Norma Sherry: What Have They Done To My Song?

I could add my voice, my own unique spin, to the multitude of voices writing about the really important issues of our day. I could write about President Bush’s latest Supreme Court nominee or the one that withdrew and her supercilious gushing missives to her adoring boss.

I could write about George W’s most current embarrassing faux pas – and of course, the growing number of indictments. Ahh, it brings back those Watergate memories. Makes me wonder if today’s youth will be as affected by this administration’s atrocities as I was by Richard Milhous Nixon’s.

I could add my voice to the haranguing condemnation of the American press and our dismay and disenchantment with those who are supposed to be asking the hard, pointed questions. It makes one ponder the obvious: where are today’s Edward R. Murrow’s? From my vantage point there are no more voices of consciousness – well, perhaps a few glimpses of what was – but just a sliver in the crack. Not since Deep Throat and Woodward and Bernstein have a reporter and an informant broken the almighty silence and actually did the right thing.

I could add my voice about the despicable corporate entities that rob workers of their long-earned pensions; who’ve sold them down the “outsourcing” river filling their coffers with ca-zillions of gold.

Or I could espouse the atrocity of this new fakery of a medical prescription drug plan for those who need it the most – our elderly and disabled citizens. A plan touted as the best minds could conceive couldn’t conceive how to have one universal plan with one payment structure, one price per medication, with one fee offering the same benefits for all subscribers. A plan that requires a PHD in government gobbily gook to filter through the maze on nonsense and nonsensical data further complicated by the on again off again coverage with changing benefits. How absurdly ridiculous is this? Who is the beneficiary of such mass confusion? Certainly not seniors, who in some cases have trouble balancing their checkbooks. Somehow, they are now expected to be wizards at calculations and tiny print nuances.

I could write about the horrors of Iraq, of the innocents we’ve killed as if we slaughtered them with vile intent, or of the tens of thousands of our own we’ve maimed and have forevermore ruined their hopes and dreams. Of course, I could write about the senseless deaths of our bravest men and women who thought they were liberating not obliterating. When I think of all the courageous young and middle-aged enlisted men and women who willingly went to Iraq on the rouse that they were defending and protecting us at home the vile in my stomach regurgitates in my throat and the taste is unbearable.

I could add my voice to the many who each mimic one another as they write or report on our nightly newscasts that the trial of Saddam Hussein is a travesty, “Hang the bastard”, “Throw him to his people to torture”; he’s a killer after all – he gassed thousands of his own they shout. True as that is – it’s peculiarly lacking in disclosing the “whole truth and nothing but the truth”. Where did Saddam get his weapons of mass destruction? Who sold him this poison gas and chemical warfare? Who held him in esteem for many a year until he dared to cross them? Could it be? Heaven forbid, could it be the greatest weapon maker and exporter in the world? Could it be that we, the high and mighty U.S. of A. made his atrocities possible – even turned a blind eye knowing full well the extent of his madness?

I could add my voice to the few that dare; to the few who can only find themselves published on obscure web-pages, but never in the mainstream press. I could write about our collective gluttony, the despair of so many at home, about the obscene horrors of Katrina and Rita and Wilma, about the starving children everywhere, about defenseless little ones abused by those who profess to love them, or about spouses who beat one another, about the sad state of our education in America and how we’ve fallen from the best of the best to little less than downright mediocre.

I could write about homelessness and the high cost of non-existent medical care. I could write about our growing elderly and the urgent need to find compassionate care for the multitude of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients.

I could write about the horrific conditions of our nursing homes and mental institutions, about pharmacists who refuse to fill a prescription because it’s contrary to their religious beliefs. I could write about our loss of liberty and the dismantling of our Bill of Rights and our Constitution, or how the new bankruptcy laws are designed to stranglehold only the most needy of us, or how only the poor-shlub-of-a-working-class-fool pays taxes and how the rich, the mighty, and the obscene corporate entity finds loopholes in their loopholes.

I could write about the disappearance of civility, of getting a good bang out of a buck, or the horrifying state of our diminishing quality of fresh, drinkable water and clean air to breathe, but who would read it, or who would care? Would my voice be just another voice in a plethora of voices imploring the same thing? Would my voice just be an act of self-flagellation?

© Norma Sherry 2005

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

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