Just in Time for Halloween, the Republicans Cornered the Market on Hell

It’s been a hell of a week for civil society, the rule of law, women, the vulnerable among us, the qualities of compassion and empathy, and any hope we might have for narrowing economic inequality. As always, the Republicans, both elected and not, jumped on their high horses, grabbed their metaphorical lances, and brought hell to their fellow citizens. 

So far, none of them has pleaded that the devil made them do it, but one does have to wonder. 

Let’s make a little list of their transgressions, shall we?

1. Our right-wing Dept. of Health and Human Services, supported by the courts (through the opinion of two Republicans judges), blocked an immigrant teenager who is currently held in a detention center, from getting a legal abortion. Instead, they made sure she had anti-abortion counseling, an ultrasound and enough legal stalling to risk that she will be forced to give birth when the deadline for an abortion passes. 
2. Trump told a grieving widow of a black soldier, “her guy” "knew what he signed up for”. He promised another grieving father $25,000 for his loss, then didn’t send the check.
3. The Congress has passed a budget “framework” that will lead to their appalling tax cut proposal, which will further increase both economic inequality and the national debt.
4. Betsy DeVos, the incompetent idealogue who runs the Dept. of Education, has gone after regulations that support students with disabilities.
5. Trump continued his full-blown attack on the ACA and the less fortunate among us who rely on it for health care coverage.

There was more …. but this, from the Republican electorate, took the cake:

"Many Trump voters who got hurricane relief in Texas aren’t sure Puerto Ricans should”, declared a headline from the Washington Post.

And why would this be? Well, it seems only some of us humans are actually deserving of help.

“Guess what? There’s a big chunk of the population that lives without electricity all the time,” Ramirez said, saying she was sharing the experiences of a friend who has family on the island. 

Hogg, 76, nodded his head in agreement: “They never had it. Never had it.” 

“They don’t live deprived, because it’s a beautiful environment,” she continued. “The weather is nice, the climate is good most of the time, so it’s different from here . . . It works there because of the climate. It wouldn’t work here.” 

About 96 percent of Puerto Rico’s electricity customers had service before Maria made landfall, according to federal data; many of the rest had no power because of Hurricane Irma two weeks earlier.

Sounds an awful lot like "Those slaves sure had it good! They had free room and board and good weather to work in!" Several voters interviewed, made sure to pledge their continued devotion to the president and their resolve to elect him again. Their opinions were clear: People, even those in the mainlaind U.S. who have recently suffered, have themselves to blame if they couldn’t afford flood insurance, had no resources to pull themselves through, or by implication, were the wrong color. When one woman suggested that Puerto Ricans should move to the mainland where there was better infrastructure, her husband countered that they should stay right where they were and “fix their own country up”.

The callousness, the denial of government’s legitimate role to help its suffering citizens, the enforcement of religious beliefs on all when others may not share them, is a stark reminder of what the last election exposed and legitimized. A significant number of our fellow citizens are unfeeling, brutal defenders of the belief that they are better than “those people”, that there is a bright line between the deserving (them) and the ones who aren’t. They are compelled to ensure that the rest of us know which side of the line we live on; their commitment to community extends only to those who live in the red zone, not the blue one. And that zone is defined not by your state but by your worthiness as a person. And a whole hell of a lot of us are not worthy.

If I believed in hell, I’d be praying hard that the whole lot of them end up there. They are sure willing to assign the rest of us to perdition, both here on earth or in some make believe world below our feet. And just like the Borg, they are doing their best to ensure that "Resistance is futile".    

The Other 1%

“If you have your health, you have everything.” So the old proverb goes. In 21st century America, health means you can afford the best pills and the latest medical interventions to prop you up as you hobble into old age. My job, as a health care practitioner, is to give you the props.

My patients have heart disease and most face continuing deterioration in their health. The devices in their chests sometimes shock them onto the floor. They swallow a long list of pills each day. They are obese. They try to do the right things: remember to take their pills, show up for their appointments, and maybe, sometimes, try to get healthier. Choosing better health often means trying the latest fad diet, swallowing the newest diet pill or buying Dr. Oz’s next miracle supplement. What they get is emptier pockets.

Every day I watch people of all ages and means stream through the doors of my hospital. If I were to count, probably half of them look like the people in Wall-E. Big, round, walking time bombs. Lurking inside them is the ultimate outcome of modern civilization -- heart disease, cancer, diabetes. Every one of those diseases is fueled by an unsound diet. While there is no silver bullet for excellent health, the statistics and the science are increasingly clear. If we could improve human nutrition there would be a profound reduction in illness burden and societal cost. No, expensive vitamins and supplements are not gonna do it. We have to alter, in a substantial way, what people eat every day. Few will want to do it. Even me. Especially me.

How in the world did I end up here, with a late-in-life obsession with nutrition? I’ve never been a “foodie”. I was never a devoted cook (ask my kids…my eulogy will not include raves about my cooking). If it’s not about the food, then it must be about … FEAR. That my family’s health is at risk, that I’ll end up sick from avoidable illness, or that my talents, however meager, won’t have been put to very good use.

I’ve been on a dietary roller coaster for more than 40 years. In the ‘70s, I hand-ground baby food for kids 2 and 3 (sorry number 1, you got Gerber’s Blueberry Buckle). As a young mom, I made all our bread -- whole wheat of course. I owned a copy of The Vegetarian Epicure and Diet for a Small Planet when only west coast kooks bought them. In the 90s I dabbled in “fringe” diets like Dean Ornish. He was holistic. He did yoga. His recipes were long, and time consuming and …well, not very good. I failed at any sustainable change. You eventually had to cook and we’ve established that I’m not a kitchen goddess. You ate weird food too, like tofu. You stuck out like a sore thumb the minute you shared a meal. I gave up.

But like a karmic cycle, here in my 60s I’m back to The ‘60s. Like “liberals” who’ve become “progressives,” the V word has a new name too -- “plant based”. It’s the same thing those fringe folks wrote about so long ago only now there’s no commune to sustain our resolve. And it’s still hard. And I might give up.

Yet I seem to be stumbling towards a calling. I feel ill-equipped for the task. I don’t know how to help people make transformative change in their food habits. I’m barely managing my own personal transformation, which is a rocky road at best. I’m aiming to become one of the 1%. No, not Mitt’s, but Bill (the Big Dog) Clinton’s. That’s how many self-professed Vegans lived in the U.S. in 2009. Many days I don’t want to go there. It will definitely sound the death-knell for my dating life. But I seem pulled to this new thing, to the possibility that I might be able to help people avoid or reverse chronically ill health. That I might be able to dodge the diabetes that has stalked my own family.

I can’t continue to turn a blind eye to what passes for “health” care. I feel inauthentic. It’s taking a personal toll. But entering this new world is a struggle. Finding a personal and professional support system is a challenge. If I make a transition, I have no idea what it will look like or if I can be self-supporting. Too often, I feel alone and on the fringe even though I know there have to be others out there who are like me. For now, I’m educating myself and searching for the spiritual and emotional courage to move into an unknown future with all the vulnerability that comes with that. Until then, I’m teetering on the bleeding edge of the 99%.