Tag Archives: fighting for our lives

Fighting for Our Lives

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None of us have been in the same room as perfection and none of us ever will be. But I would like to think each of us has the capacity to fight for our lives. The question is, will we? Will I? Will you?

We all know people who, for reasons that can be hard to understand, won’t fight for their lives. People who leave their medical conditions unaddressed, or live with medical conditions they don’t know about because they don’t go to the doctor. I am one who is guilty of not going to the doctor enough. Remember, in this blog, I promise you honesty, not perfection.  Many of us know people who battle with substance-abuse addictions; sometimes they wear the face of booze, sometimes drugs, oftentimes both.

I have known and know people who are stopped by something or someone when it comes to declaring war against the forces that are intent on ending their lives. And if these forces can’t end life right away, they’ll damage the hell out of it in the meantime. These forces are relentless. They possess evil tenacity and zero conscience. They don’t give a rat’s ass if you are a nice person. They’re not going to leave you alone because you have a good job or nice car or because your family and friends love you.

But what stops so many of us from issuing this declaration of war against an addiction or the possibility or presence of deadly disease?

I think the answer is found in this observation. Somewhere along the line we lost sight of our value.

If we were raised in abusive households, we may never have experienced our value in the first place. If you are a member of a minority, it is not unlikely that you’ve been given the message that you are worth less than others. The reason I would urge all of you to declare war, not just against any force designed to end your life, but against influence of your history, your society or your present that stops you from seeing your value is because your value is really there. It has always been there.

Just because you can’t  experience yourself as being a worthwhile human being yet, doesn’t mean you are not a worthwhile human being. It means something or someone is stopping you from experiencing yourself accurately.

Who do you think deserves control over your experience of you? You or your history? You are something or someone in your present who gives you the message that you are worthless? I vote for you. After all, if I am right, and I am, that you truly are a valuable and extraordinary person, don’t you think you have a right to find out? I do.

Fighting for Our Lives: The Public Option

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The healthcare reform battle is a battle between life and death. This is not an understatement. I repeat, this is not an understatement.

The deadly enemy of the public option in the healthcare reform debate is big business. More precisely, the big insurance companies. Even more precisely, greed. It is as simple as that. While lobbyists for the big insurance companies are going all out to the muddy the waters and influence, if not actually write, the current batch of healthcare reform proposals, the whole struggle is, as MSNBC’s Keith Oberman accurately put it recently, our instinct and right to fend off the inevitable grasp of death.

The healthcare reform debate is about life and death, yours and mine. It’s about the life and death of your loved ones, your parents, your children, your grandchildren, friends, colleagues, neighbors. This is what this fight is all about. You and I are fighting for our lives and for the lives of our loved ones. The voices that decry the presence of a public option wholeheartedly (it may be the only thing they put their heart into) support the fact that the design of the current health care system is absent commitments to two key things: health and care.

If you, for even a moment, think insurance companies care about  your health, think again. If you still think it, you are probably in need of a form of healthcare your insurance company will likely not pay for. No doubt there are some individuals who work for insurance companies who do care, but the policies and protocols of these hideous giants don’t give a damn. The underlying philosophy of the current healthcare system is this: you’ve got the chance at a long life if you can afford it.

Make note of the fact that the large majority of those opposing the presence of a public option are not exactly hurting on the financial front and thus have no problem having their healthcare needs met.

Make note of the following truth too, more than 60 percent of doctors surveyed support the presence of a public option. 

And so, we are fighting for our lives. Call or write your representatives in congress and tell them one thing: If you do not vote for the public option I will tell everyone I know not to vote for you when you come up for re-election. Sadly, most, but by no means all members of congress, are more concerned about keeping their job than you keeping your health. So put them in fear of losing their jobs and they might just start fighting for your right to have healthcare.

Quality healthcare is a right, not a privilege.