Abstract Art

This was a recent painting, I used layering of paint in this one. Sometimes abstract paintings can be more fun to do.

Should Most People Even Be Parents?

Quote seen on reddit:

Side complaint:
Stuff like this is why it pisses me off that marriage + children is seen as the golden standard. I firmly believe that the vast majority of people on this earth have NO business being parents.
Rape and beatings are certainly on the extreme end of the spectrum, but I remember in high school every. single. one. of my friends had issues, like feeling like they don’t matter, like they’re in their parents’ way... a lot of us also just had parents that got angry so damn fast over nothing and took it out verbally on us — not to a degree that’s considered abusive by most people, but it certainly caused us all some emotional damage in adulthood. Even now as an adult it seems like everyone I know had some sort of rough childhood that they’re having to come to terms with as grown ups.

 https://old.reddit.com/r/FundieSnark/comments/f4o955/my_fianc%C3%A9_used_to_work_with_abused_children_a/

There are good parents out there who love and nurture their children, but we are in a society now where parenting has gotten far harder. Even economically the nuclear family expectations are failing, there simply isn't enough money to make it viable for a lot of people as I wrote about yesterday on the "Was the Nuclear Family a Mistake?" I do find myself hoping that the child-free movement will in a way lessen the chances for abuse in homes, as more people question the idea that one is "supposed" to have children. Maybe more people will examine what they have to offer as parents, and analyze if they have the mental and physical resources to do it.  Sadly the economic pressures are making happier family lives more and more impossible for many even the well intended.

Was the Nuclear Family a Mistake?

The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake.


"If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. We’ve made life better for adults but worse for children. We’ve moved from big, interconnected, and extended families, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, to smaller, detached nuclear families (a married couple and their children), which give the most privileged people in society room to maximize their talents and expand their options. The shift from bigger and interconnected extended families to smaller and detached nuclear families ultimately led to a familial system that liberates the rich and ravages the working-class and the poor."

I do not have a family as everyone here knows. There's no ties to any family members left. I cut all the Facebook ties too, my account had been restricted from all, but now they are unfriended and blocked.   My cousins chose my mother too and talked to me with disrespect that went deep. There's no one left in my life I am related to.

A world of isolated nuclear families grew the isolation and also grew the power that narcissists held over our society.

As I grew deeper into my no contact, I questioned the mythos of family and the structure of our society, so seeing this article was very interesting to me. The nuclear family is failing, just look at all the abuse and pain it's brought so many. I am glad to have my husband but I have no family now, all they brought me was suffering. Going no contact was the best decision I ever made. My life grew vastly better without them. It was nothing but a collective of people who only cared about competing with each other and appearances. Compliance and authoritarianism like too much religion was the highest values they aspired too. People are starting to question the societal structure of nuclear families and how imprisoning they are. That's a positive.

It's horrible too how religions focused so much on family especially in conservative churches.  Even as a married woman, I felt ostracized simply because I was childless in Christian churches. One IFB advertised itself as "family-friendly" I noticed not one divorced or single person over the age of 20 attended there. The Catholic church was totally family focused. If you don't have children or have the white picket fence "family" life there's many places in American society you simply don't fit in. Even now, many parts of society are slow to get the memo that many people are living single, never had children, or are childfree, and aren't part of the normal mainstream definition of family. Single, childless, trans, and gay people are left out.

Traditional family life is impossible even economically now for many. Visit Reddit sometime and read how most millennials have decided not to have kids. This is due not only to the lack of money for many but the fact that family life was no bastion of joy. That was part of my decision making, the inherent fact, that my own parents were so miserable, angry and upset with their children, why would I replicate the same path for my life? The childfree movement is not only based in economic lacks, but based in negative experiences as well.

If you can't take care of yourself, how do you bring little children into the mix?  Add in distance, the forced economic nomadism in America and other changes. Read the book Bowling Alone by Putnam. Now add to this, not everyone dreams of life in a nuclear suburban family, there's been many cracks in that facade for some time. There's a lot of oppression buried in that 1950s dream where the Leave it to Beaver lifestyle was promoted as the "ideal", that really wasn't the reality back then,but many look back on the past with rose colored glasses. Mr. Cleaver was very wealthy even for that time.

