It’s obvious from the pushback Republican politicians are delivering on a daily basis, that they, along with Trump, are beholding to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. It’s apparent they, along with Fox News, are Russian operatives on American soil.
Putin is deliriously happy with his newfound, American constituency. Trump has delivered on his promise to…make America great again…in the shadow of Russia. History will officially crown Putin the head of the Republican party, as delivered to him by his man, Trump..
It makes sense that Republicans, white men…and white women…will want to fashion themselves in Putin’s likeness. As a dictator, he can make his countrymen over into his image…that of a white person. He can, on a whim, eradicate all Russians of color. If he chose, he could prohibit religious freedom. Republican Christians are betting Putin could do the same in America.
Trump and his Tea Party Republicans, Kevin Nunes, Jim Jordan, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham prominent among them, are delivering America to Vladimir Putin. They’re intent on reversing history…making America a colony of a new, Russian empire.
Republicans who blindly follow Trump are in truth giving themselves freely to Vladimir Putin. They willingly pledge their allegiance to him through his American-placed oligarch, Donald J. Trump. Those include Evangelical ministers, and their followers, who believe Trump is the messiah come to deliver them into his heavenly kingdom.
Trump is the Republican Party’s “chosen one.” He will deliver them from their downtrodden life here in America, into a life more richly rewarding as dictated by Vladimir Putin.
Trump pours out blessings onto his followers…and Putin is not far behind.
…bless those blinded by power, for they know not what they do…or do they???
If you’ve ever watched TheHousewives of Beverly Hills…Orange County…NYC…or NJ…you know those folks are larger than life. They’re not the real deal. They’re like the super-sized balloons flying overhead during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. All blown up with…mega-sized eyeballs, lips, hair and bodies.
The same applies to Donald Trump. Followers enamored of him imagine that as President of the United States, he will fire and hire employees exactly as he did on The Apprentice. That’s the individual they want running the country. They further fantasize that President Trump will stop illegal immigrants and incoming Muslims singlehandedly. They don’t ask how. They just know he’ll do it because he says so.
Trump’s presence in the presidential arena replicates exactly what has happened in Congress. Moderate Republicans and their extremist counterparts cannot see eye to eye. A President Trump would tip the balance of power in favor of the Tea Partiers. Where we escaped the same fate with a President Palin, we will now come face to face with an egomaniac far more maniacal and lacking in knowledge than Sarah ever was.
If Trump doesn’t like Mexicans and Muslims, how will he govern those who already live in this country as American citizens? Will he backtrack on his inflammatory rhetoric? Probably not enough to satisfy those groups. And it’s unlikely that the extremists who devour the “red meat” Trump holds out in front of them on a daily basis are going to allow their candidate to renig on his promise to cleanse the population of racial and religious misfits.
Today Trump’s focus and those of his Tea Party followers are upon the Mexicans and Muslims, is it possible that tomorrow they might want to distance themselves from Blacks? Asians? Jews? Catholics? Who knows. Once extremists gain momentum, America could be facing its own Hitler and the evil he wrought upon millions. What happened then in a land far removed, could happen here.
The KKK and the Skinheads are surely smiling at the turn of events…
If the pundits have it right the Tea Party will run Congress after tomorrow’s election. Maybe not the day after, but soon enough. And if that’s the politics of the majority of voters, it’s almost certain there’ll be a Tea Party president in the White House in 2016.
My reaction? Congratulations!!! They finally did it.
While other Americans sit around twiddling their thumbs and moaning about the state of affairs, Tea Partiers and their billionaire backers, have accomplished what they set out to do.
The federal government will be disemboweled and states will have to go it alone in trying to figure out how to serve their own constituents. Some will fare better than others. It depends upon the talent and intelligence of their politicians, the benevolence of their wealthy citizens, and whether or not Lady Luck is on their side.
Seattle will definitely do better than some.
We’ve got Bill and Melinda Gates, billionaires with heart.
Headquartered here are Starbucks, Costco, Boeing, Amazon and Microsoft. Other tech companies have begun moving into town and more startups are on the verge. Wine tasting is becoming a favorite past time, with wine bars popping up all over the place.
I recently read somewhere that Seattle’s Eastside has the best track record for cardiac rehabilitation in the nation.
Ours is one of the few states to recognize gay marriages.
