Best Interest
Today was a tough run. But I kept a good pace, stayed in line with what I’ve been running most of October. It’s really cold back in the Northeast US. My heart goes out to all my friends running through this cold snap, and remember, I’m still running in shorts and a t-shirt and will likely be doing so for most of the late Autumn/Winter! Haha, not to rub it in or anything.
Speaking of which, it’s getting to the point in my home state, where it will become illegal for utility companies to shut off utilities, due to the cold temperatures. Now, if your utilities have already been shut off, they don’t turn them back on, but at least in the middle of the Winter, you’ll have heat even if you have trouble paying your bill for any reason.
Of course the downside of this, the private utility companies feverishly search their records to try and shut anyone off who isn’t paying before the deadline. If they had a software problem, and didn’t send you a bill for months, or if they made a mistake, they don’t care, they see you didn’t pay and they move to shut you off. Because they’re not in the business to provide warm homes to their customers, to see a customer smile, to know their customer’s children are safe and secure, no. Like any other business they are there to make money, to turn a profit, so they can pay dividends to their shareholders. When it comes to basic needs, heat, water, gas, electricity, why would we trust these services to an entity with no need to provide decent, or reasonable service. As is, gas, and many other services are monopolies for your municipal community. Meaning you have to buy from the gas or water “authority” which is merely a private consortium regulated relatively loosely by your state government. But you don’t have a choice.
We see this with the people in Flint, Michigan, who still don’t have decent water to drink. And we find this in a relative of mine who had their gas shut off this weekend, even though they are a good customer and have been paying, they simply didn’t know, because they weren’t properly informed, that their account number had changed. This is wrong, this has always been wrong. There are things that all humans need that are not in the best interest of private industry to provide easily, or readily. If a company needs to turn a profit for its shareholders, and the choice is between turning that profit or fixing pipes they know are rotting, they will pay off the shareholders, we’ve seen it! Not just now, but historically, every time the choice gets made, profits get put over people.
This is why I argue we must abandon our ideas of supremacy, that some people don’t “work” or are “lazy” and so don’t deserve x, y, or z. We must start to look at each other as equals and that all of us are entitled to be here, and should have the basic things all people need to survive. If we are going to continue in our system that creates and demands poverty and oppression, then we must pay our part for those who are victimized by the required poverty and oppression. The system is not a natural state of being, natural laws cannot be applied (for those thinking of trying to corrupt Darwin). If you want to disagree then prove to me, don’t shut me out, prove to me that if all things were equal, if everyone had the same education, worked as hard, had the same drive and desire to be whatever, that no one would have to flip burgers at McDonald’s, that no one would be folding clothes at the Gap, and no one would be a greeter at Walmart. Prove it. Make the argument that somehow the system we have can survive without poverty. At which point, explain to me why companies don’t pay livable wages to people? Ok then
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
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