I was discussing politics and policy with a liberal friend of mine the other day. We were talking about the fact that conservatives tend to take positions that only favor themselves and their closest family and friends, while liberals tend to take positions that favor everyone, including groups of which they are not even a member. This becomes glaringly evident when people like Nancy Reagan change their position on stem cell research, but only because her husband developed Alzheimer's; or Dick Cheney changes his position on gay rights, but only because his daughter announced she is gay. My friend asked, "Why are we the way we are and they the way they are?" I thought about his question, and the answer became obvious to me.
Why is homo sapiens the dominant species on the planet Earth? We are smaller, weaker, slower, and have poorer vision and hearing than most other animals. The reason is obvious, it is because of our brain, we are smart! But it is not just our intelligence. How did we survive attacks from bigger, stronger and faster predators? We survived because we banded together into tribes. Alone we would have been eaten; but together we protect the group and survive. However, the same traits that protected us from predators, that resulted in our survival; our tribal instincts, also became one of our least admirable traits once the predators were overcome. That tribal instinct that became dominant through natural selection became the same instinct that resulted in war, death and destruction once the external predators were gone. We ended up taking the trait that enabled us to survive when we had enemies and turning it on ourselves, making us our own enemy.
Evolution is ongoing and inevitable. Our tribal instinct is no longer a good thing; in fact, it is a bad thing. The trait that will serve the future is a completely different trait. This new trait is non-tribal. Actually it is a trait that coincides with a global reality, a trait that has at its core a respect and concern for the planet we live on, a trait based on cooperation, not competition.
It is a trait that liberals have and conservatives do not. The reality is that a new species of human I call Homo Sapiens Sanus, the Sane Man, has arisen. Evolution continues in its inevitable way. The day of the previous dominant species, with a strong tribal instinct, is coming to an end. The beginning of a new day, for a species that cares about the earth, cooperates rather than engages in conflict and war, uses natural resources in an efficient way designed to leave something for future generations, protects the entire species rather than just the tribe, has come.
Of course, as is the case anytime a dominant species is in its last days, and a new species time has come, there is a period of transition when the "dinosaurs" try to hang on. The "dinosaurs" we deal with today may be called many things, the "Tea Party" being just one.
It is not just our imagination. We are the way we are for a genetic reason. Since the Liberal-Sane (LS) gene is dominant and the Conservative-Tribal (CT) gene is recessive, according to Mendel, the possible permutations are as follows: CT/CT; CT/LS; LS/CT; LS/LS. Therefore, mathematically speaking, 3 out of 4 offspring will be Liberal-Sane. So the Age of Homo Sapiens, the Conservative Human Being who cares only about their own tribe, is ending and the Age of Homo Sapiens Sanus, the Liberal-Sane Human Being who cares about the Earth and everyone on it, is dawning and inevitable.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
What Kind of Contract is This?
I just watched the Reverend Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son, talk about hell and explain that if we do not accept Christ as our savior we will burn forever. I have spent my whole adult life dealing with lawyers and the legal system and if I have learned one thing it is that a contract entered into under duress is not binding nor enforceable. So how can we willingly enter into a binding and enforceable contract with God if we are threatened that failure to do so will result in horrific consequences? I guess God couldn't find a lawyer in heaven to write the contract, right?
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Does Support for Life Include Adult Women?
Following is an interesting first-person account of what happened to one woman who faced a medical emergency involving the death of her unborn fetus and her inability to get appropriate healthcare services in the United States of America:
Between a Woman and Her Doctor
A Story About Abortion You Will Never Forget
by Martha Mendoza
I could see my baby's amazing and perfect spine, a precise, pebbled curl of vertebrae. His little round skull. The curve of his nose. I could even see his small leg floating slowly through my uterus.
My doctor came in a moment later, slid the ultrasound sensor around my growing, round belly and put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s not alive,” she said.
She turned her back to me and started taking notes. I looked at the wall, breathing deeply, trying not to cry.
I can make it through this, I thought. I can handle this.
I didn’t know I was about to become a pariah.
I was 19 weeks pregnant, strong, fit and happy, imagining our fourth child, the newest member of our family. He would have dark hair and bright eyes. He’d be intelligent and strong — really strong, judging by his early kicks.
And now this. Not alive?
I didn’t realize that pressures well beyond my uterus, beyond the too bright, too-loud, too-small ultrasound room, extending all the way to boardrooms of hospitals, administrative sessions at medical schools and committee hearings in Congress, were going to deepen and expand my sorrow and pain.
On November 6, 2003, President Bush signed what he called a “partial birth abortion ban,” prohibiting doctors from committing an “overt act” designed to kill a partially delivered fetus. The law, which faces vigorous challenges, is the most significant change to the nation’s abortion laws since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled abortion legal in Roe v. Wade in 1973. One of the unintended consequences of this new law is that it put people in my position, with a fetus that is already dead, in a technical limbo.
Legally, a doctor can still surgically take a dead body out of a pregnant woman. But in reality, the years of angry debate that led to the law’s passage, restrictive state laws and the violence targeting physicians have reduced the number of hospitals and doctors willing to do dilations and evacuations (D&Es) and dilations and extractions (intact D&Es), which involve removing a larger fetus, sometimes in pieces, from the womb.
