Merry end of the year!

Wow.  Even not being with the rest of my family everyone is stressed!  So...I think this holiday just isn't meant for me.  And I don't mean christmas, I mean the entire end of the christian year.  Fuck this!  What is the point?!  I don't even really give a shit.  The only time that means anything to me is the time I'm able to spend with my daughter (for now) and right now I just need the other time to clean so that we can spend our time in a nice pleasant environment.

Men are messy.  I hate using a stereotype like that, but prove me fucking wrong!  I know there are some clean men out there but I haven't met you.

Must go, the child needs my attention and I must brush my teeth.  Ciao.

Environment and Me

In elementary school we were taught about the destruction of the rain forests.  I was a depressed child because I thought the world was going to end, but mostly because I saw the suffering that going on at the hands of these companies who were cutting down the rain forests including the extinction of animals, and just mass killing.  The mass killing of all the trees and plants that took place and knowing that this area was actually providing the world with oxygen as well, was enough to make me think that by the time I was an adult, the world would be over.  In a small way, it is.  We have reached a point where it seems that we are unable to reverse our effects on global warming and we have no begun to increase our speed of destruction at an insane speed.  

People around me seem to be totally selfish and oblivious.  My best friends throw away recylable things just because it would be too "complicated" or they don't know how.  Instead of taking the time to figure it out, or just doing it when they know, they just throw away and say "I know I should but" or maybe they don't give an excuse.  I know I need to do better, but I have never thought that recycling was too much work.  I never even think about it when I recycle.  I do however think about it when I don't recycle.  If I throw something in the trash that's recyclable I feel gross and I just have this image of it going to a landfill.

So perfect, and of course not so perfect

I have it really good right now.  I read every day about horrible goings on in other countries.  I have seen pictures of people carrying their dead children in the street after being killed by militants, the military or terrorists (as if there is a difference in some places) and I know I have it good.

I am also so incredibly poor that I have to get help to take care of me and my daughter, but I hope to get through school and be able to work soon.  I would love to be able to support us and be able to donate some of my own money and time to those in need.  I know that I have it lucky but I also know that what I have is threatened, because it has already been cut quite severely.  And of course I talk of "welfare" or what it has become which is not actually welfare, it's called Welfare to Work, or CalWorks, in California.  You have to work and then they give you some help.  It's not a lot of money.  It's barely enough to live on, and for many it's not enough to live on, and they cut the benefits each year.  But I want to make sure that people can receive these benefits long after I am off of them because they are so important for the future of our country.  We cannot treat the poor as if they are here simply to be handles only as much as we wish.  The poor are the same people everyone else is, they/we simply do not have the money and the means to get along out their/our own.

It makes no sense to cut people off and force them into lives of crime or danger simply because some people don't want to pay any taxes.  I have never in my life thought that I would be better off if I payed no taxes, and I will never in my life think that taxes are all bad.  I think some money, maybe even a lot of it, is not handled the way I wish, but for me the public schools and the roads and libraries and welfare (or how it exists today) is worth it.  I believe in helping people and I would always help my neighbors.  I believe taxes are a way of helping all of our neighbors.  It's a way of saying of sharing the cost of those things we use, which obviously is the point, but this is clearly lost on many people.  People who are obsessed with the tea party way of thinking.  This selfish idealism is going to ruin our lives and the lives of everyone in this country who is not making so much money they can afford not to know how many houses they own.

I know this is just touching on it, and it's just a small bit of what I think but I just wanted to touch on that today and then I must go put my child to bed so that we may get some rest and then we will clean tomorrow so that we can all be healthy and feel good and have clear heads.

Gluten free vegan

I am excited about this new venture.  I was raised as a vegetarian and I started eating meat regularly when my mother started eating meat because she had become extremely sick and needed to do something to get her health back in order.  Eating meat did seem to help a lot.  I'm not going to go into that, I'm basically saying I have a foundation for vegetarianism.  When I became a vegetarian later in life I was very strict, I did not eat gelatin or anything with animal products in it except for cheese and eggs which I did eat (just not animal parts.)  Nothing you would kill an animal for, shall we say.  Then of course I started eating meat again.  It was a reaction partially to the environment in which I grew up in where there were these militant vegans everywhere being incredibly pushy and horrible to anyone who didn't see the way that they did.  So internally I suppose it pissed me off to the point of not wanting to listen to any vegans.  They had always been assholes to me and by christ they were irritating little fuckers!

