Scattered, Smothered, Covered and…

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hash

I’ve tried to write a few times over the last week, but can’t seem to stay on topic.  You know, the opposite of writers block.  Just a mess of whatever comes out. Huddle House hash browns, scattered and smothered.  Sure it’s great at 3 A.M. after you’ve been out drinking at the club, but it has to come back out sometime.  Usually at 5:30, when the room starts spinning and you can’t make it to the bathroom.

With all the subjects in the news, drawing comment and outrage from all sectors, where do I begin.  How can we make something as simple and universal as going to the bathroom difficult.  If you Google it, between 0.2 and 0.3 per cent of Americans face this problem.  Why can’t it just be as simple as: You’re rights end where mine begin.  99.7 per cent of the population are seeing laws passed to force everyone accommodate 0.3 per cent.  It’s in the same category as same sex marriage.  I don’t care who you love, have sex with or want to share a bitter divorce with.

The Presidential elections are starting to feel like Russian Roulette.  No matter who wins in the end, everyone loses.  The echoes of “Never Trump” and “Never Hillary”, come at me across all media, along with the inevitable “He/she is a liar and is only out for their own good”.  Minorities are being vote harvested by promising that if I’m elected, I’ll give you more and warned that if the other gut is elected you will lose everything.  The pandering is just embarrassing.

If the protesters continue gather and become violent, will they try to interfere with the freedom to vote?  What will it look like on the nightly news when National Guard and Police have to stand outside polling sites, just to ensure freedom of access and protection?

Where is the tipping point of racial and religious tension, that pushes us past words and into intentional, organized, armed violence?  Tolerance has a limit.  When do the sheep, stop repeating what the Talking Heads say and start holding everyone accountable for their own actions and words.  When do the sheep recognize that their news is crafted to be entertaining first and accurate a distant second.

The hash browns have to come out one way or another.  Either way, it will look the same.  Somehow it will still look like something you shouldn’t have eaten at 3 A.M.  No wonder I can’t stay focused.  Now, I’m afraid of what it will be like when it comes out from the other end.

Enviromental Conditioning

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snake

Another one of those video clips, that are supposed to illuminate the unequal treatment of Blacks in America, showed up on my computer again this morning.  It reminded me of another post from a Puerto Rican friend reminding everyone that he’s not Mexican so don’t wish him a “Happy Cinco de Mayo”.   Apparently islanders don’t celebrate Mexican Independence day.  For myself, I’ve learned to ignore the comments about skin-heads, neo-nazis and white racist crap.

It also reminded me of another article about camouflage and role models, the image we project to the world.  What is anyone to expect from a person, of any race, who projects an image of foul mouthed, disrespectful, unrestrained threat?  We are conditioned to react to threats by nature.  Fight or flight.  We are also conditioned by society to respond to others in kind.

Before anyone starts, yes, there are racists and assholes on both sides of the argument.  I’m not talking about the ones who have declared their allegiance and stupidity to credos based on skin pigment.  This is about everyday people who feel pressure and resentment over or through the acts of others.

I work in the inner city.  I see a lot of kids trying on the image of a street thug or criminal.  I recognize part of that coming from protecting an image in the community, protection from reprisal on the street.  When I run into this, they get a short lesson.

  1. If you want respect, give respect.
  2. Acting like a criminal gets you treated like a criminal until proven otherwise.
  3. You choose your role model and destiny.

It carries over.  The image of blacks has been blasted across the evening news, music videos, movie screens and the internet.  It is not the  image of Dr. King and his peace marches, or the scholars and doctors helping to change our world.  It’s the image of Al Sharpton’s race baiting rants, mobs of people rioting, looting and burning Baltimore, shooting each other in record numbers on the streets of Detroit and Chicago.  To few people have the perspective I enjoy, so they react predictably.  Fear the threat.

