http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/14/63812/4716/248/535721(snip)
It would be presumptuous to assume that anything can make a loss of this magnitude 'better,' or even 'worse' for that matter. But at least Tim Russert died doing something he loved after a long life of doing it well, a passion in which he -- and many of you -- enjoyed enormous success and the accompanying wealth and privilege that only a tiny handful of people will ever know. I hope your suffering is tempered, just a little bit, by the knowledge that he did not linger on in great agony.
But this diary isn't about Tim Russert, it's not about you; it's about some other people who you occasionally cover and for whom you may now feel an unwanted and yet inseparabale kinship. It's probably too early to say this, and yes, I apologize if anyone feels this is crass or inapproriate, but I'm going to say it anyway: The same intractable pain that has reached out cruelly and gripped you with despair is felt by every mother and father, brother and sister, and friend and spouse of every single soldier killed in Iraq (
And Afghanistan where four soldiers were killed in the last 24 hours). Those men and women died doing a job that paid peanuts, most of them at a young age. Despite whatever loyalty they may feel to their comrades in arms, odds are good that quite a few of them would have rather been somewhere else right up until the moment their bodies were ravaged by fire and red-hot lead. The gut punch, horrific beyond comprehension, is their departed died for a mistake or a campaign of intentional deception, take your pick.
They will bear that pain for the rest of their lives without the benefit of round the clock coverage, or scores of media superstars lining up to console them with anecdotes about what terrific human beings their loved ones were. Their fallen will get a few words on the local news, maybe a brief mention on CNN or ABC if they're lucky. If they 'make too big a deal about it' or 'ask the wrong questions,' or grieve in anything but the proper, GOP approved, Bush cheering way, behind closed doors out of sight and out of the media limelight, God help them. They will be roundly, loudly, shamed as traitors and terrorist sympathizers and cowardly surrender monkeys by right-wing operatives and juvenile chicken-hawks appearing, in too many cases, on your own news programs.
For those tens of thousands wounded in Iraq, many of whom will never be whole again, they will not return to a luxury hospital for millionaire celebrities. For many, their miserable pain wracked days will be spent in an overcrowded, underfunded, forgotten ward in the local VA barely able to offer them decent care, while politicians and pundits debate if they deserve better treatment or a modest increase in benefits. (And as long as we're on that topic, I should point out that for many ordinary civilian families, if the breadwinner comes down with even a semi-serious medical condition, and so much as misses a few days of work, that person risks losing their job and thus their over-priced, junk healthcare insurance right at the time they desperately need it.)
(end snip)
a well written diary, please read.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
