Apathy and Animosity

Have you noticed that everyone is either snapping and sniping at each other, or they are completely apathetic and don't care? I've been talking to young adults around me, trying to convince them to get out and vote, but they don't think their vote counts so they don't see any reason to vote anyway. It's very annoying. I try to explain why it is so important to vote, and not let a small minority of voters make choices for us all.

I was talking to someone who said they weren't registered to vote and I tried to convince her it was very important to vote. Only about 30% voted in the last election. My friend said their vote didn't count because it was all in the hands of the electoral college anyway. That's just wrong. There are more things to vote on than the Presidential election, although that is a very important reason to vote in itself, You may not be directly picking the candidate but your voice should be heard.

Our electoral system is being torn apart by both parties and their refusal to work issues out and accomplish something. This divisive attitude has been in existence for years but it has never been more prevalent than it is today.

The immediate right wing of the electoral system wants to use their conservative platform to change the face of America and make it a nation ruled by the religious zealots on the right. We do not need zealots with any agenda controlling this country. It has always been a secular country and it should always be. It was never intended to be governed by religion. Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Baptists from Danbury Connecticut  in 1802.

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.^" 

The Tea party keeps beating the drum demanding that their candidates refuse to raise taxes ever! The uber-rich want to continue the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy. Taxes were 39% until Bush cut them 4%, to 35%. Wealthy people hire accountants who help them manage their money and apply any loopholes they can find to reduce their taxes. Mitt Romney admitted that he has paid 13-15% taxes for the last few years. That is far below the 35% that you and I pay.

The issues in this election are the economy, and the lack of jobs across America. President Obama didn't have any cooperation in pushing his bills through congress, so he may have thought it would be hard to get cooperation with creating manufacturing jobs and developing a diverse array of products that could be sold in America. I believe it is imperative.

Continuing the tax cuts for the rich is not in the best interest of our country. Tax rates aren't nearly as high as they have been in the past for the wealthy in this country. The highest tax rates were 95% under President Eisenhower's administration. 

I think America is schizophrenic. We have to be. I can't explain any other reason that we would flip-flop back and forth between the Democrats and the Republicans. Nobody seems to remember George Bush and his horrible presidency. He was a very manipulative and divisive president. He took this nation into two wars. He spent billions of dollars for war and he borrowed it from a communist country. Raise your hand if you think that's stupid.

The stress is starting to become too much. People think the economy is in the toilet and their lives are being ruined while congress is dicking around fighting each other. There aren't enough jobs out there and the dangerous economic situation we are in is hurting everyone. The stock market is booming though, and companies are making record profits so it's all good. When will we feel the trickle down effect? I want to know.

If the Republicans get into the White House, and take control of the economy, and cut programs, and continue to disenfranchise voters, we will all pay. Every time I have seen the federal government cut spending and taxes, states pick up the slack and start taxing it's citizens. When our state isn't able to tap into the federal budget and get earmarks for pork barrel projects like roadwork, schools, and pet projects everybody is disappointed.

Gordon County has been working for several years trying to line up money for big projects. Some money is needed to revamp ramps on the freeway. They also want government money to create tourist parks and a driving tour throughout places where battles were fought during the Civil War.

I've noticed that when the federal taxes are lower my state taxes are higher. But it doesn't even stop there. My local taxes are higher, too. And I'm not finished. Every freaking bill we get goes UP in cost when the economy gets bad. 

I guess the cable company is losing too many customers when they lost their homes so they have to start gouging the customers they have to keep their profits high. Don't even get me started on everything else that goes up. Oh God! The property taxes! Everyone who owns a home or property is struggling under a crushing debt of taxes. I think the government has a wicked sense of humor because all our taxes are due around Christmas time. I guess they want to crush the human spirit.

The same goes for the other companies that raise rates and slip in hidden charges in our bills. My telephone bill is chock full of coded services and indecipherable information. 

I'm talking about my taxes to let you know that it is impossible to get away from paying taxes. Everybody has to pay the piper. Nearly everything you purchase is taxed. Your YooHoo, your Twinkie, your gasoline, your home. It's all taxed by the man.

