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.

The Hypocrisy of "Happy Holidays"

by Shelley Bluejay Pierce

December 17, 2008

CAMOUFLAGE
It is we who are blind to hear
asking who
asking what to blame
when history has always
been more than willing
to repeat itself.
Needing only innocence
for a backdrop
upon which sinister fingers
weave tapestries of blood
with a needle whose eye
is thread with greed.
(by Frances J. Monk)

Over many years, I have dealt with intense sadness, confusion and dismay about the "Happy Holidays" commentary that intrudes upon every waking moment in the U.S. culture. The "happy" comments begin right before Thanksgiving and continue on until after New Year's Day. Our lives are assaulted in every form imaginable as the celebratory events unfold and the mass marketing of every trinket, widget and wonder-toy bombards us.

I am not writing this to wage war upon religions and their choices. I am not writing this to discuss the pros and cons of using "Happy Holidays" vs. "Merry Christmas" either, though that topic has certainly garnered a great deal of controversy in the main stream media lately.
Quite simply, I am stating my own opinions about the use of this "Happy…." preface to an extended holiday season that causes a period of deep mourning in the Native culture.

Beginning with "happy" Thanksgiving, the feasting upon displays of food that stagger the imagination, is meant to foster an attitude of gratitude for all that we have. Gatherings of friends and family surrounding the massive feasts may bring about prayers, reflection upon our many blessings and the completion of a good harvest in the previous growing season.

We have a great deal to be thankful for in this country as compared to other nations where starvation, disease and violence is the norm. In the American Indian memory there lays a darker understanding to Thanksgiving. Many commemorate this day by calling it the "National Day of Mourning" because the invaders to this land signaled death, disease, and cultural genocide from the point of first contact.

By examining the use of the term "happy…" prior to adding the Thanksgiving holiday notation, confusion arises about just how "happy" this holiday feasting celebration makes the common citizen in this country. The thankful attitude, happiness at having spent time with friends and family must not linger with some humans as I remind you of a bitterly cold dawn and the event that took place just days after a "Happy" Thanksgiving.

November 29, 1864, more than 700 soldiers, mostly volunteer Colorado state militia, attacked an Indian encampment on Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado. The men of this camp were away hunting so the targets were old men, women, children, and babies. Leading the attack on this tribal community, where a USA flag and a white flag of peace topped Chief Black Kettles' lodge, was Colonel John M. Chivington, a former Methodist preacher known as the "Fighting Parson." Col. Chivington was well known in the region for saying his mission in life was "to kill Indians."

Several investigations were conducted, two by the military and one by the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War who stated, "Whatever influence this may have had upon Colonel Chivington, the truth is that he surprised and murdered, in cold blood, the unsuspecting men, women, and children on Sand creek, who had every reason to believe they were under the protection of the United States authorities, and then returned to Denver and boasted of the brave deed he and the men under his command had performed".Colonel Chivington proclaimed before the attack "Kill and scalp all! Big and little; nits make lice."

Between 150 and 184 Cheyenne were reported dead; most were women, children, and elderly men. Col. Chivington and his men mutilated the Cheyenne dead and later paraded through the streets of Denver adorned with scalps and other body parts, including human fetuses.
This was the "happy" attitude that carried over from Thanksgiving Day 1864.

Moving forward in this grand season of holiday happiness, we come to Christmas. Gift giving, grand celebrations of Christian religious ceremony and the tracking of Santa Claus on his gift deliveries devour our every waking moment. Songs are sung and one in particular repeats the words, "Peace on Earth, good will towards men…"

Like the lasting "happy" that comes with Thanksgiving, the Christmas season also seems to carry no lingering effect upon the participants celebrating this sacred season marking the birth of Jesus Christ. In fact, a revered President of these United States made history the very day after Christmas in 1862.

On December 26, 1862, following orders issued by President Abraham Lincoln, the largest mass execution in U.S. history occurred. 38 members of the Santee Sioux tribe were hung for various "crimes" the very day after the "happy" Christmas Day. The 38 condemned men sang the Sioux death song until soldiers placed nooses around their necks at this very public hanging. The control rope was cut and thirty-eight Santee Sioux dangled lifeless in the air.

Quite the "happy" season indeed.

Moving forward a few years, we arrive at the Christmas merriment of 1890 where the brutality of the 7th U. S. Cavalry was all ready in the advanced preparation stages for what would later be known as the "Massacre at Wounded Knee."

On December 29, 1890, just days after the "happy" holiday season of Christmas, the 7th U. S. Cavalry surrounded the camp led by Chief Big Foot. On a reservation supposedly protected by two treaties, four Hotchkiss guns surrounded the Wounded Knee occupants. 500 Cavalry troops under the command of Colonel James W. Forsyth began the process of disarming the Indians of any weapons. During a small disturbance, the Hotchkiss guns began firing into an unarmed gathering of people at a combined rate of 200 or more rounds a minute.

Of the original 350 Indians, one estimate stated that only 50 survived. Most historical statistics report over 200 Indians being killed that day but government figures only reported the Indian dead as 64 men, 44 women and girls, and 18 babies. Many of the injured died of exposure in the freezing weather, and several days after the incident the dead were strewn as far as approximately two to five miles away from the original site.

Those who did survive the massacre or were not yet dead were taken to a makeshift hospital in the Pine Ridge Episcopal Church. Ironically, above the pulpit hung a Christmas banner that read: "Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men."

I guess that if the "happy" portion of the Christmas holiday had been forgotten, at least the words to that famous carol remained, though it didn't save the innocent ones at Wounded Knee.

A blizzard swept over the countryside the night of December 29, 1890. Perhaps the troops returned home to their families and fellow military members to celebrate yet another "Happy" holiday, New Year's Eve.

