Guess who’s not laughing anymore…

THIS ONE!

The country is going to hell in a handbasket.  I don’t know wtf I’m going to do about school.  I don’t know wtf I’m going to do if I get sick.  I’m working 9AM to 6PM every day for practically pittance.  It’s going to be enough for me and James to move, but we’ll basically be living paycheck to paycheck and will have to make a fuckton of sacrifices.  So much for my going back to school, if I’m even offered a loan to do it.  Theres not much class time to squeeze into my schedule.

Out of everything thats happened, what strikes me as the most heartbreaking personally, is the fact that I’m helpless to do anything about my parents’ future.  They will be working for the rest of their lives.  I would give anything to alleviate the burden on them, but with a doosy of a situation on my own, it’s simply not going to be feasible.

I’m frustrated.  I’m angry.  I’m scared.  I’m broke.

So I wrote a letter to the candidates.  Fuckall if it’ll do anything, but I couldn’t not try to make my voice heard somehow.  It was sent to both camps just a few minutes ago.

It reads:

Senators,

I am a 22 year old from Newark, NJ. My community has been wrought with violence and corruption for years, up until we elected Cory Booker and finally began seeing some positive change.

Unfortunately, despite all that, my life situation along with those of the millions of other lower/middle class in the country, are looking increasingly grim each day. Personally, I have no health insurance. This is because I was removed from my parent’s plan when I had to leave college, and work full time to move out of my home and decrease the financial burden on my parents, who have worked hard all their lives with limited education to put myself and my 13 year old brother through Catholic schools; a decision made because of the turbulent atmosphere of our community.

I am deeply troubled when I read articles about the wealthy Wall Street workers and CEO’s maintaining their vast wealth despite the crisis, while the rest of us who won’t see a fraction of that kind of money in our lifetime are the ones expected to make the sacrifices and bear the burden. This bailout plan doesn’t seem to be helping anyone except those who have already helped themselves and gotten us to this point to begin with.

My parents now have no retirement to look forward to and will presumably be living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of their lives. I, as the firstborn, feel much more pressure to educate myself, and secure a good job to help ensure they won’t have to be going through the daily 9 to 5 grind at age 60 and up. However, I can’t afford to go to back to college! At age 22, instead of finishing my education and moving on to bigger and better things, I am working 45 hour work weeks with no health insurance and can still just BARELY afford to live on my own, much less help my parents.

What is this bailout package doing for us? Why should the people who caused this problem be allowed to maintain their millions? Why are we, the average citizens, reading about AIG executives taking a $400,000 “holiday” at our expense? Why should the Wall Street fat cats be in charge of our economic lives while they maintain their riches at our expense and blame the lower/middle class for the crisis and our “inability to live within our means”. If they looked around an urban community like the kind I’ve been apart of my entire life, they’d see that no ones trying to “scam” their way into getting government funds, most of us are simply trying to survive and feed our families. And those who were supplied with overbearing mortgages they can’t afford were done an incredible disservice by the lenders, who only care about their cut and nothing about the path of financial doom they’re setting their clients on.

I see nothing in this bailout package that will benefit me or my family in the ways of healthcare, the exorbitant cost of gas, the possibility of losing our homes or helping students continue their education so we can secure good jobs and won’t be stuck cleaning up this mess for the rest of our lives.

Senators, I implore you to do your best to approach this situation with consideration to the lower/middle class. The class disparity in this country is atrocious. I’d like to call the bailout for what it is: a lifeline for the fat cats. To hear both of your defenses of the bailout was most discouraging. People like us need to see some reassurance that we won’t be forgotten in the fray, since we are the ones suffering the consequences. Our fundamental rights to home, health and happiness are being robbed from us. We need to level the playing field and stop allowing the wealthy to abundantly prosper while the rest of us are left to struggle. When did the “land of opportunity” become the land of greed and disparity?

Regards,

Lillian Rivera

Newark, NJ

I know I’m kidding myself even putting in the effort to write this.  I strongly anticipate the McCain camp stealing the election, as I believe the Republicans have done in the two preceding elections.

