Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

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Eve of Destruction

Sunday, July 31st, 2011

Eve of Destruction

Matthew K.

If you’ve spent any time looking back to see what caused the last great depression of the 1930s, you will see that it was the drop in taxes, especially on the wealthy, that triggered the depression. A lack of financial oversight and foolishly low taxes.

We put regulations in place and raised the tax on the wealthy to 90% and we were good for almost a century.

Now, we’ve blown up the regulations and the Republicans have lowered taxes on the rich and guess what.

The lousy part is that even the Democrats in Congress are sniffing glue. It’s not just for Republicans any more. Harry Reid says we need to cut more programs to balance the budget.

Hello Hoover!

It didn’t work back then and it was thinking like this that caused the depression. We need to put a stop to this today. Tomorrow will be too late.

Call your congressmen and the White House (202.456.1111) and tell them you don’t want anything but a clean bill to increase the dept limit. After that, we can take a moment to read our history books and see what caused the depression and what stopped it.

No more slashing government spending until we’re out of this hole.

Call them now. Call them tomorrow and call them every day until they start putting our tax dollars into stimulus programs rather than in the pockets of the rich.

Call today!

Posted in Finance, Politics | 3 Comments »

A Primary Challenger to Obama

Saturday, July 30th, 2011

A Primary Challenger to Obama
by
David Schlecht

Obama has said repeatedly that the progressives in the Democratic party are irrelevant because they have no where else to go.

Well, that’s not true. The only way to force Obama back to the left is to put some left-leaning pressure on him. We have to show Obama that the progressives do have somewhere else to go.

I never thought I would say this but perhaps it’s time to find a progressive challenger to oppose Obama’s right-leaning slide off the cliff.

Senator Sanders would be a great candidate, but he’s not interested in the sewage that one must wallow in to become president.

There must be a whole list of qualified and better candidates out there who can oppose righter-than-right Obama.

 

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Posted in Politics | 1 Comment »

The Epidemic of Conservative Violence

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

The Epidemic of Conservative Violence
Dave Speck

How much of the violence and terrorism in the US is attributed to Muslims and how much is Christians? You would probably be surprised to know that Muslim attacks only accounted for a small percentage of the attacks while the largest group of terrorists attacks on America came from Christians. Check out the FBI website for specifics.

The awful and senseless mass murder in Norway was followed just now by a fire bomb at a family planning center McKinney, Texas.

I’ve heard it over and over how it’s just the crazies and not every conservative. Well, I’m seriously doubting that anymore. I question if Conservatism isn’t really a sickness. It’s the closest thing you can be to suffering without the capacity of empathy without actually being clinically psychopathic.

How can anyone who cares about those around them agree with cutting or destroying Social Security and Medicare and other programs that are the difference between life and death for millions of Americans? Only someone without empathy could do this in order to save the billionaires from paying their fair share of taxes. It’s a sickness, plain and simple.

The line between being a voting psychopath and a clinical psychopath is so very thin.

I would like to see a serious study into this disease we call the Republican party and their Tea Baggers. It doesn’t just border on violence and hatred, it’s steeped in it.

The sad part is that many otherwise healthy people get suckered into voting for this party of sickies not knowing or refusing to believe just how bad it really is.

 

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Posted in Politics | 1 Comment »

The Debt Crisis Speeches

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

The Debt Crisis Speeches
Matthew K.

The Republicans have been trying to engineer this debt limit into a world-ending crisis. Even though they have increased the limit time after time when a Republican is president. Now, suddenly it’s a crisis. It’s a fake crisis and the Republicans are trying to make political hay while holding our country’s economy hostage.

Here are the two word clouds from Obama’s speech and Boener’s reply. Look at the words that are used the most (those in larger font) and compare the two. Obama’s speech was about solving the problem, it was about working together to move America forward.

Here is Obama’s word cloud:

Obama's Debt Limit Speech

Now look at Boehner’s speech word cloud and see what words he used the most. It is obvious his sole purpose was to attack the president. Anyone who listened to the speech knew that it was disrespectful to America and disrespectful to our president. Here is Boehner’s word cloud:

Boehner's Attack Speech
As always, when the Republicans have nothing to contribute all they can do is attack the other side.  It sure gets old. Sooner or later the Republican voters will realize that their party is destroying our country.

If the republicans in Congress refuse to increase the debt limit, is it Obama's fault?

