I feel old sometimes because I see things. Stupid things. Things that need change. I see homeless dudes when I look out the drive through window every time I pull a shift in the ghetto. They're picking through the store's trash, and that needs to change. I see addicts come in the store trying to tell me they're diabetic so they can score some needles and maybe not die of AIDS. That needs to change. I don't want to imply Hillary Clinton has been totally ineffective at changing things though. Today I saw a man the age of my nephew who was a missing a leg. He left it in Iraq as a result of a policy change Hillary Clinton was instrumental in making happen. I felt old when I saw the one legged young man. Old and tired and a little hopeless.
This is what happens when you limit yourself to what you judge to be possible. Those dudes will always be homeless. AIDS will always be with us. Nothing you can do, so I'll just put an earmark in the budget for a half-ass homeless shelter and claim a great victory so I can get elected again. Four years from now I'll do the same thing. Hillary Rodham understood how abandoning hope to the pragmatic thoughts of the possible could be toxic. The year I was born she chided the commencement speaker at her college graduation:
“For too long our leaders have used politics as the art of the possible,” she said that day. Maybe that was the day Hillary claims she became an agent for change.
Somewhere in the three and a half decades since, Hillary Rodham became Hillary Rodham Clinton became Hillary Clinton. And after "35 years of working for change" she said on Sunday when asked what she had to show for it was that she added a few more kids to the ranks of the insured. She also chides her main opponent these days for offering "false hopes."
There's no such thing as false hope. Hillary Rodham knew that.
You don't dream big anymore Hillary. You don't hope anymore and I'm tired of being hopeless. I'm tired of feeling old.
Next up are my neighbors in Nevada. I know you want to hope as well. I know you want a goal of what is right.....not what is "possible." Let me know if you need a ride to the caucus.
8 comments:
Thank you for writing this post. You write things that must be said.
MJ
Why can't Oprah run for president?
I would be remiss at this point Sara, if I didn't remind you who Oprah has endorsed.......:)
You make me want to kill myself sometimes. Buck-up, she doesn't have the nomination yet.
Signed,
Stuck in NY with Perverts
By the way, this is what came across from an online medical provider news service (may sort of be related) "Physicians and other health care providers should not be involved in capital punishment, even in an advisory capacity," write the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine in an editorial released in response to this week's Supreme Court hearing of oral arguments in Baze v. Rees, questioning constitutionality of lethal injections; "increasing medicalization of executions and the enlistment of medical personnel to lend them apparent moral legitimacy." ..."involvement of physicians in executions will be up to the medical profession."
Where do executioners get their pharmaceutical cocktails of death?
Dear DM,
It's been a couple of weeks. If you're on vacation have a good time but we miss you.
Your message (and Hillary Rodham's)in this post had a big impact on my decision to vote for Obama in SC's primary yesterday. I hope that the rest of the country does not trivialize his win here by attributing it to race or ignorance. I was born and raised in a blue state, and I am proud of my fellow SC democrats for hanging on to hope and "dreaming big"...keep on posting, young pharmacy minds are listening!
At least they broke even in NH with the delegate counts from that primary!
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