The War on America

I am so sick of all the fear mongering the Republicans and their fans are spreading across the political landscape these days. Immigrants. Ebola. Guns. Obama -he's black, you know. What these people, with their foaming mouths, their dire predictions, their demagoguery are doing is waging war on America. Some of them openly admit that, as well. Let's have all the generals resign because they don't want to follow the directives of their legal commander in chief. Let's point guns at, and threaten to shoot legal officers of the law when they come to hold us accountable for stealing land use from them. 

Let's make laws that give people the right to shoot first and always be found innocent (unless you are black or female, of course.)  Let's equip our police with war machines and tactical gear, and encourage them to use them against US citizens, in their own neighborhoods.

Let's allow politicians to openly call for the overthrow of our government without any consequences. Let's allow Congress to openly fail to carry out their sworn duty, and then brag about it, and ask people to reward them for it in the next election.

I was reading Stonekettle Station earlier, and he rails about American freedom being misused and abused. And he's right. America has become a nation of Constitutional abusers who demand that their actions have no (bad) consequences. That freedom of speech means that they can say anything - lies, hate speech, treason, whatever - and never be held accountable for it.

That isn't the America the founders created or wanted. It isn't the America of the 1950s, or even of the 1960s. And I don't want it to become the America of the 21st Century. We won't make it to the 22nd if that's what we become.

Already the economies of the world and the various states are floundering. Major cities are dying, being sold off to Wall Street creditors while turning off the water to their citizens, and stealing the pensions of thousands of citizens who worked their entire lives to earn those pensions. Education, climate, environmental care, unemployment compensation, jobs ~ none of that is important. Only the Big Corporations matter. Governors worth millions say there's no need to raise the minimum wage, because $7.25 is enough for anyone to live on, and even better, the minimum wage serves no purpose.

We have a man (David Perdue) running for a Senate seat who is proud of his lifetime work - outsourcing American jobs - and telling us we're just too dumb to understand how great that job is, and how brilliant he is for being so good at it. We have a man (Mitch McConnell) telling us that Kynect (the state version of the ACA marketplace) can remain, but ACA has to be completely repealed, and no one seems to notice that Kynect is ACA.

Another man is telling everyone that Ebola is Obama's war on women (nurses). Another one, a doctor, telling the world that he is a scientist, and there's no scientific evidence to support global warming. (medicine is not climate science, but who cares, right?)

This will only get worse if we continue to return these cretins and vipers to Congress. We must take a stand, this election, and vote them out. Show them their utterings and actions do have consequences - real ones they won't like. Let's stop beating up the poor, the black, the gay, the women, the children, the elderly and start respecting them, encouraging them, supporting them in their struggle to be free. Really free, with all the rights - and the responsibilities - they are entitled to.  Vote this November. Vote because it matters. Vote because we need to stop this headlong rush into an America no ones wants or deserves. The first step to recovering our dignity as a nation and people is to vote for those men and women who will work for us, not for the Corporations and Wall Street. For us.

Updating

I guess I shouldn't call this "A Teacher's" Reflection any more, since I retired from teaching last March. I even thought about changing the blog name, but I decided not to do that. I'm a former teacher, and nothing much has really changed about my life except that I now have a whole lot of free time.

I'm still pretty much disgusted by the Republicans, who seem to be going out of their way to be disgusting, racist, or just downright stupid these days. (My apologies to the republicans out there who don't subscribe to the new Republican Party of Mean Crazy.)  Let's bash Obama for not deporting all those children right away. (Because he can't legally do so, thanks to Bush's law.)  Let's meet up on the grassy knoll where Kennedy was shot, and rant about our black president while carrying rifles. Let's have Republican judges decide that a typo invalidates major portions of ACA (which even the Supreme Court has said is not a valid point for a ruling, and has already, surprisingly, said ACA is constitutional).  There is so much coming out almost daily that shows just how awful the Republican Party is behaving. It's an embarrassment of riches for comedians and political bloggers.

And not to short the Democrats, there's the news just out that Andrew Cuomo of NY has a decidedly odd view of "independent", as in an independent commission to investigate corruption in the state government. When establishing this commission, Cuomo directly stated that no office or office holder was off limits, and that the commission was to investigate any and all cases of suspect behavior. As it turns out, however, Cuomo has an odd conception of "not off-limit" as well, as the commission found out when it opened an investigation into a company that was involved in the Cuomo campaign. Then they found out that they truly weren't independent, and certain people and groups were definitely off limit. Shame on Andy. (Who never truly felt much like a Democrat to me, but that's what he calls himself.)


Oh, and not to forget one of the most 'love to hate' members of Congress, good ole John A. Boehner,  is apparently seriously trying to sue the President, and this because (I really love this part) Obama used an executive order to do exactly what the House Repubs had been badgering him to do all along. I don't get that. Grounds to sue are that he did what you wanted? Who knew?

Another "Are you kidding?!' moment has occurred, as well. Michele Bachmann (sp) has intimated that she "might run for President" again. I couldn't stop laughing. Like she did so well the last time? And she hasn't proven, almost daily since then, that she has zero capabilities to actually be President?  She and Palin are woefully two great examples of why women shouldn't be President (if you're looking for that sort of thing.) To me, they are just two examples of women who have no inner strength, no inner peace, no inner morality. They both will say and do anything to gain the spotlight. As a woman, that's just sad to me. 

I am not really a Hillary fan. I won't mind her running for president, because she doesn't make a bad example of women. I don't know of anyone else, however, that will run for that office that I like any better. Elizabeth Warren, I do like, but I don't want her to run for President. Facing Hillary, she can't win, which would diminish her position in the Senate. And we need her in the Senate. So, Hillary is the default candidate for me. I can already be quite certain that whoever the Republican candidate is, I won't like him, and won't want to see this country further destroyed by the Republican Party.

Hobby Lobby doesn't have religious beiiefs

So, Hobby Lobby claims its religious beliefs are being violated by the requirement to cover all forms of female birth control, and sues to establish that right. But, in direct contradiction of their stated "religious beliefs" Hobby Lobby includes the same pharmaceutical companies that make the birth control methods they oppose, in the 401K it offers to its employees, and contributes to as well. And, of course, its biggest trading partner is China, which has state-sponsored, mandatory abortions. And child labor. And human rights violations all over the place. So, if the owners of Hobby Lobby truly have deeply respected religious beliefs on this topic, when are they going to stop trading with China? And when are they going to insist that the 401K fund be purged of all pharm. companies? Because, if they don't do that, then their lawsuit wasn't about religion at all. It was just another slap at women's' freedom.

