A week or so ago, I wrote about the grim future I see for the future of older single women in our society, and it seems to have struck a chord with a fair number of people. I’m glad, although the response has mostly been the equivalent of a Facebook sad face, as if people know this situation exists, and while it’s a total bummer, we shed a tear and move on. Nothing to be done about it. I also feel as though I underestimated the amount of shame that society heaps on those people who have little at the end of their lives. Undeserved shame, shame that cripples us from speaking up for ourselves. Americans say, all the time, “It’s my own fault,” and “I only have myself to blame.” Dammit! Dammit! It’s not about you at all! It’s not your fault! Respect yourself and the life you have lived. More challenging, respect other people’s lives. Don’t look down on anyone, because the world we live in is designed by powerful people who see us as their cattle.
I’d also like to say here, that in writing that post, I never meant to disrespect all the people who are not impoverished older women, but are suffering financially, or ignore the fact that our rampageous vampire capitalist economy is attacking most of us in various ways, because it is. Men are screwed, women are screwed. Children are screwed, elders are screwed. If you’re not screwing people out of their money, then you’re screwed, and even some of those doing the screwing are getting screwed too. If there is a demographic group in our society, banks and insurance companies have devised a way to part that group from their money. Let’s consider a few.
Student loans. The University of Minnesota’s tuition for the 2018-2019 academic year is over $13,000. We’re not talking Stanford or Yale here. This is the public, land grant university of the State of Minnesota. The school that exists to educate the young citizens of our state, for the betterment of our state. Multiply that times four, consider the fact that federal grants have been shrunk in recent years and are looking to be slashed even more. Banks are standing by smiling kindly as they offer to assist eighteen year olds, with their complete lack of financial cynicism, to sign away the coming decades of their lives to debt peonage. And student debt is the only kind of debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. So corporations and rich sleaze bags can wreak financial havoc and go to court and have their problems magically whisked away, so they can start over, but no matter what disasters may befall a student debtor, there is no escape.
We all know about health care. I could expound on the injustice and abuse of a society that is letting people die because they lack the money, but we all know it. It’s the great leveler in America. Everybody who’s not rich, is at risk of dying from illnesses that are treatable in other countries. Why don’t we all come together to demand change now? We are the ones who are walking around with untreated medical conditions. Not five years from now, but now. This year. The US is amazingly expedient when it comes to starting wars. So let’s demand from our elected representatives (not our leaders. They are not leaders. They’re supposed to do what we want them to do.) that we start a War on for-profit insurance companies and Big Pharma. Now. How about May 1, 2018 as the day we declare war on every institution that prevents us from being healthy? We can call it the War For Our Lives.
How often are you watching TV and one of those creepy commercials with old dudes like Fred Thompson start spinning a tale? “Grandma’s running out of money? We can help.” Then they explain to you that if Grandma has a house that’s paid off, you can get a reverse mortgage. Grandma’s got this great asset that’s gonna let her go on exotic vacations, make car payments, and even get money to give to the for-profit health care system. So Grandma can live in her house until it runs dry. And then they take her house. And here’s where it really pisses me off:
Rich people do not earn the money they flaunt in our faces. They inherit it. They transfer it to the next generation. Nowadays they don’t even pay estate taxes. They just hand their insufferable Trumpy offspring more money than most of us can imagine. People of modest means, however, like most of us, don’t inherit massive stock portfolios, private islands, houses and big fat bank accounts. Traditionally, there might be a little money in the bank at the end of a person’s life, and a paid off house. That paid off house was generally a piece of wealth that was handed down to the next generation, and the handing down of wealth in America is extremely important. It’s the difference between maintaining a middle class facade, helping your kid with college, or knowing that, when your parents die, besides the grief, there is nothing to help you or your children financially. Because we don’t really do it on our own. And banks have figured out how to strip old people of their last asset, incidentally sucking up the money that in the past, would have given a boost to the next generation. And it’s all legal.
Some people may say that Grandma and Grandpa earned the money for that house, and should do what they want with it, in true American individualism. And there’s the most incredibly successful piece of brainwashing in all of human history, the idea that each individual American owes nothing to anyone but him/herself. That we’re on our own. Maybe, if they please us, we’ll take care of our biological offspring, but beyond that it’s our duty to screw anyone on behalf of our glorious individual selves. We owe nothing to the common good, nothing to the Earth that sustains us, nothing to our neighbors. The culture and economic system that has designed our lifelong debt slavery has convinced us that we should behave as coldly and rapaciously as a Wall Street bank toward our fellow human beings. If we all lived self-sufficient lives on individual planets, individualistic greed would work. But we don’t, and it doesn’t.
The system is stacked against ordinary working people, and that stack is so high we can’t see the top of it. The future, designed by global banks, Wall Street and corrupt politicians, is terrifying. I understand how easy it is to let the distractions keep us from realizing how completely screwed we are. Being a fan, a sports fan, a movie fan, a music fan, or just someone who constantly follows celebrities as though those shiny people are their friends. America is the land of defiantly distracted fearful people, trying to convince themselves that all those things matter more than all of us being okay. Being woke in 2018 in America is a sad and terrifying existence.
What I would like to say to the woke, and the almost woke, in the face of everything designed to use us as cattle and discard the useless remains, is that we need to talk with each other.
Just talk with each other, not to each other. Talk and listen about real stuff, about your fears and about your hopes. Throw off that peculiarly American narcissism and listen with respect, as though you’re hearing your best friend’s fears. Don’t shame others and don’t feel shame. We all have a lot in common these days, a lot of fears and a lot of hope, in spite of everything being so terrifying. Approach each other with empathy, because when we let down our guard, we may find people to grow the circle of community around us. That makes us stronger, and it makes us a little safer. We can do it face to face, do it in social media, but find a few people who share your feelings about real stuff to add to your community. You will feel better.
When we feel better, let’s get even more people and talk about what we can do to fight against this massive global corporate trap that stops our world from being good. Alone it’s impossible. But when a lot of us, supporting each other and trusting each other, all come together to change the world, it can happen. Don’t heave a weary sigh and say there’s nothing to be done, even if you can’t see anything that can be done. Let that tiny spark of hope in you get a little air and fuel it with the hope of others in your community.
Planet Earth is a beautiful place, in spite of the psychopathic greed of our plutocrats. It’s the only place we’ve got, the only place we and our loved ones can live. There are so many good people around us. They’re stuck in the same trap that we are, insecure, feeling shame for everything that goes wrong in their lives, and rightfully anxious about the future. Humans are great problem solvers, when we decide to put our minds to something. Let’s talk.
Wake Up! 
Thank you.
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