May
14
Disposable People
May 14, 2009 | | Leave a Comment
To the government and business owners, people are just interchangable parts that are to be used up and turned over as quickly and cheaply as possible.
In Raleigh, NC Theresa Fenner spent 25 years working at a local bowling alley serving customers at the bar. When new owners took over the bowling alley last year, they cut her health insurance. Because of this, she could no longer afford her diabetes medicine and stopped taking it. Her health quicky deteriorated resulting in a ruptured kidney.
I don’t have an answer to the health care crisis, but the government and business (really all the same) are not going to provide a solution. There has been much talk about an Obama administration health care reform plan, but what will this accomplish? A government plan will only shift problems from big business to big government. The same people will likely be involved and the same people will end up getting rich while people like Theresa suffer.
It’s not just people like Theresa that end up suffering when the government and business combine to become this large and callous. There are reports that U.S. troops in Iraq are not issued enough water to survive and have resorted to stealing it. The worst part of this story is that they end up stealing the water from the government contractors who should be supplying the water to them anyway.
I have noted this before, but I don’t believe that this government – previously under the Bush administration, and now Obama – really cares anything about supporting the troops. As long as these young men and women are healthy enough to kill or be killed they are given lip service. Once they have fulfilled their purpose, they are abandoned.
In stories like this, I see more and more evidence that unless the people are a part of the system – meaning they are contributing to the goals (and pocketbooks) of government and business – they are easily forgotten and deemed expendable.
This really is no different that the process Annie Leonard descibes in “The Story of Stuff.” If you haven’t seen this video yet, take a look and let me know if the way we deal with “stuff” is any different than the way we deal with people.