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So There Was This Today

~ An eclectic kaleidoscope of whatever tickles my fancy, makes me think, gives me pause, grabs my heart, gives me the giggles, or in any way hits me in the feels.

So There Was This Today

Tag Archives: politics

Top 11 Reasons to vote Republican

13 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by 98maryanne in Writing

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Tags

Democrat, government, politics, Republican

1. You are all for the military industrial complex. You think it’s great that the U.S. spends more on defense than the next 7 countries combined. You are absolutely convinced we are about to be overrun by ISIS this year. In the past it was Al Quaeda, and Saddam Hussein with his nonexistent WMD’s and before that it was…well anyway, you believe all the war-mongering propaganda, so the uber-rich can get obscenely rich off of war, and bonus points, you get to wave the American flag and be oh so proud of your patriotism.

2. And speaking of the military you believe this country is way too broke to be taking good care of all the veterans of all the wars that you wave your flag over and feel so proud over. You nod your head when your Republican politicians claim that there just isn’t enough money to make sure veterans are adequately cared for and I’m assuming make peace with that by believing “sacrifices” must be made to keep this country safe. Because ISIS. And Immigrants. Which brings us to…

3. You believe immigrants are evil. You believe they are here to take over the country and take away everything you’ve worked so hard to build! They are nothing but takers who want a piece of the American pie and there is not enough to go around! The fact that unless you are 100% Native American, you are descended from immigrants, DOES NOT matter because YOUR immigrant descendants BUILT this country after stealing it and committing genocide against the native inhabitants. And there could never, ever, ever, be hard-working, smart, entrepreneurial immigrants now that could be awesome for our economy and country because they all come from, you know, ssshhh…”brown countries.” But you’re not racist.

4. You believe that if you believe something, then your “rights” around your beliefs are sacrosanct and you can behave as you wish because other people don’t get rights that differ from your beliefs. Ever. So you think gays are icky? And you have an ancient book that mentions gays are icky so you get to tell those icky people what rights they have and what rights they don’t have and if you don’t get to keep them from having rights then YOUR rights are being violated because remember? Icky. Oh and that book, that also says slaves are good, shellfish is bad, stoning your wife, ok. YOU get to choose which one of the rules in your book MUST be followed or oh my god you’re being PERSECUTED. Persecute: to harass or punish in a manner designed to injure, grieve, or afflict; specifically to cause to suffer because of belief. So it’s ok to injure, grieve or afflict a gay person by denying them civil rights that YOU enjoy because of your “belief” and that is not persecution, but just by the fact that you DON’T get to deny a gay person a particular right because of your belief YOU are being persecuted. UM. NO. PERIOD. See bold above. But your Republican politicians need your votes and will deny people’s civil rights happily to keep their rich overlords happy.

5. And along the same lines as number 4 you believe that “babies” are “babies” the instant they are conceived and MUST have all the protections afforded actual alive and breathing people (unless you think they’re icky, then you get to say which protections they should have) so you have the right, no the DUTY to tell a woman how she should determine her reproductive life. You’re right, she’s wrong, she doesn’t get a choice. Because your book. You know the one with shellfish is bad? And we all know doctors are just in it because, well, they’re wrong too, so there. And why leave it at abortion? You need to make sure those slutty women keep their legs together so you work to make accessing affordable birth control difficult. And if closing down health clinics to keep women from having access to abortions and birth control also makes them lose access to life saving cancer screenings and medications, then oh well too bad, so sad, they should just work harder so they can afford the 1,000’s of dollars a private practice doctor would charge. Right? You made yours, they should make theirs. Right?

