Thursday, May 15, 2008
The right wing accuses me and my fellow Dems of being negative. Hell, we'd be smirking like W. himself if he hadn't trashed our country!
Aug 2, 2004 | I'll admit it. For three years, millions of us have been a mite down in the dumps. Some of us even lived like mites, down in the dumps and dumpsters of this great nation.
The right wing accused us of being cranky.
Now when I have ever been cranky? Puzzled, maybe, that none of my right-wing neighbors who tout volunteerism and bootstrapping as cures for poverty ever helps me wash dishes at my local food bank.
A tad miffed by the vandalism of our nation's economy. Somewhat panicked as I struggle to make the mortgage on a one-bedroom home. A teensy-weensy bit sick and tired of being sick and tired, as it says on the tombstone of Fannie Lou Hamer.
Just a hair freaked out about consumer debt, national debt and foreign debt. With a soupçon of nostalgia for my hazy memories of the inside of a doctor's office.
Nudged, ever so gently and kindly, to the brink of suicidal despair by the disappearance of living-wage jobs.
Imperceptibly disgusted that my friend Carolyn must juggle three demanding jobs as a caregiver to the sick and elderly, while raising five children and volunteering at their schools, and still have "to stretch nothing into something" while the wealthiest 1 percent got an extra $60,000 in tax cuts this year.
Mildly outraged by the death of my friend John Bradach's nephew in Iraq on the very day that Bush expressed the depth of his faith (and I do mean depth) with the words "Bring it on." Softly caressed by the loving mantle of visceral dread this week as my friend Michelle's teenage son is deployed to Iraq.
But cranky? What ever would give you that idea?
I'm as jolly as the next person who's having her fingers pried loose from the bottom rungs of an economic ladder held over a yawning chasm of debt while everything I hold dear is being assailed.
Besides, as any woman who's had her teeth kicked in a few times and is now reluctant to press charges for fear it could prove fatal will tell you, a little domestic abuse never hurt anybody. This nation is just fine, aren't you honey?
Now go dry your eyes, the tough guys told us, and let's not hear any more girlie-man poetry about "health insurance for every American, a real jobs plan to create jobs instead of destroy them. Standing up for middle class and working Americans who got a tax increase, not a tax cut ... a foreign policy that relies on telling the truth to the American people before we send our brave American soldiers to fight in foreign lands ... a commander in chief who supports our soldiers and our veterans, instead of cutting their hardship pay when they're abroad, and their health benefits when they get home."
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