I cannot say that I was in need of a bucket of rocks tonight to hurl at the TV as I watched the ABC/Yahoo Republican Debate, that would have been overkill...and expensive.
Overkill like Rick Santorum scolding Mitt Romney for using the term "middle class". Or like Jon Huntsman coming up with a new name for Wall Street and other wealthy interests (i.e. corporations) which have robbed us blind forever in this country, the "creative class". Perhaps even Rick Perry's assertion of a "war on religion" in this country which is under-covered by the media.
(Perhaps Mr. Perry failed to notice that he uttered those words from the stage of a Catholic Benedictine College as he was running for the job of being President of the United States. Certainly this escaped the notice of famed Constitutionalist Ron Paul.)
And expensive like so many of the candidates pushing for "Right to Work" status for our states. If you haven't lived in a RTW state you wouldn't understand, but basically this is the practice of taking all the (few) rights of the workers away so that the companies might "prosper". And you wonder why all our major professional athletes are in unions? We hear that Boeing is told it shouldn't open up shop in South Carolina because it is a right to work state but hear nothing when they want to (and do) close operations in "fair-pay" states unless we happen to tune ourselves in to non-corporate media outlets.
In a nutshell folks, the game is rigged. The OWS movement has tapped into this and after a Wall Street bailout, corporate tax loopholes, and lobbying going mad, they should. The only way to begin to make headway against so many of our challenges at present is to get the SuperPacs and other forms of "big money" out of our politics. Then we need to make corporations responsible. We are always told that it is our fault as the (dare I say it) "middle class" whenever our country is in a recession because we ask for too much: pension percentages, a raise once every few years, a decent benefits package. Yet we continue to be the ones bailing everyone else out. If you want to have one class "war" on the other, simply continue to tell us that we don't want those poor, downtrodden "job creators" to bear the brunt of equality in the tax code, we want to expand the tax base so that all of that half of us who are in or near poverty can "pay their fair share". Give it a rest.
President Obama has done some pretty great things this past week; he's flexed his muscle so to speak. He made a whopping four recess appointments (just look at the number made by previous administrations if you want a good laugh, or cry) but to important positions: Richard Cordray at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, plus three appointments to the Labor Relations Board, he has vowed to trim the military's budget, and he has taken steps to make it harder for I.C.E. to separate families of those seeking green cards. One could argue that he is only doing these things to win re-election, but I would ask you to consider one thing with that dose of skepticism: Just imagine what he could accomplish for our nation in a second term with no election to reign him into a political jail. Then consider what any of the Republican candidates would do in his stead.
President Obama is making overtures, putting a down payment on our trust in him. I intend to help him earn the dividends of his investment.
Besides, I don't want to have to buy four years' worth of rocks and a bucket.
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