Article: The Political Long Game

I Can't Participate in a LONG game. My protests and my passion come from the depth of my existence, my experience.

PDA, and DFA, and Move On offer us a long political game plan while they continue to ask for donations. Even World Can't Wait, with the massive attempt on October 5th are building a long plan. But I don't have time for it.

My protest, my battle, my fight is personal and I don't have years and years left to fight it. Oh, I'm not exactly terminal, but it's getting close.

I'm an insulin dependent diabetic. And two years with no health insurance and uncontrolled diabetes left me with Stage 2 renal failure. So much for stem cell research too.

I Can't Paticipate in a LONG game: I have to inject myself 3 to 5 times a day. There is just not enough money to afford the newest treatments and medications. I'll have to put whatever financial and spiritual resources left after November 7th into trying to keep my toes and feet. I can't participate in a long game when the short game is killing me.

I Can't Participate in a LONG game. I have 24 year old twin sons. Each ripe for the military picking. When "compulsary service" (draft is such a trigger word) is enacted, the government is going to come for my boys. I won't be able to stop them, and the majority of American's just don't care enough to bother with it all. By the time the long game plays out, it will be just too damn late.

I Can't Participate in a LONG game. I don't have enough cash resources to support it or wait it out. What little savings we had are gone to gas and groceries and political activism.

I don't expect we'll ever be able to own property again. The interest rates for those of us who have filed bankrupty are in the double digits. And the taxes, and insurance rates in Florida make the hurdles too high for us old folk to jump.

I live in a hurricane state, and don't have the resources to move elsewhere. Katrina could have been me. The next hurricane will tell the tale.

And the long political plan, starting with school boards, and city council seats... Just how long do you expect you'll even get to play?

If I do win a lottery, who will protect me from the powerful predators who strive mightly, and successfully to take it from me? But what do stupid people like me know about how to keep it safe? Where do we get a fair shake, an honest answer? We needed a government to help, but we haven't got one that works for us. But encourages our financial rape.

Remember the old joke, I'm not sure who said it, There's a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's a train. Well, it's steaming into the station, right now, and I'm caught up on the tracks.

I don't have time for the long game. I'm approaching Social Security, and the powerbrokers renewed efforts to gut it all will leave me behind. Before the long game has played out.

I Can't Participate in a LONG game plan, my personal plan ends when the polls close on November 7th. After that all my time and energry MUST be spent on trying to keep on living, buying gas for the car, and groceries for the cuppboard.

My three grandchilden will just have to figure the long game plan out for themselves. I'll be busy just getting by.

Oh poor pitiful me. I'll manage, I know 10,000 ways to make chicken legs.

Faith.