On the table beside her hospital bed was a miniature can of diet ginger ale with a small bent straw sticking out of it. I laughed. It's true, she won't drink aspartame. She won't even drink soda usually.
Her mom looked at the nurse and said, "it's true, I taught my children not to drink poison."
Aspartame has been linked to brain tumors, diabetes and psychological problems. This is not some obscure knowledge I pulled out of a secret text book. A quick google search of "what is aspartame?" came up with all those issues and more.
Yet as she was coming out of surgery her healthcare providers, the people who are supposed to help her body heal, gave her poison. When we asked for something healthier they had nothing they could provide for her.
And this is the good hospital in our area.
I overheard a woman at the hotel the other day telling her son that the juice in the bistro was too expensive. "I will pick you up a soda when we stop for gas," she said.
I often feel like I can't afford to eat healthy. I cringe at buying the $3 package of vegetarian-fed, organic eggs versus the $1.88 for the cheap eggs. But really, what's $1.12? And if I don't spend that $1.12 on healthier food what will I spend it on? Probably a slice of gas station pizza.
For years we've been hearing about the maltreatment and harsh conditions of the workers piecing together our clothing in countries around the world. People have talked about the children who were putting soles on designer sneakers and the $0.03 per day they are being paid.
Now people are talking about it because of the collapse of a factory in Bangladesh, but in just a few weeks it will be forgotten again. We'll go back to buying clothing without a second thought to who put those stitches in that fabric.
I will probably still buy clothes from the Gap.
With all this knowledge, with all this awareness, why do our actions not change? We know these chemicals aren't healthy for us, but they continue to sell them. And why? Because we continue to buy them. We know people aren't being treated right, but we continue to support the companies who are making a profit off of their pain. We all hate Walmart, yet they are still the top retailer.
We don't need to wait for the government to change these things. We need to stop buying the items with the chemicals in them.
I can't guarantee that my actions are about to make a complete change, but I can say that these are all things I'm thinking about when I make my purchases, and it has changed how I shop over the last few weeks. I already bought healthy food, but it's getting healthier. I'll even put up with the snobby customers and shop more at the health food store.
Oh, and next time one of us is in the hospital Trisha and I will review the "aspartame is poison" thing with the doctor ahead of time.
We do it because we, as a country, a community or a minority are poor or we are rich enough to be conditioned to a more carefree life with less thought to what has allowed us to live this way. Middle and upper class are in a position to consider these things and to take action against them, says Maslow's hierarchy of needs, however most of the time there is still no action taken. For the middle class in our country at this time there is the sense of being slowly drowned while our government aggressively seeks to destroy middle class and the number of the privileged rich remain rich because they are living off of debt bond slavery in this country and out right slave labor product consumption from other countries while at the same time using population control through the chemical companies, the drug companies who own our health care and medical education. Don't believe me? Look it up. Look up where people are getting their financing. It is just as accessible on the internet as who is being paid the most to win the seat in the white house. Still believe in your two-party system? That's because people in general are too busy trying to survive or trying not to be a position to have to try to survive instead of enjoying life that they don't do their research and even if they do, who has the kind of time that it takes to do something about it.
ReplyDeleteWant to know how this big mess unfolds? Okay, a small prediction, if you will. The number of rich is actually decreasing and becoming rapidly and popularly (note the sarcasm) known as the top one percent is becoming a smaller more more isolated group. The impoverished and homeless are increasing at an extreme rate, however some of this is being "handled" because the top one percent owns the drug companies, the insurance companies and health care, or at least health care worth any value and health education. They also own the oil companies and the education systems that are funded by the government. It's all the same group of people. So this takes care of the homeless who can't get jobs because they DON'T HAVE AN ADDRESS. If you were an employer would you hire the guy with no reliable transportation and no address to put on a tax form (also government)? Of coarse not. So let's not go there with the "it's the poor's fault for being poor". That's just a lame excuse for not having a conscience enough to educate yourself on the topic. Ever hear of the glass ceiling? Only if you are the ones who are creating it most likely and who is responsible for that? Why, the very backbone of your government who is owned by the top one percent, who dictates your two party voting system, who owns pays off and controls what you find out through media (which without twitter we would still be most likely in the dark; the reason other countries are banning twitter) and allows hundreds of thousands of Natives to have an entire revolution called Idle No More, that happened all over Canada AND THE USA without any or very little media coverage. I am surprised and delighted that Monsanto has been exposed, however who exposed them? Might want to research that. You may find it surprising. Anyone see the problem here?
ReplyDeleteSo back to the basic problem here (in case anyone is lost by now or couldn't keep up) of why no one is doing anything. The greatest numbers in our country right now are poor impoverish or becoming one or the other. Middle class is using all of their energy trying not to become one of the victims. We simply don't have time or health enough to. After all, most of us have spent a lifetime eating "poison" that we didn't know we were eating because we were gullible enough to trust the FDA (don't get me started here, just look it up) who is also owned paid off and run by our one percent. The one percent stays the one percent because they continually find ways of crookedly maintaining wealth. They actually have private seminars on just how to do this, general public is not allowed (again look up a documentary called "The One Percent" and then do research).
