Memory Lane

With the GOP's in-your-face-blatent-vote-for-us-we-are-rich-and-understand-your-poorly-educated-fears tactics I am reminded of the 60's when, despite it's attempts at revisionist history, the Reppublican Party WAS the stalwart of protector of “States's Rights!” Back in that day this meant segregation, the burning of Black churches and police assault on protesters marching for the right of Black people to have the right to vote. Some people may be saying I am “spinning” this but you know what? Quid pro quo! The Republicans are now claiming THEY were the party of the Civil Rights Movements? Really? Then how come they have been sneakily going about securing voter suppression legislation in certain key states? Back then college students saw what was happening and protested everything from the right to vote for everyone to against the Viet Nam War which no sense to anyone with an ounce of common sense and yet so many our young soldiers died. Back then I really thought a difference was being made, that people were moved by these tragedies to fight what had caused them but, it was the body politic, after all, wasn't it? As for the "people"...the hippies...most of them went Wall Street. Turn coats like Abbie Hoffman! forgetting what was once valued in favor of the buck! then came the 'me' then "x" (as in unknown factor in algebra) and truthfully what could they know? What I and my colleagues, such as Barbara Cavallo (please read her blog on voiceofthecrone.blogspot.com)have forgotten, Gen Me and Gen X will never know... But ignorance is no excuse. If are too young to know what I am talking about, READ YOUR HISTORY, DAMMIT!

One Short Observant Snark!

You know how all the pundits are wondering why the GOP is not criticizing Rat Limbaugh? I think I figured out why! First Bush carried his luggage in the White House! Younger Shrub sang happy birthday to him and carried his cake. Don't you think they all huddled and made their "comments and remarks?" NOW they are afraid if they rebuff him he will spill the beans about those fireside chats!

When Hell Freisses Over!

So some people think Santorum supporter Freiss's aspirin remark was just a joke?

There is something rotten here and those that toss misogyny around as if it will change anything within the mind of majority Americans (including a majority of Republicans)in actuality know better. These ANGRY WHITE KNOW! Why else is money being tossed in the ring to the extent that it will continue to be? Super Pacs I don't believe really care what the morality issue is here. They only care about who will pander to their interests. So these morality plays are just to get the unwitting/racist/misogynistic/narrow minded and poorly informed people on board. Cloaked under the cape of religion, Witch Hunts are afoot. Again. And, again against women!

But this really behooves the compounding issues. From personhood laws, to voter ID laws geared to eliminating millions of democratic leaning voters to Seamus's abusive owner saying there are safety nets and charitable organizations--blah, blah, BLAH the underlying issue is all about rights. It's about the right of women to make decisions about her body. It's about the have nots having the power to vote for THEIR INTERESTS. It's about putting state mandates about Gay Marriage in the manure pile where it belongs because Gay Marriage is a CIVIL RIGHT. End of story. In fact all these issues are about CIVIL RIGHTS. States' Rights means a state can have laws contrary to Federal law! It means some states could make it illegal for Black, women and Gays to even have the vote! It's about freedom. Freedom for women to make decisions about their bodies, the freedom to not have one's rights to vote undermined and the freedom to be an equal member of this country whether you are a minority, a woman or Gay!

Sadly, there are some that are falling for the smoke and mirrors ploy but polls are very encouraging in that most Americans simply do not agree. As the GOP keeps talking the President Obama and democrats are gaining ground. It should be a major sweep except for the fact that the GOP is gaining points as it gets, state by state voter ID laws that just might PREVENT a majority of these Americans, state by state, to even have the opportunity to vote. I hear RIGGED offstage....

Why I Am A Liberal

Like Lawrence O'Donnell I too wear my Liberal label with pride. I am constantly confused about what makes a Tea Partier, far Right Winger and judgmental Evangelicals.

