Friday, July 15, 2011

Warning: Political Post/Rant



You might as well click OFF if you hate politics, if you think I'm a crazy, unpatriotic communist or if you're a relative that disagrees because I'm not going to engage you directly. That said, here goes:


I agree with Bernie Sanders, the estimable senator from Vermont, when he says:




Our right-wing friends in the House of Representatives have given us an option. What they have said is end Medicare as we know it and force elderly people, many of whom don't have the money, to pay substantially more for their health care. So when you're 70 under their plan and you get sick and you don't have a whole lot of income, we don't know what happens to you. They forget to tell us that if their plan was passed you're going to have to pay a heck of a lot more for the prescription drugs you're getting today. They we're going to throw millions of kids off health insurance. If your mom or dad is in a nursing home and that nursing home bill is paid significantly by Medicaid and Medicaid isn't paying anymore, they forgot to tell us what happens to your mom or dad in that nursing home. What happens?
And what happens today if you are unemployed and you're not able to get unemployment extension? What happens if you are a middle-class family desperately trying to send their kids to college and you make savage cuts to Pell grants and you can't go to college? What does it mean for the nation if we are not bringing forth young people that have the education that they need? They forgot to tell us that. And if you are one of the growing number of senior citizens in this country who are going hungry, they want to cut nutrition programs. And on and on it goes. Every program that has any significance to working families, the sick, the elderly, the children, the poor, they are going to cut in the midst of a recession when real unemployment is already at 15 percent and the middle class is disappearing and poverty is increasing. That's their idea.
Shouldn't the wealthiest Americans and the most profitable corporations contribute to deficit reduction rather than just the elderly and the sick and working families? They say no. They're going to defend the richest people in this country -- millionaires and billionaires -- and make sure they don't pay a nickel more in taxes. We're going to make sure there is no tax reform so we can continue to lose $100 billion every single year because wealthy people and corporations stash their money in tax havens in the Cayman Islands or Bermuda, and that's just fine. We'll protect those tax breaks while we savage programs for working families.
Those are the choices that our right-wing Republican friends are giving us. Default with horrendous economic consequences for working families in this country and for the entire global economy or massive cuts to programs that working families desperately need.
via Huffington Post
I might add to Mr. Sanders' comments, too, that these cuts also affect the DISABLED, children and adults like Sophie, my daughter, and those who have far greater problems than hers or ours. In fact, government programs for the disabled have already been cut drastically all around the country in many, many states ALREADY because these people HAVE NO VOICE. 
Is Bernie posturing? Is it all politics? Well, I'm a middle class sort of person with a disabled child. I can't go out and get a job because I can't afford childcare for my sixteen year old daughter who is severely disabled.  I cobble together piecemeal jobs and work from home as I can. The Husband works twelve to eighteen hours a day in his own small business nearly seven days a week. We send our children to public schools because we can't afford otherwise and because we like to support equity in education. We pay for private health insurance and have seen the rates TRIPLE in the last three years. Every single "service" that Sophie received -- state and federal - has been eliminated or cut drastically in the last three years. I read stories almost daily about grotesque atrocities and hideous care in institutional settings for persons like Sophie and don't seriously consider it as an option for our family to place her in one. 


I know that millions, if not billions of people live vastly different lives than our own as Americans and that we are, for the most part, a spoiled, lazy people prone to demanding entitlement and the ever-ephemeral happiness, but for god's sake, we are also a country with more wealth than has ever been seen on the face of the earth. One quarter of children in the country should not be living in poverty when one basketball player signs a $55 million dollar contract or one actress pulls in $1 million per episode. That seventy year old grandmother should not be forced to decide between medication or food when my neighbors and friends spend nearly $80,000 a year to send their children to private schools.
I do not know what the answer is other than to exercise my right as an American citizen to not just rant and rave but to vote for representatives that will work toward justice and equality. It appears that we're all getting what we voted for -- a bunch of politicians in Congress who have been bought by wealthy Americans and corporations hell bent on protecting their obscene salaries and misguided notions of what liberty, freedom and justice really are.


23 comments:

  1. That statement is exactly why we financially support Bernie Sanders even though we don't live anywhere near Vermont.

    Rant on!

    Best
    Bonnie

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  2. Only someone who left his/her spirit in some overseas bank vault could disagree with you.

    Touching a single cent of Social Security is to rob a trust fund by those suggesting it, and forcing people to chose between food and medicine anywhere in this world is akin to murder by proxy in my book. So, I am a communist, unpatriotic Liberal Democrat with real conservative views as expressed above. If we were to realize that our country spends more money on prisons than schools maybe the Gordian knot would be untied here: only ignorance and lack of a moral compass would support robbing from the poor to maintain the status of the rich.

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  3. With you 1000%

    Wish we could get those misguided people who vote against their own self-interests out of purposefully manipulated, magnified fears to see this and boot the money-loving, people-hating bastards out.

    Makes my blood boil.

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  4. Who could disagree unless you're a zillionnaire or have your hands in their pockets?

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  5. Yes. What you said. I mean, what he said. Ah, heck... just, YES.

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  6. Thank you for ranting on my behalf- I've given up on ranting because I'm left tired and breathless and wrung out. Now I just watch and wonder why I don't understand the world I live in and many of the humans I live with.
    Rant on.

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  7. One of the reasons I love your blog is because of your excellent rants. These abstract ideas that keep chipping away at our government have millions of painful, life and death consequences. I think the media is in collusion with this trend as well. The glossy consumerism that pays for our TV channels is the only thing barely keeping our whole economy afloat. Very scary -- as I know you know. xo, M

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  8. I hate politics but I love your rants so I did read this. I don't know what to say. All true. All sad. I live in Florida so I see the effect this is having on the elderly. I worry about the disables and elderly constantly. No one in our culture seems to give a hoot about them in the political arena.

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  9. Living in Canada I have trouble keeping up with politics in my own country so I am not really understanding this.
    In Canada, we have a lot of problems. People living in poverty, severe unemployment etc. The one thing we did have was Universal medical. So everyone is covered, nobody goes without, ever. It is far from a perfect program. If a senior can't pay to live in a nursing home it is 100% funded. Children with needs such as Sophie'e receive and and every program at no cost. You would even receive respite care. Prescriptions are paid on a sliding scale based on income. We do pay premiums. If you can't afford you don't pay. You never, ever get cut off. There would never be a time when you get stuck with a medical bill unless it is one of the things that are not covered such as massages, chiropractors etc.
    When my daughter was small she received everything at no cost to us. Speech and hearing, physiotherapy, Occupational therapy, pre-shcool. Children with more severe disabilites receive funding for power chairs and any other special medical equipment they may need. (A note- Canadians can purchase extended medical insurance to cover things like private hospital beds, dental etc.)
    OK *big breath* Our medical system is slowly being chipped away. It used to be like what I just wrote but it our politicians are trying to take it away and make it like how it is in the United States. It scares me! I am a low income, living below the poverty line parent and I will be destroyed if they take it away.

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  10. Amen, Elizabeth. Amen. Thank you for putting this out there!!

    xo

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  11. I think that even most Republicans are getting sick of this bullshit. I mean- it's so obvious what's going on. Did you hear Obama speak today? He sounded like the voice of reason. Something HAS to give and it better be soon.

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  12. I don't see how someone could NOT agree with this. Not anyone with a heart, anyway.

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  13. Makes me feel rather post-apocalyptic...like, these apocalyptic visions fiction writers have could easily come true.

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  14. I'm with the other Canadian blogger ,
    and you.

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  15. Well, I'm a registered Republican, but lately I think I'm nothing, as far as politics goes. Neither Republican or Democrat, just me. And as "just me," I think Mr. Sanders makes some valid points, here. I also read an interesting article in Newsweek recently. Perhaps you've already seen it, but here's the link if you're interested:

    An Empty Offer from the Super-Rich

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  16. The politicians need to get there heads out of their asses and realize that humans need each other. We all depend on each other to get to the end of our lives.

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