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The Generational Death March

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The dog days of summer are around the corner. Major League Baseball is already upon us. Children are running through sprinklers. Fireflies accompany the warm summer nights. Many families are planning their summer vacations. The rest of us are daydreaming about planning our summer vacations. Life goes on. There's a certain reliable and comforting mundane feel to the way seasons predictably play out over and over again. This year doesn't seem much different than the previous. It's easy to forget that we're losing the war on climate change because, for the most part, the gradual warming is hard to perceive. It's hard to physically experience the fact that there were more warm days this year than the year prior. Warm is warm. Some days you sweat. Some years you experience a late snow storm the spring. Your body catalogs the experiences but does a poor job analyzing them in any meaningful way. It records the numbers but doesn't do the math for you. But I can. The

To Live is to Live in Defiance

Our government hates poor people. Structurally, this hatred is racially coded and built into the bones of society. Socioeconomically, it is laid down in the glass ceilings built to keep lower classes in their places. It's binary in terms of gender identity . The disparity of our country is so ingrained that it was built into the very schematics of our country as its success was literally built on the backs of the enslaved. 240 years after we declared our independence, the country still seems to be struggling with  these mysterious issues that other countries have long since improved upon. Almost 24 Native Americans and Alaska Native families lack clean water . While corporations are draining California dry, there are about 100 communities who do not have safe drinking water, either. A number of states spend more on prison than education even though study after study shows an increase in educational spending leads to a decrease in prison spending. Roughly 42 million American

Political Baggage: I am not responsible for President Trump

Occasionally, a confused Democrat will stumble their way into Left Twitter . I can always spot them by the way the talking points trickle from their tongue like a Pavlovian response to Trump, the blandness of their soul (if centrism were a flavor of ice cream it would be cardboard), and the binary way in which they perceive the political world (no, I'm not a liberal. No, I'm not a conservative, either. I'm a leftist ). In the Venn Diagram of politics, leftists and liberals occasionally occupy the same space. I can understand how a Democrat might wander into the dark, left twitter-verse (the lure of that sweet, sweet single payer) but the conversation usually ends in frustration. I  voted for Dr. Jill Stein and the illustrious orator  Ajamu Baraka . But  I am not responsible for President Trump.  That honor goes to your candidate Hillary Clinton. A politician seeks to win an electoral race because they believe they have a vision for the future... one that improves t

Loose Lips Might Sink Ships!

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Politics is war . War is peace . I live in the upside down where everything is wrong and what is really wrong is somehow really right. Or, at least, that's what the merry-go-round of media is saying. At the end of the day, however, it's all spin. Wars come with a heavy cost. Parents are killed. Spouses are widowed. Children are killed. And these losses have consequences that cascade downwards. In order to offset that cost, the US embarked upon a really interesting propaganda campaign during WWII. Because the war was fought outside of the US, those left behind felt not only helpless but also faced skepticism over whether or not the war was necessary. To compound the problems domestically: wars were expensive. Manufacturing could only produce so many uniforms. Food had to be rationed and diverted. Energy had to be rationed and diverted. Vacations and time off were seen as helping Hitler. The solution was simple: mass produce posters and advertisements that empowered tho

Dear White People

Freddie and his twin sister Fredericka were born with a life sentence. A predetermined reverse lottery that only appeared random to those looking in from the outside. Born two months premature in the late 1980s wasn't always a death sentence but it did come with a variety of health risks that kept Freddie hospitalized for the first few months of his life. Still, they survived. Freddie and Fredericka fought and lived. Before their first birthday, blood tests showed that poison was accumulating in their tiny bodies. Unbeknownst to family, Freddie and Fredericka were being poisoned by their landlord. The poisoning could have been fatal. Still, they survived. Freddie and Fredericka fought and lived. But the damage that had been done to their little bodies was irreversible. Surviving the poison wasn't the same thing as being unaffected by the poison. The twins were diagnosed with ADD, were easily to frustrate and anger, were impulsive, and had difficulty regulating their emotio

The Quiet Politicians and Silly Children

There are about 29 million uninsured Americans. Americans who are at risk for medical bankruptcy each time someone almost t-bones them in an intersection. Americans who might be forced to work while undergoing cancer treatments because they cannot afford to take time off . Americans who have had the unfortunate luck of being born with a chronic illness that they cannot afford to treat. Americans for whom our health care system is a fantastical nightmare that plagues them. Further, having insurance isn't the same thing has having healthcare; affordability becomes the next hurdle. After all, what good is having health insurance if you can't adequately access it without paying a $13,000 deductible ? Having insurance doesn't guarantee you access to the health care system. Having insurance for those who can't afford to use it only really means that you have another monthly bill to calculate into your budget less you face penalties from the IRS (#ThanksObama). Millions

An Open Letter to Democrats

Dear Democrats, Do you have a moment? Oh, I know, life must be very busy for you lately. If not for your play-by-play retweets of the Trump-Russia allegations, there might not be any justice at all in the world. And I concede that without your countless restating of the "facts", clever hashtags , and oddly homophobic jokes about Putin and Trump, the  FBI, CIA, Justice Department, NSA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Treasury Department, Department of Homeland Security, and the Senate Intelligence Committee might all simultaneously forget to finish investigating the Putin-Trump connection. Your service to this country is immeasurable and for that reason I promise this will not take up much of your time. I wanted to talk to you about your performance. Or, more specifically, your lack-there-of. This election was embarrassing. You propped up an unpopular candidate ( Weekend At Bernie's style) and hoped no one noticed your candidate had the persona