Monday, January 23, 2006

About getting a little emotional sometimes

I have been criticized by friends and others for getting emotional in debates. I would like to explain why that's not only ok but important. Too often these debates are way too abstract and end up shying away from the reality that we are talking about real people with powerful interest in what is being discussed.

Take health care, something I still owe a post about. This is one that effects me directly as I am one of the more than thirty million Americans without real access to health care. As a result of the bill pushed through congress at the end of last year it is likely that my son will get cut off Medicaid. Now I will find a way to keep him covered but it will be hard. I eat once a day as it is so that I can provide my son with good, healthy food to eat. If he does get cut off I will either have to eat less than that or I will have to feed him lower quality food. On top of this if he gets cut off it will probably mean his mom and he will also lose food stamp benefits as well, which may mean that I will have to find a way to work more hours which means I will spend less time with him.

I don't piss and moan about my own problems, they are my fault. I am a high school drop-out who could do literally anything I chose with an education - I am that smart. I am fighting to change my situation and it may work out but that is besides the point. Nothing I have done is my son's fault. He didn't ask to be brought into the world with parents who cannot provide for him the way he deserves to be. So this health care "debate" gets me very emotional and makes me very angry. It is absolutely sick that in this country we have so many without health care - including millions of children - it is sick that this country is so far behind so many other nations in this regard.

Then we get to gay "rights." I am not in favor of any special rights for homosexuals but I am adamant that they have equal rights to the rest of us. I get a little emotional when I think about the ten million kids being raised by same sex parents. I get a little emotional when I realize that many of those kids assume that, other than the fact that their parents are the same sex, don't realize that their parents aren't the same as other parents, i.e. they aren't married, at least until the mainstream media shoves this "debate" into their faces. I get a little emotional when I think about the idea that their are people out there who think that these families should be illegal. We are taking so many giant steps backward in this country today that many same sex families in this country are at risk - today.

I get a little emotional when people like Rush Limbaugh accuse me of having a fascination with death. They seem to think that we should just look the other way while the regime in charge of this country causes the deaths thousands of people a year. I get a little emotional when a woman who is awake and aware is cut off her ventilator in Plano Texas because her family doesn't have the money to keep her alive. I get a little emotional trying to imagine the hell she went through in those last moments, betrayed and suffocated by her own body without even the comfort of her mother at her side because she couldn't be brought over here in the time Texas law allotted her. Because I get angry about this - I somehow have a fascination with death - no, I just abhor the bush regime's "culture of death."

And finally, I get a little emotional when the president of this country say that my constitution, the constitution that hundreds of thousands gave their lives that we might have, is just a "damned piece of paper." I get a little emotional when a cabal takes my government and perverts my country into some fascist police state. When the senate, the house, the courts even the media are bent and twisted by the hands of one man I get a little emotional, angry even. This is not some abstract debate, this is our nation being destroyed. And that makes me a little emotional.

2 comments:

Beth said...

For what its worth, DuWayne, what I find disturbing is how people could not get emotional on the debates you mention.

Anonymous said...

Hi DuWayne, I don't get accused of being emotional -- I get accused of being obessed or too interested in what's going on politically.

It's like people do NOT understand that decisions that are made directly affect them in one way or another.

And that apathy is exactly what's allowing Bush & Co. to get away with murder.

I don't blame you for getting emotional. I'm right there with ya.