Blogs by Kalikiano Kalei
AARP über alles! (Curmudgeonly reflections)
2/6/2019 10:42:41 AM
The AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) is one of the largest and most powerfully influential organisations in the United States, with many millions of 'senior citizen' members who have been conned into thinking that it vigilantly looks out for their best interests. Surprise! AARP is simply another massive lobbying entity that subsumes the faith & belief of its subscribers within its own suffocatingly self-purposed 'corporate' (although AARP is strictly charcaterised as a 501(c)(3) 'charitable organisation', its massive power is wielded about as delicately as any large 'for-profit' group) dynamic.
AARP uber alles!
As many of you know who have listened in on my many occasional rants and discourses on various nuances of what I like to call the ‘ungluing of America’, I maintain a huge number of pet irritations, annoyances, personal dislikes and downright angry opinions on a range of subject peculiar to America. Most of the time I manage to expiate most of these corrosive fluids that transmit through the human phloem sieves without harming so much as the flea on a gnat’s butt. Occasionally, however, a certain topic will work its way so far up my Irish nose that it prompts me to run for the personal armory of literary weapons, grab whatever discursive pike is handiest and storm the virtual breastworks of conventional American pop-culture with all the savage berserker fury of my ancient Gaelic forebears.
One of those topics I frequently turn my guns on is the AARP, formerly popularly known as the American Association of Retired People. They are most widely introduced to many through that insidious little junk-mail letter that arrives at every bloody home in the country housing an individual who has just hit the half-century mark.
And how do they achieve this miraculous feat, one wonders? By plumbing all of the available demographic information sources available through the merits of AARP’s thousands of hard-working, dedicated worker minions, the availing of not insubstantial computer resources and an almost unbelievably humongous political lobbying cohort.
AARP has taken upon itself the task of shaping the American Association of Retired People into what they drolly characterise as America’s chief proponent of retired individuals. This is the principal message they want all over the age of 50 to subscribe to: that AARP has the best interests of America’s ‘older’ population firmly in mind as their chief promoter, advocate and even ‘friend’, if you will.
The reality of all this intensive resource (you, lest you wonder) cultivation is somewhat different than all those positively solar-intensity smiles that fill their promotions and publications would have you think. So, let’s focus on some of the reasons why AARP is NOT your best buddy-buddy-ole-buddy.
Technically, AARP is listed as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, but overview observations of its activities and business dealings over the past 20 years have consistently shown that this status entitles AARP to a range of profitable extra ‘goodies’ such as Federal grants that a ‘for-profit’ group would not be eligible for. That’s a substantial chunk of money in itself, folks.
The greater bulk of AARP’s immense wealth comes to it from its private health insurance subsidy programs. Conservatively estimated, AARP makes an annual revenue of over 1.5 billion dollars through its advertising, publications (it publishes several magazines and periodicals), royalties and membership fees (reportedly its 2nd largest source of revenue, per Investopedia’s report dated March 2018 by Will Kenton). What many individuals (I’d venture to say MOST) don’t know is that AARP is a major player in the health insurance business.
In fact, back during the Obama presidency, AARP gained an additional 1 billion dollars in insurance profits by lobbying against changes that would have ended the ‘Medigap’ insurance policies it specializes in providing, an action that would bring substantial windfall profits to the group (while actually increasing costs to the very ‘seniors’ it purports to represent). A lot of AARP’s revenues also heavily subsidise the out-of-control real estate market in an America where the cost of living is rapidly escalating into the stratosphere. Of further interest is the fact that AARP executives all make scandalously huge sums of money for their services.
A graphic breakdown of AARP’s revenue for the year 2011 (7 years ago) shows that fully 52% of that total was generated from royalties acquired from its United Health Group activities and other sources, 20% from membership dues, 10% from publications, 7% from grants, 7% from contributions (from contributions, fer gawd’s sake!), and an additional 4% from 'other' causes. Obviously, these are only the official figures, derived after doubtless considerable massaging & manipulations by clever and high-priced auditors.
