Hurray for Wisconsin voters! We weren't duped by the Fake Democrats that the Repubs tried to foist on us. Congratulations to all the Real Democratic winners in this round of The State That Kicked The Hornet's Ass. Perhaps we who have been educated in Wisconsin by Wisconsin teachers are smart enough and clever enough to see through lame efforts to pull the wool over our eyes. I can just hear the phone conversation with the Kochs at the Double Cross Ranch this morning...
"Mr. Koch? Is that you, sir? I am calling from the Capitol. Right, the Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin. Sorry to tell you the news, sir, but the Democrats won all their seats yesterday. Yup, that's right, all six of them. Well, I am sorry, sir, we tried mighty hard to confuse them with our cardboard cutouts of Democrats but they just didn't buy it, sir. What's that, sir? Well, yes, sir, indeed we did put pressure on voters. I had all the men workin' real hard, sir. Oh, now I don't think that's quite fair, Mr. Koch. Just because we didn't keep those Democrats from winning seats doesn't mean we shouldn't get paid. What's that? I need to tell the men that they'll have to wait to see what happens in Washington on the debt crises? Mr. Koch, that hardly seems right. Me and the men, no offense intended, don't make much money workin' for you and your brother. Heck, we barely can afford rent on this barn. And me, Larry and Moe, we get Social Security. Yessir, we'll sit tight. Yessir, I guess we could look for part time jobs. No sir, we ain't no slobs."
It's good to celebrate a victory. This one is a bit like "One small step for man..." and it may very well take that continuing kind of effort we exerted to get to the Moon and land on it forty-two years ago. It will mark a small step in the direction of regaining ground after the disastrous 2010 Mid-terms and all that happened after that. And it also points out what kind of effort, personal education and vigilance is needed to have gotten here today. From here on in, we cannot afford to relax because we know the Repubs have a plan and they are working that plan hard. Don't think that out at the Double Cross Ranch all is quiet and sad today. Far from it. They're busy over cowboy coffee and biscuits. Those outlaws are a scrappy bunch!
As wonderful and uplifting as this news is, the debt ceiling crises plods on in Washington and is frightening people everywhere. We have about two weeks before the country could, without raising the debt ceiling, go in to default on payments. Many possibilities loom if that happens including not mailing out Social Security payments to seniors, not mailing out checks to Veterans and/or not paying active duty military. I have written to Obama several times, John Boehner, and the Double Cross Ranch hand, Paul Ryan, as well as Mitch McConnell. It seems the Tea Partiers, who have just about completely co-opted the Republican Party, have determined to stand like cement statues against raising the debt ceiling. They don't seem to care an eyelash if Grandma Johnson gets her measly SS check and therefore can't pay her measly rent or if nineteen-year old Hank over in Afghanistan hunkered down in some forsaken rock pile gets his paycheck so his wife and two-year old back in Cadot, Wisconsin can buy groceries or if Arnie, who was wounded in WW II and is now very ill, gets his check so he can toddle to the VA for his treatment.
But they don't mind at all if Muffin Fitzgerald-Walker gets a bonus this year that equals eighty times the GDP of a Pacific island or that Wall Street is, well, Wall Street (they don't wear no stinkin' Sears suits there!) or that corporations, like the one the Koch's operate, make obscene amounts of money. No, that's perfectly okay. The Repubs, aka Tea Partiers, feel that the ultra-wealthy are the gas that runs the country's engines, they're the movers and the shakers, the innovators and the doers and they should continue to receive tax breaks. The TP's don't want to impede these movers from moving all the money in to their storehouses because those politicians live on hope that all that gold will eventually trickle down to them. They'll be rewarded in some way for their service to Manna. They'll get appointments to boards, jobs as CEOs, chairs on important committees, or ranch hands for the Koch Boys just like Walker did. They will be relieved that they made it out of the Common Person's life and in to the secure and beautiful life of The Rich.
Someone told me once that I was prejudiced against wealthy people. They were shocked I could be so callous because as they said, the wealthy are often philanthropists. True, sometimes a wealthy person does do good things for others. That's appropriate. I think when you have gobs of money you ought to be involved in helping others with your gifts. Also true, I am rather prejudiced against the wealthy. I admit it. The folks meeting at the Double Cross Ranch today are the uber-wealthy and their power is eye-watering. They move others about like puppets which is why we must keep close eyes on the politicians - they have strings tied to wealth and that wealth seeks to buy our freedoms and our planet.
