By David Glenn Cox
"Cold and misty morning, I heard a warning borne in the air
About an age of power where no one had an hour to spare,
Where the seeds have withered, silent children shivered, in the cold
Now their faces captured in the lenses of the jackals for gold."
(Emerson/Lake)
I had planned on taking it easy tonight, to maybe work on the new book some but to skip the article. Sometimes life is not about what we want to do but what we have to do, what we are compelled to do. Not a grudging task but to do something really important and really worth doing.
I made the grand tour of the web sites today and have seen the Democrats defend Robert Gibbs as well as excoriate him. Too many Democrats think of this as some sort of parlor game. Too many Americans think of this as some sort of parlor game. This is not Parcheesi; this is not a game. Nobody wins if even one person loses.
I don't give a damn about Sarah Palin
I don't give a damn about TV pundits
I don't give a damn about teabaggers
The best thing you could ever see on television is the set flying out your window and smashing on the street. Television is the brain slug that attaches you to corporate America. It sets the parameters for discussion and picks the winners and losers before the first vote is cast. It tells you sad stories about poor Neda but no sad stories about poor Rachel Corrie. Its purpose is not to inform you but to misinform you, to train and program you to salivate like Pavlov's dog.
I have been writing every day for five or six years and people seem to like what I do and I am honored and grateful for all their kind thoughts and words. I try to be different than the media because I try to write about people. I want to cut through the blizzard of media bullshit and write about the people. I receive comments both pro and con, but of all the comments that I receive the ones that say thank you mean the most to me because I know that they understand. Most people who read my work understand or they don't read it twice.
I want to share some of that mail with you because I want to share with you why it is that I'm so angry.
Ms. X writes, "I know that some of us in this position like writing their stories but honestly I don't have time. I found out today that I will have to move by the end of the month. All of my savings are gone, unemployment benefits have run out. I have $40 in my purse from selling one of my belongings, which are 1/2 gone. My oh My! What should I do with that? Should I pay my $200 phone bill and beg them to keep it on, I could pay my $168 Time Warner Bill so I can tell my story to people who can't or won't help while my computer is still running, should I buy gasoline so my car will drive? I went to college and have a B.S. degree in Education, been a teacher for 28 years. My savings account is gone trying to stay intact."
Ms. Y writes, "The first year after I was laid off I probably put out over a hundred resumes, which doesn't sound like much in a year's time, but even in this area which boasts 17,000 members in its Bar Association, there were many weeks that there were no legal jobs even advertised. This year I'm looking for just about anything that would bring in money from the outside world. I have a bad credit rating now, I haven't been able to pay my bills for several months. With background checks part of the hiring process now, I'm having a hard time finding anything. Somehow I've become an unhireable pariah."
These are two educated American women; they are not drug abusers or the imaginary lazy welfare queens. They are you and me. These are but two of millions of Americans ignored by their government, who are told, "We'll get right on that. Gee, we've offered business tax cuts and so now we'll just have to wait and see! We expect that perhaps in a couple of quarters things might begin to turn around."
That's not good enough! That is wholly unacceptable! These are Americans and they need jobs and help. They don't need a moldy cot in a church basement. They need real help and if Barack Hussein Obama and Robert Gibbs think they can bully me into being quiet, you two fellas are wrong!
Ms. Y writes, "I've learned many lessons from this experience that I wouldn't trade. I've learned who my friends are and have experienced the incredible kindness of strangers. I've learned that doing without is not as hard as I thought it would be and that in many ways it's good. I've learned that I can still be charitable and giving even though I have very little myself. But I've also learned about fear that grips me when I'm asleep and when I'm awake, because I don't know how much longer I can hold out. I am female and have lived a fairly sheltered life...it's unthinkable for me to become homeless. When that happens, suicide will be the only answer."
Ms. X writes, "If $40 would buy me a gun I would just end it all. I am not ready to die and I don't want to do that to my sweet, sweet cat who certainly does not deserve that. Even if the government did reenact the benefits or if I got a job tomorrow, I would never be able to catch up to what I have lost. I swore I would never give up, but I would rather be dead than continue this way. So for all of you who have money and jobs, your day could be tomorrow. All you have to do is be a good employee, do nothing wrong, and count on your country not to abandon you."
"But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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