Back to the beginning.  The black community is being treated differently.  It is more from the image being broadcast to the world, than rampant racism.  The vocal minority is accelerating this through hype and hyperbole, peaceful encounters become violent, innocent bystanders are caught  in the mix and injured.  These groups are conditioning the world to fear them and it’s working.  The black communities are being isolated for protection.  Police are less likely to take risks confronting hostile groups.  Employers are discriminating over appearance and speech, assessing risks.  Fueling more complaints of racism.

An Indian woman found a rattle snake frozen in the snow.  She brought it into her home and nursed it back to health.  When it was healthy again, it bit her.  As she lay dying, she ask “Why?”

The snake answered, “Stupid Bitch.  You knew I was a snake.”

The Pit and the Pendulum

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It doesn’t matter if we call it history repeating itself or action and reaction. Society, in general, goes through a pattern of extreme swings from conservatism to liberal thought in reaction to trends.  Post World War II, the Viet Nam era protests and Free Love movements were a sharp contrast to the nationalistic fervor of twenty years before.  Then the Regan years where we were proud to be American again.  The last twenty years have been confused.

The-pit-and-the-pendulum

We vacillate between pride in our nation, rallying behind the government and military and despising everything that we are or have been.  As a people we can not decide if we want to protect ourselves or lay down and die for our beliefs.  Worse, we fight among ourselves because Three Hundred Million people disagree on which we should be doing.  In effect, we weaken our ability to have different opinions, because eventually laying down to die means someone else will be left in our place.

I was watching the news and started having a vision of tomorrow.  Racial strife will tear a gaping hole in our nation, riots and murder will run in the streets.  Probably in the Democratic havens like Detroit and Chicago, because they have fought for so long to destroy the elements of law enforcement and justice.  When the local government can no longer placate the masses they will rise in protest and be violently suppressed by the state and federal government.  I can already hear the screams about Posse Comitatus by talking heads that have never read the Constitution.

In the aftermath, there will be those who point out that it was the weakening of the law that allowed the situation to develop in the first place.  We will swing back to the other side, capital crimes will be punished with capital punishment.  Hopefully, people will remember that they have to work for what the want.  Peace and prosperity will replace rampant crime and expectation of entitlements.

All the while I felt like the character from Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Pit and The Pendulum”.  Facing uncertainty only to awaken and find I am facing certain death, watching the pendulum swinging inexorably closer.  Somehow, I manage to escape that only to face walls closing in on me, pushing me to my death.  We hope to elect our own LaSalle, to rush in and save us at the last minute.  That’s the thing about good horror stories, they always leave you uncertain if you’ve really escaped at the end.

It’s taken us over two hundred years to swing back to the point of wanting someone else to be responsible for our lives.  The burden is to heavy.  We must need another King to determine the course of our lives and destiny.  By electing our new nobles, we relinquish authority to others.  Walking the center line is to difficult for us, somewhere between responsibility for ourselves and accepting the authority we relinquished to the government.

Procrastinating for the Future

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pierced

I am supposed to be on my way to the gym, the modern version of labor and fitness, but I got distracted by my thoughts.  It was a simple thing at first.  Just a post about a random event in the news.  A little later, I was skimming Blog posts and found something about losing languages and cultures as the world moves towards a single culture.

Then, I tried to imagine it.  A single unified world, all speaking one language, eating a fusion cuisine that we can only imagine today.  My luck it will turn out to be some formless pap, that looks and tastes like cat food.  With the drift towards sameness, race and ethnicity will become meaningless.  The entire human race will become a Latte colored, medium dark haired, average build, bland copy covering the world.  Individual expression will be reduced to brightly colored shoes or body art.

I’m probably wrong about most of that, but it throws a lot of the news today into perspective.  We are ripping into each other over ignorant, pointless issues like race and skin color.  Language and arbitrary national borders are enough to kill over as we try to protect ourselves from outside danger.  Economics, politics and religion are being used to divide the world instead of unite it.

