SENATOR CLINTON SPEAKS TRUTH
Senator Clinton told a story about a woman who died needlessly. She spoke about a child that died needlessly. I don't care about the details because the story is true. It is symbolic of a society that has grown accustomed to throwing away people. I don't want to live in a society that throws people away like yesterday's newspaper.
I don't care if the woman's name is Sally or Mary, if she went to this hospital or that clinic. I don't care if the form that she was admitted on was pink or blue. She is dead and her baby is dead and 7 soldiers died in Iraq yesterday and 3 today and the last one on the record is Capt. Ulises Burgos-Cruz, 29, of Puerto Rico and I am pretty sure that is correct because the military is very good about that.
The media however is now focused on exactly what happened in the telling of the story. "A hospital spokesperson confirmed to CNN the woman had insurance. She said the hospital decided to come forward after people in the community began to question if they had denied her care."
TRIVIALIZATION OF LIFE IN AMERICA
This is the trivialization of life in America. Some will blame the media. Its an easy target. Here is CNN's headline on the subject:
Clinton drops hospital story from stump speech.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/06/clinton.hospital/index.htmlNext to that headline is this headline on CNN
Clinton's bowling skills a bit rusty
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=clinton+cnn+hospital&btnG=SearchThe real headline should be that the woman and the child are still dead and 30,000 more in America die each year because we can't get the right color paper matched up correctly. That's how somebody from another planet or from some other realm would look at it. If that person had enough green color papers at the right time and matched that up with the right white color paper then she would have been treated and lived. We would not have thrown her away.
There are some very effective writers in our community that will use this and lay the responsibility at the media and they are well reasoned, well researched, and well written. I don't buy it. We (the American people) get the government we deserve and we get the media we deserve.
NEED FOR A NEW METHODOLOGY
Most of the time most Americans do not pay attention. Our side says this and the Republicans say that and 300 million people would rather see Ellen bowl with a celebrity. The incremental approach is not working. The domestic hegemony approach where we get these groups of people (students, workers, unions, soccer moms, etc.) is not working. Even if we can get everyone's attention on a problem for a moment the vested interests are patient and well funded and the system of legal and organized bribery of our Senators and Congressman is codified and only occasionally will someone be so stupid (like my Congressman 'Duke' Cunningham)to actually screw up the details and go to prison.
But again a super terrestrial visitor would be puzzled why its OK for a congressman to take one kind of paper (a check into a campaign fund) is OK and that green paper into his hand is not. The bizarre system throws a man in jail because he takes the green paper and the woman dies because she didn't have the same green paper.
We need a new paradigm. We need something that will not engage the media but that will engage the people on a mass movement. This has to be from the bottom up.
THE CRUEL IRONY OF DU
We are in the midst of a titanic struggle. On the one hand is the system and the profiteers of the system who believe in the sanctity of papers. They were the same types of people who once believed that if a paper said that a person was a thing and not a person that it was true. They especially believe in papers colored green. They are the worshipers of paper.
On the other side is us. You, me and the people in here believe that people are more important than colored papers. Even the people some of us have on ignore believe in a fundamentally different way of looking at our system and that people are more important and not should be thrown away. Not thrown away in prisons, in schools run like prisons, in unnecessary wars. We should not throw away our earth for paper and mechanical pods that transport us.
In the middle are the vast majority of people who basically like our point of view but have a fear that we are going to screw up their papers and take away their transport pods and not let them watch Ellen bowl with celebrities. But they don't really like the worshipers of paper.
The cruel irony of DU is the realization that this small group of people, who are in here are fanatically driven to give up time to come in and stare at a screen and pound on a keyboard, is bitterly divided. The reality is that in comparison with the vast wasteland of apathy, consumer addiction and robots to the system that we live in, we are the same tribe. Compared to the paper worshipers we are virtual twins and yet the bitterness between some of us has taken on a life of its own, like a virus.
ENDING FOR CLINTON SUPPORTERS
If your a Clinton supporter and Hillary Clinton motivates you to fight for a society that will stand up to the paper worshipers and knows how to convince the middle to join with us then please continue to help her and fight for her. You don't need anyone telling you when to quit and those that are doing so should know better. It is a fact that this is her campaign and she is her own general she is making the decisions on message, strategy and use of resources. Those that oppose her cannot be faulted for the decisions she makes.
In this case however, the message was truthful and the details unimportant. I admire her for continuing to speak in her way on these issues. I hope that people in DU will be judicious enough to agree that in this case the criticism of Senator Clinton was completely unfair. She heard a story she assumed to be truthful and used it to speak a larger and more important truth. Good for her and good for you for supporting her.
The End
A POSTSCRIPT ON SENATOR OBAMA (Optional for Clinton Supporters)
It is unfortunate that in this case past patterns have undermined Senator Clinton's message here. It doesn't help any of us. What I find more and more compelling about Senator Obama is that he intends to fight trivialization. When faced with the controversy of Reverend Wright he stood his ground and fought back on the trivialities. If you disagreed with him you had to disagree with him on broader themes. He intends to engage the country mobilize the masses and use the media as a tool. He intends to community organize the entire country. He is engineering a new methodology and he is not backing down. He goes to the core of the issue and trivializes those who would trivialize us.