The only good news I've heard about this whole mess is that this decision just made a big hole in the "corporate veil", which was created to specifically separate the business of the corporation from the lives of the owners of said corporation. That veil has always meant that for most corporations, at least, if they go belly-up, no one could go after the personal finances of the owners. But, that was before the Supremes decided that corporations were people, not only just people, but people with personal religious beliefs. I hope people sue every corporation out there, and go after the owner's finances, since the SC has just made them one and the same.

Enough, Already!

I tell you, I am sick to death of fighting for a woman's right to decide on what to do with her own body. No one ever questions a man's right to make those kind of decisions. Never. But I'm 61, almost 62, and we have been having these same kinds of attacks on us for my entire life. And, truly, ENOUGH!

Our Supreme Court isn't content, it seems, to just declare corporations are people, but now it has to jump in and decide that companies can impose their own religious beliefs on their female employees, and deny them birth control coverage if they feel like it. (Why doesn't anyone ever object to, say, Viagra coverage?) So, the SC has now taken this country back to a past that has never existed anywhere but in the minds of the justices and their misguided fans.

No, the founding fathers did not all believe in a Christian religion. George Washington famously avoided the use of the word "God" almost entirely; Thomas Paine was a Deist, Jefferson thought religion was a terrible idea. The founding fathers, to a man, made sure that the kind of state-imposed piety they'd lived under was not possible in the US, or so they thought.

Worse, this whole Hobby Lobby wasn't really about religious liberty ~ it was about men taking control of womens' bodies, again. Religion was just a shoddy excuse for it.

I am a Catholic, just to clarify my position on this. I converted to Catholicism over 30 years ago. I didn't do it for their strictures on sex, marriage, or abortion. I joined the Church because it was the only place I've ever found that made me feel close to God.  I spent a year or so before committing, talking over the Church's dogma with a young deacon, who finally left to become a priest. (I hope it is as fulfilling for him as he hoped it would be.) We debated the death penalty versus just wars (If killing someone is wrong, even in a just war, then how can the Church support killing someone for a crime?), and birth control (If abortions are so wrong, why shouldn't the Church support birth control measures to make abortions less necessary) and so on.  At the end of my year with Deacon John, he left to become a priest, and I left to become a Catholic ~ with reservations. I am still a Catholic with reservations, and will be, probably for the rest of my life. I am not, however, evangelical, conservative, narrow-minded, and arrogant, which sadly seems to sum up the character of the most out-spoken "Christian" advocates.

I thought it was very telling that not a single female justice sided with Alito and the boys on this ruling. (It's just nice to be able to say "female justice", especially in the context of "more than one"). And then, today, those $#%& SC bullies made liars of themselves, and demanded that Obama couldn't even ask a quasi-religious group to fill out a form explaining why they objected, as the SC had just previously said could be done. So this group, finding it too hard to fill out a form, decided to sue for relief. That should have been thrown out of court, not elevated to the SC.

Oh, and in another brilliant(ly stupid) move, the SC also has decided that declaring buffer zones around the few abortion clinics still open is a violation of the protestors' free speech rights. I didn't realize the justices were so concerned with the rights of a rabid, hate-filled lunatic's right to make death threats to women trying to enter a clinic. To scream at them that they're going to hell, that they're killing a baby, that they are worthless. Wow. How could we possibly not want to let everyone do that, all the time? (Please notice, of course, that the buffer zone around the SC is several hundred feet in fact.)

Some group just sent me a petition to sign asking to impeach the SC Five. I signed it, but I guess I don't truly believe that will ever happen.  It should, because this Court has gone far beyond what it is legally allowed to do, but fat chance.

Possibly the only way to stop this seemingly inexorable march to insanity is to take back the House and keep the Senate this year. We have to elect people who believe in America as it is and has been, not in what some fantasist has declared the "real America". We need to elect men and women who have the decency, character, and desire to do good, not to do nothing, as our current crop seems so dedicated to doing. Or is that not doing? Whatever.

We need to get rid of the climate-deniers, the "my Christianity" or else idiots, the just plain ignorant, and, of course, the venal and the power-for-power's sake people. Not to mention that young men declaring they stand for family values, while having been arrested and convicted of breaking into police and county worker's cars, hot wiring them and masturbating while the sparks fly. Or the losing candidate who claims he couldn't have lost because the guy who won is dead, and it's either a doppelganger or robot that's really the guy who won.

That truly covers most of the Republicans, but it also includes a fair number of Democrats. Maybe it's time for a new party ~ the Progressive Party.  

A little of this, a little of that.

I've been having some trouble with my post office. I thought it was done, after finally visiting the PO, putting in writing, as suggested by the postmaster, that my mail could go in my tiny little mailbox, but that packages needed to be left at my door. The box is so small, I've had magazines, books, and other things ruined while trying to get them out of the box. Or when they shoved them in the box. I told all of this to someone at the national level, and to my postmaster. 

A couple of weeks went by just fine. Packages on my door step (It's upstairs, one flight), mail in my box. And then, again, packages in my box. So, I put a note on the delivery side of my mailbox (one of six, each about 5 X 5 inches) that packages were not to be put into the mailbox, but delivered to my door. The next day, scrawled on the back of one of my incoming mail, was this note:

"We put packages were (sic) it's best for our time. We are on a schedull (sic) so if putting in mailbox is better that't what we have to do."

Hmmm. So, my postal service is at the convenience of the delivery person. News to me. Especially since the postmaster of my local post office and told me that the note I gave him would solve the problem. 

So, once again I call the USPS, since I can't call the postoffice. (Well, I can call, but no one ever, ever answers the phone there, not between 7:30 am and 5:30 pm). I get some guy there who says he can't help me. That it's up to the postmaster of my local PO to handle it. And remember, the PO is understaffed!.

You know, I commiserate with this guy. The PO is being killed by the jackasses in Congress (but then, who isn't?). I know theyre understaffed. I know it's hard when money is tight. I still don't think that's an excuse for rude behavior and failure to do their job. So, once again, I'm off to my semi-local local postoffice, to ask, again, for them to stop smashing my packages into a mailbox designed to hold only letters and such.

Another high point this week was watching Marco Rubio explain how his "knowing about abortion" meant he could deny climate change. Right. Or Karl Rove, explaining how he didn't say Hilary Clinton had brain damage when he questioned her mental fitness for office because she was wearing "those glasses that are only for people with traumatic brain injury". Right. (I loved Jon Stewart's take on it, Brainghazi!) And nearly every Republican mocking the #Bring back our girls poster held by Michelle Obama. 

My father was a Goldwater republican. Conservative really meant something to him. But today? He'd be deeply ashamed of Republicans, and angry at what they are doing to the country he so loved. Thank God he didn't live to see the mockery they've made of this.

