A start...
Mar. 22nd, 2010 09:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
litheraSo, we've got a start on health care for all. It isn't the bill I would have wanted it to be but as a country we've gotten so bogged down in yelling at each other over perceived but not lived ideologies I'll take what I can get. Put it into place and get it working and we'll see what we can do to fix it where it is broken. It will be broken. It won't work perectly. It will have gapes and holes but.... it is better than the NOTHING that MANY people have had until now.
I remember going to college and realizing that I had to pay to go see the doctor. It was sort of terrifying that if I got sick, really sick, I didn't have a lot to fall back on. I remember a few times, like when I had bronchitis, where I was dreading having to go to the doctor AGAIN because I knew I wouldn't have the money for either the visit OR the prescriptions I got from the visit. I managed but I know people who haven't or who have gotten entirely screwed over by insurance companies saying they'd pay for things and then when the bill comes - trying to weasel out of footing a single cent.
Also, I've been doing a lot of thinking at how it has become not only acceptable but in some places expected that yelling and slurs and name calling is the way to start a discussion on any issue. Even at ECCC, when things went bad, there wasn't yelling but there were a lot of attempts at physical and/or social intimidation. I understand these are emotionally charged issues and I want to yell and scream too but no one listens to you when you're yelling like that. When you start off with labels for the other person in your head of 'racist', 'nazi' or any number of misused or repurposed terms these days, you have no way of having a productive discussion. Also, however, when you try to confront that yelling with rational conversation, you get steamrolled or ignored. I'm not sure how to try to have a conversation there. I won't accept that I can't because there has to be a way to do it. I won't reward bad behaviour with bad behaviour.
Meh.
I guess I miss when someone said, 'distinguished colleagues' across the aisle, they meant it and yelling insults at the other party wouldn't have been thought of, let alone acceptable. I miss the Democratic and Republican parties as I understood them to be, as they were explained to me when I started learning about these things. They've become monolithic things inacpable of actually listening to the people who support them at the bottom and that makes me sad. They're only hearing the people who yell the loudest. And a lot of those people, on both sides, don't represent anything I want to be.
I still believe in hope, I still believe in change. I still believe that we can make a difference and that making that difference, as it has proven true, is hard. I just feel especially frustrated recently.
It seems I'm wordy and full of thinks this morning.
I remember going to college and realizing that I had to pay to go see the doctor. It was sort of terrifying that if I got sick, really sick, I didn't have a lot to fall back on. I remember a few times, like when I had bronchitis, where I was dreading having to go to the doctor AGAIN because I knew I wouldn't have the money for either the visit OR the prescriptions I got from the visit. I managed but I know people who haven't or who have gotten entirely screwed over by insurance companies saying they'd pay for things and then when the bill comes - trying to weasel out of footing a single cent.
Also, I've been doing a lot of thinking at how it has become not only acceptable but in some places expected that yelling and slurs and name calling is the way to start a discussion on any issue. Even at ECCC, when things went bad, there wasn't yelling but there were a lot of attempts at physical and/or social intimidation. I understand these are emotionally charged issues and I want to yell and scream too but no one listens to you when you're yelling like that. When you start off with labels for the other person in your head of 'racist', 'nazi' or any number of misused or repurposed terms these days, you have no way of having a productive discussion. Also, however, when you try to confront that yelling with rational conversation, you get steamrolled or ignored. I'm not sure how to try to have a conversation there. I won't accept that I can't because there has to be a way to do it. I won't reward bad behaviour with bad behaviour.
Meh.
I guess I miss when someone said, 'distinguished colleagues' across the aisle, they meant it and yelling insults at the other party wouldn't have been thought of, let alone acceptable. I miss the Democratic and Republican parties as I understood them to be, as they were explained to me when I started learning about these things. They've become monolithic things inacpable of actually listening to the people who support them at the bottom and that makes me sad. They're only hearing the people who yell the loudest. And a lot of those people, on both sides, don't represent anything I want to be.
I still believe in hope, I still believe in change. I still believe that we can make a difference and that making that difference, as it has proven true, is hard. I just feel especially frustrated recently.
It seems I'm wordy and full of thinks this morning.
