Republicans Privatize Social Security

Yes, in their own words, they will privatize Social Security.  This is what the voters of Pennsylvania voted for when they elected Toomey.  Yes, Tea Party members and Patriots, you will have to hand over your Social Security to the thieves on Wall Street and you can kiss your Medicare good-bye.  And you voted for this because there is a black man in the white house.  Sorry to say that racism is alive and well in the “guns and Jesus” parts of Pennsylvania.

One more thing, Tea Party members and Patriots, you better start bottling your water because once the gas drillers come into your neighborhood, your water will not be safe to drink.  This is what will happen because you voted for Republicans to control Harrisburg and they support the rights of the gas drillers and NOT your rights.  Fools.

Pat Toomey’s book

Who Says There Isn’t A Third Party

There is the Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the Corporate Party.  Often times, it is hard to tell the difference between the Republican Party and the Corporate Party.  The leaders of the Corporate Party are the Koch Brothers and with their money they influence morons to vote against their own best interest and instead, vote for the continued growth of the Corporatacracy.  The Tea Party is so unaware that they are being manipulated for the benefit of multinational corporations.  The CEO’s get huge bonuses while the Tea Party members either take a pay cut or lose their jobs.  How dumb is that?

(h/t to DailyKos diary)

O’Donnell Supports Creationism

Looks like the Delaware GOP has a Tea Party candidate on the ballot in November.  Her name is Christine O’Donnell and she wants creationism to be taught in schools because she says “evolution is just a theory”.

Here’s the facts, Ms. “prissy pants” O’Donnell:

Evolution may be a theory, but Creationism is a myth.

Does Ms. O’Donnell want the  “purity police” to be checking up on people to make sure that no one is masturbating?  After watching this video, I wonder?

And, O’Donnell believes that you can legislate morality, her religious beliefs regarding morality.

I Want My Country Back

Yes, you heard me.  I want my country back… back from the Tea Party and the big corporations that financially support them.  I do NOT want my country to return to the Tea Party and Republican principles of:

• Repealing the Civil Rights Act because the central Government should not tell States how to treat American citizens.
• Eliminating the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.  Women should not be voting.  They don’t have time for politics because they need to be in the kitchen cooking and they should be waiting on their husbands.  The bible tells us that women are subservient to men.
• Returning to slave labor and sweat shop labor practices because businesses should be free to abuse their employees without Government interference.
• Dismantling Social Security because seniors should have planned better for their retirement.  Too bad and too sad if Wall Street bankers stole most of their IRA money.  Tough luck if the seniors worked at jobs that didn’t have a pension program or 401K program.  If these seniors worked for minimum wage, they still should have thought ahead even if it required providing less food and clothing for their children so that they would have that extra money to save for their retirement.  Some Republican candidates are claiming that Social Security is unconstitutional.
• Dismantling Medicare because health care is not a right, it is a privilege and the Tea Party does not approve of privileges except when it comes to their idols and themselves.  Besides, only the privileged deserve health care.
• Eliminating disability payments because people need to be more responsible and not get injured on the job.  This includes our military veterans.  They should stop whining because after all, they volunteered.
• Forcing Catholics, Jews and Muslims to commit sins by having to read and study the protestant bible in public schools.
• Allowing property owners to create toll roads.  People have a right to collect money from anyone that crosses their property line.  Good luck with getting to work on time and having any money left over from your paycheck after paying all the tolls.
• Supporting “Second Amendment” solutions as a means of conflict resolution.  This might also work as a method of population control.
• Returning to the glory days of lords and serfs.

I want my country back from hate mongers like Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, Malkin, Kristol, Bachmann, Rove, Cheney, and all the rest that appear on Fox News, the opinion network.  The goals for these people are to divide our country and to make piles of money while undereducated people do their dirty work for them.

I want my country back from racists such as Beck, Laura Schlesinger, the Tea Party and the Larouches.  These people are so upset because there is a black family living in, what they perceive as, the White(‘s only) House.

I want my country back from people that profit from the suffering of others (Beck, Palin and Limbaugh).

I want my country back from politicians that place Wall Street above and before Main Street, such as Pat Toomey, Tom Corbett, Jim Gerlach and all the other Republicans and Tea Party members.

Yes, I want my country back.  The one where everyone is treated with respect and  equality, the one where everyone receives good health care, the one where everyone receives a livable wage, and the one where everyone is free to practice their religious beliefs without interference from other religions.

