That's enough moping for me!

[yardwork]

I've grieved for two days over the election, and now I'm ready to set aside grieving. In fact, I've started to see some very encouraging aspects in this for me personally.

For the past fifteen years I've devoted my life to two major things: expanding health care access for the underserved, and raising my children. The children grow like weeds, but expanding health care to those in greatest need has been an uphill battle.

We had a good shot during Clinton's first term, but the insurance companies beat that opportunity back, and most of America yawned. Since then millions more people have lost health insurance, and millions have been dropped from public assistance. Somewhere around 30% (one-third) of all Americans lack health insurance now, and the number is growing rapidly.

Two days ago America spoke, and anyway you look at it, approximately half the citizens said that they care a lot more about keeping gay people from living together than they care about health care. Now, if everybody who voted against Kerry already had health care, I'd feel bad for all those poor people who got outvoted by the greedy and comfortably insured. However, it looks like most of the people who voted against Kerry are the same people who don't have health coverage!

So it occurred to me. If all those people who don't have health coverage don't think it's that important, who am I to force it on them?

If America's uninsured won't fight for their own cause, how can I hope to win the battle for them? A lot of them don't even like people like me. They call us snobby elite liberals and other dirty words. They don't appreciate the fact that I'm putting my hard-won degrees from expensive universities to work for them.

On election day, rumor has it, a lot of Republicans told exit pollers that they voted for Kerry, just to drive the stock market down for a few hours. That enabled a lot of people to buy low and sell high later in the day. I can play that game too. After all, I have a master's degree in science!

I can read and speak a little French and Spanish (privileged background, natch) and I have friends all over the world (UN loving liberal). My husband and I score very high on Canada's test for skilled workers (we're the educated elite!), and I've read lots of 18th and 19th century British novels. I know how to brew the right sorts of tea and I know all the lyrics of every Ian and Sylvia song by heart! I'd get along fine in Canada.

On my other primary focus, my children, I also see this election as a major boon to me and mine. If Kerry had been elected I would feel a patriotic obligation to support my president and the mess he would have inherited. As it is, I have no such obligation. I was against this war in the first place, as I told my elected representatives, but they chose to disregard my advice and wishes. Therefore, this is their war, not mine. If my children appear to be in danger of being drafted, there's Canada or other parts of the world (see above). I'm sure that the 50% of America who support Bush will be glad to help with his (their) war, so it seems unlikely that my children's services will be required at all.

When all is said and done, I feel like a lot of burdens have been lifted off my shoulders this week.

[yardwork]

1. shameless kick

[question everything]

2. I was thinking something similar yesterday

There are many young people working with me, all Bush supporters. And I was thinking that it will be their children who will inherit the deficit, their children who could be drafted.

I do disagree, however, with one of your comment about those without health insurance. Many of them are the working poor in the large urban cities, and these cities did vote for Kerry, even if the states went to Bush.

[ethereal]

3. love your outlook, yardwork

you can preach to a moron for months, but you can't make him drink anything other than the kool-aid if he chooses not to hear.


let them live with the consequences of their stupidity. i'm tired of bashing my head against brick walls. Pottery Barn america--they broke it--let them fix it.

[yardwork]

5. Welcome to DU, ethereal (gorgeous name)

Pottery Barn America - I like that!

[yardwork]

4. Oh, I understand very well about the working poor without insurance....

I've immersed myself in this area for fifteen years. That's why I've cried for two days. But self-preservation requires a little selfishness and even a sense of humor. The fact is that a LOT of morons without health insurance went out and proudly voted for shrubby and rubbed my face in it and said they did it because of the evil ways of me and my fellow liberals. I know this because some of them said it to my face!

Fuck em. I'll continue to work for the uninsured, don't get me wrong, but I'm through with sleepless nights over it.

[LisaL]

6. Yep.

You can't help those who don't want to help themselves.

[RPM]

7. To All the Mopers Out There - Give Up, Just Like Me

I am done with fighting for my values; The setbacks are just too hard... I think I will buy a huge SUV, leave it idling in my garage (why ever turn it off - its wear on the starter). While I am at it, I think I'll cash out my 401k - retirement savings is for idiots anyway - that's what kids and the gubment are for. And hey - since my kids will support me someday, I will have 10 or 12 of them; Maybe I'll care to learn their names, maybe not, either way I'l just be a baby-making machine... there's always room for more of them on this wide-open, resource-rich planet. So, with that retirement fund and all the credit cards I can max out, I'll go and buy all the useless, plastic, environmentally unfriendly, flavor-of-the-week pop culture shit I can find. And when I am finished with them, I'll throw it all out and never donate any of it to the needy - the only thing they need is to work harder. I'll buy a gun and kill animals, but I will be sure to leave the carcasses on the field - I dont want to dirty up my new SUV.... I'll run my air conditioner hard all summer, run my heat hard all winter and leave all my lights on - after all, there is infinite amount of oil in the ground and, besides, I can afford it and don't give a damn if my children's children will ever have oil. And at the end of the day, I'll get all tanked up at the bar and drive around schoolyards to see if the kiddies can avoid the grill of my SUV, after all... survival of the fittest right?

Or perhaps I will not let this setback change my core values.

[yardwork]

8. Psst. The post was tongue in cheek. Irony?