ReplyDeleteSo back to the breakdown. One way to break through the glass ceiling is through college. Of coarse the one percent owns the banks so that will only work if you can go without taking out too many loans. Other wise you are going for nothing because they will own you. You will not be able to get a house a car a piece of land without paying them (even if you pay them the government may make up some excuse to take it all away from you anyway.. don't argue, just look it up) or going through them first. So the poor increase because of debt, illness, lack of education and an inability to obtain the means for basic living (house, car maintenance, food etc.). They cannot break through the glass ceiling. They have a really hard time changing anything that is happening to them because of the control of media so they can't even vote these people out of office (although great efforts to Johnson and Stein this past year for getting enough votes to make media at the end of it all, again thanks to twitter). Middle class will drown in debt and disappear. Large masses of people are already being killed off due to strange illnesses. Still think they need gas chambers? Hundreds of thousands of homeless have just disappeared as well for no known reason (again ...research people).
ReplyDeleteTheir plan: eliminate middle class, kill as many off with sickness, debt and poverty while absorbing as much of our money in the process as possible before they sell us off to the highest bidder which right now looks like China. Do you know what will happen to us once they decide they can take over full force? They need land. Not people. Especially not people as ill-educated and sickly as we are. However, our numbers increase. Desperation is setting in and a greater need to discover why things are the way they are is beginning to unfold. A huge number of us are not able to work. Of coarse, disability is available if you can keep from becoming homeless long enough to actually FIGHT them for the help you need because anyone sick enough to need help needs a lawyer to prove it. God knows we are all liars. Why shouldn't we be healthy eating and drinking all of their poison and genetically modified food. How silly of us.
ReplyDeleteBut our numbers are rising still. There are too many of us and not enough of them. They have the weapons and the police, but they are no longer providing decent health care for them either. They are also eating the same food. These positions are filled by American citizens and they are not good to you once you are not contracted under them. Ever talk to a retired or disabled Veteran (yes, that's a capital "V")? How long with they point hired guns in the faces of their own families who are getting sick beside them? What they want to happen is to get armed forces from another country (China) to come into our territory and take over before we figure this all out. If they don't, they lose. If they do, we lose at greater profit to them. Either way they will not face criminal charges for what they are doing nor what they have done to people living here. We are only in a position to know or see what we are in position to know or see. How many can still afford internet? So we are back to Maslow.
ReplyDeleteWhy do I have enough time to do all of this extensive research? I am extremely sick. Most days lately I cannot leave my couch or bed. Of course, I am on Mainecare, so their is nothing wrong with me. Here's the thing. My Mother was a doctor. She was also the manager of a hospital in Cobleskill NY. She and her associates were sneaking people into the back the back of the hospital and treating them after they were told if those people didn't have healthcare, they were to be told there is nothing wrong with them and sent home to die. My mother refused. In her day, they made you take a Hippocratic oath. Only back them the words were a bit different. You took an oath to CURE illness. Now you only take an oath to TREAT illness. So I am in a position to see this side of hospital politics but you can look it up your self. I was sent home to die while my gal bladder was in the middle of failing. They didn't want to pay for a hida scan. They did an ultrasound and looked for stones which Mainecare covers, but a hida scan isn't covered by a hospital if certain blood tests and an ultrasound is performed first and now abnormalities show up. So I went to a different hospital. They sent me home too. So I called up my primary care and outright lied to him. My mother knew my gal bladder was failing. All of my symptoms were very specific. So I called up my primary, told him another hospital was going to order a hida scan but it was going to take a month to get in for it and I asked him if he could get me in sooner. He got me in the next day. My gal bladder was operating at 23%. Not extremely bad. He set me up for surgery the next week to have it removed. Right before surgery I was wheeled in for one more exam to make sure that it had not attached itself to my liver while I had waited for surgery. It was down to 9% when I went for surgery. If I hadn't pushed, I would be dead. Now what I had is called biliary dyskinesia commonly caused by an underlying disease. That hasn't been figured out yet. So here I lay. Sick as hell until I figure it out before my doctors do. I am on section 8, food stamps; I go to college on government money because I am too sick to work and partly because I have autism and adhd. My GPA is 3.78 (A-), not too bad. My IQ, on the high side. I compulsively research and cross-check my research for the sake of research itself. I have time because I am sick. It takes my mind off of my illness. That and you could imagine I am not very good at social situations. People don't like to talk about what scares them. This shit is scary. Especially if you are like most of us. Sick and getting sicker with no help but lots of treatment. If you are poor and you are lucky enough to be in a position to research and keep up with things like this, see it as your civic duty to sort through truth and bullshit. I still haven't figured out which is which, however it is all starting to paint a picture. Being Native, I was not raised with a successful brainwashing that I live in a free country. Instead I was taught the difference between the illusion of freedom and true freedom, which is what we use to have. Freedom is not measured by "other countries being worse off than us" and so we have no right to complain. What the heck kind of argument is that? Not one that makes much sense to me. You are free or you are not. When our country fits all 14 signs of the definition of fascism, I think that qualifies us as a fascist country. We are no, Northern Korea but we are very far from free and in some serious trouble.
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