New Years Eve has become the marking point for leaving behind the previous year and making pledges to what wonderful changes we intend to make for the new year ahead. Great celebrations, counting down the seconds to the official beginning of the New Year and popping corks to champagne bottles herald this "happy" event. The New Year of 1891 was such a "happy" day that following the blizzard, a burial party headed back out to the massacre site along Wounded Knee Creek.

The soldiers responsible for the Wounded Knee Massacre greeted the New Year's Day of 1891 by returning to a valley covered with frozen bodies. The corpses were thrown into a single pit though there are reports that four infants were found still alive because their mothers had wrapped them inside their own shawls before dying.

Twenty-three soldiers from the Seventh Calvary were later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for the slaughter of defenseless Indians at Wounded Knee.

The New Year "happy" attitude was apparently in full swing during the Maria's River Massacre also. On January 23, 1870, U.S cavalry members laid in ambush position around a Blackfoot camp they believed led by the leader, Mountain Chief. The chief of this camp left the safety of his lodge and began walking toward the armed cavalry members waving a safe-conduct paper. History now reveals that this was not Mountain Chief's camp at all but was that of Piegan leader, Heavy Runner, who had enjoyed friendly relations with the white men.

One of the Army scouts, Joe Kipp, shouted warnings that they had the wrong camp in their gun sites but he was threatened into silence. The first shot was fired, killing Heavy Runner and the massacre ensued.

Just as in the massacre at Sand Creek, the Indian camp was unprotected because most of the adult men were out hunting. When the shooting stopped, over 173 were dead, most of who were women, children and the elderly. 140 others were captured and then released. These survivors were left without horses, adequate food, or clothing. As these refugees made their way to Fort Benton, some ninety miles away, many of them froze to death along the journey.

Though this massacre of Blackfoot members at Maria's River was every bit as significant as Bear River, Sand Creek and Washita Massacres, history has overlooked this incident. There is little mention of this post-"happy"-New Year's event in history books. No sign or monument marks the site of the mass grave of the Piegan Maria's River Massacre victims.

I have written about these "happy" holiday memories at various times and readers often comment to me that we, as Native people, should "get over it! That is the past and we are living in a new day now!"

Really?

Various comments come in to me stating that the apologies have been made to the indigenous people here and there exists a new and stronger relationship between our races.

Seriously?

An apology indicates an acknowledgment of past wrongs yes, but for an apology to bring true and lasting change, there must be an alteration to the previous behaviors. The people living in reservation communities may not have the 7th Cavalry surrounding them with guns at this point in time but when there are living conditions that rival those in 3rd world countries, lack clean water or freedom from the harmful contaminations remaining after uranium and other mining still exist? The damage to the people continues to this day.

You may ask me why these historical massacres of various tribal communities brings me to the deepest levels of sorrow and depression during these few weeks of "happy" celebratory holidays.

Quite simply, I tell you that in addition to those people that died in the historical slaughters, there are the survivors. The surviving bloodlines are still representative in our People to this very day.

I have one of the most precious brothers and teachers in my life here in Montana. He carries the Santee bloodlines from Mankato. This Santee brother introduced me to one of the strongest women I have had the honor of knowing and her family line comes from survivors at Sand Creek. Both of these relatives have shared their joy, teachings and time with me. One priceless day, we spent together and journeyed in to pray for and with the Yellowstone buffalo.

I have looked into the eyes of friends and shared meals during Pow Wow in Browning with those who carry the last name "Kipp." That bloodline is mentioned in the history of the Maria's River Massacre. One of the greatest times I ever spent with my Blackfoot relatives was in ceremony alongside a man I deeply admire and whose eyes will look right into your soul… a beautiful soul carried inside a man named "Heavy Runner."

I work alongside some amazing Lakota relatives in their current battles against uranium mining, enormous hog farms being moved into areas where they have their schools, homes and near sacred lands and water supplies. These strong and committed relatives fight the current re-creation of a history that has not changed over the century since Wounded Knee. The only difference in the attacks upon their well-being is the weaponry used.

I look into my beautiful relatives eyes or hear their voices on the phone and know that these people too, are survivors of massacres or other assaults all across Canada and the USA. In the struggles of today, I stand beside my loved ones at Six Nations, Attawapiskat, and in the battle to save Bear Butte and other sacred sites. I stand beside my relations fighting to protect burial grounds that hold the remains of our relatives. I fight in the continued search for freedom for Leonard Peltier and other issues that still attempt to destroy our Nations.

Our stories continue on and are retold for every generation that follows. The historical massacres are not "history" for me, for they do not rest in the dusty pages of a book. These memories are carried in the eyes and heart, etched upon the faces and revealed in the everyday relationships with the bloodline members of survivors of these events.

"Happy" holidays may become a reality when we as a human race truly walk and behave according to some of the teachings represented in these ritualized events. From Thanksgiving to Christmas and on into the New Year, there have been mass murders across all sectors of humanity. I have spoken only to those that personally affect me.

Twenty-three soldiers from the Seventh Calvary were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for the slaughter of defenseless Indians at Wounded Knee.

"Happy" holidays,

Mitakuye Oyasin,
We are all related.


BESIDE THE WATER

Forever, when I walk beside the water,
I will see there, your reflection.
I will hear your laughter in the wind.
I will feel your warmth in the rays of the sun.
And as the Blue Jay cries out, that he has seen you,
I will know that still, I breathe the air you breathe.
I walk beneath the same sky,
I sleep beneath the same moon,
And that my love for you will never die,
Until I walk no more, the Earth you walk

By DONNA J BROOKS, Cherokee-