The seas are rising, the poor are villified, women are fighting to be treated as equal, again, to have charge of our bodies, our lives, our work, again. Money is the key to political success, and our Supreme Court seems to favor oligarchies, not democracies. 

Our Congress seems to have lost its way. Or been hijacked by idiots, at least. And yet, the public, which so strongly disapproves of Congress, keeps voting the idiots back into office. I'm lucky, I guess, to be living in a progressive state, California. My senate and house reps usually fight the good fight. Not always, but usually. But, you know, where you live in these United States should not be the determining factor in what government does for you and to you. The federal government should level the playing field, not put up roadblocks and blow up dams to make it harder. 

I retired this year from teaching, after 25 years. I was tired of it by then. Sure the kids were less well-mannered and more needy, but what tired me out so much was the  policies and programs foisted on teachers by every Tom, Dick, and Koch around. In the 23 years I was at the same school, I had 7 principals. A couple of whom were truly awful (one was terminated in April after we revolted and she committed a crime, one was returned to the classroom at the end of his third year), but most of them truly wanted to be good. And were handicapped by the central office, who was handicapped by the state and federal government. And so, each year, more and more days were spent out of the classroom, being "taught" a new trick to success. Our kids spend 180 days in class. Tell me how having a substitute for 15 to 20 of those days leads to success. I retired because I realized, even with the Common Core, which I liked, it was still, forever, going to be a circus of unending new programs, new policies. And one-day seminars were never going to be enough, but were too much time to be missing from my classroom. 

I am 61 years old, and I have been a liberal (only now I guess I'm called a progressive instead, since the Repugnacans killed "liberal") I have been active throughout my life ~ participating in protests, donating to causes and candidates (not just local ones, but progressives where ever they ran for office), signing petitions, calling representatives, phonebanking during elections. I don't regret a single moment of it, but really, after more than 42 years of it, I have to ask, why wasn't it enough? Why is the country worse today than it was when I was a kid? Sure, we've made serious progress on civil rights for blacks, Hispanics, and gays. But women haven't made much progress at all. We're fighting the same abortion fight I fought in my 20s. Corruption in government is higher than ever, and apparently doesn't even disqualify you from serving a member of Congress. (When did become okay to put criminals in office?) The "good ole boy" network is running strong all across the country, welfare daddys are raising armies of thugs with guns to protect their public mooching. 

What in the hell happened to us?

What is wrong with America?

I've been reading the news for quite a long time, and each day it seems as if another crazy Republican says something incredibly stupid and/or offensive. And Fox News(? Is it really news when they apply an extreme bias to how it's told?) can't seem to stop cheering for people who are at best dangerous lunatics.

What else can you call a person who threatens to shoot Federal employees for doing their job, because he doesn't want to pay the Fed what he owes them? I mean, seriously, he spouts absolute drivel, is engaging in armed insurrection, and is totally insane. And Fox News and Republican reps and senators hold this a*&hole in high regard? (Oh, wait, once Bundy began to sound wackyracist, the praise for him began a slow decline, but his armed insurrection continues to be praised.

If Bundy doesn't want to pay the government for the land he is using, fine. Let him find some other rancher who would let him graze for free. (Only you can't, you know. Private lands cost money when you want to eat off their land.) But when you've already spent 20 years freeloading off public lands, you can't seriously believe you have a right to defy the government over collecting the fees you agreed to pay 20 years ago.  And public land doesn't belong to Bundy. It belongs to me, and you, and you, and you. We pay through our taxes to help support the public lands. We pay fees that help support the public lands when we use them.  We all pay to hire people to protect the land, and the people using them, from all sorts of dangers. Those public lands are held in trust for our children, their children, and their children's children. Not for Bundy.

And frankly, I am appalled by the media apparently coddling this traitor. The Constitution does not include the right to violently overthrow the duly elected government. No where. Yet, here is a man who, after using the government for his entire life, has decided to round up a bunch of highly unstable, trigger-happy, delusional bully boys to defend his right to mooch off the public. And those bully boys are now putting up checkpoints on public roads, and demanding proof you have a right to be there? Oh, and let's not forget their first plan. To put their wives out in front, so that if shooting began, seeing those women die would be the most effective propaganda for these idiots. What in God's name is going on that all of America sits here twiddling its thumbs while a blatant insurrection is happening? 

I do agree that the embattled BLM agents did the right thing, and backed away from this traitorous action. I don't agree, however, that the best policy is to do nothing. Freeze all their assets. Make sure they don't have the funds to buy more guns and ammunition. Call out the National Guard and blockade the Bundy ranch. Arrest anyone trying to enter the ranch on charges of treason, for participating in Bundy's attempt to overthrow the legitimate government. ( Just listen to his demented demands to confiscate the guns of federal agent and deliver those guns to him. To "free" all the parks by demolishing their Service buildings and entrance gates. To basically set himself up as the new government.)

Unfortunately for Bundy, he is a citizen of these United States, and not the state in which he resides. Citizenship is a nation's designation, not a state's. The fact that he doesn't "believe" in the federal government speaks to his insanity, and not to his defense. He has no legitimate defense. He's just a whiney, despicable man, with delusions of grandeur. And in armed rebellion against the United States of America. All those pundits and broadcasters who "admire" his stand against our government are supporting a violent overthrow of our government. They should really think twice about what they are saying, and what they are supporting. Giving aid to the enemy isn't smart. Or legal.

Gun Insanity

It has been 243 days since Newtown. In that time, 7,199 people have been killed by gunshot. That isn’t just the number who have been shot, it is the number that have been shot and killed. It works out to 30 (29.6) people per day. Per day! At that rate, my school could be wiped out in just under 10 days. And the NRA sees nothing alarming about that. They, in fact, want to make more guns available, make more “concealed carry” laws, make it mandatory for every place to allow guns in their place of business. The NRA, as I have said before, is a domestic terrorist group.

I started reading the NYTimes Joe Nocera blog, with his Gun Tracker column months ago. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of gun-involved crimes listed there.  By how widespread they were ~ there are very few states that haven't appeared in that column. And surprised to see how few of these incidents were either drugs or gangs related. And horrified by the number of children, 14 and under, who were shot and/or killed, often by another child, often under the noses of adults. (and positively incensed that all too often, the parents who left a loaded gun available to their children are not legally held responsible. Yes, I know that the loss of a child is a horrible event, but that isn't any kind of excuse for not holding that negligent parent responsible.)

More than 7,000 people have died since last December, by gun. Thousands more have been wounded, had their lives destroyed by a bullit.  Handguns have no place in the home. I don't want to take rifles and shotguns away from farmers and ranchers, or hunters. I want handgun ownership severely limited. I don't care what the NRA says (we do not negociate with terrorists, remember?)