But for some reason, I maintain a shred of hope.

I guess at this point, I should just start considering it a character flaw.


Political LULZ

I has them.

In fact, that’s all I even need to say.  Everyone and their evangelical minister has something to say about the election, so I feel like it’s officially become redundant to say anything.  Obviously, I’m still going to, though I’ll try not to preach…I’ll just leave that to FOX news and their remarkably two-faced journalism style (i.e. Palin’s “struggle” with the sexist liberal media vs. Hilary’s “whining”).  I know you’ve heard it all before.

Personally, I’ve made my decision.  Though I’ve always considered partisan politics to be two sides of the same oppressive coin being pandered to the people in order to create for them a false sense of control, I usually try to weigh issues and pick the lesser of the two evils.  Do I honestly believe my vote makes a difference?  It’s a layered answer.  I don’t believe it does a damn thing in our nations best interest, since most of us are completely ignorant to the lengths our government can and has gone through to control things much less important than the U.S. Presidency.  If the boys really had their heart set on a candidate they feel to be the most obedient scapegoat while they do their real damage behind the scenes, it wouldn’t take much more than another “ballot mishap” to make it happen.  I find the whole process to be not much more than smoke and mirrors and it’s difficult for me to take any campaign promise with a grain of salt.  Yes, even from His Holiness, Barack Obama.

However, I do understand the difference between 1) being bitter and miserable in the midst of a police state no different than today, and 2) being bitter and miserable in prison after Congress does away with net neutrality, Homeland Security searches my computer and arrests me for downloading illegal Un-American media and literature, as well as two seasons of The Office.  It sounds far-fetched until someone reminds you that McCain doesn’t use the internet and Stalin Palin might very well be the chief influence about laws regarding things like free speech and free press.  As described by the Washington Post, this is a woman who…

…opposes programs that teach girls how not to get pregnant, lobbies against their right to decide whether to have a child, then kills social programs that exist to cushion the impact of those policies. She then has the gall to trot out her own pregnant daughter as a symbol for “family values.”

Oh yeah, such a warm and fuzzy history with womens’ personal freedoms, she’s bound to be a triumphant advocate for free speech.  Oh, nevermind, according to this Time Magazine article, she’s prone to desire book banning:

[Former Wasilla mayor] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving “full support” to the mayor.

This leads me to imagine frightening scenarios where checking off the “Atheist” box on some idle meme means being carried off to some Woodstock-like Christian bonfire and set on fire while thousands of Evangelicals look on in glee.   Ok, I’m going with extremes for humor’s sake, but you know what I mean.  This is why I vote.  In blind hope that it’ll make a difference…for the times where the lesser of two evils means nothing beneficially changing as opposed to waking up in 1984.

Sigh.

I dunno, guys.  I’m at a crossroad.  When I was younger and more idealistic I fully believed in the power of the people.  The notion that the lower/middle class could come together and rise up against the top 2%, unify to make a change in our own country, take power from the few who have it and seek to selfishly profit at the expense of the laborers and put it into the hands of the people.  I believed and still believe in the power of solidarity.

But this election…makes me sad.  In the sense that people don’t seem to care what the government does with our personal freedoms or our relations with the hundreds of other countries we share the planet with, but rather God (since he’s the only god that matters, obviously), who some politician sucked/fucked, flag pins and black and white social issues.  Grey areas are naturally for commies and liberals.

I just wish the people who do care about the real world in 2008 (since most people in power are still living in the 60’s) would put aside petty differences that separate them and realize they could do much more for their cause by ensuring we live in a country where these decisions are ours to make.  As long as everyone refuses to look outside their own little box (*coughcoughreligioncoughcough*) and inform themselves one in awhile, we’re every bit the idiot hick country the rest of the world thinks we are.  And I remain cynical as to whether such a populace is worth the effort.

Till then, the only ideal I can agree with and wholeheartedly push is this.

Solidarity

So it got a bit preachy.

Sue me, its the motherfuckin election.