What’s the point?  In this distant future, when our equally bland colored descendants look back at where they came from and waggle their ears in sad confusion, none of this will matter.  The perspective of time will reduce most of what we do to pointlessness.  A dash of color or spice to dilute to change anything.

plane stunt

The point is it does matter today.  I won’t be here in the distant future, except as a tiny scrap of DNA and recycled atomic particles.  We have to live where and when we are.  It is vanity to assume anything we do will impact that distant future.  I hope someday one of my borderline insane descendants will hit the gym and shave their head before they go do something monumentally stupid.  First, because they still have the choice.  Second, because that little strand of DNA is still around to make the world at least a little interesting.

Not Quite 12 Steps (Addicted part II)

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This is a big piece about a tough subject. I’m putting it out hoping for feedback on the process I am suggesting. Every little bit helps.

PTSD2At my worst, I was a basket case.  A rolling chassis with bits and pieces still hanging off and a bunch of pieces in a plastic bucket.  Probably an old five-gallon pickle bucket with grease on the side.  I remember the absolute fear that would hit me when anyone asked me what was wrong.  “No!  I’m not ready!  I can’t even think about that.” How can you explain to someone what it’s like to hold the hand of another man while they died, from a wound they took following your orders?  Looking down the sights at a living person who is nothing more than a target.  It’s not even math anymore, at that point it’s just survival.

In the early stages of my counseling, I found a book by Dr. Abraham Twerski, “Addictive Thinking” (Hazelton Press, 1990).  It was on a discount rack in the mall, and I just wanted something to read.  It turned into a personal guide to recovery.  As I read, there were constant points where I saw my own life in the pages.  Making excuses for my actions, trying to hide what I was doing from others, binging on rage and violence, shame and remorse in the aftermath.  There were even co-dependents and facilitators, family and friends who helped me make excuses.

The excuse, “no one else understands”, let me continue to associate with other PTSD Addicts.  There was comfort in their presence.  There is a real feeling of belonging and safety with others who had “been there”.  The same as with high-risk behavior, it fed the disease.  We were self-medicating out of a bottle or popping pain pills that some got hooked on after an injury.  Anything to numb the pain and let us pretend to be normal.  Denial is still denial, no matter how you dress it up.

Internal conversations reinforced our denial patterns.  How can there be a problem if I’m still able to function in society?  Sure, there are some rough spots.  Relationships are destroyed, but that happens to everyone.  New job?  Just a change of scenery, they didn’t like me being gone for a year, either.  Uncontrolled emotions.  Not a problem.  I can deal.

Here are the modified 12 steps I came up with to work my way towards recovery.  It has been fifteen years in the making and there is still work to do.  

Step 1.  Admit that there is a problem.

That was the hardest part.  Like most addicts, it took a situation and moment of clarity, waking up with your belly on fire, head pounding, feeling your body dying from the abuse you’ve poured into it.  Admitting weakness, injury or not being strong enough is anathema to most soldiers.  Mine was road rage where I was going to shoot someone for changing lanes to quickly.  

This needs to be public to a group, in a way that can’t be contested later.  There is a point of saying, “Hi, my name is Butthead.  I have PTSD and I’m hurting myself and others.  I need help.”  If we make it public, it is harder to deny that you have a problem.  Just the effort of saying it out loud, hearing your own voice and confront reality is significant.  

If it helps, the people who know you already know that you are having problems, you’re not fooling them.  There will be some that can’t or won’t understand why you don’t just get over it.  You can’t explain it but try anyway.  

Step 2.  Commit to the change every day.

You are going to have tough days and episodes no matter what you do.  Be prepared for them and dedicate yourself to getting better every day, sometimes every hour.  It may help to make a list of how you are harming yourself and others.  I write, so I kept a journal, documenting my episodes and how I responded.  What I could do better.

Have a friend, or professional you can call when you’re feeling overwhelmed, or join a support group.  

