Birthday wishes |
It's my birthday today, so I'm indulging myself by pretending this is the day all my wishes come true.
I wish people who are born rich and will die rich would miraculously develop a conscience. Especially you, Donald J. Trump, Jr., soon-to-be inmate #39571044. You had the temerity to post on Twitter that you'll take half of your young daughter's candy away from her to "teach her about socialism." I wish John Kelly, the Lyin' King's chief of staff, would take an American history class so he can learn that slavery, the sole cause of the Civil War, is an evil that could never be "compromised" away. I wish everyone knew that the open enrollment period for Healthcare.gov's 2018 Health Insurance Marketplace began yesterday, November 1st, and runs until December 15th, which is shorter than previous years. Citizens will need to work harder to get the word out because the government has curtailed efforts to publicize the open enrollment period. I wish we no longer referred to healthcare as a "marketplace" and returned to treating healthcare as a public service. After all, I don't shop around for the most economical cure for my ear infection. Just treat it before I go deaf. Medicare for all, single payer, whatever -- stop treating disease like a resource whose profitability needs to be maximized. That goes for the pharmaceuticals industry, too. I wish the crimes being committed by members of the current administration would someday be prosecuted. Here are six of the worst (excluding Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigations), as compiled by AlterNet's Juan Cole in an October 31, 2017, article. I wish people would realize that Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter now control "the political communication of electoral campaigns in the United States," as Daniel Kreiss and Shannon C. McGregor write in an October 26, 2017, article in the journal Political Communication. I wish there were a law that prohibited all businesses and organizations from collecting any more private information from individuals than they need to conduct business with them. For example, if you're not sending me something by mail, why do you need my street address? I wish there were a way to truly anonymize personal data so it could be aggregated and analyzed solely for the public good rather than solely for private profit. I wish everytime a monster like Steve Bannon was cited in the press, the story also had to identify the billionaires who are funding his hatred and depravity, starting with Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah. Moyers & Company's Todd Gitlin takes a look at the "new oligarchs" in an October 31, 2017, story I wish we had an Attorney General with the gumption to charge Facebook, Google, and Twitter with violations of 18 U.S. Code Chapter 96 - Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations -- under sections 1343 (wire fraud) 1344 (financial institution fraud). After all, it's against the law for a foreign country to attempt to influence a U.S. election. These three companies -- and other parties -- eagerly assisted the Russian government in violating this law. I wish that after this mythical Attorney General successfully prosecutes Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other Russia enablers, the Justice Department's next targets for RICO prosecutions are the Republican and Democratic parties. No, I will not be holding my breath waiting for this to happen. Lastly, I wish all of you the happiest of un-birthdays! |