Some people claimed the author of this article is a neo-liberal who wants everyone living alone in their $1,000 a month pod, but the nuclear family has failed for many people. Family is a word that brings to us not memories of fondness and loving moments, but memories of abuse, "never being enough", and rejection.  All the distance alone where too many in America are forced to move for economic survival, family became strangers to many from distance alone. I had this revelation that one theme of my life, was that everyone lived far away and I was forced to leave them or never see them due to limits on money and the pressure of distance. Even as a child, while other cousins enjoyed close relationships with aunts, uncles and other cousins, I was the kid who lived far away. I was always left out. Isolated nuclear families, gave the narcissists far more power to abuse their kids, because there were no outside relatives to observe or stop anything. Every home was a little fiefdom where one crazy Mom and or Dad or two of them could rule without censure. This definitely allowed the malignant narcissists more leeway.

I noticed without fail in fundamentalism and evangelicalism, that most adherents had life follow the "family script", they all had large families, were home owners, and had children. James Dobson and the rest in evangelical circles, all preached on the centrality of the family.  In my second IFB, they called themselves "family-focused" as the preacher there paraded his endless stream of locally living adult children and grandchildren.  Those without a family were basically ignored. I was outside of this just by the economic and other facts of my life. That world alone became painful in shoving "family" down my throat.

The nuclear family is tied to the hyper-individualistic society. In conservative regions of this country, things became so family focused, that not to have a family left you out of the warp and weave of culture. I have to admit when organizations put on "Family Day", there seems to be some prejudice towards those without one.

"In 2004, the journalist and urbanist Jane Jacobs published her final book, an assessment of North American society called Dark Age Ahead. At the core of her argument was the idea that families are “rigged to fail.” The structures that once supported the family no longer exist, she wrote. Jacobs was too pessimistic about many things, but for millions of people, the shift from big and/or extended families to detached nuclear families has indeed been a disaster.

As the social structures that support the family have decayed, the debate about it has taken on a mythical quality. Social conservatives insist that we can bring the nuclear family back. But the conditions that made for stable nuclear families in the 1950s are never returning. Conservatives have nothing to say to the kid whose dad has split, whose mom has had three other kids with different dads; “go live in a nuclear family” is really not relevant advice. If only a minority of households are traditional nuclear families, that means the majority are something else: single parents, never-married parents, blended families, grandparent-headed families, serial partnerships, and so on. Conservative ideas have not caught up with this reality."

Economics are changing, where the nuclear family of yesterday is really only affordable to the very few who can afford the house, the children and all the trappings. The nuclear family is falling apart in America as young people fall down the ladder. Child birth rates are in the basement because young people aren't making the right money to support a family.  We lost community and more when every household was to be an isolated subset and unto itself. It is bothersome to me how as I got older people stopped hanging out with friends and became more and more "nuclear" family centered. This without fail was leaving people out.

Family as Sacred Cow

Troll

I had this troll befriend me on email. I thought they were a little strange so I was wary. I decided to be friendly and see where things went. Maybe that was a mistake. Need to train my intuition more. Their identity seemed "fake".

They pretended to be a fellow ACON. I was friendly and had a few discussions but my suspicions only grew.  They went from hot to cold in a milli-second and claimed I was this other blogger. They claimed "You aren't a fat shut-in!" and that I am the author of another blog that is not my blog. They told me they reported me for phishing. Someone out to destroy my blog. I've never phished anyone. Someone was sending me tons of spam, like they were writing it themselves, for months. It wasn't "true spam" I guess they didn't get the memo that spammers usually are trying to sell something. They did change it somewhat after I complained. I believe it is the same person.

It's strange that someone will hold a grudge and bother me even years later but that's narcissists online.  They told me my writing and art sucked. That smacks of desperation.This person may be just a crazy Cluster B, or an anti-ACON astroturfer. I do believe that there are those who want any discussion of politics or narcissism shut down. One can see those types on every political board online. They invade and divert conversations. They excuse narcissists.

I did GUESS who they were. Using their first name, and they went immediately silent. There's history with some trolls, where their personality stands out no matter how many fake identities they come up with. I stood up for myself too. Some people are totally pathetic.

Evangelical Totalitarianism

Marie Thearose on Evangelical Christianity

"A eulogy of sorts. Others have work they must do to combat this blight, and I support it. But it is not my work to do. I've been leaving behind in layers since 2006 and now I am finally free in the moonlight. All future poetry will cover other topics, though I have plans to compile my past poems.
#poetry #exvangelical"

This won't be my last word. I have been involved to combat the blight. I am involved in the exvangelical and deconversion community online, trying to help others who have left too. There's been a flood of people coming out, we have too much information available now for people to be stuck in religions that lie about reality and have expectations that do not match the real world. It's like the online ACON community, how many of us were freed when we found out about no contact and how it works? The same goes for religion. With the internet, there's people to turn to. I have served as one of them in a small capacity. Part of this includes reaching out to others who have experienced spiritual abuse.