So here we are today.  I am going to become a vegan.  Guess what pushy asshole vegans, I would have done this years ago if you hadn't alienated me as a child/adult!

So now that I'm able to think for myself and look at how I want to live my life and change my life and how to live my life with morals and priorities that I have, I do believe that being a vegan fits all of those things.  I am an environmentalist and meat farming is an ecological disaster. Morally I don't believe in killing, harming or torturing animals and meat goes into all of those categories.  And I would like to just feel healthier and I don't think I need dairy to be healthy so the last thing would be eggs.  Eggs are from chickens who are so often just treated terribly, plus even egg farms that don't produce meat, are huge polluters.  Just look at the Chesapeake Bay.   (http://www.thebaynet.com/news/index.cfm/fa/viewstory/story_ID/12976, http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/07/chesapeake-dead-zone-agriculture)
I will say I have never in my life, knowingly, bought non-free range eggs.  However when you go out to eat, or if you eat things with egg in the ingredients, then you are most likely getting the eggs from the horribly treated chickens who have been de-beaked and stuffed into tiny cages where they suffer for the entirety of their lives.  So, I say, if I can eat healthy and be healthy as a vegan, why the fuck not?!

 I will say a big reason that I've decided now I can do this, is that there are a lot more options and a lot more sources for information than when I was younger as well.  I always wished to go back to being a vegetarian but didn't know how to eat healthy and get all the proper nutrients that I needed because I've never really had a normal eating schedule or been taught what I need to live on.  It's always been, you need protein, and of course the idea in this country is that the only way to get protein is to eat animals.

My parents are all for the idea but they don't believe that I can do it without losing out on some essential vitamins because I don't know how.  This is a valid concern I think, especially when you are told that the best sources of protein are meat and the best source of calcium is dairy, but I actually do know about food.  I know this is an issue though because a lot of the vegan's when I was younger really were horribly unhealthy people.  I think they did it because it was a trend and not because it meant something to them, which is probably why they were so fucking annoying!  But now it's so easy to be a vegan if you live most places in the U.S. and even in the U.K.  Of course there are some serious strongholds for the 'meat for every meal' crowd who don't understand why anyone would give that up, but it is ok to also just not bring it up.  I believe what I believe and even though I am going vegan I will still fight for better farming practices because I understand that it's not everyone's thing.  I think at the very least, farms could be polluting as little as possible and treating their animals well.  At the minimal very very least.  We should have standards in this country.  I think what makes the best society is having extremely high standards especially when they are so easily obtainable.

Occupy

Every day that this movement clarifies is demands (and yes there are many, and all very very understandable) and every day it gains momentum rather than petering out, I get more and more excited and happy for the future of the world.  I don't think it's going to be easy but to see people actually getting up and acting is so fucking amazing!  I can't wait to join in!

Republicans really do want to give you the right to kill yourself, just not humanely.

Think about seat belts.  They didn't want seat belts to be required in cars.  They don't want the EPA telling us how much toxic shit can be pumped into the environment.  They don't think that people should be seen at a hospital if they don't have insurance.  They want you to die.  Especially if you are poor.  But especially if you are a woman.  Yup.  They hate women.  So much so that they are trying to get this country to deny women abortions even if they will save the life of the woman.  They think women shouldn't be allowed to see their doctors.  They think that women who are raped are probably asking for it...ok maybe I'm generalizing.  Oh wait.  I am.  But if you look at the candidates and what the Republicans already in power are shilling for, they are voting for these bills. They are saying this shit, like saying that women are asking for it, or that they are sluts and are only raped because they are sluts.  Or saying that rape doesn't exist altogether.

