The NEW Health Care Reform— Let’s Kill All the Baby Boomers

By Shelley Bluejay Pierce

11/15/2013

So you read my title and think, “Well, that is an exaggeration if I ever read one!”

Right?

That is all fine until I point out some facts and figures to you. Perhaps we will take a little bit of the politically-driven-media-spin-doctoring out of the equation and you may see a bit more clearly what I am referring to. Yes, killing off all the baby-boomers would seriously benefit this country and with the current plans in place it will become a reality.

Why do I care?

Well, maybe because I am one of those boomers that keep getting berated for being the cause of the failing economy, the closed mindset to change and progress, the keepers-of-the-religious-right-winger-agenda and I certainly wanted Sarah Palin as President of the USA right? Oh yes, I forgot to mention that all the economic woes of the country, our support of the military and the enormous burden upon the taxpayers that war costs is also something we old farts support, right?

You could not be more wrong if you tried.

As a matter of fact, a good portion of my readers from all around the world make up the boomer generation and a large portion of them see more clearly than ever just how far astray this countries’ politics have ventured from where we need and want them to be.

No, we don’t expect everyone to get a free ride, free meals, free housing and all of that media spin.

However, where we do demand change and functionality be restored is into the long ago developed Social Security system which we boomers have paid into for the longest time and were told to rely upon as a major source of our security to survive in later years. We do demand that the deep pockets that have stolen that very money to cover all disassociated debts be repaid in full and immediately.

Would that cause a major wiki-leak type of scandal? Would the American people be surprised when all the facts are revealed about where the Social Security monies went? I can assure you, it would be a major revelation at all levels of this government, but I doubt we will ever get those answers.

So why do I say that this political agenda is hell bent on killing off the boomers as their way of solving the current and future woes in this country? Look no further than the current Obama Health Care Reform Laws and the disastrous way in which all of that mess is being handled. First, this Congress is the least performing Congress in the history of this USA. They have sat back, divided on sides and party lines, and refused to do a damned thing. They have passed fewer bills through to completion than any other Congress in history. Yet, their pay raises and their own health care plans are safe and well padded, I can assure you.

The media attacks Obama and his health plan at every opportunity. But is the health care the only issue we need examine? Sadly, most people ignore the fact that the President is but one chess player on the board of many players. He can do nothing without the support of a majority, or at least that is what the U.S. Constitution says, though few have read it recently.

No, far from it. The boomers are coming to the age where they need their retirement savings more than ever due to health insurance rates costing upwards of $1000 per month per person depending on your age and your health. Have you read any current statistics on how many baby boomers are set financially enough to cover that kind of monthly cost?

Did anyone in Washington D.C. attended Junior High or High School? I mean, I remember back when I was in those grades, we had text books, old-school film strips and movies that taught us about this “age of the boomer” reality and what impacts those demographics would have upon society in the future. Everything from a shrinking work force to the increased needs for health care workers and building of nursing homes were discussed decades ago in classrooms all around the USA. We had teachers putting this information on our exams making sure we had learned all the facts and details about this coming upheaval.

Did the powers-that-be not require those classes for people that would later attend Harvard, Yale or other Ivy League universities? Maybe those types never had to take classes associated with demographics, societal care and impacts of an aging work force or economics. Maybe that is why they end up being our countries’ leaders in politics and business. They don’t have to study things like that in order to be placed in charge of managing all of them in the future. Much like the joke regarding the name, Secretary of the Interior, which means that person is in charge of everything in the “exterior” or the outdoors, these leaders didn't learn basic social studies 101.

So now we are confronted with the very things we Boomers all studied and knew was coming years ago. We are seeing the bankers and Wall Street make out like bandits from our lost retirement accounts. No one has paid us back a single dime for everything we lost. The economy has tanked and we are forced to eat the cheapest food we can afford, decide whether we should pay the electric bill or pay for our medications. Our leadership in Washington D.C. is more concerned with how they are perceived in the public than they are about truly taking care of any business at hand. And all the while, the boomers are supposed to sit back and take it like spoon-fed infants.