I deconverted three years ago which was one of the best decisions I ever made for my life. I am going to be writing a sermon about God or different versions of divinity and how the picture of God in evangelical Christianity is both a dark and limited one for my UU church. I plan to explore the better visions of God or higher powers, where humans have dared to think thoughts about "better Gods or Goddesses".  I will share it here, when I am done with it. As I have written here before while I am atheist friendly, I do ponder the possibilities of a higher power or what form it could take.

The Christian god was a curse to me as well. It's threats of hell and narcissism were unending. It's coldness and indifference and lies about reality harmed me on many levels. Christianity turned me into a doormat, and told me to be silent, about abuse, about myself, about my thoughts it deemed sinful.

While there are people who seek after light and goodness in every religion or non-religion, sometimes I have thoughts about how an atheist who cares about social justice, is closer to the light then a Christian committed to Trump standing by endorsing the harm being done to so many.

She's got the gaslighting right...that's it exactly. I wrote about the gaslighting in evangelical Christianity on this blog. 

If you think about it the gospel, is about being condemned for just existing. I can't love a God that made billions knowing the vast majority would end up in eternal torture. That God was formed out of human darkness.

The Dangers of Grey Rocking for Scapegoats

Does the Grey Rock Method Work for Scapegoats?

Seriously save the grey rock stuff for the office while you look for a new job. I warn of the dangers of low contact. Shutting down your personality, and your emotions to get along peacefully with malignant narcissists is the path to repression and losing yourself. As one fellow blogger said, "It's basically invalidating yourself". That is very true.

I grey rocked for YEARS. I was low contact for a long time. I put the smiles on, and had visions of myself sitting on a bed patting down a blanket as monsters roared underneath it. My entire mode when I visited my family was to shut down all emotions, from sadness to anger. Everything was repressed. I had tired of emotions being used against me and just wanted the day to go by without any trouble. In my youth, I had fought back some, only to have it turned against me. With the Christian doormat training, my decision to keep a perpetual smile on my face and calm in the false of endless abuse was not a good one.

The damage it can do over the long haul can be immense where you stop talking openly to people or show any negative emotions. You become used to hiding yourself or thinking anything about you will be JUDGED. In some ways you become an invisible person.

In many ways this empowers narcissists in our society. Their victims are told to assent, or stay quiet. Grey Rocking is used as answer even for long term situations, and that's wrong. I and my husband still have conversations that pop up on occasion. I tell him everyday I wake up with relief I don't have to deal with those people anymore. No more vomiting in a bathroom or putting a mask on to mute myself. And that was what greyrocking was... MUTING MYSELF TO KEEP ASSHOLES HAPPY.

If you are trapped like in a bad job, or living with a malignant narc because the only other option is the street, grey rocking can serve a purpose but don't make it the long term plan. This is where No Contact is the best option.

The Genius of the Crowd: Bukowski

The Worse Thing About Lipedema

Looks like a good book, Swollen, Bloated and Puffy....welcome to my world....

I wonder about the mental effects of this on those with severe Lipedema. The more you do, the more you bloat. The world offers the advice to the severely overweight person that they should always "move" as much as possible. For someone, with Lipedema, this means swelling like crazy even if your legs are wrapped, the fluid comes on. My life I have realized is spent between "doing things" and "crashing and burning". Life is a contest with the chronic fatigue and more on the scene.

Yesterday I told husband we have to get to the gym more, so I went to the gym, and grocery shopping. I was at the gym Monday too but wanted to get to the gym, the second time early on Wednesday, because I knew some housebound days from cold were coming. By the end of the day, I threw some rotisserie chicken in the oven to reheat it and ate green beans and small portion of noodles with it [half a cup], I was limping around. I felt huge, my legs hurt like hell. This is my life. Even walking to the bathroom felt like hell on earth. It snowed while we were there, and I had the nightmare too of inching along outside to make sure I did not fall, which means the paramedics would have to show up especially being trapped outside in the snow. I did not fall thankfully.

