We Can And Should Speak Out, Collectively and Do The Right Thing: or What Social Networking Sites CAN Be Good For

Tonight, I did something I rarely do. I went to a suburban bar with a cover band playing. This trip was solely for the purpose of attending the birthday party of someone who I have met in person once in my life. This person is friends with my partner but, for all intents and purposes, doesn’t really know me from Adam. Nonetheless, I made the trek and paid the five dollar cover, because it seemed like the right thing to do.

When I arrived, I was surprised to be greeted by a room full of veritable strangers with warm smiles and hugs. It did not take long for people to ask me if I needed drink or to offer me a seat in a crowded room. I am not a particularly open or familiar person. In fact, I am painfully shy at times. However, that did not matter tonight. Because it is close to the holidays and we are American adults. This is what we do. We smile and extend kindness to those who we believe have extended kindness to our friends and comrades. I was accepted and made to feel like family by a group of strangers simply because I am kind to and care for one of their own. This is our culture. We care for those who care for those who we care about.

Why then, do we have so much trouble passing a bill which provides care to those who responded to the trauma and violence of September 11, 2001 by risking their own well being in order to ensure the well being of others?

As Americans, we often show caring and compassion for those who we perceive to have been wronged, either by other people or by the system itself. We are quick to respond to calls for charitable donations and we are proud of it. Yet we seem to have no problem allowing congress to not pass a law which will provide healthcare for those who responded to the September 11^th disaster by rushing into the chaos and attempting t help those who were most directly affected.

How is this even possible?

Much like every other American, I think I remember that day very clearly and I know I remember the aftermath of that day as clear as anything. I can clearly remember everyone I came in contact with clutching their newly purchase American flags and sentimental materials and waxing poetic about heroism and the nature of the American consciousness. I remember a lot of talk about coming together and supporting one another in an extremely trying time. I remember the endless platitudes and syllogisms about colors that don’t run and the strength of a nation. It seemed like everyone around me wanted to talk about how powerful we can be when we come together and support each other.

And, as sentimentally overwrought as some of these expressions may have been, they all had a grain of truth.

We can be powerful when we come together.

We can change the world, or at least our world, when we collectively decide to do the right thing.

But we didn’t.

Granted, we did care for a while. We extended hugs and generosity and understanding like I have never seen before or after. For at least a few weeks following the tragedy, we lived in the America which I had always imagined had existed long before I was born; The America where every citizen extended a warm hand to every other citizen and we care for each other like family. Then, the bubble burst. We became fearful of other Americans who were too similar to our middle eastern neighbors in dress and religious creed. We became entrenched in several wars and began to bicker, once again, about foreign policy and economic legislation. We forgot to be unified.

We forgot our unity and we forgot about those who volunteered to help in one of the most frightening events I have ever seen.

We focused instead on tax cuts, abortion, NAFTA and a host of other issues. We bickered and argued and campaigned and voted. Somewhere, in the sound and the fury of our everyday lives and the endless shout outs of frustration, admiration and support to soldiers and politicians alike, we forgot to check on the very people who had, not so long ago, rushed head on into the smoldering destruction just to make sure others were safe. While we were debating and campaigning and speaking out many of these men and women were becoming ill as a result of their bravery and we never noticed.

They are sick and some of them are dying. The right thing to do would be to pay for their healthcare. If they were enlisted soldiers, who were being ordered to help and paid for their service during the September 11h attacks, they would have at least their basic healthcare needs taken care of, and rightfully so. However, many of these people were neither ordered nor paid to attempt to aid others in such a frightening and chaotic time. Many of them are simply American citizens who felt that they could and should offer a helping hand during a crisis. They rushed in when most were fleeing.

As a result of this, many of them became ill and our government, the people who we voted into office, will not pass a bill which provides them with the care they need.

Last week, congress voted down a bill which would provide healthcare to those who were sickened as a direct result of their actions in support of other Americans on September 11, 2001. And very few people seem to care.

Less than one week ago, my inbox and news feeds were flooded by people who were changing their profile pictures to support a war on a concept.

