No-mad-Man

Wall St. protests now

The Teabaggers protest that their liberties are being taken away because the Obama Administration had the audacity and courage to try to provide everyone with affordable health care.  Which I consider a right.  But the Teabaggers consider it an invasion of their liberty,  because those who refuse to provide health insurance would be fined.  Boo-hoo bigtime for these “deadbeats” who think it’s an imposition to buy health care, yet the rest of us will be stuck with their exorbitant hospital bills from the E.R. anyway.  Reagan made it compulsory that E.R.s have to take all comers.

So, speaking of liberty…My liberty and that of less than 10% of the boomer guys was taken away in an ancient system called “the draft,” when the 1970 “lottery system” picked my name out of the hat.  Since Nixon promised to end the war and was in the process of turning it over to the Vietnamese, us draftees sardonically called ourselves POWs or cannon fodder. After all, the public had already turned against the war and was pretending like it was already over.  Just like now.  Deja vous all over again.

So, speaking of Nomads…I could not sleep one morning and realized that from when I graduated from high school to when I met my beautiful partner Deb in late 1973, I had lived in 100 different places.   Instead of counting 100 sheep, the backwards video in my head flashed up all these different living situations and all the myriad people that I had lived with.  At times I was also alone and was even motor-homeless for a while.  This situation of rootlessness was caused by the disorienting reality of my time and particularly because of being drafted and shafted after wards.  I probably lived with close to 200 people just to survive.

Now back to the present… I’ve told Deb that right now reminds me of when I was draft bait. These young people who are organizing this protest, like back then, feel they have nothing to lose.  They have already been marginalized and written off as being unimportant to the profits and the welfare of the wealthy 1% of the world. “Why dontcha just get a job and shut up.” 

So, speaking of Corporate/Wealthy Welfare…One of the spokespeople of the Wall Street occupation  quoted  these statistics on pg. one, Sunday’s business section of Philadelphia Inquirer.   From 1993 to  2008, income growth for the top 1% (762,310 families) meaning with an annual household income of at least $368,238, grew 3.94% annually .  For the same period, income growth for the bottom 99%:  (150 million families) was just 0.75% annually.  Some of the 1%, but not all, have been making out like the bandits like they are since the 2008 financial meltdown—which some of them created. So, the score so far…P.S.  Thanks to George Feister the farmer for the beautiful cut job on the field!