Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
The words from our beloved Statue of Liberty.
Carved: long time ago. However, in today's edition of the New York Times I come upon an excellently written
article dealing with an uninsured Guatemalan illegal worker gravely injured by a drunk driver and then illegally (gasp!) deported to his home country by the American hospital who cared for him for a while but couldn't foot the bill much longer.
You know, had I had any hair on my back, it would have stood up upon me reading this article. Hmmm, how do I put this in a nicer way? Okay, you know when you love another person very, very much and sometimes, not often, but sometimes you look at them and you get that instant feeling, you don't know exactly what it is and it lasts but a second but it's huge, definitely big and you feel it in your blood, bones, like "even my bone marrow knows how much I love this person." Well, that's what the article and the comments to the article did to me except there was no love to feel today. Anger, disappointment, it's all the same and needs no spelling out. But once that cleared, you know, there is hope, hope America will soon fix this horrendous state of healthcare affairs that deservedly brings on shame from the entire developed world. And Gene Roddenberry for that matter which really tell-tales all.
Here is a
slideshow about unfortunate Louis and his new "life" in Guatemala that he got while working hard for a new life in the United States.
Below is my comment I left on the NY Times page.
"First, for those of you leaving comments along the lines 'It is his fault, bad time, bad place, he should have stayed home', come on, really?
It gives me hope that you can all readily identify - hypothetically or from experience - with all our poor, sick Americans who themselves are left to fend for themselves because of a shameful, deeply-flawed healthcare system. That's good. It shows your empathy/humanity.
However, why you cannot identify with Louis, another poor human being, who was let down by his country's flawed politics in the same way our country has failed you when it comes to healthcare?
It's human nature to seek a better lifestyle for one's kinship. And I believe you do not complain for your abilitiy to buy houses much cheaply and pay less for your groceries because illegal hands have taken a part in building/growing it.
Your hypocrisy is sad and transparent. Take your frustrations out on the healthcare system and on the law makers, not on illegal workers. After all, who makes the policies?
Direct your frustrations to the small business owners who (1) hire illegal workers and (2) disregard workers compensation laws. But then again, the owners do such precisely to make your products/services cheaper, so I guess, you can't do that, can you?
There is a general lack of compassion for this man which strikes me and reinforces that almighty good market capitalism has completely failed us when it comes to our healthcare system, since while discussing who should pay for what we forget one basic and essential truth: Louis is a human being."
In September and December people are allowed to swim to the edge of the Victoria Falls in an area called Devil's Pool.