No, we are not going to sit back and be the segment of the population taking the heat in the media and political rhetoric for being the root cause of the downturn in the USA global economic ratings. Todays’ most recent press states that the Obama Care program has miserably low sign-up numbers. The media spin for today is that there are not enough young people signing up to balance the requirements for the amount of old, broken down, boomers that are paying astronomically high rates per month for their new Obama care.

Excuse me?

Maybe those in leadership that attended Harvard and didn’t have to study demographics, economics and social studies should go back in this article and re-read the previous portion about how everyone knew this day was coming? The blame is not the fault of the boomers. The blame also does not need fall upon the heads of our struggling young people, many of which are unable to afford a place of their own and live at home with their parents, due to their staggering and high-percentage-rate student loans that are killing them every month.

The blame for the current crises this country faces all sits upon the leadership; and not just todays’ political leadership, but going back several generations to when the greed and power struggles began. The theft from the American people began long ago and has thrived like its own economy, dividing the haves and have-nots into ever more chaotic segments.

Do you truly believe that a simple thing like one plan, Obama Care, is going to fix this broken, economically crashing, and politically driven nightmare we call America into some state of bliss? And, the counter question to that is, do you truly believe that one governmental Band-Aid is going damage the entire future of this country?

The answer to both sides of this equation is a resounding NO!

Why do I say that the USA will simply allow us old boomers to die off? We old ones won’t have the resources to care for our health, money to pay for housing and basic necessities, won’t be able to physically contribute to the working economy and because the leadership of this country FAILED to plan accordingly, we will have no monetary or physical means to stay alive. There will be millions of old people that are lay waste at a system so corrupt that even our hard-earned Social Security money we paid into all of our lives is gone.

No one is held accountable. The media spins the stories out directing the mindless population in whatever direction for the day is deemed necessary and all the while, the boomers are dying. Before our eyes, the wealth of accumulated knowledge and wisdom, courage and diversity, and all-things-old will be vanishing.

Will there even be a pause to honor the dead or the dying from these cataclysmic changes in this society? Will anyone ask for a moment of silence at the next ball game in honor of approximately 76 million American children that were born between 1945 and 1964?

Where has a growing dialogue on how to manage aging and end-of-life issues as the generation ages been for all these decades? Are baby-boomers really in that much denial regarding their own aging and death? Are we living vivaciously unaware of the undue economic burden on our own children we will be down the road for not only our care but for our very lives?


No, I can assure you, we are not. And, not all of us are sitting fat and happy with big bank rolls to retire on when you consider that estimates state 60% of us lost value in investments because of the recent economic crisis. Some 40% plus of our population are said to be forcing the delay of retirement and approximately 25% are saying they will never retire due to having no retirement to rely upon.

Obama Care and the issues surrounding it are one topic alone. The media and the politicians that have blindly spent everything in sight to aid foreign countries, finance more wars and their own special interests will retire fat and happy I assure you.

Where is the outrage at that fact? Seemingly quietly, the outrage is being quietly muttered in the distance when in fact all of America should be roaring with rage against the policies that have brought us to this point.

Outrage at a delirious-spending-system that has raped trillions of dollars from proper accounts for a strong nation to survive these demographic up-ticks is absent. The fingers of blame come back upon the very people that will be suffering the most. Not just the elderly will lie dead in the wake of this corrupt system, but the young generation that will carry these burdens, unable to produce enough to sustain a country literally falling apart before our eyes from lack of infrastructure care, future planning and careful development.

Oh yes! Let us all point the fingers of blame and see how far that gets any of us in surviving the disastrous mess that our country is in, and will be in, for a long time to come. All we will get for finger pointing is more arthritis from overused finger joints and little else. And, as previously noted, none of us will be able to afford health care for our damaged finger joints.

Change comes about through action alone. Demanding that the government be held fully accountable is not a suggestion, it is a must. Action from all members of this society, working together towards equality for all members is long overdue. To take no action is dooming us all to the peril of the baby-boomer fate.

When the country can no longer use or afford the baby-boomers in its workforce to maintain its current standards of spending? We will be conveniently and systematically disposed of.

Think that is exaggerating? Think that it won’t or can’t happen to your generation, the next ones coming along behind the boomers?

