Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The GOP's Small Government Plan

The GOP's plan to reduce the size of government:
  • Neuter the SEC
  • Neuter the EPA
  • Neuter OSHA
  • Neuter the FCC
  • Neuter the FHA
  • Neuter HUD
  • Neuter the FDA
  • Neuter Head Start
  • Neuter the Dept. of Education
  • Neuter the Dept. of Health and Human Services
  • Neuter the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
While promising to gut just about every government agency supporting middle-class citizens, Republicans are proposing sweeping new legislation that will insert government bureaucrats into our most private decisions - that of reproductive choice.
NARAL, an abortion-rights group, tries to track each piece of abortion-related legislation making its way through state legislatures. Last year they tracked 174 bills. This session's count is already up to 351.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Sanctioned Political Violence

Unable to legally ban union representation for Wisconsin's public employees, the GOP controlled state house illegally voted to terminate union representation for all public employees. These heavy-handed tactics are today's button-down corporate equivalent to the more bloody tactics used by Ford Motor and its enforcement goon squad supplied by the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

It should be clear to everyone that Gov. Walker's original claim that his assault on unions was driven by budget issues was a lie. The ugly truth behind what happened in Wisconsin, and what's happening in several other states, is that political conservatives and big money are colluding to destroy what remains of the union movement.

“Messianic theology eventually breeds messianic politics.” Thomas Hobbes

“This three-decade war against common sense has preached that tax cuts for the rich help the poor, that labor unions keep workers from prospering, that regulations protecting consumers attack freedom.” John Cavanagh & Chuck Collins, The Rich and the Rest of Us

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Active Ignorance



These protesters are woefully ignorant of the American Constitution they so readily cite in justifying calls to deny basic rights to their fellow citizens. Their actions make a mockery of America's promise to support and protect individual freedoms. And the politicians who foment this ugly nationalism for personal gain are among the greatest threats to our democracy today. In this disturbing video one can see connections to an earlier time when self-serving politicians convinced a nation to murder millions of fellow citizens for no crime other than being different.

“As we are, so we associate. The good, by affinity, seek the good; the vile, by affinity, the vile. Thus of their own volition, souls proceed into heaven or into hell.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, An Address Delivered Before the Senior Class in Divinity College