I want back, the country that was progresing forward.  Not the one that is currently heading in Reverse.

The Rise of the Black Tea Party

What if the Tea Party was black?

Where Is Their Courage? – UPDATED

Where is the courage of the Tea Party members?  Today, I witnessed them first hand as they displayed signs attacking “illegal immigrants” and President Obama in front of a suburban shopping center located in a high rent district.  It’s easy to set up shop in a mostly white, middle to upper class neighborhood.  No one would approach them in this safe location.   What I want to know is when will they be setting up their protest in Reading, particularly in the south side of Reading or maybe north Philadelphia?  Those would be perfect neighborhoods for protesting illegals.  Or are they afraid that maybe a legal immigrant or American born Hispanic will approach them using the second amendment solution?

The Tea Party members are cowards.  All they know how to do is be rude by shouting in people’s faces.   Losers, everyone of them.  And did I mention, that the group of about 6 were all old, white people?  It is going to be difficult for them when the small government that they so desire strips them of their Social Security and Medicare.

Having a black man sitting in what they perceive as their whites only house really disturbs them.  It brings out all the cowards that having been hiding behind closed doors.

UPDATE:  This describes exactly the cowards that I saw at this protest.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/01/tea-party-survey-old-cons_n_522336.html

And in case you are wondering, when we drove past these tea partiers, I rolled down the window and shouted, “Get a job, you lazy bums.”

You betcha, it’s racism…http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/7/13/883948/-NAACP-Calls-out-Tea-Party,-so-naturally-Palin-Calls-for-Apologyto-The-Tea-Party

So They Want to Dismantle the Federal Government

Watch the video at this Daily Kos Diary.  It’s a gathering of the Tea Party members and they speak of seceding from the Union.  They mention withholding federal taxes and eliminating Congress.

Sounds like the Tea Partiers want a Federation instead of a Union.  That would take us back to before 1787.  Each State would have its own money and army and navy and would be able to make its own trade agreements.  We tried this before and it became chaos.  Now who exactly will protect these Tea Partiers from a foreign invasion?  There are nations on this planet that would love to take advantage of invading such a weak Federation.  This Federation of States needs to understand one thing and that is those States that remain in the Union, keep the Nukes and all the other weapons.  The Federation is on its own.  Good luck with that.

Just how long will these “snow top” Tea Partiers remain in the Federation once they lose their Social Security and Medicare?  Or will they come back begging to join the Union?

On Becoming A Poor Nation

Let’s face the facts.  Our local governments are in a financial crises.   With the loss of jobs, comes a decrease in State income tax revenues.  Smaller State revenues means that there is less money to help struggling cities and towns.  Add to this, the decrease in sales tax revenues that are the result of less purchasing power, and we have a State going bankrupt.  Now, multiple this by the number of States near bankruptcy and we have a nation of the edge of becoming a third world country.

As States become poorer, they need to make cuts to their spending.  One of the many areas where they choose to make cuts is in funding for education.  That means that our children suffer by not receiving a full education.  Poor education will not help these children when they become adults because they won’t be able to find a job that pays a living wage or better.  Ignorance is NOT bliss.  It leads to poverty.  The greater the poverty, the closer we are to becoming a third world country.

Even though only about 10% of Americans are heavily invested in stocks and bonds, our economy is driven by the DOW.  In order to grow, we need an economy based on jobs that produce goods.  Our nation has been slowly losing its goods based economy.  Instead, our economy is based on market gambling.  There is no bartering for goods and services in this country.  We can’t “take a chicken to the doctor” because banks won’t accept chickens as mortgage payments from the doctor.  (I’m curious about this “chicken”.  Is is a live chicken or a dead chicken?)

Do you see the pattern?  It a vicious cycle, one that Republicans claim can only be fixed by cutting taxes which decrease revenues.   Understand, the taxes that get cut are the taxes to the richest 1% of Americans and the services that get cut are the services needed by the other 90%.  The Republicans and Tea Partiers support Reagan economics.  It was during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, when the decline in the middle working class started.

The bottom line is this… we need jobs based on goods that pay a living wage or better so that the States and local municipalities can collect the revenue needed to keep our governments functioning.   This includes ample money for police, firefighters, educators, libraries and infrastructure repair and maintenance.  More tax cuts for the rich will not produce jobs and will not bring in more revenue.  Instead, it starves the masses.