Power To All The Common People!
Wisconsin Needs A Moral Compass
Showing posts with label social security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social security. Show all posts
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
Dangerous Times Ahead
Enough goofy business. Hope you liked the Wisconsin Dancing Cowgirls. Now on to bigger and very dangerous things.
I have my headset on and am redialing the White House until I get a breathing person so I can leave a personal comment for the President regarding the debt ceiling crisis and the Republican demands for deep cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. I've written three or four e-letters but I just have to talk to a live human being. If you feel compelled to do the same here's the number to the White House switchboard:
1-202-456-1111
Andy just emailed me that all of Wisconsin legislators - with the exception of Paul Ryan - no surprise there! - and one other, have drafted a petition calling for the protection of Medicare and Medicaid in this state. Perhaps there is some small humanity left in Wisconsin after all. Perhaps the shadow of a moral compass has been cast across the state.
This is big, really big. Even the potential threat to cut deeply in to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security (still a solvent program!) while the wealthy in our country continue to receive bailouts, handouts, obscene bonuses, and tax cuts is class warfare in the extreme. Will the vanishing middle class and the poor bear all the burdens for the corporations and their bloated CEOs, for Wall Street, for those who consider a 6-figure income to be bare bones? It appears that is what is being handed to us Common People. Will we stand for this? Will you stand for this?
What will take us in to the streets? Will this do it? Will something even more drastic make that happen? What riles us to the point that we refuse to accept that we have become just so many wage slaves and begin the revitalization of our own selves as citizens of our country? I'm serious. What will get under our skin enough, happen to enough of our elderly relatives, kill enough jobs, take away enough health care, squash us enough that we stop consuming, stop watching movies, stop eating out, stop wanting more and more and turn our attention and energy to doing something real and constructive? Will it be this threatened loss of support structures?
One of the 14 Senators who fled to Illinois this past late winter to preserve what they could of our rights as workers was Chris Larson. Chris is Wisconsin Senator of District 7. He sends out a newsletter online to those who supported the 14 while they were gone. I am including the link to Chris' newsletter because I think it is important to hear the voices of others than media or Walker-backed-Ryan supporters. In this newsletter Chris takes up the topic of Accountability and Transparency in our state government. He calls Walker's moves "dangerous". I agree.
https://mail.google.com/mail/#inbox/1310ae1191dc3ac4
Although it might seem that talking about Chris and his newsletter is off the topic of Republican-led cuts in social programs, the very support structures of our society, isn't accountability and transparency at the root of much of our discontent? It begs a list of questions I think.
1. Are we holding our representatives and senators and presidents truly accountable on each and every decision? After all isn't that what participative democracy is all about?
2. Do we believe that our government and its decisions is as transparent as it can reasonably be?
3. Is the manner in which debate regarding the most precious of our supports handled with both accountability and transparency? Not to mention all other aspects that touch upon our daily lives, our well being, our natural resources and our wild lands.
4. What would each of us do if we could not answer these questions in a positive, completely honest way?
What do we do if the President and the Dems cave to the Republicans on this and say yes to cuts that will make a mockery out of my previous post on what will they do with Andy's elderly Aunt? What will I do? What will you do? Some thoughts on that...
When I went on a study trip to Mexico the point of that trip was to sensitize a North American to the systemic poverty that faces millions of people in the community of Cuernavaca. Along with 20 other North Americans, I spent two weeks in daily conversation with the abject poor, those living in railroad settlements in cardboard shacks with the printed names of American corporations stamped on the sides. And with men and women who had given their lives over to helping these compensinos. It was a dialogical constant, a daily interface with people who were rising up from extreme and crushing poverty to take control of their lives and build resilient communities. They were taking charge of their own food, their own health care and their own education. It was a liberating environment in which to spend those two weeks and it was very uncomfortable. After all, we 20 were privileged. We wore new clothes and fancy tennis shoes. Still, after the time was nearly up we all felt changed, deeply altered in our thinking and in the way in which we saw the world.
We are perched on the edge, as I have written before, of massive changes not only in our environment as global climate change unhinges our systems but also in our lives as citizens of every country. In the U.S. the changes will be difficult just like they were for those 20 of us in Mexico. We will need to be courageous, determined, vocal and smart. Our treasured Middle Class, the great We the Common People, is going to have to educate ourselves on what a much more local government looks like, how it works and how it responds. It's time for us to roll up our sleeves and get busy making our communities strong and healthy.
