So, A judge issues an injunction banning the publishing of the anti-union law that Scott Walker and his cronies the Fitzgeralds sneaked through the Wisconsin Senate under cover of night and no notice. You'd think that injunction was pretty clear, right?
Not to Walker, et. al. The Fitzgerald boys went ahead and had it published, which they now claim means it is the law, and they intend to enforce it. Id like to ask, now, are they insane? but obviously they are not legally insane. They're just power-mad, and willing to subvert any law to obtain absolute power. Those recalls can't happen soon enough!
Here at home in California, we're experiencing the cognitive dissonance of having our state assemblymen/women tell us we shouldn't be allowed to vote on taxes or any other important issues. They should be the ones to do that. Right, like those idiots who've managed to tie California's budget into a straightjacket should obviously be the ones to vote, not the citizens who end up paying for it all. Our state government is totally dysfunctional, not completely due to their own fault. California has this truly terrible law that lets anyone at all propose constitutional amendments and get them on the ballot. Or any other sort of law. We get all the crazies coming into CA just to try out their newest oddball, fiscally irresponsible, or discriminatory law.
That may sound contadictory, but it truly isn't. I don't believe that political or social groups should have the right to alter a state constitution on a whim and and huge, partisan funding. Especially now that the Supreme Court has decided that corporations are people just like you and me. (That so needs to be revisited when the Justices are in their right minds!)
Our system means that, for example, an anti-tax group could write a law that says our assembly can't pass any taxes without 2/3 of them voting for it. That effectively means no taxes will ever get passed, since in the highly partisan atmosphere of state and federal politics, it's virually impossible to get a simple majority unless your government is a single party one. And we're seeing how well that works out, around the country right now.
California needs to dump the hamstringed state constitution and write a new one. The one we have has been altered beyond recognition. And our state senators and assemblymembers need to realize that, right now, with the huge financial problems besetting this state, it's time to let the people decide on how to get out from under. Forget asking us to trust you all to make the right decision. If you all could do that, we wouldn't be in this mess, now.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
American Life Under Siege
This blog will be about what I see happening in America these days ~ 2011 and beyond. Frankly, I'm appalled by what the Republican Party, in hand with the far-right Tea Party activists, are doing to our country. The way things are going, Emma Lazarus's poem on the Statue of Liberty should be altered to "Don't give us your poor, your tired, your hungry. We're busy creating our own."
Republican governors around the country seem to be working from the same script, going after unions, teachers, even sharing power. Scott Walker wants to be king, apparently. Michigan's governor just gave himself the right to take over any village, town, or city, appoint an "emergency fiscal director", who can fire the elected representatives, close the schools, the government, the town, and sell off all the assets ~ without any oversight from anyone.
The Tea Party and the Republican Party campaign on getting rid of "big government", getting the fed out of our lives. I guess they really mean 'out of the lives of corporations and millionaires', though. I mean, how much more intrusive can you get than telling Americans who they can love and marry, or women what to do with their own bodies. Talk about big government!
This is the group that insists on giving tax breaks to the rich while asking poor pregnant woment to give up prenatal medical care and food for their babies. This is the group that is killing all regulations on any business in America ~ well, any business that contributes to their campaign coffers.
They're killing off NPR because, after all, they've already got Fox News, and who needs a show that airs a different opinion?
Based on their budget proposals, apparently the Republicans in Congress are for unrestrained political power, unrestrained corporate abuses, poverty, disenfrachisement, and war. And they are against democracy, the middle class, working poor, and the unemployed (they're busy creating thousand more of those). They're against the rule of law, they seem to laugh at the Constitution ~ read it in Congress, but violate it at every opportunity.
And what are the Democrats doing? Lead by Obama, sadly, they're still trying to "get along" with these flaming reactionaries. Wake up, Obama! The deficit isn't our biggest worry. Losing America to right wing demogogues is. Losing the middle class, losing the right to have a say in our government is. Having the right to make a decent living wage is.
If the Republican agenda was really about reducing the deficit, they wouldn't be giving out tax breaks to the rich, subsidies to the oil industry (billionaires need money??), funding war machines that even the Pentagon says they don't want. Instead, they do their best to increase the deficit, just so they can go after the middle class. Share the pain? Hah. Not on their watch.
Scott Walker put in place a huge tax break for the rich in Wisconsin, right before he went after the teachers, nurses, and librarians to make them pay for the deficit. And even after the teachers had agreed to his demands for cutting their salaries, he didn't flinch. He and his Republican henchmen still passed a law gutting their unions, their rights. It is never about the money. It is always about the power.
We have to stop the right wing take over of America. We have to stand up, now, and say "Enough! That's not the American Way!"
Republican governors around the country seem to be working from the same script, going after unions, teachers, even sharing power. Scott Walker wants to be king, apparently. Michigan's governor just gave himself the right to take over any village, town, or city, appoint an "emergency fiscal director", who can fire the elected representatives, close the schools, the government, the town, and sell off all the assets ~ without any oversight from anyone.
The Tea Party and the Republican Party campaign on getting rid of "big government", getting the fed out of our lives. I guess they really mean 'out of the lives of corporations and millionaires', though. I mean, how much more intrusive can you get than telling Americans who they can love and marry, or women what to do with their own bodies. Talk about big government!
This is the group that insists on giving tax breaks to the rich while asking poor pregnant woment to give up prenatal medical care and food for their babies. This is the group that is killing all regulations on any business in America ~ well, any business that contributes to their campaign coffers.
They're killing off NPR because, after all, they've already got Fox News, and who needs a show that airs a different opinion?
Based on their budget proposals, apparently the Republicans in Congress are for unrestrained political power, unrestrained corporate abuses, poverty, disenfrachisement, and war. And they are against democracy, the middle class, working poor, and the unemployed (they're busy creating thousand more of those). They're against the rule of law, they seem to laugh at the Constitution ~ read it in Congress, but violate it at every opportunity.
And what are the Democrats doing? Lead by Obama, sadly, they're still trying to "get along" with these flaming reactionaries. Wake up, Obama! The deficit isn't our biggest worry. Losing America to right wing demogogues is. Losing the middle class, losing the right to have a say in our government is. Having the right to make a decent living wage is.
If the Republican agenda was really about reducing the deficit, they wouldn't be giving out tax breaks to the rich, subsidies to the oil industry (billionaires need money??), funding war machines that even the Pentagon says they don't want. Instead, they do their best to increase the deficit, just so they can go after the middle class. Share the pain? Hah. Not on their watch.
Scott Walker put in place a huge tax break for the rich in Wisconsin, right before he went after the teachers, nurses, and librarians to make them pay for the deficit. And even after the teachers had agreed to his demands for cutting their salaries, he didn't flinch. He and his Republican henchmen still passed a law gutting their unions, their rights. It is never about the money. It is always about the power.
We have to stop the right wing take over of America. We have to stand up, now, and say "Enough! That's not the American Way!"
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