Could there be a link...

...between the number of people in American prisons & the fact that there's a booming industry based on prison labor?

Naaaaaaaaaaaaah....

Stunned

Am frankly stunned at how many wonderful, utterly morally & ethically grounded, well-read, smart people I know who support & are voting for a man who's proven over & over & over that he has no semblance of inner core.  

It's not Citizens United or new voting laws that suppress the vote or big wigs & fat cats gaming everyone else or even that I fully believe this election was in the bag for Romney since Day 1 - what chills me to the bone is the number of people turning a blind eye to the utter vacuousness of his character, his lack of judgment & paucity of any personal core.

Glut

TOO much stuff & nonsense over the past month to keep up to date with it on a blog.  Most of it wasn't worth more than momentary space on FB.  

Bunk & Debunk Went Out in a Boat: Debunk Fell In...

...and what was left?  BUNK!

As part of the first part of the final wave of the Romney campaign’s march to the White House, Jennifer Rubin’s article in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer – Debunking favorite myths about the Republican Party – is perfectly timed.  The core message - “The GOP is the grown-up party, while the Dems are the teenagers who are more focused on seeming cool & considered popular than acting like responsible adults."

While I must admit to considering her debunking just flat-out bunk, a few of her “corrections” stand out because they are oh! so true, although not in ways she’d care to own up to.

My personal fav debunk was her attempt to deconstruct the “myth” that the GOP is obsessed with social issues.  Ms. Rubin points out, “Mitt Romney barely talks about social issues.”  Spot on!  Neither did the candidates who were elected to office in 2010, neither have conservatives throughout the past decade – they campaigned on the economy & jobs.  That’s what got them elected.  BUT, once in office, the focused laser-like on social issues.  They NEVER campaign on social issues, because it’s a loser for GOP candidates.  As demonstrated in state after state, as well as on the national level in the House of Representatives, conservative Republicans have utterly master bait & switch tactics.   But just google Ralph Reed to see how much he thinks social issues a side issue. 

She chastises the Dems as the ones who “latched onto Todd Akin” and emphasize abortion.  She faults the Dems for “latching onto” someone running for the U.S. Senate who believes our bodies have a special mechanism that keeps us from getting pregnant if we’re the victims of a rape?  Who could resist???   Does she know how many women’s health care bills – including ones related to abortion – came up in the recent GOP-controlled House & in Republican-controlled legislatures nationwide?

She debunks the “myth” that the Tea Party has taken over the GOP.  Honey – read the Republican Party’s platform.  For a reference point, check the party’s 1980 platform.  See any influence? 

As for the myth that the GOP doesn’t believe in community – sure they do, as long as your community is Janesville, WI or Belmont, MA or Park City, UT or La Jolla, CA or Wolfeboro, NH.  When the Dems talk about “community” they mean something other tan simply “family, communities, churches, and other civil institutions (that are critical building blocks in society.”   People who come from a strong community, who have a deep faith & spiritual community watching their backs, who have the blessing of family & friends to share their joys & halve their sorrows have been shown to be better off financially, better able to regroup after financial set backs.  But how many people today have those blessings?  I do.  I’ve benefited tremendously because of each of those.  But, in 2012, my experience is the exception, not the rule.  The community that the Dems refer to is creating a sense of belonging for the chronically disenfranchised & for the people who have been knocked off their feet by the financial meltdown & resulting gutted economy.  By debunking the myth as she did, Ms. Rubin illustrates to me that she doesn’t get it – she can see the dots, just not connect them.

The biggest hoot has to be her attempt to debunk the idea that Republicans are out to hurt the poor.  She argues that “Republicans want to follow the welfare-reform model… because they think these programs can be managed better by the states.”  Yet, let the president agree to grant waivers to states who want to manage their own programs & he gets skinned, filleted, skewered & grilled by the Romney campaign as “gutting work requirements.”

Her argument for why the GOP is actually the party more committed to preserving the social safety nets that came out of & after the New Deal would leave my Mom, Gay Pendleton & Doris Pendleton slack-jawed in amazement.  Republicans defending ANY form of social safety net has got to be the most novel concept introduced into this & perhaps any election.  Getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid & similar programs has been an article of faith with Republicans since they were first passed.  Forgot to add repeal of the income tax, which they look to effectively do for at least one portion of our citizenry – just a very very very teeny weeny itsy bitsy portion.

Ms. Rubin – no one believes that Republicans have a problem with female voters because of abortion.  As you correctly point out, the issue is not gender-based.  What alarms the vast majority of female voters is the very real possibility of the birth control methods being made illegal through adoption of personhood bills that peg the life of a pre-born at conception.

Rolling on the floor with laughter at her claim that the GOP has “not moved to do away with the SEC, the FDIC, the FDA, the EPA or other regulatory bodies.”  No, they’ve just gutted their funding.  Same outcome.

Too worn out to continue.  We’re going to hear longer, louder, more persistent explanations about how the GOP is the party grounded in genuine compassion. 

And they’re going to pray that we pay attention to their talking points & ignore what’s happening real time.  Sadly, if the past is prelude, a lot of people will.  And then they won’t be left with myths, but cold sober reality.

INCONCEIVABLE! (and I do know the meaning of the word)

Todd Akin & now my own state’s Tom Scott remind me of little children who tell friends of their parents what Mom & Dad think about their breath or their ne’er-do-well son or dumb blond daughter – true, it’s what Mom & Dad really think and openly talk about at home, but it’s NOT what they want brought up in public and especially not to the people they’re talking about.  Both rush in with all sorts of assurances to their friends that they NEVER said what little Dick or Sally said they did.

