Two events in the news this week struck many – including me – as both depressing and unsurprising. One was the sickening mass killing in California by a depraved disciple of the so-called “men’s rights movement”, something that seems most vibrantly to inhabit the netherworlds of the net. The other is the ever-ballooning VA debacle, fueled by almost daily revelations about other service members and veterans being denied care to the point of death.
No need to explain the depressing element of either of these – the facts are plain and, well, devastating. I will dwell a bit on the unsurprising aspect of the events because it angers me, and as the late Maya Angelou instructed us, anger can be a positive force, so long as it doesn’t lead to bitterness. She has a point there. Would that someone had impressed this upon the young shooter in Isla Vista some years back.
The shooting cannot surprise us, any more than extreme weather can in the wake of Sandy and Katrina. We go through this process every few weeks. We see the head shaking, the somber tones of voice, the promises to do more … and then we’re back at the beginning again. In America, each day is a new beginning; yesterday is forgotten with the next sunrise. Some see this as our promise as a nation, but it’s more of a curse. We keep tripping over the same fold in the carpet, again and again. Somehow, we are helpless.
The same can be said of the VA scandal. This dysfunction is something that pops up over and over again in our history, particularly as wars wind down and soldiers return home in pieces, both physically and mentally. We did not prepare for exponential growth in the population the VA serves, even though we knew it was coming. This was a slow-motion train wreck, and it proves that for all of our magnetic yellow ribbons, all of our bleats of “thank you for your service”, we are still just as dismissive of our veterans as we have been in previous conflicts.
The impetus to address these problems must come from ourselves. These are our failings: we need to address them.
luv u,
jp