Marijuana is legal for those 21 and older.
A $15 minimum wage might become reality.
A couple of suburbs have led the nationwide list of “most desirable small towns” in which to reside.
And signing up for affordable health insurance has been comparatively stress-free.
Of course we have our issues…over-aggressive police…theft…homelessness…dui…sex offenders…gun control. Yes, we have school shootings too.
It’s probably obvious from what I’ve said that Washington is pretty much a liberal state. Thanks to that, its citizens will do better than most when the Federal Government of theTea Party, run by the Koch brothers assumes power.
It might be that our country is headed for the Great Depression that President Obama tried to head off when he took office. The faction of right-wing conservatives who were never going to submit to the leadership of a black liberal have convinced the majority of their political brethren to go back to the likes of George W. Bush.
This time though it will be more than just another economic collapse and another war. The earth as we know it will finally succumb to the oil barons. And the entire world will revert back to the days of the Wild, Wild West with the have-nots going after the haves with a vengeance.
I feel for folks who live in Ohio and similar states marching to the drumbeat of ultra right wing conservatives. A recent article in Rolling Stone Magazine highlighted a couple of towns suffering under the ideologies of Tea Party politicians.
Most of the young middle-and working-class women I meet in Lima had children very young, many before they were 18; Allen county has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Ohio. And yet, Ohio has been at the forefront of recent attacks on reproductive rights. The state has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, and its most recent budget placed $1.4 million in funding for Planned Parenthood at risk, while allocating money to Christian-based “crisis pregnancy centers.” Lima’s one family-planning clinic offering limited abortion services recently closed down; today, a search for abortion clinics in Lima will turn up a pro-life organization called Heartbeat of Lima. Though the county health department offers free birth control, a woman wanting an abortion must travel more than an hour to Toledo, to a clinic that, thanks to restrictions that have closed almost half of Ohio’s abortion clinics in the past year, may soon be forced to shut its doors. “People don’t talk about abortion in Lima.” says Carissa.
Carissa split with the father of her son when she was 23. She waitressed while putting herself through college. When her hours were cut back she had to go on public assistance. ” ‘It wasn’t something that I talked about…I wasn’t taking advantage of anything. I had to have insurance for my son. I had to feed my son. My only other option was to drop out of school.’ “
“The problem is that if you grow up in, say, a lower-income family, your options are extremely limited,” says Carissa. It doesn’t matter what kind of grades you get in high school, she notes, as college is now a luxury for most people. And even with a college degree, then what? “It used to be you go to college, get married, have children–you did the right things, and then you’d be guaranteed some kind of future,” she says. “But the whole pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps American-dream thingy…that’s kind of mythology at this point. To me, it’s like a winning lottery ticket.”
When the Tea Party overtakes Capitol Hill and the White House, it’s my fervent hope that you’ll be living in a state where you feel like you’ve…
That’s what Heritage Action’s 31-year-old president Michael Needham is advising his Tea Party rookies in the House of Representatives.
Don’t blink!
In the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial “The Strategist Behind the Shutdown,” Needham is hailed as the craftsman behind the tragedy in which millions of Americans find themselves. Himself a pawn in the game of high stakes funded by the likes of billionaire brothers, David and Charles Koch, Needham vows to wreck havoc with Obamacare.
So what is the endgame–is there any exit strategy short of Mr. Obama rolling over? Mr. Needham admits that ObamaCare will never be repealed as long as Mr. Obama is president, but he still thinks it can be defunded or delayed: “Look, Democrats usually win these fights because they do a better job of not cracking. Obama says he will never blink and we believe him. They’re very good at this. We’re obviously very bad at it.”
At some point, doesn’t there have to be a compromise? That’s the way the system works, after all. Mr. Needham agrees, “at some point in this fight somebody has to blink.” His mission, he says, is to persuade “the House not to blink first.”
And so conservative wonder boy, Michael Needham, wears a broad smile in the face of the government shutdown. “Why so?” you ask. Because Needham believes “…we are in a great position right now” since he feels the Republican Party and the conservative movement will win the political battle over the shutdown.
One wonders why Needham credits the democrats with not blinking first.
Perhaps it has something to do with the Democrats’ steadfast commitment to the 98% of Americans whom Republican delegate Mitt Romney claimed not to represent during his run for the presidency. Helping the less fortunate among us is not a game of “see who blinks first,” as Needham seems to think.
