Better dead than red

"Better dead than red" was one of the popular slogans used to warn the people starkly about what would happen to them if a "red government" came to power. That was when I was just out of childhood, and my dear mother was still a wonderful, mature woman and, after all, the mother of seven children.

Today, almost 40 years later, I rewrite the slogan and say, "Better dead than in a home, nursing home, retirement home, or whatever these horrific places of elderly care are called."

On Sunday, I visited my mother in her care facility, a complete disaster. She has to be there because we're deluding ourselves, deluding ourselves that living as long as possible is better than voluntarily ending our lives at the appropriate time. Today, we live naively and shirk almost all critical decisions.

 Yet it's clear that things can't go on like this. We're enraged about battery hen cages or the hunting of whales. And us? What happens when we're old? A retirement home! Survive as long as possible, at a dehumanizing level, in stench, degraded, don't die and make a bed available, constantly choking down all the prescribed pills and medicine, life between life and death, undignified, immature, cruel.

 I'll rewrite the slogan and say, better dead than a retirement home! The photo shows a magnificent cliff on the south coast of England. And as long as there's no solution in this society, I'll use my freedom and, in due time, jump off that very cliff. Fly like a bird to paradise.