Mind you, the above figures are 7 years out of date. I can only imagine what the most recent financial legerdemain (no pun intended, but it’s apt) by accountants has resulted in, but I present it here as just a glimmer of what AARP does that is not always in the best interests of its members. After all, AARP maintains a costly and widespread Congressional lobbying branch that exercises huge influence on Capitol Hill each year. It is one of the biggest political lobbying groups in the whole nation.
What is my point here? Principally that while AARP claims to be the loyal advocate of its membership’s best interests, AARP is in reality a far-too-big corporate-like entity that, like most bureaucracies, develops its own internal drive and dynamics that frequently far-transcend any declared simple intents it has to serve as a spokes-organisation for its membership. To that end, at the conclusion of this riposte I have provided a few web references that help give greater actual (no BS) insight into the downside of the massive AARP colossus that (‘charitable’, tee-hee) organization would have us all merrily swear our senior allegiance to.
Of course, most people, aside from not being very complicated thinkers at the onset, are far too busy trying to maintain the complexities of their daily routines, live their ordinary lives, etc., and haven’t the time, patience or focus required to fully fathom all that AARP is or does that may not be beneficial to them personally. AARP counts upon that dynamic of glib expediency as they continue to herd people into their lobbying corral and harvest living bodies from their ‘loyal’ membership for the purposes of using them as fodder for their lobbying efforts.
I have a good friend who is, like myself, a life-long aviation enthusiast. He is also a pilot, a home-builder of experimental aircraft and a living history reenactor. Although now retired, he was originally involved with NASA’s media branch, operating out of the Washington DC division of that agency. His wife (also now retired) is a former AARP executive secretary with decades of service prior to retirement.
When this friend intimated how much his wife received in annual AARP pension benefits and retirement subsidies, I was plainly shocked. Without revealing any exact figures, I can say with confidence that it is well over the 6-figure range per annum. Consequently, the life they presently live is quite a good one indeed (and that is an understatement!).
As someone who makes a rather paltry annual sum as a retired cardiovascular person, I can only look to this example of where all that money comes from that AARP makes off its business activities and get a bit angry. After all, 20% of that money is coming from all of the sheep who faithfully pay their membership dues to this monster of an ‘interest group’ willingly, thinking they are benefitting themselves greatly by so doing.
The reality is quite different. AARP, with its millions of members, has a handy-dandy little proprietary target-group (its membership) to pander its goods and services to. In most cases, aside from any ‘Medigap’ plan incentives that the totally screwed-up national health care initiatives may allow, members of the AARP are actually getting precious little that couldn’t be otherwise acquired from without its shroud-like and inclusive aegis.
As nearly as I can figure, AARP gains far more from being able to count YOU among its captive herd of human sheep for lobbying purposes than you get from them in tangible benefits for being a dues-paying member. And those ‘join-now’ promotional incentives? A tacky little made-in-China shoulder bag that cost $0.50 to manufacture in the Far East. Oh wow! That really makes a dandy incentive-carrot to dangle in front of folks.
When I was in the Kaiser Permanente lab this AM, waiting for some routine bloodwork to be drawn, I happened to spot a copy of the AARP Member Magazine that some kind soul had brought in for the benefit of those of us who, having forgotten to bring a book from home, still prefer to read just about anything in preference to scanning social media on smartphones. [We’ll overlook the fact that handling these magazines is probably a far more effective vector for disease transmission that any airborne, 3-micron sized bug floating around the clinic, however.]
On the cover of this particular issue (three years old, dated Feb/Mar 15) was a blurb about the latest (as of 2015, anyway) recommendations by one of the principals of the noted Cleveland Clinic (Steven Nissen, MD, Chairman of the Department of Cardiology). Since I’m an old cardiology guy myself, that caught my eye, as otherwise I wouldn’t be caught dead reading that rag that is the AAPR member magazine. Expecting something of substance, I was somewhat surprised to find only a single page, containing a quick mind-fart of Dr. Nissen's medical candor thereupon.
