Delusional thinking. Trapped knee jerking. Multi-Generational Trauma. Fear thy self and thy enemy.
If you attempt to get a bead on the “situation,” you know, THE Situation, it is almost impossible to be and live and survive in this society without many forms of media and collective consciouness pollution from flooding even a 9 to 5 and 8 to midnight, M-Sunday worker.
The air is a miasma, and the spirits are wondering hoping for some form of sanity in the living. No matter how you open up your phone, and it is always on, no, or how you navigate your working life, the dirty deeds of the marketers and madmen and the propagandists and behavioral mad scientists and poltical pirates come through.
No man or woman is an island, no matter how hard some of my email friends think they are that Island in the Slipstream. Living in Baja, setting up a simple palm frond hut and simple low water and low yeild garden, sure, it is an Island Unto Itself. But, in Baja, in Mexico, with so many injustices around and near and possibly just down the road?
There is a certain instaneous insanity that captures the world, even the ones in Nomad-Landia or Off-the Grid-Landia, because to be of this world, is to be of this world. Same old passport, USA, no matter where one might find his or her island of peace. More power to them.
Yet, some of us are navigating other rough seas, and sure, what a deal, getting out of Dodge City to end up in some red-tiled roof town in the grape vineyard hills of Portugal, with full WiFi, a heck of a Satuday market, and stroller dancers on Wednesdays and free museum entry on Mondays. The Church bells, the uniformed school children kicking footballs and drinking lemonade.
It’s that easy, no? Good health, at least a cool $500,000 in some investment portfolio, and, hmm, minimum, what $4000 a month, not counting many incidentals?
Okay back to earth and gravity. I was looking into school bus driving. Actually, just van driving, as in special needs. Oh, that old time monopoly religion, and that old time making money off of the taxpayer, and that old time transnational fun.
With more than a century of experience in providing safe and reliable transportation to students across the U.S. and Canada, we at First Student understand the priorities of today’s K-12 community. We can help you build a transportation solution tailored to your community’s needs.
Think Brussels:
EQT Infrastructure completes acquisition of First Student and First Transit, the market leading providers of essential North American transportation services.
Oh, so, who is selling the taxpayer down the proverbial river without a paddle? And, these companies, like First Student, has 55,000 mostly part-time drivers and others, and that is just one aspect of our so-called public schools. That’s right, the janitorial services and food services, run by another privatizing baron, Sodexo:
Founded in Marseille, France, in 1966 by Pierre Bellon, Sodexo is the global leader in services that improve Quality of Life, an essential factor in individual and organizational performance. Operating in 56 countries, Sodexo serves 100 million consumers each day through its unique combination of On-site Food and Facilities Management Services, Benefits & Rewards Services and Personal and Home Services.
Yikes, they used to be a big private prison builder:
Sodexo does not contract with any prison entities, detention centers, or correctional facilities, public or private, in the United States. Sodexo does not operate any prisons or detention centers in any of the countries with the largest number of prisons1. We provide food for staff and prisoners, maintenance and, in some cases, prisoner skills training, education and programs in 84 prisons in mainland Europe and Chile. Sodexo also fully manages five prisons – all in the United Kingdom.
Ahh, the Old SodexoMarriot scam: Sodexho Marriott and the For-Profit Prison Industry
An article in The Independent reported that inmate Natasha Chin was found unresponsive in her cell in 2016 at the Sodexo-operated prison HMP Bronzefield; her death was attributed to “medical neglect” on the coroner’s report.
In 2021, at HMP Peterborough, female prisoners reported having inadequate access to menstrual care products and other sanitary items. In 2017, four HMP Peterborough inmates were unlawfully strip-searched.
Companies, such as Marriott International, and private individuals’ lawsuits against Sodexo allege discriminatory lawsuits and mistreatment of employees. Since 2000, Good Jobs First, a subsidy and work violation tracker, reported over $103 million has been paid in penalties by Sodexo. (source)
Oh, I had talks with food services and the administrations in two colleges, asking why local amazing caterers in Spokane could not get on our community college campuses. I talked with caterers who certainly could fulfill a healthy and creative food and beverage contract with the schools.
It’s all about economies of scale, underselling, and giving away (sic) funds at the end of the year for student and faculty groups. Bribery.
Back to the First Student. I had to get fingerprinted, and then I took the commercial learner permit test, at $60 (I took two of the four tests over). Then, well, I was supposed to get some medical check. In the end, the $13.50 an hour for the training period that will eventually get to $19.00 an hour to have all those K12 students on the bus, pick up and drop off, that’s it for this multibillionaire dollar monopoly.
