[pct-l] Paying for SAR (Brick Robbins)

[Diane Soini]

Thank you Penny. This cannot be said often enough. I'm afraid,  
though, that those who believe themselves to be among the deserving  
are probably unable to hear the message.

By the way, within the group of people who may be undeserving of free  
helicopter rides and emergency care are those who are among the  
pantheon of the long distance hiking community. They are the richest  
ones among us. Their efforts rewarded in wildflowers rather than  
money. But I guess they are deserving because their hiking  
accomplishments are so high. I guess just about anything can be  
fetishized.


On Oct 20, 2013, at 10:00 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:

> From: melko <pmelko at ximatek.com>
> Subject: Re: [pct-l] Pct-L Digest, Vol 70, Issue 19
> To: pct-l at backcountry.net
> Message-ID: <5262D2EA.6060506 at ximatek.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
>
> 5. Re: Paying for SAR (Brick Robbins)
>
> Want to weigh in on some of the comments and specifically the  
> analogy of
> feeding strays to feeding the poor and those without insurance. I work
> for my husband, a consumer bankruptcy attorney in Tehachapi. At least
> 50% of the bankruptcies are medical related. Did you know that if you
> get hurt on a trail like the PCT, and require a helicopter to fly you
> out that the cost of that ride is $48,000? We personally dropped our
> insurance when our monthly premium rose to $3800/mo for 2 people.  
> Please
> tread carefully where the poor are concerned. We are all just a few
> paychecks from being on the streets ourselves.
>
> We had several generations of politicians who actually were capable of
> seeing poverty and who had, like Martin Luther King for his people, a
> dream of ending it.
>
> What we have now are politicians whose fetish is money, the most
> corrupting of all fetishes because it replaces all else as the  
> focus of
> self-value in those individuals and by their policies in the  
> society as
> a whole.
>
> When a society makes money the center of power it becomes the focal
> point, the determination of value. By that standard those who have  
> money
> are good, and those who don?t aren?t and have no value. And those who
> have it, by the circular logic of those minds, got it all by  
> themselves
> because they?re deserving with the help of no one and nothing else, or
> if with the help of ?something else? because they?re good and  
> deserving.
>
> And those in this world who don?t have money aren?t deserving.  
> Those who
> are in poverty, by the judgment of this modern generation of
> Conservative politicians, deserve to be in poverty. They have no
> intention of ?ending poverty.? They have every intention of  
> enacting and
> enforcing policies that intensify the differences between our haves  
> and
> our have nots by allowing those who have to have more which they will
> have by denying it to those who in their judgment just aren?t  
> deserving.
>
> If they were deserving they?d have.
>
> Argument won. Welcome to the old deal previously known as The  
> Gilded Age.
> Credit to John F. McBride, Seattle, WA
>
> Read more
> here:http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/12/4554855/democrats-show-their- 
> unwillingness.html#storylink=cpy
>
> Penny Melko