At the same time, fewer medical schools are training doctors to do these procedures. After all, why spend time training for a surgery that’s likely to be made illegal?
At this point, 74 percent of obstetrics and gynecology residency programs do not train all residents in abortion procedures, according to reproductive health researchers at the National Abortion Federation. Those that do usually teach only the more routine dilation and curettage — D&C, the 15-minute uterine scraping used for abortions of fetuses under 13 weeks old.
Fewer than 7 percent of obstetricians are trained to do D&Es, the procedure used on fetuses from about 13 to 19 weeks. Almost all the doctors doing them are over 50 years old.
“Finding a doctor who will do a D&E is getting very tough,” says Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers.
My doctor turned around and faced me. She told me that because dilation and evacuation is rarely offered in my community, I could opt instead to chemically induce labor over several days and then deliver the little body at my local maternity ward. “It’s up to you,” she said.
I’d been through labor and delivery three times before, with great joy as well as pain, and the notion of going through that profound experience only to deliver a dead fetus (whose skin was already starting to slough off, whose skull might be collapsing) was horrifying.
I also did some research, spoke with friends who were obstetricians and gynecologists, and quickly learned this: Study after study shows D&Es are safer than labor and delivery. Women who had D&Es were far less likely to have bleeding requiring transfusion, infection requiring intravenous antibiotics, organ injuries requiring additional surgery or cervical laceration requiring repair and hospital readmission.
A review of 300 second- trimester abortions published in 2002 in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology found that 29 percent of women who went through labor and delivery had complications, compared with just 4 percent of those who had D&Es.
The American Medical Association said D&Es, compared to labor and delivery, “may minimize trauma to the woman’s uterus, cervix and other vital organs.”
There was this fact, too: The intact D&E surgery makes less use of “grasping instruments,” which could damage the body of the fetus. If the body were intact, doctors might be able to more easily figure out why my baby died in the womb.
I’m a healthy person. I run, swim and bike. I’m 37 years old and optimistic. Good things happen to me. I didn’t want to rule out having more kids, but I did want to know what went wrong before I tried again.
We told our doctor we had chosen a dilation and evacuation.
“I can’t do these myself,” said my doctor. “I trained at a Catholic hospital.”
My doctor recommended a specialist in a neighboring county, but when I called for an appointment, they said they couldn’t see me for almost a week.
I could feel my baby’s dead body inside of mine. This baby had thrilled me with kicks and flutters, those first soft tickles of life bringing a smile to my face and my hand to my rounding belly. Now this baby floated, limp and heavy, from one side to the other, as I rolled in my bed.
And within a day, I started to bleed. My body, with or without a doctor’s help, was starting to expel the fetus. Technically, I was threatening a spontaneous abortion, the least safe of the available options.
I did what any pregnant patient would do. I called my doctor. And she advised me to wait.
I lay in my bed, not sleeping day or night, trying not to lose this little baby’s body that my own womb was working to expel. Wait, I told myself. Just hold on. Let a doctor take this out.
I was scared. Was it going to fall out of my body when I rose, in the middle of the night, to check on my toddler? Would it come apart on its own and double me over, knock me to the floor, as I stood at the stove scrambling eggs for my boys?
On my fourth morning, with the bleeding and cramping increasing, I couldn’t wait any more. I called my doctor and was told that since I wasn’t hemorrhaging, I should not come in. Her partner, on call, pedantically explained that women can safely lose a lot of blood, even during a routine period.
I began calling labor and delivery units at the top five medical centers in my area. I told them I had been 19 weeks along. The baby is dead. I’m bleeding, I said. I’m scheduled for a D&E in a few days. If I come in right now, what could you do for me, I asked.
Don’t come in, they told me again and again. “Go to your emergency room if you are hemorrhaging to avoid bleeding to death. No one here can do a D&E today, and unless you’re really in active labor you’re safer to wait.”
More than 66,000 women each year in the U.S. undergo an abortion at some point between 13 and 20 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC doesn’t specify the physical circumstances of the women or their fetuses. Other CDC data shows that 4,000 women miscarry in their second trimester. Again, the data doesn’t clarify whether those 4,000 women have to go through surgery.
Here’s what is clear: Most of those women face increasingly limited access to care. One survey showed that half of the women who got abortions after 15 weeks of gestation said they were delayed because of problems in affording, finding or getting to abortion services.
No surprise there; abortion is not readily available in 86 percent of the counties in the U.S.
Although there are some new, early diagnostic tests available, the most common prenatal screening for neural tube defects or Down syndrome is done around the 16th week of pregnancy. When problems are found — sometimes life-threatening problems — pregnant women face the same limited options that I did.
At last I found one university teaching hospital that, at least over the telephone, was willing to take me.
“We do have one doctor who can do a D&E,” they said. “Come in to our emergency room if you want.”
But when I arrived at the university’s emergency room, the source of the tension was clear. After examining me and confirming I was bleeding but not hemorrhaging, the attending obstetrician, obviously pregnant herself, defensively explained that only one of their dozens of obstetricians and gynecologists still does D&Es, and he was simply not available.
Not today. Not tomorrow. Not the next day.
No, I couldn’t have his name. She walked away from me and called my doctor.
“You can’t just dump these patients on us,” she shouted into the phone, her high-pitched voice floating through the heavy curtains surrounding my bed. “You should be dealing with this yourself.”
