In the 2010 elections, the Republicans won the House of Representatives, made gains in the Senate (but are still not in control) and elected a number of state governors. This was in part fueled by people's dissatisfaction with the economy and jobless statistics, and also in large part, by the lies and distortions spread by the Tea Party. However, history is what it is and those people came into office.
The Republicans saw this as their chance to change the political landscape and direction of our country with sweeping neo-conservative changes. They set about to do this with a coordinated effort by the House of Representatives and Republican controlled states. The current poster boy of these efforts is Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin.
Through Walker's efforts and possibly illegal actions (yet to be determined in court) by that State's Republicans, the state workers (300,000 of them) were stripped of their collective bargaining rights. Fifty years of progress was wiped away in thirty minutes. That there will be a long lasting backlash to Wisconsin Republicans for their actions is not in question, as that is assured, and while I support the state workers in Wisconsin in their fight to win back their collective bargaining rights, there is far more at stake here for all of us, regardless of the state in which we live. If you are a union worker, state or private, if you are on Social Security and/or Medicare (or soon will be), if you want clean air and a safe environment now, and in the future, if you are not a union worker, but enjoy certain safeguards guaranteed by the federal or state governments, if you want a country that puts the well being of it's citizens ahead of all else, you should be gravely concerned. The reason for this concern is that the neo-conservatives now in power want to change all this. They care about the rights of big business, not the worker's rights. To this end, they want to do away with, or severely cripple all unions, public and private. They are willing to sacrifice our environment in the name of business profits. They want to dilute and, if possible, eliminate Social Security and Medicare. Most of all, they want to cripple the people who support the Democratic Party, so as to insure Republican domination for decades to come. They want to reshape our country in a way that serves, the wealthy, and big business (particularly, oil, insurance, and banks). They want to strip away many of the governmental restrictions that protect people like you and your family, and they want to take us back in time to when the average citizen was thrown a few crumbs, but had little say in how our country was run.
They want to cut needed programs in education, the arts, help for the disadvantaged, and in many other social areas in our nation. They abhor the thought of new taxes, even though there are obvious areas where they are needed.
Consider this: The Republicans will continue the protected tax structure of the wealthy, while not raising the Social Security payments to it's recipients. They will not consider collecting the Social Security and Medicare tax on any incomes above $106,800 per year, again giving the wealthy a free ride. They will not consider reducing the subsidies that oil companies and other selected businesses receive. Yet, by taking these actions, our national debt would all but disappear in less than a decade. Our citizens expect certain safeguards which have been in place for many years to continue, but instead of raising the above mentioned revenue, the Republicans prefer to try and balance the budget on the backs of the working class and retired citizens in this country. What's wrong with this picture? I say again, we have three weapons to fight their taking of America, We have our voices, our votes, and our contributions to just causes. It will take all three to put these charlatans out of office and return our country the fair and just nation it was and should be again.
We'll talk later....................
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