I mean there are a lot of non-sequiters here. For One, Tea Party people say they don't want big government but I am sure that many of them receive Social Security, Social Security Disability and/or Workmens Compensation. I am sure they have been through the mill with health insurance companies either for themselves or a family member. Yet they seem oblivious to the fact that those they endorse are endangering these very benefits they need as much as any struggling LIBERAL. Like Tea Partiers Right Wingers also decry big government and its involvement in our lives. Yet it was the paranoia of the extreme Right that brought about the Patriot Act, wiretapping of citizens and the potential for citizens to be arrested and detained indefinitely without the rights we all took for granted. As for Evangelicals well they certainly do not seem to live the love their own holy book preaches and, it seems if there is nothing hateful to promote they have little to say. So to say I am confused about what makes people like this be the people they are is an understatement. They will rush to the camps of Gingrich and Seamus's abusive owner (I said I would not dignify him by calling him by name, didn't I?) One camp espouses hatred and stereotypes and the other will say just about anything to make the one per cent and corporate greed acceptable. I just don't get it.

But, truth be told they probably don't get me either. They don't get why I just get riled when someone like Ron Paul says the Civil rights Act interfered with Property Rights. PROPERTY RIGHTS? How insensitive can anyone be? You mean to tell me that putting a stop to racist segregation and the disenfranchisement of the Black vote is about property rights? I shudder just thinking about this one. Supposedly because businesses could no longer tell Black people they couldn't come in for a cup of coffee interfered with their property rights! ...And people wonder why I am a Liberal!

I witnessed the violence against protesting students first hand and I remember the PENN STATE MASSACRE. It was MY college opposite of City Hall in NYC that suffered property damage in the millions because police endorsed violence by "Hard Hats" (a euphemism for the right wing back then) lurked in waiting with two by fours to attack students conducting a nonviolent anti war march down Wall Street as well as police violence against students and even people having lunch in City Hall Park. Police barged into the new building of Pace University and terrorized students to the point that male students ran downstairs to the girls' dorm to get them up and away from the police that were viciously attacking anyone in sight.

Although I did not participate in FREEDOM RIDES because I just too young I had teachers in junior high school that did and most of them had stitches as a result of being beaten down South marching with Dr. King.

I am a Liberal because my mom suffered a debilitating stroke when I was nine years old and, since she was speech impaired, as a result I had to become her advocate against adults who would make fun of her because of her speech. I had to argue with bus drivers who thought it was okay to close the bus doors on a disabled woman because somehow this wold make her move more quickly. As her caregiver, this led to my becoming a advocate and social service coordinator for the disabled helping disabled people, children and their families navigate a brutal system for the assistance they were entitled to. This is why I am a Liberal.

There's another reason. I am the product of an Irish/English American father and a dark skinned Puerto Rican mother. But for where I was born WE would have experienced the hatred Black people did. There are those saying that the Civil Rights Act was forced on a people that would have eventually changed their attitude.
Oh really?...And the South would have eventually freed the slaves many historians say. Why would the South have given up on its economic advantage: below par living conditions, horrible nutrition, women for the taking to say nothing of living a life of despair without the hope of ever living a different life. Now imagine knowing your children would endure the same horrors! ...And people should wait.

Although I choose to believe there is a lot of good about humanity I am not naive. I have come to see that if someone can get over by stepping on someone else he or she will do it in the name of religion or business or winning the vote. The campaigns GOP candidates are running give testament to this and THE major election will be a referendum on whether or not American people will vote for humanity or for bias.

THIS IS WHY I AM A LIBERAL!

Waiting To Run Backwards...

As GOP “conservatives” battle for what I believe will be a very small number of extremist votes in the general election I want to scream! Now Ron Paul somehow equates The Civil Rights Act as an assault on property?

As a descendent of an African woman kidnapped to be a Spaniard's slave in Puerto Rico I have thought of what my ancestor endured as a slave. I always imagine the worse so, to some degree I really relate to the outrage African Americans feel when discussion inevitably comes around to repealing The Civil Rights Act in favor of states' rights. Let's not forget if “certain people” were not allowed to vote, eat where they wanted and sit at the front of the bus there would never had been the need for The Civil Rights Act to begin.

