Me, Jane Fonda, our cancers, gaslighting, and you

Jane Fonda recently announced that she’s been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, the same kind of cancer I had.

I was given the same diagnosis, and got (probably) the same treatment. It worked, and all testing since indicates it's not coming back. That's good news for the two of us. Now, here's the bad news for most of the rest of us: as Jane says,

"I feel very lucky. "I’m also lucky because I have health insurance and access to the best doctors and treatments. I realize, and it’s painful, that I am privileged in this. Almost every family in America has had to deal with cancer at one time or another and far too many don’t have access to the quality health care I am receiving and this is not right." 

My "luck" comes from being a USNR veteran, and therefore covered by the VA healthcare system (even for non-service-connected health problems). I’m also covered by Medicare, where my bills were originally sent for payment (because I was not aware that this would happen by default). After the 6 months of treatment, I got the bill for my 20% Medicare copayments, over $10,000 (which I did not have).

I was able to persuade the VA to take over the payment responsibility from Medicare, and this story had a relatively happy ending. But wait, there’s more bad news…

Jane and I are concerned not only about treating cancers, but keeping people from getting them in the first place. How did she and I (and countless others) get non-Hodgkins Lymphoma? One demonstrated (and legally-settled) cause is exposure to man-made carcinogens like Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. If you bought some and used it, you were exposed (and can join a mass-tort suit for compensation, if the lawyers get rich by winning). There’s a catch (other than dying before the check clears): Roundup has been so successfully marketed, directly to big-and-small agriculture and to consumers at home centers (like Lowe’s and Home Depot) that it’s now so ubiquitous in our environment (soil, water and air) that every American has some degree of exposure. It’s banned in most of Europe and elsewhere, but in the US it’s deemed to be at safe levels by our “watchdog” agencies (read “corporate lapdog” agencies).

To discover how much of these toxins you carry, visit detoxproject.org and immh.org to discover how. I’ve been tested twice; the first test showed that I was in the top third of test subjects. The second test, after changing to an all-organic diet and drinking water only from a clearlyfiltered.com filter jug, was in the bottom third of results. My recommendations to all who read this: get tested, stay away from non-organic food and unfiltered water, stay alive, spread the word, and don't let the self-serving propaganda of corporate kleptocrats (and their well-paid lackeys in Congress) kill you.

This cancer can be sneaky. In many cases (as in mine), the only symptoms are cold-like, fatigue, a desire to sleep mid-day, and muscle weakness. Swollen lymph glands and night sweats may or may not be present. On diagnosis, it’s usually at stage 4 (spread throughout the body, as it affects the lymphatic system). Chemotherapy is the preferred treatment, and usually provides a complete cure.

The bigger picture: if you get it, unless you are rich (or are a Veteran), it will take money you don’t have to get well. The current lack of health care (remember, health insurance is not health care) may be the death of you. Politicians (both on the “right” and “left”) will claim that we can only afford National Health Care (successful in most civilized countries) by increasing taxes; the left proposes to pay for it by much larger taxes on the rich, and the right says (in effect) “let ‘em die.” Those who love any federal program (as long as it’s for “defense”) are fine with what they term “deficit spending;” as Dick Cheney once said, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." By contrast, they attack any federal program to “promote the general welfare” (a phrase which should sound familiar if you’ve read the preamble to our Constitution) as an “unaffordable waste of taxpayer dollars.” 

Those who’ve learned MMT can see the gaslighting double-standard which has enabled this scam to survive in Congress for decades. They know that federal taxes do not fund federal programs, and what those taxes are really for (inflation control). They know that the only non-inflationary limit on Congressional appropriations is the total productive capacity of our nation.

Our nation, and the world, faces many existential crises, from climate change to all the ills that artificial scarcity produces. Only widespread knowledge of MMT can save us from these crises, and the best central resource for this knowledge that I know of is realprogressives.org. Be there or be nowhere.