Meditation, without all the mystic mumbo-jumbo, just means a quiet time to think about your day and goals.  In the morning it is a way to review your tools and prepare yourself.  At night, a way to look back on your day and see where you have made progress and where you need to work harder.  

Step 3.   Be honest about what PTSD means and what it has done to you, your life and those who share your life.

Most of the people who love you haven’t been to war or shared the trauma, they can’t understand.  It is also true that they won’t have a chance to understand unless you try to explain.  Apologies are probably in order as well.  You’ve been through hell and put them through the hell of watching you suffer. Acknowledge that you have hurt others.

Step 4.  Make amends.

In a lot of situations, you can’t.  The hurt and injury you have caused are to those who are closest to you.  Just saying “I’m sorry”, won’t cover it.  Be prepared for some of them to reject your efforts, don’t rage against them.  You need to accept that they may never forgive you and that’s their choice.  Respect it.  Accept it.  Move on.  For the ones who let you, try to be better.

I made a lot of phone calls and had some very hard conversations.  Since I lied for so long about what I did and what happened, I had to correct the record.  It was harder to say, “I lied.  What I really did was … It changed me.  It hurt me and I hurt you.”  There will probably be some pissed off people, wanting to know why you lied in the first place.  They have a right to be angry and hurt.  Ask if they can hold off on lashing out at you, so you have a chance to get past the moment.  But give them the chance to say their piece.  

It has been pointed out that you are going to have a hard time with this and will probably slip up a lot.  Make it a point to recognize when you have hurt those around you and apologize, every time.  Even when they don’t want to hear it, say it.  It is part of recognizing and admitting that you have a problem. 

Step 5. Live the changed life.

You are trying to reprogram your brain.  It won’t happen overnight or in the first few years.  You will have PTSD for the rest of your life.  The only way to avoid relapse is to change those things that are your personal triggers.  I know, to easy.  

Life models – you have to pick a person who has gone through the process, or you respect for who they are and copy what you admire about them.  It doesn’t have to be everything about them, their ability to laugh or how courteous they are, copy it.  Find someone and something else and add that to your list.   

This also means avoiding the risky lifestyle behaviors.

Drinking – numbs the pain until you try to sleep and have to wake up hungover.  I am not saying don’t drink.  I am saying don’t drink to excess.  We tend to socialize in clubs and bars, part of our lives and all that, don’t walk in with a bunch of money in your pocket, leave the credit cards at home.  Set limits and stick to them.

Thrill Seeking –   The behavior that gets more people killed than any other.  Riding a motorcycle fast, driving through slower traffic, pushing the edge of your talent or the machines tolerance, the rush!  For just a minute, you feel alive.  It’s not just your life you are risking, there are others around.  You are risking them for your own entertainment.  You shake off the honking horns and shouts with a dismissive response of, “Screw ’em.  They need to get out of my way, or I’ll move ’em.”  Is disregard for human life manly or selfish and stupid?  Just asking for a friend.

Fighting – This one is hard for me.  I like it, always have.  Keep it where it is legal.  Join a gym that has a fight night.  Join the UFC and get paid to have someone punch you in the face.  If you do it in public, just walk around and look for trouble, you will find it.  You will also find someone better or carrying a gun, or a jail cell.  

Here is one more point.  Don’t try to be someone or something you are not.  In this case, “Fake until you make it”, is just setting yourself up for failure.  Work at being different, don’t pretend to be different to appease others.  

Step 6.  Get help.

I know, I’m repeating myself.  Find a friend.  Go to a meeting.  Get counseling.  It takes a while for some things to sink in.

You can’t do this by yourself.  Find someone who you can trust and talk to.  It doesn’t have to be a professional, but it does have to be someone who is committed to the process.  Another plus to professionals is detachment.  Your significant other can be easily hurt by what you say and do.  It is important that you be able to vent sometimes, more often in the early stages than the later ones.  Group therapy is another tool that can help a lot.  Hearing others who hurt and are fighting the same demons reminds you that you are not alone.  There is a chance that you might even pick up a partner in healing or a trick that someone else is having success with.

Step 7.  Use the tools.

It’s stupid to try to tough it out unless you have to.  I don’t recommend meds because your body tends to adapt.  I AM NOT A DOCTOR, so don’t take that as a prescription.  On top of that, you can’t reset your brain chemistry if you keep artificially adjusting it.  As a short-term assist, they work to give you a break, room to catch your breath.  Not every therapy will work for you.  If you honestly try something and it doesn’t work, go to the next one.

Counseling and Groups are the most common tools, whether it is one on one with a trained clinical psychologist or going to the local VFW for a weekly meeting.  Have someone to hold you accountable and force you to confront what is going on.  

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a method of processing what is going on inside your head.  Some of it may seem strange or be beyond your ability.  I can’t draw for crap, but I believe that I write well.  It gets the garbage out of my head and on paper, the same as painting.  

8.  Faith or a higher power.

This is another tough one.  Not everyone has a religion to lean on.  The idea is solid, a way to give up the struggle and take the strength of God for forgiveness, for healing, to be strong when you can’t.  Belief doesn’t mean that you aren’t still responsible for your actions, or you don’t have to put in the work.  A church family can also provide another source of support, people who have put in the work already.  There are a lot of veterans out there.  Different wars, same wounds.

9.  Forgive yourself.

Again, this isn’t carte blanche to go on hurting others or continue with self-destructive behavior.  It is simply a way for you to let go of the burdens that are keeping you in a dark place.  If you are a veteran, you have probably seen or done things that most haven’t.  You were in an extraordinary situation, forced to do terrible things, seeing the aftermath of IEDs or counter battery fire, fire fights that left you feeling dirty.  

Another group that is in the same position, the guys inside the wire.  They had to live through mortar attacks and random harassment and not respond.  Just take it every day.  Yep, we called them Fobbits or POGS, but they ate it every day.  Then when the guys outside the wire came in stinking and filthy, demanding more ammo, new uniforms, hot chow, and Motrin.  They took care of us, fed us, patched us up and put up with our crap.  They tried to talk to us, and we looked down on them and made stupid jokes.    

10.  Practice love and trust.

For a long time, I felt that I didn’t deserve love. I rejected it and everyone who tried to love me.  The funny thing was that I acted like it was everyone else rejecting me.  The ability to trust was lost.  For a long time, the only one I trusted was the man who rode with me every day.  He had my back and pulled me back before I went too far.  

Practice means you have to make a conscious effort to be open to being vulnerable.  Trust that the ones you are opening up to won’t try to hurt you.  Even if you try and fail, you need to keep trying. That is the practice part, doing the same thing over and over until you get it right.  Don’t stop after you get it right one time.  Practice until you can’t get it wrong.

11.  Find Someone until you are Someone.

In most support and recovery groups, you have a sponsor who has already gone through the steps and work of healing.  Since what we are talking about is a little less structured, a sponsor isn’t an automatic thing.

Find someone willing to be there for you any time of day or night.  It should not be a family member.  No spouse, brothers or sisters, close personal friends.  If they already care for you so that much, they aren’t going to be tough enough on you or your behavior.  The Someone in question is going to piss you off if they are doing the job.  Telling you no or calling you out for your bullshit isn’t something you need to hear from someone close to you.  This avoids the chance of picking up a co-dependent or facilitator who will accept your slips as “something you need” or “just this once”.

One day, you will wake up and discover that you are the Someone.  The someone your future self will be is strong enough to be strong for someone else.  I really hope you get there.  I’ve been there for others, on call.  It is huge honor. Just don’t try to step up until you’ve done the work yourself or you can hurt the one you’re trying to help.

There are alumni groups VFW, Foreign legion, Unit Organizations, the VA out there who are willing to help or point you in the right direction. You just need to reach out.

For those who don’t fight this daily, pass it on.  There are 22 Veterans who lose the fight every day and choose suicide.  That’s a little less than one an hour, almost a quarter of the daily suicide rate in the U.S. alone.

Help them keep fighting.

12.  Start over

You will fail.  You will give in to your rage and pain and lash out.  You will crawl back in a bottle and hide, breaking a promise or violating parole.  You will say and do hurtful things because you can’t express what is truly hurting you. You will feel ashamed of who you are or what you have done.  There is a lot of “you” in those statements for a reason.  No matter how much help you get from others, this is about you, about your healing and growth.  You are responsible for you.

If you fall, start over.  Go back to the top of the list and begin again.  

Addicted to PTSD (Addicted)

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Have you ever been terrified?  I mean so scared, that for a while you couldn’t even think, not really think.  Your brain saw something, tried to classify it and all you recognized was danger?  You may have reacted or froze, trying to determine what to do, but there was no time to think your way through the situation.  Your breathing and heart rate jump, adrenaline pours into your blood, eyes dilate.   Your hearing may filter everything but one sound or a voice.  Even thinking about it today can make you feel anxious.  Welcome to your basic instincts of Fight or Flight and the potential for PTSD.

PTSD

Like so many veterans returned from overseas, I came back with a problem, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  It’s not unique to the military, so I’m not trying to claim any special status.  What is unique is the way most Veterans who succumb to its effects react or the way society in general sees them.  Most people expect veterans with PTSD to look like Rambo, unemployed vagrants, wandering from town to town,  drunk or strung out on drugs because they can’t face their past.  For the majority, we return to our lives and struggle with readjustment and trying to put ourselves back together.

Here is the short explanation.  There are two types of PTSD.  Type I, is single event or short term trauma, that causes changes in behavior after the fact.  Type II, is long term events where the person adapts survival or coping methods during the event.  Think Stockholm Syndrome.  In addition to what I like to call, Inappropriate Social Responses, like violent reactions to misinterpreted stimuli, there are several other changes.  PTSD is not a single aspect disorder.  However one of the most persistent characteristics is depression and the chemical changes it causes in the brain.

The chemical change is important to understanding why it is so difficult for someone suffering from PTSD to recover.  Reprogramming survival instincts, that have been proven to work, is hard enough to start with.  Extended exposure and reinforcement over time hard-wires them into the brain.  There has been enough research to prove that depression involves chemical changes in the brain, which is why some drugs can mask the worst of the effects.  This is also where your body betrays you, it adapts.  Your body and your brain are constantly trying to maintain the status quo, homeostasis.  If you take opiates to suppress pain, your body increases you ability to feel pain. Increase the drugs and your body continues to adapt.  The same effect can be seen with anti-depressants.

It really sucks when you realize that your own body is conspiring to keep you in the cycle that is tearing you apart.

“Great!  My own brain is trying to kill me!  Now what do I do?”

“I don’t know, dude.  What worked last time?”

“We killed the shit out of the last thing that tried to killed us.”

“Sounds good.  I’m in.  Wait, aren’t we are already doing that?”

To maintain the right balance, you need the adrenaline so High-Risk Behavior gets added in.  I love skydiving, riding motorcycles fast or just danger in general.  It feels like I’m alive again.  It’s all of a piece.  My job lets me feed my addiction because I can explain it away as necessary.  The truth is, I’m getting my fix.  That took me years to understand and admit.

On a subconscious level, you make excuses for your actions and try to maintain the feeling of being whole and alive.  Like an addict, you do the things that support having PTSD.  Like an addict, we make excuses for it.  Like an addict, we are in denial.

TO BE CONTINUED

Counter Culture and Stupidity

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The idea of counter culture has been coming back to me lately.  I’ve been thinking about the dichotomy of a group which rejects the societal standards, laws and authority, then demands that the same society protect them.  Stupidly, we do.