He says the path to victory now is for the House to keep passing bills to open up popular agencies of government, such as the national parks, the National Institutes of Health and Veteran Affairs: “I don’t think that the Senate can keep refusing to open up these agencies as the shutdown drags on and on and on.”
Like his predecessor Ed Feulner, founder of Heritage Action, Needham believes that ” ‘in the war of ideas there is no room for pacifists,…” Those within his party in opposition to Needham’s ideas “denounce him as everything from cocky to a GOP wrecking ball.” Sources interviewed for this article, “both inside and outside of Heritage have complained of late that Mr. Needham’s $7 million lobbying shop has become the tail that wags the $75 million think tank.”
Michael Needham is unconvinced that shutting the government for weeks and weeks is a bad thing for the economy. His only concern is the repeal of Obamacare. All else is of little consequence.
So it seems fair to say that Needham, Cruz, and their financial backers have the President in their sights, and are determined to…
According to The Atlantic,following are the men and women who lined up behind Representative Ted Cruz in favor of shutting down the government…until changes to The Healthcare Laware effected. (Listed alphabetically, followed by constituency and its population as of 2012.)
Justin Amash…Grand Rapids, Michigan…190,411
Michelle Bachmann…Stillwater, Minnesota…18,542
Marsha Blackburn…Brentwood, Tennessee…39,012
Mo Brooks…Huntsville, Alabama…183,739
Paul Broun…Athens, Georgia…118,999
John Carter…Round Rock, Texas…106,573
John Culberson…Houston, Texas…2,161,000
Ron DeSantis…Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida…29,116
Scott DesJarlais…Jasper, Tennessee…3,279
Jeff Duncan…Laurens, South Carolina…9,083
John Fleming…Minden, Louisiana…12,992
Scott Garrett…Wantange Township, New Jersey…10,387
Phil Gingrey…Marietta, Georgia…58,359
Louie Gohmert…Tyler, Texas…99,323
Tom Graves…Ranger, Georgia…133
Vicky Hartzler…Harrisonville, Missouri…10,008
Tim Huelskamp…Fowler, Kansas…565
Jim Jordan…Urbana, Ohio…11,639
Steve King…Kiron, Iowa…283
Raul Labrador…Eagle, Idaho…21,025
Tom Massie…Garrison, Kentucky…1,466
Tom McClintock…Elk Grove, California…159,038
Mark Meadows…Cashiers, North Carolina…1,974
Randy Neugebauer…Lubbock, Texas…236,065
Matt Salmon…Mesa, Arizona…452,084
Mark Sanford…Charleston, South Carolina…125,583
Steve Scalise…Jefferson, Louisiana…433,676
Dave Schweikert…Fountain Hills, Arizona…23,031
Steve Stockman…Clear Lake, Texas…1,095
Marlin Stutzman…Howe, Indiana…807
Randy Weber…Pearland, Texas…91,252
Ted Yoho…Gainesville, Florida…126,047
So let’s see.
As of 2012, the Census Bureau tabulated the population of the United States as in excess of 315,000,000. They are served by 435 elected officials to the House of Representatives. The 32 who perpetrated the government shutdown serve a total constituency of 4,778, 186…a little more than 1% of the entire population.
In other words, 310,221,814 Americans are being held hostage by 4,778,186 of their fellow countrymen…via the 32 representatives who say they represent their constituencies.
This is one time when…
…goliath should haul off and wallop…david and his slingshot!!!…
A little bit ago blogger friend,earthriderjudy,kindly designated me a recipient of The Lovely Blogger Award.In doing so, she indicated that her choice was based upon my promotion of others’ blogs. She went on to say that the posts she most enjoyed were those about myself and my family. While I delighted in her validation of hugmamma’s mind, body, and soul,my current involvement in speaking my political mind makes acceptance of the award difficult.
earthriderjudypersonally refrains from promoting her political opinions in the public arena…for very good reasons. Her former career as a reporter, and current one as a teacher have influenced her position.
While I respect her stance…I do not share it.
The 2012 Presidential election is too significant for me not to involve myself personally. At least in the writing of my own opinions.
I listen 24/7 to coverage of the campaign, and read whatever comes across my laptop to do with both Presidential candidates.
