Sophie's Choice

Eric Cantor's generous offer to provide needed FEMA Disaster Relief funding amounts to a "Sophie's choice":  if you want this child to live, you must agree to kill this one.  The budget cuts that this man is coldly offering to trade off for emergency relief for those left homeless, cut off, lacking communication or transportation, jobless, are those that help the poor and the elderly, educate our children, keep our streets safe.


Not to mix holocaust metaphors, but Cantor puts me in mind of the Nazi dentist in Marathon Man.  Cantor only gets to keep the diamonds if he can take away our Social Security.

What I Wish I Had Said: My Very Own Rant

Yesterday, at the library, an old redneck came over to where I was working and began to grumble about having to do all this paperwork, you know, for the "gubmint".

I mumbled non-commitally, so as not to encourage the inevitable right-wing anti-government rant, but after he assembled his dad-gum paperwork and went on his way, I thought, "Well, when the Tea-Party takes over you won't have to worry about filling out that blasted paperwork anymore, because whatever you're applying for won't be there."

Yeah, that's right, come on in and use the library and then complain about the government.  While you're filling out forms to get some government benefit.

You should be able to get whatever you want from the government just by calling and saying, "Hey".  Just like Halliburton did at the start of the Iraq War.  You know, I forgot, that was your buddy Cheney that did that deal.  No paperwork necessary, until they're ready to send us the bill.

Now those teachers, they have a life.  The government gives them all that vacation.  Just to try to teach thirty or more of those kids of yours.  Teachers Work Day?  Just a free lunch, isn't it?  A day to actually communicate with one another, what do they need that for?

Except that your U.S. Representatives are taking one week off a month, to go home and golf with their constituents, and by constituents, I don't mean you or me.  You can bet though, that we pick up the bill for a lot of cocktails on those at-home work weeks.  They may not be meeting in smoke-filled rooms, but John Boehner and Jim DeMint are sure not doing the work of the people back home, unless you mean people who are worth a lot more than you and me, dollar-wise.

So, complain about the government, and then go out and vote for the Republicans who spend money to feed the wealthy, and take it away from you and me because we just can't have the government getting fat on the back of…

…you and me???

Batten Down the Hatches

Batten Down Your Hatches

I don't have any hatches, but I've had to batten down a lot of things lately and I feel that way a lot of the time.  Something important is going to break, or go wrong, or just not work.

We’ve all gotten used to it in this country.  We don’t expect to have electricity during the mildest of storms, and I am not even surprised when the power goes out for an hour or two on a beautiful day.

Now, don’t go blaming the government.  Government services suck because you  get what you pay for.  At least where government is concerned.  From Amtrak to the power grid, the people with all the money just don’t want to pay for quality for the rest of us, and they just keep convincing us voters that they shouldn’t have to.

And the next verse to that tune is that businesses would do a better job than government.  So look around you.  Where do you get better bang for the buck?

At the airport, the airlines got government to foot the bill for security when they were unenthusiastic about paying for a job that did not immediately and positively impact their bottom line, and then they cut staff at the customer service lines so they could make an even bigger buck by not offering customer service.

If you like your private health insurance better than Medicare, it just may be because those people you voted into office on the platform of cutting the fat out of government managed to cut the budget out of government health care while siphoning off our tax dollars to the private insurers.

And you may not remember the days before ObamaCare, but they are unforgettable if you or a loved one had a pre-existing condition, or you had or were a jobless college graduate that fell ill, but it will all come back to you when the Republicans get the Supremes to repeal that nasty old socialist health care law.

And why pay government employees, when our tax dollars can pay a corporation, say, Halliburton or Blackwater (Xe, for goodness sakes), to pay employees, and we get to pay their wages as well as a tidy profit for the shareholders and CEO’s.   And an extra added benefit to that is, there is absolutely no governmental control over the quality of the job done.  Remember Abu Ghraib?

Sell off our highways, and then hit the government up for repairs as an incentive for "job creation"; privatize our prisons rather than provide the government the funds to better our communities.

Our internet, which should be free, but is actually free to all who can pay for it, is the next mountain for corporate America to conquer.  Because a well-informed public would also want to be a well-educated public.  And a well-informed and well-educated public would not be led around by fear, and would see the contradictions in the rhetoric of privatization and deregulation, and would know that government should be for us all, and not just the wealthy.

