What then is to be done?

Sometimes, as by a flash of light, you realize that the obvious is not the obvious.
Even if you know this at an intellectual level you have to cope with the obvious that is not obvious at all because - it looks obvious.

Today I was shaken by this story - nothing particularly very new about it. I will come back to it after this:

The other day I read an inside story from the public transport company (a telling word) in the town I live in, my personal commitment to this "company" is expressed by my avatar.
The story is funny and sad at the same time because the teller of the story, who worked for one-and-a-half year with this "company", makes it clear she is completely indoctrinated with the story that the company is not about transporting people from one place to another.
The municipal transport company is about making profit. Therefore it is no longer called municipal transport company but MTC, without article, please!

If transporting people is not the goal of a public transport service anymore, why bother to keep it at all?
If making a profit is the goal of
caring for the elderly who cannot take care of themselves anymore,
of healing people who are ill,
of preventing diseases,
of locking up people who somehow are deemed worthy of being locked up,
of policing the streets,
of educating the young and the adult and the old -

why at all bother to keep up these former "services"?

Because they were never meant to be profitable.
Because "profit" as well as "competition" are social constructs, figments of an imagination that has totally derailed from humanity, humaneness - however you want to name it.
Maybe co-operation and mutual aid are too. I do not think so, but you may call it a matter of opinion. That is what the ideologues of profit and competition will say in return if you say this. They will insist that profit and competiton are "facts of life" and they are proven right every day and all the time because they impose their order.

As Choccy, the blogger whose piece I mention above, writes, school will not be handed over to the profitmakers directly. There will be unctuous stories about charity and bringing out the best in the pupils etcetera.
Look at this one, calling itself "christian" as if they still needed to bother.
The Golden Award Winners are lined up. ONLY ONE CAN WIN. Just like on the telly.


Whereas education - especially since that is etymologically the meaning of the word: leading someone out [of ignorance] - should be about learning what "profit" actually is, who gets it, who loses from it (you, the pupil, your parents, Society) and that there are alternatives.

These are not new insights, I know.
This is just to write down my tolstoyan moment of urgency: What then is to be done?

Foolish Children on behalf of Mistreated Parents

A minute silence dedicated to your mother who died due to care provided in an old people's home - a gripping experience.
One of the organisers of the manifestation tells it with tears in his eyes. He had heard my story on national radio. We arrived a bit too late at the manifestation to be present for the silence..

Dwaze kinderen, foolish children - the phrase refers to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, called Madres locas by their adversaries supporting the military regime - these foolish children demonstrated for the first time against the abominable state of care for the elderly or disabled in so-called care homes in the Netherlands.

I should hesitate to mention it, having heard that conditions are worse in most British care homes. But then again, if that is so, stand up and be counted and raise your voices.

Back in the Netherlands: hearing about someone's mother who was sedated by unknown "prescription" drugs, who was wheeled to the mortuary where she eventually died of hypothermia - you are not supposed to call it murder... but how else should you call it?

As for me, I still do not know what was done wrong with my mother. It is bad enough to have to deal with so-called care managers, inhouse gp's without any real knowledge or capability, first the phone call about her death on Saturday morning and a few hours later a second call: "Cannot you take IT away, IT is getting smelly".
"We have our planning to work by", reply after we noticed that all her earthly possessions had been robbed from the room where she died. They had allegedly been demolished but some pieces could be found back and others presumably were put on ebay or elsewhere by your friendly care workers.
So my mother died according to plan.
I will not tell the full story, especially since there are still so many questions about her death.

[If you read Dutch: the story can be found here (to be read in reverse order) and here (reverse order again).
The organisation behind the manifestation: here and here where an English translation is provided sometimes.]

But "mistakes were made, we offer an apology, please give your bank account number" says the new CEO of the Care Corporation, tastefully called Osira, combining Catholic, social democratic and humanist houses in one corporation. As if the robbing of tangible pieces of memorabilia (amongst which my own wedding picture) can ever be expressed in money.

That is why we were in The Hague, near the government buildings, as Foolish Children.
And we shall be there again every first Saturday of the month. And who knows - it may be the Dutch equivalent of Tahrir Square somehow, some day...



Osiris, the Egyptian god of death and resurrection - in the highly probable case you did not get the distaste of the name "Osira".