My overriding concern has been Mitt Romney‘s morphing of the truth to please specific audiences. The most shocking, of course, was his telling remark to donors, behind closed doors, that he was disconnected and unconcerned about the 47% he’d written off as President Obama’s followers. He referred to them as those who felt entitled to the government’s help.
It’s a fact that these include military personnel whose salaries are tax-exempt when at war, and which, in many cases, are insufficient to sustain their families back home. Some depend upon food stamps to survive.
When my mom needed surgery for a hernia she’d had for decades, Medicaid provided the funds for that, as well as additional medical help she’d not been able to afford as a widow of many years, with a family of 9 to raise on her own.
My mom died some years ago, but she might have been one of the 47% from whom Romney would distance himself.
There are many other instances in which Romney has shown his chameleon-like ability to transform himself from “severe Conservative,” to Tea Party extremist, to the current centrist Conservative.
Which Romney will his followers be voting into the White House?
In addition to Romney’s vacillation on important issues…women’s rights to choose and equal pay for equal work…self-deportation of immigrants…specific government cuts he would make to balance his 20% tax cuts across the board, including for the top 1%…repealing Obamacare, in toto or in part…running mate Paul Ryan‘s Medicare voucher system for those age 55 and under…I have other major reservations about Romney’s bid for the White House.
As an Independent who doesn’t tend toward the Republican Party’s platform, I hadn’t kept abreast of who rocked their world. In other words, who are the “movers and shakers” of the Republican Party.
I got more than I expected when I read The Obama Hate Machine by Bill Press.
ALEC CROW – 21st Century Disenfranchisement (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)
In the book I was introduced to the Koch brothers, David and Charles.
Right-wing extremists, billionaire oil-men, the Kochs support and fund the Tea Party movement, ensuring that their politicians represent the interests of Koch Industries, Inc.‘s “bottom line.” Front group, Americans for Prosperity…
… hosted a Website offering ‘Tea Party Talking Points.’ It arranged for buses to transport protestors to and from Washington, while also organizing companion rallies in Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri, Kansas, New Jersey, and other states. It also circulated a memo with instructions on how to disrupt town hall meetings. On MSNBC, Keith Olbermann described the Koch Brothers as the grand puppeteers of the Tea Party crowd, staying out of sight but ‘telling them what to say and which causes to take on and also giving them lots of money to do it with.’
The Kochs have also more than dabbled in the environmental debate. In their own interests the brothers have contributed heavily to the Republican Congress.
January 5, 2011, was a big day for John Boehner. After twenty years of climbing up and falling down the leadership ladder in the House of Representatives, he had finally made it to the top and was about to be sworn in as Speaker of the House for the 112th Congress.
It was a big day for David Koch, too. After all, he and his brother Charles had done more than any two other fat cats to help Republicans win the House–and he was there in the chamber with his top lobbyists when Speaker Boehner took the oath of office.
Not only that: Koch was awarded a private meeting with Boehner, while his top political deputy, Tim Phillips, enjoyed a one-on-one with representative Fred Upton of Michigan, the new chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
…The Los Angeles Times reported that Koch Industries and its employees were the largest single donor to members of the panel, more generous than ExxonMobil. They shelled out $279,500 to twenty-two of the committee’s thirty-one Republicans.
…And the Kochs’ generosity soon paid off. The budget bill passed by the Boehner-controlled House not only cut EPA’s funding for the 2011 fiscal year by three billion dollars; it abolished most of the agency’s authority to do its job. As decreed by House Republicans, EPA would be banned from spending any money to clean up Chesapeake Bay; from enforcing new water-quality standards in Florida; from issuing new solid-waste standards that would include coal ash from power plants as a hazardous waste; from publishing new air-quality standards for coarse particulate matter; and–biggest prize of all for Koch Industries–from regulating greenhouse-gas emissions from stationary sources.
…It was a big step toward the goal Charles Koch revealed to the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore in 2006 of eliminating 90 percent of all laws and government regulations in order to strengthen the ‘culture of prosperity.’ ”
The wholesale retreat from environmental protection led to this conclusion by California’s Henry Waxman, ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee: ‘It apparently no longer matters in Congress what health experts and scientists think. All that seems to matter is what Koch Industries think.’ “
For those of you who so obviously love the world in which we live, as evidenced by the treasure trove of cherished photographs I’ve seen throughout the Word Press blog community, be very wary of the long reach of Koch Industries’ tentacles. ”
…Koch Industries has a bad record of oil spills and air and water pollution. A 2010 University of Massachusetts at Amherst study cited it as one of the top ten air polluters in the country. And it has long been the most-outspoken corporate opponent of any climate-change legislation, because any such government program would inevitably interfere with what it believes to be its right to pollute with impunity.