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Posted in Politics | 1 Comment »

Another Example of Right Wing Crazy

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Another Example of Right Wing Crazy
Dave Speck

Anders Behring Breivik was arrested for the murder and destruction he brought upon the innocent people of Norway. The crimes are abominable and he deserves any justice he received. But the bigger picture isn’t so much who or where but what.

This fanatic was spewing the same hate-filled nonsensical talking points that America’s right-wing crazies in the Republican party chant. It’s becoming a thinner and thinner line between the crazies who perpetrate the crimes and those in American politics who stoke up the fear and hatred.

Yes, here in America we’ve had our Timothy McVeigh and an assortment of other conservative right-wing fanatics. We’ve got preachers burning Korans, lunatics shooting up liberal organizations, right-wing nuts killing doctors, The list goes on and on.

Americans need to ask where all this hatred is coming from.

I can tell you where it’s coming from. It comes from our right-wing politicians. We all know that to be a fact. The right is full of the most vile and hate filled nuts that you can find anywhere.

Just think for a moment that a politician puts bulls-eyes on a map of Republican home states and used the language of reloading. If this was a Democrat, nobody would vote for him. He wouldn’t have a chance of getting elected.

Conversely, Republican voters vote for these monsters all the time. The party is sick with them.

This, my fellow Americans, is where all the sickness is coming from. You’re voting for it and making it mainstream. Now, I can hear it already, about how the Democrats do it too. But that’s just not true. Any investigation shows that it’s a right-wing disease and only the Republican can quit voting for the hatred.

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Voter Fraud, Election Fraud, and Election Rigging

Sunday, July 24th, 2011

Voter Fraud, Election Fraud, and Election Rigging
Dave Speck

We have almost a dozen states where the governors have passed stringent laws that will prevent millions of Americans from voting. They say the reason is to prevent voter fraud.

Let’s look at this reason and see if it’s the real reason they want to prevent valid American voters from voting.

There has been a rigorous program to try to expose the voters who are voting multiple times or voting when they don’t have permission. You hear the conservative talk radio hosts explaining how it’s a rampant disease and if it wasn’t for voter fraud, nobody would be voting Democratic.

But, there’s hardly ever been anyone convicted of this even though they are looking as hard as possible to find them. Sure, there a few cases here and there, such as conservative talking heads who are knowingly voting in the wrong precincts.

So to prevent a couple cases a year, the Republican governors want to prevent hundreds of thousands of voters from voting in each state.

I can understand why none of the Republican voters know anything about this since it’s never addressed honestly on the news. If you knew that we were throwing hundreds of thousands of voters off the voting rolls in order to prevent one or two so called voter frauds, wouldn’t you think something was crooked?

Well, it is!

The Republican governors are not trying to fix anything, they’re trying to break our right to vote. It’s a well known fact in the Republican party that Republican politicians are not voted in by the majority. “In fact, their party benefits when the voting populous goes down.”

Have you ever heard that phrase before? It’s a fundamental principle of the Republican party. That’s why they want to prevent the populous from voting.

It is called electioneering and election fraud and election rigging when this is done and the Republican party has been ordered to stop voter caging which is how they used to get away with this. Now they’re coming right out front and saying they won’t let the poor and elderly vote. Ah, no democracy for you!

It’s time Americans got out in the streets and started screaming and yelling about this blatant attempt to take our voting rights away.

Why does anyone still vote for such a corrupt and criminal political party?

 

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It’s Time to Turn Up the Heat America

Sunday, July 24th, 2011

It’s Time to Turn Up the Heat America
Dave Speck

It seems that America is starting to wake up and revolt against the Republican efforts to destroy our country. Seeing the hundreds of thousands of Americans marching against the anti-worker, anti-middle-class policies of the corrupt Republican governors gives me hope.

The Tea Baggers are starting to wake up and realize that they’re being used by the billionaires. They’re beginning to realize their weird signs made no sense since what they really wanted conflicted with what Dick Armey and the Koch brothers were telling them.

The corporate press is trying their hardest to hide this non-violent revolution but they can’t hide it much longer. Americans are waking up to the fact that our media is part of the problem, not the solution. For the real news regarding the revolution, Americans are resorting to news on the Internet.

Let me suggest a few places you can go to see the real news when it comes to America revolting against Republican crimes.

 

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Who Owns the Deficit

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Who Owns the Deficit
Dave Speck

So we hear the republican chanting over and over how the sky is falling if we don’t balance the budget, even if it means we have to take food out of the mouths of our elderly and sick and weak and poor. The world will end. Why all the noise?

The Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling 18 times during Reagan’s administration. Got that? 18 times. During that time Reagan increased our nation’s deficit by three trillion dollars, more than all the previous presidents combined.

Where did all that money go? It went to tax breaks for the rich, mostly. That and to the military budget and his failed Star Wars program.

Then, along came Clinton and he balanced the budget and had a surplus that would have paid off the deficit in 10 years.

Where did all this money come from? Clinton ended “Welfare as we know it.” In other words, he stole it from the poor. He also raised taxes on the wealthy a couple percentage points.

Then, Bush added almost five trillion dollars to the deficit and the republican voted seven times to raise the debt ceiling.

Where did all that money go? Tax breaks for the rich and two illegal wars.

Then the economy crashed, as it always does when you lower taxes on the rich, and Bush pushed through another trillion dollars to the banker crooks.

Now, Obama wants to add a small fraction to the debt, less than 8%, and the Republicans are threatening to bring the entire country down unless we take more money from the poor.

Do you see any sort of pattern here? The republicans ran up almost all of the 10 trillion dollar debt and they don’t want to pay for it. They want the poor and the weak and the elderly and the sick to pay for their big party.

The republicans and the rich have been living large for the past 30 years at our expense and now they want you and me to pay for the bill.

What would you say about a political party that does this? What would you say about a party that is willing to crash our economy if they don’t get their way on everything? We’re in this mess because of the tax breaks to the rich and the republicans are saying they will destroy the country if we don’t give more tax breaks to the rich.

What party does big business own?

US Debt per GDP

 

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Posted in Finance, Politics | 1 Comment »

Class Warfare?

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Class Warfare?
Dave Speck

Class Warfare

America’s middle class has been doing with less and less over the past 30 years while the rich have been getting richer and richer. There has been a class war going on for 30 years folks, and it’s time we started waking up to the reality. Not only are the rich making more than they ever did before, but they already own most all the wealth in the entire country.

It’s time to wake up, America. There’s a class war going on and you’re getting killed.

Listen to Senator Bernie Sanders.

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Posted in Finance, Politics | 1 Comment »

Balanced Budget Amendment

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Balanced Budget Amendment
Dave Speck

We’ve been hearing a lot of commotion lately by the Republicans about how we need a balanced budget.

At first blush, this might sound like a great idea. After all, don’t you and I have to balance our checkbook at the end of each month?

No, actually, we don’t. We can go out and borrow any time we feel like it.  In fact, if our federal government becomes hamstrung with a limitation like this, it would be the best thing for the billionaires and the worst thing for you and me. That’s why the Tea Baggers are all over this. Their billionaire leaders (behind the scenes) are telling them how important it is that the government can’t borrow money.

But, let’s look at what would have happened if our founding fathers were as stupid as a Tea Bagger. Without being able to spend more money than they had, we would never have been able to protect ourselves from attack as a young nation. In fact, we wouldn’t even be able to protect ourselves from Hitler during the second world war if we hadn’t been able to borrow money.

Imagine what we would have done during the Republican Great Depression of the 1930s. Without being able to borrow money to get our people back to work, this great country of the USA would have gone broke. We wouldn’t have been able to start up all the jobs programs that saved us from republican stupidity.

Here we are, a century later and the Republicans are trying to destroy our country again. When will America ever learn not to listen to the Republicans?

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Impeach Justice Clarence Thomas

Sunday, June 26th, 2011

Dear Friend,

Over 200,000 people have signed a petition calling for the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. And those people are making making waves in Washington. Thanks to their activism, momentum is building behind an effort to hold Clarence Thomas accountable for his blatant disregard for the Judicial Code of Conduct.

Earlier this week, Congressman Chris Murphy penned a “Dear Colleague” letter asking his fellow members of Congress to sign on to an urgent request to Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith. This letter, spurred by the recent New York Times expose of Clarence Thomas’ unethical relationship with rightwing funder and activist Harlan Crow, urges the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on escalating reports of unethical behavior by Supreme Court Justices.

And now, Rep. Murphy has invited all Americans to add their voice to this effort.

I just co-signed the letter asking the House Judiciary Committee to investigate recent actions of Clarence Thomas. You should do the same. Click below to take action.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/murphy_cosigners/

Posted in Politics | 2 Comments »

What are the Commons and Why Should We Protect Them

Monday, June 6th, 2011

What are the Commons and Why Should We Protect Them
by
David Schlecht

You’ve probably read about the need to protect the commons on this site in previous posts. Here is what the commons are and why we need to protect them.

What Are the Commons?

