Hmmm, I Wonder How Much Worse Cholera is Than the Flu??!!
Hey Friendly People of Planet Earth,
Well, here I am, poor me, dealing with the flu for the 5th consecutive day, in the confines of my poop-bedded (whoops!) home in Winnipeg. The worst illness I've had to confront in 15 years, man-o-man alive, I feel like crap. Sweats, chills, leaking snot, sneezing, coughing up yellow gunk, eyes that feel like Marty Feldmans' looked, etc, etc....yes, apparently it's "flu season" in our rotten and nasty country once again.
Being a huge suck at times like this, I moan and groan in the comfort of my bed. I have a tub that I can fill with hot water whenever i please. I have a high quality in-house water purifier and can drink as much as I want, whenever I want. Someone special is nearby to bring me tea (and then to pause and ask a question in a strictly abstract theoretical, non-literal way, "Honny, did you poop the bed??" (groan...uhh..no?!). I have very little appetite, but know when it returns, there's food in a working refrigerator downstairs. I can pass the time listening to music on the radio, diddling the internet, or watching hateful nonsense on television. (Sarah Palin!! What the fuck! We need to re-lock and reload against these right wing freaks!! Don't we?? At the ballot box is what i mean, of course, right?!!.....uhh, yeah! with votes! go democracy!...sheesh). I sit, taking crappy pills that I don't want to take, but do anyway, because my head and body ache so bad I can't even sleep at night. Woe is me!!
Now imagine being in a place, where you might be lucky enough to have a blanket that keeps you warm at night. Your roof is a tarp, and the floor turns to mud when it rains. You've been living like this for a year, and have been told that more help is on the way, but you're not confident in the people delivering the message. You don't even have access to clean water. In fact the water might make you deathly ill. Access to food is questionable, and is a concern every day, day after day after day after day. An occupation force that's better equipped to repress the poor masses than to assist in the plight of the people has introduced cholera to major sources of water that are heavily depended upon. The international "community" has recently staged farcical elections there, but the largest party in the country has been excluded, along with another 18 or so... "Democracy" has tended to come from outside and above, which assists in transnational exploitation and the interests of the domestic elite; when it comes from below, well, the community organizations representing the poor majority are historically met with brutal, deadly force, and are pushed into hiding or underground. The prevailing government has little power, and does little to alleviate the suffering. The multitude of countless NGO's have more power, and sometimes do a few things here and there to alleviate suffering, but can't get their shit together to do anything beyond that. Imagine having the flu there!! Imagine contracting CHOLERA there!! Imagine walking for hours with hardly any food in your gut to cast a ballot in an election you know is a selection by the international "community", stepping over dead bodies of people who had cholera and weren't lucky enough to get treatment by the internationals, only to get there and realize the polling station doesn't even exist. IMAGINE THAT!! It's been one year since the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti. Some internationalist organizations such as Partners in Health and the Cuban Medical Brigade and others are doing excellent, respectful, and extremely valuable work there and are definitely worthy of support. The Canada-Haiti Action Network is holding events across Canada over the course of January to bring attention to the unjust situation there. Info can be found here: http://www.canadahaitiaction.ca/events Additional independent media sites uncorrupted by corporate affiliation can be viewed here: http://www.canadahaitiaction.ca/weblinks ....oh yeah, if anyone happens to have access to Bill Clinton, spit in his face for me. Aim for his mouth, or his eyes. Of course, I mean that figuratively, not literally.....