A converted former right-wing Republican contributed this story:
Luci and Her VisitorLuci was sick at heart.
On the way
home at 10 PM, from her second job as a cleaner, the stars finally aligned and
three pieces fell into place; she saw an open drugstore, she had twenty extra
dollar in her purse, and she remembered she hadn't had her period since -- well,
she couldn't really remember. It had been at least four months. She stopped at
the store, and bought a pregnancy test.
She'd missed periods before,
which her girlfriend Katya had put down to overwork, bad diet, and the strain of
trying to raise a child with almost no money. Luci and baby Liza lived in a
fleabag motel which served two types of patrons -- those who rented by the hour
(Luci could hear their rutting through the thin walls), and those whose only
alternative was the street. A tenement-style apartment would be cheaper, but
Luci found it impossible to save up a security deposit. Liza, a terrible two,
was cared for by the kindly old lady in the next unit, who cleaned the motel
toilets in lieu of rent. Luci had no idea what she'd do if the old lady died or
moved away.
Luci had been home for ten minutes, and had gone straight
to the bathroom with the test. She knew she had to go next door and collect her
child, but first she had to compose herself and find some strength. The test
had been positive.
Luci knelt by her bed, her face on the threadbare
blanket, and sobbed. "Dear God, why?" she said. "I'm not a bad girl. It's
just that I get so lonely, and when some man looks at me cross-eyed, I get
pregnant. Billy told me I looked pretty, gave me one beer after work, made love
to me in the bed of his truck, and then he never called, and now I have his baby
in me. It's not fair. Help me, God. Help me."
There was a sighing as
of wind, and a dim red glow appeared in the corner of the room. A voice said,
"I vill hear your petition." The voice had an Eastern European
accent.
Luci didn't stop to question the reality of the apparition. She
poured out her heart -- the poverty, the dead end jobs, the pain of trying to do
right by Liza, and now the unexpected pregnancy -- a pregnancy in a state where
an abortion in the first trimester was hard to get, even if you had money, and a
pregnancy in the fourth or later month was unobtainable.
"So vy did you
fall pregnant?"
Luci confessed her lapse in judgment, precipitated by
loneliness and some unaccustomed alcohol.
"This is vat you need to do.
Fly to San Francisco. Check into the Four Season hotel. Speak with the
concierge. She can set everyting up."
Luci was dumbfounded. "What would
that cost?"
"If you are careful, not more than ten tousand."
"Ten
thousand?" Luci screamed. "I don't have ten!"
"Den svallow your shame,
and see your GP. He can refer you to an OB-GYN who takes your employer's medical
plan."
"I don't have a GP. And my employer doesn't give me medical. I
have two part-time jobs, and neither have benefits."
"Vy do you have such
miserable jobs?"
"Because I can't find anything better. Say, what sort
of angel are you, anyway?"
"And vy can't you find anything
better?"
"Probably because I'm a high school dropout. As you ought to
know, angel or lady or whatever you are, I can barely read. I can't even add
without a calculator."
"And vy is dat? Are you lazy, or stupid, or
boat?"
"Well, I wasn't lazy. I tried hard. But my teachers were all
shit; fifty kids to a class, and we all got A's and B's. One teacher actually
said, 'I'm not going to let a bunch of stupid kids destroy my career. You will
all pass. Let somebody else tell the principal that you're
unteachable."
"Ant vere you unteachable? Vat is dat, if not
stupid?"
"I don't know. All I know is, my Mom couldn't help me. She was
a dropout, too. I had no place to study at home. My teachers went home at
four. The school library closed at four."
"So vy didn't your mother put
you into a better school?"
"We were POOR! Don't you get it?
POOR!"
"Many poor people overcome many obstacles and achieve great
success. Vy veren't you vun of dem? I vas."
"Many poor people? How many
is many? Out of how many millions of poor people? Are most of them
...fools?"
"Ach, dere it is. As Herbert Spencer said, 'The only
consequence of saving fools from their folly is to fill the world with fools.'
The world is full of fools because misguided people helped fools like you.
Vell, I'm not going to make the same mistake."
"Go to hell!" Luci
screamed. "Who, or what, are you, anyway?"
"Vat you should say is, 'Go
BACK to hell.' I am da ghost of da great philosopher Ayn Rand. In recognition
of my great visdom, Lord Satan has appointed me ambassador to the human race in
general, und to da Republican Party in particular."
"Great wisdom, my
ass. Just go to hell. Or back to hell. Whatever."
"Of course, Lord
Satan did not SAY it vas because of my great visdom. He is such a tease. Vat
is said vas, 'I'm kicking you out of hell because I can't stand the sight of
you. You'll never be a demon, you're already too big a bitch.' Funny, is it
not?"
"Yeah. Hilarious." At the red glow faded, Luci's eyes fell on the
room's single closet, a dusty alcove with no door. Between her threadbare
clothes, there hung a wire coat hanger.
"I will say it again: If Obama Care is so great, terrific for you and me, then why isn't it the same for Obama and the Democrats? Get the cobwebs out of your head and think about that one for a while."
The statements by Jean were posted immediately after the vote in Washington, D.C. to reopen government. They carry important warnings for everyone who has hope of restoring sanity in Congress and in state governments: The extremists will never be influenced by facts. Or, as was stated long ago, "You cannot reason prejudice out of a person; it wasn't reason that put it there."
Defying all reason, Jean thinks that people who receive any form of government assistance do so because they are lazy and irresponsible, and to her this is just another way of defining slavery. Remember Mitt Romney's statement that he could not make "the 47 percent take responsibility for themselves?"
And I wonder, has anyone ever explained to the Jeans of our nation that the Affordable Care Act, in the form of state exchanges, simply provides access to insurance for those who do not already have coverage? She thinks that government employees, whose health insurance with private companies is jointly funded by the employer and the employees, should be forced to drop that coverage and use the exchanges to seek individual policies. But she does not want to apply that rule to her own employer-assisted policy.
In short, she does not think. She merely reacts to what she hears.
You and I have two responsibilities toward the "Jeans" among us. The first responsibility is to make it publicly known that we disagree with them. If we let politeness prevent us from speaking out, Jean's neighbors will assume that she is right because they hear nothing else. The "herd instinct" will influence their opinions and their votes. That's why the red states--which are largely the Deep South--are so deeply red.
Our second responsibility is to tell the inactive and the uninformed among us, especially the "47 percent," the truth about the harm they are suffering at the hands of the extreme conservatives. We must get them to register and vote. If we fail to do this, the extremists will win next year's elections.