The Commons is often referred to or described by The Tragedy of the Commons. The commons are those common parts of a society that belong to everyone, or should belong to everyone.  Let’s take an example:

Let’s imagine a village on the plains where there is enough room in the pasture for everyone to raise one cow. The village functions perfectly because the people share the pasture (the commons) and everyone protects it so everyone can benefit.

After generations of success, the village inherits a greedy villager who wants to grow lots of cows so he can sell them and get rich. If the village doesn’t protect their common pasture, it will be destroyed and the village will suffer and possibly even die away for lack of pasture land.

So, that was a pretty simple example of the commons and an easy demonstration of why society must protect the commons. But, let’s look at today’s societies. There are no common pasture lands and no common waterways and no common breathable air. Oh wait, I guess there always will be the most basic of commons. If one greedy person gets to get rich by polluting everyone’s drinking water then the society failed to protect their commons.

But commons include so much more than just the land we need to survive and the air and the water, but it also includes many other things that we need to survive.

So, now is a good time to stop reading and ask yourself what other commons you can think of, what other things a society needs for survival.

Does a society need clean water, clean air, unpolluted farmland? Does it need a government? Does it need a fire department and a police department and a military? I would say yes to all of the above. All of these are commons that need to be protected from the greedy. What is a military that isn’t owned by and responsible to the people? It’s a police state. It’s a repressive military government.

Is reasonable health care a necessary requirement for a successful society? Of course it is. And, what happens when greed takes over the common? You have members of society dying so greedy people can make a profit.

Why Should We Protect the Commons?

By now you probably already know the answer. It’s not at all difficult. When profits collide with the commons, society suffers, fails, and dies.

What happens when the fire department is controlled by the greedy? Only those paying through the nose for fire protection get fire services and in many cases, the fire department will go and start fires of those uninsured homes to strum up more business. We have seen this behavior in America in the past with insurance rackets.

In fact, insurance is one of the few businesses that should not be controlled by greed. It is at conflicting sides of the ring to have greed and insurance in the same business.

What is your list of things that should be free from the control of greed? What commons need protecting?

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Holding America Hostage

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Holding America Hostage
-Matthew K

I hope the Republican voters get a good look at their party. I hope this doesn’t all go unreported in the news.

The Republican party held the middle class tax cuts hostage and refused to allow their stimulus benefit unless the billionaires got their tax cuts. The past 30 years have taught us many things but it has taught, even the most ardent Republican voter, that tax cuts for the rich got us into this mess and more tax cuts are only making it worse. Still, the Republican party held our stimulus money hostage for tax breaks for the rich.

Now the Republican party is threatening to destroy America’s credit standing and possibly cause the next worldwide depression in order to take more away from the middle class and the poor to give to the rich. Their argument is that if they refuse to raise the debt limit and America defaults on our loans, that they can get the media to blame Obama.

Got that? They don’t care what harm comes to you or me or even to our country, as long as they can play politics and make Obama look bad. Of course, if they can send us all to the poor house in the process, that’s just a big plus.

Hey, you! Are you a Republican voter? Do you see what your party is doing? When will you do something about it? Don’t you care what they’re doing to your country? Don’t you care what they’re doing to the Republican name? Don’t you care about anything?

Why are they willing to gamble with our country to get their way? Why do they so badly want to end the booming years of the 40s through the 80s? Why won’t they just do what’s right for the country and raise the debt ceiling?

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Wake Up America, It’s Almost Too Late

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

Wake Up America, It’s Almost Too Late
by
David Schlecht

In your and my lifetimes we’ve let America go from being the economic powerhouse to being the greatest debtor nation in the world. You and I have done that.

In our lifetimes we’ve seen our great nation go from being a “We Society” to being a greed driven “Me Society”.

We have seen our media go from serving to inform to being infotainment.

We have given away our commons to greedy and unethical and inefficient corporations.

We have gone from having the biggest and best industries in the world to having none. In fact, our greedy bankers are the most profitable industry in America and they produce absolutely nothing.

We have gone from having the best medical care in the world to being one of the worst, unless you’re a millionaire.

We have gone from arguing for more control by “We the People” to being Tea Baggers yelling to get We the People off the necks of the polluters.

We have gone from being a nation that was deeply involved in the governing of our country to a country of sissies who are afraid to even discuss politics.

All of this has happened on our watch.

Any one of these things would be easy to fix but we’ve been too lazy for too long and there’s a long long list to fix. Is there too much to fix? Have the Oligarchs won?