Shivering on the narrow, white exam table, I wondered what I had done wrong. Then I pulled back on my loose maternity pants and stumbled into the sunny parking lot, blinking back tears in the dazzling spring day, trying to understand the directions they sent me out with: Find a hotel within a few blocks from a hospital. Rest, monitor the bleeding. Don’t go home — the 45-minute drive might be too far.
The next few days were a blur of lumpy motel beds, telephone calls to doctors, cramps. The pre-examination for my D&E finally arrived. First, the hospital required me to sign a legal form consenting to terminate the pregnancy. Then they explained I could, at no cost, have the remains incinerated by the hospital pathology department as medical waste, or for a fee have them taken to a funeral home for burial or cremation.
They inserted sticks of seaweed into my cervix and told me to go home for the night. A few hours later — when the contractions were regular, strong and frequent — I knew we needed to get to the hospital. “The patient appeared to be in active labor,” say my charts, “and I explained this to the patient and offered her pain medication for vaginal delivery.”
According to the charts, I was “adamant” in demanding a D&E. I remember that I definitely wanted the surgical procedure that was the safest option. One hour later, just as an anesthesiologist was slipping me into unconsciousness, I had the D&E and a little body, my little boy, slipped out.
Around his neck, three times and very tight, was the umbilical cord, source of his life, cause of his death.
This past spring, as the wild flowers started blooming around the simple cross we built for this baby, the Justice Department began trying to enforce the Bush administration’s ban and federal courts in three different cities heard arguments regarding the new law.
Doctors explained that D&Es are the safest procedure in many cases, and that the law is particularly cruel to mothers like me whose babies were already dead.
In hopes of bolstering their case, prosecutors sent federal subpoenas to various medical centers, asking for records of D&Es. There’s an attorney somewhere, someday, who may poke through the files of my loss.
I didn’t watch the trial because I had another appointment to keep — another ultrasound. Lying on the crisp white paper, watching the monitor, I saw new life, the incredible spine, tiny fingers waving slowly across my uterus, a perfect thigh.
Best of all, there it was, a strong, four-chamber heart, beating steady and solid. A soft quiver, baby rolling, rippled across my belly.
“Everything looks wonderful,” said my doctor. “This baby is doing great.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comment on Between a Woman and Her Doctor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martha Mendoza is a working journalist and a winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. She recently gave birth to her fourth child, a beautiful and healthy baby girl.
Between a Woman and Her Doctor
A Story About Abortion You Will Never Forget
by Martha Mendoza
I could see my baby's amazing and perfect spine, a precise, pebbled curl of vertebrae. His little round skull. The curve of his nose. I could even see his small leg floating slowly through my uterus.
My doctor came in a moment later, slid the ultrasound sensor around my growing, round belly and put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s not alive,” she said.
She turned her back to me and started taking notes. I looked at the wall, breathing deeply, trying not to cry.
I can make it through this, I thought. I can handle this.
I didn’t know I was about to become a pariah.
I was 19 weeks pregnant, strong, fit and happy, imagining our fourth child, the newest member of our family. He would have dark hair and bright eyes. He’d be intelligent and strong — really strong, judging by his early kicks.
And now this. Not alive?
I didn’t realize that pressures well beyond my uterus, beyond the too bright, too-loud, too-small ultrasound room, extending all the way to boardrooms of hospitals, administrative sessions at medical schools and committee hearings in Congress, were going to deepen and expand my sorrow and pain.
On November 6, 2003, President Bush signed what he called a “partial birth abortion ban,” prohibiting doctors from committing an “overt act” designed to kill a partially delivered fetus. The law, which faces vigorous challenges, is the most significant change to the nation’s abortion laws since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled abortion legal in Roe v. Wade in 1973. One of the unintended consequences of this new law is that it put people in my position, with a fetus that is already dead, in a technical limbo.
Legally, a doctor can still surgically take a dead body out of a pregnant woman. But in reality, the years of angry debate that led to the law’s passage, restrictive state laws and the violence targeting physicians have reduced the number of hospitals and doctors willing to do dilations and evacuations (D&Es) and dilations and extractions (intact D&Es), which involve removing a larger fetus, sometimes in pieces, from the womb.
At the same time, fewer medical schools are training doctors to do these procedures. After all, why spend time training for a surgery that’s likely to be made illegal?
At this point, 74 percent of obstetrics and gynecology residency programs do not train all residents in abortion procedures, according to reproductive health researchers at the National Abortion Federation. Those that do usually teach only the more routine dilation and curettage — D&C, the 15-minute uterine scraping used for abortions of fetuses under 13 weeks old.
Fewer than 7 percent of obstetricians are trained to do D&Es, the procedure used on fetuses from about 13 to 19 weeks. Almost all the doctors doing them are over 50 years old.
“Finding a doctor who will do a D&E is getting very tough,” says Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers.
My doctor turned around and faced me. She told me that because dilation and evacuation is rarely offered in my community, I could opt instead to chemically induce labor over several days and then deliver the little body at my local maternity ward. “It’s up to you,” she said.
I’d been through labor and delivery three times before, with great joy as well as pain, and the notion of going through that profound experience only to deliver a dead fetus (whose skin was already starting to slough off, whose skull might be collapsing) was horrifying.
