A Woman Worrying (Too Much)…2May2011

I’m worried…

I’m worried about all the celebrations taking place on the streets that one lone man, dubbed as a terrorist, has power of distracting us from all the other shit going on in our lives…shit like having money to feed our families…making ends meet to pay our rent and mortgages…having health care that we can afford and that is practiced in a most compassionate and equitable manner…shit like maybe we won’t get to see our kids go to college because the cost is beyond our means, which could mean that this cycle of poverty, inequality, injustice…could repeat itself as it has thus far. That’s a lot of shit to be concerned about; it’s only a microcosm of shit on our minds and on our plates, and yet we have been sucked into a media vacuum of coverage about one thing and one thing only, the alleged death of Osama bin Laden: how it happened, when it happened, where it happened…not a whisper about whether or not the troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan will be able to pack it up, call it a day, and brought home to their worried families and loved ones.


As I ponder this, I am also concerned about how we, as believers and practitioners of truth, justice and all things being equal, affordable, sustainable, are able to navigate and manage the complex web of lies and deceit, of the various forms of oppression thrust upon us constantly…it doesn’t seem to let up! How do we deal with this, the news of potentially even more war in our future, because the murmurs throughout the pentagon and other government entities suggests that now we may need to be ready for retaliation. In other words, “We ain’t finished just yet. One dead bin Laden ain’t stopping the show. There are still enemies to defeat, democracy (as we see it) to be constructed in those areas of unrest (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria?...), and we aim to keep going until we’ve eradicated all those who stand in the way of imperialism…uh, we mean, democracy and America’s freedom.”  I'm ad-libbing, here, folks.

And this, my friends means that billions, perhaps, trillions more of our tax dollars--dollars that could best be spent on freeing our people from poverty; making sure that everyone has a right to collective bargaining; the creation of jobs with decent, living wages (currently, a person working a minimum wage job in the state of California will need to work about 130 hours per week to pay rent--that ain't a living wage, that's a dying wage); education; affordable healthcare for juniors and seniors; making sure that our women and children are safe from physical, psychological and emotional violence, as well as local, state and federally imposed violence--would continue to feed the coffers of the private and public industries and individuals whose greed has surpassed any notion of freedom and justice. . . . I’m really worried. Aren’t you?

I don’t see cause for celebration; I see cause for concern.