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Two days ago, I woke up to the sound of cops outside my apartment. The door to the apartment across the hall was open, and my neighbor was sitting on the couch staring glassy eyed ahead while surrounded by police officers. I knew the couple in that apartment, a bit, chatting occasionally as you do with neighbors who share elevators. I'm on the eighth floor, and so I took the elevator down to go on my morning run. As I left the building, I saw the driveway cordoned off by bright yellow tape, and a body covered in a white sheet on the pavement in that area. It was clearly his girlfriend who had fallen off the railing. Now I don't know if it was an accident or a suicide, but it was jarring to see the body and to see my neighbors man's glassy eyed stare eight floors up as he pondered the death of someone so close to him. The firefighters, cops, and the building management cleaned the area with chemicals and then hosed it down, and I talked to one of the firefighters who told me that something like this happens once a year or so.
Now, there are many reasons that this was upsetting and tragic, but the most common response I got was 'Oh my God, are you ok'. And of course I'm ok. I'm a relatively well-adjusted man, and authorities came in and knew how to handle the situation. But the site was jarring and screwed me up a little bit, and if I encountered something like this all the time, I probably wouldn't be ok after awhile. And I keep going back to what it must be like to be a 7 year old Iraqi who sees this kind of thing every day, with no authorities around to help, or a soldier who sees this every day, and who basically is the authority supposed to handle it. That's what is happening, but it's out of our view to spare the political system from the force of our collective empathy.
After all, the shock I hear from friends and acquaintances when I tell them about this story is remarkable. It's not remarkable that they are sympathetic and shocked, that's just humanity speaking. What's remarkable is that they are sympathetic and shocked because a random tragedy happened so close to someone they know. But these kinds of events happen every single day in Iraq. Every single day.
As we work in politics, recognize that the policies and political leaders we elect do things that have huge impacts on the world around us. Whether it's a Cuban girl who can't get a lemon when she has a sore throat or violence halfway around the world, politics matters. It's not a game. It's not about liberals versus moderates versus conservatives. It's about the lives of the people around us, near us, and connected to us.
Now don't get me wrong, I love politics. I love the give and take, the negotiations, the arguments, the elections, the stories, even the sleaze. But that's not why it matters, it's just my fortune in being passionate about something I think happens to matter. When I give time and effort, it's because I feel a small measure of responsibility for the deaths in Iraq that I have helped cause as a citizen of this country, which chose to go to war in 2002, a war I supported for reasons that seem unfathomably immoral to me now. I will not make up for my earlier stupidity and craven ideas, but I can be a citizen again.
So every time I give to a candidate or a campaign, I consider it a privilege and an honor. I try to earmark it for candidates who by their election or service I think have a good chance of shifting our policies, because these policies matter deeply. But you never really know if it's going to work. Still, while it's jarring to see a body on the ground, and tragic for my neighbor across the hall and the overall community, we should not speak in hushed tones about these tragedies. I cannot pretend that because the body was in front of me it was more meaningful than the senseless deaths happening around the world. And it's equally cynical to take the approach that all we are doing is preventing tragedy, since there is so much joy and wonder that each of us within our communities create when we take responsibility for each other.
We are all connected by a fundamental sense of humanity. We can hide this through walls and media manipulation, but it will not stay hidden forever. And while Markos thinks that nagging is the right term to use when discussing fundraising for the end of the quarter, and maybe it is, I think there's something more meaningful about putting yourself on the line, even just a little bit, to make a political change in the world. That's how most politicians I know think about the problem as well. Every single day, Congressmen and women hear of funerals in their district of soldiers, every day they make decisions having to do with life and death in thousands of ways. And every day, many of them try to help as many people as possible, even as their day is sliced into ten minute segments, votes, and meetings with lobbyists, constituents, and advocates. So when you give $10 or $25 or $50 through Blue Majority or any other manner, recognize that what you are doing is taking a chance that change is possible.
I think that's a very big deal.
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