After 72 weeks of unemployment and 2 years of the so-called homeowner's modification process, I have been back to work for 6 months and I am starting to feel like I just might be able to cast a shadow. I have been invisible, translucent at best, on the receiving end of all of the rhetoric and the banter. A pawn in the game of nothingness that passes for leadership.
I watched without healthcare while the talking heads in their thousand dollar suits started the conversation by benching my guy, the single payer, before the first pitch. And it went downhill from there. Hold unemployment benefits hostage for some Orwellian created deficit non-issue. Listen while the experts explained how important the deficit reduction was to the overall welfare of the nation. Same experts that saved the banks with our tax dollars under the mass hysteria lies of fear borne of more horseshit.
Horseshit. My father's favorite compound word for that which was beyond bs. A perfect description for anything so completely without merit or worth that it was appallingly absurd. And that's what was being trotted out as real debate among the grown-ups.
My father who dropped dead of a heart attack at 65 without health insurance, halving and borrowing and skipping meds because he was broke, never seeing the complete disintegration of the body politic; never fully wanting to accept that he, too, had become invisible.
I waited while the non discussion never touched on keeping my home or creating any jobs, but instead dealt in the antics of the beltway charade. Death panels and Dick Armey; armed patriots of questionable motive being trotted out as great examples of the freedom afforded us by the Bill of Rights. Lots of talk of angels dancing on the heads of pins covered in horseshit.
This is no longer about polite political discourse philosophically ensconced in the harmless pillow of educated debate; it's us versus them- they have proven they will allow us to starve or die of treatable disease or die fighting illegal wars to fill their war chests at the expense of the nation. I lived through Reagan and I am from Texas where the devastation of W was felt long before it was unleashed on the world at large, so I know that as broken as the process is, to do anything that gives comfort to the enemy will be our undoing.
Here I am, having finally found employment at two-thirds what I was making but health insurance benefits and grateful to have the opportunity; a possible mortgage workout afforded me through the President's policies; my 19 year old son is on my health plan because of Obamacare. I am in that camp of those who feel the mandate we gave the Administration wasn't taken nearly far enough and eons were wasted allowing the enemy to form the conversation. But I have felt the good that has been achieved and appreciate it.
We have the conversation again. We are finding a voice that is real and has form; this voice casts a long shadow. We are shaking off the helplessness borne of long term unemployment and political impotence.We are on the edge of a cliff and the enemy will happily strip mine and frack the edges from beneath us if it suits their sordid purpose. The metaphors may be mixed but the truth is real; DKos and Occupy and so many voices are giving us all the substance and form to feel like we can cast a shadow again. Together we stand; divided we fall.