People don't realize this about me, but I fear weight gain all the time even at this huge weight. Food and activity are adjusted all the time NOT to gain weight and for the sake of the diabetes The doctors won't hospitalize me for weight loss, everyone here knows I've asked for years. Food seems to be a constant pain in the ass and expense where I wish I could afford better food, and it's occurred to me that some meals I used to make all the time like homemade vegetable soup, seem more and more out of reach financially. We ate these two salads from Walmart during the week for lunch where we split them in half. I will spend hours in the kitchen to make a chicken biriyani meal with peppers, tomatoes, vegetables and rice with boneless skinless chicken, later, these kind of foods make my blood sugars lower, but it's like being a chef chained to the oven.

 At this point, I think well I made it to 50, I was written off as dead at age 30 so maybe that was an achievement. I weighed almost 700lbs and bought 20 more years of life. I can't beat myself up anymore over the weight, though I know I have to make sure I don't gain. My body, My enemy, what would it feel like to have a body that had been nicer to me? If there is reincarnation, I want born into a thin body where I get to eat 2-3 meals a day, I enjoy and where hunger is normal, and where fat and food are processed normally. I want to enjoy life, not living in a monster body.

My body did oddly grow thinner on top from all the gym time. However I am losing height fast and have to go see a osteopath about this, the lower abdomen is a HUGE problem. It's like I am crunching down on myself. Years ago they told me I could have osteoporosis in my neck and other places. There's less height to spread the weight out over and the effects of aging with severe obesity has not been very pleasant. I used to be 5 foot 11 and half. I am now 5 foot 7. It seems I am growing shorter. Some serious neck pain is becoming a major problem.

Yesterday I was watching 600lb life, and this one lady named "Joyce" was on there and she was telling Dr. Now, she gained weight from sitting up too long. I don't know if she has Lipedema or not, her legs appeared thin, but some people can get it in the upper body, she definitely had Lymphedema. Dr. Now called her a liar, and I thought "Well this takes the damn cake..." because I know if I had to sit up in a car for days, leg wrappings or not there definitely would be extreme weight gain. I can go to UU church, sit there for two hours and VISIBLY GROW. Inside this embarrasses me. A thin person gains 10lbs and worries about how people may view them differently, imagine my life where just sitting makes it happen. One fun fact, my face swells too and the upper body when I am very tired. I will be talking to the MLD about this, but my face swells up so much lately it scares me. My cheeks even bulge out from my CPAP mask where I can see them growing below my eyeballs.

Here's an interesting trivia about me, NONE OF THOSE TAGGING FACIAL RECOGNITION programs work on me. My face changes that much. I've never been tagged on Facebook in my life, and there's enough pictures of me on there.

There's a voice in my head always telling me I am "lazy". It occurred to me a thin person with chronic fatigue could lay in bed from all the tiredness and not feel this constant condemnation. I try to calm myself down, thinking, "Well you can only do what you can." The constant pain and bloating though is affecting my mind. There's times where I feel like my brain is checking out from my body. I am going through the motions of doing something, shutting down pain. I do not think it is a good development if your pain makes you feel like crying.

Why is just being alive full of pain? It's hard when you want to have some sort of "life" but everything you do brings a ton of pain with it. My body swells up so bad. I know if not for daily Flexitouch, I'd be dead. One positive note, I did get years and years of infections under control. In April I will be hitting a one year mark without a leg infection. Even hitting the 10 month mark without one is a pretty big damn deal after years and years spent dealing with the constant bouts of cellulitis. I got close to one two times but I was able to fight it off without antibiotics. That's a pretty big deal, because leg infections were such a damn problem, but it takes living like no one else. The "crash and burn" lifestyle, hours in bed, but exercise here and there, the wrapping, the leg machine, etc. I have the theory the sustained cardio even on the arm bicycle machine at the purple gym is moving some more lymph along. I do 20 minutes at a time. It's what I can handle. It took months to even get the lungs to cooperate but now on most days I am okay.

However the pain is growing worse with age. The walking around and doing things and visibly limping until I can get to my bed. My brain sometimes wants to scream inside from all the physical pain I have to deal with. I know it has affected my personality. I suppose once I lay down, the pain does go down, not everyone has that result and have pain 24-7 with no reprieve. Who do I have to talk to about this pain, who won't judge me? Lose weight will be their mantra, but then the body "gains weight" the more stuff I do.

