We're fucked for the foreseeable future...

[chervilant]

33. I will be 59 next month,

and I live in north Arkansas, in one of the poorest counties in the nation. I am not far behind you, and I've spent much of my life doing activism and advocacy--never for material gain.

I was wrongfully terminated the day before we were to go on Thanksgiving break. I think my new boss (of little more than two months) was acting on instructions from my old boss (who as much as admitted this) because I asked him to respect my right not to hear his (self-avowed) racism in the workplace. If they block my unemployment claim, I will again face homelessness. I have been having insomnia and anxiety because of this.

AND, that's on TOP of the distress I've been feeling about Trayvon, Michael, Eric, and too many other young Black men murdered by racist militarized police and police-wannabes. I've felt distress over what is happening to protesters around the globe, and distress over the radical income inequity that threatens the vast majority of humans on this planet.

A few years ago, I got slammed by a number of DUers who took exception to my laundry list of things I've witnessed during my tenure on this planet:

- heavy metal pollution of most of our groundwater, lakes, rivers and oceans.

- injurious over-fishing of all bodies of water

- massive "islands" of plastic debris in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans

- air pollution so bad, we now have 'reports' of the risks for anyone going outside

- nuclear testing and contamination

- Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima

- massive oil spills too numerous to list

- systematic degradation of the quality and inherent nutrition of basic foods

- increased incarceration of the marginalized and disenfranchised

- pernicious destruction of and/or "revisions" of public education, the post office, and our social safety nets

I could go on, but you get my drift. I had several DUers deride me and put me on their IL because of my longer list like this one.

I no longer watch television (on my list as an ubiquitous propaganda device), and I am vegan and still an activist and advocate. But, I have a Kevorkian option that I WILL exercise before I'll live on the streets.