common

“It doesn’t end, until those who know nothing but selfishness and self serving stop talking”, was a common response from my Grandma Braff usually in regards to someone in the family. They will speak as if they are ‘Mavens’ (experts) thinking no one is really as smart as they, and only stop when anyone is brave enough to call their bluff, my Grandma Braff would continue. “It never matters, to them, ( a bit of brittle spit emitted from her lips), the hurt they give out because the only person they care about is themselves. I have no need for anyone who pretends to care but ends up without a worry for those who they have made miserable”, Grandma Braff would whisper and end her pontification.

During this scary year of politics I seem to hear my Grandma Braff’s words resonate in a very haunting and haughty manner. Her rhetoric was usually geared toward other family members, but when a neighbor or owner of a small business crossed my Grandmother or her family she would grit her teeth and like a viper let the venom spew. My Grandma Braff would insist, that there must a common good.

Whether there is or is not a war on women by the Republican/Tea Party is still worrisome, but what is worse is that while the war may or may not be declared there are women who need contraceptives, education on family planning and basic health care. As the debate rages regarding Planned Parenthood funding or no Planned Parenthood funding there are women and those who love them who wonder what happens next. What happens to them while the Who-Haws, the Grand Puba’s play to a core of voters whose anger and bigotry is greater then common sense. What happens to the women, those never on the news, the nondescript women who don’t have the money to seek medical care or advise anywhere else but Planned Parenthood.What happens when legislatures play God and then seem Godless in considering the consequences of their self serving actions?

Whether its television, radio or the Internet there are dozens of ‘experts’ either demeaning the right or the left, promoting their own propaganda or moralizing on views as if their speech was more about a concept rather then a person or persons. The arguments abound with the Bible, the Constitution, Intuition, or Ignorance as evidence for truth. But all the while there are real women who want to plan their family, want to stay healthy, want control of their own bodies who are left in the lurch as innocents caught in the cross hairs of self appointed ‘Mavens’.

“It doesn’t end, until those who know nothing but selfishness and self serving stop talking” my Grandma Braff would begin her rant. Life for the women who seek the services of Planned Parenthood for no matter what their personal reason may be goes on beyond the primaries, the general election in November. Most are not those who may be delegates, or numbers in a poll, but many are everyday people who just want to survive, thrive and remain alive. The rhetoric of the self serving is sad. And as they talk, talk, talk, all the women in this nation want is to live, live, live, freely. As Grandma Braff would add where is the common sense and common ground?