Life with severe stage Lipedema sucks. I did end up leaving all the Lipedema message boards online, I couldn't take the constant diets advice, the constant exercise until you drop advice, the endless being told to "starve" myself with advice of functional anorexia I could not physically bear. I wrote posts complaining about the extreme diets and the advice on here. Some of those are being read a lot though not many are commenting. I have the feeling some other people are silently suffering too or left like I have.

I have hunger pain all the time, physical stomach growling, the whole 9 yards, but according to these people I am supposed to go 2 days without eating. I have to eat a certain way to even stave off anemia, where my blood cells decide to become teeny tiny. These people aren't in my body. Sometimes the constant hunger pain makes me want to punch a wall. I woke up this morning at 6 am feeling like I hadn't eaten in days. The blood sugar was 122.

There is always the message for the people with severe Lipedema, "you are not doing enough", and "nothing is ever good enough" and ignored I have noticed in the community is the sheer immensity of the pain. Everyone I know who has severe Lipedema lives life on the gauntlet, but there's little understanding for us. The majority have multiple scary autoimmune diseases too. The positivity culture has our pain and reality HIDDEN.

The involvement with the weight loss industry is so high, that the focus is all there and our pain is assumed to be from "laziness" and not "exercising enough". It does a number on people's minds. I know it is doing on on mine. Add in the pain and swelling and you have a recipe for constant misery.  This is one of the worse things about being fat too, always that assumption and judgement, that "you are not doing enough", and it's all your fault.
The Lipedema World Needs Fat Liberation

1000lb Sisters on TLC

Some of you may be familiar with the Slaton sisters from Youtube. They got their own show called the 1000lb Sisters on TLC. There is a bit of the sideshow happening here, as they are poor and uneducated to the max and extreme in appearance. Tammy is over 600lbs, while Amy is around 400lbs.

Amy who is the smaller of the two got married, wants a baby [she should consider what kind of life the child will have] and was able to get weight loss surgery and lose 100lbs. Tammy didn't lose enough weight to qualify for weight loss surgery and remains superobese.

I always wonder about these two especially with Tammy if there is some sort of "overgrowth" genetic disorder like Momo's Syndrome. Tammy's extreme forehead ["frontal bossing]" and eye problems actually go with description's of Momo's syndrome I have seen on television and elsewhere. Were they ever diagnosed?  This could cause metabolic problems or even satiety issues to the extreme. I don't say this to insult them, it just bothers me how fat people go untreated or undiagnosed and people mock them for their appearance all over youtube and other boards, and the signs of some kind of genetic disorder are extreme in my opinion. The rampant ableism is terrible. I always wanted to see a genetic counselor myself to figure out why I have so many problems, that go beyond being fat like becoming almost deaf.

Momo Syndrome

Momo Syndrome and frontal bossing.

Update: I watched these shows and the sister's claim a lot of their medical problems including Amy's eye problems are from toxoplasmosis. This is a parasitic infection that can be caught from cat feces.

Supposedly their mother had it and didn't know it. I don't know how she managed to have it twice for two pregnancies and not know it.

The family was extremely poor. It can cause brain and eye problems in an infected fetus. I wouldn't doubt there could be a variety of genetic problems included with this. I don't think Tammy and Amy's bodies operate the same way as others though obviously there were food problems displayed.

It is interesting to me that there is a major tie to obesity with toxoplasmosis.

"Toxoplasmosis, a global disease, and in excess of billion people are expected to have Toxoplasma infection. Toxoplasma is associated with anorexia or obesity as organisms alter and reside in inflamed adipose tissues (Carter, 2013). Excessive weight gain is reported in infected pregnant women compared with uninfected individuals (Kankova et al., 2010; Flegr, 2013), as well as in a feto-maternal toxoplasmosis model (Oz and Tobin, 2012; Oz, 2014). Toxoplasma infected animals had increased weight gain and atrophy of myenteric neurons of the jejunum (Hermes-Uliana et al., 2011). Obesity has become a cosmopolitan syndrome and poorly understood pathogenesis with a potential link to toxoplasmosis. Other toxoplasmosis complications are gastroenteritis, pancreatitis, diabetes, retinochoroiditis, and encephalitis."

So the scientists think this could be wide spread? Maybe an answer about the obesity epidemic. I grew up with cats always have to change cat litter as a kid, but am allergic now and avoid them like the plague.

