Gas and the Veteran

I was on the phone today, just a few minutes ago, in fact, calling up some veterans to remind them of a support group that I help to run.

This particular vet that I was talking with has been to our support group quite a few times actually.  He's a very pleasant man who has come to our meetings in the past and usually participated and provided others with useful information.

He actually likes to come to our groups and claims to get a good deal out of them.  So it was sad for him to realize that gas prices are now too high for him to travel all the way from the Tacoma/Puyallup area to Seattle.  The VA actually offers travel reimbursement, but apparently, Tacoma/Puyallup is considered too close and he makes too much (which is NOT all that much), and cannot be reimbursed.

So... there you have it.

Without sounding preachy or political or whatever the fuck you want to call it, this is one of those fucked-up-beyond-all-common-sense situations that boggles me and should infuriate anyone with half a brain.  It certainly should infuriate anyone who actually votes.

I'm not going to go off about my political views, but I don't consider this much of a political matter as it is a matter of pure intelligence.  And there are so many reasons why this situation, and I'm sure there are others just like it and worse, should be apalling.

From a "Support-the-Troops" point-of-view... I mean... really?!  Really?!  We send our troops off to war, they come back, get questionable services as a result, and now we don't even give them the money to get to those questionable services?

I'm still in the midst of the shock of this all, after spending ten minutes on the phone with him and discussing his case, that I can't really form a coherent argument.  It's like throwing water in a frying pan full of oil.  Everything's just bouncing around...

It does make me wonder how we can be so jaded, and taught to be so jaded in school... and how any of us, or our country, survives.  That we haven't had some sort of collapse of infrastructure yet is appalling.  It makes you want to punch idiots in the face.  I'm serious.  I'm about one more event away from punching the first person who lacks common sense intelligence and reasoning skills right in the face.

I'm about a half-second away from punching someone in the face for saying, "Oh I'm voting for this person because they are in my party," or "I like them because my parents do..."  or "I'm not voting for him/her because of their age, gender, religion, sex, lifestyle..."

I think the only thing that keeps me from punching these people in the face is because my level of pity for them is still higher than my level of disdain.  Pity that a school system that we all pay for is giving them such hideously horrid returns.  And then depression takes over when I realize that the people that that system is failing is being boosted  back up by the people it failed.

I agree with Jimmy, to an extent.  Our democracy is failing... but I don't think fascism is the answer.  Yet.  If only people were smart enough to invest in education, and the ones getting it would actually take it in.

Fuck all.