Todd Akin & Tom Scott are small potatoes compared to Paul Ryan, who remains crystal clear in what he believes -  rape (and, it follows, incest) is just another form of conception.  Natural methods, invitro, rape - all, to him, equal methods of conception.  

At the moment, Congressman Ryan is doing what Mom & Dad with their offended friends – assuring America that he NEVER meant for the term “forcible rape” to imply that there is a lesser form of violent assault.  We’re assured that the term was just “stock language” – that “rape is rape.”

Rape is rape.  That sounds very forceful.  

The caveat that Paul Ryan does NOT include is that because it is as valid a method of conception as intimate relations between loving partners, rape - any rape - would not be grounds for terminating any resulting pregnancy.  Conception is conception.

Congressman Ryan says that his opinion about the right of a woman to have an abortion if she has been raped is of no consequence because the presidential candidate is Mitt Romney & only the presidential candidate’s views matter.  

Except for two things:  a) according to no less than Grover Norquist, all the GOP asks of their president is that he have enough working fingers to sign into law whatever bills PAUL RYAN gets passes,  and b) the vice president is always just a heartbeat away from becoming chief executive; his views matter immensely – his views are THE reason Gov. Romney selected him as his running mate. 

  

Gov. Romney took a pummeling the other day for implying that a woman’s health could be an acceptable reason for terminating a pregnancy.  What are reasons that a woman’s health might be endangered even if she is not in imminent danger of dying?  If she has cancer – pregnancy typically accelerates the growth of cancerous cells and precludes treatments such as chemotherapy.  Sometimes simply carrying the child can put the woman’s life in possible danger (hence, the doctor who tells a woman she should not get pregnant for her own health).  To Paul Ryan, none of these reasons would be sufficient to terminate a pregnancy – a life is a life, unless it is the woman’s. 

Maybe Congressman Ryan doesn’t grasp that the reason behind rape is not sexual desire but control.  And what better control of a woman than to not only assault her, then have her carry your child.  Here in Pennsylvania, rapists have visitation and custody rights of a child born out of the rape.  What more exquisite sense of controlling the woman’s life to the end of her days than to be part of her child’s life?

I watched Paul Ryan explain that rape was simply another method of conceiving.  He dropped his head down ever so little & lifted his eyes up ever so little, the very image of the trustworthy public servant.  And I tried to remember who he reminded me of.  

A bit of Diana Soencer, but that wasn’t it.  

Where have I seen that look before.  And then it came to me – Charles Boyer’s murderous husband in Gaslight, trying to convince the wife he tried to drive insane that his motives were pure, that the gallant man who’d saved her in the nick of time was the one she should not trust,  that she knew in her heart that she could fully trust him, no matter what he’d said or done in the past.  It was inconceivable to the audience that she might fall for such false assurances. 

It’s inconceivable to me, now, that the American public might fall for Congressman Ryan’s assurances.  He’s made it clear – rape is another valid method of conception and, at least in his mind, all rapes are the same, ergo not a valid reason for aborting a pregnancy.  Forget the sincere, sensitive, compassionate expression - follow the logic.

Congressman Ryan, you said, “Rape is rape.”  Well, sir, allow me to say to you in return, “Bunk is bunk!”

Wealth & Prosperity

Another night awakening in the wee small hours, thinking about things I would have thought absurd a mere four years ago.

There are times I am loathe to label my country a "civilized" nation.  Developed?   Absolutely.  But it's hard to call it civilized when its citizens care so deeply - and appropriately, I believe - for the life of an unborn child, but steps away once the child is born, when polls show the majority of Americans are against both gun controls & universal health care, when the wealth of the wealthiest among us is close to reaching an all-time high while the poorest among us are on track for reaching the lowest in half a century, when our approach for fixing a clearly broken economy is to slash taxes on so-called job creators (who, incidentally, are apparently not creating jobs) as well as a century's worth of financial & social services reform, that talks about reining in "free stuff" for the disenfranchised while spending billions on bail outs & tax breaks for the privileged & powerful. when in my own state we're ready to make it difficult or impossible for up to 500,000 Pennsylvanians to vote in November in the name of protecting us against alleged but unproved "rampant" voter fraud..

We are a wealthy nation, but can we still call ourselves prosperous?  One thing that the whole brouhaha over Gov. Romney's tax returns has revealed -  and it is not disparaging to him - is that our economy is rigged to overwhelmingly benefit the people who already have at the cost of those who have not, or have less.

It's clear that we have an amazing capacity for people to make an amazing amount of wealth.  We are, indeed, a wealthy nation.  But how do we take care of those among us - including myself - who through no fault of their own have no access to health care?  How do we take care of children who, through no fault of their own, are born into poverty?  How do we take care of our parents & grandparents who no longer work, or those who through no fault of their own can't work?

For our nation's first 150 years, people all over the world were awed by our resources & resourcefulness.  We had a continent that had been left undeveloped, in spite of being inhabited for thousands of years, woodlands prime for cutting down & turning into rich farmland, harbors prime for commerce, prairies prime for the bite of the plow & harvesting by the reaper, settlements all over the country prime for welcoming hard-working men & women to make their way in our fledgling country.  

Over the past century, people looked to America as a land that gave shelter & even aid to those who needed it, who balanced caring for our citizens with a robust commerce that made it all possible. We successfully combined capitalism with a sense of  - excuse what for many is a reviled phrase - social justice.

Look around - are we a happy nation?  Are we satisfied with our accomplishments?  Do we look around & take a sense of pride in what we see around us?  We are a wealthy nation, to be sure, but are we prosperous? 

Walker v. Barrett

Recall race in Wisconsin is neck & neck.  If Scott Walker can win, then the GOP has a good shot at a clean sweep this fall, because it says to me that people would rather vote from emotion than intellect.