The Wasteland
I got a card from a young woman (married) whom I have not communicated with since High School. She sent me a $20 bill. This was in response to a card I sent out, which included a long "xmas" letter to folks, describing my woeful life. So, that was nice. For xmas, I got a good amount in gift cards. But I spent a lot on wine. Why wine? Because there is nothing else I can do about the harassment from downstairs, except to get drunk. Not constantly. But that's what I had to do last night. Using the $20.
If I don't end up with a migraine, I recover from drinking quite well and quickly. It's only a day or two later that my CFS takes revenge. But, I am 100% sure that I don't get addicted to alcohol. I dislike having to do this, though. And so, I continue to look for a new home, to escape all this. Indeed, I recently saw an article saying that the best way to keep new resolutions is to MOVE. Well, of course that is true: the change of contextual associations. But, seriously, all I really need is to get away from this constant harassment. I have no problem quitting alcohol, or drinking far less. I once smoked, and I quit that, years ago.
So, I found this house for cheap, yet slightly more than I can afford. But, since I am going to be getting about $40 more in "food-stamps", and IF I manage to move all my stuff out of the storage unit in Yee Olde City, then that's $90 I'll put towards rent. I would live there saving no money - no money to get out of this town, ever. Done. I will be moving to an even-more bombed-out section of the city. Here is the house:
After the craziness last night, I left to walk, and check out this house, even though it was getting dark outside. As I approached, I saw some of the most decrepit houses and apartment buildings - with collapsed roofs, and so forth. There were ghost people about generating mild riff-raff. The house was in a contiguous, slightly better area. But everything was a wreck - sidewalks, streets, houses. So, I am not so sure I want to end up in this house, which could easilly be robbed - and looks like it already had been robbed. But, if I lived there, it would be jam-packed with my stuffage. And the only hope for me would be to write my way out of there - for money.
The girl who sent me the card wrote that she once had an aunt in this town, whom she visitted frequently. I feel like telling her that this place is the end of the road for the American Dream. It is the place where already declining cities dump their poor. Rents are cheap, because the only people who "want to" come here are poor, or on SS. As in many cities, the sane people have fled, leaving behind the staunchly mentally ill. So, the whole place is a dead, festering wound of dysfunction. I learnt all about the social dysfunction, when I studied how the Nethers, and the LL, etc., dealt with me - with negative gossip, and so forth. You come to this town, you are bent into the dysfunction.
There are many places in this country like this - due to the loss of taxes, because of the loss of jobs to China, Mexico, and robots. Instead of anyone daring to imagine - and act - to repair the neighbourhoods, people watch football all day and inflict passive aggression on their neighbours, like the guy downstairs. People's egos are ahead of themselves. Expectations are expensive and selfish. There is no moral spirit in the hearts of these hollowed-out people.
It is not a sin to describe that America has been falling apart since 2008 - since Reagan, actually. These are not imaginations, or fake news. So, as a leader of PART of the populist movement which also gave us Sanders, who was shot down by the Clinton DNC, Donald Trump did a good thing in stating the truth, the other day. As true as his sort can get it. Whether or not the corporate media-gang, and WDC, and NPR wants to hear it, most of America is a mess. Since 2008, 95% of newly created wealth went to the upper 1%.
Donald Trump is already getting moving on renegotiation NAFTA. The corporate elites and politicians have always been too eager to push trade deals which did not work in our favour, overall, because what they wanted was to skim off the cream from the top. What was it to them, if the jobs of poorer people were gradually lost because of these incomplete deals? Bill Clinton basked in a stronger economy immediately following his NAFTA negotiations. But just as "crazy" Ross Perot warned, economic "bomms" went off - AFTER Clinton left office - and NAFTA became more and more of a GIANT SUCKING PARASITE.
Trade deals have been negotiated based on a mutuality of tariff rules and prohibitions. What they have IGNORED have been the non-tariff barriers that other countries devise to get around the deals, such as the VAT tax. The USA does not impose a Value Added Tax to its exports. But every country negotiating in TPP, other than Burma, imposes a VAT on THEIR exports - which means a higher relative cost for us. They also manipulate their currencies - while we keep our dollar too high, damaging our export sector. And, there are issues of computer privacy, environmental protection, food safety, wage levels, and the ability of foreign corporations to sue to control Americans and American corporations, completely undermining our sovereignty. These are all issues that our negotiators have tended to skirt, at our expense, for their general and immediate gain.
The fact that Donald Trump is trying to address these gross inequities, right off, is precisely why I argued that he would be a better choice than "gold standard" Clinton. So, when he says that the working class, et al, will no longer be forgotten, if he could help it - you could join in and thwart him, calling this another lie, or you could hold him to the task. I mean, really. Which do you think would be best?
Those who do not hold him to the task are working for the establishment, who likes NAFTA just fine the way it is.