fragments of an attempted writing.

america.

Recently my father got my mom to relent from her usual strange hatred of sliders and she agreed to go to Krystals to pick up the lunch they were going to eat at a park after church.


Dad goes inside the Krystals to get the food.  As Sunday afternoon is a slow time, the Krystals only has a couple of people in the back and one lady, 50something years old, working the counter.


As dad goes up to place his order, the lady stops him at one point and goes over to an elderly man who was wandering around and assists him back to a table.  She comes back to the counter, but before dad finished placing the order she had to step out and help the elderly man again.


She apologized to dad and explained that the man was her father.  Dad told her that he too had had a parent who had Alzheimers and they commiserated a bit.  The woman said "back when I had my job I took him to an Alzheimers day care Monday through Friday," but the Alzheimers day care did not operate on weekends.  


She said her manager was gone that day.  She told dad that she was certain her manager would not allow her to continue bringing her father to work with her much longer.  She didn't know what she would do after that. 

9 comments:

  1. Well she will just have to use her father’s health insurance to have him put in a home; wait he does not have any. Okay she will have to cut back on eating out, going to the club, maybe turn off cable; oh wait her low paying barely over minimum wage job will never cover the costs of a home. So lastly she could use some sort of social security and or disability to have her father put in to some type of home/facility; of course to send your father to a home that would not cost anything over social security would mean that you will be willing to allow you father to live in a roach infested crack-using-nurse watching slum pit. Christian Capitalism at its best.

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  2. Joseph why do you think Christians are specifically to blame for this?

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  3. Apo,

    I don't think j.f.w. was asserting an out and out causality, though even if he was he would be correct. The entire history of capitalism is connected to perversions of Christianity and is a cancerous outgrowth Christianity.

    I think j.f.w.'s "Christian Capitalism at its best" is simply noting that the dismantling of economic safety nets has happened most aggressively and with the most success in America where and when there has been a large and fervent support of the Christian right for such "conservative" political movements. One (say, me) especially notices this when moving from the more secular political land of the upper Midwest to the South where Dobsonista types have a stranglehold on politics (TN in particular now might be seen as a Dobsonista state, if we are talking about the state legislature, whose current initiatives are truly disgusting).

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  4. Now if she only moved to a Social Democratic country... :)

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  5. Indeed, over the centuries the Christian faith has been hijacked for diverse and pernicious projects. Alas and Mea Culpa.

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  6. Owen is exactly right….. I do speak both generally and specifically when pointing the finger at “Christians” for the economic and political failures of America. It is both that there is a “Christian” fever that bubbles through the right wing Rush’s, Glen’s and countless others that claim their capitalism in the name of God. One could argue that this “Christian right” resulted from Regan, but truthfully it goes much deeper than he does. The problem lies in a type of Christianity that allows and even promotes selfishness in all aspects of life.

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  7. Speaking of deformed Christianity and capitalism -

    I've been wondering what the logic is in the idea that wealth is a blessing from God and sign of election for salvation... if God's people in the Bible and throughout history. on the whole. were poor and suffered immensely, wouldn't the fact that God "gave" you material riches be something to worry over? Wouldn't that more likely mean that you're going to Hell?

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  8. Anon, the logic is the whole "health and wealth" ethos, a curious but popular invention. It goes well with the "pursuit of happiness" battle cry. We are all tangled up.

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  9. As far as going to hell, do you know anyone who doesn't? I don't.

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