And I was thinking, The one percent who are in a position to outspend me (and everyone else I know combined) already own most of the country anyway. Political campaigns anymore seem designed to make the poor poorer and the rich richer. I just don't care to participate in it.
Apropos that thought, a friend told me recently that he and his wife are moving to Costa Rica:
Costa Rica is like it was here in the 50s, only we still have all the goodies. The temp is 72 to 83 during the day and in the lower 60s at night. Spring year round. We can live there, for $1.500 a month. That includes everything.I told him that I would never do anything like that myself. But the only reason I could give him was, Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.
If the Dems lose big this year, you can kiss Medicare as we know it good-bye. Unlike the US, Costa Rica has in their Constitution that healthcare is a human right. Can you see the wonderful people of the good old USA agreeing with that?
We may get down there and after a year hate it; but what the hell, we're not going to live forever and everybody needs one last great adventure.
And I'm not even sure what that means.
Interestingly, when my wife and I were in Bulgaria last year, I found myself remarking, What if we retired here? (As you know, I often just find myself doing things, and more and more often, after reading Sam Harris's book Free Will, wonder why. In this case, I think I was just being whimsical.)
However, out of curiosity, my wife checked into whether we could even collect our United States social security checks if we lived in Bulgaria. She found out we couldn't.
I'm pretty sure my friend will be able to receive his social security checks in Costa Rica. I tried to confirm this by googling "in what countries can americans collect social security." The second link listed took me to a Social Security website that provided the following general information:
If you are a United States citizen, you may receive your Social Security benefits outside the United States as long as you are eligible for them. Regardless of your citizenship, there are certain countries that we are not allowed to send payments. For more information, please see the section titled Countries To Which We Cannot Send Payments in Your Payments While You Are Outside The United States (Publication No. 05-10137).Costa Rica seems to be okay.
If you are planning to be outside the United States for six consecutive calendar months or more, you can find out if you can receive your Social Security payment by using the Payments Abroad Screening Tool.
Hmm, healthcare in its Constitution, eh? And what season was that year round?
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[Follow-up]
Your friend makes a very persuasive case. It provoked a long conversation between Linda and me.
ReplyDeleteDear Reader, The editorial staff here is delighted to have caused some (we hope productive) conversation.
DeleteMoristotle, congratulations on provoking conversation on the topic in general and on Costa Rica in particular, which has been a very popular destination for ex-pat Americans for at least two decades. Another country to consider is Costa Rica's northern neighbor: Nicaragua. Yes, THAT Nicaragua, the one America was basically at war with during parts of the Carter and Reagan administrations thanks to the Sandinista overthrow of the American-backed puppet government of the dictator Somoza. With all the nastiness out of the way, Americans are now very well received in Nicaragua, and it is gaining the nickname "the new Costa Rica."
ReplyDeleteSome other "secret" but very popular places to consider: St Lucia, Grenada (yes, America invaded it during the George H. Bush administration but it recovered nicely despite the effort), and Kenya.
As for what is really wrong with the American political system, how about a little investigation of voter turnout? As I recall, barely half the eligible voters in the U.S. bother to vote in presidential elections, and maybe one-third of them vote in mid-term elections. Is the problem with our political system too much corporate money, or individual apathy?
Motomynd, of course voter apathy is serious and lamentable. My own "money" apathy is distinct from that, of course; I'm not apathetic when it comes to voting. I mean, I do (regularly) vote.
DeleteMany investigations have been made into voter turnout, but I'm not aware that a solution has been found. Low voter turnout might be like high animal-eater turnout. Where does one start to raise the voter numbers and lower the animal-eater numbers? I'm afraid that one doesn't start—with any hope, that is, of making a significant dent.
I suppose that the most an ordinary person can hope is like what Loren Eiseley's "star thrower" hoped for when he threw a single stranded starfish back into the ocean: "While wandering a deserted beach at dawn, stagnant in my work, I saw a man in the distance bending and throwing as he walked the endless stretch toward me. As he came near, I could see that he was throwing starfish, abandoned on the sand by the tide, back into the sea. When he was close enough I asked him why he was working so hard at this strange task. He said that the sun would dry the starfish and they would die. I said to him that I thought he was foolish. There were thousands of starfish on miles and miles of beach. One man alone could never make a difference. He smiled as he picked up the next starfish. Hurling it far into the sea he said, 'It makes a difference for this one.' I abandoned my writing and spent the morning throwing starfish."
Your comment has given me a topic for today's post, which I will publish (if it turns out okay) with the simple hope of getting at least one person out to vote in the next election (who likely would not have voted if I hadn't published it).
Hey, today's anticipated post came out okay—to my satisfaction, that is. Better than expected, in fact. I hope you enjoy it. Please email it to your closest one hundred friends.
DeleteWould you like to make a donation? I figure that if I can raise enough money for postage to every eligible voter's home in America, we might just win our country back!
Moristotle, If people would ponder how different the past 12 years may have been if all those would-be Florida voters had gone on to the polls during the Bush-Gore presidential battle, no one would ever again miss a chance to vote. I don't know about inspiring some people to overcome their innate laziness and apathy but hopefully your efforts will at least get a few voters to the polls who otherwise may have stayed home.