If you know me, you already know I'm a Democrat, and if you're ever around me you know I'm adamant. As we roll closer to the end of this electoral battle, I have become very vocal and very insistent in trying to educate and explain why it is important to vote for Mr. Obama again for President.

When Barack Obama ran for president I wasn't enthused to have him stepping into the limelight and stealing Hillary Clinton's thunder. I was poised to celebrate the inauguration of the first female president. 

Obama happened to be at the right place at the right time. Senator Ted Kennedy was instrumental in helping Obama secure the nomination. 

There was no choice between McCain and Obama after McCain picked Sarah Palin for his Vice Presidential running mate. McCain had been a Senator for decades and knew lots of people but he chose an unknown first term governor from Alaska. If that was an example of his first policy choice, it didn't give me any confidence in him. 

George Bush used fear tactics and intimidation to whip the public into supporting two wars. Every time a hearing in congress came up concerning funds, or dissent from anyone, the Republican machine went to work calling people unpatriotic, or traitors. They were quick to label people communists, or socialists. Everyone still throws around those terms today. They still want to control with fear and propaganda and it works!

I think George Bush and his evil sidekick Dick Cheney took American politics to a new low. They tried to instill a sports like frenzy as they distributed playing cards with terrorist's pictures on them. Every time they bombed something, or killed anyone, it was splashed all over the news. They used every tool in the book to promote and inspire a team spirit in America about the war.

People were on such a frenzied high because of the war that they became rabid when they talked to anyone who didn't support the war or the excuses that were used to explain why we were invading Iraq. Bush first expressed hostility when Iraq refused to allow nuclear inspectors in their country. Before a resolution could be reached, and without the consent of the United Nations, Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq.

The news played it as a historic occasion when we "freed the Iraqis" and suggested that we would be greeted as liberators. Bush claimed that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD's). Some sketchy information confirmed this suspicion. When Joe Wilson's report became public that he couldn't find any evidence of Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger, Dick Cheney allegedly uses his friend and cohort Scooter Libby to out Jim Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a spy. Holy Double-cross Batman!

Politics is a dirty business. Backstabbing, and double-cross, and lies are strongly enmeshed in politics. I see it all the time on a small scale when I watch the wranglings of the local politicians but it is becoming very disturbing to see that the federal government is getting deeper in the cesspool now. Their job is to take care of the nation and to help their community. Those two jobs shouldn't be held hostage by politicians who went to Washington to prevent any progress and to block any legislature that would benefit Obama's administration.

People are afraid of Obama. The immediate right paints him as the devil incarnate. He isn't the one who got America in two wars and squandered million upon millions of dollars that would be better spent here in America. He was just the man who had to clean up after it. America and the rest of the world would have sunk into a depression to rival the one in the '30's if Obama hadn't propped up the stock market and auto industry. A Judge in Texas is predicting a Civil War if Obama wins again. The right wing is going dangerously towards the edge. They are creating more loonies every day. Honestly! Can we say Koo-Koo for Coco Puffs?

The rabid right is going to come out in force in November to assure themselves of dethroning Obama at the expense of common sense and their own best interests just to rid themselves of an educated, intelligent, thoughtful, diligent, leader who happens to be black and a Democrat. They are blind to the needs of the less fortunate and the possibility that they may need government assistance some day, probably when they are in a nursing home. I wonder what we will do when families have to face that full financial burden without government assistance.


I saw a comment about the atmosphere of the 2012 election fervor over Obama on a message board which summed it up nicely.

Jame s Holloway said, "So the racists are circling the wagons. The one thing that Mr O's election has done that no one can debate is, it's brought the racists out of the closet into the main street of town."

Nobody should be uninformed in this day and age. Go online and read about each candidate and the issues. If you are not rich, why would you vote for someone who only cares about the rich, and will cut programs for the needy?

