Thank You, Amanda. Thank You!

I love Burts Bees and Tom’s. I hav not yet tried Avalon. We avoid flouride. Every time I take Shea to the dentist they are amazed at her perfect teeth. The same with mine. I have had three fillings in my entire life. And I suspect at least one of them was notreally necessary. I do not allow the dentist to do the flouride treatment on us. We stay away from the laurel sulfate classes 9in soaps. Those things and my diet are the difference between being bedridden or not. I take a third of the painkiller I use to. As much pain as I live with now I do not know how I survived it before I learned this stuff. Most people not only do not know why they feel bad they do not even know that they do feel bad. LOL. I am always pointing out to someone who thinks they are the epitome of health their cough, sniffle or lack of energy. They just blow it off as normal. What a shame that people have learned to settle for so much less than God intended. Americans definately need to demand accountability, of themselves, their families, their communities and their government.

Hello again. What I meant when I said that we can control how we care for ourseves I was referring to what we choose to put on and in our bodies. By eating healthy I will get sick less requiring less medical attention. By staying away from products full of manmade chemicals (many makeups, deoderants, lotions, etc. )I expose myself to less toxins. I try to use only products with organic ingredients and no chemicals. I can do a lot with water. LOL. As far as the bigger things such as being able to work, insurance, disabilities those it is true we can not control. If I could I would be showing my art and photography in galleries, not here wishing I could. Those millions of jobs lost means many more people than there are jobs. I do not know how to solve the problem of companies outsourcing. Maybe it should be illegal. I do know that most of those outsourced products are of inferior quality. But what do those big corporations care. It’s all about the profits to them. Thank you for calling me on the carpet when my statements are less than clear. I am slowly learning how to be more suscint in my posts. 

In all fairness I must admitt that I have run across a few other people in here who also not knowing me felt mine was a life worth their hard work. To you all I am grateful.

Thank You, Amanda. You humble me. I am use to people hating me for having to depend upon their hard earned money for my and my granddaughter’s survival. It is nice to meet someone who not even knowing me considers me worth the effort.

Amanda, I’m sorry I was not clear. When I was talking about the money not being overheaded, embezzled or lost, I was refering to the money that is given directly from helper to needy. Often when ‘programs’, ‘charities’, ‘agencies’ are involved these are ways the money or service do not get to the needy. So I was saying that coourption runs just as rampant in the nonprofit sector as it does in the government and private sectors. As for taxing people for having the god fortune to have a job, I guess I just wish for an older, simplier way of life. A way of life where people worked together. Where the poor and less fortunate did not exist; because, everyone worked together. Noone was found without value. A person that could not farm or sew was valued for their story telling skills. A person that could not hunt was valued for their freely given wisdom. Those people were valued and the town shared with them for those values that they could give. That is to me the greatest country one could strive for. Maybe it is simple economics to pay more for a better car; but, I still do not get paying more for working harder or having more success with your work. I work my tail off just to survive. I have the calluses to show for it. But I am not taxed for that work. Is it fair to tax someone for being blessed enough to make more than his neighbor. So in actuallity we are taxing success. Surely there has to be a better way.  

Good for you!

You are right. Most of the money never gets to the people who really need it.Private contributions do do a lot when they get where they are supposed to. I fear though that much of it does not either. I myself invested in this laptop (I piggyback for internet service) in the desperate hopes of finding help. I am tapped out in my area and still in desperate need of a good sturdy pair of boots for me. Twisted feet do not allow for other closed toe shoes and chiropractic care which would correct it is not possible. My granddaughter is growing so fast, I am giving away her clothes ten times faster than I can replace them now. We need furniture and my car; well, by the grace of God still is hanging in there by a slim thread.  More than anything I had hoped to find a resource to help me get my art career off the ground. I may be disabled; but, I can still do my arts. I found hundreds of tousands of sites ‘taking donations’; but, have yet to find one single site where I can go and state my need(s) and be matched up with that resource. I have been searching for a year and half now. Meanwhile my situation worsens daily. I wonder: Where are all those billions going? I still can not wrap my head around how many ‘programs’ I am TOO poor to qualify for. America has a lot of ‘cleaning up’ to do. But for the rich, I am truely sorry. It is not fair to be penalized for the good fortune to obtain financial success.

