Articles from prior issues of The Advocate

January/February, 1996

An Open Letter to Paul Harvey

(It was one thing to be called “non-essential,” one could live with that. It was another to wonder if one would make the mortgage for November, one would have to live with that. But the straw that broke the elephant/donkey’s back was the misguided effluvia that was spouted pout over the radiowaves. One was driven to letter writing after that.)

-An Open Letter to Paul Harvey- Paul Harvey 13 November 1995 333 North Michigan Ave. Chicago, Illinois 60601

Dear Mr. Harvey, I first began to listen to your show almost 26 years ago. I was 18 years old and it was during the Vietnam war. I was impressed how your generally conservative demeanor didn’t prevent you from criticizing the deaths caused by that venture. The fact that you seemed to keep your own counsel, and thus an open mind, appealed to me in my youth. I have listened to you on and off ever since. Today will be the last time I do so intentionally.

During your broadcast this afternoon, you cited a New York newspaper article and smugly wondered out loud if anyone would miss the 800,000 federal employees slated for furlough tomorrow. Yes, Mr. Harvey, there will be those who miss us. I am a Social Security employee who has been involved in making disability decisions for the disabled for over 15 years. Mr. Harvey, for the child born weighing as much as your microphone or whose heart has its arteries wrapped in a mismatched and deformed cluster; for the HIV patient who just contracted a pneumonia that will kill him in 24 hours; for the diabetic who suffered a massive stroke and is laying in bed with the realization she will never walk again-for those citizens, we will be missed. We are the “bureaucrats” who write for the medical records, call the doctors and beg for a brief statement that will allow us to get Medicaid or some funds flowing for the disabled. We are the ones who begin the process that allows the poor and the feeble a lifeline to the system. Sometimes all we can do os move quickly enough to get a widow enough money to bury her husband. Well, tomorrow we’ll be closed and those folks won’t be able to apply for our help or call us about their claims.

Never mind that we don’t know if we will be paid. Never mind that the overwhelming majority of us haven’t had a real raise in years but still managed to increase our productivity. Forget that somewhere along the line you and your ilk have decided that federal and state employees are not only responsible for the “budget standoff,” but are a group of nebulous bureaucrats who are just sucking the country dry. Who, Mr. Harvey, do you think sweep up the ashes in this nation? We are real people. We come home at night and tell our children to grow up and be come anything but a civil servant unless they want to be fair game for you and the other mean-natured blowhards on radio these days. You may not see the poor, the disabled and the average citizen whom we serve on your annual extended vacations to the mountains of Arkansas or atop the Highrise in Chicago where you spout your little snide remarks, but they are there, Mr. Harvey. Some of us have decided we would make our livelihood an honorable thing by helping them. That honor I claim contrary to your on the air criticisms.

Someone will have to reach into the hospitals and the alleys and take care of these folks who depend on government. Most likely it will be one of the 800,000 you would like to do without for a day or so in your cynical, smug little whimsical experiment. I don’t expect any doors will be closed in your face. I’m sure you’ll sleep well tomorrow night. The needy be damned.

Shame on you Mr. Harvey. Shame on you.

(Bob Edwards penned this letter, published in the TADE Times.)