Bush has many many points to target if you wish to mock him, his intelligence, his followers and their intelligence that’s fine…ignoring elder abuse based on their voting patterns is um…frightening! –Posted by Sally to Courting Destiny at 12/14/2004 12:39:42 PM
This is a comment I just received. If I indicated anywhere that Bush is ignoring elder abuse because people didn’t vote for him I truly apologize.
I might not like Bush; I might think that he ignores or dislikes entire cities (such as mine) but I would never think that he would ignore older voters at all. Actually, based on Florida, 2000 I think he pays much attention to older voters.
Sorry couldn’t help that.
I have learned since I began blogging that people only read what they wish to read. The person who made this comment obviously didn’t read the original post, the comment that I was answering or my answer very carefully.
Bush isn’t mentioned in my original post at all. Newt Gingrich is because he was the person who drafted much of the legislation that changed federal social services that then affected state and city services.
Some of the changes might be good. I don’t have the statistics in front of me about welfare-to-work programs. But many of the changes mostly affected poor people with mental (and to some extent) physical problems. Mental health clinics were shut down. Since most hospitals don’t keep patients for very long this creates many direct and ancillary problems.
The elderly suffer the most as they either refuse to seek help because they have too much pride, or aren’t in a position to as they’re being abused by their own child. There’s only one thing that I can imagine to be equally bad–and that’s a parent abusing a child. To me these crimes are equal to murder.
Somebody saw the name of my URL, decided to make a negative comment no matter what, and while most of my posts lately have nothing to do with politics or social issues this one did. But it certainly didn’t say that Bush had anything to do with elder abuse.
It linked to a New York Times Sunday First Page Article which meant that the editors consider it to be important. If anything it was making fun of The Times. My post says that the Times discovered elder abuse. I meant that satirically.
My response to the person who asked me if I was going to hate elderly people since the majority voted for Bush was based on the knowledge that the majority of older voters live in large urban areas which are heavily Democratic. Older people tend to vote more than younger people.
Older people know the problems with Medicare first hand. Older people know what it’s like to not be able to afford needed medicines much more than younger people do. Older people know what it’s like to be treated as less than just because they’ve reached a certain age; older people know what it’s like to be told that their services and positive functions in society are no longer required.
Older people are infantilized in our society and that makes me sick. I could go on forever on this subject but that would take a book. I have nothing but respect for older people and I think my prior posts reflect that.
I did become political in my response because I was going to write a separate post about Kerik, and it just seemed to fit in that one.
I did state that I don’t judge an individual based on political beliefs. My father was a rabid Reaganite and he taught me the true meaning of the term “compassionate conservative.”
A more famous “compassionate conservative” was Andrew Heiskell who died several years ago. He was a member of the Board of People for the American Way; a true believer in The First Amendment, began and funded the Andrew Heiskell Library for the visually impaired. It’s a branch of the public library (at least in New York) and I could never thank him enough as that library helped my mother live a more full life in her last years. He was also a Republican.
I did say that I was sick of the whole blue/red thing. I do have to say that if Bush’s parents were sick, he might think very differently about stem cell research.
When I looked Sally up to answer her personally her Blogger profile was blocked. I really believe that if a person is going to make negative comments they should give their name or some way of getting in touch.
However, I’m a writer, a licensed social worker, and both professions require one to be thick skinned. I actually enjoy negative comments because they spur me on.
Thanks for all the positive ones. I live to be validated. And that’s one of my better qualities.