I don’t blame you one bit for selling your business. I just wish you would not have had too. I am so poor I do not even qualify fo most ‘aides’. But that does not mean that the ‘better off’ should Have to contribute towards my survival. People should be abled to give because they want to. Not because they have too. Plus if they give it one on one themselves then they know it directly helped someone else. It is not overheaded or embezzled or ‘lost’. That is the way things should work. Taxing people for having the good fortune to have a job, or be successful is not right. I hope you sold it for enough to enjoy a well deserved vacation. I wish you all the best. 

You might be shocked to find out that many would gladly work to get that $5.00 a month to pay for their care. The problem is this: If they do nothing then the bill either freezes where it is or it accrues late payments and other penalties for a time till it reaches a predetermined point then it freezes. But if a person ‘does the right thing’ and sends in a small payment of $5.00 a month then  not only does the 5 just disappear, erasing nothing of their debt; but, they may be assessed even more late charges and penalties then if they did nothing. Also that $5.00 a month will freeze the account open so that they will forever be throwing that $5.00 a month away. Also since they are trying, they will then be called and harrassed on a continual basis (sometimes six or seven days a week) for that payment. (I went through this when after leaving my husband some medical bills came back on me. I offered the hospital five a month they refused to accept it. I could have sent it in anyway but it would have meant nothing. Once it went to collections I was thankfully able to pay five a month. That agency by the grace of God accepted that low a payment. It took me years; but, I paid the bill in full.) Some people have completely went of the deep end and some ended their lives because of that harrassment. Credit card companies can also be the same way. I myself went through that with JC Penny. I worked out a payment plan of $105.00 a month with them only after five months to find out that the bill had only reduced by about fifty dollars. I reluctantly quit paying. After a few months they froze the bill with me a thousand dollars more in the hole then when I first attempted to work with them. Someday I will be able to go and pay the nearly seven thousand off and be done with it. Had I kept paying monthly by the time I paid the bill off I would have paid tens of thousands. That is pure insanity.

That being done I have a daughter that runs to the ER every time she gets the sniffles. I’d like to wring her neck. My own Medicaid will not allow such a thing. I rarely ever go to the doctor for being ‘sick’. I prefer to save those medicaid funds for someones else more in need of that care. My daughter has no remorse for what she does. She throws away the bills without even opening them. And she can not be garnished because when she works she is paid cash. Someday her insensitivity will come back to haunt her. We are so different it is hard to beleive she is my daughter. I must have been a real jerk in my past life. LOL

Compassionate conservatism is an oxymoron. Pity conservatism would be the correct term.

 Pity sits and eats his 7 course meal and three plates of dessert while Starvation next to him wastes away a prescious life. When starvation asks for just a morsel Pity vehemently defends his "tough love" position of doing nothing for Starvation’s betterment. Pity justifies that by doing nothing Starvation will figure out how to pull herself up by her own non-existent bootstraps. Compassion shares her meal with Starvation. Then she provides Starvation with a good sturdy pair of boots with bootstraps and teaches her how to use them.

That being said I am very familiar with the yes we do public face, no we don’t client face of Medicaid and other healthcare helps in this country. It is the yes we do face that has the general population duped.  

