Sad and Sickened

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NOTE:  We talk of health care reform and the economy and birthers  and fat cat media types.  We quote numbers and stats and poll percentages to help bolster our arguments.  We call them wingnuts and loonies and show videos of crazy people.  We write of hypocrisy and hate and fear and somewhere in that eclectic mix of words and emotion, we sometimes lose sight of what it’s all about.

I received an email yesterday from a regular reader of this site and I’d like to share it with you.  It just sort of puts it all back into perspective.  Namely, that there exists real people with real lives and stories behind those numbers and statistics we love to bandy about.

-mario

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Hey Mario.

I check out your stories quite often, and realize that you cover the “big” issues involving prominent players, but I wanted to share this story with you; it exemplifies just how pervasive this whole conservative (dare I say) propaganda has become.

For the background…I live in a very small town in Indiana, and as you may well know, the unemployment rate is pretty high here. I personally have been out of work since December ’08, and prospects still don’t look good. Today our Congressman, Buyer (R), held a job fair at a local high school, touting “2500 jobs offered by 68 employers”. Now, I did not visit every table, but of the few I did visit, only 1 took an application. Others stated they did not have any current openings, but were there directing people to their websites where open positions would be posted as the need arose. Quite a few others were “direct sales” jobs (and I use the term “jobs” loosely)…selling Avon, or Tupperware…Seriously??

But that is not the point. Now comes the sad and sickening part. I checked the internet for any coverage on the Indianapolis news, as I had seen their cameras there, and there is a 2 minute video on their website that was shot at this “job fair”. The first minute of the video was indeed about the “job” part, and then came this:

[Reporter]  “The biggest common denominator is the need for jobs, but besides that is the need for health care”.

The entire 2nd minute was devoted to Congressman Pence (R) who had this to say…

“The American people want to see healthcare reform in Congress, but I don’t believe they want a government take-over. I think most Americans understand that if Washington, D.C. creates a new government run insurance plan that millions of Hoosiers will lose the health insurance that they currently have. Something needs to be done with health care, but it needs to be the right thing.”

Reporter:  “Pence says he’s not looking for another job in Washington other than the one he already has.”

Pence:  “I have no plans to run for President, my focus is on serving the people here in Eastern Indiana, but also doing everything I can around the country to elect as many conservatives as possible.”

So this guy takes his turn in front of the camera to slam the Dems proposed health care at a JOB FAIR, while milling about behind him are hundreds of unemployed people hoping to get a break (which doesn’t seem too likely, unless they can live on barely above minimum wage).

I realize I live in a mostly conservative state, but this struck me as so incredibly WRONG (maybe overly sensitive as I was one of those unemployed milling about there today and I’m not a republican).   I’m sure many others who were there would want to see the coverage too, and on top of not having a job, here is this fear-mongering republican taking advantage of their uncertain states of mind to promote his agenda to people who ALREADY have enough to worry about. Had I known this man was there and what platform he was using the event for…well, no telling what I may have said to him…but it probably wouldn’t have helped my chances with any prospective employers.

There, I feel a little better now…

-Sad and Sickened

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