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!"