You Get What You Pay For

I have been thinking a lot about the people of Newtown, how hard life is for them now. How the Holidays are probably like some kind of cruel joke to them. I can't imagine their suffering. Their world has been turned on it's head, everyday they live with an empty place where their child or their significant other used to be.
Then I start getting pissed.
Because we are used to tolerating a hell of a lot of crazy in our culture. The rest of the world sees it and thinks we are a nation of dumbasses but we continue to think we're exceptional for some reason. I have a few examples of this.
One is the NRA and Wayne LaPierre. His big idea? Armed security guards in schools
I read this yesterday. My first thought was maybe it was some kind of stimulus. A program for out of work people who are hired to be the "good guys with guns". A boon for gun manufacturers, to make even more guns, especially designed for school security forces, maybe a "Special Edition" deluxe model..My suspicion was that LaPierre and gun manufacturers were in cahoots, drooling over future state funding flowing into gun corporations coffers, feeding off of the fear of frightened parents. LaPierre's idea isn't new. There are police and private security forces in city schools. I also know in my community the local police have a presence in some of our schools here. My point is this, LaPierre's ideas are old and tired like him. But he gets paid a lot of money by gun manufacturer's to continue the status quo of death and violence. We get what we pay for. A gigantic lobby to pay for our representative to look the other way and do nothing. There's a lot of cash at stake here. There is only one representative I know about who spoke out about gun control. He is a conservative named Joe Manchin, from West Virginia. He's a "proud NRA member." I don't know what he's so proud of, other than the bribes he gets from the NRA for saying that. Does anyone else see this crazy going on?
Then there is the John Boehner epic fail this week with the whole manufactured fiscal cliff. Talk about insane. He was delusional enough to think he could get his Plan BS to pass the floor, but thank God it didn't have enough votes. I don't know if he was surprised or not. I read a great article in The Guardian about him and the poverty he was born into. He was one of 11 kids that grew up in a two bedroom house. That's right, 11 kids and two bedrooms, you do the math. I don't know a whole lot about his parents, but who the hell has 11 kids and not enough room for them to lay their heads down?. This reminds me of the whole baby boom generation who just had loads of kids on faith and not much brains. This was John Boehner's normal. It kind of looks crazy to me. I grew up in a family of 5 kids, 3 of us shared a bedroom at times and I know how crazy that was. But 11? Holy crap. No wonder Boehner's always crying. (maybe HE's mentally ill and has an irrational fear of being poor again) What a sad way to grow up. Now he's one of the most powerful men in DC. You would think, he would have some compassion for the middle class and the poor. Instead, I see that his "humble beginnings" have caused him to live a life on the take, from the NRA, Raytheon, myriad defense contractors and big pharma cashing in on lobbyists and millionaires.We get what we pay for. The price we pay is ineffective leadership and a whole load of Kleenex for Boehners crying ass. He's a laughing stock AND a millionaire.
Which brings me to the state of healthcare in this country and Adam Lanza, James Holmes, Ian Stawicki (the shooter in Portland), Thomas Lane, the list goes on and on go look at Think Progress  it's sickening.
You would think, that getting help for crazy people would be a national priority. But it's not. Here's an article in The Washington Post . It's about mother's who are caretakers of their mentally ill sons. Basically we know it is mostly young, white, mentally ill men who are mass murderers. In this article it details the journey of a mother and her mentally ill son and the fear and violence she took on. I am well aware that I have a feminist take on things, but why isn't there an article about father's and their mentally ill sons? Women are traditionally the unpaid labor engine in this country and once again, you get what you pay for, and women pay a high  price, physically and mentally. I am guessing, like Adam Lanza's mother, a lot of these women are in denial about how bad their sons mental illness is. Then if they do have the guts to call a spade a spade and admit their son is mentally sick, negotiating with a broken healthcare system will drive you crazy. But we can't have a national healthcare system, including mental healthcare, because America is broke or Americans just don't care.
To the rest of the world we look like a bunch of backwards idiots, who are unwilling to step up and deal with things or even God forbid, raise some taxes on the wealthy to take care of both of these crises'. I think it's called a poverty of the mind, we are too lazy and dumb to change.
 So, it's "Bah Humbug" because Scrooge is alive and well in America and we will continue to pay, one way or another.