Lately my wife and I have been watching the Ion Mystery channel. It is one of the many channels we can acquire through our antenna as we don’t do cable. We pay for a couple of streaming services for the want to see television. Everything else is antenna. The Ion mystery channel does marathons of some crime shows in syndication. These include: Bones, Hawaii Five-O, Criminal Minds, and NCIS New Orleans.

We kind of watch these shows. They are more of a background noise thing as we absorb ourselves in other activities from reading, writing, playing games, or assembling puzzles. I’m not a big television watcher. I would rather listen to music. As I write this an opera aria from Debussy is playing… What intrigues me the most about these marathons are not the shows. It is the advertising, and how they use this advertising to plant fear within the viewers through repetition to sell a service, or item.

The fear of the death. The United States has found innumerable ways to create capitalist pursuits, and death is a big one. Who knew that dying could make everyone so much money? The most common death fear scams are term life insurance. For only $8.62 a month you qualify for a $25,000 term life policy to cover your burial expenses and any other debts that may stand in your family’s way. Don’t be a burden on your family once you die… This life insurance will cover everything… blah blah blah… Essentially they are trying to milk money out of the homebound, fixed income crowd. The average full service funeral is nearly five figures now.

Why would you want the visitations, the full embalming, a nice wooden or metal casket, vault, a big stone monument, and a full size graveside service? I have found these large gatherings to be a spectacle. The deceased is on display like a hunting trophy, Why do that to them or the family? When I saw the expense (thanks to my paternal grandfather,) or how funeral homes are offering payment plans for pre-death services it just made me sick to my stomach. It costs more to die than it does to be born… Well that might not be true… but it is still ridiculous to profiteer off of death and dying. The Life Insurance companies are using some fearful practices in their advertising to make people worry, and in return they take those premiums and invest it to make millions and billions of dollars off the fear of a poor soul who could use that money to buy a meal, or some medicine.

The next fear inducing advertising are the ambulance chasing attorneys. Have you been hurt in an accident? You may be entitled to a settlement!!! We only get paid if you get paid!!! Call now!!! Have you been wrongly terminated from your job? Have you passed gas accidentally on the train and got mauled by an angry mob? Have you been assaulted by a trombone at the woodwind quintet recital? If you have, our attorneys at Tuba or Not Tuba can help you win that settlement!!!!! CALLLLLL NOWWWW!!!!! for your free consultation. Attorneys bill ridiculous fees by the hour. It is obscene what they can charge, but we of the working class or lower middle class struggle to pay our bills month to month, somehow must come up with a $2500 retainer.

Only in America do we have pharmaceutical companies advertising their new wonder drugs to the populace using the fear of the disease as their sales pitch. I see between six and ten drugs advertised on any given day. GLP-1 medications for weight loss and diabetes, Eczema, HIV, Eye issues, and arthritis. Then we have the disclaimers: to avoid being sued. “Please don’t take this medication as it may cause liver failure, schizophrenia, and bedwetting.” “If you are seeing spots, please call your physician immediately.” “This medication may cause death.” Oh wow, I better take this GLP-1 medication to regulate my blood sugar, but I could die on the first dose!!! That’s comforting.

If I die, because this was in their advertising disclaimer, I can’t call the ambulance chasing attorney to sue them for a settlement, nor do I qualify for my term life assurance as technically I committed suicide knowing that the medication could cause death!!!! Shit, I’m screwed!!!

Fear Fear Fear… and what do they do? They all cash in. Meanwhile your destitute corpse costs your family big money to cremate, bury, or donate to science. You still have a few debts… like student loans you have been paying on for 30 years that never stop gaining interest… …and the home you lived in for 30 years is repossessed by the bank within $4,000 of getting the title.

This morbid tale is just a warning. Don’t allow fear to dictate your needs. Don’t allow the wicked bottom feeding capitalists take your hard earned money on a weak promise. You should also avoid those hoses that supposedly shrink (they wear out quickly.) Don’t buy the kitchen gadgets for three easy payments of $19.99. You will use it once or twice and then it will take up space. Just avoid all of those costly mid-afternoon or evening capitalists.

That is the America I live in. A selfish capitalist paradigm of excessive ways to separate the citizen from their hard earned money. It costs money to be born, live, and die… That’s life in America… We are a commodity, a return on investment, and we depreciate daily… The look at the darker side of capitalism.

For the record, I do have a life insurance annuity, to cover the mortgage on our home and car debt. In the event of my death… no service… no plot… no stone… cremate, freeze dry, or throw me into fungus capsule and bury me in a forest… I don’t even need an obituary… Whatever… I’m dead. I won’t care. I don’t want those capitalists to make any more money on me than absolutely necessary. I think it is disrespectful to cash in on someone else’s grief. I think it is disrespectful to use fear to sell things.

Please warn your loved one’s of these traps before they dial 1-800-BUY-FEAR. Insistent repetition is how they succeed. It is an unscrupulous, disingenuous, fraudulent, and crooked practice…

…so it goes…