Think again.

Get a reality check. Read facts not propaganda and you will see very clearly all that awaits you.

Now, may we all please bow our overly-burdened heads, and mutter a moment of silent prayer to the extinct baby-boomers….may all 76 million of them find peace on the other side of the false security they grew up believing in while alive and financing the good old USA.

Just Another Day in AnyTown, USA

Just Another Day in AnyTown, USA

by Shelley Bluejay Pierce

There is an irreverent sense of newness to the passing days now…as if that giant, cataclysmic “shoe falling from the sky” is not only on a collision course but is going to be a direct hit on all of society and what we humans have conjured up as reality. For, in fact, there is no reality in our ‘reality.’ Many years and repetitions beyond count have brought me to this place of learned helplessness, aided considerably by the propaganda-spewing-media, political lost causes and the countless talking-heads without brains. 

I have felt all along that the only way there would be a solution to the disaster called ‘civilization’ that we have created is for it all to be wiped off the planet. Yes, all of it! There can be no shred of evidence left in the wake of this clean sweep for if the tiniest particle of the humanity we refer to as ‘progress’ remains? We will grab hold of it like an infant digging for a wet nurse and give in to our lusts once again. We repeat the repetitions and like worn out vinyl records, find the built-in grooves that allow us to skim the surface and slide by….not growing….not changing for the better….just happy to stay in our warm pile of shit because it is warm and offers nothing else.

So many of the articles I have written in the past reveal my feelings of impending doom for our society in general. I feel as though very few readers have gleaned much from my rantings or perhaps I am like one of the talking-heads they have heard as background noise amidst the onslaught of techno-information-overload and they have quite simply learned to tune me out. Warnings about the cancerous deception-growths within our political leadership have been largely ignored. My finger pointing at redundant environmental and social awareness non-profits that have been proliferating like rabbits mating unchecked in our own back yards are, as well, ignored. I am not the only voice that has been screaming about these issues, albeit my screaming was indeed done from the wilderness, quite literally.

And so here we are….today…this day or the next makes no matter because they all look alike and have no unique characteristics to grandstand any other day. Our health care is the butt of jokes worldwide and just how poorly cared for the ‘richest Nation in the world’ is has reached the epitome of designation of a third-world country. We are the most entertained humans on the planet and yet, our country is most surely the least informed about its own leadership and systems that govern all within its ivory towers….which are decaying into dust before our very eyes due to the lack of maintenance performed on a heavily used infrastructure. But, Americans blink back a few tears as they watch their television sets, eating their voluminous dinners, and feeling a nanosecond worth of empathy for those killed in the most recent, preventable bridge collapse.

We, the People, supposedly and blindly governed by people that “We the People” voted into political office to do as we want them to do, are clueless as to what the electorate is truly doing on a daily basis. Billions of hard earned taxpayer dollars are sent to other countries under the auspices of promoting democracy and aiding in the civilization processes of those deemed lees-than we Americans though few Americans can recount the names of even those countries having received our foreign aid. Meanwhile at home, in our own country, we have people dying of preventable diseases, living on the streets with no homes because even the richest of the middle class can no longer afford their own residence, and seeing enormous cities crumble into dust thanks to importing all our goods from other countries rather than building and selling our own goods. We can afford to care for every other country on the planet, it seems, but not our own home turf.

As the dawn breaks and the sun rises once more, there has been little change from yesterday, last week or last year. We are still in complete denial of the uncivilized nature of this created Utopian civilization we call reality and begin the daily grind once again so that the pockets of the rich are filled and the spending frenzy of those in control of the purse strings runs amok. We read the headlines of more wars, financial ruination, environmental contamination and we sigh…drink our Starbucks coffee and move on with our day as if nothing in the outside world has anything to do with our selfish, inner world. We somehow find comfort in blaming the sick and dying for not contributing more to the financial stability of this giant, super-sized-happy-meal of a country and fail to see that it is our own environmental irresponsibility that is killing off our own work force. We quickly blame our young people for their laziness and lack of motivation for our sad ranking amongst other highly educated nations. Far easier to do that finger-pointing than to hold accountable a sick system that educates at the cost of an entire lifetimes’ worth of debt and wonder why we are not competing in the global economy.