This week, a very real and challengeable fact became public, and no one reacted.

This is shameful to me.

However, it doesn’t have to be.

We can change it.

If you are one of the many Americans who cared on September 11 and continues to care now about the men and women who bravely sacrificed their own sense of well being in order to insure that of others, then I urge you to look up your local senator and harass the living hell out of them. Send letters, make phone calls, put the word out on facebook, twitter and myspace. Scream from the rooftops. Hold a sit in. Throw rocks through the windows of politicians. Do whatever it takes to be heard. Support the 9/11 Responders act and demand that those who you have voted into office do the same. It is the only right thing to do.

Please America, restore my faith in you.

As Christmas and all of its attendant sentiments approaches, please do what you can to make sure that these people are not left without the care they deserve for any longer.

I double dog dare you to.

_Shannon

Activism in the Internet Age: How Cartoon Pictures and Purse Positions Are Bullshit Forms of Masturbation and Self Aggrandizement.

It started back in October, when countless facebook friends started posting updates that read “I like it on the floor” or “I like it in the kitchen” in order to, apparently or not so apparently, raise awareness of breast cancer. It reached a fever pitch this afternoon, when I began receiving feedback from a slightly drunken status update last night about how changing one’s profile picture to a photo of a childhood cartoon was not going to help any abused children in any way. It started as an annoyance and a mere cause for eye rolling. Now, it has reached a fever pitch of anger.

It is the time to call “bullshit” on facebook awareness campaigns.

I know it may seem a little cynical to state this, but awareness campaigns in general, and facebook awareness campaigns specifically, are utterly useless ways to waste time and energy. This should not be surprising to anyone, as facebook itself is just that; a time waster. Now, don’t get me wrong, I see no problem with wasting time. I don’t even see a problem with people changing their photos because they wish they were She-Ra or Rainbow Brite. However, my problem comes from the fact that these campaigns are so often held up as examples of activism when they are not at all effective and really have no purpose beyond making the person who participates feel as though they’ve done something to affect a positive change.

Awareness campaigns in general tend be pretty bad at doing anything other than make people smug, You see, in order to believe that an awareness campaign will really change anything, you have to truly believe that the issue for which you are attempting to raise awareness is one which no one is aware of already. For example, let’s take the aforementioned child abuse campaign. How many people out there are really and truly unaware that child abuse exists? Assuming there are such people in existence at all, how likely would it be that they would be capable of using a computer or understanding the complexities of an in joke? Even if they could, they’d have to search long and hard to figure out what this one is all about, as most users are just changing their profile pics without a word of explanation. Starting a campaign which is predicated upon the assumption that people are unaware of something which has become a facebook meme is pretty silly if you think about it. The same goes with awareness campaigns which utilize real world tactics such as buying and displaying ribbons or wearing a specific color. All they do is let people know that the wearer or picture changer has spent some time and/or money on something which will allow them to tell the world that they care about something that everyone else cares about, only they care enough to buy something or google a cartoon image.

It is this positioning of participants in such campaigns as do gooders or world changers that pisses me off more than anything.

The fact is that changing anything, be it the rates at which we find cancer cures and causes, the amount of children who are abused, or the amount of AIDS patients who receive good care takes sacrifice and effort. This is why most people prefer to participate in a facebook campaign or purchase a pink ribbon or buy a red shirt from the GAP. These actions are easy, painless, and still allow people to feel like they’ve done something good.

Only, they haven’t.

In some cases, they may have even caused more harm than good. For instance, any cancer awareness campaign which uses plastic trinkets to send a message is using a material which introduces known carcinogens into the environment. How, exactly, is that helpful in curing cancer? Buying clothing form the Gap supports an economic system which exploits and damages countries, such as Africa, where the need for AIDS intervention is greatest. This is improving lives how? Finally, sitting in front of your computer and searching for cartoon photos keeps you detached and removed from the hundreds of ways you can make a difference in the life of a child in need or in the life of a cancer or AIDS sufferer. It not only helps nothing, but it allows you to feel as though you have accomplished something when, in fact you’ve not done anything more than make yourself feel warm and fuzzy.

