Photos from Patrick

A Howl From the Great Recession

Well, my dears -- a Happy New Year to You!  It is the 5th Day of Christmas as well -- our holidays have been very very interesting the last three years.  Our little family has descended along with hundreds of thousands of Americans from a secure life of relative ease to poverty -- I think an income of $2500 a month defines poverty pretty well here in Marin among two people.  What is our Christmas like now?

When I was what you might consider "well-off" I can remember one year exhausting myself in a joyful confusion of purchasing and wrapping so many gifts that they piled high on the floor spilling way into the middle of the room.  It was such a thrill to give my children such pleasure.  That was the apex of my maddened gift-giving days -- fun, but way over-the-top and absolutely tiring excess.

My boyfriend of the time spent much of the week in bed in an allergic reaction to Christmas; I took care of his brother, two children and my own.  I remember commenting on how utterly exhausted I felt; he looked me and said, to my shock and dismay: "What did you do?" with a sneer I will always remember; our days were numbered!

But things DID change after that -- I had peaked.  I always tried to make my girls happy, but the last three  years have been very different.  Since the onset of the Great Recession we have had little to share materially -- this year  my daughters, on Christmas Day itself, cadged a free tree from the tree sellers.  It sat unadorned throughout the usual Christmas night "Orphans of the Storm" party we have.  The next day it was festooned with carnival beads and it stands downstairs now.

This was our third Christmas of limited means; my oldest daughter pulled gifts from her magical traveling hat for the last few years, but I had little left to give. This was our first year without stockings or presents; nobody had anything for anybody as our resources are so limited.

We put together a feast for our friends anyway, and our usual multi-generational blast was had.  Definitely a night of glorious gaiety -- oh, my adopted "children" make me laugh in the face of anything!  The spirit of Christmas prevailed!  The true spirit, that "god bless us EVERY one" spirit was in full force that night

But this time it was different; who knows where we will be next year. After 25 years of living here my home is in jeopardy, in foreclosure with no sale date set.  I am terrified. As a woman with bipolar I have done EVERYTHING the manuals say can happen to an untreated bipolar patient up until homelessness -- I haven't gotten there yet.  I am fighting to save my home and sanity -- a loss so gigantic would be mind-threatening to me.

And so they wound us, household by household -- the banks and the speculators who created this problem are off the hook in our new Plutocracy while those of us who belong squarely in the middle class have been reduced to poverty and begging for services.  How does that sit with you all? 

It is not sitting well with me.  I am so angry at the banks, at the financial institutions and the lack of leadership that it takes to make sure your population doesn't go hungry and want shelter.  It is clear that thousands upon thousands of us are losing our homes to faceless corporations who put profit above ALL human decency.

Town by town, person by person, there are these stories.  No gifts, no heat for us for 3 years now, bills we can't pay mounting up and NO PLAN B.  I am terrified, America, along with a good many others of you.  But more than that, I am outraged.  I read an article I'd written years and years ago predicting this economic downturn if Bush-co's policies were followed -- I was amazed at my own prescience.  It sure didn't protect me.  So now I am drowning while friends and family look on helplessly.  Or so it seems.

Only Time will tell.  God Bless Us, Everyone!  From the most humble to the most "exalted" we are all made from the same energy, we are connected, we are Light and Energy and Love.  This world is an illusion and I must remember to accept where this child of the Divine is placed by a world out of her control.

God/Goddess help us.  It is dark, the light returns.  We are frightened, but we proceed.  That's all we can do -- but my fellow travelers, those others lost and afraid -- we are together in this and must make our voices of pain and rage and terror felt in this land of people enduring the unendurable suffering the Corporations and Banks of this land have caused. 

MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD!!

My Holiday Wish - Letters to Senate!

I think we need a place, I think so many of us would love to have a place where all people can make their voices heard.  You know -- instead of a letter to SANTA -- a letter to SENATE with a cc to the Public at Large so that the Senators can have a better grip on what the public actually wants, as opposed to what they have been paid to grant their Corporate Sponsors.  I want A GIANT POST OFFICE where all the disgruntled people in the land can voice their TRUE AND SERIOUS GRIEVANCES; which should lead to a little "redress of wrongs", like it says in Article III of the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution.

