Out There
By SEAN HANNON

12/20/04

As the howl of bitterly cold winter winds buffeted the house, I pulled the quilt higher around my neck and shoulders, and said a prayer of thanks at how extremely lucky I am that I am not out there.

I cannot imagine anyone having to endure such a fierce and bitter night, out there unprotected and exposed. And yet, I don’t need to imagine...

One in six soldiers, most in their late teens and early twenties, will return from Iraq devastated by their experience and be in need of assistance to help them regain their peace and sanity. But our President continues to cut and slash billions of dollars in funding to help them.  Read any forum on veteran’s affairs and you will be appalled.  President Bush has ensured that these brave young Americans will return home abandoned and left to the merciless conditions of “out there”.

I read more and more in mainstream papers that the middleclass in America is rapidly disappearing and joining the ranks of the homeless, thanks to the outsourcing of substantial jobs and the unfettered growth of Wal-Mart wages and work conditions,  compounded with assaults on the pocketbook by unscrupulous energy, pharmaceutical, and insurance industries. In short, our President’s policies in full flower. Our countrymen are being fleeced, and a two-tiered society is emerging before our eyes. President Bush will have an inaugural fit for a King, thanks to his $100,000 to $250,000 ticket prices, and he will tell us how well we’re all doing. But in fact, more Americans than ever are being left to endure the cold reality of “out there”.

As I said, I am lucky. I’m a homeowner, my wife and I work, and like many fortunate people in Southern Fairfield, we are “financially comfortable”. I also recognize a degree of hypocrisy in my protestations, as I do not personally suffer those things that I speak of.  But this may not be for long. The cumulative effect of our devolving march towards a banana republic, coupled with the irresponsible handling of our gargantuan national debt, means that President Bush, who’s a plain man who just wants to put a few of your own dollars back in your pocket, has ensured that we all stand on a crumbling precipice that overlooks “out there”.