This started as a rant about the celebration of mediocrity that's transpired recently with all this focus on 'bipartisanship' and 'centrism'.
I want a more liberal America.
I am not interested in cheerleading the acceptance of half a loaf when we should be having a bakery.
But, before I got this finished, something happened and reflecting on that has resulted in what's after the jump.
I cannot and will not abandon my liberal ideas.
I cannot and will not peaceably accept that 'conservative values' - a term that I find almost an oxymoron - are of ANY value to the Common Man.
I am a liberal.
I help people.
I do psychotherapy - something conservatives think is stupid and their insurance companies do not like to cover. Managed care hates my existence. If we sucked up to them on this issue, millions would have unmet mental health needs, even more than occurs now and it's miserable now.
In Life on the Bottom Rung: The vicious downward spiral of Mental Illness I talked about how hard it is on the mentally ill, with a focus on how transitional homes treat people.
There was a lady who came to the program I work with for several months. She was old, in her 70's, she was losing sight in one eye, was living with some family members and this wasn't going well. Efforts were made to get her a licenced care home placement, which occured. The family pressured the residence to take her as early as possible and they booted her out of the house on Christmas Eve.
The home she went to was, to all that I can gather, not treating her well.
I say was because the last time I saw this lady was Friday. She died on Monday. I learned about it Tuesday.
I have been livid ever since.
I used to give her a merciless hard time and she loved it. She had the craziest laugh. I told her her legs were too short and almost didn't reach the ground. And Id hear her laugh. She'd always be asking where I was so she could ask me the same damned question she'd ask everyday. Sometimes I changed the answer and she's call me on it - I told her I lied to her. She'd laugh that laugh.
Today I was typing in my office over lunch and I heard the clients laughing, but 1 very distinct laugh was notably missing.
Some poor old lady's laugh.
I don't have any control over anything like investigations.
The lady was so poor she thought I was made of money. She'd tease me about it but she was serious. As poor as she was she won't get more than a cursory glance though I hope for an investigation.
As a liberal I think government can work just fine - it doesn't have to be the giant cesspool of corruption that it is.
As a liberal I can say more regulation of these types of homes likely would prevent a lot of these terrible and unseen tragedies. Yeah, it would cost money - so what?
As a liberal tax money is nicely spent aiding those who have the least. People with mental illness are often going to be unable to keep it together. We should provide more care for them. Not less.
We have blown our economy giving money to the rich. Imagine what would could do with money like that. The rich just offshore it.
I can't go back the way I came. I cannot imagine being rightwing, conservative, alienated from human suffering.
Once you see it - how do you forget?
This is what makes me a liberal.
Conservatism despises any effort to help human beings and refuses to acknowledge human suffering.
It hates insuring sick people. It loves to take money from people so long as they don't have any illnesses. It's like we are just supposed to send them money for nothing. That is conservatism to me.
Conservatism wants a dumbed-down American population.
MOST conservative values are pretty stupid when you really grasp what they say. Mainly the effort is about getting people to agree to things that aren't in their best interests. It's about getting them to part with their cash for no good reason and to get them to vote for slimy motherfuckers who do not have their best interests in mind.
Conservatism wants VERY MUCH to allow pollution of and damage to our planet to continue the aggressive short-term profiteering that defines Capitalism. They don't want to clean up their act; they don't believe pollution is more than a tiny problem affecting non-important human beings.
I want an America where human beings come first and corporate profits are way down the list of immediate priorities.
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to get rich as well. I'd make a great rich person.
I'd like to not worry about making the next bill payment or worry about losing my job or my house, or keeping my truck running. I don't have a problem with people earning money, especially if they have done something to earn it like creating something new and useful, or helped somebody other than themselves; not from exploiting loopholes and literally buying ownership of the US political process and bending it to constantly have thier way.
Since at least the time of Ronald Reagan, conservatives have controlled much of the government and almost the entire media. We all know their relentless blather about 'a liberal media' is just hot air and spittle. There is NO SUCH THING as a 'liberal media'. It does not exist.
And it should.
But it doesn't.
Conservatives have long controlled the radio spectrum, dominating it with their lockstep homogeneous white-entitlement ranting and making the term 'liberal' a target for hate and justification of aggressive acting-out.
The term liberal came to mean everything that was wrong with America and is used as an excuse for adding more and more conservative nonsense to the mix.
It is used as a pejorative label by conservatives to denigrate anything to the political left of their efforts to return this country to a feudal state.
Unfortunately, that is the last thing we should be slouching toward. I don't think we should be accepting measure that take us half way there, greased with promises that we can always come back.
Like I said, in terms of seeing things from a liberal perspective there's no going back. There's no rabbit hole in which to bury my head. I can't 'un-see' it.
In a More Liberal America, that crazy old poor lady would maybe still be alive, laughing that laugh.
I cannot stop my pursuit of a More Liberal America.