Look at the Sovereign Citizens, an anarchist organization that believes the existing U.S. and State governments are illegitimate.  They claim the protection of common law and use Orwellian logic and Truth Speak to argue constitutional legitimacy of law enforcement as unconstitutional.  Seriously, look it up on U-Tube with police encounters.

soverign

The Sovereigns do make a point, to be a citizen is willingly submit to the government.  That is a good and clear point.  Rousseau’s essay, “The Social Contract”, made the same point before the United States won it’s independence.  To participate in a society, in essence is to surrender some of your rights to the province of governance.  The opposite side of that is that to reject the society and government is also to reject it’s protections.  The constitution, amendments, laws and safety they establish are for U.S. citizens.

The right and responsibility of a governed society is to protect itself, it’s citizens.  The oath sworn by the military is “…to defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”.  Police Officers swear to enforce the laws of the land, protect life and property.  When I consider the verbiage of the oaths; enforce, protect, defend, they are violent and aggressive suited to the people and methods that may be employed.  Where a citizen may, at need, defend themselves, they also surrender justice and revenge to the laws of society.

So, do those that reject the laws and governance of society deserve the protections of that same government?  Does force majeures give us the right to enforce our laws on others within our borders, whether they accept our society and rules or not?

If you use force to resist the laws you are either a criminal or invading force and subject to arrest or destruction.  The people who go on a rampage of looting and riot as a form of protest, may not fall completely into the category of enemy of the state but they are criminals.  Attempting to justify criminal acts by claiming self-righteous anger over a perceived wrong is sophistry and not a defense.

The provisions for protecting society as a whole are allowed for within the constitution, federal and state laws.  To accept that an anarchist group has the right to flaunt those same laws degrades them.  Why should anyone expect us to surrender our moral authority and rights to defense of ourselves, our society and our government because they disagree.  You either support the society or you don’t.  If you reject the society and what it entails, you should not expect that same society to protect you.

The Lowest Common Denominator

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The problem with redistributing wealth and having everyone equal, aside from how unfair it is to those who are working to better themselves, is the lowest common denominator.  That is the number that everyone is reset to so that we are all equal, it is an average down trend.  It is mathematically impossible for an average to raise everyone, so someone is reduced, in many cases dramatically.

Some simple statistics:

14.8 percent of the population live below the Government Poverty level. (U.S. Census Bureau 2014) (census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/index.html)

For a family of 3 the annual income for poverty guideline is $20,090. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) (aspe.hhs.gov/2015-poverty-guidelines)

The group that increased in the poverty level were married families and people with Bachelors degrees.  In 2014 there were approximately 47 million people in the U.S. living below the Federal Poverty Line (FPL).  The group most heavily represented are children under 18, at 20% of their population.

Some Perspective:

A single person, earning minimum wage, working 40 hours per week, with 2 weeks vacation per year is above the FPL. That same wage is less than $100.00 per week from being above the FPL for a family of 3.

The average salary in the US is $46,480.00 (2014 census)

brevity-lowest-common-denominator

America is the Land of the Free.  We are free to worship how and is we want.  We are free to try and fail as often as we like.  Anyone can make poor (STUPID) decisions.  In the privacy of your home you can love whomever you wish and do whatever pleases you with your sexual organs with another consenting adult.

What you are not free from is the consequences of your actions.  That is what the Nanny Government and Socialist programs are trying to take away, at the expense of the other 85% of the population. Education is not the answer.  The percentage of degree earning adults has increased to 34% age 19 – 29, which is also the group growing in poverty.  Providing free education will not eliminate the un- and under employed.

If you want to redistribute wealth, get off your butt and get to work. If you are waiting for someone to hand it to you, you’re part of the lowest common denominator.