Now, here’s where it gets tricky for me. I have no problem with people wasting time and making themselves feel good. In fact, as a blogger, it’s in my best interest that people do waste time on the internet. However, it is not ok to dress this time wasting up as change. I truly believe that most people do not intentionally do this. I think that most people want to help affect change. However, I think that most people are truly unaware of how much effort it actually takes to do so, and do not like anything that involves a large amount of personal sacrifice. The fact is that, sadly, that is exactly what affecting change may take.

One person is not likely to rid the world of all its ills and suffering. However, one person can choose one or two areas in which to direct their energy and time and begin to make a small change. One of the argumentative responses I received to my status regarding the child abuse campaign stated that while changing photos would not end all child abuse everywhere, neither would my suggested actions of intervention, volunteerism, real education and actual advocacy. It’s true. Doing any or all of those things will not end violence against children. However, unlike the facebook campaign, it can help to free one or more children from the horrors of abuse, or prevent them from facing it in the first place. Isn’t that the kind of change we can quantify? Isn’t that exactly what we want to do?

So, let’s do it.

Let’s walk away from the silliness of facebook campaigns and find a cause we believe in and actually do something for it.

_Shannon (who will smack a bitch who smacks a kid in front of her)

Consumerism: A World of Entitlement and Instant Gratification

With Black Friday on the way, I thought I'd take the time to talk about the more underhanded dynamics of consumerism, that most Americans are unaware of. Hopefully, this will cause the snarling masses to pause before they lunge at a Wii in a department store near you this Friday. For those who are not aware, “Consumerism is a social and economic construct, perpetuated by advertising and marketing, in order to to create and encourage the desire to purchase goods or services in large quantities.” A formula for consumption as a “way of life” was purposed by Victor Lebow, (god I hate that guy), in his paper Price Competition in 1955, where he states, "Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption a way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions in consumption....We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever growing rate." This idea permeates our culture, and manufactures false ideals that create a sort of “consensus reality”, which perpetuates the idea of shopping as a “spiritual practice” and encourages entitlement and satisfies the desire for instant gratification.

While the conservatives and liberals argue about what is destroying American ideals, the philosophy of consumerism quietly establishes itself as the predominant “religion” of the west world, which is more likely the culprit responsible for this cultural degradation. Conservatives blame liberals because of their tolerating homosexuality, protecting abortion rights, providing welfare and socialized medicine. Liberals blame conservatives for giving the wealthy larger tax breaks, trying to abolish the separation of church and state and encroaching on our civil liberties. Most of this is social posturing, utilized to divide and conquer American citizens. They mindlessly distracting us with either the hot social issue of the day, or they spend the rest of their time pointing out what makes us socially different (ie. race, religion, ethnic and national background, jobs, income, education, social status, sexuality). All of this seems like nothing more than a ploy to keep us uniformed and uneducated about real issue that are seemingly never covered by the media.

The reason for this is quite simple; it all boils down to advertising. The best example that comes to mind was the Fox syndicated WTVT “Cancer Milk” exposé about the artificial bovine growth hormone (BGH), a recombinant bovine growth hormone, or rBGH, known better as Posilac. Posilac is a synthetic hormone developed by Monsanto that is injected into cows to increase milk production. Many people are unaware that Posilac was banned from use in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and most of Europe, by 2000 or earlier. In 1997 Steve Wilson and Jane Akre worked together on a story about rBGH for Fox's WTVT in Florida. As a result of their investigation they discovered that BGH had been approved by the FDA after only one human study on 30 medical rats for 90 days.

