Fiscal Cliff

Doing Coast to Coast brought a lot of conservative readers to this blog. I want to clarify for you that I was raised in a conservative family, in a conservative neighborhood and I am married to a man whose parents are also conservatives. When I’m talking about Republicans I am not talking about people who are the voter class – I’m talking about the leadership class. It’s my experience that people are people and when given the hard truth do the right thing no matter what label they may take on when they go into a voting booth.

I know Republican voters believe in hard work and personal responsibility – so do liberal people – the big difference is liberal/progressives believe there are some people who can’t pull themselves up by their own bootstraps not because they are lazy, but because circumstances are too great and overwhelming to do so alone. I would really encourage everyone to watch the Ken Burns documentaries on PBS about the dust bowl. The dust bowl happened in a very maverick part of the country – where people believe in personal responsibility and were and still are very hard-working and believe in contributing to society. However the scope of the problem (and seriously just look at pictures and you’ll see how enormously devastating this ecological disaster was year after year for about a decade) was just too enormous for any one family no matter how big their extended family. It was as if every other day a major hurricane or tornado devastated the region – this went on for a decade. These dust storms were miles high and would drop 3 feet of earth over everything making all farming impossible. It was so enormous that the storms actually dropped earth from Kansas and Oklahoma in Washington DC and New York City. The government stepped in to save lives – children and elderly people were dying of “dust pneumonia.” The story is almost too much to bear but I suggest people take a look at this because the parallels of the Great Depression and our situation with the Great Recession are enormous.

So for those who think I want only blessings for people of like mind that is more than insulting it’s insane. However I am equally insulted when we have Republican politicians who want to take away benefits to Veterans, raise the age of social security, take money and medicare away from the elderly and make the middle class pay an extra 2000 a year in taxes when they are struggling like never before. All so the wealthy one percent (who pay less than anyone else in taxes) can keep their tax breaks. It’s disgusting.

The SIN of AVARICE and GREED are at the heart of these ideals. These are not Christian values and they are not Spiritual values which is why I am against them – that is why I take issue with these spiritual diseases that I see as eating away at the fabric of our world. These evils have somehow (in the past 30 or so years) turned from being society’s seeing Greed as despicable  and shameful to a virtue.

Well, I want to remind everyone GREED IS NOT A VIRTUE! In no religious text and on no spiritual path is GREED considered anything but one of the roots of EVIL  And what we have seen during the Bush jr. years was a ramping up of this disease to the point where we the average American tax payers are being asked to pick up the tab for the frat party on Wall Street. Lots of people got rich scamming the middle class and the poor. And now we are being asked AGAIN to pay for IT! TWICE – seriously how is that good for anyone? Except the shameful few.

So now onto my prediction about the fiscal cliff.  Democrats will stay firm and there will be a period of inaction until Republicans are forced to go ahead with the program. Republicans will come to realize if they stick to their guns there will be civil unrest and if they keep with their ridiculous “plans” they will not just be killing their future careers, but putting the nail in the coffin of their party for years to come. Which honestly I do not want to happen.

Democracy needs a viable two party system – but Republicans are making a huge mistake playing to the one percent and then using trickery to try and cover their tracks. The cat is out of the bag now and continuing on this path is suicidal for their party. This will have a long-term effect on the political system and will put them into the position of being a very small minority party for years to come. My compliment to them presently for at least honestly showing their hand instead of hiding behind the BS “Trickle Down Economics,” stuff. At least they are clearly showing that they have no compassion for people who were either born after 1960 or born into families without an express lane to Harvard or Yale.

The biggest disgrace in my opinion is starting two wars, destroying hundreds of thousands of lives, forever injuring those who served along with their families not to mention the highest cost – all the people who had to die for what? Both our troops and all the innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of the Bush/Cheney oil grab that turned into a reckless pointless war which the Bush/Cheney administration lied us into.

All of us whether we want to admit it or not actually rely on systems to help us evolve whether that is the family system, the educational system or in the worst case scenarios people who are forced to take help from the government. No one wants to be in that position despite the propaganda of “welfare queens,” welfare has been reformed so that people can’t stay on it for any length of time. Not to mention if you have ever known anyone who has had to take government assistance (which includes social security, disability, medicare, food stamps, unemployment) they do it because they need to generally they aren’t proud of it. Many people are embarrassed about having to use food stamps, or get help of any kind.

Everyone wants to be independent and we must remember that if we are to be a “Christian Nation,” as is the herald of the Republican party, then we must actually posses those Christian values. If you have any doubts about what they are just ask yourself, “Would Jesus walk past a poor distraught person without helping him? Would Jesus want to rob the poor to give to the wealthy?” No. That’s the answer. If you are a Christian I can’t see how the current Republican plutocratic platform in any way conforms to your values. Either the Republican leadership needs to change or those who are staying loyal to a party they once believed in need to take a closer look at what is actual and factual and see if it squares with their real values. I contend it does not.

I do not think that 98% of Republican voters would vote that way if all the facts were broken down without the incendiary rhetoric that is used to make the leadership appear to be in the same camp as the good people who vote for them.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Yule and anything and every other holiday I am forgetting or don’t know about – Have a great holiday season.

Many blessing to all,

Denise

Fiscal Cliff