Lindsay

Robert B. Reich’s “The System: Who Rigged it, How we fix it” Anand Giridharadas’ “Winners Take All: The elite charade of changing the world”

To make a statement. To be heard. To them it seems like the Trump administration only cares about economy. So let’s fuck the economy even more with the looting and the burning. And all the damages tax dollars have to repair. I’m on the northwest side of Chicago, and it feels like a war going on. Police sirens, and business alarms blaring. Shots fired, its total chaos. They are taking just for the sake of taking. It’s not even a protest anymore. It’s criminal looting and vandalizing. “Fuck the economy, that’s all you privileged people care about” kick em where it hurts. Take what you can because it’s easy for the privileged to get their needs met with their privileged opportunities. Here’s our opportunity to get our needs met under oppression.

I grew up in a lower income neighborhood in Chicago. I was a white minority in a mostly Latin American and African American community in a large urban diverse (yet segregated) city. This is important because now I’m part of a white majority in a mid-upper class suburb and I’m a care giver to a wealthy catholic Republican guy with locked in syndrome (total paralysis including speech, he communicates by using his eyes to look up and down and a spell chart) I have so much love and respect for him and his family. This is also very important because he is very into politics and Fox News and he listens to political far right wing audiobooks all day. He watches 700 club and other Christian tv. I been working there full time for 6 years and since he’s silent I do all the talking. And we debate for fun. Cuz I’m soooo far left in comparison. I get my news from Now This, vox, and vice. I try so hard to challenge his distaste for Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Cortez. He tries so hard to challenge my distaste for Trump and the republican administration. Our debates always boils down to Communism and how I should fear communism.We just finished the book “can a Catholic be a Socialist?” To me it sounded like propaganda. He thinks my public education brainwashed me. ( he went to catholic school, and went to the air force academy and was 2nd Lt before his accident). But honestly I had first hand experience with what it’s like to need welfare. How hard it is to move up from the bottom class. Disadvantages between public schools in poor neighborhoods. I witnessed police racial profiling and I understood my white privilege first hand. I went to school with illegal immigrants and I understand how devastating it was for them to graduate high school but not be able to go to college because of their legal status and they were as much of an American as I was. Both classes of people are so out of touch with each other. I tried to introduce spiral dynamics to him. He thinks it’s a model to brain wash Americans to become socialists. And then transition to communism. Like what the fuck. How do I get him off communism? So I been listening to stuff about communism, it’s not even that bad. I would prefer capitalism with the right amount of socialism to give an equilibrium to the classes but what the hell? What stage is communism? Why is it so feared? What stage is socialism? What stage is capitalism? What stage is feudalism? Am I being brain washed? He demonizes socialism. And I embrace it. And I dont understand the disconnect between us. I just finished Robert Riech’s “The System” and Anand Giridharadas’ “Winners Take All.” I read some of it to my client. He still thinks honest money made should be kept and not taxed. It blows me. It really does.

I’m obese. 445 lbs, 5’2 ft, and 29 years old. This show scares the living shit out of me. Because as I get fatter and older I’m starting to really feel disabled. I was in denial and still am in denial. I was always the “pretty for a fat girl” girl and had no health complications until recently. No alarm bells to get me motivated to change my habits. I been gaining about 20-50 pounds per year. I sometimes manage to stick to a diet and I’ll drop 80-100 pounds. But then I gain it all back again plus more. This is my first year in the 400s and my new limitations are frightening and frustrating. I always been fat. I was in the 200s in high school. 250 in college. And I gained an extra 100 pounds after pregnancy. My 600 pound life inspires me to go on a diet in fear of becoming like the people in the show. Or maybe it scares me too much and I manifest the weight gain and disabilities I fear. I don’t understand why I can’t keep the weight off. I tried water fasting, snake diet, OMAD, keto, Atkins, paleo, grape fruit and egg diet, south beach diet, 1200 per day calorie restrictions, slim fast, weight watchers, nutrisystem. In the end I gain it back plus more. Maybe it’s emotional eating? Lack of impulse control. My parents were addicted to crack. We lived in nasty conditions. They sold everything. They sold the tv, Super Nintendo, the neighbor’s yard decorations, sold our food stamps. We never had toilet paper. We used to just wipe our ass with dirty cloths. Roaches everywhere. Squalid conditions. I was bullied at school for smelling like cat pee and cigarettes. I loved my dear mother. I had dreams to grow up and support her. I wanted to get her away from my dad. I used to hate my father for beating her. They kinda beat on each other but he was so mean, manipulative, and violent. Verbal and mental abuse to us kids. Nothing a kid should witness. I did a lot of reading and self help work, and followed Leos course, and watched “we need to talk” with Kris Godinez on youtube and basically learned to forgive them and not blame them. I love them both. But I mention this because I don’t think obesity is a choice. I think it’s a symptom of emptiness. My sister is also obese in the heavy 300s. She was diagnosed with sleep apnea, congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, cptsd, and schizo affective disorder. I was younger and didn’t get professional help like she did. Our mom overdosed and died at 39. I was 12 and I just went to live with my cousins and had a normal childhood after. But my sister was older and went to a group home, and my older brother was addicted to heroin and stayed on the streets. I think I may have complex post traumatic stress disorder. Never been diagnosed, but I do get triggered when something reminds me of that life. What I’m saying is I believe obesity is a symptom of unresolved trauma or maybe a “lack of love” like Leo said in the most recent video. My brother still struggles with addiction. I don’t see him anymore. He triggers me into depression. But I feel like if he wasn’t self medicating he would also be fat.