GM fails, someone else will come in and buy it, for cheap, and there will be many buyers.  The wealthy will lose their capital stake in the company. The workers, who are essential for the business, will be kept by the new owners. In a massive economic downturn, it’s the very rich that take the biggest hit. 

What are we in together? We only know capitalism, no other system has been thought to transform society faster, but there is a massive cost to that progress.  Poverty, disease, misery, are all a byproduct of wealth, it’s the other side of those who win and many must lose. Add a bloated, wasteful government and citizens are given little chance to effectively navigate through the impossible business landscape to become successful and accumulate wealth.  Then this pandemic happened and millions of people lost their jobs in a few short weeks.  The world was told to close and it did, mostly. 

So many PSAs tell us that we are all in this together. Yes, we are all in “THIS” together, but a good percentage of the wealthy NYers left the city to the Hamptons, upstate, and other luxuries that only the affluent have.  The other folk, the ones we are in it together with, are required to socially distance themselves from others and stay home.  Not so easy in a fully occupied apartment building, where most have no balconies or free space and only a few small rooms where whole families must live.  The parks, the buses, the sidewalks, are these folks’ place to be. Take them away from the people of Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx, or any city that has high population density, and you have a created a perfect method of passing a virus.

The Coronavirus has revealed the ugly truth of Capitalism: few win, most lose!   Now, the foundations of the financial system are ready to break, the illusion of money is being shown, and that the US government can keep printing money, but can that feed people!  It was the wisdom of our government and financial system to allow China to manufacture goods vital to daily life in America.  With it’s flood of cheap goods, it decimated the manufacturing base that is essential to the safety of any nation.  The gig economy that seemed to be a boom for many has turned into a death sentence for millions.  The secret of the gig economy is that little skill is needed to accomplish the task.  This allowed easy entry to millions of workers looking to make more in their free time.  Now, these workers are left out in the cold, no $1200 dollar stimulus checks for them, no health insurance, and the rent is still due. 

Are we still in this together? No! The wealthy control the media and they are on full attack mode.  Stay at home… while the rich enjoy life.  The poor of the world are dying, the unhealthy of the world are dying, the rich folk, not so much.  What would it look like if we were all in this together? Governor Cuomo said it best, “Now is the time to change things.  We NYers must move to a more self-sufficient way of living.  Now is the perfect time for change, but we must do it together for everyone!”

THC, SEX, & FIREWORKS!

Great title huh? Well, this blog is not covering those subjects.  It’s July 2019, the sultry summer is here, and somehow, we still haven’t legalized or decriminalized cannabis in NY yet.  The state of NY and the Federal Government keeps spending our money, while giving citizens less each year.  I have to find ways to save money each day to stay on our incredibly tight household budget, and then read about multi-million dollar airshows and super expensive firework displays.  This confuses me, I thought the country and the state was running a budget deficit? How do they have all this money to spend on a party, but none to improve trains, planes, and roads?

I’ve smoked ganja my whole adult life, and learning how to budget your money is essential to be an every day smoker.  I’ve had to give up vacations, eating take out, and not going out as much.  I found ways to live cheaply to keep my cannabis budget in the “green!”  Friends who were non-smokers would drop over a hundred buck just to go out to a local bar.  I would have a few drinks and go outside to smoke, too.  Yes, there were months where money was tight, but I always found a way to have a bit of ganja around for a few bongs here or there. 

My car was always a cheaper model and one that was inexpensive to own.  To spend my whole income for a car or an apartment never made sense, I had my priorities.  Most importantly, I would never steal or con anyone for pot or money, instead I made a deal that benefited both buyer and seller.  I believed and still believe that all cannabis enthusiasts are brothers/sisters  and should always be treated with respect.  I always remember not to be a Bogart!

Isn’t NY State and the Federal Government bogarting the joint? They smoke as much as they want and give you the leftovers! The decisions are made based on greed, and the concept of the “Kitchen Table” issues are hyped, then forgotten.  On most of the nation’s holidays politicians made speeches thanking the troops, while they are treated with disrespect the rest of the year and Vets have to fight for medical coverage they have already earned!  All of us stoners know, if you want money for weed, you have to save it from somewhere else!  The idea of stealing weed or money from others is just so colossally uncool, it’s BOGUS!

