Act 48 is the LAW, Gov’ner.

I am a member and volunteer for The Vermont Workers’ Center, which is leading the fight to enforce Act 48, the Vermont Law, passed in 2011, that says all residents of Vermont have the right to receive publicly financed, high quality medical care– in other words, Universal, or Single-Payer Health Care.  My membership with the VWC  means I’ve attended an Orientation (and am now trained to lead New Member Orientations), paid my annual dues –albeit, a shamefully paltry sum, but it was what I could afford– and I agreed to do at least 5 hours of volunteer service for VWC, or any of its affiliated organization. I think I’ve done more like 500 hours in the last few months, but that’s because, unlike folks working full-time jobs and more, I have a more flexible schedule, and volunteer work is my way of earning what has been given to me; giving me a sense of purpose, and of being a valuable, contributing member of my community, despite my disabling conditions.

One of the things my community has contributed to my life is medical care, with very small co-pays on medications. Without it, I would possibly be dead by now.  Without certain medications I would undoubtedly be confined to a wheelchair, probably screaming and/or crying constantly, and incapable of giving anything to anyone, let alone be capable of parenting.  Still, the various limitations in coverage prevent me from accessing alternative methods of care that I prefer; namely, naturopathic care.

an Activist Mama: a brain draining, unedited freeflow of thoughts

entering the mind of the Conservative, I crack…

Ultimately, it’s about the future we create for our children and the generations to come…if they come at all. Sometimes it seems as if there is no hope; we’ve poisoned our soil, cut down or ripped up more than half of our our forests and jungles, spilled vast quantities of toxins into our drinking water supply, poured garbage and oil into our oceans and dispersed particles of pollutants and radiation into our air. None of it has been by accident.

Our largest world industries, bent on building empires of unthinkable wealth, only at the tippity-top of the food chain of humanity, continue to grab resources produced by our beautiful planet –heedless of the warnings we little people drum, march and cry out about, and with reckless disregard of even the most minimum of protective regulations that we’ve place around them for our own safety. It is unfathomable to think that those in power don’t think of their own children’s future well-being, or how they can’t see and believe that their poisoning power is really causing damage.  How can they not believe it? Do they really not see it?

And, if they do, how can they not care? That is the most unfathomable part; the idea that they simply do not care. I can’t seem to wrap my head around that thought.

Sometimes, in trying to accept that thought, I try to understand how those in power –the Oligarchs– must think. How do their thoughts actually process what they see when evidence –real and honest, factually based evidence– is put before them? I do this because I know that the only way to really change something is to work it from the inside. So, into those brainwaves I dive. I’m falling….falling…into the abyss…