One of the most damning accounts of the Kochs’ role in undermining global-warming legislation came in a March 2010 study published by Greenpeace: ‘Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine.’ In its report, Greenpeace traces almost fifty million dollars in funds allocated over the course of a decade from three different Koch-controlled foundations to climate-denial front groups working to scuttle policies aimed at stopping global warming.
…from 2005 to 2008…
– Over five million dollars to the Americans for Prosperity Foundation for its ‘Hot Air Tour’ campaign, debunking climate science and opposing climate-change legislation.
– One million dollars each to the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute for ‘scientific’ studies questioning the reality of global warning.
– $800,000 to the Manhattan Institute for hosting seminars featuring climate change-denial speakers.
– $360,000 to the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy to produce its own documentary rebutting Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
– And $360,000 to the little-known Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, or FREE.
…FREE, headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, operates way below the radar. Its target audience is comprised of federal judges and state supreme court justices, whom they pay to attend seminars where, according to their Web site, FREE’s ‘scientists’ apply ‘economics and scientific analysis to generate and explore alternative and innovative solutions to environmental problems.’ In other words, we’ll pay you to come to Montana and learn why global warming is nothing to worry about, so you can then go home and rule accordingly.
…the Koch propaganda blitz is working. In 2008, both John McCain and Barack Obama agreed that global warming was real, and man-made, and that government had to act. Most Americans agreed. Today, that situation has reversed. Obama’s still pushing for climate-change legislation, but he’s been blocked by Republicans in the House and Senate. Meanwhile, public opinion about climate change has shifted significantly.
An October 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center found that only 57 percent of Americans believed there was solid evidence that the Earth is getting warmer, down from 71 percent in April 2008. At the same time, fewer Americans saw global change as a serious priority. Van Jones, now with the Center for American Progress, credits anti-climate change ads paid for by the Koch Brothers with the dramatic decline in public support for action on global warming.
Charles Koch is a smart man. Smart enough to know that he’s “putting one over” on the American public. He admitted as much “in his remarkable op-ed in the March 1, 2011, Wall Street Journal…”
Koch himself acknowledges that Americancorporations today have been able to use their considerable financial clout to win too many concessions from government. It’s not good for taxpayers, and it’s not good for business, either, says the Journal, summing up Koch’s article, because ‘crony capitalism and bloated government prevent entrepeneurs from producing the products and services that make people’s lives better.’ ”
Following Koch’s own logic, it’s clear that the massive influence of big corporations on our political process must be curbed immediately. And we need to take a stand against wealthy plutocrats who would subvert the American political system to make themselves even richer. On that point, at least, it seems, we and the Brothers Koch can agree. As Charles Koch himself might say, ‘If not us, who? If not now, when?’ “
If the American Presidency is to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, shouldn’t the Brothers Koch be given consideration. They are not risk-takers. They only bet on a sure thing. And they have an empire already in place to guarantee their success. Consider the long list of organizations fully or partially funded by the Kochs.
