A Different Perspective

A few years ago, I was one of the privileged members of the upper middle class. I was making a six figure income and my family was on a spending spree that makes the one that took us into bankruptcy in 1999 pale by comparison. Oh, the debts are smaller, more or less, and we still have the house, this month, but the situation is far more grim.

I used to sneer at disabled parking, occasionally taking a space because, after all, I was only going to be there for a few minutes. Other people I know do the same or worse – they cheat by using someone else's disabled parking placard when that person is in a different time zone. After all, if you're not disabled, what's a few feet difference walking to and from the store door? It's usually pretty easy to get away with that stuff, and it doesn't really hurt anyone....

I had good health insurance coverage, through my employer, of course, and a 401k and all the "goodies" that go with being employed in a high-tech job.

Than 2000 rolled around, and my world changed completely.

First, I got into politics. Not just rallies on the street corners, or signing protest petitions, no, I got suckered into party politics. I went in, thinking I could change the whole rotten machinery into something that actually represented people and would work to better our society. I had this vague idea that politics is kind of an ass-kissing game, where the best brown-nosers would wind up at or near the top, and I was sort of right. But I also thought that injecting some personal integrity into the grimy sewage would help clear it up. I supported good, progressive candidates who had integrity and guts, and I spent thousands of dollars that would have been better invested in CDs for my kids' college funds or my own retirement fund.

In 2001, I came down with some kind of groin injury, to this day my doctors and I still don't know what. It was a minor inconvenience that just took me out of the one activity that helped keep me in shape – soccer, which I loved to referee, to help the kids and keep mine involved as well. But the pain never went away, and instead it got much worse. By 2005, I had to have a couple of surgeries in hopes that they would fix the problem, and neither did. On top of that, I now have a chronic medical condition that I won't name, but it comes with a whole slew of other medical problems that almost never go away.

Still, I had a retirement account and a good solid job and was still making the same low six figures I had been getting since 2000.

In August 2006, I injured my right foot and almost lost it to amputation. I had excellent medical care (thanks to the aforementioned great insurance that didn't cost me anything significant, and all before taxes) and made a full recovery.

Except....

While I was off work on disability, I was laid off. I found a new job within two months, but that also ended with a layoff after another five. My medical coverage was better, and cheaper, and I was making a little more money to boot, but that died abruptly.

Still, we spent like maniacs, went on a couple of vacations we couldn't afford and blew my retirement to hell staying alive and covering the costs of my disability. It took me ten months to find another job, this one a contract job with insurance coverage that is, to put it nicely, vomitous – more expensive, lower coverage and crappy service.

During this entire time (since summer 2005) I got the treat of seeing how disabled people are treated in our society, and it amazes me how blind I used to be, and most of you probably still are. I'll cover that in a moment.

My last layoff came on December 31, 2008. Happy New Year, good luck finding another job, get out.

That was almost 16 months ago, and I'm still looking.

I have since discovered how poorly most people are aware of their own surroundings. Mostly in stores, they push carts that are off to the side or heading in another direction, without ever looking, and taking up two to three times the amount of space they need. Even parents with young children along do that, and they are more at risk than the parents.

So what?

So that person in the disabled cart who is trying to maneuver around the speedy pedestrians without tripping them or running into them is barely seen, and usually noticed only with resentful or guilty stares. How do I know? It's usually me. At best, it's awkward for both of us.

One of my disabilities is that I can barely walk any more. It is painful to have to make it from one end of the parking lot to the door unless I can actually park close up. And guess what else? A lot of those "ADA compliant" facilities, oh, say like the convention centers where political parties often meet, have lots of elevators and escalators, but they are still enormous, with walks of half a mile or more between meeting rooms. Even good discount stores, like Costco, which I love, is huge, and I can rarely make it all the way around the store on my feet. It's no fun any more when you can't walk without pain or severe muscle strain.

I have continuously looked for new employment since my last job ended, but thanks to Wall Street and its lovely money pit that Congress keeps throwing money at because it's too big to fail (who could give out millions of dollars in bonuses without all that help from our pockets, via Congress?), employment in my industry is only now beginning to recover, and the vast majority of it is in a newer direction than where it was two years ago. (That's good, but it means I need new skills, too – more money to feed the beast.)

I have exhausted all of my available resources and am "supporting" my family on borrowed money that, if things don't change soon, I won't ever be able to pay back.

My unemployment runs out in six weeks, and it's about 1/3 of what I really need in order to support my family. My creditors, the ones I'm still talking to, are hesitant to renegotiate my loans, even though there are huge (to me, not to Wall Street or the DoD) federal stimulus packages to "encourage" them to do so (because we just can't tell a corporation to be fair to the people they've screwed and ruined in the last two years, now can we? That wouldn't be "free" enterprise!).

When that time comes, I don't really know what I'm going to do, except maybe starve – oh, wait, there are food stamps, except I won't have a place to store any because I won't have a house any more, or insurance, or medicines, or clothes....

See, in our society, our great, free-enterprise democracy, we are all able to shoot for the stars and become anything we want to become. Unless that happens to include just having a decent standard of living, a living wage, guaranteed health care, all those candy-ass "giveaways" that we just don't do here in the US of A (even though we forced Germany and Japan to do them after WWII, and guess who has the stronger economies today), and every other industrialized nation on the planet has those guarantees with more industry, less poverty, less misery and, oh, that's right – less military, less crime and less war (unless we're in there) than we have here.

So what's my point?

I'm not asking for handouts, or pity, or even sympathy. Don't need that.

Here's what I would like to see:

Everyone needs to recognize once and for all that politics is a money pit for us and the grand giveaway to the rich and our politicians (their lackeys) – from us, from huge corporate slush funds and the straight-out corrupt ultra-rich 0.5% who own the rest of us, lock, stock and two burning barrels. Trillions of dollars (literally) go into politics and hedge funds and credit default swaps and the industry of war and killing and imperialism and subjugation of anything non-white, but we only see a pittance of that to help the poor, the uneducated and the elderly in this country, white or not. (I'll do another editorial on the elderly later – how we treat our senior citizens is shamefully contemptible, and that's the good part.) California is no better than anywhere else in this regard, just more expensive (except for Hawaii).

As for me, I program computers and I write. I prefer to write fantasy, but, in the final analysis, is that really any different than political editorialization? (Yes, it is – fantasy adventures are more fun to read, and write, and not usually as depressing.)

If you know anyone who is looking for a C software developer, tell them about me, or just send them my blog or email address and let them know I'm available. If you know an agent looking for a new, unpublished writer of fantasy epics, poke them my way. I can take it from there.

If nothing else, send me your prayers – every little bit helps.

God willing, that will be enough.