I smoked cigarettes and fight the urge everyday not to pick up the habit again.
Both are activities I am now seeing on the TV in very painful to watch public service announcements.
Wheezing lady being handed a cup of water by her child.
A coughing man over a sink.
Both PSA’s end with the tag line dying from smoking is painful… I don’t doubt it… I really don’t, never did in fact.
Then the other toughy is the one where the guy was asking, “where are you,” in a text, but gets in an accident and now wants to die because he has a traumatic brain injury. I definitely would not want to suffer from that either.
I don’t know how the rest of the country handles these issues, but this is what I did to remedy them, I moved to New York City. Number one most expensive city in the grand ole USA.
Cigarettes cost 15 fucking dollars a pack here. Easy decision right there, if I want to smoke it is almost dollar a cigarette. Fuck that.
I don’t own a car, meaning I take public transportation available, 24 hour a day, everywhere I want and have to go. Meaning I get to text whenever I want, given signal availability.
So I am watching a football game, a team called the Jets are beating another team called the Bills, badly I might add, and in-between beer and cell phone commercials with pretty people doing pretty people things, these PSA’s come on with not pretty people dying of lung cancer, or with traumatic brain injuries telling me how life changing or ending these habits are and I think to myself why are we seeing them?
Aren’t there worse epidemics in this country?
In 2010 10 million violent and property crimes were committed.
In 2010 500,000 cancer deaths happened.
In 2010 4000 cell phone related car accident deaths were recorded.
My brain is wired for conspiracy theory, so right away I think, “it’s for the medical costs associated with them.”
if it costs money it will be addressed, if it makes money it will be ignored.
Cancer and brain damage, both medical issues that once in care for you are always in care, right?
Didn’t I read if you are brought to the emergency room dying of something the hospital can’t release you, legally, until you are stable? Big insurance has to pay really expensive bills if this correct. So maybe that answers a question as to why we aren’t seeing PSA’s for other social issues.
$
The big one that comes to mind first and foremost is that crime statistic.
In this country being a criminal makes people money. Prisons have been privatized, services within a prison or jail mean money for a community, and the governments can tax the citizens under the guise of keeping the streets clean to get that money. How clean are our streets?
Almost seems America needs its criminals to survive. I picture a dysfunctional vampire Sucking on its own neck.
Harvey Silverglate states in his book “Three Felonies a Day,” that the average American unintentionally commits three crimes every 24 hours.
Huh?
For realzies?
Silverglate goes on to say, “…federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition […that…] prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior…” on three separate occasions daily.
So basically if a cop wanted to, on any given day and they were in the right place at the right time, say to catch someone grilling 3 lobster at a Maine state park in blue checkered boxer shorts, and if that's against the law this was in no way an admission that I have ever done that, every single American could have a rap sheet.
Having a record in this country is like dying. It’s a handicap that never goes away and that can never be physical therapied away, it’s a humiliating brand in the center of one’s forehead, a death sentence, a daily excuse to give up and live by an immoral code under a bridge somewhere just waiting to get the next crime “right.”
I am not seeing any PSA’s warning our kids to be good. But for some reason we need to constantly remind them not to smoke and not to drive their cars while texting. Both are no brainers really and one would think not committing a crime would be a no brainer as well. 20% of the population have records, 41% of people in my generation of felt handcuffs placed on the wrists and have been told to, "watch your head," as they were placed into the back seat of a police cruiser. Only 30% of all American have college degrees, but 20% have records. You would think money for a truly altruistic PSA would be better spent deterring crime.
It would help two people, the criminal and the victim, which maybe liberally is 40% of the country and not just 20.
No comments:
Post a Comment