If guns were banned, there would be no drive-by shootings. Children wouldn't be able to pick up a gun carelessly left in the open and shoot themselves, their siblings, or their friends. Women would be safer from spousal abuse, and some men, too. (Women are the majority of who gets abused, and so shot, but some men are on the receiving end of that as well.)

If America was to begin teaching common sense about guns, and not this hysterical, "my constitutional right" nonsense, eventually, anyone being shot and killed would be a rare event.  As it should be.

I'm Still Alive and still just as mad about what's going on

It's been months since I posted anything on this blog. Not because there was nothing to post about. I've just been really, really busy, with work and health issues. I'm just now recovering from a really serious pneumonia/sepsis/hypoxemia/anemia bout that very nearly killed me. (Don't wait so long to see a doctor!)

At the end of May, I came across this incredibly stupid comment:

State Senator Glenn Grothman defended Scott Walker's repeal of pay equity protections by explaining to reporters that women aren't paid the same as men for the same work because "money is more important to men." Of course it is. I'm a single woman, self-supporting. Of course, I don't care about money that much. Just that it means the difference between being self-supporting and being on the dole.

There seems to be an entire generation of old white men who feel free to spout the ugliest, most misogynistic nonsense about women whenever they feel like it. Betty Friedan never got the same freedom when she was spouting nonsense about men. She was constantly attacked, viciously attacked, both by men and by the women who will never understand that women are not inherently inferior to men.

So we have Congressional hearings on contraception, to which no women are allowed. Not as members of the committee, not as witnesses to the committee. We have the Texas governor saying that he just can't understand why that woman who fillibustered his pet abortion bill didn't learn from her own experience as a teenage unmarried mother. The governor who crows about executing more people than any other state, who insists that every life is important. Yeah, right.

We have old (and middle-aged, and even some young) white men, in state houses around the country, who are trying their best to take away as many rights from women as they can sneak past their constituents.

And the really sad thing about this is, it is almost universally Republican men who say these things. Sad, because the demise of a a formerly great party is sad. Really sad, because the Republican Party of the past was a much better party than it has devolved into. (Also, sad that a spokesman for Republicans could seriously say that the Party would be more appealing if they just didn't say offensive things. Duh.)

My father was a life-long Republican. I'm glad he didn't live long enough to see what that party has become. He would be a Democrat, today. Possibly an independent. Just definitely not a Republican. I don't know anyone, these days, who identifies as Republican, or who is thinking of joining the Republican Party.

And here's the thing that I really, really just don't get. The Republicans (and all thier subgroups) insist on smaller government, insist that there are too many regulations, too many rules, too much intrusion into the personal lives of our citizens. And it is the Republicans, who nearly every day, extend themselves to regulate a woman's body. Regulations on men are bad, but are good for women? How antiquated is that mindset? How seriously harmful is that mindset? Do they really think that way? Or do they just not think at all, simply spew out their bile and their hatred of women without considering it at all? And what about Republican women? Do they agree? Do they indulge in such self-lothing that they can merrily go along with depriving women of their basic rights, without batting an eye? Or are they so brainwashed by the men in their lives that they don't dare speak up?

 

Republicans need a wake up call. They are speeding into extinction, and there doesn't seem to be anyone awake at the wheel to stop them, or turn them aside. Maybe that's for the best, but it's still sad.

I don't really have much to say. I'm having trouble thinking up a coherent and polite way to express the anger and outrage I feel over the way this Congress is acting, the way the Republican party is acting, even the way my president is acting.

I mean, seriously, Paul Ryan's *new* budget? What's new in that outline to destroy the social safety net and French kiss the wealthy? I guess the Republican House members don't remember that Ryan's budget, along with Ryan, were soundly defeated in the last election. You know, that one we had back in November, 2012? In fact, the House republicans seem to have completely forgotten that election. And they seem to be heavily into ignoring all the public polling ~ at least all the polling not designed and paid for by them ~ that shows they are clearly out of step with the rest of the country.

And Harry Reid, bless his heart, just can't believe the Repubs would fillibuster anyone, since he believed them back when he could have gotten rid of the fillibuster, but the Repubs promised to behave nicely and not use it. Of course we should believe them, right? And Harry, again, deciding not to try to pass an assault weapons ban, because he wanted only the one he thought could pass. Really?

And Obama? Even though trashing Social Security isn't in the Ryan budget, Obama is promising to put it on the chopping block anyway. Huh? I'm not a mathematical genius, but I do understand that the chained CPI he's offering hurts retirees, a lot. (I am not a retiree, btw, but I will be in the next 5 or 6 years.) It would be lovely if just once, Obama's rhetoric and Obama's actions matched.

That's it. All I can say right now without ranting and spewing ugly language and thoughts.

On Sandy Hook

 

 

I was devastated to learn Friday that yet another massacre had happened, this time at an elementary school in Connecticut. I teach in an elementary school in SoCal, so this tragedy had a special intensity for me.

 

 

Of course, my district instituted new policies today. All the gates are locked shortly after school begins, now. Classroom doors must be locked at all times (but then our principal told us we could leave our doors open, as long as they were locked. ??). To get back on campus from lunch, we now have to open a gate ourselves, instead of using one door in the cafeteria. (You can't unlock, or lock, our padlocked gates without using two hands, so lunches have to be put on the ground to unlock it, picked up and brought inside to be put down again, to lock the gate up.)

 

 

While I am horrified at what happened at Sandy Hook, I don't care much for the knee-jerk reaction of my district. Schools in CA are much more open. My school has large windows on one side of every classroom, which reach from the ceiling to about 3 feet above ground. One row of our classrooms face a street, separated by a chainlink fence about 10 feet away. (Anybody could walk up to that fence and start shooting, and those classrooms would be under fire.)

 

These fences aren't tall enough to prevent a determined person from simply jumping over them to gain access. My school backs up to a housing project, and my classroom is in the row that exposes one wall to that project. (The windows on that side of my room are up high on the wall.) There is no part of my classroom that could be used to shelter kids if a crazed gunman was wandering the halls in search of innocent victims to kill. It's just a big square, no corners, nothing to hide behind or under.  I've never felt unsafe in my classroom, nor have any other teachers at my school, and until today, neither did my students.

 

America is a little like my district. After a tragedy like this, at the same time we're sifting through the gunman's past so we can thoroghly blame him, people start spouting off about what we can do to keep our kids safe. So now we hear that schools should have armed police officers on campus. Some states are suggesting that the staff of the schools should be armed.  Great. Let's put up chainlink fences all around the school, and hire armed guards to patrol the grounds.

