The znet piece by Margaret Randall, on being cut off from health coverage at
63 and on the growing (sense of)/powerlessness in so many, reverberates for
me as I feel unable to leave my job, despite discriminatory acts by the
employer, for fear of being unable to afford the health coverage that,
theoretically, I could continue under Cal-COBRA (IF the employer keeps on
having health coverage, and doesn't close, etc.). Meanwhile, one of my sons,
well out of his 20s, shares an apartment, one son in his early twenties
cannot afford most rooms, in the Bay Area, but when I look outside, the great
smog (and associated housing costs) extends now over the central valley and
beside freeway I-80 over the Sierra crest (including stretches on both sides
of the road) into the giant smog growing up from Reno, and onward... On
another list I'm on, a woman recounts what neglect (and its effects on body
and spirit) she saw from overworked aides in nursing homes. Entering the
Reel video place, I gave 50 cents to the guy next to the one selling Street
Sheet--but knowing that leaves about nothing the next few days, since my
hours cutback. There was a guy talking to himself crossing the street this
afternoon, another one by the bank, hungry.
---In the early 1960s we were all in silenced terror of The Bomb; we
didn't hope much that we could stop any war; but somehow we thought, because
there was Vietnam happening, "But we HAVE to try to stop masscre!" And we
did, probably, prevent that turning to nuclear conflict (plus, we created
QUITE a bit of positive social change, and a legacy, a remembrance, that may
take off again).
--There is a massacre now, here. We HAVE to try to stop this one, too.
And WE...is it possible the anti-globalization force can grow into this
movement we need? How do we help this happen?
Paula
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