It has also been recently discovered that rBGH may increase the risk of mastitis, an infection of the udders from over production of milk, by 25%. In addition to mastitis, rBGH has been demonstrated to increase the incidence of 15 different harmful effects to cows' health, including birth disorders, increased pus in milk, hoof problems, heat stress, diarrhea, and other gastrointestinal disturbances. It is interesting to note that The Humane Society of the U.S., Humane Farming Association, Farm Sanctuary and Animal Protection Institute all oppose the use of rBGH. It is because of this that shortly before the story was aired, Fox News received two faxes from Monsanto's lawyers. One of which stated that the story was, “a great concern to Monsanto”, and that there would be, “dire consequences for Fox News. ” if the story aired in Florida. Fox News subsequently pulled piece for deliberation on the story, for fear of losing advertisement money for products like Round-up, which is produced by Monsanto.

Shortly after, the General Manager of WTVT Fox asked the journalist how they would feel if the story was “killed” and if they would tell anyone. In an attempt to bribe the journalists a lawyer of WTVT sent the journalists such a bribe in the form of a confidentiality agreement, which guaranteed both journalists a full year’s salary as long as they never talked about Monsanto, the legal process taken up by Fox and also that they could not take it to another news station. The journalist refused to sign such a waiver and keep it as evidence that fox was trying to bribe them. WTVT aware that they could not fire or bribe the journalists decided to edit the expose with the journalist 83 times! Most of the editing decisions were made in order to reduce or remove any criticism of Monsanto. For instance words like “cancer” were substituted by more docile euphemisms like, “human health implication”. Inevitably, the two journalists took legal action against Fox under whistle blower status. The sad thing is that Fox won the appeal, since the judges claimed that the FCC policy against falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a "law, rule, or regulation," it was simply a "policy."

Consequently, this means that the FCC, a government body established to protect American citizens, is good for nothing, except when it comes to crucifying people like George Carlin and Howard Stern for “obscene” language. The advertisers and marketing executives get paid the big bucks, because they are so good at what they do, which is nothing short of propaganda. They can be misleading or even falsify information to their consumers, just as long as their products don't violate any laws established by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the Federal Trade Commision (FTC). That is why, as George Carlin put it, “America's leading industry, America's most profitable business, is still, the manufacture, packaging, distribution, and marketing of Bullshit. High quality, grade A, prime cut, pure American Bullshit.” This is the same reason that during every election cycle we see smear ads plastered across our television screens, and wonder why nobody does anything about it. It is because any legal action must be pursued by the candidate, in the case of libel or defamation, which would inevitably take up more of a candidate’s time and money, then creating a counter attack campaign ad would.

This is no big surprise, since by now if you haven't heard it is the corporation that owns and runs this country, not the lowly citizens. We've granted the corporations and conglomerates of this country, with the power to replace the meaningful rituals of certain holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day with banal ritual of shopping and consumerism. Even “patriotic” holidays, such as Memorial Day and Veterans Day, have been replaced with sales that to the general public are infinitely more important than the dead men and woman that have served this county. Since the 80's this country has become nothing more than a “coast-to-coast shopping mall”. The remnants of which have been raped by what I like the call the United Sodomizers of America; A group of elite corporations that tempt consumers with over priced goods, built upon the blood, sweat and tears of slave laborers of third world countries. It disturbs me that Americans don't mind being referred to as “consumers”, a poorly constructed euphemism that describes those of us who...CONSUME! But the longer you live in this country and the more you look around the more you realize that is exactly our motive of operation. The word consume means to “destroy or expend by use”, it can also refers to the “spending of money or time wastefully”. And when it comes to wasting money and time America is #1! I really think it is pathetic if that is the only thing we excel at anymore as a nation. Once this country becomes nothing more than a Third world consumer plantation, more developed countries like India and China may start creating better jobs. And with developing countries like India and China hot on our tails, who knows maybe America will be unseated as the Heavy Weight champion of consumption, and forced to excel at something else...like sweat shops!

America constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, but consume more than a 25% of the worlds resources on a daily basis. It is also interesting to note that a majority of products that American's consume are poor made electronics that become obsolete within 6 months. This helps to perpetuate Victor Lebow's vision of creating products that can be, “consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever growing rate.” Little do people know that the products that become obsolete are shipped to landfills in India where desperately poor children pull apart the devices to salvage lucrative metals like copper. Also, as a result, the salvaging releases harmful chemicals and nurotoxins, which will either be inhaled by the children, or leach into the ground to affect countless numbers of innocent lives. None of this is presented to the American public while they watch commercials celebrating the new iPhone or any other host of soon to be obsolete gadgets and gizmos.

