America used to be sort of this shining beacon of freedom for all

These diaries always seem - to the outsider - to be a confusing mixture of paranoia and pain - obvious suffering and a search for scapegoats - whether these be predatory medical practices, Obama, or world Government, the connections are never argued in a way that is accessible or comprehensible for me.

Poverty is in itself a violation of human rights.  Involuntary medical treatment perhaps another - except where it is withheld from minors who are not in a position to make an informed judgement for themselves.

But the general (mis-)identification of all evil with "the Government" seems to derive from an extreme American libertarian tradition where the world was owned by the explorer, to be exploited at will, and any natives present be damned.

You have to ask how much of the suffering might be self-inflicted.  That a more constructive engagement with the "realities" of the modern world might have more positive outcomes.  That if you start from the premise that everybody is out to get you - well then people end up either getting at you or ignoring your obvious needs.  Of course, just because you are paranoid doesn't mean that some people aren't out to get you.  It doesn't however help you to distinguish between potential friends and foes.

An adversarial relationship with "the world" almost always ends up being reciprocated. Obvious injustices are perpetuated.  You have to understand I am arguing from personal experience and general principles which may not apply in your case.  I make no claims to prescience. I just ask you to consider that you could be making matters worse by aiming at the wrong targets and taking on too many adversaries at once - for your own good and that of your family.

notes from no w here

I don't get this innumerate fascination with single misperceived dangers. Of course, I've been riding motorcycles for fifty years, so I must be nuts.

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It is the clash of opposites and who delights
in stories that portray one's own demise?
One's understanding of all life in ruins
portrayed in emptiness, like fighting against the weather.

If I were young and not so old of struggle
I might still relish a bardic kick or two
and live to tell the story tale thereafter
but now my drunken head lies in few lines.

It is the shattering of time and space
hereafter lies no rhyme or grace worth saving
worth saying, it is no time for truth
they listen hard in search of thought they chase.

And now I with no news but bent to hear you
recover bits of love from shattered ruins
I know I've lost the fight before beginning
and yet I'm wont to try the impossible.....

I cannot grow by small acceptables
and even though they tear your insides out
and food is labouring guts for want of money
you want the struggle though you hate it so.

And now my time of lost love meandering has come
and I don't half want to return to safely bed
but I have come long ways from empty madness
I return periodically but that's near safely dead.

I now return to that dread earlier madness
from Madrid to London is two worlds apart
but my great hungering guts lie outstretched 'tween those capitals
and my great longing mind knows not but to accept.

I turn around, look half crazed glances yonder
to the merriment of food and wine below
from whence shall I such good things encounter?
The groundswell is for you hard poverty's blow.

notes from no w here