Did you know that in Australia it was not illegal to rape your wife until 1981, and that was just in New South Wales, the last place to make it illegal made it illegal in 1992.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape#20th_and_21st_century_criminalization)

I'm mad at all parties right now.  This system is shit.  It is a two party system and anyone who wants to even get into the ring gets shit when the bad guy wins.  It wasn't Nader who got Bush elected.  I don't care how many people want to think that bullshit is true.  Bush was elected because most people in this country know nothing about politics.  And actually, he wasn't elected.  Either time.  The first time it was rampant voter suppression and eventually came down to a ruling by the supreme court, which completely stepped over the democratic process and shoved a dictator onto our country.  The amount of damage that man has done is amazing.  But we let him do it.  He was never impeached.  Most people voted to go to war with Iraq and I never thought it was a good idea.  Anyone who did was an idiot.  If I can know that it's a terrible idea than why can't people who are closer to the situation know that?  What the fuck was blinding them to this stupid bullshit idea?  So he ruined the country.  Stepped a bit above the usual bankruptcy that we have and now has made it really hard to become solvent again.  The republicans spend and pretty much do everything that's the opposite of conserving (don't know why people still call them conservatives) and then the democrats clean up their mess, at least financially.  I guess Bush didn't get the memo because he deregulated everything just a little too much so that the country went to the shit and now is going to deal with it for a lot longer than just two terms.  So if a republican gets in power....well financially we are fucked.  Because republicans know absolutely fuck all about finances.  Look at the debt ceiling conversation they were having.

OK, I guess that got a little bit away from me there.  Basically.  Start voting like a fucking human!  And next time you want to vote for a republican or a "conservative" democrat, remember a woman made you and women deserve more than being raped and killed.  A lot more.   In fact they deserve that never to happen to them legally.  Ever!

The brainwashing of America

Even as we slide the slope down into worse and worse economic times, we are still the privileged.  That is so easily and so quickly taken away by those who wish to be in power and will do anything to get there.

I am registered as a democrat in name only.  I don't feel at this point that there is a whole lot that the president, who is a democrat, is doing for the people of this country.  I believe he came into the job with good intentions, but I believe he was easily bought out.  Prove me wrong please, I would be happy to be wrong in this instance, but every move I've seen has just made me feel more and more that this is true.  However, voting Republican is not the answer.  A good thing may be that at this point, if Democrats are going to do the Tea Parties bidding, I won't feel that voting for a third party candidate will be throwing away my vote.  Of course having Republicans in the white house is worse, but we need to have more than a two party system, so if we have hit bottom with both parties than I can freely vote for whom I truly believe will do the best thing.

There are some great Democrats in the government and I would gladly vote for them again, but this is because they have not compromised their morals to be there.  Just because I don't believe in a two party system doesn't mean I wouldn't vote for someone in that party if I thought they were the best candidate.  Of course you can't vote in the primaries but that was one reason I stayed in the Democrat party.

When I was younger, probably starting in elementary school, I began to think the world was basically screwed.  By screwed I mean that things were going to hell and they were irreversible.  This, of course, is depressing.  This was a sort of brainwashing that I got from the media and sadly from my school.  I believe their intention was to actually awaken a sort of activist in all of us, but instead, the things we learned all ended with 'and the damage is done and there is no fixing it.'  I would have to assume that somewhere, a lot of people got this same education or same idea because it has been so hard to mobilize progressives all of my life.  There are a few instances when I thought people would really change.  The WTO protests, which sadly turned into riots, but they only turned into riots (most likely, I can't actually say this with total certainty) because of the police violence.  I was in High School when this happened and we were are shocked at the amount of violence, even shown on television, that the police were carrying out, and when people were arrested they were treated quite horribly.  I remember hearing stories from people who had gone out to Seattle and been held by the U.S. Marshalls who either do, or think they do, have higher authority to be total bastards.  That seemed like an awakening, because that was about the banks, it was about the level of evil, and corruption, in places like the world bank.  That was a good fight.  But then people got lazy again.  Who organized that?  Why did that get so big?

Now we have the 'Occupy' movement.  That is fantastic.  I love that this is going on because I think it incorporates everything about my generation.  The frustration, the unity that we still have even though we thought we had lost it, the real giving nature of the majority of us.  The excepting nature of our generation.  And most of all, there has to be someone to start the movement because we are scared to show up for whatever reason.  I'm scared that I will be seen and people will ridicule me for being a part of a pointless movement.  Some people are just lazy and want someone else to do it.  There are a lot of reasons I can't even begin to think about.  Some people think that it's not important enough to take time out of their day.  It really is.  It is really important for us all to be involved in our government, in our country and in the decisions made with our money and when those decisions FUCK us over, we should be speaking out to make sure that it does not happen again!  This also means that people need to start voting.  Part of the problem here is that the Republicans have  a better strategy.  They are better at mobilizing.  Does that mean they are less lazy?  Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but it does mean that they know how valuable voting is.  Voting can get anything done.  Voting is why there are the laws there are and the people who are getting more than their fair share of the profit when the majority get almost nothing.  The Republicans know that if they want to make more money, all they have to do is get their constituents to vote, and they know how to word things to make everything sound black and white.