 

When did schools become prisons? When did I sign up for guard duty? Parents have to check in to the office, sign a document, and wear a badge? At least they can see their "inmate" without a glass wall between them.

 

The solution to the increasingly violent world we live in isn't in imprisoning people for their own protection. It's in stepped-up mental health programs. It's in much tighter regulations on guns. It's in having the states supply the feds with their lists of mentally unstable people, so they can update the database that gun merchants use in background checks. It's in mandating that every single gun sold has to have had its purchaser undergo a background check, and a mandatory waiting period of at least 48 hours. It's in the absolute and complete ban on assault weapons and semi-automatic guns with bulk loaders.  It's in all of us, every American, finally realizing that we don't have an absolute right to own a gun, but we do have an absolute right to life and liberty.

 

It's in the NRA, which I consider a terrorist organization, backing off of its ridiculous stand on guns. More guns in more hands don't make us a polite society. It makes us a fearful society. A society that no longer feels safe enough to voice an unpopular opinion, no longer safe to disagree with someone. That's not polite. That's oppression.

 

And for that tired old saw that NRA members spout ~ Guns don't kill people, people do ~ well, think about this. Just a few hours before this young man, Lanza, burst into a school and killed 20 first graders and 6 adult staff members, another young man, Chinese, burst into a school in China and attacked 22 students. Not one of those students died, however. Their attacker didn't have a gun. He had a knife.

 



I am just so tired of the business world bashing unions. The latest, Hostess, is blaming its union for its decision to file bankruptcy and close down.  What Hostess failed to say, however, is that even as it was readying the bankruptcy filing, it boosted the CEO and other executives salaries an amazing amount.

This is from Nation Of Change, at the following address:

http://www.nationofchange.org/hostess-blames-union-bankruptcy-after-tripling-ceo-s-pay-1353255416

"At the time, creditors warned that the decision signaled an attempt to “sidestep” bankruptcy rules, potentially as a means for trying to keep the executive at a failing company. The Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International Union pointed this out in their written reaction to the news that the business is closing:

BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256."

I'm sorry, but crying poverty while spending millions on a handful of executives just doesn't fly.

Unions are responsible for some of the best improvements in a worker's life. A 40-hour week? Thank a union. Sick time? Thank a union. Bloated CEO salaries? Thank (or not) a corporation. Lavish salries for top executives? Thank (or not) a corporation.

Without a union, you get places like Walmart. There, horrible working conditions have led to worker strikes, including the ones planned for next Friday, Black Friday. No healthcare, very small wages, working hours kept deliberately low, and shifting from week to week, working conditions unsafe at any time. And how has Walmart responded? Retaliation for any worker speaking out. The Walmart family (The Waltons) are multibillionaires. And it's the low-paid workers who have made them so wealthy. Walmart is such a bully that the suppliers to them adopt the same attitude towards their workers, just to meet Walmart's demands.

An attack on unions is an attack on the middle class. As union membership dwindles, so do wages and benefits. Companies place unreasonable demands on their employees, and the employees have no right to say no that doesn't include them losing their jobs.

I am not saying that unions are 100% good. They aren't. And yes, some unions have built themselves into such a power that they can bargain for, and receive, incredible benefits and wages for their workers. But the companies play a part in that, as well. They acquiesce. Strikes that don't find popular support fail. 

And really, how can a company that pays its executives exhorbitant salaries, even when they don't do a good job, say to its workers, who do a great job, that they can't pay them  a living wage? Don't blame the unions for bankruptcies. Blame corporate greed.

What is Wrong with Arkansas?

I read this earlier tonight, and was literally speechless for a bit. How is it possible that this man could find support, of any kind, in America, much less Arkansas? This is what I read:

"A candidate for the Arkansas legislature, Charlie Fuqua, says that children who don't demonstrate "respect for parents" should be put to death, the Arkansas Times reports. Fuqua is a former member of the Arkansas legislature and has received support from the Arkansas Republican Party and two sitting members of Congress.

Here's the key passage from Fuqua's 2012 book, "God's Law: The Only Political Solution":

The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21."

And this man is running for public office? Not for the leader of a fundamentalist (loony) cult? When did America decide to accept murderous fanatics as fit for public office? For that matter, when did we decide to accept pathological liars as fit for public office? What ever happened to honor? Truth? Dignity?

More Insanity

I read an article by Richard (RJ) Eskow yesterday that I found in a newsletter I get. It was entitled "Hey, Sarah Palin! Some Marxists Want a Word With You". This may be the first time I've actually written the words "Sarah Palin". As a rule, I don't see/hear/read anything by or about that woman. I would say she's a disgrace to women, except that she is a disgrace to humanity.

 

In the article, Eskow ridicules Palin for her statements re Elizabeth Warren speaking at the Democratic Convention, stating that she's "almost confessed to her Marxist views". Eskow takes issue with Palin's use of the word "Marxist", as well as her locution, calling the verbal equivalent of an Escher drawing. (And I so agree with that!)

 

Eskow then offers her some other quotations from people she would have to call Marxist based on her criteria ~ people like Lincoln, Eisenhower, Bush I. One I really liked came from Eisenhower, who I have to admit is not a President I every really cared for. Except for this:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid

Right on, Ike! Sadly, of course, their number is no longer negligible, but yes, yes, they are still stupid.

And another from Ike:

In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims? (Iran, anyone?)

I loved the fact that Eisenhower refused to lower the tax on the 2%ers. It was at 92% during his administration, and he felt the country needed the money, so he wouldn't lower that rate more than one point, to 91%. And insited that corporate taxes stay at 52%.. And they complain today about an effective rate of 13% being way too high? Oh, and he expanced the Social Security ranks by about 10 million people.

And from Lincoln:

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.


"job creators"?

Lincoln also enacted the first Federal Income Tax, which was, effectively, a tax on the wealthy. It started at $600 dollars, which most people didn't earn in those days, at 3%, rising to 5% for those who made more than $10,000. Progressive taxes from Lincoln? Heh.

He goes on to state that there are only two explanations for the disconnect between Palin's view of Marxism and the actions and statements actually made by fellow Republicans. (I can think of a third ~ Palin has no clue what other Republicans, living or dead, have said or done. Reading comprehension is not one of her strong points.) So, Eskow says, "Either the Republican Party's greatest heroes were all closet Communists - or even the most right-leaning among them were not completely irrational human beings." (Italics are his)


 

I am just sick to death of these completely irrational human beings that currently inhabit the Republican party. To me, it's treasonous to sign a document pledging to uphold a policy of an individual who has never even held elective office. Congresspeople are sworn to uphold the Consitution, not Grover Norquist. It's at least fraud.