Redress!

It's not as lame as it sounds (well it is; I'm just really angry).  I mean -- I am so sick of hearing  various political MORONS on either side of the aisle use the words "what the American People want"! I am sick to bloody death to it.   

Does anyone around still think these guys whose stated goal is to bring down the President --mostly old, white guys who find cell phones miraculous -- know or care what We the People want or so VERY desperately need? Not a chance, my dears, not a chance.  And I am so so very ANGRY.

I don't think most of us want to see these venal crooks playing craps with our lives as though their political well-being were more important than the health of the planet, true national security, education, poverty -- all the horrible ways our country has headed for skid row in the last decade -- we must reverse this!

Before anyone reminds me that all capital letters = shouting, yeah, well I certainly know that.  I am shouting, shouting SHOUTING, AND SHOUTING SOME MORE.  After enduring the shenanigans for the last two years I'M PISSED OFF POLITICALLY, literally just filled with political rage.

What I want and need at this my hour of capillary bursting outrage is an address.  Not just for my own perfectly fine California Congresswomen, I WANT A PLACE WHERE I CAN SCREAM AT THE SENATE,  those same, gallant 30 or so who are refusing to pass Legislation of real importance to the long-term well being of this wonderful country of ours.  Some weep about the beauty of their home states as they eviscerate the Appalachians and try to figure out every possible way of grinding and smashing the earth for what the sun gives so freely --aaaaargh.   

I am ashamed that the GOP stood and stands shamelessly united in opposition to LEGISLATION THAT COULD HAVE TRANSFORMED OUR COUNTRY POSITIVELY!! These folk value the wealthy above the poor, and they do not care that they are busily creating a Dickensian society filled with  more terribly poor people for them to sneer at.  The irony is that they created the sudden loss of wealth that has put the gob-smacked American people at risk financially, and they blame US for it -- too lazy to work, welfare is easier... 

I was well off for quite some time, for example.  I am now officially literally indigent. Not whining, but it's a weird ride -- had my kids, did my job, caught caught up in the real estate tsunami, got ripped off -- so with $437 social security watch me roll.

 

So -- where's the place where WE THE PEOPLE get to tell these people ruining our Government WHAT WE WANT??  I just do not know where to put my outrage -- or does it just not matter what we want, that we need and deserve basic goods and services?  Christ, at least DADT was repealed -- I have SOME hope!

Nobody can tell me those GOP Senators are not compromised in some huge way, and some of the Dems too, sure.  Some are not. But it's easy to see how Big Business really did rather well for itself, as usual. Medical companies pleased, Big Pharma seems to have struck an early deal, Banks doing great, and I am suddenly indigent, penniless, sans sous.

How in hell did that happen? Not even enough money for a Christmas tree, and certainly there will be no gifts this year. We'll all be together, and I shall have the pleasure of listening to the sweet tones of my blended family quarreling -- stress of relative poverty.

I WANT TO RAGE AGAINST THAT BROKEN MACHINE THAT AFFECTS OUR LIVES SO GREATLY BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW AND I DON'T KNOW WHERE!!!! They isolate themselves, State by State, buffered from the rage of the body politic; and by god I hope some of you are starting to get angry!!

And if these majority-obstructing “law-makers” are quoting the American People it is time we set them straight.  These guys represent  just 1 flavor of the people, and it's vanilla ice milk that has been in the freezer some years.  Yum.

              If you are starting to feel a little populist rage,  START MAKING SOME NOISE!!  If I just knew WHERE TO WRITE THOSE LETTERS OF OUTRAGE I COULD DO IT ALL DAY.  IT'S GOT TO STOP-- what is happening to this country has to stop.div>

It's time for the women and men of good heart, mind and will to step in and push back against these guys , for you may not see it but on some really big level we are being sold out, and it is more obvious by the day.  Broken schools, government, highways, dreams -- where will it end?