And then we would insist on a dependable electrical grid, and attractive schools that children would be proud to spend the day in, with well-paid teachers that are respected for the important job they do for our children.

And we would know that a good, honest government would do this gladly, and then we would only need to batten down the hatches in a rare emergency, and not every time it rains.

Social Insecurity

I lost my free wireless last week.  With an income of $12,000, it is unlikely that I will be paying upwards from $55 a month for a wireless connection.  So I will haul my laptop, which I bought refurbished for ½ price, to the library, which fortunately has in the past year advanced into the 21^st Century with public wi-fi.

One of the things that I can do that Tea-Partiers cannot, is recognize that there are others who, through no fault of their own, are far less fortunate than I.

That does not mean that I am thankful for this state of affairs, because I also recognize that there are people who, for no good reason (and I mean good in the Golden Rule sense of the word), have far, far more than I.

I don't care how many aircraft the Koch Brothers have at their command; what I do care about is that they have the power to engage in criminal, deceitful, ugly acts to manipulate the public, to garner support for political policy that continues to provide them with that power.

Now, those with a little more than I, the middle class, have more to lose.  Rather than feeling more secure about what they have, this has made them vulnerable to those who use their power and fortune to convince them that change means loss of what they now have.  Not a vacation home, mind you, but health care, a job, savings for retirement.

At the time the generous soul who shared their wireless with me left town, I had spent the month paying large (to me) sums of money for repairs – it seemed everything I owned, old but cared for, was breaking down.  A week's pay for a car repair, a week's pay for a lawn mower, an inexpensive printer that I now cannot use because it is wireless and, alas, I no longer have wireless access.  The airline ticket I paid for my annual visit to my daughter is something I cannot afford.  I do what I have tried hard not to do:  waste my life worrying constantly about money.

So when I lost the wireless, which in truth, in this freedom-at-a-cost country, I was stealing, something in me broke.  My lifeline to my family, all far away, is gone.  My ability to sit down and write a blog now needs to be structured and fit into time I am at the library.  And the calendar I throw together every month on Publisher has no picture gallery because I am putting it together at home without the internet.  My old computer had a picture gallery, but instead of feeling pissed off, I opt for – I can't think of the word, and I can't get to the internet thesaurus site.  How about resignation?

I am poor, I have no right to contact with the outside world.  I am lucky I have my laptop and a library connection, and for now, I am lucky that my car, with its 156,000 miles, can still get me there.

Meanwhile, the Koch brothers have convinced the insecure among us who still have a middle class life, that by helping us they will lose that life.  And meanwhile, while the Tea Partiers fight the Koch brothers' battle for them, they in fact are helping them destroy what they now have, and what used to be considered a secure life.

A Deficit of Morals and of Will

I find myself yelling at God, and I don't even believe in God.  I listen to fat, smug politicians spouting with cocky confidence their simplistic laissez-faire philosophies of government, that the problem is with spending, and in this time of joblessness, we need more of what has already not worked:  tax cuts.  No taxes on the important people in this country.  Corporations that paid 0 in 2010 would not be able to create jobs if they had to pay taxes in 2011.


If you are listening to any of this bullshit, it is making you crazy.  Unless you are wealthy and corporate, because you are the criminals that our Congress is representing.


So I try, I really try, not to listen so much to this bullshit, this travesty of government that is going on.  But when I do, I find myself screaming at the TV, and I, who does not believe that there is a God, is screaming at God:  "Why the fuck don't you do something???  Why don't you put these assholes on Medicaid???  Why don't you fire their asses and put them on unemployment, without health insurance, without unemployment benefits, and let them pay their mortgages on their million dollar homes by their ownselves???"


I admit, I am fit to be tied about the stupidity, the greed and the hypocrisy.  I can't even blame the politicians.  They are greedy assholes, but why not???  The middle class voters in this country listen to their horseshit, and they nod their empty heads, and they say, "Yeah, we can't let them (poor people, hispanics, old people...) take our money."  You idiots, the millionaires are taking your money, and laughing at you as they bring up votes on gay marriage and gun control and abortion.  You idiots are letting them rape and plunder us and our country.  These jerks that you voted in to office are screaming about the deficit and refusing to pay a penny more to invest in this country:  in education, technology, infrastructure, JOBS.  They all scream about jobs while voting to end the jobs that run our government, that teach our children, that build our roads.  AREN'T YOU LISTENING???