6. You believe Obamacare (The Affordable Care Act) is a socialist program designed to wipe out America as we know it turning it into a disgusting, horrible place where most people (it should be ALL people, a single payer Medicare system for ALL but can you imagine? that would definitely signal the apocalypse, am I right?) can actually afford to get medical treatment for themselves before things get so bad they have no choice but to show up at the emergency room, where taxpayers have to foot the bill. It’s too bad there are laws in place that state ER’s have to treat patients regardless of their ability to pay, am I right? Because that would free up more of your hard earned tax dollars for the next war to keep you safe from whoever. But never fear, your hard-working Republican politicians are keeping red states safe from the tyrannies of affordable healthcare by refusing to take federal funding from the U.S. government to expand Medicaid in their states. I mean healthcare isn’t a RIGHT, right? You should get it only if you can pay for it, right? Or have a job that provides it for you. If your job doesn’t provide it, that just means you’re a lazy moocher, you know? And hey, keeping insurance companies from putting lifetime coverage limits on policies, denying people coverage due to pre-existing conditions, dumping people who get really ill from their insurance because they didn’t put on their application they had acne as a kid so that means they were trying to defraud the company, are all bad, bad, bad, socialist things. Because Obama.

7. You believe the 2nd amendment should be put on a pedestal and worshipped above all others. EVERYONE should have the right to open carry any gun they want, with any ammunition they want, anywhere they want, without any of that big government hassle of background checks or waiting periods, because THE CONSTITUTION! So what that 10’s of thousand die each year and more 10’s of thousands more are injured each year, many of them children because THE CONSTITUTION! I mean good guy responsible gun owners are the only thing keeping people safe! And when those responsible gun owners blow off their own heads when they feel sad, or kill their spouses when they feel mad or lose their children because the kid just didn’t LISTEN when they were told not to touch the gun laying around, or some mentally ill person shoots up a movie theater or a kindergarten classroom, it’s all just a TRAGIC ACCIDENT, or GOD’s WILL. Certainly not the gun owner’s fault. And the NRA and the Republicans are working hard all across the country to make sure there are no barriers whatsoever to gun ownership and where you can carry one so you should feel safer already!

8. You believe in the free market. You believe that the only way for this country to work is to de-regulate everything because by golly the market will work! And it does work, for the top 1% of earners. They are so happy you believe that if there are no government regulations on corporations, that if their are no regulations on the shenanigan’s of Wall Street and the TOO BIG TO FAIL banks, that if there are no consumer protections, that if taxes for the super rich are super low and even lower on their massive amount of “carried interest” because they are getting away with not calling it “income”… I could go on and on but, if you haven’t figured it out by now you won’t. You’ll sit there, proud Republican that you are, hunched under the uber-wealthy, waiting for something, anything, to trickle down to you, never realizing you are being gleefully shat upon and nothing else.

9. You are happy with the state of education in this country. You are happy to change history taught to our young so that slavery and racism in this country seem like no big deal. You are happy to deny science because your book! The one that says slavery is great! And also because your corporate overlords don’t want regulation, so no science! There’s no rise in the sea levels, because you read articles on the internet and therefore know more than scientists! There’s no proof that global warming is causing more and more catastrophic weather events around the world because you don’t read scientific articles because scientists have no idea what they’re talking about (or maybe you don’t understand them, but hey that’s just my opinion). You believe that your book is the book and any other book is just hooey so you try to have your “creationism” taught in schools and Oh my goodness, you’re actually making headway! Pretty soon, if your Republican politicians keep gerrymandering so they can stay in power despite the majority of American’s wanting nothing to do with them, you’ll have the theocracy you’ve always wanted. God’s law over Man’s law. And of course YOU’LL get to decide what God’s law means. Am I right?

10. You believe in American Exceptionalism. You believe America is the greatest country on earth! You think America has the best healthcare available. We don’t. We used to have the best educated workforce in the world. We don’t anymore. For reasons why see number 9. You think all babies are the bomb! So much so you want to force every woman to carry every pregnancy to term. And yet the US ranks 25th in infant mortality rates of full term babies. I wonder if it has anything to do with our lousy healthcare and the determination of Republicans to control a woman’s body. Just saying’. Oh and the U.S., the richest country on earth ranks 34th on child poverty. You know little kids not having enough to eat or shoes for their feet. Because once women have been forced to have those little ones, those little ones are on their own. Got to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. If they have shoes. And if their parents weren’t lazy moochers it wouldn’t be a problem, am I right? (Never mind the fact that the vast majority of the poor in this country are working poor. I mean, we wouldn’t want those corporations raking in billions of profits for their shareholders every year to have to pay people a living wage. Bootstraps don’t you know.) And we have the best infrastructure in the world! Not anymore. Nope, Republicans won’t raise taxes to pay for it, because trickle-down will start working any time!!! And we have the best tech in the world! Nope. And good grief I could go on all day.