I also did some research, spoke with friends who were obstetricians and gynecologists, and quickly learned this: Study after study shows D&Es are safer than labor and delivery. Women who had D&Es were far less likely to have bleeding requiring transfusion, infection requiring intravenous antibiotics, organ injuries requiring additional surgery or cervical laceration requiring repair and hospital readmission.
A review of 300 second- trimester abortions published in 2002 in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology found that 29 percent of women who went through labor and delivery had complications, compared with just 4 percent of those who had D&Es.
The American Medical Association said D&Es, compared to labor and delivery, “may minimize trauma to the woman’s uterus, cervix and other vital organs.”
There was this fact, too: The intact D&E surgery makes less use of “grasping instruments,” which could damage the body of the fetus. If the body were intact, doctors might be able to more easily figure out why my baby died in the womb.
I’m a healthy person. I run, swim and bike. I’m 37 years old and optimistic. Good things happen to me. I didn’t want to rule out having more kids, but I did want to know what went wrong before I tried again.
We told our doctor we had chosen a dilation and evacuation.
“I can’t do these myself,” said my doctor. “I trained at a Catholic hospital.”
My doctor recommended a specialist in a neighboring county, but when I called for an appointment, they said they couldn’t see me for almost a week.
I could feel my baby’s dead body inside of mine. This baby had thrilled me with kicks and flutters, those first soft tickles of life bringing a smile to my face and my hand to my rounding belly. Now this baby floated, limp and heavy, from one side to the other, as I rolled in my bed.
And within a day, I started to bleed. My body, with or without a doctor’s help, was starting to expel the fetus. Technically, I was threatening a spontaneous abortion, the least safe of the available options.
I did what any pregnant patient would do. I called my doctor. And she advised me to wait.
I lay in my bed, not sleeping day or night, trying not to lose this little baby’s body that my own womb was working to expel. Wait, I told myself. Just hold on. Let a doctor take this out.
I was scared. Was it going to fall out of my body when I rose, in the middle of the night, to check on my toddler? Would it come apart on its own and double me over, knock me to the floor, as I stood at the stove scrambling eggs for my boys?
On my fourth morning, with the bleeding and cramping increasing, I couldn’t wait any more. I called my doctor and was told that since I wasn’t hemorrhaging, I should not come in. Her partner, on call, pedantically explained that women can safely lose a lot of blood, even during a routine period.
I began calling labor and delivery units at the top five medical centers in my area. I told them I had been 19 weeks along. The baby is dead. I’m bleeding, I said. I’m scheduled for a D&E in a few days. If I come in right now, what could you do for me, I asked.
Don’t come in, they told me again and again. “Go to your emergency room if you are hemorrhaging to avoid bleeding to death. No one here can do a D&E today, and unless you’re really in active labor you’re safer to wait.”
More than 66,000 women each year in the U.S. undergo an abortion at some point between 13 and 20 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC doesn’t specify the physical circumstances of the women or their fetuses. Other CDC data shows that 4,000 women miscarry in their second trimester. Again, the data doesn’t clarify whether those 4,000 women have to go through surgery.
Here’s what is clear: Most of those women face increasingly limited access to care. One survey showed that half of the women who got abortions after 15 weeks of gestation said they were delayed because of problems in affording, finding or getting to abortion services.
No surprise there; abortion is not readily available in 86 percent of the counties in the U.S.
Although there are some new, early diagnostic tests available, the most common prenatal screening for neural tube defects or Down syndrome is done around the 16th week of pregnancy. When problems are found — sometimes life-threatening problems — pregnant women face the same limited options that I did.
At last I found one university teaching hospital that, at least over the telephone, was willing to take me.
“We do have one doctor who can do a D&E,” they said. “Come in to our emergency room if you want.”
But when I arrived at the university’s emergency room, the source of the tension was clear. After examining me and confirming I was bleeding but not hemorrhaging, the attending obstetrician, obviously pregnant herself, defensively explained that only one of their dozens of obstetricians and gynecologists still does D&Es, and he was simply not available.
Not today. Not tomorrow. Not the next day.
No, I couldn’t have his name. She walked away from me and called my doctor.
“You can’t just dump these patients on us,” she shouted into the phone, her high-pitched voice floating through the heavy curtains surrounding my bed. “You should be dealing with this yourself.”
Shivering on the narrow, white exam table, I wondered what I had done wrong. Then I pulled back on my loose maternity pants and stumbled into the sunny parking lot, blinking back tears in the dazzling spring day, trying to understand the directions they sent me out with: Find a hotel within a few blocks from a hospital. Rest, monitor the bleeding. Don’t go home — the 45-minute drive might be too far.
The next few days were a blur of lumpy motel beds, telephone calls to doctors, cramps. The pre-examination for my D&E finally arrived. First, the hospital required me to sign a legal form consenting to terminate the pregnancy. Then they explained I could, at no cost, have the remains incinerated by the hospital pathology department as medical waste, or for a fee have them taken to a funeral home for burial or cremation.
They inserted sticks of seaweed into my cervix and told me to go home for the night. A few hours later — when the contractions were regular, strong and frequent — I knew we needed to get to the hospital. “The patient appeared to be in active labor,” say my charts, “and I explained this to the patient and offered her pain medication for vaginal delivery.”