What the democrats need is honesty.  Honesty and strait forwardness.  That is what we thought we were getting with Obama.  We thought that when we elected him, he stood for Democratic values.  It turns out, he may have at one point, but he wasn't strong enough to stand up to the decision makers.   The people behind the scenes...the "advisors."

So I am happy to see that people are standing up and doing something.  I'm overwhelmed with excitement that this has spread to every city in America including my small city (yes we have an Occupy Humboldt movement!).  I do have this nagging feeling that when this is over, when everyone goes home...it will go back to how it was after the WTO protests.  We were fighting the same fight back then and then we let them go on with their corruption.

I remember protesting with the Student Worker political activist group that myself and some other students started at Boulder High, and we went to Denver to protest the WTO and the IMF and education cuts.  We were at the Capitol and someone asked the person who was with me, what the World Bank had done, and what the IMF was that we were protesting, and to their credit they were honest and simply said 'I don't know.'  I did know, and I'm not saying I'm always better than other protesters but I was actually there for a reason.  I was there because I knew and I was angry.  Do your fucking research!  If you aren't angry about the shit that they have done, than don't get involved, but I don't see how anyone could not find it disgusting.  Two good examples of why the IMF is a terrible organization: Bolivia, Jamaica.  Look it up, there are two movies about it if you are interested, there is:  "Life and Debt" a documentary, which is about Jamaica's loan from the IMF and how they subsequently forced the country into poverty (worse poverty, and irreversible - or hard to reverse poverty), and there was a movie (not a documentary) called "Even the Rain" about how when the IMF gave a loan to Bolivia they told the government that they had to start charging their people for water, even the water that fell from the sky.  I wish I had a documentary about this but I couldn't find one, the movie touches on it but doesn't explain a lot so you would have to do some reading and I don't have any specific links to share, but that's an extremely disgusting situation as well.  It's worth doing your own research on both of course.

The IMF is doing what banks do, protecting their investment (so they say), but at what cost?  They are making situations that mean that the country will forever be in debt to them and forever paying off their debts - which means constant payment to the bank and usually at a huge cost to the country and their well being.  Protecting their investment by corrupting entire nations to the point that they are owned by the bank.

This is exactly why these demonstrations are important.  Why the Occupy movement is important.  Banks do this, they put you in debt and then they own you.  This is what mortgages are, this is what student loans are, especially for anyone who wants to go to school for long enough to get a real degree.  Think about medical school.  Think about someone coming from no money and taking out loans for school when in this country medical school can cost you over $100,000, plus living expenses. This is one way that the poor are going to stay poor and the rich will stay rich.  School should be free.  We shall see how England fares with their income disparities as they keep raising their school tuition.

I have a new child, and I am extremely lucky to have all I have.  I truly am.  I am going to admit that now I am scared of joining any movement because I don't know what they would do if I was arrested.  I don't want to risk having my child taken away from me.  But that's fucking sad!  It's sad that asking for corruption to stop, and be investigated, can get you arrested.  And it's sad that I have to be scared to voice my opinion.  That is not what this country is supposed to stand for, and I believe that my generation is starting to realize.  I think that those who can go out there and don't have to worry about things like that are representing those of us who do.  Those without jobs are staying at the parks overnight (in the Occupy movement) so that those with jobs can be represented even when they must be working or taking care of their families.

We must become a society that values one another!  We must all begin to know one another and care for one another, because in that society, we are all much safer and much better off.  When we can support one another and take care of others when they are down, then we all have more power.  That's how Unions were started, when people went on strike they had people to help out so that their families didn't starve or freeze to death.  Without each other we are not even one single strength, because however much the Republicans will tell you this, no one gets to the top without help from others.  No one makes it on their own because it is actually impossible.  We should all care.