11. You believe Medicare would work better as a voucher system, because the free market! And you believe Social Security is going broke and needs to be privatized, because the free market! Social Security is not going broke by the way, except through the thievery of the people you vote for who “borrow” from the fund to pay for war and shit and then have to convince you old folks shouldn’t get an “entitlement” that THEY paid into their entire lives so that you won’t ever realize it was stolen in the first place.

So why is the richest country in the world behind in so many areas? Well, I’ve said several times already, but it’s worth repeating. The super rich buy politicians to do their bidding. The Supreme Court made it that much easier with their disastrous Citizens United decision with a 5 to 4 majority from the conservative justices. The Republicans are the party most indebted to the 1% although there are plenty of culpable Democrats as well. And the Republicans have jumped on the Fundamentalist Christian bandwagon, knowing that will buy them that segment of the conservative vote. Because what they are doing to this country isn’t stupidity or lack of education or even “belief” in God. Most of them have more education than 99% of the conservatives in this country could even dream of. Nope, it is calculated political horse shit from a party whose soul is bought and paid for by a few oligarchs. And they will sit and watch children and old people starve, allow tens of thousands to die from gun violence. Allow tens of thousands more to lose their homes and many hundreds or thousands die from climate catastrophes. Watch as people die on collapsing bridges and antiquated rail systems. Send more and more young people off to never ending wars to be maimed or killed in order to “keep America safe” from the people their foreign policies cultivate to rage. Refuse to fund taking care of the needs of veterans of those wars. And all you Republicans, 99% who are not and never will be the wealthy that your politicians kowtow to will keep voting for them against your own self-interests and those of your parents and grandparents and children. And I will never, never, never understand how seemingly decent people are so callous to other’s pain and so ignorant of what is being done to them just so they can proudly wear the label “conservative”.

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The State of Things

17 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by 98maryanne in Government, Media, Politics

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

compassion, conservative, education, liberal, middle-class, politics, science, social justice, Texas

I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of the U.S. since the mid-term elections. Well, if I’m honest since way before the elections. And if I’m honest, I’m having a hard time being optimistic. Of understanding what people are thinking and why. Why there is either rabid, angry, ugly discourse from some and complete apathy from others. How is it that people are so lacking in sympathy, let alone empathy, toward fellow human beings.

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Why people will vote against their own self interests just so that they can be seen as better than those “others”. How science and education became dirty words, academia seen as nothing but “liberal” ideology. Conservative states like Texas actually changing history in textbooks to gloss over what they would rather have people not know, advocating NOT teaching critical thinking skills in their party platforms, to keep the populace stupid and uninformed. Politicians repeatedly stating, “I’m not a scientist, but I believe climate change is a hoax” to keep the oil, gas and coal industries happy and raking in the billions, while 97% of scientists are raising ever more strident alarms. Demonizing low income workers as lazy and uneducated (just the way they like them) and refusing to raise the minimum wage to something even remotely livable while working feverishly to cut food stamps for children, the elderly and veterans. Propagating “patriotism” and “love for country” and “supporting our troops” to make it seem ok to fight never ending wars that make the rich ever richer all while making more veterans they can refuse to do right by. Bailing out banksters and their banks to the tune of billions of dollars, refusing to prosecute even one of the rich SOB’s who tanked the global economy, causing millions of people to lose their retirement funds, their homes, their jobs, their hope, while those few get ever richer hoarding and sitting on trillions of dollars. How one family, the Walmart heirs (6 people) own more wealth than the bottom 40% of Americans (120 million people) yet they claim they cannot afford to pay a living wage or give full time work to their employees and rely on the government to provide aid to 70% of their workers all while working towards taking that aid away. And the Waltons are just one example, the Koch brothers another, of the 0.01% who have more money than they could possibly ever spend who diligently work toward keeping the masses poor and hungry and uneducated, and fighting amongst each other so they won’t realize the real problem has nothing to do with they deserve it because they worked hard but that the playing field was so ridiculously slanted in their favor. Pay equality for women still a pipe dream, a “pro-life” agenda that is really only “pro-birth” that is only about regulating a woman’s choices, not allowing her to make her own decisions and because once you are born to that poor woman who was unable to access needed reproductive healthcare or able to afford birth control so she could plan her family and who works 2 or 3 jobs at minimum wage and who can barely pay the rent and put food on the table, too bad, so sad, you should have been born into a “better” family.

