james v.

a couple years back i watched the film,
john q,
whose main character, brilliantly played by
denzel w.,
holds a group of patients in a hospital as hostages
until his son’s name is put on a list to receive
a heart transplant,
due to the fact that he cannot get one any other way
because his health insurance will not cover the
procedure.

not being blind to the state that the united states
decrepit health care system is in,
i figured that the reality of someone walking into a
hospital with a gun,
and demanding health care,
was not far off.

last thursday, james verone made a different decision,
one that he himself described as logical,
as at age 59, having been laid off from a job he had worked for
17
years,
he was unemployed &
bearing several different medical problems, of which he had no
health insurance to cover,
he walked into a bank in
gastonia, north carolina,
robbed the bank of
one
dollar
bill,
and then waited on the sofa for the cops to come.

he did this,
so that in jail, he would receive the medical
care that he needed
in order to continue living.

this is not going to be an isolated incident.

46 million people residing in the country that barks that they are the
“leader of the free world”
to both those that it shakes bloody hands with,
and those that it stomps on until
they shake hands,
are not happy campers.

we watch ourselves going the way of rome---
with a military that continues to stretch itself as far as it can
to all corners of the earth
to suck it dry of natural resources
in the frantic attempt to preserve a standard of life
that is truly enjoyed by
only the top
1-5% of the populous,
knowing full well that our tax dollars go to fund these
marauders & not to educating our children or
housing our homeless,
we are all too aware that if we get hurt,
unless we have a hefty insurance policy,
we are better off dead.

verone planned his “abuse of the system” out
before going through with his $1 robbery---
he has a condo set up in myrtle beach & plans to serve
3 years, and then retire with his
social security paying the way---
and regardless of how naïve that last part sounds (relying on social security),
nobody will argue that it is better than
dying, unemployed, with a severe medical condition
that could have easily been avoided,
that is,
if the country that verone lived in,
care about him more than it did
bombing more libyans
or
“securing democracy”
in any given country that we deem appropriate to
destroy.

if you are an american citizen,
and you don’t have health care,
and you know that there are people in france, and britian,
australia & canada,
who are all reading & watching the news about mr. verone---
what is going through your head?

how angry do you have to be, before you do something?
how many people that you know have to suffer because your government does not care about you, before you do something?
are you going to wait until that last moment when this thing personally
affects
you, before you move one inch in the direction of
sanity?

we should applaud verone for what he has done,
for he has had enough,
and he did something about it---
and regardless of what happens, he is still
alive
to live it.