I Want to Prevent Civil War, but I Might be Helping Save Humankind - My Charity Made Reality

So after a monotonous, dreary day and week at work (wearing a mask is for the best, but it still has a psychological deleterious effect), I opened the mail to find a refreshing and heartening letter. It came from the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps (RAM). I donate $5 a month to RAM through an automatic charge on my credit card.

I heard about this nonprofit on the It Could Happen Here podcast, which looks at today's United States in a few episodes and evaluates conditions and factors it hat contribute to a possible oncoming Civil War. Robert Evans, the podcaster, frankly presents a frightening and believable picture of where this country could go and how it could get there (and, honestly, after the murder of George Floyd and the civil uprising that has occurred since then, Evans's argument grows stronger, sadly).

I highly suggest that everyone listen to this podcast. It definitely falls within the realm of speculation, but speculation heavily centered in realms of reality that I don't see every day but can acknowledge its existence. If the podcast doesn't inspire you to do more to improve the country and world to make things better while also feeling terrified about the world as it is now, I don't know what will.

In one of the later episodes, Evans pointed out that the rural parts of this country do have some valid complaints to push them toward some kind of uprising. One of those objections revolves around the shitty healthcare system out in rural parts of the country. As much as I support the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it's hard not to acknowledge that the ACA has contributed to the decline of healthcare infrastucture in rural areas.

The problem originates in the fact that rural areas don't have enough demand on a macro level to justify having hospitals and advanced medical facilities out there, while urban areas have plenty of demand. Again, I support the ACA, but it didn't help rural areas because of the increased network adequacy requirements, increased requirements for bureaucracy (professionalization) in medical practices, and the increased industry consolidation that the ACA encouraged. All these factors have led to the closing of hospitals, facilities, and rural medical providers and family practices just not having a palatable way to continue being profitable. I think many of these features needed execution, but at the same time, the ACA could have done more to facilitate the progression of the industry in rural areas.

The Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps fills in the margins that the for-profit medical industry has left behind. As a non-profit, RAM doesn't need to fall victim to these factors that push out medical professionals and facilities. Capitalistic culture is "supposed to" efficiently find a way to deliver such important medical services to people that need it, but doesn't since not enough people live in rural areas to provide profits to for-profit medical professionals and facilities.

Hopefully some day we will have a Universal Healthcare system that can fill in these margins since Universal Healthcare shouldn't have to meet the demands of profit margins. Universal Healthcare will have other avenues to pay the bills (like taxing billionaires and other high income/net worth people who have a lot more money than they need).

Evans pointed out that supporting RAM was one good way to fight back the forces of Civil War. I don't like Civil War. I would rather not see Civil War, even though we can see forces brewing toward Civil War (and some of it for valid reasons). One of my big aims in life is to contribute to campaigns against violence and war. Contributing funds to an organization that fights back against at least one factor that pushes toward Civil War while healing and saves lives feels like a noble way to fight back against violence and war.

Which feels all good and well, yay me, but at the same time, kind of abstract. Today, though, this letter I received made my contributions feel more concrete and real. Not only just a way to fight back Civil War, but rather also

• A contribution to public health
• Possibly fighting for the survival of humankind
• Working to aid mental health by reducing the need for quarantines
• And just working to make the world a better place.

Along with wearing a mask, keeping my distance from people, and staying at home when not engaging in essential activities, I've been sending money to an organization that is fighting COVID-19!

At the end of this entry, I'm posting a picture of the letter informing me of this initiative that I've helped fund. To avoid technical difficulties or any other ways that make the letter difficult to read, I'm going to transcribe some of the important parts:

Thank you for supporting Remote Area Medical(R)! Based on CDC recommendations restricting mass gathering, all RAM(R) clinics have been canceled or postponed through the end of June. We understand the families RAM(R) serves will need our services even more than before COVID-19 impacted our clinic schedule. Our staff is busy redesigning the way our clinics are set up and operated so we may re-start clinic operations while following CDC guidelines so we can keep pateints, volunteers, and staff safe.

