Watching the corruption:

If we see it clearly we can change

Jessica Prado Hanson
7 min readJan 26, 2019

I sit here in the oasis that I have created within my home and I watch the world from a fairly isolated existence because I can barely leave. Why is that? Because I have a severe form of multiple sclerosis that is untreated because I live in a corrupt country. For me to have proper medical care it would cost hundreds of thousands a year alone. Many days of the year if I walk outside I would have seizures because my body prefers to be at 76–78 degrees F, lower and I feel freezing cold, hotter and I feel burning. Once you get further away from that narrow range the more likely I will seize. I’ve had seizures going to the basement or walking by a window with a crack because we can’t afford to fix it. As I watch and see the corruption of our world I see how there has always been a small percentage of humans who have a lack of empathy. They don’t care about my health or your health, they only care about how they can make more money. This isn’t a priority I share any longer because of what I have learned in life from my extreme and often traumatic experiences. We need to acknowledge this truth of our species if we want to progress because at this point I am very concerned that these few corrupt people are in the process of hopefully unknowingly exterminating our species for greed. This to me is completely lacking vision and maturity. I think that these people cannot see that putting greed above life is not smart. I think a truly intelligent species would be able to not only stop creating their own extermination but prevent a natural one from occurring. Instead, we are allowing a few people to speed up our extermination! This to me is truly insane and I refuse to stay silent about it any longer. I find people wishing things weren’t true so they go into denial and things get worse while they deny it. Eventually they notice and then it becomes overwhelming and they don’t know how to cope. When people like the Koch brothers have a leaking pipeline and they don’t fix it because it would be cheaper to pay off the families of the people they kill it is wrong. If you make a business decision that you know could hurt or kill others you should be responsible for it. This is a hole in our justice system the only supports the rich people committing crimes.

So why do I see this so clearly? Because when I was a kid my dad was worth a few million dollars. Never anything close to trump or these people but enough that I got to taste this life and go to private schools from 3rd grade until sophomore year of high school when I went to rehab. I see how there is a clear difference in how I was spoken to in the different environments. But now I see things more clearly because I have also experienced being homeless and disabled freezing to death in Boston after by ex dropped an air conditioning unit on my head while she tried to jump in the window. She is a privileged person who could not understand that I left her for abusing me. I see the dark side of privilege and how emotionally weak I was when I had more privileges. The suffering from challenges made me stronger as I grew to overcome them. The challenges were really opportunities for my own inner greatness to show. So few people have been able to experience these vastly different lives and this gives me a unique view into both worlds. To attend the parties with politicians and “the fancy people” and also doing meth in a crack house when I was suicidal after being raped as a child is a fascinating life for one woman to live. I see the bullshit in both of those communities and I see the strengths.

I see how equality of opportunities makes our nation more about the individual talents, abilities and hard work that the person has to bring forth. When we only allow a few to thrive and they happen to be really corrupt we end up with the clusterfuck our world is turning into. Humanity has a corruption problem and I intend to point that out. Our issues aren’t immigrants or drugs addicts or poor people. Our issues our the rich corrupt people that are causing these issues and then blaming the victims of the problems they KNEW they would cause. Until we start locking up the corrupt as they do in some of the nations that are actually doing well we won’t progress. From what I have learned about people with cluster b disorders which most of these people seem have, they don’t stop until someone else stops them, or they die. They always want more because they are trying to fill a hole that cannot be filled with money or more stuff. It’s a bottomless pit until you fix your bubble. These people have severe emotional issues which is why they act this way and they are literally not mature enough for power on mental and emotional capacity. (Trump 😕)

There are things we can do to improve, for one I think we should really consider adding things to make it harder to be president. Require some basic testing to make sure they know how the government functions in that nation. Law, and the basic things that a president needs to know for the job. Perhaps this should be extended to the other leaders in the house and senate as well. I bet if you had to take a test to run for president trump never would have happened.

Hold the corrupt accountable. When corrupt people kill people let’s demand they go to prison for manslaughter or murder or create a new type of murder for businessmen that make decisions that they know are dangerous for greed.

Out public safety first, this means to treat addiction as a health issue and violent issues should be considered more seriously. The fact that I got brain damage that leaves me disabled to this day but that person only got 55 days in jail, time served and anger management for the crime is egregious to me. We have a violence issue because we don’t put these people in jail where they belong or try to rehabilitate them in a psych ward if possible depending on the individual. I think people who give others brain damage deserve more time in jail than people smoking pot.

Protect and serve, be a public servant and serve all equally or what is the point of your job? We should really be questioning more of those that are supposed to serve us. Police,TSA, Food Inspectors, and more are programs that are paid for with our tax dollars and therefore they are supposed to serve us all equally. The Supreme Court has ruled that this isn’t the point of police and our politicians are certainly not acting like they are serving all of us equally. I think we should collectively demand this because we pay them. If they aren’t doing their jobs then we should talk about how relevant they are. Do your job properly or leave.

Priorities and mental health. I think the lack of mental stability in our nation is being perpetually used against people. Now that I work on staying so centered that I can stay emotionally balanced even when I feel like I’m being stabbed, electrocuted, burned alive etc from the multiple sclerosis, I see how I used to be so mentally unstable. I also see how so few people are as mentally stable as I have to be if I want to cope well with this disease. So I work on being rock solid to the point that I listen to the recording of me being beaten because I wanted to see if I could get to the point that it didn’t bother me. Well, I managed to meditate while watching it and stay only slightly above my normal heart rate when meditating. I even got bored because he just kept repeating the same stupid things and hitting me. I never thought I could get bored of that recording. I couldn’t even listen to it at first without having a panic attack and here I am so emotionally solid that it doesn’t hurt me anymore. I feel empowered to have survived such a brutal attack that honestly I have no idea how I walked away from. It is absolutely possible to become emotionally stronger if you do the work and our leaders do not show us that type of strength. They show us a lack of emotion because they have a cluster b disorder, not because they are balanced. That could be a whole article in itself lol.

There are so many more things I see we can do and I imagine the idea list will grow as more people connect with me on these ideas and the ones you have. So please share if these things interest you. I think humanity can turn around but I think we need to start figuring out ideas to act on or we won’t last another thousand years never mind making it to a million. Every great action started with a ton of great ideas and even more bad ones until we found the best things that work through trial and error. Progress is possible if we do the work.

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Jessica Prado Hanson

Artist Sharing the Deeper Truths of What I Survived and How I Learned Post Traumatic Growth to Find Sustainable Self-Transcendence to Thrive