Wednesday, October 8, 2008

John McCain

John McCain,

After watching last night's debate, I feel the need to clear up a misconception you seem to have about me.

I AM NOT YOUR FRIEND.

I am not an executive of a big oil company, a health insurance company, or a financial firm. I am not a member of the Keating Five. I am not a Republican or one of your good ol' boy cronies. I am not George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or any others in your inner circle.

I am the mother of three children who want to grow up to breathe clean air, who want to go to college and realize their dreams, who want to believe that they are citizens of the greatest country in the world, a country that recognizes the value of the individual human life over the almighty dollar.

I am the wife of a man who spends over three hours commuting every day to feed his family, who continues his education at night in the hope that it will secure his job in a corporation that is sending countless jobs overseas without reaping any consequences of their anti-American actions.

I am the daughter of a woman who has never asked for anything from this country or this world, who drove over three hours every day to go to work in extraordinary pain from a hip in desperate need of replacement, a woman who is still working full time at the age of 55 in a thankless job, a woman who has a growing, painful mass on her back but will not go to the doctor because she doesn't have health insurance and doesn't want to run up a bill she can't pay.

I am a teacher of young adults, struggling to meet unrealistic NCLB standards that left the public school systems high and dry in terms of support, both financial and otherwise, who is struggling to balance the pressures of a demanding career, the only real compensation of which is the desire to help young people succeed, with the pressures of raising a family and figuring out where the next mortgage payment will come from.

I am a woman who hopes she will never have to face the choice of abortion, who doesn't need you and your political agenda hanging over her shoulder in the doctor's office telling her what to do at the most difficult moment in her life, who doesn't need you telling her what options she does or doesn't have to plan her family because your right-wing Christian fanatic base can't wrap their minds around the fact that it's the 21st century.

I am a citizen of this country and this world who wants to believe that Americans will always stand up for the rights of those suffering around the world, who wants to believe that Americans will feed our hungry children before we feed corporate greed, who wants to believe that when we go to war, it will be only out of necessity, not for oil or pride or political gain.

John McCain, I am not your friend, and you are certainly not mine, although you referred directly to me as such twenty-two times in last night's debate. You might want to get your facts straight before you address me or anyone else by this undeserved and unearned title in the future.


1 comment:

Radical Reminders said...

Your letter is wonderful. Mine is far too snarky to send but yours i think he should actually read. maybe he will learn something. Great post!