One question before I end this thread, how is that “trickle down” economics working for you?

America Will Triumph

Had to share this article from Frank Schaeffer. Pennsylvania For Change still supports our President. No sniping here.

Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times best selling author.

Obama Will Triumph — So Will America
By Frank Schaeffer

Before he’d served even one year President Obama lost the support of the easily distracted left and engendered the white hot rage of the hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of life and ideological backgrounds — including this white, straight, 57-year-old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer and (given my background as the son of a famous (evangelical leader) this unlikely Obama supporter — are sticking with our President. Why?– because he is succeeding.

We faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man to lead us. Obama’s steady supporters will be proved right. Obama’s critics will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely discouraged at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst.

The Context of the Obama Presidency

Not since the days of the rise of fascism in Europe , the Second World War and the Depression has any president faced more adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial integration has any president faced a more consistently short-sighted and willfully ignorant opposition – from both the right and left. As the President’s poll numbers have fallen so has his support from some on the left that were hailing him as a Messiah not long ago; all those lefty websites and commentators that were falling all over themselves on behalf of our first black president during the 2008 election. The left’s lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling “prophecy”– snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall and then pretend you didn’t have anything to do with it!

Here is what Obama faced when he took office–none of which was his fault:

• An ideologically divided country to the point that America was really two countries
• Two wars; one that was mishandled from the start, the other that was unnecessary and immoral
• The worst economic crisis since the depression
• America ‘s standing in the world at the lowest point in history/li>
• A country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture of prisoners of war
• A health care system in free fall
• An educational system in free fall
• A global environmental crisis of history-altering proportions (about which the Bush administration and the Republicans had done nothing)
• An impasse between culture warriors from the right and left
• A huge financial deficit inherited from the terminally irresponsible Bush administration.

And those were only some of the problems sitting on the President’s desk!

“Help” from the Right?

What did the Republicans and the religious right, libertarians and half-baked conspiracy theorists — that is what the Republicans were reduced to by the time Obama took office — do to “help” our new president (and our country) succeed? They claimed that he wasn’t a real American, didn’t have an American birth certificate, wasn’t born here, was secretly a Muslim, was white-hating “racist”, was secretly a communist, was actually the Anti-Christ, (!) and was a reincarnation of Hitler and wanted “death panels” to kill the elderly!

They not-so-subtly called for his assassination through the not-so-subtle use of vile signs held at their rallies and even a bumper sticker quoting Psalm 109:8. They organized “tea parties” to sound off against imagined insults and all government in general and gathered to howl at the moon. They were led by insurance industry lobbyists and deranged (but well financed) “commentators” from Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh.

The utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with the utterly discredited evangelical leaders to denounce a president who was trying to actually do something about the poor, the environment, to diminish the number of abortions through compassionate programs to help women and to care for the sick! And in Congress the Republican leadership only knew one word: “No!”

In other words the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy American far right,combined with the educated but obtuse neoconservative war mongers, religious right shills for big business, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving crazies, child-molesting acquiescent “bishops”, frontier loons and evangelical gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from succeeding at all costs!

“Help” from the Left?

What did the left do to help their newly elected president? Some of them excoriated the President because they disagreed with the bad choices he was being forced to make regarding a war in Afghanistan that he’d inherited from the worst president in modern history! Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that the President’s economic policies had “failed” before the President even instituted them! Others said that since all gay rights battles had not been fully won within virtually minutes of the President taking office, they’d been “betrayed”! (Never mind that Obama’s vocal support to the gay community is stronger than any other president’s has been. Never mind that he signed a new hate crimes law!)

Those that had stood in transfixed legions weeping with beatific emotion on election night turned into an angry mob saying how “disappointed” they were that they’d not all immediately been translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House! Where was the “change”? Contrary to their expectations they were still mere mortals! And the legion of young new supporters was too busy texting to pay attention for longer than a nanosecond. “Governing”?! What the hell does that word, uh, like mean?”

The President’s critics left and right all had one thing in common: impatience laced with little-to-no sense of history (let alone reality) thrown in for good measure. Then of course there were the white, snide know-it-all commentators/talking heads who just couldn’t imagine that maybe, just maybe they weren’t as smart as they thought they were and certainly not as smart as their president. He hadn’t consulted them, had he? So he must be wrong! The Obama critics’ ideological ideas defined their idea of reality rather than reality defining their ideas-say, about what is possible in one year in office after the hand that the President had been dealt by fate, or to be exact by the American idiot nation that voted Bush into office. twice!