You could call Americans ignorant, but that is an understatement. The truth if the matter is that American's simply don't care. Most Americans don't want to know that a overwhelming majority of the cleaning products they purchase contain chemicals that are carcinogenic. They don't care that the production of plastic, which can only be down-cycled, not recycled, is polluting their water and soil from leching. When it comes to consumer products, Americans only care about themselves and how other with view them. They allow their consumer goods to define who they are, by buying the latest cars, gizmos and video games. Instead of purchasing things like books or art, which demonstrates to others that they acquire possessions with intrinsic value, that are an extension of who they are, not what they are.

-The Dead Guy (Who Won't be Caught Dead Near A Big Box Store This X-mas)

Healthcare In The Real World: Or How We've Politicized The Personal

Lately, it seems like there has been a lot of talk about healthcare in the US. No one on either side of the political debate seems particularly pleased with the new healthcare bill, and many seem unhappy with the state of healthcare as it is. I often hear people complaining that private healthcare is available to anyone who is hard working, a tax payer, and who wants it and publicly assisted healthcare is there for the poor. Since it’s already so widely available, they seem to reason, then why should we change the system?

They’re right, to a point. Yes, private healthcare is available to nearly anyone who wants it, at least on the surface, and yes there are already public assistance programs for the poor, but this is a pretty incomplete view of the American healthcare system, which avoids addressing the fact that many Americans fall somewhere between having ability to pay for their own healthcare and being poor enough to qualify for public assistance.

I am one of those Americans.

I have worked, mostly full time, for the past 16 years. During those 16 years, I had exactly one year of working for a company which provided reasonable health insurance to its employees. Most of my jobs have involved waiting tables, and most of them have been for corporations, as opposed to mom and pop restaurants. I think this is important to note, because the corporate jobs which did provide any healthcare at all, provided bare bones, emergency only coverage to employees who worked a minimum of 40 hours a week. However, the one independently owned company I worked for offered the best insurance they could afford to their employees. Many of my friends have had exactly the same experience, with major corporations offering piss poor or no benefits to employees while smaller companies seem to offer livable policies. This experience flies in the face of those naysayers who bemoan the fact that it would be unfair to “force” small businesses to provide health insurance. You see, most small businesses seem to operate under the belief that their employees are human beings and, as such, deserve to be treated fairly. If a business is already providing good coverage for their employees, the healthcare bill as I understand it will not affect them at all.

However, this is not about the healthcare bill and what it will or won’t do. This is about what it is like to be one of the many people who cannot afford to insure themselves, but are not eligible to receive publicly assisted healthcare.

For me, it is pretty horrendous.

As a 31 year old student with little to no income during the school year, I certainly cannot afford to purchase private insurance for myself and, even if I could, half of the things which concern a thirty year old woman would not even be covered. These include, but are not limited to: birth control, maternity, some forms of cancer screening (including breast and cervical), yearly gynecological exams, and STI screenings. However, as an uninsured woman, I can access these things though my local Planned Parenthood where I can pay on a scale that relates to my current income level.

This may sound like a pretty good deal, but a trip to Planned Parenthood is not a very pleasant experience. For me, an annual checkup must be arranged months in advance, I must answer hours worth of questions about my sexual history, medical history and current income every single time I walk through the door, and I often spend hours in their waiting room only to be led to an exam room, told to undress and left sitting, in nothing but a paper robe and knee socks, for up to an hour while I wait for the clinician on duty to come into the room. I never see the same clinician twice and, as a result of that, a routine pelvic exam can take over hour as each new caregiver must ask the same questions each time. Furthermore, using Planned Parenthood as a resource for birth control means that I have very little personal choice in terms of which type I receive. One clinician may determine that I need a combination pill one year, while another (as was my most recent experience) may aggressive push me toward having an IUD inserted to the point of refusing to continue my previous pill. If I take issue with the method they are prescribing, I am often told that as a non insured patient I should be grateful for what I can get and take it or leave it. Don’t get me wrong here, I am grateful for the resource, but it is still very frustrating to feel as though my opinion regarding my body does not matter as much as it would if I were insured. Although trips to their clinics are not often pleasant or comfortable as an overtaxed system must provide care for thousands of men and women each day, I am at least able to access some healthcare through them.