My opinion of watching this show, is it is like a major carnival side show. America laughs at the "slow" fat people who are put on display for the average joe or jane to feel better about themselves. The sisters are shown pigging out on very high sugar and fat food. They live in Kentucky. This show is basically the marriage of 600lb life with Honey Boo Boo.
Have you ever noticed you never see an intellectual fat person on TV? They are all portrayed as slow. You will never see an adult fat book worm on TV except maybe a kid on a movie who gets bullied by other kids.


Obesity in the USA often is tied to low income. This is a reality for the Slaton sister's. It is for me. Had my usual visit to the store, where I had to put too many fruits and vegetables back due to the cost though I managed to end up with some tomatoes, banana and peppers. The sisters are probably more economically secure now, and live in a very small town where their disability checks probably go a lot further, but you can see the edges of poverty all through out their story.

Tammy does seem to have a very low IQ, and her sister is smarter, and more motivated. The sisters do watch out for each other and have each other's back and it is commendable how much Amy has helped Tammy thought Tammy often is abrasive and angry. Amy is married, while Tammy seems to have involved herself with a married man who is using her.

Amy loses around 100lbs from her weight loss surgery at the end of the season and goes from 406lbs to 306. Tammy is around 608lbs and loses down to around 560 or so. I am not a supporter of weight loss surgery. I have seen too many die from it, and regain all the weight and more. The success rate is around 5 percent. Lipedema and other endocrine problems seem to complicate having it work in people. I don't know if Amy will be one of the 5 percent who can maintain it for long term or if she will lose more weight. Tammy did not qualify or lose weight fast enough to get weight loss surgery though she could later.

Their mother seems extremely critical and the family as a whole seems to have bad weight and other health problems. Some parents do a disservice to their children breeding at all. I would include my own in that equation. Some bullies have said things to me online making fun of my bad genetics. They aren't wrong about that point. The DNA roulette came up snake eyes for me, and did for Amy and Tammy as well, with the added parasitic disease and poverty adding to their problems.

My father had hypogonadism which means he wasn't supposed to have children at all. Nature tried to steer that choice but medical science intervened. Amy should not have a child, she keeps talking about. I know some may say to me, don't act like the eugenics people and yeah you may have a point. However obesity brings such terrible suffering. I was mostly infertile but I had thoughts about this issue, knowing I never wanted to have a child suffer severe obesity. Maybe Amy's future child will inherit Michael's weight and be more fortunate. One hopes.

 The sister's were motivated enough to have their youtube channel for years, and I saw it years ago. They would do cooking and eating and make up tips. Tammy almost died of severe health problems several times and ended up in a nursing home for one short duration. They did achieve some fame. Sadly from what I could tell online, this was more a notorious brand of fame, where Tammy's forehead became the object of many jokes, and both sisters were seen as extreme, and to be laughed at though they videos also showed their close relationship and sense of humor and you can see those things in the show as well.

I do have uncomfortable feelings about these shows as fat people are always presented in a certain way. We have the perky narcissism of Whitney and we have the "side-show" Honey Boo Boo, mocking the poor and fat for fun and profit aspect of this show.

The Class Split in the Democratic Party

I feel weary from seeing fellow Democrats claim Bernie is an extremist, or could never win. It's hard enough to argue with all the Trumpsters, without adding fellow Democrats to the list. A lot has me worried lately though on the political front.  I find myself thinking this split is going to get Trump in the door again. It's really got me worried.  A repeat of Trump in 2020, would destroy our lives. Please vote blue which ever way it goes for us to be spared that. I may have to take a vomit bag to the voting booth,  if it's Biden or Bloomberg though.

The country will go deeper into fascism if Trump wins. He's already attacked every environmental law and ones that bring good things to people lives. When you find yourself having conversations about leaving a country you have lived all your life in, that says something. I and my husband have had those conversations. However we hit the the giant barrier of poverty and my disability keeping us out of any new country. He lived in Europe and knows it's more expensive. Canada doesn't take disabled people. My health is too precarious to go to a developing nation.


The Democratic party is split in two. I plan to vote Blue to get the Orange faced Menace out of office, no matter who it is, but I am deeply disappointed at the hatred for true progressive agendas in the Democratic party. Some of the moderates outside a few social issues, to me sound just like Republicans. Too many of them flip flopped like Mayor Pete, claiming to be for Medicare for All in 2018 and definitely going back on this probably after his wealthy backers screamed "No Way!". The megacorporations and 1 percent are directing the show.