What is Mr. Paul talking about when he equate civil rights with property rights? Is he saying that somehow people are property after all? That people can once again “know their place?” Even the people of Texas were progressive enough to realize the Confederate flag on every license plate issued was a slap in the face to the Black experience here in the United States. With more wisdom than I sadly gave them credit for they knew a Confederate flag on all license plates would in essence provide cover for real racists. Rightfully what Texans really said was “You want it? Pay for a vanity plate!” Just as Texans have reached an epiphany I can only hope other states will follow.

The personhood issue will become a major subject in the months to come. When exactly is a person a person? I have my own views on at what point an abortion should be conducted but that is not the point. The issue is a woman's right to choose what is best for herself and her family. Three doctors have been arrested for performing late term abortions as of this writing. I do not support late term abortions personally but what were the circumstances? I do not know. Was it a matter of endangering the mother?
What if the personhood is determined to be the time of fertilization? What if the pill, IUD, condoms or any other practice to utilize birth control become illegal because it interferes with “Divine Will?” Despite my own personal views I am not going to pass judgment on another woman who chooses abortion at any point during the pregnancy. Unfortunately those who want to impose the definition of personhood on the rest of us will use any modification of the law as it stands to become more and more restrictive until there will no longer be a right to abortion.

To be brutally frank, and I would never wish this on anyone, I also believe should any of the candidates' daughter fall prey to a rapist, especially a minority perpetrator they would see to it that an abortion was done. We would never know about it of course but that is what money buys: privacy.

There's a reason some laws have become federal. No state nor can anyone in a particular state break a federal law. With obvious ploys to prevent democrats from voting such as outlawing SOULS TO THE POLLS, ridiculous voter registration policies which make it humanly impossible to process voter registration applications within forty-eight hours and the nit-picking of what photo is okay or not
One thing is clear. The GOP is afraid. VERY AFRAID.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/opinion/sunday/young-black-and-frisked-by-the-nypd.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

That African Americans remain targets is an outrage! Yet, it is a sad state of affairs. Hispanic people in Arizona as recent news reveals have been victims of profiling and do I need to even mention those of Middle Eastern heritage?

Ignorance is the catalyst for fear. We all know this but today, more than ever it seems to have become a license for a presumed acquiescence of the masses with abuse of peace keeping power and a "you don't belong on my block" mentality.

I remember Yusef Hawkins. Yousef was a young Black college student who responded to an ad in Bensonhurst Brooklyn. He went there to look into buying a car. What he received was a fatal bludgeoning with a baseball bat.

On the weekend following this young man's funeral Reverend Al Sharpton marched with his family and supporters in a peaceful demonstration against the actions that caused this tragedy. At the time Bensonhurst will still a ghetto. In other words the majority of people homogeneous-one culture, one nationality: Italian.

The supporters and grievers were met on the sidelines by rabid racists, holding baseball bats and even one mooned the protesters. This brainchild, whose brain was obviously in his posterior rump was cheered by some. Not to be fair these few were hardly representative of the neighborhood's feelings. Most felt he had every right to go wherever he wanted, especially to buy a car.

I especially remember that day because my daughter who then just 8 years old tearfully called me begging me to bring her home because she couldn't stand the hate she witnessed. Of course I went and brought her back home, so very proud of her values.

Growing up I took a lot for granted. You see I grew up in a 'Black ghetto" and was the 2 per cent white in my school. All my friends were Black and all came from hard working GREAT families. When I became aware enough to witness the Civil Right Movement I was in shock when I learned Black people in the south couldn't vote. So was my family.

My mom was a dark skinned Puerto Rican so I experienced the murmurings and finger pointing as well but, it was nothing compared to what was the real reality in this grand US of A.

Bensonhurst has since become a wonderfully heterogenous community with people of all races and national origin. But there are some people in this country that choose to believe inequality is a myth and for whatever the reason refuse to WAKE UP!

So no. Unless you walk in a Black person's shoes you DO NOT KNOW what it's like!

Who's A Real Threat?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pctQF5LHvqY&feature=related