Today, I had the talk with our son. You know, the "honey, because of those cruel, petty asshats in DC playing politics with our lives, your daddy may be out of work next week" talk. The talk that details the things that will immediately fall by the wayside. Like cable TV. Like the paintball Zombie-fest he's been looking forward to since March. Like the strings for his electric guitar and the new cord to stop that crazy buzzing.
Like his beloved Hapkido classes that represent the only real "in person" interaction he gets with other kids his age. It's three nights a week he gets to hang out and learn and grow with other kids.
And it is OUTTA HERE if those mean, politicking monsters in Congress keep it up.
Explaining to him that, unlike the last time this happened, these bastards almost certainly won't reimburse the families they're devastating.
And make no mistake--they are threatening to devastate us. It's his first lesson in what happens when bills don't get paid. How they don't just scoot forward a month, but they become overdue, compounded with fees and fines and penalty interest rates, then lumped into the next month's bill, which is still due. Things don't get pushed back, they get piled up. And then the vicious tide of endless calls from creditors starts. The three, four, five calls a day per creditor. And each time they pretend they don't know you've already called, already explained.
Already begged.
We are working so hard to drag ourselves up and out of debt. This will be the end of us, financially. There will be no recovering from this.
Add that that my looming medical appointments for the large, growing mass in my forearm. Oh, the copays. Not just the 35 bucks a pop for doctor's visits, but the fifty+ for the MRI, the 100+ per hospital, etc. Like having a possible sarcoma growing in my arm wasn't enough, the Republican Party has to trap us under their boot and gleefully threaten to twist that heel.
And it is gleeful. Don't you DARE tell me otherwise, I read their words, I see their satisfied little smirks. What happened to public service? They're not serving anyone but themselves and their corporate masters.
And here's the truly bitter part: any one of them could fix our financial woes in a second. They have that kind of money. They could just say, "Oh, shoot, 15 grand is all you need to be solvent? Here you go." But that would be welfare. That would be wrong. Bootstraps and all that crap. Except they're looking to slash those bootstraps and then, once again, castigate us for not being able to save ourselves when they've taken away our only means of salvation. We are trying, we are paying things down and paying things off, but it's going take about two years to get it all done. Unless they shut down the government.
Then it won't ever happen.
And all of this over a program the American People have already weighed in on. They did--they VOTED FOR BARACK OBAMA! Seriously, what do these bastards think that meant? They ran their boy Mitt on a platform of killing Affordable Care, and they LOST. They LOST, and yet they keep terrorizing Americans in attempt after attempt to . . . unlose?
I know what they're trying to do. They hope that, if they can make things as painful and miserable and bloody as possible for folks like us, we'll throw our sad, terrified hands in the air and say "Fine! Defund Obamacare, just please, please don't sink my family!" They know that, given enough fear and hurt, we'll eventually buckle under and throw our fellow Americans under the bus to save our own families.
According to one nutty windbag down in Texas, if the American people get a taste of affordable care, they'll be "hooked."
"Hooked" on affordable health care for everyone. Oh, the horror!
The stress kills. They say that it shortens your life and opens you up to all sorts of awful ailments. From obesity to cancer, there's a stress link. So it's not much of a stretch to say that the Republicans in Congress are attempting to murder me.
This is terrorism. There's no other word for it. Every few months, they come at us with threats of shutdowns and furloughs and slashing of services, using us and our lives as game pieces, bargaining chips. And each time, the constant, thrumming adrenaline, the panic, the insomnia, the tears. It's terrorism, plain and simple.
Congressional Republicans are terrorists. They're why Guantanamo Bay needs to stay open for business.
Like his beloved Hapkido classes that represent the only real "in person" interaction he gets with other kids his age. It's three nights a week he gets to hang out and learn and grow with other kids.
And it is OUTTA HERE if those mean, politicking monsters in Congress keep it up.
Explaining to him that, unlike the last time this happened, these bastards almost certainly won't reimburse the families they're devastating.
And make no mistake--they are threatening to devastate us. It's his first lesson in what happens when bills don't get paid. How they don't just scoot forward a month, but they become overdue, compounded with fees and fines and penalty interest rates, then lumped into the next month's bill, which is still due. Things don't get pushed back, they get piled up. And then the vicious tide of endless calls from creditors starts. The three, four, five calls a day per creditor. And each time they pretend they don't know you've already called, already explained.
Already begged.
We are working so hard to drag ourselves up and out of debt. This will be the end of us, financially. There will be no recovering from this.
Add that that my looming medical appointments for the large, growing mass in my forearm. Oh, the copays. Not just the 35 bucks a pop for doctor's visits, but the fifty+ for the MRI, the 100+ per hospital, etc. Like having a possible sarcoma growing in my arm wasn't enough, the Republican Party has to trap us under their boot and gleefully threaten to twist that heel.
And it is gleeful. Don't you DARE tell me otherwise, I read their words, I see their satisfied little smirks. What happened to public service? They're not serving anyone but themselves and their corporate masters.
And here's the truly bitter part: any one of them could fix our financial woes in a second. They have that kind of money. They could just say, "Oh, shoot, 15 grand is all you need to be solvent? Here you go." But that would be welfare. That would be wrong. Bootstraps and all that crap. Except they're looking to slash those bootstraps and then, once again, castigate us for not being able to save ourselves when they've taken away our only means of salvation. We are trying, we are paying things down and paying things off, but it's going take about two years to get it all done. Unless they shut down the government.
Then it won't ever happen.
And all of this over a program the American People have already weighed in on. They did--they VOTED FOR BARACK OBAMA! Seriously, what do these bastards think that meant? They ran their boy Mitt on a platform of killing Affordable Care, and they LOST. They LOST, and yet they keep terrorizing Americans in attempt after attempt to . . . unlose?
I know what they're trying to do. They hope that, if they can make things as painful and miserable and bloody as possible for folks like us, we'll throw our sad, terrified hands in the air and say "Fine! Defund Obamacare, just please, please don't sink my family!" They know that, given enough fear and hurt, we'll eventually buckle under and throw our fellow Americans under the bus to save our own families.
According to one nutty windbag down in Texas, if the American people get a taste of affordable care, they'll be "hooked."
"Hooked" on affordable health care for everyone. Oh, the horror!
The stress kills. They say that it shortens your life and opens you up to all sorts of awful ailments. From obesity to cancer, there's a stress link. So it's not much of a stretch to say that the Republicans in Congress are attempting to murder me.
This is terrorism. There's no other word for it. Every few months, they come at us with threats of shutdowns and furloughs and slashing of services, using us and our lives as game pieces, bargaining chips. And each time, the constant, thrumming adrenaline, the panic, the insomnia, the tears. It's terrorism, plain and simple.
Congressional Republicans are terrorists. They're why Guantanamo Bay needs to stay open for business.
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