We need a third party in this country but because the two party system is so entrenched and any third parties closed out, I understand why progressive politicians like Bernie and AOC decided to work within the confines of the Democratic party. The monkey business to close them out like the conveniently malfunctioning voting app in Iowa, seems extensive. Watching Hillary Clinton come out to put down Bernie, like she wants to help re-elect Trump is disgusting beyond measure. Some rich boomers who seem to want to keep the status quo same as it ever was, are only putting up barriers to any true progress in this country.

There are class differences which are splitting the Democratic party. Urban professions and older boomers with higher incomes, seem to go for the moderate or neoliberal candidates. One can understand that they do not want their taxes skyrocketing. People after all do vote often in their own self interests, but even here, Trump has raised taxes to have them go for war mongering. At least Bernie would let us use our taxes to better lives for average people instead of more corporate subsidies and wars. 

Poor people, millennials, blue collar and others like myself support Bernie. While many of these more moderate or neo-liberal people are well intended and are allies on many social issues, economically they are not as keen to any radical changes to the system. Some don't realize that for a majority of Americans, the system is no longer working for them, wages have dropped, cost of living increases to Social Security has flatlined, the jobs are gone, and hope of any corporate involved Democratic politicians making any changes to their daily lives, just isn't going to happen. Many of us realize that Obama gave too much space to Republicans. This helped grow the role of the Democrat party playing good cop to the Republican party being the bad cop.  Another moderate Democratic president like Banker Joe, who will enable Republicans as they grow more extreme will worsen all of our lives economically.

Republicans always scream about the cost of everything and tell people a "better society" is a pipe dream as they pour trillions into the coffers of the billionaires.  Sadly they have gotten people to believe that to improve society would "cost too much", and one can see this influence on neo-liberals and moderates in the Democratic party too. We really have two right wing parties now with the Democrat party having a more moderate "right wing", and a progressive wing. This is a problem. Trump could benefit off the split that is now entrenched in the Democratic party.

Neoliberalism supports capitalism and still believes in that old but now dying concept of the American dream. Old ideas about the "bad commies" here also influence moderate Democrats who are outraged at too many social programs. We are way overdue for a new FDR and investment into failing American infrastructure. What is sad is Trump has plenty of socialism paid out to corporations where more of them don't pay any taxes and his billionaire buddies but people scream bloody murder once someone says maybe the wealth should be shared with average folks and improve their lives and day to day society.

The neoliberal and moderate Democrats still believe in the system. Those with good lives in a system that works for them are going to see the world in an entirely different fashion. For many of the poorer, we realize the system is failing. All I have to do is go down 2 miles down the street to see the shacks, the dead mall, the bridge I am afraid is going to crumble into the river, and know America is not some gleaming suburb like many of these moderates live in, it's becoming a third world country.

The system is not working and this is a HUGE GAP, people who believe in the system are not going to want major changes to it. If they can pay their bills, and live good lives, and have money and savings for their children's college, why upset the apple cart? They see the progressive wing as "radicals" who may upset the nation. Many do preach compromise with the Republican party and I know being the age I am now, the days of bipartisan dealings and compromise were far different before the Republican party became so extreme. Fiscal conservatives weren't necessarily religious extremists.

Some of us have survival at stake. If Trump or others end one social program, Medicare D, or Social Security [SSD in my case] or do the huge 20-30 percent cut to subsistence level checks they have already threatened, my future in America may be short lived. People are dying now from lack of medical care or limited medical care. We know my husband has very limited care where immediate symptoms are treated but there is no diagnosis or long term care. The numbers of homelessness are growing. The same jobs that gave older boomers good lives are no longer there. Millennials are despairing of ever having families or any futures. Suicide rates are skyrocketing up. Gig employment is now growing in number. So many people keep voting for those who want to bring more economic oppression. Obama was in office while disabled people didn't get cost of living increases for over 8 years.Why should people vote for those who have only the same things to offer?

Many of these moderate and neoliberal Democrats simply don't live in the same world economically or otherwise. They are buffered from viewing the extreme poverty in the USA. Sometimes I wonder if some even don't realize it exists. I've met people like that who think America just consists of nice surburban houses and shopping districts with plenty of money. Neoliberal politicians don't  admit the depth of poverty in America. Hillary Clinton in 2016 kept waxing on about the problems of the middle class while ignoring the existence of the working class or poor. In her world, they literally don't exist.

