In which I start to write a reflective blog post and just manage to make myself angry. Goodie. Just how I wanted to start the morning.
It's Brain Injury Awareness Month again. I had mostly forgotten about it being this month until one of the mothers I met when my son was in rehab posted about it on Facebook.
Each November, I tend to get either depressed or angry around Thanksgiving time, but March tends to make me reflect on how far my son has come in the past seven years. This year though, I'm feeling stuck - and a bit trapped again. It probably doesn't help that this is a presidential election year in the United States, and I know that nobody will be elected who will do a damn thing about the messed up healthcare system in the United States.
If we had universal healthcare, I could let my son get a job without worrying that a pittance that nobody could live on would be enough to make him lose his health coverage.
But, here's the sad truth about the United States. Both political parties have "issues" that they make a big deal about - but have absolutely intention or desire to do anything about. For the Republicans, one is undocumented workers. They make a big deal about wanting to stop it, but they really don't. Undocumented workers provide cheap labor for all sorts of industries that make Republican voters money. They'll do all sorts of ineffective things to "stop" it, and they'll portray undocumented workers as the worst kinds of criminal scum, but they will never do anything real about it.
On the Democrat side, it used to be healthcare. It probably still is, but this administration doesn't seem to be interested in even pretending about it. Instead, Biden will forgive a few student loans (once) and make it look like he's doing something. If he really wanted to do something about education, it wouldn't be a once and done thing. But hey - people fall for it, so who can blame him.
On the healthcare side, you know the Democrats mostly just want to sing the song to get the votes. (They don't have to right now - they just point to the Cheeto and talk about how he's an awful human and how people who voted for him are awful too. I mean, why bother figuring out why people are voting for him and try to fix any underlying issues?)
Anyhow, back to healthcare. If Democrats really wanted universal healthcare, they would have it in at least one of the states that has been historically blue for years and years. There are a couple of states that do have it a bit better than the rest of us, but none have true universal healthcare. So, they'll sing the song when it suits them, but they have no real incentive to change anything. The parties just exist to keep us fighting.
So, it seems Brain Injury Awareness month in an election year just makes me wish we really could eat the rich.