According to the charts, I was “adamant” in demanding a D&E. I remember that I definitely wanted the surgical procedure that was the safest option. One hour later, just as an anesthesiologist was slipping me into unconsciousness, I had the D&E and a little body, my little boy, slipped out.
Around his neck, three times and very tight, was the umbilical cord, source of his life, cause of his death.
This past spring, as the wild flowers started blooming around the simple cross we built for this baby, the Justice Department began trying to enforce the Bush administration’s ban and federal courts in three different cities heard arguments regarding the new law.
Doctors explained that D&Es are the safest procedure in many cases, and that the law is particularly cruel to mothers like me whose babies were already dead.
In hopes of bolstering their case, prosecutors sent federal subpoenas to various medical centers, asking for records of D&Es. There’s an attorney somewhere, someday, who may poke through the files of my loss.
I didn’t watch the trial because I had another appointment to keep — another ultrasound. Lying on the crisp white paper, watching the monitor, I saw new life, the incredible spine, tiny fingers waving slowly across my uterus, a perfect thigh.
Best of all, there it was, a strong, four-chamber heart, beating steady and solid. A soft quiver, baby rolling, rippled across my belly.
“Everything looks wonderful,” said my doctor. “This baby is doing great.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comment on Between a Woman and Her Doctor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martha Mendoza is a working journalist and a winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. She recently gave birth to her fourth child, a beautiful and healthy baby girl.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Hate, Fear, Money and Exclusion
First and foremost, I want to make this clear. I believe that most people who politically identify themselves as Republicans or conservatives are good, decent people. On this blog, when I refer to Republicans/conservatives who are harming this country, I am talking about a small, but extremely powerful, subset. The good and decent Republicans/conservatives are just as much a victim as the rest of us.
I keep asking myself, how do Republicans perform so well in elections? After all, they seem to be against working people, liberals, environmentalists, pro-choicers, teachers, government employees in general, gays, muslims, atheists and agnostics, hispanics, African-Americans...to name a few. Based on these realities, they should only appeal to 5-10% of the population. Yet, they keep winning elections, even if only by a fraction of a percent, even as the population grows more diverse and "less Republican."
I think the answer lies primarily in 4 words: hate, fear, money, exclusion.
Hate - Everyone doesn't like someone, or someones, to one degree or another. Those of us who have moved past caveman mentality, where tribes survived by warding off other tribes, have joined the 21st century. Those of us who don't, have found a home in the modern conservative movement. The movement understands this base human emotion, and taps into it. The tapping used to be more subtle.
Fear - This is most reprehensible manipulation a responsible political movement can engage in. They use fear of terrorism, fear of death, fear of fear, fear of those "not like us," whatever it takes, to manipulate the voters.
Money - None of the above works without money. The conservative movement has raised tons of money using hate and fear, to make people even more hateful and fearful. They have manipulated laws and court decisions. Can you believe that corporations now have more rights to influence the political process than human beings do? Remember, corporations have limited liability and never die, so they are super-human if they are anything. The Koch brothers, having inherited billions of dollars, are using much of their "found money" to try to shape a world where they are the dominant species and the rest of us are their drones. Don't play their game!
Exclusion - As the population demographics change, this becomes even more vital to the success of the modern conservative movement. In subtle, and not so subtle ways, they are currently trying to dismantle unions and any other liberal-leaning organizations. They are currently proposing laws that will result in disenfranchising many voters, at a great cost, at the same time they claim we have no money.
What is this all about? Remember I told you this. Conservatives in this country envision a place where there is no funding for public schools, no public funding for healthcare, no public funding for ANYTHING except the military and the police. They have a misguided belief that they are trying to return the country to the way it was, when it was never that way!
Ironically, the modern conservative movement is manipulating many, including even those who erroneously refer to themselves as the "Teaparty." They talk about the federal and state budgets being unbalanced, but have no intention of balancing these same budgets. They want to bust the budgets, and are effectively doing so, by cutting taxes to levels unheard of in the developed world. The tax rate as a percentage of GDP is lower in the US than anywhere else in the world in a comparable economy.
Why do they want to bust the budgets? Because then they can throw up their hands and say, with a straight face, that we can't afford to pay for education, or healthcare, or anything except the military and police. It is an evil and insidious plan, and it is working. Remember, when they say they want their country back, when they say they want to return to the way things used to be, they are talking about a country they don't own, and the way they say things used to be, things never were that way.
Since the "liberal social welfare state" was put into place in the US, our real income has increased more than 400% and our life expectancy has increased by 20 years. Do we really want to go back to the way things used to be? When a scratch on your leg was likely to lead to amputation or death, when carpet on your floor was a luxury, when it took a week to drive across the country, not a day and a half, I mean, before velcro?
Shame on them. Don't buy their lies!
I keep asking myself, how do Republicans perform so well in elections? After all, they seem to be against working people, liberals, environmentalists, pro-choicers, teachers, government employees in general, gays, muslims, atheists and agnostics, hispanics, African-Americans...to name a few. Based on these realities, they should only appeal to 5-10% of the population. Yet, they keep winning elections, even if only by a fraction of a percent, even as the population grows more diverse and "less Republican."