THE ARMS OF THE KOCHTOPUS
FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity are just the tip of the Koch iceberg. Because they operate through various family foundations, and because not all organizations receiving Koch contributions are required to reveal the names of donors, no one but the Koch Brothers themselves knows how much money they have poured into their anti-Obama crusade. But it certainly adds up to hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Kochs pour their money out of three family foundations, with combined assets of over sixty million dollars: the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, and the Claude R. Lambe Foundation (named after a close family friend who died). Again, we don’t know them all, but among those organizations…
-The Cato Institute
-Citizens for a Sound Economy
-Mercatus Center, George Mason University
-Institute for Humane Studies, George Mason University
-Heritage Foundation
-Institute for Justice
-Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment
-Reason Foundation
-Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
-Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy
-Washington Legal Foundation
-Capital Research Center
-Competitive Enterprise Institute
-Ethics and Public Policy Center
-National Center for Policy Analysis
-Citizens for Congressional Reform Foundation
-Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
-American Legislative Exchange Council
-Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty
-Political Economy Research Center
-Media Institute
-National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship
-University of Chicago
-Defenders of Property Rights
-University of Kansas Endowment Association
-Texas Public Policy Foundation
-Center for Individual Rights
-Heartland Institute
-Texas Justice Foundation
-Institute for Policy Innovation
-Center of the American Experiment
-Atlas Economic Research Foundation
-Young America’s Foundation
-Henry Hazlitt Foundation
-Atlantic Legal Foundation
-National Taxpayers Union
-Families Against Mandatory Minimums
-Philanthropy Roundtable
-Free Enterprise Institute
-John Locke Foundation
-Hudson Institute
-Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
-National Environmental Policy Institute
-Washington University
-Pacific Legal Foundation
-American Council for Capital Formation
-Institute for Political Economy
-State Policy Network
-Fraser Institute
-Mackinac Center
-Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation
-Institute for Objectivist Studies
-Americans for Prosperity
-FreedomWorks
-Bill of Rights Institute
-Study of Political Economy and Free Enterprise
-Excellence in Economics Education
If, and hopefully it’s a BIG IF, Romney is elected President of the United States of America…he will most likely serve…as proxy for Charles and David Koch. If not directly, then indirectly…through Boehner and the Tea Party obstructionists in Congress. In unison, they will all hold Romney’s feet to the fire.
Today Egyptians have realized the decimation of Hosnei Mubarack’s stranglehold on their lives. But while King and his followers protested nonviolently with as much support as they could muster, the cause to free the Egyptian people from their leader’s tyranny was embraced by millions via the internet.
Thirty-eight-year-old Wael Ghonim, marketing director for technology giant Google, spearheaded the campaign to free his countrymen from 30 years of suppression and hopelessness. No longer able to distance himself from their plight, Ghonim felt compelled to help, even risking his own security and comfort, and that of his wife and kids. Instant viewing of global images on YouTube these days seems to uphold the truism, that there’s “safety in numbers.” So perhaps Ghonim knew that the rewards reaped would far outweigh the risk in which he was willing to engage.
“A digital revolution,” as one news pundit explained of Mubarak’s removal by his people. The internet has leveled the playing field, allowing the “Davids” of the world to successfully take aim and bring down the “Goliaths.” My earlier post “give up the internet?” published on 2/7/11, pondered the inevitable loss of a simpler life, when technology came to dominate.
These last 18 days have shown the internet to be a weapon in the hands of the masses. Egypt‘s next generation, fed up with a government they didn’t countenance, and armed with useless college degrees, expressed their contempt for the status quo. They voiced their vehemence on Facebook, the online social networking system. From this global vantage point a phenomenal movement grew. As a result, President Mubarak is history.
“Aided and abetted” by technology, Oprah Winfrey, a black woman, garnered unimaginable power from the masses who identified with her. “Aided and abetted” by technology, the Tea Party Movement born out of the disenchantment of Americans for their government, has the power to make and break political careers. “Aided and abetted” by technology, the Egyptians gathered millions together in protest, making their collective voice heard and their will known, successfully bringing down the enemy.
I’ve always felt that the “have nots” live with faces pressed against the glass, envying the lives of the “haves.” If those who “have” don’t freely share of their material wealth, then the “have nots” will wrestle away whatever they can. Deserving or not, it doesn’t matter. All “have nots” probably feel it’s their moral right to live in equality with their fellow “haves.”
who could argue… with the “have nots” in egypt…hugmamma.
I haven’t as yet delved into what the media is printing about the current Egyptian uprising. I only know what I see and hear on TV. At the moment, until things resolve themselves one way or the other, it’s a lot of information to digest. Trying to decipher what I think of everything isn’t something I can wrap my brain around right now. The outcome of their fate ultimately rests in the hands of the Egyptians themselves, from the top politico to the peon in the street.
The one thought that runs through my mind is that because of technology, a combination of television, computers, mobile devices, the internet and its myriad of tools, people around the world, living in hovels or palaces, can witness what occurs in other countries. And like snapshots retained in our memories, what we see can fester in our subconsciences for a long time, until we decide to act upon them.