Are we ready to just tuck our tail between our legs and go back to the brain-numbing television or are we ready to get out in the streets and start talking and start marching and start making change?

If we don’t start, today, tomorrow will be too late and we will have wasted the country we are leaving to our children and grandchildren.

How will they be remembering our generation? As a bunch of lazy uninvolved television audiences or as a bunch of patriots who got educated, got involved, and saved our country?

It’s up to you. It all depends on what YOU and I do today.

Posted in Politics | 3 Comments »

The War Against American Voters

Friday, May 13th, 2011

The War Against American Voters
by
David Schlecht

You don’t hear anything about this issue in the Liberal Media so it must be another example of the Liberals trying to take away voting rights from Americans. Right? Wouldn’t you think that’s what it must be?

Well, no. I guess it’s not such a Liberal Media after all. In fact, the news you don’t hear anything about is the news about the tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of liberals who are being denied their right to vote by the Republicans.

Have you heard anything in your news about how the 20 Republican state governors are almost unanimously trying to restrict voting by poor and middle class people? How? By demanding a poll tax, by demanding licenses or other means of identification. These requirements are unreasonable for millions of Americans who don’t drive.

You don’t hear anything in the Liberal Media about how the average wait time for voting in wealthy precincts is 15 minutes but the wait time in poor neighborhoods is over an hour. This is obvious voter suppression and the Republican party has been admonished for doing this before but they just keep on doing it.

Now, I want you to ask yourself, whether you are a Republican or Democrat, should we be allowing parties to do this stuff?

The most common excuse you’ll hear is, “Oh my gosh, the Democrats are doing it too. Have you heard about the millions of voter fraud where Democrats got elected illegally? Well, this is just making up for all that.”

Well, actually, yes, I’ve heard that lie many times from the likes of O’Liely, or Beck, or Hannity. But every time people try to actually find examples of these voter frauds, there’s never one to be found. In fact, the number of cases of voter fraud is typically less than 10 per DECADE and are often just cases of people voting in the wrong precincts, not people voting twice.

So, why don’t we disqualify political parties that try to prevent millions of people from voting? Republicans can tell you why. Because, well, um, ahh, oh, hey. look over there, something shiny.

Why doesn’t the news tell us about this?

But, you and I know that we can tell this news to Republicans and they won’t believe it and will refuse to even investigate it. That’s probably because they already know it’s true but just don’t want to quit cheering for their corrupt team, even as America suffers.

Why does anyone still vote Republican? Why haven’t the Republican voters started recalling their criminals from office?

Have you evern been denied the right to vote?

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Posted in Politics | 3 Comments »

Taking Back America From the Terrorists

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

Taking Back America From the Terrorists
by
David Schlecht

All right, now that we have bagged the biggest bad guy since Lex Luthor, is it time to start rolling back all the lost rights and freedoms? Is it time to bring back Habeas Corpus? Time to restore Posse Comitatus?

If this is not the time to suspend The Patriot Act, when will it be?

The government won’t roll them back unless we demand it and now is the time.

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Osama bin Laden Killed

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

Osama bin Laden Killed
by
David Schlecht

We’ve all heard the news by now. What are your thoughts?

Here are mine:

  1. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
  2. What the heck took so long?

What are yours?

Posted in Politics | 9 Comments »

Dean Heller Replaces Ensign

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Dean Heller Replaces Ensign
by
David Schlecht

Nevada’s disgraced unethical Senator Ensign, who is still under investigation, is being replaced by Dean Heller, the representative of big business.

One unethical Republican replacing another. What difference does it make, Nevada? When will you wake up? You’re being taken for fools.

 

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Voodoo Economics

Sunday, April 24th, 2011

Voodoo Economics
by

David Schlecht

There’s a great video on Voodoo Economics by Thom Hartmann. A must see.

Should multinational corporations and billionires pay higher taxes?

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Posted in Politics | 2 Comments »

Religious Matters

Saturday, April 23rd, 2011

Religious Matters
What Moral Matters Matter to America
by
Paul Johnson

The latest US budget designed and approved by almost every single Republican in the House of Representatives takes food right out of the mouths of the starving and gives it to the millionaires and billionaires.

This action has horrified America enough that we are beginning to realize that we are voting for the party that is as opposite our religious and moral values as possible.

How could we have voted for this immoral party? How could we have been made into such suckers that we have voted against all that we know to be right and voted for those intent on giving our country away to the greedy and the rich?

If we don’t stop and figure out how we got here, we’ll never be able to avoid it in the future.