I think the answer lies primarily in 4 words: hate, fear, money, exclusion.
Hate - Everyone doesn't like someone, or someones, to one degree or another. Those of us who have moved past caveman mentality, where tribes survived by warding off other tribes, have joined the 21st century. Those of us who don't, have found a home in the modern conservative movement. The movement understands this base human emotion, and taps into it. The tapping used to be more subtle.
Fear - This is most reprehensible manipulation a responsible political movement can engage in. They use fear of terrorism, fear of death, fear of fear, fear of those "not like us," whatever it takes, to manipulate the voters.
Money - None of the above works without money. The conservative movement has raised tons of money using hate and fear, to make people even more hateful and fearful. They have manipulated laws and court decisions. Can you believe that corporations now have more rights to influence the political process than human beings do? Remember, corporations have limited liability and never die, so they are super-human if they are anything. The Koch brothers, having inherited billions of dollars, are using much of their "found money" to try to shape a world where they are the dominant species and the rest of us are their drones. Don't play their game!
Exclusion - As the population demographics change, this becomes even more vital to the success of the modern conservative movement. In subtle, and not so subtle ways, they are currently trying to dismantle unions and any other liberal-leaning organizations. They are currently proposing laws that will result in disenfranchising many voters, at a great cost, at the same time they claim we have no money.
What is this all about? Remember I told you this. Conservatives in this country envision a place where there is no funding for public schools, no public funding for healthcare, no public funding for ANYTHING except the military and the police. They have a misguided belief that they are trying to return the country to the way it was, when it was never that way!
Ironically, the modern conservative movement is manipulating many, including even those who erroneously refer to themselves as the "Teaparty." They talk about the federal and state budgets being unbalanced, but have no intention of balancing these same budgets. They want to bust the budgets, and are effectively doing so, by cutting taxes to levels unheard of in the developed world. The tax rate as a percentage of GDP is lower in the US than anywhere else in the world in a comparable economy.
Why do they want to bust the budgets? Because then they can throw up their hands and say, with a straight face, that we can't afford to pay for education, or healthcare, or anything except the military and police. It is an evil and insidious plan, and it is working. Remember, when they say they want their country back, when they say they want to return to the way things used to be, they are talking about a country they don't own, and the way they say things used to be, things never were that way.
Since the "liberal social welfare state" was put into place in the US, our real income has increased more than 400% and our life expectancy has increased by 20 years. Do we really want to go back to the way things used to be? When a scratch on your leg was likely to lead to amputation or death, when carpet on your floor was a luxury, when it took a week to drive across the country, not a day and a half, I mean, before velcro?
Shame on them. Don't buy their lies!
Friday, March 18, 2011
IRS to Enforce Ban on Abortion-Related Expenses
Everytime I hear of Republicans/Conservatives doing something extreme that I think there is no way they can top, they go ahead and top it. An incredible piece of legislation, HR3, has been introduced with 221 mostly Republican co-sponsors (actually 212 Republicans and 9 Democrats). The text of the bill can be viewed here:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr3ih/pdf/BILLS-112hr3ih.pdf
This bill prohibits anyone from claiming an itemized deduction on their income tax return for any medical expenses associated with an abortion, or any insurance premium that includes coverage for an abortion, with the only exceptions being for a pregnancy that is aborted due to "forcible rape," "incest" relating to a minor child, or one that "place(s) the pregnant female in danger of death" as certified by a physician. The bill also prohibits any Federal health program, insurance program or funds from being used for an abortion unless it falls within these exceptions. The language, which is more restrictive than any previous Federal law, is very much a problem. "Forcible" rape excludes any rape that is not forcible, for example, statutory rape, or possibly rape of a woman who has been drugged. So here we go again, a woman can only deduct medical expenses related to abortion if she fights her attacker off forcibly enough. "Incest" relating to a minor child excludes incest relating to an adult with diminished capacity. Pregnancy that "place(s) the female in danger of death" excludes a woman whose pregnancy places her in danger of serious bodily harm.
Can you imagine what it will be like during an IRS audit when the IRS agent requires the person being audited to provide documentation of abortion-related medical expenses to ensure they fall within the narrow range of these exceptions?
What the hell are these people thinking? These are the same people who lie, lie, lie claiming they are in favor of small government and government staying out of our business, yet they want IRS agents to grill people regarding details of their personal medical conditions and the specifics of being raped?
These hypocrites support government so small that it fits in the examination room of every gynecologist in the country. They support government staying out of our business, unless that business is the most private medical decisions many women will ever make in their entire lives. They want to abolish the IRS, but until they do they want to use the IRS to torment women who they think should be punished for their personal sexual behavior.
Don't buy their lies!
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr3ih/pdf/BILLS-112hr3ih.pdf
This bill prohibits anyone from claiming an itemized deduction on their income tax return for any medical expenses associated with an abortion, or any insurance premium that includes coverage for an abortion, with the only exceptions being for a pregnancy that is aborted due to "forcible rape," "incest" relating to a minor child, or one that "place(s) the pregnant female in danger of death" as certified by a physician. The bill also prohibits any Federal health program, insurance program or funds from being used for an abortion unless it falls within these exceptions. The language, which is more restrictive than any previous Federal law, is very much a problem. "Forcible" rape excludes any rape that is not forcible, for example, statutory rape, or possibly rape of a woman who has been drugged. So here we go again, a woman can only deduct medical expenses related to abortion if she fights her attacker off forcibly enough. "Incest" relating to a minor child excludes incest relating to an adult with diminished capacity. Pregnancy that "place(s) the female in danger of death" excludes a woman whose pregnancy places her in danger of serious bodily harm.
