Natasha's unsent letter to the editor
The following started as a simple 'letter to the editor' that I wanted to write for a local paper and turned into a little essay. I never send my letter anywhere because my creation became way too long and I had little hope of getting it published. Instead I decided to place it on my website in hope to make people understand that people like me (who went to Washington DC on 9/12) had legitamate reasons for expressing our concerns for our country. If you're like me than you believe that all Americans deserve to have their voices heard. So here is mine:
My unsent letter to the American Media
"I’m a young woman, an artist, a United States citizen, and an immigrant from Ukraine. I have bright red hair, I’m pierced and tattooed. I believe in God, but don’t attend services. I’m a registered Independent. I’m educated. I speak a number of languages. I read books on philosophy and enjoy classic literature. I don’t mind movies with subtitles. I’m seemingly impractical. I left a stable job to follow my dreams. To others I appear to lead a bohemian lifestyle. I recycle. I have six pets and can’t stand people who abuse animals. To sum up – I’m a right-wing redneck geriatric racist kook, according to most of the American media that is, because on September 12, 2009 I drove to Washington D.C. to express my displeasure with the direction in which the Obama administration is taking my adopted country.
I was not summoned up to drive over 300 miles by some mysterious leaders of the mysterious right wing conspiracy. I didn’t go because some radio talk show host told me to. In fact I didn’t receive a single email with any information on the event. I know it’s hard to believe that a person might disagree with the Obama administration if nobody tells her/him to do so. However, I’ve always relied on my own reasoning when forming opinions about political matters and I’ve always followed Kant’s advice to ‘have courage to use my own understanding’. I went to Washington precisely because I’m capable of forming my own opinions and because I trust my own judgment.
I base my views on my own life experiences, on history and on common sense; and it is my own opinion that America is on a path that can turn this country into something that I, having lived in the Soviet Union, am very familiar with.
I’m not going to say anything as boring as America is heading towards Socialism. Not too many people are afraid of Socialism nowadays. Hey, a big part of Western Europe is practically Socialistic. The ironic thing is that it is the same part of Europe that stood in opposition to Socialism just twenty-five years ago, while the ex-Socialistic countries (the ones that actually experienced Socialism in its full glory) are now going in the opposite direction toward Capitalism. It’s also ironic, that after all the damages that it inflicted on humanity, Socialism managed to escape with its name almost intact. I don’t mean Nazism, since most people are aware where Germany’s National Socialism led.
I mean the brand of Socialism that flourished on the ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin. At first glance they were all good ideas based on equal opportunities for all and on a government of the people that takes care of all the basic needs of its citizens. Unfortunately, these grand and noble ideas had a little hiccup along the way called human nature. It turned out that brotherly love stops being all that brotherly and becomes anything but love when the government is trying to make all things equal. In fact it brings the worst in seemingly normal people. But that’s nothing new. Just think about the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.
However, I don’t want to talk about the French Revolution or Socialism; I want to talk about human nature. I do believe that overall human nature remains and will remain the same throughout our history and I believe that the expression ‘history repeats itself’ is true. I’m not alone. Among many others who placed great importance on knowing history, Cicero believed that ‘History provides guidance in daily life’, Edmund Burke that ‘Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it’ and Machiavelli thought that ‘Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past’.
In my relatively short life I managed to witness and to learn quite a lot about history. I grew up in then Soviet Ukraine and my life experiences taught me that there is yet another expression that rings true, which is “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. I’m sure the Bolsheviks couldn’t foresee the end result of their seemingly good intentions when they decided that everyone in the country has a right to free education, free healthcare and a guaranteed job. I’m sure it all sounded just and wonderful in their idealistic heads. Well, in case you don’t know or have forgotten, let me tell you how it turned out.
To begin with the state started to suppress all dissent. If a few go against the party line that serves to help many, the few need to be silenced for the greater good, right? It started innocently, with newspapers glorifying the efforts of the Communist leaders to build a better country for all people. It ended with anywhere from seven to ten million of my countrymen dying from men-made Famine ordered by Stalin to crush the independent spirit of the Ukrainian peasants. Of course, thanks to truthful and objective media people like the former New York Times correspondent in Moscow, Walter Duranty the American public didn’t hear about the genocide perpetrated on my people. Maybe that’s partially the reason why the Soviet brand of Socialism has never gotten a rap as bad as Nazism. But I digress.
Let’s start with free education. For those of us who had to take out college loans and then had to pay them back -- free education sounds like a great idea. First of all I would ask you to look back on your own college years. Perhaps if you were given a chance now to do it all over you would party a bit less, study much harder or even choose your future profession a bit more carefully. I would. After all, I voluntarily chose to become an artist… Now imagine how you would’ve behaved at eighteen if your education were actually free. Imagine? That’s pretty much how most Soviet college students behaved. There was a lot of cheating, since knowing anything was not really needed when you are guaranteed a job after college. Of course, the so-called studying was regularly interrupted by voluntary, but in reality mandatory, days of service, during which students tried to do as little as possible since public service is not something that people put their efforts into when its not voluntary.