The duty of a congressperson is to represent the interests and concerns of the people who elected him/her. It is not to impose their own half-baked ideas on everyone, regardless of whether they're one of his constituents or not. What part of "representative" do these cretins not understand? And Mitch McConnell? You were sworn to uphold the Constitution, too. What part of "My goal for this Congress is to make sure that Obama is a one-term president" relates to that, at all? And did your constituency actually elect you to blockade a presidency? Did they elect you to try to torpedo each and every act that would better their lives, ease the rapid descent into poverty? I sincerely doubt that. Shame on all of you!

(Eskow's article can be found in the Nation of Change newsletter, but I can't find a way to link it here. Sorry.)

I read this the other day, and laughed. But I also think it's a great idea.

A Great Political Idea

Here’s what you should do, Mr. President. In the debates this fall, pull out a small, laminated card you’ve had made as a prop for this purpose. Then remind Mitt Romney that the ranks of the uninsured today are equal to the combined populations of Oklahoma, Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi, Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Utah, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Vermont and ­Wyoming.

Read that list slowly, Mr. President. Then ask your opponent: Would America turn its back on the citizens of these 25 states if everyone there lacked basic health coverage? That’s what we’ve been doing for decades. You knew it was right to act when you were governor of Massachusetts, Mitt. How can you pretend we don’t need to solve this for the nation? And how can you object with a straight face when your own pioneering plan was my model?

~~~~~Matt Miller, in a Washington Post opinion piece, July 10, 2012

And then, there was Ann Romney, telling the world that she and Mitt have already released "all you people need to know" about their finances. Seems Ann shares Mitt's tendency to insert foot when speaking.

Seriously, what is it Mitt doesn't want us to see in his tax returns? Given how poorly his campaign is doing at defining the election on his terms, he couldn't possibly think that allowing Obama (and the media, and more and more Republicans) to continue to question why he won't release his tax returns is a good strategy. As this goes on and on and on, you really have to wonder, what is in those tax returns? What has Mitt so scared about us seeing that he's stonewalling even his own party?

Secrecy has never been much of a selling point for the Presidency. We don't like being kept in the dark (well, those of us who aren't simulating mushrooms don't).Mitt seems to love it, however. He's against disclosing his campaign money bundlers, against the Disclose act to make all those PACs list their donors, against releasing his tax returns (even though he gave years and years of those same returns to John McCain while he was running for president.) I guess letting another 1%er look at his returns is different than letting the other 99%ers see them. That's a rather telling point, don't you think?

I was incensed the other day when one of Romney's guests at his Hamptons weekend fundraiser told a reporter that people like common workers just "didn't get it" about what was at stake in this election. They "have less education", this woman said. They just don't understand their world, apparently.

While I am not saying that everyone in America is brilliant, or even well-educated ,(well, not in Texas, I guess, since they keep putting crazy stuff in their standards for education) I am sure that many, many people this woman dismisses as "poor, uneducated voters" do indeed know what this election is about. And it is my fervent hope that this snotty woman, and others like her, find that out in the most painful way, by the re-election of Obama.

I guess the rich are different. Really different. Clueless about the world they're living in, sometimes even clueless about the little circle of entitlement they inhabit. Talk about class warfare? That was a statement  surely  intended to start one.

And there was good ole Mitt, ranting on about how taxing the rich would hurt our economy, burden the "job creators", and all sorts of bad things.  Doesn't that man read? Every graphic out in the last month has clearly shown that "job creators" do not inhabit the 1% world. In fact, the lower their rate of taxes, the worse the economy does in terms of employmen, wages, and growth.All of those things go up, by a lot, when the upper tax rate hits anything over 70%. And goes down, by a lot, when the rate dips below 35%.  The real job creators, the middle class, need a tax break. The 2% at the top of the wealth scale do not.

We've been down this road before. Over and over. Doing the same thing, giving the wealthy more and more benefits, lowering their tax rates, all in the belief that all sorts of good things would "trickle down" to the bottome 98%.  As everyone knows, it HASN'T WORKED! And no wonder. What Romney, et al, are proposing to do is basically, keep doing the same thing, over and over, and he keeps telling us to expect a different result. Standard definition of insanity, no?

And where is the media on all this? Why don't they call him out on his pet failed policies? On his flip-flopping? Why do they keep reporting what he says as the truth, rather than just more campaign rhetoric? What happened to fact-checking? Why aren't they in full hue and cry about his refusal to release his tax returns? We already know he had, or has, a Swiss bank acount, and many accounts (at least 30) in the Caymen Islands and other off-shore locations. What else is he hiding? And if he's not hiding, why doesn't he release them? His own father had no qualms about releasing 12 years of his tax returns. But wait ~ his dad earned his money the regular way, through work and smart investing (of his own money). Guess Mitt isn't a "chip off the old block". He's more like the oil we get out of tar sands. Dirty, and hard to process. 

On Marriage Equality, and Not

I was surprised this week by a colleague of mine. I had forwarded to her an email about the President's comments on marriage equality. She's rabidly anti-Obama, but I thought she'd appreciate his position, since one of her sons is gay. Her response? She doesn't support gay marriage, because God created marriage to be one man and one woman. She hopes her son will find someone to love and build a life with, but he shouldn't be able to marry.

I don't know whether I was more surprised that she would cast her youngest son into the twilight zone, or her idea that God created marriage.

The Greeks were noticeably not Christian. They were polytheists, didn't even think of being monotheistic. They had marriage. Of course, they didn't call it that (probably because English hadn't been invented yet, nor would it be for many, many centuries). The concept, however, was alive and well in Ancient Greece. Until much later, the Romans were polytheistic, as well, and had marriage. It seems, in fact, that every society that ever existed (and left records) has had an institution that nearly everyone would recognize as marriage. I say nearly to account for those die-hard, blinded-by-the-light fundamentalists that claim everything was created by God, long before any group even knew He existed.

Instead of being created by God, I think marriage was coopted, as so many rituals and institutions were, by the early Christians in their zealous take over of the various groups. They reassigned all sorts of feast days to Saints Days, Christ's birthday, His death, etc. It's how they replaced the older gods or other deities. Wow, everybody has a big to-do in winter. Let's call it Christmas, and say it was the day our Christ was born, and soon they'll forget it had anything to do with those heathen gods. It was a brilliant political move, and the early Church was highly political.The Church created new rituals to replace the older, non-Christian ones they found. They created a ritual for marriage, for baptism, for dying. The world hadn't existed without these prior to the rise of Christianity, but the Church supplanted all the older rituals and belief systems, both stealthily, and when necessary, forcefully.