Can you imagine what it will be like during an IRS audit when the IRS agent requires the person being audited to provide documentation of abortion-related medical expenses to ensure they fall within the narrow range of these exceptions?
What the hell are these people thinking? These are the same people who lie, lie, lie claiming they are in favor of small government and government staying out of our business, yet they want IRS agents to grill people regarding details of their personal medical conditions and the specifics of being raped?
These hypocrites support government so small that it fits in the examination room of every gynecologist in the country. They support government staying out of our business, unless that business is the most private medical decisions many women will ever make in their entire lives. They want to abolish the IRS, but until they do they want to use the IRS to torment women who they think should be punished for their personal sexual behavior.
Don't buy their lies!
Friday, November 12, 2010
New Rules for the Blog - Sad But Necessary
The main purpose of this blog is for me to have a place to talk to myself. Because I spend so much time away from home working, I decided to create a site where I could share my thoughts and share all of the original source information I gather in my research. What I did not intend was to create a place where anonymous people could attack me, or call people names. I didn't think anyone was paying attention until last night when I noticed, for the first time, that some were reading my posts and commenting. Unfortunately, most of the posts were unacceptable. I know the difference. In another forum, I debate with "conservatives" all day long without this happening. We never agree with each other, but we respect each other. Maybe the difference is that we know each other. It is sad to see that so many people say so many hateful things under the cover of anonymity. On this site, there is a bit of a solution. Since I am the Administrator, I can remove posts that violate the rules, and I have done so. Just to be clear the rules are:
1. No name-calling
2. No personal attacks
3. Stay on topic
Please continue to read my posts, and comment if you like, but with respect, or the comment will be removed. Have a good day!
1. No name-calling
2. No personal attacks
3. Stay on topic
Please continue to read my posts, and comment if you like, but with respect, or the comment will be removed. Have a good day!
Thursday, November 11, 2010
This is What is Really Going On!
Every day we hear about the Federal deficit/debt - morning, noon and night. For some reason, it was not Topic #1 when Reagan tripled it in 8 years. It was not all we talked about when George W. Bush doubled it in 8 years. It didn't seem to matter when President Bush arranged the prescription drug benefit in 2003 that gave half a trillion dollars to the pharma industry with borrowed funds. It sure didn't seem to matter when the largest tax cuts in history were passed in 2001 and 2003 that increased the debt by more than $2 trillion. For some reason, we barely talked about it when we launched two wars with borrowed funds that has added $1.1 trillion to the debt as of last month and continues to add $1 billion every 3 days. Now, although it is all anyone seems to want to talk about, we are preparing to pass an extension of the "Bush tax cuts" that appear to have created no jobs in 5 years, in order to allegedly create jobs, and add yet another $4 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, with $700 billion of that for millionaires. By the way, do you know what happens when you give a millionaire a tax cut? No, they don't create jobs, they go buy a Rembrandt painting for $5 million, stash the money in an offshore bank account, or buy a 4th vacation home in a foreign country, that's what they do. So President Bush, just on the topics of his tax cuts, prescription drug benefit, two wars, plus interest, raised the debt by over $4 trillion. President Obama inherited a situation that every sane economist agreed was the worst economy since the Great Depression. Everyone agreed that if we didn't do something, we would end up in a worldwide depression that would last 10 years. We are not out of the woods yet. Due to TARP and Stimulus, the economy and unemployment has stablized, although at an unacceptable level. Remember, there are two things any economist will tell you that you do not do during a recession, raise taxes or cut spending. There is no risk of raising taxes, since Republicans cannot utter the T word. I am beginning to think that if an asteroid was approaching Earth that would destroy all life on the planet, Republicans would refuse to raise taxes to build a laser to destroy it. Remember the second part of the equation? Don't cut spending! Apparently we are going to do just that. Why? Because of the Federal deficit. Now we have 8.6 million Americans drawing unemployment or extended benefits. That is costing us $100 billion a year. If they had jobs and were paying taxes, that would generate another $75 billion a year. So we are talking about adding $175 billion to the deficit in the next year because of our unemployment problem. If we care about the debt, the best way to fix it is to get people back to work. But instead, we are talking about cutting Government spending which every single economist on earth will admit will reduce jobs, not increase them.
Any politician who says they care about unemployment/jobs, then supports cutting government spending at the time of a recession is either lying or stupid, or both.
Any politician who says they care about the deficit/debt, then supports cutting government spending during the time of a recession is either lying or stupid, or both, because they just effectively cut jobs, which drives the deficit up, not down.
Did you know that President Kennedy dropped the top tax rate from 91% to 70%?
Did you know that President Reagan dropped the top tax rate from 70% to 50%?
Did you know that President Clinton dropped the top tax rate to 39.6%
Did you know that the Co-Chairs of the Deficit Commission want the top tax rate dropped to 23%?
