Saturday, February 12, 2011

D.C. Under the Far-Right Heel

What would the country look like if the increasingly far-right Republican party had total sway over our government? They campaigned on jobs, jobs, jobs. How about a reality check.

Take for example Washington, D. C. Although the GOP-controlled U. S. House has been in power just a little over a month, they are busy negating the will of the D.C. taxpayers.

Today's article in the New York Times, "Even Less Representation", gives us a glimpse of what Republican control looks like:

"The district’s hard-won home rule came under assault from day one with a House rule scrapping the already pathetic power of its elected representative..... This overreach was rationalized by cynically redefining the city as just another part of the federal government.... now piling on with a proposal to overturn the district’s legalization of gay marriage duly enacted last year under home rule.

"Then came the Republicans’ broad assault on federal financing of abortions in the states, tailored to include a particularly insidious clause, barring the Washington district government from using even local taxes for legal abortions"

While we have watched transfixed in the last weeks as the Egyptians dramatically moved their country toward democracy, the far-right in our bastion of freedom are relentlessly trying to dismantle ours. To insert their religious beliefs into laws that mandate government intrusion into, and control over, our most basic freedoms.

If these rights come under the heel of federal and state control.... what other of our rights could be next? This is what is happening in our country. You can change this.... 2012. Vote.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

What's the GOP Tea Party Brewing?

Our country is being battered by a take-over attempt, the battle-plan drawn up by the religious right and corporations. Sure, they call themselves "patriots." But, that's just to keep the unwary faithful from catching on. Winning would result in a corporate-theocracy, based on their narrow interpretation, not just of the Constitution, but of the Bible. The vehicles are the tattered remnants of the GOP and the flamboyant Tea Party led by the looniest of tunes, no need to name them.

The once-Grand Old Party is being dragged behind the stampeding Tea-herd, yoked to them as a result of their obstructionist, personal-attack history. Hopefully, these false patriots have set themselves up to become history. It's just a matter of time until voters realize the "shining city on a hill" is Dubai.

The GOP/Tea Bag consortium proclaims they want smaller government, more liberty, but almost every action they take moves the country in the opposite direction.

It was the Republican administration who misled us into the moral and fiscal swamp of the Iraq war and nation building. It was the Republican administration who put into place the unfunded budget-busting drug program for senior citizens.... a giant boondoggle for the drug and insurance companies. It was the Republican administration that assembled the Homeland Security Administration behemoth, the biggest single expansion of government, ever.

It was the Republican administration who put us on the path to unsustainable debt.... and a good argument can be made that it was done deliberately in order to later say we can no longer afford Social Security and Medicare. For them, corporate welfare is fine, individual help is unpalatable.

Smaller government, fiscal restraint. Read the tea leaves, that's not in the brew.

As for freedom and liberty, GOP liberty is only for some. All are equal except women, gays, and non-believers, next up to receive the GOP backhand. Corporations have been awarded personhood by the ability to pour money into our electoral process thanks to our no longer Supreme-judgment court. Sad to say, the highest court in our land has become just another tool in the GOP/Tea Bag toolbox. Left unfettered, is the United Corporate States of America far off?

As for the promise to create jobs, forget that. What the GOP/Tea Baggers crave is social reform, made in their religious-moral-code image. In their perfect world, women would be forced into burkahood as control over their reproductive rights fall under government control. Gays would be denied civil rights while corporations would be granted more rights... to pollute, to manipulate financial markets, and to further deregulate our food products. And clean energy, less dependence on oil. Forget it.

But there will be a reckoning..... 2012 is coming. We can reject this toxic brew. What happens to our country is up to us.