Aside from stating that nutritional supplements are a complete waste of time and money (fish oil, Aspirin, vitamins D & E, calcium and Coenzyme Q10, among others) and recommending a healthy diet of modest quantities (proportion control), and supporting the use of statins for individuals over 75, there really wasn’t much more than this on offer by the good doctor but it is characteristic of the sort of attenuated awareness appeal that magazines like this reply upon to create all those happy-happy-happy 'People Magazine' vibes they promote. The biggest article in this issue was, by the way, an interview with Bob Dylan, which when I noted that that worthy had had a powerful ‘come-to-Jesus’ experience in his life, quickly soured me on plumbing his senior thoughts and observations any further. This despite the fact that, as a life-long ‘folky’, ole Bobby was a major deity in my personal 60s/70s pantheon of cultural gods.
My point here is that the AARP Magazine is just filled with little ‘nothing’ articles (exactly the same technique employed by the AAA organisation to superficially amuse and simplistically entertain/inform its auto insurance readers in their equally superficial rag, ‘VIA’). Sadly, this perfectly reflects the overall state of mainstream culture in America, where sound-bites and flash-frame topics vie for whatever already-attenuated attention span television has mercifully left intact.
The bulk of the magazine consists of advertisements for proprietary prescription meds (manufactured by the oppressively powerful pharmas, again, relentless in their drive to turn America into a nation of drug-addicted consumers) and whatever is left over consists of advertisements for cellular phone service companies like ‘Easy-Call’ and ‘Consumer Cellular’ (plans that have links to AARP, of course).
It is appalling to discover that so very many Americans appear to demonstrate no hesitation over enthusiastically joining AARP, but that shouldn’t surprise me given the deficit knowledge most people possess about AARP’s functional guts and its business activities. There are simply too many other competing important concerns to occupy the average mind: like how the Kardashians are doing, what sort of talent America actually has, the latest dirt from Hollywood gossip, Nancy Pelosi's most recent facelift, etc.
Mulling all these things over, I suppose it also bothers me greatly that AARP keeps pumping up its membership with little exhortations to live longer ‘fruitfully’. A typical example of this comes from none other than the aforementioned Dr. Steven Nissen (quote: “Today’s 75-year-old can live to be 90 or 95”). As if somehow ‘living longer’ is a discrete and singular goal entirely unto itself, without consideration of other concerns that may be even more important than sheer longevity (such as quality of life)!
Long life is only great if there is no marked diminishment of one’s ability to feel reasonably content, be satisfied with life in general and live (reasonably) free from physical and/or mental pain. And who, living in the complicated, high-stress and fast paced America of today can claim that blessing?
I’m not sure about the rest of you out there who are over the age of 70 but rare is the individual I am personally aware of in the septuagenarian category who is 1) greatly pleased with the state of culture and society in America today, 2) reasonably free from physical health issues, and 3) not at all affected by a wide range of mental health issues (that include Alzheimer’s, senescence, depression, oppiate addiction, or even worse syndromes), many of which are the direct result of attempting to deal with life in this country without totally losing it.
If you feel as do I that American culture is not just on the skids but actually heading down the drain into the cultural sewage conduit, there’s precious little enthusiasm extant about sticking around for another decade or more to see just how low our vaunted society can sink into the morasses of the already abysmally banal. In my case, and despite many, many years of doing all the right things (such as eating properly and exercising religiously), my Irish genes are still preprogrammed to start declining at a specific rate and age. Regardless of all the medical cheerleading (like Dr. Nissen’s), fighting against one’s genetic programming is like establishing fair & balanced colloquy in the halls of Congress, or drinking down a gallon of mineral oil at one gulp!...it ain't easy!
Admittedly, as a non-believer who thinks most goody-good Christians are misguided and seriously deluded whack-a-doodlers, I have a far more pessimistic outlook on what the so-called human experience is all about, to begin with. When we start to confuse basic bio-psychic facts with unhealthy infusions of religious ‘true-believer’isms’, whatever original rational processes were there originally spin way out of the realm of rational control and into the Twonk Zone.To put it a less sublime way (as a favorite button of mine phrases it): "Anyone who claims to have God on their side is dangerous as hell!"