I don't claim to know what God thinks, or wants. I've never spoken to Him in person, you know? And while I may have prayed now and then, I didn't, and don't, think He was listening. I know He never responded.I honestly don't believe anyone, ever, has truly heard from God.Ever. I know the Bible says some folks did, but then, the Bible was written by primitive men to explain their world, and their hierachical control of it. You can't really accept it at face value. I mean, really. What sort of omniscient, omnipotent, super-evolved deity would accept slavery as okay, would condemn women for having a vagina, and exalt men for having a penis? No, thanks, I'll pass on worshipping that sort of god.

So, I guess I'm just more troubled by my colleague's indifference to her son's status. He has always been the best of her children. Her oldest, a girl, put her through hell, got into drugs and illegal activities, spent some time in Juvie, and then in jail. Hated her mother. Her other son tends to use her rather than really support her. (She's divorced, has been for years.) He mooches off her constantly. Borrows money, never repays it. Doesn't have his own cell phone, so uses one on his mother's account, but doesn't pay the bill for it. Lives with her even now, but pays no rent, and doesn't do anything around the house. He even brought his girlfriend, with her two dogs, to live with him for a while, then left the dogs there when his girlfriend had to return to Canada because her visa was expiring. He's going to marry this woman someday, but he hasn't yet asked her. He just assumes she'll say yes.

The youngest son, the gay son, has been independent for some time. He ran into some difficulty with employment for a awhile (he got injured in a motorcycle accident, and was laid up for a long time. His company went out of business while he was recovering.), and moved home. He pays rent, he buys food, doesn't ask her for anything. He's a good guy.  And this is the son she says doesn't deserve the right to marry, should he find someone he wants to spend his life with.  I just don't understand this at all. You're supposed to love all your children equally, albeit in different ways. How can she work so damned hard to rebuild a relationship with her daughter, who is finally on the road to recovery, or allow a son to take such blatant advantage of her, and still consign the third child to a never-never land of not-quite-equal, not-quite-entitled to the same civil rights as others?

She's my colleague. They aren't my kids. But I just can't wrap my head around this, and I'm hurt by her cavalier attitude towards her son. I guess I expected more, better, from her.

Reliving the Past

So, it's apparently a two-man race, now, for president of the United States.  Well, except for all the hangers-on in the Republican Party. Two of whom are planning on making their move during the convention later this summer. Who've suspended their campaigns, but not their egos or ambition.


I'm going to be 60 in another few months. I lived through a time when women had to fight to be allowed to work, to receive the same pay (and we're still working on that, sadly) as men, to have control over our own bodies, to make it unnecessary to go to a back-street butcher to end a pregnancy. It was an ugly past, that. Sure, there were good times even during that past. I went to college. I graduated with honors. I worked for a while, started a company, was successful. Personal tragedy brought that to an end. I got set adrift for a while, worked sporadically. Found a calling that spoke to me and became a teacher. But during that whole time, there was always this culture war going on.


My mother told me, early and often, to hide my intelligence, because men didn't like intelligent women. My father told me to go to college, my mother said I shouldn't, I should find a man and get married instead. I grew up in a family that had two different sets of expectations; one for the boys and one for the girls. The girls had to learn how to "keep house", the boys didn't. They had to learn to ride a bike, mow the lawn, and make friends.  I didn't meet any of their expectations. My father was pleased; my mother was disappointed. I lived in a neighborhood that cherished that discrimination against women. A city, a state, a nation that cherished that discrimination. Girls weren't supposed to grow up to be successful, independent people.


Imagine my dismay, then, to see that exact same discrimination coming from the Republican candidates this year, and from statehouse after statehouse. Republican governors and legislatures passing laws to limit abortion, contraceptives, routine health care for female issues. Where states are repealing things like equal pay statutes. I really loved the statement from one Republican legislator. State Senator Glenn Grothman, who defended Scott Walker's repeal of pay equity protections explainedto reporters that women aren't paid the same as men for the same work because money is more important to men.
Of course it is! Women don't need money, we don't have bills to pay for rent/mortgage, food, clothing, etc. Huh?

We're now facing all the same arguments that we did half a century ago, arguments we thought we were done with. Birth control? Abortion? (When are these Republicans going to realize that birth control would eliminate a huge number of abortions?) Equal pay?  When is enforced male dominance going to become a thing of our past? When is the manufactured fear of women going to become a thing of our past?

I work hard to make sure the students I have don't share that bias, that each of my students understand that everyone is equally valued. We do not discrimate based on gender, sexual preference, race, ethnicity, or any other quality. I support the candidacies of many women running for national office, and some men. I donate to Emily's List, Move-On, DFA, and a host of other political entities.

I am single. My only child, a daughter, died a long time ago. I don't have to worry about what sort of life she would have. Instead, I worry for all my students, and what the future holds for them. If Romney wins, if states vote Republican, I fear for my students. They will be growing up in country hostile to them on so many different fronts ~ poor, Hispanic, female, gay/lesbian.  Talk about stacking the odds against them!

Okay, I've just had it. Totally. Who do these idiots think gave them the right to micromanage a woman's life? Any woman. All women. Arizona is passing a law that makes *women* have to tell their employer why they're taking contraceptives, and if he doesn't like it, well, then, no insurance for her! And, since AZ is a right-to-work (heh) state, well, he can just fire the bitch.

** Why do we call states that ban unions, and allow any employer to fire any employee for any reason, why is it called "right-to-work"? Shouldn't it be called "right-to-fire", instead?***

Kansas is promoting a bill that encourages, and finds blameless, doctors to withhold information, or lie to the patient about information that informs them about a yet unborn child if it's negative. Oh, and the Congressman who stood up and told the world that women should just go ahead and carry a dead fetus to term, because, gosh, cows, pigs, and chickens do it all the time.

And Virginia, that said women who wanted an abortion had to endure a "medical rape" before being granted an abortion. (and then blinked and changed the bill.) A procedure that is legal in the US, by the way. Let's not forget that dummy who gleefully offered to provide aspirin to any women seeking contraceptive service, cause "gals just put aspirin between their knees" and voila! No conception.

Texas is defunding Planned Parenthood, cause, gosh, 3% of their funding goes to abortions, but none of them in Texas. And the 97% that goes toward women's health ~ cancer screenings, Pap smears, general health, well, that's just too bad. And another almost 200,000 women lose any access to health care, because all the clinics, Planned Parenthood and others, are closing up shop. Way to go, Texas!

And this, from a woman (only physically, apparently) who actually said, out loud, in front of God and country, that women could expect to be raped if they joined the military, but allowed that some women should get help if they were among the few who were "raped too much".  Once isn't enough? And rape is a reasonable response to a woman who puts her life on the line to protect this country?