Many moderate and neoliberal Democrats see poverty as only limited to a few "inner city" ghettos and have the empathy to understand that racism is a major problem that has affected African Americans and other minorities and affected many lives. However they still live in this dream bubble that "hard work" can make anyone move up in American society and that America is the "land of opportunity." They can afford healthcare, education and transportation. They have expendable income for different stable lifestyles instead of the people who scramble to live or depend on low income jobs that do constant lay-offs.

What makes this even more complicated is many moderate Democrats are good people, they care about social justice, they are giving people, they have empathy to fight racism and for gay rights, but I do think some don't understand how deeply the system has failed for so many and for the young. They don't understand what it means when young people have lost hope for the future or the fear and angst of Gen X middle aged people who never got to enjoy any stable economic foundations to build a life upon and our realizations that our old age if we live so long will be a very dangerous and precarious one, without any major changes. They don't understand that life in the "ghetto's" is getting harder and harder and there's less jobs for minorities, and that if you drive a little bit even into rural America or further downtown, you can see all the cracks in the facade growing deeper and wider.

Many still believe that education will win the day, and that people can move up in this system, if they work hard enough, and this is simply not true. Meritocracy is not just a religion for Republicans but has influenced Democrats as well. They may remember Roosevelt thinking "He saved America from the Depression" but ignore the fact that on many levels with suppressed wages and globalism, America entered a new Depression 2.0. Here too, classism itself leads to some problems within the Democratic party where "ignorance" and "lack of education" as seen as the poverty producers instead of the injustice built into the system as a whole. As the rules are written for a few winners at the top, and for more to become losers, this is ignored and the myths hold sway about a "level playing field". The moderate/neoliberal Democrat will admit that racism is a bad influence and will stand up for identity politics, but ignore the impact of class.

Even moderate Democrats will complain about free stuff. We know Republicans have been. One thing to note is neoliberals support often the same war machine, that Republicans do. More and more corporations pay no taxes, which makes the tax burden on individuals even worse. Sadly many of these politicians are corporate funded, which means even within the Democratic party, the agendas of the corporations are pushed well over those of the people. Don't forget Democratic politicians get kick backs and are just as bought off. Hillary doesn't mind more war and corporate subsidies but when a politician like Bernie claims he wants to help families, the disabled and average folks, she says he is "promising the moon".

One sign of this is Bloomberg another billionaire being seen as a viable candidate. They rewrote the rules of the debate to let him come in.  We already had one billionaire with Trump and now the moderate/neoliberal Democratic party wants to push another one down our throats. So a billionaire who is out of touch going to care about the needs of people who struggle in America? I doubt it. There's not only "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" who vote Republican but plenty in the Democratic camp too. However for those who have faced tough times long enough, cognitive dissonance gets them to finally face reality. No billionaire is going to fix a system that allowed them to become a billionaire in the first place. As America sinks into fascism, more compromise and moderation is not the answer.

Bernie's Real Obstacle is not Trump, It's the Democratic Establishment

Will the DNC betray us in 2020?

Taking Punishments for Being Fat

                                          [picture source]
I wrote this on one message board:


There is the societal belief that fat people must be punished and Whitney is taking her punishments. That bugs me about this show, the fact she does not take into account any limitations.

I had this thought watching the TV show Big Fat Fabulous Life with Whitney Thore. Ever notice that one premise of this show is how she is trying to prove herself so hard, all the time using "fitness" and "exercise" to do it? The weight in her case, just doesn't seem to budge except in a very small amounts and despite her interest in physical activities.

The other day, they showed Whitney participating in a work out contest. They had her lifting weights on a barbell. She looked like she was going to injure herself as she lifted these heavy bars. She also showed a video on Instagram where there was some debate with internet trolls. On her TV show,  Whitney tried to go out on a surfing board on a river, and almost drowned herself as she was unable to stand up on the board and Ryan [her new business partner] had to tow her back so she would not drown and tire of swimming. I felt like she was risking her life, as people have drowned from far less.

Why do they always showing her essentially "beating herself up" for the cause of exercise. It's like a mea culpa exercise, aka if one is fat, you should suffer and suffer hard no matter what to "be thinner". She takes risks that I think are extreme. This brings out something in our society about weight that is not good. She doesn't seem to realize one major back injury or other could really set her back. I am not against exercise for fat people. I lift some weights at the purple gym, not on bar bells but on weight machines.

Punishment of the fat is nothing new. What is scary is our bodies punish us enough, but the societal message is that a fat person should punish themselves and even "hurt" themselves or risk injury like Whitney is doing, and that really bothers me on some deep levels.