However, the really interesting aspect of the Soviet free education was the fact that it wasn’t really free in most cases. There was widespread bribery in order to insure the students’ admittance to the learning institution of their choice. It was a common practice among the college professors on the admission committees to take bribes and who can blame them? In a country with a common belief that the blue-collar workers and the peasants are the backbone and the rightful owners of the country it was only fair for the college professors to have measly salaries. Unfortunately, their human nature with its annoying desire to lead a good life and an egotistical conviction that because of their years of studying and hard work they deserved something better made them believe that it’s OK to take bribes. This practice resulted in many talented people, who couldn’t afford to give bribes, not getting into the schools that they wanted to and wasting their lives in professions unsuitable for their talents.
At least everybody had a job, right? Wrong! Guaranteed jobs meant that there was no spirit of innovation in the country. There was no reason to excel at what you do. Everybody had more or less the same salaries. The only jobs people cared about where the ones they did on the side, since they brought in extra money. As always, the self-interest was a better motivator than the empty speeches of the Party leaders preaching how noble it is to work hard for the common good of the country. One might think that in a country where everyone was more or less equal there wouldn’t be any greed or jealousy. Aux contraire, the former was in full swing with people embezzling and taking bribes left and right, while the latter led to the former.
But let us move on to the question of the day – universal healthcare. Yes, all of us had access to doctors any time we wanted to, but seeing a good doctor was something else entirely. In a country with a shortage of good doctors, if you were not a part of the elite, you had to know people who were. If you were lucky enough to be placed under care of such a doctor you still had to ‘thank’ him or her with money, or at least an expensive bottle of liquor. If you were in a hospital and wanted to ensure good care, you in turn had to ‘take care’ of your nurses. Apparently, the Hippocratic oath gets stronger when medical professionals are rewarded for their services. What a shocker! Getting medication you needed was just as complicated. With prices on medication being regulated by the government (so everybody could afford them) the government-run pharmaceutical companies cared little about the profits, innovation and an adequate supply of drugs for the country, which meant that you had to know somebody who works at the pharmacy to purchase the drugs you required. The pharmacists’ families and friends were the first ones to get the medicine. The rest were out of luck. The whole healthcare system became a giant quit pro quo system and you better had something to offer in return.
Of course none of the things I described above were really free. Soviet population was taxed to death, which meant that they were equal in their misery, apart from the politicians of course. Our politicians had access to their own doctors and hospitals and a significantly better care system than the rest of us. Much like the American politicians would if they pass the current Congressional Healthcare bill. By now you’re probably thinking that this can’t happen in America. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein ‘people are people are people’ and just because Americans commonly refer to themselves as “We, the People” doesn’t mean that they are not the same species and can’t make the same mistakes as the rest of the Homo sapiens. Granted, Americans are slightly different from the rest of the nations, because for over two hundred years they enjoyed freedoms largely unknown in the rest of the world. Nonetheless, we are all humans and people in any country and any century will react similarly when placed under similar conditions.
There will be those who believe that government can guide and help people better than they can themselves, which will eventually decrease their motivation and dull their sense of direction in life. Then, there will also be those, who have trust in humanity, who believe that people are intelligent and kind and capable of taking care of themselves and those around them better than any bureaucrat ever could, because they actually care what happens to them and their families, as opposed to some bureaucrat with a cushy government job who has no personal interest in other people’s lives. I lived in a country run by such bureaucrats and I shutter to think that I might again. Furthermore, I realize that it is a real possibility. When it comes to government organizations, Americans just as any other people eventually turn into soulless automatons, as anybody who’s ever been to the department of Motor-Vehicles can attest to.
I’m usually not the one to demonstrate or speak up against my government publicly. After having participated too many times in the First of May and October Revolution Demonstrations as a child I developed an aversion to large gatherings of the masses. Yet, I decided to go to Washington, because I felt that it’s important enough for me to sweep my feelings aside. I also decided to share my feelings with the world, because I want people to know that those of us who went to Washington are regular people who have legitimate concerns about the direction the United States of America is heading to. Truly fair and just people shouldn’t dismiss us because our opinion might be different from theirs.
As Hillary Clinton said: “we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration”. We usually keep our mouths shut, unlike most Obama supporters who display their loyalty and trust in our Leader as a badge of honor. However, we have a right to be given a voice in the media without being ridiculed and called racist and bigoted. There are a lot of us and we’re people just like you and the only reason why you don’t hear more from us is because as most normal people we are afraid of being verbally attacked and called unjustified epithets.
I was afraid too. I debated with myself whether I should make my sentiment public and to disclose my real name. After all, during my childhood I grew accustomed to people whispering their anti-government sentiments in dim-lit kitchens where nobody could overhear them. Then, I told myself that I no longer live in the Soviet Union and I shouldn’t be afraid to express my opinion in a country where every individual has a right to freedom of speech. My name is Natasha Sazonova and I’m no longer afraid."