I am behind on the news. What are all these other ‘programs’ that Obama is planning? My concern is that the poorest will be the first to pay. They always are. It is just that when these cuts are made;, unlike cuts in the middle and high class sectors, these cuts go untelevised and unreported. So except the poor noone knows. And when they try to tell others noone is willing to listen. We have too many homeless and nearly homeless veterans now. We have too many single mothers whose only crime was choosing Welfare to be able to leave an abusive partner choosing between food, housing, clothing, shoes, school supplies or hygeine products. We have too many tent cities. So what is next on the agenda? We have too many poor. And everyday more and more middle class are joining those ranks. Maybe it is tme to start over from scratch. We have far more people than we do jobs. There is a way to change that, though it would mean rewritting our whole economic structure. Maybe it is now well worth it to try.  Only a small percentage of our population is truely healthy. And that small percent because of their life styles DO NOT need health care coverage. We need to learn from them. We can not easily control what insurance companies charge for their policies; but, we can control how we care or ourselves. At the rate this country is going the middle income are slowly ceasing to exist. If that happens then what is it that makes us different from other ‘Third World countries’? And if we become once again a country of thousands of poor to every one rich then I think it is time we stand up and be counted. We need to be willing to make what ever sacrifices required to even the playing feild back out. Read: A People’s History of the United States.

Where I live the bus does not get within five miles of the local college; actually tech school. It is also pretty much three miles from much of anything, especially where anyone lives. Buses also cost money. Welfare does not help wih bus fare here, not even for college or to get a job. For me walking is a very painful blessing, bicycling is definately out, though unlike some in my shoes I am fortunate to have one. I have free Internet due to piggybacking. The fact that I am well spoken has nothing to do with my limited resources. As for saying that it does not appear that I am starving, I have no clue where you got that one from. I have gained forty pounds in the past year form not eating. My body has long since forgotten what to do with food. I allocate most of our seven a day for two to my granddaughter. I have not been raped by the military but I have been raped ’just for fun’ countless times because of being homelss. Count my blessings I do. But pend over twenty years surviving while Life passes you by and you find yourself begging for the welcome releif of a real death, not just the death of soul caused by never ending anonimity. No, indeed our country is nothing like Darfur or Somalia. But to me the bottom line is the same. Survival is not fun no matter where you are. Some people want to draw distinctions like coloring in lies. If it is white it is OK. Is it really? Who is it OK for? Is one survival more desirous then another? Maybe if you are talking short term survival; but, if long term then I think not. I have watchred my children one by one die a living death when they found the doors to life closed to them. When they realized that intellegence counted for nothing. Talent was useless. Resources. With resources dreams are possible. Without nothing is possible. Poverty is like a well fortified prison. How many successfully break out of prison each year? And those that did, they sure did not stare the doors open. They got the tools, helps necessary. Everyone else did not. There is nothing more frustrating than hearing I did it you can too. You had tools that only a few ever get. For that you are blessed. The rest of us are not. What I want is for those tools to be available for all not just a select few. For those that are not disabled (which I am) I wish to see helps so that school and work if available are possible. I’d like to see childcare and transportation available so that those able can look for and hold down jobs. I’d like childcare and transportation to be available so that those that wish can go to college. These are tools that can break one from the rolls of Welfare/survival and put them on the work/living rolls. As for counting blessings which I do; I find it more profitable to count the blessings of others. Everytime I see the neighbor kids wearing my granddaughter’s outgrown clothes or another neighbor enjoying their porch sitting in the chair(s) I pulled out of the dumpster I find reason celebrate. I cry with each extreme home makeover show. I am a smile and compliment millionaire. When I look at my own life where my need list is at least ten times longer than my want list I find only justifications for ending my suffering. When I see the smiles I or someone else brings to others I find justification for carrying on just a little longer.

I agree with the treats. But, perhaps we all need to redefine ‘treats’ if we want to be a healthier nation. I love fruit and each time I eat it even though it is more likely to be my meal I consider it a treat. As for the toilet paper, it is hard for me to afford it. LOL.

To me any world that can work together to pull off such a thing as space travel has to be a people worth the knowing. The only reason why we cannot do it yet is because we are too busy beating each other up. Prejudice is the biggest obstacle to technological and human advancement. Religion, race, color, culture, socio-economic status, sexual preferences, your momma wears combat boots, yada, yada. How are we ever to accomplish anything with all this squabbling. I’d ask if I could bring others along and then I’d hop onboard hopingi t’s a one way ticket. But just incase it is not I would bring a notebook along hoping I could teach others once I got back.