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Colleges and universities operating for profit, graduating students with so much student debt they have to live at home with their parents, putting off marriage and home buying and families they can’t afford with a collective debt load in the trillions making the mortgage crisis look like a walk in the park, but hey the rich are getting richer.

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A militarized police force that murders with impunity, especially those of color, that pepper sprays, tear gases and arrests peaceful protestors, criminalizing our constitutional right to peaceful assembly, legally confiscating anything they “claim” might come from “drug” activity without having to prove that, to the tune of billions of dollars stolen from law-abiding citizens. And the corporate media, bought and paid for by the wealthy, disseminating fear and mistrust and false outrage, keeping focus on what the oligarchy wants while ignoring what they don’t. I could go on and on and on. And while both political parties are complicit in many of the laws that have allowed such a massive and unprecedented gap in income inequality, conservatives, the Republican party are by far the drivers of most of the above. And they were voted back into control of both houses of congress because people either voted against their own interests, buying into the horse shit arguments that they are better than all those “others” and they have the right to decide how huge swaths of people live their lives and believing that “conservative” values and Republicans will make sure “they” are taken care of, or because they were too apathetic to go to the polls and let their voices be heard and so made sure they would stay stuck. It boggles my mind. But hey, as long as there’s American Idol and CSI and the Bachelor and the Kardashians and sports to watch on TV and new shoes and TV’s and cars to go into debt purchasing and church to go to so they can learn to judge who “deserves” what and why and when because they’re “good”, they put money in the collection basket and donate to charity during the holidays, smug in their white, middle-class, privilege not noticing as even that is slipping away.

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But, I’m not going to give up. I’m going to keep fighting for progressive reform because I believe with every thing I have that every person born, no matter their gender, their skin color, their place of birth deserves to live with dignity and that means making a living wage, no matter what they do for a living, having food to eat, a roof over their heads, having access to decent education, healthcare, income equality, rights over their own healthcare decisions and more. And yes that means the super wealthy, the regular wealthy, and the well-to-do will have to put in their fair share. Think about it like this. Say there was a 10% across the board, everyone pays it tax rate. If you make $20,000 a year you would pay $2,000 in taxes leaving $18,000 to live on. If you made $80,000 a year you would pay $8,000 in taxes leaving you $72,000 to live on. If you made $500,000 a year, you would pay $50,000 in taxes leaving you $450,000 to live on. If you made $2,000,000 a year you would pay $200,000 in taxes leaving you $1,800,000 to live on. Do you see where I’m going with this? The more money you make, the more you can provide to the social good and still have more than enough money. And don’t even get me started by saying that the poor don’t pay taxes. Of course they do. They pay sales taxes, and all those local taxes in the form of fees for services and those taxes as a percentage of their income are very regressive meaning it is much harder for the poor to pay those and still have enough to live on. I guess my hope is that the average person will wake up, quit allowing the wealthy and their bought and paid for media and politicians tell them what is right and what is wrong and instead start practicing compassion, understanding and kindness to their neighbors. Wasn’t it Jesus who said, “love thy neighbor as thyself”? Your neighbor is every other person born on this Earth. Believe it.

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