It’s my personal feeling that both President Obama and the Tea Party Movement have been catalysts in what we are now witnessing in Egypt and Tunisia. While there are those who disagree, I think the President has shown himself to be a champion of the middle and lower classes. From health care reform embracing 13,000,000 Americans without insurance to speaking up for better education for the less fortunate, he has shown himself to be the son of a woman who died of cancer while fighting for health insurance coverage.
The Tea-Partiers have successfully shown millions at home and abroad, that the masses can unite via the internet to unseat politicians, replace them with candidates of their choosing, and ultimately, influence government decisions. Heady stuff for a movement started by 2 Atlanta housewives, Amy Kremer and Jenny Beth Martin, strangers to one another, who were stewing over the economic downturn and its negative impact upon their lives. (My post of 11/3/10, “two housewives,”founders of tea party movement”.) Power to the people has never been more overwhelmingly proven than in what these 2 ordinary citizens initiated, to have it become the Tea Party Movement as we know it today, a force with which to be reckoned.
History has proven time and again, that people will rise up to challenge whom they perceive as their oppressors. We who enjoy the benefits of an American democracy can do so far more rationally than countries ruled by dictators. We can protest without provoking full-out civil war. I think we learned our lesson a long time ago under another president I admire, Abraham Lincoln. He too was not a favorite of all Americans, but he did the best he could, according to the principles in which he believed, one being that all people, including slaves, should live freely.
The Egyptians, and Tunisians, want to choose how to live their own lives. Like us they want to earn a living, provide for their families, take pleasure in small things, and give their children hope for a better future. Not so much to ask for really. In fact, they just want what we Americans already enjoy.
I may have oversimplified the unrest that rages in the Middle East. But sometimes the experts complicate matters by interjecting too much hyperbole. I’m not an expert, just an ordinary housewife who understands that people like me just want to make a decent life for our families. Not a big deal really, but, in fact, it is a really big deal when we’ve only got one chance to live our best lives.
people the world over want the same things…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…hugmamma.
Wanted to thank those of you who read my blog, especially regular ones who have been along from its inception.
This blog is my personal journal, with you having an insight into my thoughts and feelings. As such, there will be those that do not correspond with yours. I most definitely welcome comments, but just want you to know that I can’t, and don’t, write anyonelse’s opinions but my own, not even my own family’s. My husband and I do disagree, yes, even in certain aspects of politics. But we’re still married, continually learning about one another, even as we head into retirement.
So for those of you who continue in this venture with me, it’s a marriage of sorts. I probably won’t say everything you want to hear. What spouse does? But I’m guessing that if you’re still with me, I’m saying some things that are akin to your own thoughts and feelings. That’s all I can hope for, while remaining true to who I am.
While I generally try to live by my mother-in-law’s mantra that “words once spoken can never be taken back,” as a writer I would be hauled off in a straight-jacket, if I had to “measure” every word for its effect. It’s a “slippery slope,” and remaining on solid ground is not always guaranteed 100%.
Your comments, great, and not so much, let me know that I’m making an impact, heady stuff for a writer. But I’m not on a “power” trip, I’m just trying to do what I love doing, and that’s writing. Maintaining an active blog is almost full-time, especially with the theses I tend to write. I have no problem coming up with topics, since life’s details never escape my attention. I do edit, and re-edit. But I don’t edit myself out. If I did that, I’d have no reason to write, since my life and my experiences are what I’m most expert about.
Our perspectives as writers, or readers, will be based upon our own lives, our own experiences. What we think, what we do, is necessarily “colored” by our framework of references. I have spoken of my own life in some depth throughout my posts. Some of you may just be catching up because my Facebook connection was not working the way I thought it was. I’m in the process of now rectifying the situation, by manually sending each one to that site, starting with the most recent and working backwards. It’s taking some time, since I’ve written so many. So bear with me.
I’m a housewife, a mother, and a writer. I started this blog because I felt women in my position had a right to voice our opinions in the daily discussion that swirls around us, day in, day out. We’ve no way of tapping into that except for the social outlets we create.
And so “Hugmamma’s Attention to Detail” is my outlet, my voice. I can’t speak for others. But I highly recommend blogging to anyone who would enjoy writing about their own thoughts and feelings as I do. Sometimes all we humans need, is to have a “say.” That’s where the Tea Party movement and I most definitely agree. In most other ways, I think we can agree to disagree.
hugmamma's MIND, BODY and SOUL 