Even with access to sexual healthcare through Planned Parenthood, not having insurance still leaves me in a precarious position in terms of general sickness and health issues. In my position, being sick rarely means a trip to the doctor, unless there is something seriously wrong. This means that I will often hold off on seeking care until I am nearly disabled by whatever sickness I have and, even then, will not seek help unless I am pretty certain that the illness requires antibiotics. Instead, most illnesses involve a lot of googling, a lot of self medication and a lot of hoping that I am not further damaging myself. The only time I will immediately seek medical care is when I am certain that I’ve got a urinary tract infection, as those absolutely cannot be effectively treated by any home remedy and can progress into sepsis or kidney infections.

In those rare situations where I must seek medical attention, I am often at a loss for what to do. You see, most primary care doctors won’t keep a self paying patient because there is too much risk of unpaid services. Without a primary care doctor, I am often given two options. I can spend an entire day and a month’s salary at the emergency room, or I can utilize an urgent care center.

Whenever the option exists, I use the urgent care center to avoid taking up the time of emergency room staff and incurring the ridiculous cost of being seen in a hospital. Again, I am grateful that such places exist, but using one is not a comfortable experience at all. As with Planned Parenthood, I must redo a full patient history every time I am seen. This means, again, spending hours in a waiting room and constantly having to repeat that I am self paying. Often just those very words are enough to cause the staff’s attitudes to change ever so slightly. Depending on the staff member, I have received everything from lectures on the importance of health insurance to pitying glances in the waiting room and downright degradation in the exam room. Because these centers are often staffed by students who perform all initial consultations, I have been lectured on eating disorders, been told that the student examining me is “certain” that I am sexually promiscuous based on my tattoos, been warmed that my seasonal congestion is a sign of AIDS and been prescribed medication that I am deathly allergic to, despite having clearly marked the allergy on my intake forms. All of these snafus could have easily been avoided if being a self paying patient wasn’t seen as akin to being uneducated or unemployed.

Furthermore, they could all be avoided if I had the ability to have one primary care doctor who I see repeatedly. Having a consistent doctor would mean the world to me as it would mean that I did not have to jump through hoops, be embarrassed, degraded or talked down to, whenever I am in the already frightening position of being sick. It would also mean that I would have access to preventative care and advice beyond the realm of WebMD.

Unfortunately, given our current system, this will not be possible until I am employed by a company which provides decent care, or the system is massively reformed to address the stranglehold which drug manufacturers and insurance companies have on the system. As one doctor recently explained to me, the current system has doctors answering to insurers and drug companies exploiting this fact by offering samples under the table in order to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs. This means that a doctor with a private practice must justify every service he or she performs to the patient’s insurance company before he or she justifies it to the patient. It also means that it is not in a doctor’s best interest to make services affordable to self paying patients as it takes money out of the pockets of the very insurance companies which pay most of their salaries. Often, giving away those free samples from drug reps is the only way for a doctor to circumvent this. In other words, most doctors have their hands tied in terms of being able to provide service as they see fit and this leaves many patients with less autonomy than they should have.

I know the healthcare debate is shrill and fully loaded for every American, but I also think that we have become so lost in the sound and the fury or it all that we may have forgotten who really is affected by the way our current system operates. This is not to say that I am looking for a handout, or, as one Planned Parenthood receptionist recently inferred, crying “poor” in order to exploit the system. On the contrary, I am looking for a reform which will remove the power over our well being from the hands of the insurance and drug companies and return to its rightful place in the hands of each American citizen and their respective caregivers. I only hope that whatever happens in 2014 makes that more possible than it is at this point.

-Shannon