Politics etc.

Well, my wife’s gone today to visit a friend, and I’m left to my own devices as to how to pass the day. I slept as long as I could. It’s pretty boring without my wife here. I need more hobbies.

So anyway, let’s make a blog post. The political news has become impossible to ignore. TrumpCare is all over my Facebook feed. It’s everywhere you look. How they can get away with screwing 24 million people out of their healthcare is beyond me. Maybe they won’t get away with it, and a lot of them will be voted out of office in 2018. I’m really hoping the Democrats can take back control of one chamber of Congress in 2018. But it does seem that the Democrats have their heads stuck in the sand. Bernie’s trying to lead them kicking and screaming in the right direction, but I think most of them are just too beholden to the corporate money. What we have right now are two parties controlled by corporations and billionaires, it’s just a matter of which corporations and billionaires. The Republicans are just a bit more open about being controlled, whereas the Democrats try to pretend that they’re the servants of the people. Other than Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, and a few others, this is total bullshit. They let the insurance companies and Big Pharma write the Affordable Care Act, and as a result, it’s become a mess. We should have had universal coverage back in 2010, the Democrats had the House, 60 Senators and the President, there’s no excuse why it didn’t pass other than some of the Democrats are on the take from the insurance companies and Big Pharma. And Wall Street owns them all.

Sigh. On to something else. The political situation is too depressing and triggering for me to focus on it for long. I still can’t believe Trump won, but in another way, I can. Hillary Clinton was an extremely flawed candidate, disliked by most people (including me; I voted for Jill Stein). She was definitely the “lesser of two evils”. Now, she was a great bit the LESSER of two evils, but if you give people a false choice, what do you expect to happen? Trump grabbed the change mantle, the same one Obama ran with in 2008, and he won with it. Every election from here until we fix our corruption problem is going to be a “change” election, and whoever represents change the best will probably win. That’s good, because Bernie Sanders can grab that change mantle in 2020 and beat Trump. I hope.

Actually, I fear that Trump will refuse to leave office, that he’ll claim a rigged election or something and try to stay in power even if he loses in 2020. We’ll see what happens. We’re having all these protests and marches, but I don’t think they are doing any good. What we need is a million people on the Mall with pitchforks and Molotov cocktails. Maybe then some shit would get accomplished. It’s high time the American people put their foot down and said no to all this bullshit. But when you’ve got 45% of the population supporting someone like Trump, how the hell do you get anything accomplished? The people are so divided, red states and blue states are practically at war. Hell, I’m interested in the idea of the West Coast states seceding and joining Canada. I just don’t know how we fix this. We may need another Civil War or something similar. We need a Constitutional amendment or maybe even a totally new Constitution to say that corporations are not people and cannot exercise free speech in the form of money to politicians. We also need limits on all these billionaire donors. But how do we get there? We need states to call for a convention, then the convention to pass the right kind of document, then 3/4 of states to ratify it. I don’t see how we can get 3/4 of the states to agree on anything.

Is nonviolent protest always the way to go? It worked for Gandhi and the Civil Rights movement, but they were facing civilized opposition. How far would nonviolent protest have gotten against someone like Hitler or Stalin? I don’t know the answer here. If you’re not nonviolent, who are you violent toward? The cops are just doing their jobs. The problem is the SYSTEM, and how do you break a SYSTEM? Maybe Molotov cocktails wouldn’t do that much good after all. The problem isn’t the Congress, or K Street, or corporations, it’s all of them. It’s everything. How do we fix this? I’ve beaten my head against this problem from every angle, and I just don’t see a solution. I think things have to get BAD–bread riot type of bad–before people will wake up enough to start fighting back en masse. Do we really have to become a third-world country before we can fix things? Hell, we’re nearly there now–it seems like we’re 28th in everything. But can we do better? As proud as I am of Bernie and the fight he’s bringing, I fear that come 2020 he’s gonna get screwed by the Establishment again. They’ll nominate Clinton again or some shill like Cory Booker, and Bernie will be left out in the cold yet again, and Trump will get re-elected. This is my nightmare.

