The End of 2011

I've been pretty quiet, blog-wise, since last summer. I've not been quiet in terms of donating funds to candidates I believe in, or causes I believe in, however. Yay for Elizabeth Warren, who's now leading in MA. Yay for Rob Zerban, in WI. Progressive, honest people who share my concern over the way this country is going. And yay for my own 2 senators, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein. They've voted the right way pretty consistently, Boxer more so, this past year and longer.

The Supreme Court decison giving corporations civil rights has led pretty much as expected, to huge sums of money being spent to elect more right-wing fanatics.  Not to mention that circus of Republican presidential candidates. Herman Cain? Perry? Santorum? Bachman? Honestly, all they've done is make Mitt Romney look better. And this is a man who thinks the right thing to do is to gut companies to make a profit. Fire workers to turn a dime. Who can't distance himself fast enough or far enough from a medical insurance plan he put into place in MA, before he was a presidential candidate courting the right wing. And as Gail Collins (NYTimes) loves to say, the man who drove to Canada with his family dog strapped to the roof of his car. I never thought I'd live to see the Republican Party sink so low.

I've never been a Republican, true, but I've never felt so much contempt for the Party, either.  Even my father, a Goldwater fan, would be ashamed of the Republicans today. Their party platform used to make sense. I didn't like it, but it resonated with the common good then. Now, it seeks to destroy what little common good is left, to turn this once great nation into a banana republic, with gated, policed enclaves for the rich (themselves included) amidst veritable seas of poor, hopeless former citizens living in polluted slums. No Medicare, no Social Security, no unemployment insurance, no aid to children in poor families ~ who cares if those kids kill their brain cells with junk food and exposure to pollutants. They're poor, and it's their fault.

2012 is an election year. That means, of course, an onslaught of campaign ads, tons of money spewing half-truths and outright lies, more and more dramatic, lunatic moves by the Tea Partiers, those unAmerican anti-democracy thugs in Congress. They almost shut down the government trying to save tax cuts for the super-rich, and then they almost shut down the government trying to stop tax cuts for the middle class. Was there ever a clearer sign of what they really want to do in America? Let's throw those bums out, this election year. Let 2012 be the Year of the American people.