Thus, this constant commercially motivated rah-rah cheerleading on the part of AARP, exhorting ‘seniors’ to blissfully live forever is total anathema to me, since it’s all merely part of a carefully calculated institutional marketing campaign (and thinly enough disguised at best) whose purpose is to sell more health gizmos, fad cures and psychic crutches to a captive audience of brainwashed consumers that should otherwise have the decency and common good sense to simply die off and remove their sordid human infestation that Earth suffers from, once and for all. Think of it perhaps as the late 1800s, with all its so-called ‘quack’ cures and fantastic fake remedies, updated with an infusion of modern scientific marketing and an injection of technologically enhanced hope. Regrettably, quackery is still quackery, whether back then or today.
Bah. I don’t find that neither philosophically fulfilling nor ethically supportable. I think of it as simply the latest take on P.T. Barnum’s memorable and truly timeless observation that ‘there’s a sucker born every minute’. Whether of the religious or scientific bent is irrelevant. The point is that any sort of ‘false hope’ being peddled in a capitalistic, highly materialistically driven culture such as America’s, is the sort of thing only a mass society of misguided idiots (us captives of the 'Great American Experiment') would find appealing. AARP certainly fulfills that objective admirably.
Every now and then, and this is a minor digression, despite my lifetime of obligatory conformation to the polite rules of normal social behavioral convention and courtesies, despite my having been brought up through adolescence to eschew the use of linguistic crudities in everyday conversation and social exchanges, despite my life-long refusal to gratuitously drop the F-bomb here and there every now and then, whenever I even think of the AARP and all the worst aspects of human frailty that that organisation preys upon, I get a strong urge to just let it all out with a healthy ‘F*ck you!’ (I also get the same urge whenever I think about or regard other egregious things like FACEBOOK, McDonald’s, or a hundred other megacorporate commercial enterprises in our country...which is, after all, the homeland of philistine mercantilism).
In most other parts of the world people use the F-word almost as often as the mouth-breathers utter the I’m-drawing-a-blank words ‘and…um’ or 'awesome' in conversation without giving it a thought. Only in America, with its Puritanistic evangelical religious heritage do we hesitate to use that word for fear of offending someone’s delicate sensitivities. Ditto for sh*t and dozens of other soul-satisfying words that are not the exclusive property of someone afflicted with Tourette’s or Coprolalia Syndrome. It’s just soul-satisfying to be able to do as the Parisians in Montparnasse do whenever the urge hits and exclaim ‘Merde!’ in a loud voice, with both style and panache!
[Even as august a personage and supreme iconoclast as Louis-Ferdinand Celine made frequent use of similarly soul-expiating expletives, so you'd be in classy company by so doing.]
Writing this, I am very mindful of 1) the fact that most people on Author’s Den are good little God-fearing religious believers, and 2) use of those words without an obligatory palliative asterisk can get you censored quite quickly on our common venue. It’s certainly sad, especially in a land that, while it prides itself on maintaining freedom of speech, in reality uses heavy-handed moral censorship almost as much as repressive regimes employ political censorship. My apologies to all of you, therefore.
In summary, I suppose the conceptual idea itself of AARP is what repels me most: the very arrogance, the temerity of that organization insinuating that it is tangibly helping me by representing the ‘causes’ I subscribe to…that it knows and understands my personal needs enough to seize upon my name and identity in the promotion of its own agendas (namely preying upon the insecurities of the aged). I can assure you that no one knows me well enough to fully understand the complex currents that underly my personal beliefs, attitudes and awarenesses in life. Least of all, some faceless commercial association (charity status notwithstanding) that in actual truth could not care in the least about any of the aged individuals it claims to champion.
