Old Facebook Post

Monday, September 7, 2009 at 12:25pm
No one should be left on the side of the road to rot and die because they can't afford health care costs due to extremist capitalists becoming money hungry in the 1980s. No one was thinking about our elderly and our children when they decided back then to let private parties in health care charge what ever they wanted. They just heard the almighty dollar sing to them, and it has continued. I don't know first hand, but I would imagine other countries laugh at us for thinking that the health of the poor isn't important. Many countries learned long ago that the rich remain rich because of the poor that support them form underneath in their factories and shops. If you don't make an effort to keep them well, you fine gentlemen will not remain wealthy very long. Perhaps when you are hit where it hurts - your pocket book - you will reconsider how much you previously didn't care that your workers couldn't even afford prescription cough medicine.

In case simple logic doesn't appeal to you, perhaps your heart will. I have witnessed a man several days a week for the last year walk up and down a strip mall. He earns money by collecting and recycling cans and doing odd jobs for the mom and pop shop owners. He can't be hired anywhere because of his constant coughing fits, rotten teeth, limp, and overall homeless appearance. He carries his Bible, and his dog everywhere with his bike cart that he pulls due to the fact he can't even ride a bike in the torturous desert heat because of his leg problems. He isn't an addict, and often times you see he has dirty bandages made out of whatever he can rustle up. He never panhandles, but earns whatever he is given - even if you only give him a small odd job out of pity. I typically begin to cry as I walk past him - after he has nodded and waved in respect to me being a lady. Finally one day I realized I cry not only for him, but I cry because of the two American flags on small posts that are duct taped to the back of his cart. I cry not only for him, but for all of us here in America. I cry because he has nothing, and we give him nothing. I cry because even after his misfortune in life he must somewhere still believe in a country that ignores his existence. I cry because he loves an idea of freedom and the pursuit of happiness... Read More that denies him basic human rights because of capitalistic ideals and importance of dollars. I cry and hope God, his God he carries that Bible for, can forgive me for not doing more than try to be his voice now that he has lost his own due to our obsession with green paper that will not benefit us once we leave this place.