The local Air B & B is paying $21 an hour for that service.
In the end, everything about capitalism, whether it is transnational, monopoloy, casino, parasitic, what have you, is absolutely against the worker, collective bargaining, health and safety, getting ahead, a great work environment, etc. We have no single payer affordable health care-dental case-mental health care. We have outrageous de-regulated air travel. We have no train travel of note. We have not local public busses or micro-vans running 24/7. And, mom and pops can’t deliver kids to and from school because of the super high insurance rates, the litigation threats and expensive fuel costs. Again, the money is made having money, economies of scale, lobbies and lobbyists, politicians in the pocket, publicly traded status, and graft and grifting galore.
We have turned our own citizens against our own services — bridges, roads, biologists, justice departments, criminal investigators, FCC, SEC, you name it, we have become a nation that hates anything that might be government in favor of “the companies and corporations, they want to do good, because they have kids and families too, so why would they pollute them or endanger them . . . ?” mentality — and we are not at the point where a few vaunted ones and some middle class ones, just want to get hell out of the USA because it is too: broaden your horizons; moving abroad is a wonderful challenge; cheaper than you’d expect; new kinds of food; better education prospects; the main reason that people move abroad is employment; learn a new tongue; let go of the stress and let your new environs take over; build your confidence; lose your attachment to things.
Where are Americans emigrating to and why?
- 40% opt for the Western hemisphere — Canada, Central and South America.
- 26% move to Europe.
- 14% head to East Asia and the Pacific — think Australia and New Zealand as well as China and Japan.
- 14% head to the Middle East.
- 3% travel to Central or South Asia.
- 3% choose Africa.
In 2015, the most popular countries for expats of all nations to move to are:
- Ecuador
- Mexico
- Malta
- Singapore
- Luxembourg
- New Zealand
- Thailand
- Panama
- Canada
- Australia
I’ll take Andre Vltchek’s piece, Stop Millions Of Western Immigrants!
Tens of millions of European and North American immigrants, legal and illegal, have been flooding both the cities and countryside in Asia, Latin America, and even Africa.
Western migrantsare charging like bulls and the ground is shaking under their feet; they are fleeing Europe and North America in hordes. Deep down they cannot stand their own lifestyle, their own societies, but you would hardly hear them pronounce it. They are too proud and too arrogant! But, after recognizinginnumerable areas of the world as suitable for their personal needs – as safe, attractive and cheap – they simply pack and go!
We are told that some few hundred thousand African and Asian exiles are now causing a great “refugee crises” all over Europe! Governments and media are spreading panic, borders are being re-erected and armed forces areinterrupting the free movement of people. But the number of foreigners illegally entering Europe is incomparably smaller than the number of Western migrants that are inundating, often illegally, virtually all corners of the world.
No “secret paradise” can be hidden any longer and no country can maintain itsreasonable price structure. Potential European,North American and Australianimmigrants are determined to enrich themselves by any means, atthe expense of local populations.They are constantly searching for bargains: monitoring prices everywhere, ready to move at the spur of the moment, as long as the place offers some great bargains, has lax immigration laws, and a weak legal framework.
Everything pure and untapped gets corrupted. With lightning speed, Western immigrantsare snatching reasonably priced real estate and land. Then, they impose their lifestyle on all those “newly conquered territories”. As a result, entire cultures are collapsing or changing beyond recognition.
So, here we are, the transnational, economies of scale, end of mom and pop, big fish eats little fish mentality of Amazon Publishing, Starbuck Coffee, and on and on and on. Pick an industry or service industry, and you can see what monopoly looks like and how each year the shifting baseline moves closer and closer to us being those useless eaters and workers and breathers. Until, taking care of precious children, youth, before and after school, we get paid as bus drivers less than, well, not to knock it, but toilet and laundry cleaners.
Do your own research — top mining companies, top offensive weapons companies, top lumber companies, top grocery chains, top insurance, top medical services, etc., etc.
And we aren’t just consumers and marks and interest rates and fines and penalties and fees and closing costs and overdrafts and tickets and maintence fees and tolls and VATs to them. Each way, each step in this Western Culture, each transaction, each nanosecond that might give “them” a chance at marking us for rip-off, i.e. profits.
And we come down to this — public schools, taxpayers, footing the bill for major investment companies. This is the way of Capitalism. You get $19 an hour driving a bus with school children, but $21 an hour cleaning up after a bunch of beer-drinking, dog-peeing, messy and dirty Air B & B customers.
Paul Haeder, Author 