Bleeding Heart

I don’t write diaries because I’d rather counter punch than initiate.  Also, I fear my true self will be exposed, and it ain’t pretty.  I am a proud bleeding heart liberal, as are most of the people at this site, but I’m also a reluctant militant.  Peaceful means just don’t work in America, never have.

Recently, around MLK Day, King was praised for his great successes, and I disagreed.  Kids in the slums are worse off today than they were 40 years ago.  Their schools are still underfunded and poorly staffed, their healthcare is Bushian–the ER at the local hospital.  They stand a better chance of being incarcerated, of being poorly represented in court.  I really wish all Americans were forced to watch the Wire on HBO–it tells it exactly the way I saw it in NYC–and it’s ugly.  The only time ghettos saw an effort by government was in the 1960s–riots released federal hush money.

Politics looks better today because of Obama–and he’s a powerful symbol of Black advancement in America–except, I should add, that the advancement is only for super African Americans–you know, the Harvard educated guy.  Those old enough can be reminded of Sidney Poitier coming to dinner.  In the neighborhoods I worked in, successful men were drug dealers and pimps–and the kids wanted to be like Mike–the sports fantasy out of poverty.  On second thought, there were very few men around Bed/Stuy, many were “away”–euphemism for in jail.

Unions seem less discriminatory lately–many teacher unions are lead by people not white.  Maybe that’s because unions have been so weakened that it doesn’t matter anymore. Corporations have learned how to defend themselves–with governmental assistance–and very few strikes seem to take place, even less succeed.  MLK would have been mighty surprised by this turn of events because he was killed before St Ronnie’s paradigm of trickle down bullshit.

Before ending this rant, I want to include a counter punch I wrote today about party politics and healthcare, so here’s a quote from melvynny–my Dkos moniker–

Some of the money donated to the Dem party should be used to set up health insurance consultation offices and phone bank/web sites.  As Parade states, everyone with insurance eventually gets a claim rejected. If we had experts fighting for those claims we would accomplish 2 great things.  Everyone would be grateful to the Dem Party, and more people would get their claims processed correctly and promptly.

My  idea is to emulate Hamas’ tactic of giving social service and getting political allegiance in return.