Call the President would you? While we begin the process of re-building our own communities in a more Common Way, we need to fight with all our might to preserve what we can for those who are in need.
Power To All The Common People!
I have my headset on and am redialing the White House until I get a breathing person so I can leave a personal comment for the President regarding the debt ceiling crisis and the Republican demands for deep cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. I've written three or four e-letters but I just have to talk to a live human being. If you feel compelled to do the same here's the number to the White House switchboard:
1-202-456-1111
Andy just emailed me that all of Wisconsin legislators - with the exception of Paul Ryan - no surprise there! - and one other, have drafted a petition calling for the protection of Medicare and Medicaid in this state. Perhaps there is some small humanity left in Wisconsin after all. Perhaps the shadow of a moral compass has been cast across the state.
This is big, really big. Even the potential threat to cut deeply in to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security (still a solvent program!) while the wealthy in our country continue to receive bailouts, handouts, obscene bonuses, and tax cuts is class warfare in the extreme. Will the vanishing middle class and the poor bear all the burdens for the corporations and their bloated CEOs, for Wall Street, for those who consider a 6-figure income to be bare bones? It appears that is what is being handed to us Common People. Will we stand for this? Will you stand for this?
What will take us in to the streets? Will this do it? Will something even more drastic make that happen? What riles us to the point that we refuse to accept that we have become just so many wage slaves and begin the revitalization of our own selves as citizens of our country? I'm serious. What will get under our skin enough, happen to enough of our elderly relatives, kill enough jobs, take away enough health care, squash us enough that we stop consuming, stop watching movies, stop eating out, stop wanting more and more and turn our attention and energy to doing something real and constructive? Will it be this threatened loss of support structures?
One of the 14 Senators who fled to Illinois this past late winter to preserve what they could of our rights as workers was Chris Larson. Chris is Wisconsin Senator of District 7. He sends out a newsletter online to those who supported the 14 while they were gone. I am including the link to Chris' newsletter because I think it is important to hear the voices of others than media or Walker-backed-Ryan supporters. In this newsletter Chris takes up the topic of Accountability and Transparency in our state government. He calls Walker's moves "dangerous". I agree.
https://mail.google.com/mail/#inbox/1310ae1191dc3ac4
Although it might seem that talking about Chris and his newsletter is off the topic of Republican-led cuts in social programs, the very support structures of our society, isn't accountability and transparency at the root of much of our discontent? It begs a list of questions I think.
1. Are we holding our representatives and senators and presidents truly accountable on each and every decision? After all isn't that what participative democracy is all about?
2. Do we believe that our government and its decisions is as transparent as it can reasonably be?
3. Is the manner in which debate regarding the most precious of our supports handled with both accountability and transparency? Not to mention all other aspects that touch upon our daily lives, our well being, our natural resources and our wild lands.
4. What would each of us do if we could not answer these questions in a positive, completely honest way?
What do we do if the President and the Dems cave to the Republicans on this and say yes to cuts that will make a mockery out of my previous post on what will they do with Andy's elderly Aunt? What will I do? What will you do? Some thoughts on that...
When I went on a study trip to Mexico the point of that trip was to sensitize a North American to the systemic poverty that faces millions of people in the community of Cuernavaca. Along with 20 other North Americans, I spent two weeks in daily conversation with the abject poor, those living in railroad settlements in cardboard shacks with the printed names of American corporations stamped on the sides. And with men and women who had given their lives over to helping these compensinos. It was a dialogical constant, a daily interface with people who were rising up from extreme and crushing poverty to take control of their lives and build resilient communities. They were taking charge of their own food, their own health care and their own education. It was a liberating environment in which to spend those two weeks and it was very uncomfortable. After all, we 20 were privileged. We wore new clothes and fancy tennis shoes. Still, after the time was nearly up we all felt changed, deeply altered in our thinking and in the way in which we saw the world.
We are perched on the edge, as I have written before, of massive changes not only in our environment as global climate change unhinges our systems but also in our lives as citizens of every country. In the U.S. the changes will be difficult just like they were for those 20 of us in Mexico. We will need to be courageous, determined, vocal and smart. Our treasured Middle Class, the great We the Common People, is going to have to educate ourselves on what a much more local government looks like, how it works and how it responds. It's time for us to roll up our sleeves and get busy making our communities strong and healthy.
Call the President would you? While we begin the process of re-building our own communities in a more Common Way, we need to fight with all our might to preserve what we can for those who are in need.
Power To All The Common People!
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