So how am I, as a bipolar person, dealing with all this? I’d say I’m just not thinking about it, but that would be a lie. I can’t HELP but think about it. My wife and I get so much from the Federal government–SSI, cheap housing, Medicaid, food stamps, heating assistance in the winter–that I can’t help but worry. If ANY of those things go away, it’s going to put us in an untenable situation–like, a “we’re going to be homeless” situation. We’re in a very vulnerable position, where we’re dependent on the government for everything. The only way out of this is to get a good job.

Before my meltdown in 2011-12, I was a registered nurse. I’m still on probation for the crime I committed in 2012, and I can’t get my nursing license back until I’m off of probation at the earliest. That means November, 2018. I have to hope I can lose enough weight and get healthy enough mentally to take a nursing job come November 2018. But I don’t know if I’ll make it. My back is so bad, I can’t see myself nursing on a regular floor where you have to flip people over in bed and clean up crap. I could see myself nursing on a psych unit, but that’s about it. And there aren’t that many of those jobs. Maybe I could get a job at an insurance company denying people’s claims, but I can’t think of a more soul-sucking job than that. But I don’t know what else to do. Even if I get my disability, our rent goes up and our food stamps go down and we’re still barely making ends meet. That’s assuming they don’t take my disability for Federal restitution (I owe the Feds about $35k for restitution), which is a big assumption. I fear the Trump budget and what it may do to our housing situation. Right now we have Federally subsidized rent, but what if that goes away? We can’t pay $600 a month in rent. We only have $735 a month in income.

I think I’ve beat my head against this enough for one day. Thanks for reading. =)

The A-List

For today’s WordPress “everyday inspiration” assignment, I’m supposed to make a list, so here goes nothing: my five current favorite songs. The links will open a new tab to the video on YouTube for each song.

1. “Royals” by Lorde
2. “Pompeii” by Bastille
3. “Wake Me Up” by Avicii
4. “Know Your Enemy” by Green Day
5. “It’s Time” by Imagine Dragons

I know they’re all older songs, but I never listen to the radio. We use Pandora pretty regularly, but they seldom play anything brand-new on the channels we listen to. But anyway, if you wonder what I’m listening to when I’m typing away on this blog, those five songs are a good start. I lost access to my main iTunes account about five years ago when my life fell apart, but I’ve slowly been building up a new account, and I have 260 songs on my main playlist. I mostly listen to a smaller playlist of my real favorites, though.

Music is therapy for me. I will get on to a new song and just listen to it over and over. I will listen while I read the lyrics off the Web until I know the words by heart. Lyrics are very important to me–if a song doesn’t have something to say, I don’t care to listen. I’m getting too old to listen to bubblegum pop anyway.

Speaking of therapy, I went to a group therapy session yesterday. It’s a weekly men’s group that my psych prescriber has been nagging me to go to. I’m not much of a group therapy person, but I surprised myself yesterday. They went around the table sharing how their week had gone, and when they got to me (last, thankfully) I actually shared. I told an abbreviated version of how I got diagnosed bipolar and everything that’s happened since, ending with the invisible motorcycle cop who bagged me for a ticket on Tuesday. I wouldn’t say I really connected with anybody in particular, but they seemed to welcome me into the group after I shared my story. I’ll probably go back next week. I have a lot of social anxiety, and I’m uncomfortable around strangers, but overall it wasn’t too bad for me this time.

I see the GOP is gearing up to try to repeal Obamacare again, and they may succeed this time, at least in the House. It will be interesting to see what the Senate does, though. I’m not sure the bastards can pull it off, but I’m sure they’ll keep trying. God forbid that people should have access to affordable health insurance. Makes me sick. If I didn’t have a felony on my record, my wife and I would be moving to Canada. The U.S. seems to be going straight to hell in a handbasket. The rot and corruption run so deep, I swear we’re going to need a new Constitution just to fix all this shit. At the very least we need an amendment that says corporations aren’t people and can’t lobby or donate to our politicians. These goddam billionaires trying to run everything need to be put in check, too. Sigh. I’m tired of beating my head against this problem. I’m with Bernie Sanders, we need a political revolution to fix all the shit that’s going wrong with our government.

