Here are some cold, hard facts about poverty in this country. Did Katrina really change things, are we at a time in our history when we will change the way Americans look at the poor, will we do something about this fucking disgrace?

If we don't do something now when we have seen images that speak of a third world country, when we have seen bodies of the poor floating in feces filled waters, when we have seen houses marked with a big X which signifies a dead person inside, when we have heard of how so many poor people died horrendous deaths as the water rose up until they had no air left, no place to go, no life left in their bodies, if that isn't enough to make us pay attention and do something about the poor in this country then we will be a nation without a soul. We will lose our pride, our honor, our dignity and our integrity. We will be walking shells of people with nothing left but pure and simple greed in our hearts. We will have lost our humanity.

There is out there ridiculous and dangerous information on abortion that threatens who women are in this country. It is said that women who have abortions sometimes suffer depression for the rest of their lives. It is said that they carry with them, for life, what they have done to an innocent zygote or fetus.

It is also said that women make the decision to have abortions frivilously, that we believe in 'abortion on demand.' There is a dangerous notion that we decide late in our pregnancies that we just simply don't want this 'kid' so we go shopping, we have lunch, and then we stop in at our local, friendly clinic and tell them to scrape and vaccum away, we've got a party to go to.

I'm tired because I couldn't sleep last night. I kept waking up and staring at my scars which were barely visible in the light of the lamp on the nightstand next to my bed. I kept the light on because I couldn't bear to be in the dark again.

As I watched the Olympics last night I couldn't concentrate. My eyes invariably went back, time and again, to the scars.

I remember so clearly what the doctor said to me when I woke up in the hospital. He told me the scars would never go away, that when I looked at them they would remind me how close I had come to the end of my life.

He was wrong, when I look at the scars it never crosses my mind how close I had come to death. When I look at the scars I'm reminded of the end of my childhood dreams. I'm reminded of how many things ended in those days and months. I'm reminded of the terror I felt, the horror of not being in charge, the outrage felt by others shaping my future.

UPDATE: This blog was a response to a diary posted by Kid Oakland on Kos. I strongly disagreed with what KO had to say. It was basically the same old, same old, 'do whatever it takes to get Democrats elected in 2006 and 2008, we have to take back the majority before we can do anything else.' Here's a link to that diary.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/27/165439/648

This morning when I went on dailykos, KO had a new diary up on what the filibuster has to be, disciplined, principled, and about one issue and one issue only, A Filibuster For Choice. I found it extremely encouraging that my voice had been listened to and heard. In my heart of hearts, I believe what most women want is to be heard which leads to the respect we deserve and a place at the table. Here's a link to Kid Oakland's new diary. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/28/132916/459

Last week was an exhausting week for most of us. With a one week delay to give the Democratic senators time to do what they didn't do during the hearings, namely prepare for the biggest fight yet for women's rights, it gives us a chance to evaluate where we are as Democrats and how commited we are or are not to the party that seemingly has left many of us behind. It says a lot that the spat between Specter and Kennedy, that the crying jag of Martha Alito, were what made the headlines, it speaks not just to our media but also to the job the Democratic senators did or rather did not do.

When we hear on the Sunday talk shows that half of the senators didn't know what `unitary executive power' was it's like a slap in the face. When executive powers became as hot a button issue as abortion has been since Alito was nominated, I felt a rush of hope. If the Democratic and Republican senators didn't have what it takes to protect a woman's right to choose surely they would care about the place Congress has in governing this great nation of ours. Or as we saw, would they?

Virginia Woolf once wrote, 'To look life in the face for what it is. To know it for what it is. To see it for what it is. To love it for what it is. And then to put it away.'? It s often the '