Everybody should get out and vote. We shouldn't leave it to the few. Research politicians and issues then go vote in November and help choose our next president. It doesn't matter if you vote for Romney or Obama. The important thing is to exercise your citizen's right to choose. Many people around the world have died fighting for the right to vote. Don't squander your freedom. Don't let someone take the right to vote away.

AS ALWAYS

PIO

Why I Am A Democrat

I was just a little kid when John F. Kennedy ran for President and I can remember my family talking about the election. I remember my Pawpaw saying that he was worried about voting for Kennedy because he was a Catholic and he was worried about the Pope's control of him. At the time I didn't know very much about Catholics so I didn't even understand who the Pope was. Now that I am older and can look back at the issue I understand how much this affected my family and this country. I am proud to say that my family voted for President Kennedy and they never did have to worry about the decisions the President made being influenced by his religion. When the President met an untimely death at the hands of an assassin the Presidency was handed over to Lyndon B. Johnson, another democrat.

Johnson didn't worry about alienating his political party or the members of the southern states who were forced kicking and screaming into the Civil Rights movement of the 20th century. He upheld the rights of all Americans to have equal rights and ordered the National Guard to protect black students who were bussed into white schools and had to go through angry white protesters who were afraid of integration. I didn't realize at the time how important that decision would prove to be and I didn't ever have the opportunity to go to school with black children because we lived in a rural community  and integration didn't happen until years later. The city schools were integrated long before the county schools. Some people took their children out of the local city school and sent them to county schools because they were afraid to have their children exposed to black people.

Many of my fellow girlfriends voiced their support for equality for black people and integration and would have liked nothing better than to have our high school integrated. The boys who went to school with me were another story. They voiced their opposition to integration and used vulgar language describing what they would do if we were to become integrated. That is when I began to see a difference in the way many men and women viewed things. More women were open-minded and accepting than their male counterparts.

The only time I ever supported a Republican was when Richard Nixon promised to end the Viet Nam war if he was elected. After his resignation in disgrace I never supported another Republican. I learned that every candidate will promise whatever it takes to win the election. Nixon was stupid and tried to steal information from the Democratic organization to secure the election. If he had of had faith in himself he might not have been exposed as a dirty stinking politician who would do anything to win.

After President Ford served one term the country was so disillusioned that they finally elected a southern man President. I was so proud of Jimmy Carter for his leadership and felt that he was doing the best he could when everyone in Washington considered him an "outsider" and he had to struggle with the politics of both parties without absolute support from his party. He worked tirelessly to try to free the hostages up until the day he turned the office over to President Ronald Reagan. President Carter didn't cause the gas shortage. He was the first President who had to deal with crazy Iranians and gas shortages. Thirty years later the problems that were first exposed in the '70's are still plaguing us and we are still buying oil from the Middle East.

Ronald Reagan led our country into conservatism and tried to squash liberalism. People across America praised him as a hero. He was the President when the Iron Curtain came down so he took credit for saying, ". . . tear down that wall!" Other than that I never could see where his policies helped or influenced my life. We bought a house during the 80's but that was thanks to the help of family members, not the Reagan administration.

I believe that President Bill Clinton was one of the best Presidents in my lifetime and he could have accomplished so much more if he hadn't been the target of a "witchhunt" by the likes of Kenneth Star and other Republicans. I didn't care about his relationship with other women and didn't want to hear all the dirty details about Monica Lewinsky. The only problem I had with him was the same problem that Hillary had with him, that he was having more sex than she was. Other than that, it is nobody's business who the President is boinking if he isn't having sex with a Russian spy, etc. From what I have read and heard many, many Presidents have had extra-marital relations when they were President even Republicans. I think it is amazing how much Clinton was able to accomplish while he was going through such a public scandal.

After George W. Bush won the election, or stole it, depending on how you see it, we faced the worse crisis this country has faced since the Bay of Pigs during the Kennedy era. The Bush administration cranked up the fear and used it to sway and control the country. Every time something came out in the news against Bush or his administration they put up a heightened alert and effectively squashed any other issue. When they started telling people to buy duct tape and how to secure their homes in case of attact I knew that we were being played for suckers. How is plastic and duct tape going to protect us from chemical warfare or a bomb? That's just ignorant. That's about as stupid as the safety drills we endured in the 50's when we were supposed to duck, cover, and supposedly survive an atomic bomb. Give me a break!

