Max Aaron:
Conservatives weren’t thrilled about what Dr. Seuss had to say about ecological sustainability and how capitalism was destroying the planet when he penned The Lorax. When that book was made into a movie in 2012, conservatives slammed it as “insidious propaganda” infecting kids with an environmentalist message. Now, Dr. Seuss Enterprises announces they’re pulling six books that feature gross racist tropes and illustrations from publication. Most people had never heard of these books anyway. Suddenly, conservatives are falling over themselves to demand that the books continue to be published. So to sum this all up, conservatives tried to “cancel” Dr. Seuss the environmentalist, but leapt to the defense of Dr. Seuss the racist.
KatyLeeson:
We NEED to stop glamourising overworking. Please. The absence of sleep, good diet, exercise, relaxation, and time with friends and family isn’t something to be applauded. Too many people wear their burnout as a badge of honour. And it needs to change.
Rep. Chaz Beasley: “‘Tyler Perry provided security to the royal family because the Queen wouldn’t’ is not something I had on my 2021 bingo card.”
Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing on the ’72 Campaign Trail”:
Remember the Whigs, Larry? They went belly up, with no warning at all, when a handful of young politicians like Abe Lincoln decided to move out on their own and fuck the Whigs — which worked out very nicely — and when it became almost instantly clear that the Whig hierarchy was just a gang of old impotent windbags with no real power at all, the Party just curled up and died … and any politician stupid enough to ‘stay loyal’ went down with the ship.
Noam Chomsky (1998) (framing the ‘Overton’ window):
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum–even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.
Michelle DuBarry:
In 2010, I had good union health insurance. Obamacare was the law of the land. In November that year, my one-year-old son was struck by a careless driver in a crosswalk. After two surgeries and a night in intensive care, he died.
Before we knew the outcome, I sat at his bedside, his tiny stitched-together body hooked to a million incessantly beeping machines, straining to recall what our deductibles were. I worried I wouldn’t be able to keep working during what could be a long hospital stay.
I googled FMLA and learned I wouldn’t qualify because I hadn’t been at my job for a year. If I lost my job we would both be without insurance. Without my income, there was no way we could afford $1,000/month COBRA.
Within a week of his death, before we had even received a bill, the hospital put a lien on our house to make sure we wouldn’t skip out on the PICU bill.
My husband who was also injured in the crash, was refused treatment by his primary care doc because she didn’t accept payment from auto insurance and his health insurer wouldn’t pay til we exhausted our auto insurance.
Have you ever had to call around to find a doctor that can handle your specific insurance situation? Have you done it in the days after your toddler has died, when you haven’t even figured out a way to talk about it, when your husband is injured and urgently needs a prescription refill?
We ended up with around $5,000 in out-of-pocket expenses and our health insurer paid $175,000. Eventually, we’d receive a settlement from the at-fault driver. For a minute, we thought we might be okay financially.
Then our health ins. co. came after our pain and suffering settlement. They demanded reimbursement for the $175,000 they were out. Turns out they were legally entitled to do that. In an instant, our modest settlement – meant to compensate for the loss of our son – was reduced to $0.
(Side note: It took me 8 years but in 2019 I initiated and passed a bill making this practice illegal in OR. It remains legal in many states.)
Through all this, my husband and I both were suffering from PTSD. We had jobs, a mortgage. All of it hung in the balance. In a humane system, we could grieve without having to navigate an insurance juggernaut, without worrying about being thrust into debt and poverty.
Despite Obamacare and “good” union insurance, we were nearly bankrupted by a 27-hour hospital stay.
Every one of us lives in a body that is going to fail. Sometimes it happens suddenly, catastrophically. Do you want to fight with insurers when this happens? Do you want to sort through a mountain of bills when you lose someone you love, when your grief is raw?
There is no compromise on healthcare that doesn’t leave millions of people unacceptably vulnerable to corporations trying to profit from sick and injured people.
I believe change is coming. I am ready to fight for other families, for #MedicareForAll, and to elect @BernieSanders president. Sending solidarity and love to all who are suffering under this awful system.
“My kids will never know that awful feeling of realizing there’s no VHS tape behind the box at the video store.”
@TheOperaGeek: “Cheery was aware that Commander Vimes didn’t like the phrase ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’, believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but EVEN MORE from those who Say things like ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’.” – Terry Pratchett, Snuff
@DrPsyBuffy: Since the Bible says not to charge interest on loans, I think the Democrats should propose a bill that removes all interest on student loans and use this as justification. Make the GOP state out loud, repeatedly, that the Bible can’t be used to make policy.
🎶 When no one told you life was gonna be this way / your job’s remote, you’re broke / you’re hiding from a plague / it’s like you’re always stuck in quarantine / you might be there a day, a week, a month or even a year 🎵