 

Nostalgia

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I’ve avoided this for the last couple months, Presidential Politics.  It’s like trying to tiptoe through a puppy-poo minefield in conversation.  I can’t help but to stare in disbelief as they parade across the new channels debating and criticizing each other.  Trump by himself is as enthralling as footage of the latest terrorist attack.  It’s sick.  You can’t help looking, a zit on someones nose, in your face talking to you.

If we are to believe the polls and reporters, the nation is doomed.  This morning I heard Sanders paraphrase Obama “If I can’t get the legislation through, I have no problem using Executive Authority…”  What happened to trias politica and the balance of powers?  I may be a dying breed but that seems un-American for a presidential candidate to state that they intend to ignore the Constitution, Legislature, Supreme Court and People if they don’t get their way.

uncle sam

State and individual rights are being stripped for political correctness.  A bar can refuse to serve anyone for any reason, but not a bakery?  If you don’t like the service, go somewhere else.  Are we no longer free to decide for ourselves?  Do we really need safe zones from words?

The age of Nanny Government came creeping up and we didn’t notice.  We were told it is for the greater good, but if you can do basic math, it’s usually for 10 percent or less of the population.  Thirty million people are without health care, force the other ninety percent to pay for it and run up the cost of medical care for everyone! Bail out the Banks and Auto Industry!  They failed at business so the nation is obligated to keep them operating.  The cars and trucks that were symbols of our nations productivity weren’t safe enough, now you don’t have the right to drive without airbags.  The right to try and fail now comes without consequence.

I want it back, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.  A nation being raised and taught to stand up and fight for themselves and other.  Let’s not  force our opinion on others if they disagree or force someone else to compromise their beliefs to accept another.  I want a nation that doesn’t try to placate terrorists and criminals.  A government run on principle not polls.  A nation with an identity, where we can say the Pledge of Allegiance but you don’t have to.

When this nation collapses under the weight of trying to be everything to everyone, I hope we at least have enough identity left to rebuild.  The next civil war will make everything that has come before look like a fist fight at a family reunion.  I don’t think we love ourselves or each other enough to show restrain this time.

The Destruction Cycle

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The Destruction Cycle.  I like that.  It sounds ominous and terrible.  I doubt anyone will look at it and shrug it off saying, “Oh, the life cycle.”

In the diverse group I work with are the entrepreneurs, investors in their own future, who venture in the world of real estate.  The general discussion started around a piece of property for sale on the edge of The Bad Part of Town.  Being diverse, the topic of gentrification was tossed out.  It was strange to hear the same individuals who are investing in real estate express that it was wrong.  The evil was identified as ripping off the home owners by only paying fifty or sixty thousand for a run down town house, only to rehab it and sell it to someone else for three hundred thousand.

The urban growth cycle has been observed and documented before.  Communities are born, grow, flourish and eventually start to fail.  The value drops and lower income families move in.  Add to that the tendency for investors to rent these houses, the lack of ownership stresses the neighborhood more.  The life cycle for the are in question was about eighty years.  Most of the construction is making use of the existing foundations and some are trying to preserve the amazing architecture and stone work.  Others are just trying to make as much money as they can with cookie cutter apartments that could have been designed in Mother Russia during the Cold War.

We destroy our past to create our future, building on the bones of our ancestors and our history.  There is no Year Zero for us or our descendants.  They have to start from where we are as a nation, a people, with all the good and bad that got us here.  Growth and competition, robber barons, railroad tycoons, medical and scientific breakthroughs, we don’t know if we should applaud or lament because of the lives sacrificed to get here.  The Constitution allows for the growth cycle.  It allows for the nation to change.

It’s all of a piece.  I look at society and see natural competition, destruction and growth.  Back up and look at it again.  We can’t forget the past but we can change some of the things we don’t like.  Our children will change more.  We are going to have to destroy some of the old neighborhoods to do it, not everyone is going to like that, it’s how we grow.