The idea of change can only occur when we know how much money is being spent and then to be vocal about future budgets.  In government, they budget first, then break that budget to borrow more, then pretend they have more money until it’s time to fix the roads.  Then the folks of New York and America are charged a second time for something that they have paid taxes on already.  Maybe that’s why legalization has failed: the only honest sellers of cannabis are the “Illegal” dealers.  The new breed of mega-corporations courting the cannabis industry and quietly guiding legislation with their dark money, are the ones controlling the process in the Eastern United States and the reason legalization is taking so long. 

Are we allowed to question capitalism now?

Is Society Getting Sicker With Our Health Care System?

Capitalism is designed to maximize resources and create the greatest amount of wealth for the most people.  It’s very clear, capitalism is working for less people each year.  Each time we allow the free market model to affect our sacred needs (food, health, education, and shelter) the worse the outcomes seem to be.  If the model was working, America would be the healthiest, best educated, best environment, and the place with the most freedom.  The results unfortunately don’t show this. As America gets richer, its citizens gets poorer and sicker.

Let’s be clear, today’s capitalism isn’t controlled by Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand.”  The markets, I dare say, the world politics, are controlled by mega-corporations and billionaires.  Most markets are controlled by media perception (media is controlled by corporate conglomerates) and by policies enacted by politicians on the take from big money.  There is no REAL capitalism anymore, anyone who tells you that has something to sell!

If you are lucky, though most are not, you will find a healthcare professional with strong values who takes pride in serving their patients.  These unique individuals follow their patients' health and manage all healthcare activities.  This point person is exceptionally important as you get older. The idea of a quick fix is popular in medicine today, and giving a person short term relief is more profitable than managing a long term condition.  Each specialist has their own set of medications that aid them in helping people, but many of these drugs don’t play well together, and without a single individual responsible for your health, you might end up taking medication with conflicting effects or even dangerous consequences.

I know educated people who have died from fatal drug interactions.  When did staying healthy get so hard? The internet age ferried in a vast wealth of data, but unfortunately, not all data is accurate.  The misinformation doesn’t belong to any single group - college educated to high school, all races, no one is safe!  So what do you do? Use the Mirror Test!

When you look in the mirror, how do you look?  Evaluate yourself impartially, see what you are.  Are you carrying too much weight?  Is your complexion good?  Do you look healthy?  Are you happy, sad, manic, driven, what is it that you love to do?  We must acccept that we are our worst enemy, and if we can learn to “stop harming” ourselves, we as individuals can start being healthy.  Being healthy is a state of mind,  not just a list of eating habits and exercise.  A healthy person is healthy in both body and mind.  There can be no external health without internal peace. 

Therefore, no healthcare system can make you healthy!  A good healthcare system helps you maintain your health, but it can’t do it for you.  Keep in mind, your health is personal, but to a insurance system, you are just a customer.  Their job is to make a profit for the company by keeping costs low, accept that, and you will understand how to navigate the American Healthcare CON!  Fact: Insurance companies hate old people, they are considered bad business.  It benefits healthcare companies for individuals to have lower cost then higher, so young, healthy, rich customers are good business.  Then, it’s valuable to have individuals spend a great deal on pharmaceuticals - they have high profit margins, so you see the stunning increase in prescriptions for drugs that help you feel good again.

The healthcare industry is making their customers dependent on the service, so they must spend.  Americans pay more than any other country and healthcare results are in the low 20’s worldwide.  Maybe the problem is the name, if we called it the “Sickness Management System” there would be no mistaking what it was designed for.  Life in 2019 is toxic, and the services we have grown to need have been taken over by for-profit industries that give a poor quality product in return.  Truth be told, with all our advancements, we should be healthier and happier than any other time in history.  That is opposite of the current trajectory of human progress.  The last 50 years, my lifetime, has been a disappointing blip in the steady progress of human thought and development.  WE MUST CHANGE OR BECOME EXTINCT!