Let me strongly suggest to all and sundry that you avoid AARP like the plague, unless you don’t mind being mindlessly exploited like the good little unthinking consumers we are all socialized to become in America, from cradle to grave. Or at the very least, indulge yourself in a good old, full volume ‘Fu*k you, AARP!’ whenever it feels appropriate! It won’t change the status quo much, of course, but it surely is soul-satisfying therapy.
AARP doesn’t give a healthy steaming dump about you, friends, regardless of all the millions of dollars they spend each year to con you into thinking they are on your side.
Mindful of all the foregoing, try to emulate the advice of the VHEMT (Voluntary Human Extinction Movement). Namely, “Live long and die out.”
PS: Best wishes for Lunar New Year (The Year of the Pig).
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Some useful URLS dealing with the downside of AARP:
1) Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARP)
2) Forbes Magazine (https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2012/09/22/the-aarps-2-8-billion-reasons-for-supporting-obamacares-cuts-to-medicare/)
3) Investopedia (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/aarp.asp)
4) Classroom (Leaf Group Education) (https://classroom.synonym.com/negatives-of-joining-aarp-12084322.html )
5) MoneyTalks News (https://www.moneytalksnews.com/aarp-worth-the-cost/comment-page-2/ )
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PSS: For a great summary of just about everything associated with America that I typically find culturally depressing and off-putting, get a copy of Stephanie Faul’s delightfully droll book ‘The Xenophobe’s Guide to the Americans’. In its 86 brief pages, she manages to hit just about every nail in the American crate squarely on its little pointy head. And yes, she finds the Super Bowl mania just as nauseating as do I. [There may still be some intelligent life left on this planet, after all...]
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• Everything you know is WRONG! - Friday, August 28, 2009
• Die Letzte Nacht in Munchen - Tuesday, July 21, 2009
• The wreck of the USS America... - Wednesday, May 27, 2009
• What a drag...er...DRUG! - Monday, April 13, 2009
• A Slow Blog to Shibboleth - Saturday, March 21, 2009
• Casting pearl-studded silk purses at pigs... - Tuesday, February 24, 2009
• The Ever-Widening Pyramidicity Paradigm - Sunday, February 22, 2009
• Rider's Block...those are the breaks...er, brakes! - Thursday, November 27, 2008
• As Easy as a Bridge... - Sunday, November 23, 2008
• Yelping joyfully into that deep forever night..... - Sunday, November 2, 2008
• Death as a cure for all problems.... - Sunday, October 26, 2008
• A Fart in the Arse of the Universe - Sunday, August 3, 2008
• Field Notes: Observations on 'Homo Sapiens' - Friday, July 25, 2008
• An Unnatural Disaster - Friday, May 16, 2008
• Life in the 'OTHER Walden Pond'... - Friday, April 18, 2008
• Redman's Revenge! - Wednesday, March 19, 2008
• The Stupid Factor - Monday, March 17, 2008
• Sermon for Today: Shallow Depths! - Sunday, March 16, 2008
• The Howdy-Doodit Show - Friday, March 14, 2008
• Jesus Loves Kinky Friedman - Thursday, March 13, 2008
• In Arm's Way... - Wednesday, March 12, 2008
• Passing the Torch - Thursday, March 6, 2008
• Imagine - Friday, February 29, 2008
• Scratch the Man, Find the Child. - Thursday, February 28, 2008
• The 'Governator' in Sun Valley - Wednesday, February 27, 2008
• Tales of Manpower and Horsepower - Friday, February 15, 2008
• Getting High - Wednesday, February 13, 2008
• Da Arda Gud Riting - Tuesday, February 5, 2008
• The Grand Panjandrum Speaks - Thursday, January 31, 2008
• Notes From the Bunker - Wednesday, January 30, 2008
• I Piss on You From a Great Height! - Tuesday, January 29, 2008
• An Ocean Ran Through it - Saturday, January 26, 2008
• Why are we hated so much? - Tuesday, January 22, 2008
• A Dark and Stormy Night - Monday, January 21, 2008
• Just Some Idiot Pounding on a Drum - Sunday, January 20, 2008
• Not Celine's Children... - Friday, January 18, 2008
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