Meanwhile back in the reality-based community – in just 12 short months — President Obama:

• Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices regarding the war in Afghanistan (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Restored America ‘s image around the globe (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Banned torture of American prisoners (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Stopped the free fall of the American economy (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international community (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort to halt global warming (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Stood up for educational reform (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Won a Nobel peace prize (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American judicial system of checks and balances (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Did what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost impossible process of health care reform that 7 presidents had failed to even begin (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Responded to hatred from the right and left with measured good humor and patience (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Stopped the free fall of job losses (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed and dangerous far right opposition that included the sort of disgusting people that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the “blood of tyrants” needing to “water the tree of liberty”. (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Showed that he could not only make the tough military choices but explain and defend them brilliantly (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

Other than those “disappointing” accomplishments — IN ONE YEAR — President Obama “failed”! Other than that he didn’t “live up to expectations”!

Who actually has failed…..are the Americans that can’t see the beginning of a miracle of national rebirth right under their jaded noses. Who failed are the smart ass ideologues of the left and right who began rooting for this President to fail so that they could be proved right in their dire and morbid predictions. Who failed are the movers and shakers behind our obscenely dumb news cycles that have turned “news” into just more stupid entertainment for an entertainment-besotted infantile country.

Here’s the good news: President Obama is succeeding without the help of his lefty “supporters” or hate-filled Republican detractors!

The Future Looks Good. After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will), after his wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety on all fronts — with a canny and calculating eye to the possible succeeds, (it will), after the economy is booming and new industries are burgeoning, (they will be), after the doomsayers are all proved not just wrong but silly: let the record show that not all Americans were panicked into thinking the sky was falling. Just because we didn’t get everything we wanted in the first short and fraught year Obama was in office not all of us gave up. Some of us stayed the course. And we will be proved right.

PS. if you agree that Obama is shaping up to be a great president, please pass this on and hang in there! Pass it on anyway to ensure that his “report card” gets the attention it deserves.

Post Avatar Dispair

The press is reporting a sense of depression that overcomes people after seeing the movie “Avatar”.  Having seen this movie, I have some thoughts as to why this depression occurs.

Without giving away too many details, “Avatar” is another movie about corporate greed.  It joins films such as “500 Nations”, “Food Inc.” and “Michael Clayton”.  The corporate greed in “Avatar”, “Food Inc.” and “Michael Clayton” centers on either something that provides nourishment for humans or energy.  These are items that are needed to sustain life and to keep the “machines” running.  It’s understandable that people would fight and even kill to gain and maintain control of these sources.  As someone once told me, “The most profitable items for sale are those that either go up a chimney or down a toilet.”  Makes a lot of sense.

The documentary “500 Nations” is different because it tells the story of greedy invaders that killed the indigenous people of the Americas for GOLD, something that doesn’t go up a chimney or down a toilet.  Gold is NOT needed to sustain life.  Gold is a mineral that does not provide nourishment nor does it provide energy.  The only thing that gold feeds is vanity.  Yet people committed genocide to obtain gold.  The same can be said about diamonds, a crystal of carbon that is plentiful and market and price controlled by one corporation.

We humans are so very shallow that we value minerals that provide nothing more than we value life.  Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh spend time peddling gold and telling us that gold makes the world go around even though gold has no real value when it comes to sustaining life.  They are selling the corporate messages and the undereducated are allowing themselves to be manipulated.  The Tea Party shouters, filled with racism and hate, will never be happy because their value system is based on “things”.  Americans believe that “things” will make us happy and yet, we are always looking to buy more “things” because we feel a hole inside us that needs to be filled.   Religion doesn’t completely fill the void because religions are always asking for money and more money.  If Catholics stopped sending money to the Vatican, the Pope would have to live his life like Jesus instead of like a king.

The indigenous people in Avatar have lives that are not centered around “things” and yet they appear to be happy.  When we leave the theater, we re-enter our world and we see an environment covered in concrete and asphalt and realize that our lives are centered on “things”.   It’s a very boring and sad picture, both visually and spiritually.  Yeah, that would cause a person to feel depressed.