Sodomy: A prime example of what’s wrong with #ALpolitics

A dear friend who is a long-time retiree, aged 78 years, entire subsistence is from a meager pension (earned from a lifetime of work in a unionized organization), supplemented with a paltry Social Security check.

She’s lived through breast cancer surgery (mastectomy) & reconstruction, other major surgeries (knee replacements) and procedures, and lives in a trailer which she owns, situated upon a lot which she rents. She has resided there many, many years.

To save money, she recently disconnected her land line telephone service, has only a cell phone for communication, is not Internet savvy, and has a modest, economy-sized 4-door sedan for transportation, for which she makes monthly payments, and quarterly insurance installments as dictated by the finance company which loaned money for the purchase, and as required by state law.  She had traded in another older automobile to purchase a slightly newer, more economical one, and needed some extra money to complete the purchase.

She’s a faithful & religious-minded woman who is well known throughout the area for her loving kindness, generosity of spirit, giving what she can, has literally taken in strangers, worked a small vegetable garden for many years, and would proverbially give the shirt off her back to anyone who would need it.

Numerous times over the past few years, the utility company has threatened her with disconnection of electrical power & water, though she has fortunately, for even many, many, many more years been able to keep the lights turned on – which, of course, includes heating and cooling.

Occasionally, she sits with the infirm and elderly, and earns a few dollars that way, most of which goes to purchase medications for her hypertension, and handful of other conditions that come along with age, all of which require modest treatment, though they cannot go untreated. Medicare and Medicaid  – into which she has paid her entire life – do cover most most, but not all of her health costs. The well-known “doughnut hole” in Medicare Part D (created by the GOP), and the GOP’s insistence that Medicare (the nation’s single largest purchaser of medications) cannot negotiate for lower prices upon medicines is exclusively responsible for that problem – which similarly affects millions more.

The few groceries she does purchase are made with cash – she does not receive SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as “Food Stamps”).

Alabama State law says that even though she’s well advanced in years, she should annually purchase a license/tag/sticker for her trailer. Apparently, she innocently overlooked doing so.

Consequently, the county Tax Assessor sent a notice to her which threatened her with imprisonment, along with a substantial penalty if she did not comply within a limited time frame. Bear in mind also, that like untold others, electronic deposits of her meager pension and Social Security are made once monthly at the first part of the month.

In essence, she is one of untold millions who live “paycheck to paycheck.”

Now that would make a whole lotta’ sense (NOT!), to throw an aged, poverty-stricken woman in jail, which would then in turn begin a cascading string of cataclysmic events including repossession of her vehicle, disconnection of utilities, associated food spoilage, worsening health directly attributable from lack of care during imprisonment, eviction and all associated costs from failure to pay lot rent for a lot upon which her trailer has set for several decades.

Yeah.

How are you gonna’ do that – move a trailer that’s essentially – by virtue of its longevity – a permanent fixture? And how’re you gonna’ do it with money you don’t have?

That is a prime example of things wrong with Alabama.

Essentially, it’s illegal to be poor in Alabama, though the Census Bureau says that 18.6% of all Alabamians live below the Federal Poverty Line.

Governor Robert Bentley – who is a retired physician – also refuses to expand Medicaid under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, even though so doing would significantly decrease uncompensated care (charity write-offs), and thereby increase fiscal solvency of every hospital in Alabama, particularly and especially in well-known high poverty areas in the state.

Taxation of the impoverished, taxation of retirees (most who are Low Net Worth individuals with few assets), imprisonment for inability to pay (debtor’s prison) and more, are all part and parcel of things wrong with Sweet Home Alabama.

Meanwhile,
• Multi-billion dollar multinational corporations pay paltry pittances of income tax by comparison to what other corporations pay in other states
• Legislature doles out corporate welfare to them
• Wealthy pay a lower income tax rate than do the poverty-stricken (regressive income tax rate)
• Corporate timberland owners pay property tax rates that are next-to-nothing by comparison to what homeowners pay

and more.

Corruption abounds – legal and illegal.

Women and men are regularly raped in Alabama prisons, and only now is anything being done about it.

Prison overcrowding is chronic, and at 226% capacity – well over any “designed” or “intended” capacity – the United States Department of Justice has signed an agreement with the state to permit the Alabama Department Of Corrections time (9 months, which will expire in February) to fully, wholly and completely implement every solution to rectify every wrong that has gone on for years – including deaths resulting from untreated “simple” infections.

The Almighty God of Heaven is looking down upon Alabama, and is withholding wrath… not because of Same Sex Marriage, Abortion, Teen Pregnancy, or any other favorite GOP/Republican hot-button issue, but because of chronic abusive treatment as mentioned above.

Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 49 states unequivocally, plainly and unmistakably that the sin of Sodom is being committed in Alabama.

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom:
She and her daughters were
arrogant, overfed and unconcerned;
they did not help the poor and needy.“

(NIV)

May the Almighty have mercy upon the souls of the politicians – especially the GOP – who have ignored the mandates of holy living as ensconced in Scriptural holy writ.