RAM(R) volunteers and staff served individuals in need in May by continuing to help administer COVID-19 tests. Our volunteers completed more than 900 hours of work at the Joliet, IL testing site and helped to administer morethan 5,300 tests to those in need. [. . .]

Damn! That's only 41 miles away. Honestly, I had always been thinking of rural areas a lot further away than Joliet being the beneficiaries of my donations. I hadn't thought my dollars would contribute to helping aid somewhere so close to home.

I've gone out to Joliet for work training! I make calls out there to talk with co-workers! So, yeah, this initiative has become that much more real to me.

My day has definitely brightened.

If you're looking to send your money somewhere that makes a difference, and might help prevent a Civil War in the United States, can I please ask you to consider Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps as somewhere worthwhile to send your funds? For all you know, your contributions might be one more way that you can help defeat COVID-19. You might some day open a piece of mail to find out that you helped make your geographical area just a little bit better (which then might all aggregate to save the world).

What say you?

The First Issue isn't Crime Numbers or Costs; It's that Black Lives Matter

I love that one of the first "factual" retorts to "defund the police" is "how will we deal with crime?" or "but crime will go up because there will be no one to enforce the law".

This is inherently racist and classist. It assumes that the only way to prevent crime is to deter crime (especially when a lot of calls cops go out to can be situations better dealt with by differently qualified person or strategy, and that a lot of "crimes" are made to increase State revenues and/or outlaw poverty - especially for things like contempt of court for not making it to debtor's court because the person can't get time off from work because they're trying to pay off they debt or don't understand court notices or don't receive notices and/or can't afford an attorney since it's a civil case, not a criminal case - the contempt order makes it criminal, though - and also to get prisoner slave labor for private prisons, which continues the Black Codes and slave economy from yesteryear).

So, just based on what I put in the paranthesis, the first issue shouldn't be how to deal with supposed crime, define what crime is, and to ask how the retorter pictures these criminals. What do these criminals look like? What are the lives of these criminals like? How did they grow up? Why did they become criminals and you didn't? The first issue is seeing all "criminals" as human, no matter is they're truly evil or not, then ask how their path of criminality could have been prevented? What role did society play? 

The biggest issue is people dehumanize, essentialize, and isolate these people from reality in their conceptions of them and society?

The first battles aren't procedure and methods. Nor is it numbers. The first step is to see the humanity in these people that are the "other", and to see that that this is common humanity, and everyone could have led a life such as this provided the right circumstances (though I do leave some room for individual agency, just not pinning everything on that, because it can be easy for survival to be seen as more important than agency). 

Black Lives Matter because many with power, money, isolation, sheltered, and/or complacent because they don't want to be touched by the pain of humanity believe or are able to accept that Black Lives don't Matter. They don't want to listen. They are comfortable and don't want to lose that comfort. 

So no,  the first issue shouldn't be numbers, dollars or crime rates. The first issue should be establishing humanity, that Black Lives/Humanity Matters, and that the people trying to argue numbers first don't believe in the humanity of others, nor do they understand how the structures and systems of our can influence and contribute to the human outcome, no matter the physical characteristics or cultural background of that person (and that only human intervention can change the system).

Black Lives Matter. Black Families Matter.

Black Lives Matter is the Strongest Argument for Socialism Yet

So cops are making the conservative/Trumpian grievance argument: Think how hard they have it? Sure, there's instances of the police putting their lives on the line, some valid, but imagine how much of it occurs because of systemic/cultural racism, other injustices, & cops' bitterness and trying to get what's theirs.

I have my issues with the current Far Left in the United States, but if there's any argument for socialism, this is it. Seriously, if everyone received good, sincere care from day one, this shit would be reduced by so much. Instead, we have a paramilitary force created to keep black people down to try covering up how much society doesn't care about cultivating Black Lives and Black Families.

We rather have a society that seeks to destroy them structurally then through the police and prison systems (where then many are pushed into slave labor because the 13th and 14th Amendments do not protect against slavery of someone who has been convicted. We still have the vestiges of Black Codes, if we don't 100% still have them).

Police brutality, the horrible police union that has established an agreement that makes its members near immune to prosecution of police brutality, the code of silence, the culture of war and killology, viewing BIPOC in certain neighborhoods as criminals (if you familiarize yourself with the Laquan McDonald case, you'll hear about how the murderer, Jason Van Dyke, was talking himself up for the kill in the squad car on the way to the encounter), etc. The prevalence of these problems are the symptom of a system that puts profits and power over lives and family, especially Black Lives and Black Families.

The system needs fixing & maybe a total replacement, and it starts with the police.

It starts with Black Lives Mattering. It starts with Black Families Mattering. Fix the police by defunding it then reallocating those funds to building up Black Lives and Black Families.

If Things Settle, We Must Remain Vigilant & Work to be Better

Well social media seems relatively quiet tonight for Chicago tonight. I did hear murmurings that one protest would occur on the North Side, though nothing reliable. I wonder if this is a lull or if society is getting ready for the hard work: actually changing, meaning us white people, and making this weekend count by not backsliding?

A lot of this will be personal and amongst family and friends, challenging them, getting them to listen, and getting them to actually connect on a deeper level to truly our understand black & other IPOC people.

I wanted to say something that would show some bond, but on a group level, I don't believe we're there yet. That's going to be a lot of hard work. 

And vigilance must increase to fight White Supremacy paramilitary gangs, structural Supremacy, inclinations of Supremacy in ourselves, & police misconduct.

I doubt the Federal government will show much progress until hopefully January 2020 when hopefully there's a huge realignment of POTUS & Congress. Even then, it will prove difficult. During the time of Obama, the forces of White Supremacy. They will likely continue to grow. Only our vigilance can stamp it down. Even now, I fear it will jump soon, again. 

But even if nothing substantoal can be done Federally other than to try slow & weaken the growth of Trump & White Supremacy (is it fair to call them deplorables now?), we can do work in our hearts, our homes, our towns, our cities, our counties, and our states. 

Let's not lose our resolve. Let's do better. Let's be better. 

White People, We Have Apologizing, Listening, & Working to Do for Actual Restorative Reform

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/30/michael-brown-ferguson-america-george-floyd

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/eric-garner-george-floyd-protests-reveal-how-little-has-changed-n1220501

These are a couple good articles that make a generally fact-based point: progress has occurred, but white people have still failed. 

The Guardian article makes a good point: white people need to do the work to make the necessary improvements. It is hard, soul searching, history searching, society searching work, but white are the ones obligated to the work. 

One of the biggest steps: listen. Black people and other POC and Indigenous People are not obligated to tell us or teach us. Honestly, there's enough out there in literature, news stories, essays, recordings, already on social media for us white people to but just consume, but reflect upon and teach us how to be better individually as a social group. 

Reforming the police and The State is a big thing, but us white civilians must do hard work, too. We vote, we participate, we are the people, the government should be for all of us. I almost want to quote Obama's 2004 DNC Convention speech, but at this time, us white people are dividing this country in a way that shames the image Obama brought up there. And yes, Obama didn't meet that image, either, but that's also because politics, White Supremacy politics, got in the way. 

Anyway, last week, I got into a weird Twitter conservation where I said to someone: "If you ain't listening, you ain't apologizing." White America, we have a lot of apologizing to do, and the first step to that apologizing is to do a lot of listening and also to do a lot of work to make the world better for Black people and also POC and Indigenous people.

And if you you've listened and worked enough, you haven't. We will never listen enough. We will never work enough. But it's but the right thing to do and something that will feel good in your heart.