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April 22, 2007
Rank and File
by Nova Stubbs, insurgent49

A Forgotten Fairytale

    I was about six years of age the first time I saw the Disney version of Robin Hood, and my initial impressions of the film are still ingrained in me today: If you steal from the rich and give to the poor, you are ultimately good.

    Robin Hood is a hero.

    The fact that most of the wealth of our nation is held by only 1% of the population does not constitute a society that lives by the Robin Hood ethics. As a matter of fact, most people have become complacent in getting financially fucked over time and time again. We are regularly ripped off, generally by the rich, and most of the time we lie down and take it and dutifully pay up.

    Most of us have had at least one outlandish cell phone bill because we went over our minutes (ya know, the minutes that we pay out our asses for while the phone company pays jack diddly). And what do we do? We pay the bill so that we can still have a phone. It’s corporate extortion I tell you. And the phone company is not the only one that pulls these tricks on the masses.

    One of my favorite businesses that screws the public over would have to be the insurance biz. First, you need insurance for everything: house, car, body, etc. Until about six months ago, I had not had health insurance in the entirety of my adult life. When I originally got it I thought it would be kind of like a “get out of jail free” card. Ya know, get sick, break your arm, get stabbed and don’t worry about it … insurance will cover it. I was very wrong. That’s not the way it works at all.

    A few weeks a co-worker of mine, who shares the same insurance issued by our employer, got violently ill with a nasty virus. She had to make an emergency trip to the doctor because she was so dehydrated. Shortly thereafter, she received a bill. It came to about $700, and she’s insured. She recited the bill to me and a few of the charges stated “medical care misc”, whatever that is.

    The fact of the matter is that she was ripped off, and the insurance company didn’t help much at all.  So, now that I am insured I have to injure myself pretty badly (over my $1000 deductible) for my insurance to count at all.

    Insurance shminsurance.
   
    Auto insurance is just as much of a scam. Pay two hundred dollars a month, get into an accident that is your fault, and your fancy insurance only covers the damage done to the other vehicle, meanwhile you can consider your car totaled and you are fucked. Plus, in Alaska you have to insure your car. If you get caught driving without it, your license is suspended and you have to be on SR22 insurance, the same really expensive insurance that drunk drivers have to use, for the next five years.

    So it looks like stealing from the poor and giving to the rich is really the way our society works. 

Health insurance should not exist because health care should be provided for everyone. We’ve got the money for it. And the law should not require auto insurance, because that only promotes economic discrimination. And who gets all the money … large greedy corporations, who claim that they are there to help people?

    The problem is that if you don’t pay your bill, you get bad credit and can’t take out loans to get something else you need or want. It is a vicious cycle, and in the end it is the people who are getting screwed by the system.

    Robin Hood was a hero … and I wish he’d come back. 


 

 
     

      Nova Stubbs is a freelance writer and activist, and is co-founder of Insurgent49. Nova resides in an undisclosed location in downtown Anchorage and may be contacted at nova@insurgent49.com.

     'Rank and File' appears on insurgent49.com every Monday.
- Columnists -

Editor's Desk
by Aaron Selbig

Rank and File
by Nova Stubbs

Red Alert
by Soren Wuerth

Alaskan In Exile
by Neil Zawicki

The
Bramble Bush
by Kevin Morford


The Tao
of Waitressing
by Lindsay Luckey








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in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership.