Safe! For now.
Click to listen:
SOPA is dead, but other dissent-silencing bills (masquerading as anti-piracy bills) are still out there, lurking. The XL Pipeline was rejected, but only for procedural reasons, and there’s still a chance that it will be reviewed and then OK’d after the election, no matter who wins the White House. So we’re safe for now, but we’ll be fighting these same demons again, and soon. The greed and power-mad motives behind these issues won’t just go away.
What we aren’t safe from – not even for a little while – are the 8,346 GOP debates to go before their convention. The “show” will go on, spinning up their base, gathering donations from the rabid fringe who supports their views, and inventing “news” to throw on Obama. After all, as they’ve admitted, the GOP’s number 1 goal is to get him out of the White House. It’s not jobs, its not an economic recovery, it’s getting the Man with More Melanin out of the WHITE House. Apparently, it wasn’t named for its exterior paint color, but for the desired race of the primary occupant.
You know, maybe it’s true that a major factor in Obama’s election was his race. People wanted to see something long overdue happen. Good people wanted to see an important step happen for our nation. What’s not a maybe is that the only reason there’s been such a violent reaction to his presidency from the right is his skin color. It’s not his policies or actions, because Obama hasn’t done anything dramatic. “Obamacare” may be considered socialism by some (people whose parents never bought the “S” volume of the encyclopaedia), but beyond that very anemic reform bill, what dramatic, objectionable things has he done? Closed Gitmo? Nope. Got rid of the Patriot Act? Nope. Ended the wars? Nope. He stuck to a timeline for exiting Iraq that was established before he took office, and his troop increases in Afghanistan were heralded on the right. So what’s he done? Reined in the banksters? Nope. Appointed “activist” wild-ass left-wing Supreme Court justices? Nope. Refused to sign a bill that lets the government detain US citizens for no reason? Nope. Signed it. He did give the OK to shoot Osama bin Laden in the face, but even the right-most of the right-wing won’t say that was a bad idea. He also saved the auto industry, which protected and restored hundreds of thousands of jobs – though that’s something the right likes to spin as yet another sign of his “socialist” agenda. So anyway, where’s the radical move to the left? Never happened. That’s not to say we’d have been better off with The Angry Old Man and Wasilla Barbie. Nor would we be better off with Gingrich or Romney or Paul. Imagine the world they’d make. No middle class, just the very rich and the very poor. One religion. One race. All to preserve a very cushy way of life for the One percent.
So what can we do? Keep yelling. Keep occupying. Keep informed. Don’t watch just one news channel or read one blog. Check out lots of news sources. You have time. Take the hour you’d have spent watching Paula Deen inject butter directly into her veins and poke around online. Read more than one newspaper. Follow a story for a whole week and see where it leads you. Listen to lots of voices. That, after all, is what a Democracy is all about. Why have free speech if we don’t listen to the people who make use of that freedom every day? We’re just one of the voices. And you have a voice, too, so use it. While you still can.
And here are this week’s links:
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)
The REAL Keystone XL Pipeline Story
Ron Paul Linked to White Supremacist Island Invasion
Ron Paul Disowns Extremists, But Not Their Support
Take Action! Tell USDA To Do Its Job And Reject 2,4-D (Agent Orange!) Resistant GE Corn
With regard to to Joe Paternos death, could someone comment more compassionately about the children who were victims in the Sandusky trial of at least 50+ sex crime allegations against minors that will never get vindication? What about all the lives Paterno may have damaged by “not knowing what to do” his words…REALLY??? A coach, pillar of the community and with children of his own? Somehow these little boys lives stories are not important. Paternos death as reported in the NY Times and various media sources cover his career highlights, yet they dance rather artfully around the coverup by Paterno.
These children continue to be victimized by the “idol worship” of someone who contributed to the destruction of their childhood, inability to have a “normal” life, and maybe never have a healthy relationship. Who knows what these kids and their families have dealth with and continue to deal with. We all know the suicide rates of victims of sexual abuse is much higher than national averages.
Joe Paterno will never get his day in court so who really knows the extent of his cover up, but there was a horrific travisty of justice on the behalf of these children and he was part of it. Personally I am more concerned about these kids than how Joe Paterno was “Penn State”.
I would expect Making Sense to bring the aspect of victimization of marginalized people, in this case these children into discussion more than it did with this broadcast.
More insult flags at half mast for 4 days. Thanks Corbett.