Ok, so I’m about to finally mail in my ballot. (That’s how we do things in the State of Oregon, remember?) No long lines at the polls. But maybe a little suspense waiting for all the ballots to arrive and get counted… at least for the local races.
It’s pretty much obvious who the best candidate is, and in fact I did some phone banking for her on Saturday morning. This is my moment to give some space for anyone here who may tempted to vote for the other side. Or more likely, vote for a third-party candidate or not vote at all.
First off, you have to admire the devotion of the Trump voters. There is nothing subtle about it. They really mean it. The white pickup truck that’s been parked on my block all week long, with a huge sign attached that says,
“God, Guns, and Trump.”
Now that is making a statement. Same with the house I saw when I was back visiting my parents in Connecticut, which had a Trump banner covering most of the second story. They were just down the road from Town Hall. And these are Blue states, mind you. It’s not like these views are popular!
You had to figure that these people don’t care what their neighbors think of them. I guess having guns and ammunition handy could help people perpetuate that worldview. Unfortunately, even in the Northeast, these people are not just an isolated fringe group. I remember hearing the words of this country music song playing on AM radio, while I was driving away from the post office in my hometown. It was all about how if anyone tried to take our guns away, they would be real sorry.
Anyway, I don’t own a gun and I don’t want one. There are plenty of other ways to defend yourself and fight for your beliefs. The most effective ones are always nonviolent. That is the only way you can win a measurable number of the other side to your worldview.
Nonviolence doesn’t always mean marching and carrying signs, though. Nor does it always mean civil disobedience. I was lucky enough to cover some protests of that type, but that was years ago. Nonviolence can be as simple as paid advertising. Only problem is, that requires money. And platforms that will take your money.
That is where I worry that progressive groupthink is really letting us down. There is an air of self-satisfaction that is prevalent amongst liberals (and I do consider myself one of them). But I prefer to question my assumptions, and draw information from a variety of sources. Bezos got it wrong when he forbid The Washington Post to endorse Kamala Harris. The question wasn’t whether Post readers would be swayed by that endorsement. It was more the “why” that becomes important — the content of those hypothetical paragraphs that would have accompanied her endorsement. People need to see reasons to be passionate and motivated about a cause.
I can tell you what I am passionate about and that is getting better healthcare. For me, personally, and for everyone. I found myself in the public system in Oregon after moving back here this spring. And what I learned is that it’s nearly impossible to see a doctor, or even a nurse practitioner. With a very few exceptions, we are not even allowed to pay for private appointments outside of the clinic system. This is really a problem when you experience constant pain.
The repetitive strain injury I live with hasn’t really gotten better, and at times (particularly after long drives) it’s been much worse. The question that I have been waiting three months to get an answer about is whether my physical therapy exercises are actually helping, or whether they might be exacerbating the injury.
In the meantime, I work for a few hours every day. I try to find workarounds that involve fewer mouse clicks and above all, less time on my phone. There is a really strong possibility that I meet the criteria for receiving disability, but I would rather not go that route. I’ve investigated the assistive technologies currently available, but they really seem to be designed for people who use one or two software productivity applications only — and not for people in management or creative roles, who are constantly toggling between a dozen or more open screens and tabs (many of them web apps). I may just to have to write my own. The irony is that the only way I would have time and funding to do so would be if I were on disability… and since the cost of housing is at an all-time high, and you need to drain nearly all of your savings to qualify, it strikes me as an extremely risky choice.
Some of us have a good safety net to fall back on. I really don’t. I did the math.
We won’t even talk about women’s health, or the complete lack of specialists or referrals in this area. I haven’t even been offered a mammogram screening. Forget about trying to schedule an appointment to discuss HRT, even if like me you are missing a uterus, constantly fatigued and run down, and concerned that menopause or perimenopause could catch you unawares.
Not sure yet what my long term plan is. Just hoping it’s not an endgame.
Really, really wishing that there was a better way to improve the quality of public healthcare in the place where I live. For me. And for all the people in the system who have even less in the way of choice or good information about the treatment options they have available. For good or ill, Medicaid-subsidized care public healthcare here in Oregon is “socialized medicine.” It covers a lot. Something like cradle-to-grave. The clinic system even has a public daycare. I have friends who use it.
But the appointments and the spaces aren’t necessarily there when you need them. Rationing is a fact of life.
Switching insurance providers is as giant a gamble as anything else. You never know which providers are going to drop out of a given private plan, or how long the wait will be to actually get in for an appointment with a primary care provider.
I don’t believe the solution is throwing more money at the problem. I believe the solution is better accountability. The profit system built into free markets does act, in some rough and almost always unintentional ways, as a way to measure performance. Take that out of the equation and you have every incentive for abuse and bloat.
We need greater transparency. And we need ways for consumers of public services (and yes, that means poor people) to make their viewpoints known without having to fill out a 15-minute survey. Most of us are working poor, and we don’t have those fifteen minutes to spare.
I was going to ask a VC that I knew whether he felt like a simple, universal AI-driven response and feedback measurement system could ever get adopted by the federal government. The process to become an approved federal vendor is laborious and time-consuming, and typically you can’t really “pitch” government organizations on tools that they might actually use internally. You can only go after grants, which are nearly always highly competitive and reserved for those on the inside track.
Which, ahem, I am not on. Not in the Biden administration, and certainly not in the administration that preceded it. Read the post below this one, and you may start to have an inkling as to why.