So drink up America! Eat, drink and be merry! Survive and thrive in this junkyard we call home and when it all comes crashing down around our feet, which it will and has already been doing? There will be no mass rush on the purchase of social conscience and awareness at the Black Friday sales. No, far from that will happen when reality comes face to face with the real reality. We have been so thoroughly indoctrinated to find someone else to blame and somewhere else to place the fault that we will avoid any personal guilt whatsoever. Until this civilization can support us no more, the tit has dried up and produces no more fat-laden milk for us to guzzle down will we have the slightest pangs of awareness hit us between the eyes.

Just another sunrise in AnyTown, USA.

"I am going to buy George Bush a PIGGY BANK!"

by Shelley Bluejay Pierce

September 18, 2008


Just this morning, President George Bush finally addressed the American people in regards to the massive financial collapse we have been watching over the past few days. Many of "we the people" have probably been wondering where the heck the President has been in terms of speaking to all of us about the collapse and what he and the governmental leaders are going to do about all of this.

Many have expected a major, prime-time, evening address so that the workers in this country, who pay the tax bills, would be home to hear what their leader had to say to reassure them.

We didn't get that. Not even close!

I was prepared this morning for a long, fluffy speech this morning from the President but we did not get that either. Actually, we got nothing but a less-than-three-minute long speech, in which he took no questions from the press corp, and walked off...stage right folks, exit quickly and go hide inside the White House.

That was it.

Three minutes given to a major crisis and all I could thinks was, "Seriously? Are you really kidding me President Bush? What the hell was THAT!?"

He also made some one-liners that immediately had me in a fighting mood. His opening statement attempted to make clear that he understood the U.S. citizen's pain right now. He stated, "I share their concerns..."

Really? Are you serious with that comment?

How can you and Laura Bush "share" in the average citizens' concern over the current economic crash when an article Bloomberg News released in May 2006 states:

"President Bush and his wife, Laura, had assets valued between $7.2 million and $20.9 million last year, up from as much as $18.1 million a year earlier, annual disclosure forms released last night showed. Bush, who says his economic policies have helped Americans increase their wealth, is still making up ground from the start of his first term in 2001, when he and his wife reported assets of as much as $24 million."

Are we to supposed to believe that VP Dick Cheney also "shares our pain" when in the same article referenced above states:

"Vice President Cheney disclosed a portfolio worth as much as $94.6 million in 2005."

A few seconds later in this "speech," President Bush began with "We have taken control of...." and continued to describe how the Federal government has stepped in to the financial fray.

Yes, you did "take control" of the financial crisis by breaking the very laws of a capitalist nation and within seconds, placed us in the same socialist category as China.

Why, thank you Mr. President.

How kind of you to take hard earned, taxpayer money to purchase AIG and instantly plunge the US Government into the business of "owning" an enormous insurance company!

I can assure you that I, as an average US citizen, feel much better knowing that I now "own" part of a multi-national, multi-trillion dollar-asset-laden, international corporation that has its roots in... CHINA!

I am feeling so confident that the financial leaders in this country got a bargain price for AIG as well since we taxpayers paid $85 billion dollars for this gem of a company.

Yes, I feel so much better now.

The last statement from President Bush, in his mini-money-commentary, provided the US taxpayer with even more reassurance that all was well with the financial health of this nation by saying, "....there has been additional liquidity by infusing the market with 55 billion dollars into the system...."

Over the past few days, I have watched the US economy unravel into a nightmarish, panic-driven mess while news commentators rattled off financial numbers that the average US citizen cannot begin to comprehend. Several of the more astute economic gurus continued to remind viewers that the USA budget deficit stands at approximately $500 BILLION dollars.

Hearing these figures caused me to pause and wonder how or where this administration is getting "cash" to infuse anything, let alone purchase an internationally based insurance company, bail out Freddie and Fannie, pay for supplies and rebuilding the hurricane Ike areas and STILL pay for a billion-plus-dollar-a-week WAR!