We now have reached a point where the very richest Americans are paying the lowest taxes they ever have, and some want to cut that record low rate almost in half. We, as a nation, have the lowest total tax as a percentage of GDP, at 28%, of any developed nation on earth. The reason we have a deficit is because we don't pay for what we buy, we borrow rather than have a reasonable tax rate. I know, I know, you are convinced that we pay obscenely high taxes. The fact is - we don't.
Is it any surprise that the initial recommendations from the Co-Chairs of the Deficit Commission are to cut Social Security benefits, cut Medicare benefits, freeze federal pay, reduce government employees, and...... to cut taxes? Everything is on the table, except actually paying for what we use!
Professor George Lakoff predicted years ago that conservatives were so determined to dismantle the social net we have created in society, that they would intentionally create huge budget deficits so that, other than national security, we would all agree that we could no longer afford government programs. That day is not here yet, but conservatives have become impatient. They have fulfilled the first part of Professor Lakoff's prediction of busting the budget on purpose, now they are screaming about the deficit they themselves created as justification for slashing the programs that made us the great nation that we are. They have made it impossible for any politician to even mention taxes as part of any deficit solution by demonizing the word to the point where the mere mention is political death. They have created a nation of people who have become too irresponsible to even consider paying for what they use. They have engineered a moment in time when they think they can win the argument, because they have spent 20 years framing the argument with every speech they give.
I would like to ask everyone to read my post "The 'Good Old Days' Are Today." The facts I cite are the facts. The greatest nation in history was created AFTER the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid were put in place, not before. Our income increased 4-fold since the days of FDR. We are the result of Public Education, Public Health, Public Welfare and Public Safety programs put in place by FDR and LBJ, not in spite of those programs.
What to do? Pay attention. Some very well-intended people, many, but not all, in the so-called "Tea Party" are being misused to further goals that are not in their best interests. How can Republican, and some Democratic politicians, look you in the eye, invoke death-like comparisons when they describe the FEDERAL BUDGET DEFICIT, and then talk about tax cuts that will raise the deficit even higher in the next breath?
Make them tell you the truth. Keep asking questions until you get a straight answer. Don't vote for or support people who lie to you. Be grown-up enough to take responsibility. If you buy something, pay for it. If the Government buys something, insist they pay for it....but after the recession, not during.
We are the greatest nation in history. We can work this out. We don't have to throw in the towel. Keep the faith!
Any politician who says they care about unemployment/jobs, then supports cutting government spending at the time of a recession is either lying or stupid, or both.
Any politician who says they care about the deficit/debt, then supports cutting government spending during the time of a recession is either lying or stupid, or both, because they just effectively cut jobs, which drives the deficit up, not down.
Did you know that President Kennedy dropped the top tax rate from 91% to 70%?
Did you know that President Reagan dropped the top tax rate from 70% to 50%?
Did you know that President Clinton dropped the top tax rate to 39.6%
Did you know that the Co-Chairs of the Deficit Commission want the top tax rate dropped to 23%?
We now have reached a point where the very richest Americans are paying the lowest taxes they ever have, and some want to cut that record low rate almost in half. We, as a nation, have the lowest total tax as a percentage of GDP, at 28%, of any developed nation on earth. The reason we have a deficit is because we don't pay for what we buy, we borrow rather than have a reasonable tax rate. I know, I know, you are convinced that we pay obscenely high taxes. The fact is - we don't.
Is it any surprise that the initial recommendations from the Co-Chairs of the Deficit Commission are to cut Social Security benefits, cut Medicare benefits, freeze federal pay, reduce government employees, and...... to cut taxes? Everything is on the table, except actually paying for what we use!
Professor George Lakoff predicted years ago that conservatives were so determined to dismantle the social net we have created in society, that they would intentionally create huge budget deficits so that, other than national security, we would all agree that we could no longer afford government programs. That day is not here yet, but conservatives have become impatient. They have fulfilled the first part of Professor Lakoff's prediction of busting the budget on purpose, now they are screaming about the deficit they themselves created as justification for slashing the programs that made us the great nation that we are. They have made it impossible for any politician to even mention taxes as part of any deficit solution by demonizing the word to the point where the mere mention is political death. They have created a nation of people who have become too irresponsible to even consider paying for what they use. They have engineered a moment in time when they think they can win the argument, because they have spent 20 years framing the argument with every speech they give.
I would like to ask everyone to read my post "The 'Good Old Days' Are Today." The facts I cite are the facts. The greatest nation in history was created AFTER the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid were put in place, not before. Our income increased 4-fold since the days of FDR. We are the result of Public Education, Public Health, Public Welfare and Public Safety programs put in place by FDR and LBJ, not in spite of those programs.
What to do? Pay attention. Some very well-intended people, many, but not all, in the so-called "Tea Party" are being misused to further goals that are not in their best interests. How can Republican, and some Democratic politicians, look you in the eye, invoke death-like comparisons when they describe the FEDERAL BUDGET DEFICIT, and then talk about tax cuts that will raise the deficit even higher in the next breath?
Make them tell you the truth. Keep asking questions until you get a straight answer. Don't vote for or support people who lie to you. Be grown-up enough to take responsibility. If you buy something, pay for it. If the Government buys something, insist they pay for it....but after the recession, not during.
We are the greatest nation in history. We can work this out. We don't have to throw in the towel. Keep the faith!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