What went so wrong that we got the party of the greedy running our government?

I can’t speak for everyone who has accidentally voted for the party of the greedy, but I can speak for those I know and I can be pretty sure that this is the same mistake made by almost all of those voting for the Republicans.

Wedge Issues

The easiest way to get people to vote against their own best interests and against the best interests of the country is to get them to vote primarily on wedge issues. A wedge issue is an issue that can be used to drive as a wedge between political parties. The Republicans can’t run on providing for the poor, because it would be a a lie, so they need to find something that will get people riled up enough to go and vote for a lousy candidate if he would just address the wedge issue.

The Republican voter is typically a single issue voter. This means that they are the most susceptible to being used as tools in wedge issues.

Effective Marketing

The Republican party has become experts at marketing destructive policies to the American people. Why else would you have a Tea Party out there chanting for more rights and lower taxes on the multinational corporations and billionaires? The Tea Party was created with money from the billionaires and is sponsored by billionaire dollars and marketed with billionaire money all for the purpose of getting Tea Party candidates elected who vote against the interests of Americans and all for the corporations.

Few people even realize that the original Tea Party was a revolution against multinational corporate power and now they’re out there chanting for more power and more money for the multinational corporations. You can’t tell me that’s not pretty darned impressive marketing.

Lies and Deceipt

The percentage of people who are foolish enough to be Tea Baggers is low enough that the Republican party needs more. Hence, the need to lie about what they are and what they plan to do for the billionaires.

This is not a problem limited to the Republican party. There are a few Democrats who run on Progressive principles and then vote straight ticket with the Republicans.

But, this isn’t really all about how bad the Republicans are. This essay is about how some unethical politicians and greedy billionaires can corrupt our political system. It’s not all about Republicans or Democrats. It happens to be the Republican party they have infected, but it could have just as well been the Democratic party. In fact, they’re spending billions of dollars right now, trying to corrupt that party as well.

Taking Back our Country

How on Earth are we ever going to fix this mess with so much money lines up against the American voters? How will we wrestle the media away from big money? How can we change the campaign finance laws when the Supreme Court is so obviously pro-billionaire?

This almost looks like a perfect storm. It may be too late for us to take back the country peacefully, but hopefully we will at least try before it’s too late.

The Real Issues

As I’ve pointed out, political parties don’t run on real moral issues, they run on wedge issues. This means that we voters are stuck without real issues upon which to vote.

What are the most important moral issue to you? Think about it before reading further. What is really important to you morally? Do these moral issue matter enough to affect your voting? In other words, do your morals affect your “real” life or are they just something to talk about at church?

For the vast majority of Americans, moral issues affect their daily lives. Most people try to keep morals in their lives.

Here is a short list of my moral issues. I have a much longer list but it’s not important what mine are, what matters is what your moral list looks like.

  1. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, curing the sick. You know, those things Jesus says need to be part of our lives.
  2. Turn the other cheek. This includes reducing the steel heel of oppressive laws in America and reducing the oppressive governments of other lands. This means no wars. Fix the system where the vast majority of those in our prisons are minorities and poor. You know, the things Jesus said we should keep in our lives.
  3. Discouraging greed. Wow! There’s no end to where this could go. It’s time to get the money changers out of our religions and out of our politics.

There are plenty more, but this is a good start for discussion. Do yourself a favor and come up with your own personal list of important moral issues.

Now ask yourself, how many of those issues on your list are things you actually vote on? How can there be such a great disconnect between what you think is moral and how you vote?

Now, here is a list of wedge issues that are important but are not anywhere near the top of my list and I bet they’re not at the top of yours either:

  1. Abortion. This is not a moral issue. Nowhere in the Bible does it say we need to vote on abortion. Abortions are horrible but if they’re at the top of your morals list, you might want to stop and take a second look at your morals.
  2. Hate the Gay. How many times does your religious book refer to defending the downtrodden compared to the number of times it says we need to disenfranchise gays? This is a big wedge issue but is also a big moral issue as well. Should we be taking rights away from gays? What would your common sense tell you?
  3. Religion in schools and in government. This wedge issue really as no place in a Christian’s political view. Christianity is opposed to the combination of politics and religion. So are our country’s founding documents. So, why would you vote based on this issue? Don’t get me wrong. There are some religions that think that politics and religions should be the same. But most Americans opposed to Muslim laws regarding this.

What are your most important wedge issues and is it wise to vote based on them while excluding the most important moral issues on your list?

Happy Easter!

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Posted in Politics, Religion | 3 Comments »

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