I found myself reverting to what I would call, "focused nostalgia."

Once again, I was wearing the monocular blinders, called "age" and orally repeating the mantra, "I remember back in the old days when...."

I flash backed to my childhood when I received an interesting gift one year from my parents. Inside the pretty, wrapped package all tied up in bows was a piggy bank. While the piggy bank was pretty with its little flowers painted across the surface, I was less than pleased with the gift! Being a child, I wanted something exciting and rare that would make my gift a topic of conversation and envy amongst my young playmates.

Instead, I got a glass, painted-flower-adorned.... piggy bank.

Whoop-ti-doo! I can remember thinking.

I thanked them and set the pig carefully upon my dresser in an attempt to show my parents that I actually gave a hoot about this blasted glass pig.

However, over the next many years that I had that piggy bank, I learned the true meaning behind my parents' gift to me. Each week that I completed my assigned household chores or did something extra to help my parents, I loaded a few more coins into the pig. On special occasions I might be lucky enough to place a tightly folded dollar bill or two into the slot cut so neatly atop the glass pig too.

Over a few months time the pig became heavy and I could barely lift it! As Christmas approached, I remember asking my mother to help me remove the plastic stopper in the belly of the pig so that I could remove my precious loot and go shopping with my hard-earned money for gifts.

I was never so sad as one day standing at a checkout counter and wanting to buy a very special gift for my Grandmother without enough coin to do so. I begged and pleaded with my mother to help me with some additional money to purchase this rare treasure and that is when she did the greatest thing a parent might ever do for their child...

She said, "No."

I still remember the agony I felt having to go find an alternative gift that I had enough money to purchase. I felt angry, disappointed and dismayed at the concepts contained within this new economic-waste-land I was now learning about. However, my mother was beginning lessons that I would need over a lifetime and I am grateful beyond what words can express that she bought me a little glass pig.

That piggy bank taught me the value of working hard to earn your money and the self-control to say the word, "NO!"

After watching the Bush administration over the past eight years, I have decided that I have just enough coin saved aside in a large glass jar (yes, I accidentally broke my piggy bank from childhood...crushing event in my life, I can assure you!) to purchase George Bush and Dick Cheney a piggy bank.

I might even have enough coin to purchase a piggy bank for the incoming new President as well, if I dig through the couch cushions a few times. I may even attempt to buy one of those extra-special ones that you can record a comment into the voice recorder deal that many toy manufacturers now include on items. I will even honor the long used political catch phrase, "Just say NO!" as the message recorded into the little pig.

The value of the piggy bank sitting upon the leaderships' desk might provide daily reminders to, "Just say NO!"

Each time they are tempted to withdraw money from the bank to pay for items they deem important but may not have enough coin to cover?

"Just say no!"

Think of it will you? The national debt would slowly disappear as a balanced budget emerged.

The Social Security accounts might be repaid to the people of this country who worked decades of their lives paying into that piggy bank in hopes of a return on their original investment when they needed that money.

Think of it all! Perhaps I could organize a fund drive and by all of us pitching in some saved coin, we could buy each Congressman, state Governor, city Mayor and all of the big-wigs on Wall Street a piggy bank that would remind them...
"Just say NO!"

...to spending more than you have in the bank.

"Just say NO!"

...when temptation strikes and you are buying into a deal that sounds too good to be true.

"Just say NO!"

...and the gift of a little glass piggy bank might just be the single most important gift we as a united people could ever gift to our Nations' leaders.

Anyone have extra coins hidden in their couch cushions to contribute to this cause or are you needing those coins to buy food, pay the electric bill or put toward your house payment?

Sadly, the priceless lesson of "spend only what you have enough money for" is another of those mantras from the "focused nostalgia" mindset. Those of us who are old enough remember when this was the predominant mindset in this country.

I am a person of strong conviction, however, so I truly am going to send the next President of the USA a piggy bank as a "White-House-Warming" present.

If the pig doesn't have one of those new-fangled-high-tech gadgets to record my voice? I will revert to the "focused nostalgia" art of hand writing a note, which I will deftly place atop the pig with the inscription,

"Just say NO!"