I’m particularly worried about the Republicans taking over the government because my wife and I live by the government’s good graces. We have federally subsidized housing, SSI, Medicaid, food stamps, and heating assistance in the winter. We are basically the kind of people Republicans hate. But by God, I paid my fair share of taxes throughout my adult life while I was working. If I can’t count on some help in hard times, what the fuck good is the government anyway? It’s past time we busted out the torches and pitchforks and put a stop to all this corruption. But people are so busy just trying to survive, who has the time, energy and money to take on the government?

Sigh. Better not thought about. It just makes me worry.

What else? I’m drawing a blank. Feel free to comment with your favorite song–I’m always on the lookout for new music!

Thanks for reading. =)

 

French Defense

OK, I’m better now. Teach me to blog drunk and feeling sorry for myself. I’m still listening to angry music, but I’ve calmed down a good bit.

Problem now is it’s 1AM and I can’t sleep. I fell asleep drunk at 7:30 and woke up sober at 11:30. I sold one of my most expensive Funko Pops and the sky didn’t fall, so I guess I’ll be OK getting rid of them. It still makes me sad though.

As if we needed more trouble, our printer isn’t working. It won’t connect to our Wifi network. I dunno what the hell is wrong with the damn thing. You know, I used to think Samsung was the way to go with electronics, but between this printer and a smart DVD player that continually forgets it’s connected to the Internet, I’m not so sure anymore. The printers they sell in Walmart are all garbage anyway–they sell you a cheap printer so they can bend you over with the ink. Maybe with my Pop money I can get us a new printer too, sigh.

It never ends. There’s a saying in my family: “It’s always something.” And I’ll be damned if it ain’t true. You never get ahead, you never get to relax, there’s always something going on or hovering over you, something that could cause you grief. If you’re lucky it’s a nonfunctional printer and a traffic ticket. If you’re unlucky it’s cancer or a death in the family. I should count my blessings.

Atheist that I am, I say a kind of prayer when I go to bed to remind myself of all the things I have to be grateful for. My wife and I are alive and safe and healthy (reasonably), and that’s the most important thing of all. We have a roof over our heads, food to eat, clothes to wear, and a solid, working car (knock on wood). We’re a lot better off even than a lot of people who live in our building. Our building is for the elderly and disabled, and a lot of these folks can barely take care of themselves. Thank you, God or Flying Spaghetti Monster or Universe or whatever, that for today my wife and I are OK in spite of having a kind of shitty day. Thank you that I’m capable of sitting here and typing on a magic machine that sends my little thoughts out into the world. Things could be so much infinitely worse. If all I have to worry about is selling off my toy collection to pay a traffic ticket and get my wife a new phone, I’m doing pretty good.

I am doing pretty good. My bipolar has been fairly steady over the last couple weeks, the depression hasn’t been too bad, and I’m not suicidal at all, not even really thinking about it. I would never commit suicide while my wife was alive–my two attempts were in unique circumstances that I won’t go into–but sometimes I ruminate about it. I’ll imagine the worst nightmare I can come up with, put myself in that situation, and picture myself committing suicide. But the ruminating hasn’t been bad lately. I still worry about being homeless, but the more I see the orange clown and his team of idiots in Congress fucking up left and right, the less I fear his agenda. It’s not going to be that easy to tear America apart. They’re going to try–they ARE trying–but we have a good bunch of people ready to fight them. I’m not talking about the Democrats in Congress, most of whom are useless corporate shills. I’m talking about groups like Indivisible, whom you can thank for the defeat (so far) of the GOP’s attempts to repeal Obamacare.

Well, I’m going to try to get some sleep. Thanks for reading. =)