ReplyDeleteOn a lighter note, your "star thrower" mention brought back a flood of memories. My family was originally from Upstate New York but we ultimately spread from there to Virginia and on to Florida. One of my grandmothers, my mother's mother, spent the last 40 years of her life living in Virginia with my family in the spring and fall, and the winters in Florida with an aunt and the summers in Upstate with an aunt and uncle.
In addition to all the stories about family history, she gave me five great gifts:
* When I was only six years old she indoctrinated my as a life-long Los Angeles Dodgers fan
* For my eighth birthday she gave me a plaque (which still hangs on my wall today) with a photo of man and a boy on a dock and the Einstein quote "Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value"
* For my 10th birthday she gave me a wicked looking "Bowie knife" made of the finest steel in Soligen, Germany with a real stag handle and brass hand guard
* By age 15 she had drilled into me the importance of having one "toddy" of good liquor every night. Neat, of course, straight up: no water, no ice. Her theory may have been a good one: she lived to age 99 and did the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle up until the last week of her life
* Shortly before she died she gave me another plaque, also still on my wall, this one with the story of "the star thrower" on it.
Thank you for rekindling those memories...
Motomynd, thank you for a memorable plug for voting. The 2000 election...gosh, the memory of it gives me a sick feeling in the stomach. I think not only of the would-be voters, but of the several thousand elderly (mostly Jewish) voters who got confused by the butterfly ballot and voted for Gore by checking—who was it, Pat Buchanan's—box. Or were those the one you were thinking of too?
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for sharing the personal memories with us also, especially the "star thrower" memory.
A nephew and I were reminiscing Sunday (Father's Day) about what we had learned from our fathers (and from each other's father). "Do the right thing." "Respect other people." For example.
Moristotle, it is amazing how quickly U.S. voters forget the facts - as in the 2010 mid-term election where they rewarded the folks who got us into the mess from 2000 to 2008, and punished those who couldn't clean it up in only two years. But how could anyone forget the 2000 election? It was the year Mexico had a less corrupt presidential election than we did here in the states. It led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Iraq and the destruction of the international stature the U.S. had built over several decades. It didn't do any good but at least I can say I went to Washington, DC and protested in front of the Supreme Court. I'm not a fan of anarchy, but I will always wonder how much better off the country might have been if that battle had been taken out of the court rooms and into the streets.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I remember more about what I learned from my grandmother than from my father. Her admonishment to go "all in" on whatever you do in life for example. Her motto was "the less you bet the more you lose when you win." There is one to ponder.
Motomynd, thanks for picking up on the rewarding them in the act of punishing him for not working miracles against their obstruction (which point I made in my second post yesterday).
DeleteTaking to the streets in today's America would probably bring down a storm of police blows on the protestors' heads. America doesn't want and wouldn't tolerate street protests. The popular culture enforces it as effectively as the people in power. (I just found myself saying that; do you think it's true?)
Do you think that your grandmother's way of saying that you should tend to bet more rather than less (when you feel your chances are quite good) was intended to provoke a considered, rather than a rote, response to her advice? Cagey. Buddhist?
Moristotle, America may not want street protests, and may not wish to tolerate them, but if that is what it takes to make those at the top get serious about social injustice, why not? It worked for the civil rights marchers. Are the police really going to take clubs to senior citizens if they clog streets to publicly protest their decline in Social Security and other retirement benefits? I just heard a radio broadcast about a drastic cut in the "meals on wheels" budget for the needy here in the Triangle. If those folks take to the street to protest, what politician or police chief will make the decision to physically shove them out of the way?
ReplyDeleteAs for my grandmother, she never seemed particularly cagey and definitely wasn't a Buddhist, she just believed that if something wasn't worth doing "all in" as she would say, it probably wasn't worth doing at all. I don't know if she meant to provoke a considered response when she said such things, but they did inspire me to address decision making not only from an optimistic viewpoint but also from a worst-case scenario perspective. When I used to rock climb and run whitewater in a kayak, and when I now ride a motorcycle, I savor the elation but I also ponder "is this really worth dying for?"
My answer, by the way, is that the act of kayaking or motorcycling is not worth dying for, but avoiding living in fear is worth dying for. Since I am not a student of such, maybe you or one of your other readers could enlighten me if there is some sort of Zen thinking going on there.
Motomynd, I can't see senior citizens taking to the streets, although I suppose some senior citizens must have stepped out there with Martin Luther King, Jr, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Viola Liuzzo. Would they have, though, without the young people?
DeleteMy wondering whether your grandmother might have been seeking to provoke "consideration" was probably idle. The more I myself ponder "the less you bet the more you lose when you win," the more I think it's pretty straightforward. It simply focuses on what you lose (or the fact that you lose) when you don't go all in yet "win," rather than more conventionally on what you gain (or can gain) when you do (and "win"). I can hear the loss part in things you've said about wanting to take the Alaska trip again...this time on two wheels. Not wanting to have missed out, not wanting to have experienced less than you might have. Your grandmother's lesson seems to have stuck soundly.
I would say that Buddhism doesn't make the "worth dying for" argument. Buddha, after all, taught renunciation, avoiding pain by remaining detached. That is very different.