Thank you.  I feel better now.  I will probably survive, although I will never be financially secure.  Our children will suffer more than us, so that the wealthy fraction of a percent can hoard their gold and their power.


We are complacent enough.  It will take the pain of our children and their children to change the course of this country.  My grandparents fought for rights that my generation takes for granted, and that my children are just now beginning to realize are not there for them.


It appears that that battle will have to be fought, and fought bloodily, all over again.


My heart is broken.

Beware of the Falsely Sincere

Michele Bachmann's well-played personal disclosure regarding her miscarriage and her faith left me chilled to the bone.  Her sincerity is disarming.  She has become exceptional at modestly telling us what an upstanding, moral individual she is.


I find it appalling that she parades her Christianity about as though without it we are, all the rest of us, dirty.  Her morality tale of her miscarriage and her subsequent commitment to life is bullshit.


Let me share mine:


I was a rebellious teenager in a dysfunctional family.  I acted out sexually into my twenties.  I was irresponsible and careless.  I became pregnant.  Thankfully, our nation's leaders, its courts, were sane and responsible during that time, and abortion had become legal.  I did the right thing.


Hey, Michele, I did the right thing.  I had an abortion.  It was difficult, painful, but to have a child at that time would have been morally wrong.


Later, I had two wonderful children who are now adults.  I am thankful that I was able to wait until I had time to grow up.  I was not forced to pay, and make a child pay, and make my family pay, for my irresponsibility and immaturity.


Had I been forced to bear a child at that time, I would never have had the two wanted wonderful children that I later had.


And Michele, I too had a miscarriage.  It happened between the first and third wanted pregnancies, and it was heartbreaking.  But I was able to love my firstborn and be thankful for her, and I soon had a son that I loved with all my heart.


Unlike you, I had that experience without feeling the need to judge other women and condemn their choices.  That is what makes you a smaller person than me, although you have the wealth, power and persuasiveness to attempt to coerce people to follow your rules in their personal lives.  


And as the anger rises in me for your judgmental insincerity, I first of all want to say that neither your god or mine give you the right to decide what my morality should be.


Secondly, your fight to deny those with less than you financial security, good educations for our children, health care for us and our families, belies your pretense that you give a damn about children, born or "unborn".  Or, perhaps to reframe the thought, you only care about life until birth.


Shame on you.  Keep your pretend morality to yourself.

Responsibility Ends Where Profits Begin

This is the problem with government.  They take on responsibility for big business.  Stop complaining (you know who I'm talking to) about how the government takes care of us.  The government has left us to hang while it takes care of big business, because big business has convinced government that we can't let it fail.  Not that it's too big, which it is, but that it's too important.  Apple pie and all that.  Except, instead of saying government is taking care of big business, they say they are helping small businesses.


What I'm really here to talk about today is the airline industry.  I'm sick to death of hearing what all the problem is with the TSA.  The TSA needs to hand the reigns over to the airlines to take care of their own damned security.  They need to be responsible for screwing up who gets on a plane, not the government.  Because when paying customers get on a plane, the airlines don't give an extra dime to the government for the security.


That's how the government is dumber than the Mafia.  When the Mafia gives you protection, you pay for it.


You have probably noticed that, as the TSA took over airline security, the airlines went all gangbusters over cutting personnel at the check-ins.  Just when you might think they would be required to be on guard for "suspicious characters", or at least be there to check to make sure their ID's matched their boarding passes (and that they had boarding passes), they were now insisting that we all use "self-check-in".  Common sense would have it, in the stupid age, when you need to submit to having your purse poked to get into a concert, there would at least be airline personnel at essential checkpoints to keep an eye out for "suspicious characters".  You know, instead of the irritating recorded message that instructs us, at no additional cost to the airlines, to report suspicious persons... 


...not to the airlines, but to the TSA.  Because the airlines have washed their hands of this responsibility.


I do hate the TSA.  It is government bureaucracy at its finest. But let's all remind ourselves that the government is just doing what we all have come to expect it to do:  use our tax dollars to protect big business.