So, where are all the comparable bills for men? Do men have to tell their employers why they are using Viagra? Should doctors be encouraged to lie to male patients about testicular cancer? I mean, if a doctor allows a man to remove his testicles, isn't that tantamount to abortion, too? I mean, killing sperm is a crime, right? If removing an egg is tantamount to abortion, then certainly, sperm must be accorded the same status. And shouldn't men be gelded, since, gosh, horses, dogs and cats do it all the time.

Funny how Santorum is righteously glad to circumscribe the rights and privileges of women (who really shouldn't work, or go to college, or remain single, or ever try to prevent pregancy, and when they are pregnant, shouldn't ask for pre-natal care), all in support of the "family", but never says a word about what men can and should do. Like take responsibility for their sperm. Or support the children they father. Or honor their marriage vows and never have an affair. Never abuse a woman or child. Support the family he creates, since his wife is forced to stay home and become a baby factory.

Frankly, I believe Santorum and his ilk are terrified of women. Afraid they aren't going to look as good to women who think for themselves. Terrified that a woman may be better than them at a job they want. Afraid they might have to actually grow up in a world where women are equals. How sad. And how sad that this sick psychological disorder doesn't get treated, but gets approval from a large section of America.

God save America ~ the Republicans sure won't.

Sorry to have been missing for so long, but Blogger doesn't seem to agree with something on my system when using AOL, so I can't post anything. I discovered, though, that using IE I can post, so I'm back!

Anyway, I can't begin to tell you how disgusted I am over the whole Rush L. uproar. That man is just sick.  Not the kind of sick where we would have to feel sorry for him, take him chicken soup, place a cool washcloth on his fevered brow. The kind of sick where one should call the police and the local Insane Asylum, and have him put away.

Although, I do have to say that while RL is truly disgusting, Santorum and Gingrich don't seem much better, and Mitt... well, he's just creepy. He's seeking to become the first AI elected president.

Santorum wants religion to run the country. He's trying to prove that our Founding Fathers always intended it that way.Guess he didn't really understand the history classes he took. There's absolutely no way in Hell Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, et al, ever dreamed that the Church would ever hold sway in the American government. They weren't, for the most part, even really Christian. Unless you include Deism as one sect of Christianity. They didn't so much believe in "God the Father" as they did in "God the Watchmaker", a very different sort of God. And they made clear their intentions in numerous writings about religion and government, not just in the Constitution. And given that most of them actually wrote the Constitution, I think it behooves us to give them credit for knowing what they intended.

And then there's Gingrich. He doesn't really want to be president, I've decided. He wants to be the American God/King.  Hmmm. People are losing their homes, going hungry, losing hope? Let's build a moon colony, and when He has packed the colony with 1,300 of the right kind of people, let's make it the 51st royal colony, er, state. The Constitution doesn't agree with Him? Well, the Constitution is wrong. Narcissicism is just wonderful, isn't it?

January Insanity

So, Obama gave the State of the Union speech. And South Carolina favored the most unsupportable candidacy of Newt. Romney released his tax return (singular), and no one was surprised that he is among the 1%ers. Perhaps we were a little surprised at how much glee he found in telling us how wealthy he is, and how unrepentent he is about milking the tax code for his benefit, but honestly, not that surprised. I mean, this is a man who says "Let the foreclosure process run its course" while holding stock in a great many companies that are foreclosing on folks right and left.  Who can toss off a "I'll bet you $10,000" challenge to Perry. Who calls his speaking income, some $374,000 "not very much" money.  Heh. It's disheartening that the American public isn't more surprised, isn't even outraged at this. And they're probably going to put Romney forth as the candidate to beat Obama.

And then there's Newt. If he has his way, Romney will be retired as the front runner, and Newt will begin his ascent to Glory as the Saviour of the Western World. This is the man who divorced his first wife while she was seriously ill in order to marry his mistress, then divorced the second wife, who wouldn't accept an "open marriage", also while she was ill, to marry his next mistress. Who tried to remove Clinton from office because of the tacky Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, while carrying on his own tawdry affair. And he claims he was unfaithful because he was consumed by patriotism. Dear lord.

Newt uses vanishingly thin veiled racism to appeal to the extremes of the already extreme Republican party. He uses mock outrage when questioned about his past affairs, his past lobbying-in-all-but-name tenure at Fannie and Freddie, and then has the audacity to say that the crash was caused by them. (It wasn't) He offers to teach the NAACP how to help poor black people. He suggests that kids from projects (black kids) should be given janitorial jobs at their schools, to teach them the "work ethic".

Newt calls himself an historian, which makes real historians shudder. He isn't an historian. He's a megalomaniac twister of history. He was fined and castigated during his vicious term in Congress, forced to step down, but to hear him tell it, he was solely responsible for all the economic sucess in Clinton's presidency. He distilled and promulagated the vicious, take-no-prisoners, lie often and well approach to campaigning, which is just what we're seeing now in the Republican primaries, and he's the most vociferious voice calling for an end to all this invective. Heh. John King asking him about the news that his second wife was admitting that Newt asked her for an "open marriage" was, according to Newt, close to the most disgusting thing he'd ever heard. As Jon Stewart so aptly remarked, Newt "must have quite an imagination".

And then there's his over the top suggestion, in Florida of course, that we establish a colony on the moon, and confirm the process for that colony to become a state as soon as they have 13,000 people. Puerto Rico has been waiting a long time for statehood, but of course, Puerto Ricans aren't white.

And then there's Obama. His first term hasn't been the spectacular success we all believed it would be. He hasn't been the president we all believed he would be. Admittedly, he took office saddled with the monstrosity that Bush left behind, but he also was saddled with a Republican party whose most important goal was to make sure Obama was a one-term president. If it came from the president, a bill couldn't pass. If Obama nominated anyone, he or she couldn't be approved. If Obama said it, it must be a lie. Hell, he wasn't even really an American! What, fix the economy? Nope, it might improve Obama's chances for re-election. The source and causes of the Great Recession should be firmly laid at the door of Bush? Nope, it's all Obama's fault.

The Republican Party has become an embarrasment and a danger to our society. It has lost all sense of decency, and abdicated any responsibility for anything (except of course anything it did that was viewed favorably by themselves, although not by the American people).It's become even more  tilted toward exhalting white rich people, and more adamantly determined to squash anybody else. (And America is more diversified in terms of color than most any other country in the world.) I think, or maybe I hope, this is the death knell for the GOP. I think that party will find itself splintering, like a Balkan nation, into exclusionary, angry factions with no tolerance for any one else. I devoutly hope so.

Given the disease that the Republican party has become, even if I hated Obama (which I don't), I would be compelled to vote for him simply for the preservation of the American union.