I am surprized that I didn't have a stroke during the Bush years. When he declared war on Saddam Hussein because of the terrorists who hijacked planes on September 11, 2001 I was incredulous. They didn't attack us! The Saudi's attacked us. Bush grounded all planes except for the planes that carried Ben Laden's family members who lived in America out of the country.  He used the excuse of the hijackings to declare war on the wrong country. Actually no country attacked us. It was a bunch of crazy radicals who did. We have crazy radicals who live in this country. Some of they would like to kill other people. If they killed thousands of people we wouldn't condemn all Christians because of the nuts who commit violence in the name of God. We would condemn the radical organizations who support them.

After the attacks by the terrorists the whole world was in support of us. Every country in the United Nations was in support of America. Instead of using that support to curtail terrorism GW Bush declared war on Iraq because Saddam refused to have inspectors examine their nuclear faculties. I believe, and believed all along, that Saddam Hussein didn't want inspectors to examine the nuclear faculties because he was afraid of his enemies around him, like Iran. If Iran had realized that they really didn't have nuclear weapons they would have invaded Iraq and killed them all. They hated each other. Iran is still led by an extremist regime which suppresses all people's human rights. Saddam Hussein had come into power during the Reagan administaration which funneled weapons into Iraq to fight the Russians and Iran.

America would never have elected President Obama if the country hadn't gone through the insanity of the Bush years. By the time of the elections we were saddled with two choices and neither one seemed like the right choice. McCain ran for President twice. You would think that since he had been a Senator for years he would have known many excellent qualified candidates for his Vice Presidential candidate. Instead he met and chose an unknown woman who was the governor of Alaska. He hadn't even known her for very long. How could that have been better than an established candidate like Lieberman, etc? He definitely didn't have her vetted or he would have known that she was known to stab the people in the back who helped her get her start in politics in Alaska like Ted Stevens, etc.

I imagine that Hillary Clinton was glad she didn't win the Democratic nomination after the collapse of Wall Street and the mess Bush left this country in. I had to weigh my decision of my vote on whether I believed that McCain would be a better President or whether Obama would be a better President. I shudder to think what this country would be like with McCain and Palin in the White House. He abandoned his principles to win an election and Palin would have tried to take control of the office. The only reason he chose Palin is because he thought Clinton would be his opponent. That was a stupid and cowardly move which backfired.

I promised to tell you Why I Am A Democrat so this is the reason. I asked my Pawpaw one time why we were Democrat. He said that he believed in the Democrats because of what he went through in the depression. He said that Truman  didn't believe in helping the poor people and people were starving to death. He and his brothers hopped on railcars and rode the rails from city to city trying to find work so that they could send money home to their families. He said the Republicans didn't care about the suffering of the people who were crushed by the economy. He said that Roosevelt helped the poor people. FDR started the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) and employed young men to work creating our state parks. If Roosevelt hadn't helped this country during the greatest depression the world had ever known we wouldn't have been the great country that we are today. He said that the Republicans only care about themselves and making money but the Democrats support the poor and the weak and the needy.

I always admired Ted Kennedy because he came from a wealthy family but he never tired of fighting for the rights of the poor and middle class. He was a great advocate for those who couldn't speak for themselves. People condemned Kennedy for Chappaquiddick when he wrecked and a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, died. Because he didn't report the wreck right away he was condemned and was never able to win the Presidental bid. His service to the country and the people of the United States which spanned over 40 years was his greatest legacy and, in my humble opinion, was a far more profound and lasting gift than the short but tragic political carreers of his brothers, John and Bobby Kennedy.

This country is great because every person has a voice in the government and we have people fighting for the rights of us all. I am not rich and I will never be rich. I don't even want to be rich if it means that I want to suppress the rights of the poor and the minorites and the less fortunate.

AS ALWAYSPIO