Well, now, those secret Mitt tapes bring so many ideas swirling into my mind. Some of them I have already blogged about, others I haven't, and I think all of them will be spilling, not very neatly, into this entry.
Everyone is talking mostly about Romney's statement about that 47% of the public who won't vote for him, because, by golly, they already don't pay taxes, so why should they care about Mitt's tax cuts? Well, I'd say many of the 47% that he's written off are as much concerned about his tax cuts for the top one per cent as they are about their own situation. I think that the people in the middle class have finally started to catch on that there are magic tricks going on that involve their money. "Look!" cries Mitt the Magician, "Those illegal immigrants are taking your tax money!" And while you're eyeing the immigrants, Mitt the Magician is stealing your pension and your job.
There is no trickle-down. There is only evaporate-up.
I've spoken before about wondering how the super-rich see the rest of us, and Mitt's pronouncements to his peers give us a good idea as to how at least one of them sees us. How many of his cohort were nodding in agreement?
But the part of the tape that really got me was when Mitt said that he wished he were a Mexican, because then he'd have a better chance being elected. Mitt Romney, multi-millionaire, who probably thought he and the Koch brothers had enough money to buy the presidency outright, actually has it in him to feel victimized because he's not a Mexican! Oh, the advantages those Mexicans have over poor, poor me!
That's the mind-boggling thing, to me. Mitt the poor little rich boy, envying the Mexican.
Meanwhile, everywhere I look, I see Mexicans working their asses off in minimum wage jobs.
In addition to the efforts of the Republicans to dismantle the New Deal, they're also attacking the unions while they are weak. In this time when the difference between the income at the top and the income at the bottom has grown so large, we need stronger unions, so that people are paid what their work is worth, not what a Robber Baron like Mitt Romney thinks he can get away with paying.
There's my disorganized take on the Mitt Tapes.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Personhood
Scattered around the state governments of our nation, we find laws and constitutional amendments declaring the personhood of fetuses. To judge from the behavior of some of the sponsors of these bills, life begins at conception and ends at birth. These personhood bills are presented against the background of an era in which so many are loath to give any assistance to people, very much alive, who are suffering lives in poverty.
I have stated before, in my blog about the second amendment, that society often sees fit to find exceptions to all of our laws and freedoms. To the commandment "Thou shalt not kill," we make the exception of war, to which we sacrifice so many of our own children.
In our era, we celebrate as inspirational stories of athletes performing miraculous feats on miraculously fashioned artificial limbs. Such celebration is a way for us to shift our vision away from the fact that a generation of our young has been blown apart and maimed, not by terrorism, but by the stupid response of our leaders to terrorism.
To the people who find that society must make exceptions to its own cherished beliefs, the power of individuals to make their own choices in regard to their own unborn children is to be denied.
Yes, the same people who would send our beloved, fully alive, children into the meat grinder of war, are ostentatiously, sanctimoniously concerned with the suffering of a being who, though barely conscious of being alive, is subjected to the instantaneous action of a morning after pill, or to an abortion.
When these people start recognizing the sanctity of life outside the womb, I will be more ready to discuss the sanctity of life before birth.
I once heard a professor explain the concept of "standing." He said that, in time of war, the society chooses, for possible sacrifice, those with the lowest standing, that is, young men without wives or families. Is there anyone in society with less standing than an unwanted embryo?
I have stated before, in my blog about the second amendment, that society often sees fit to find exceptions to all of our laws and freedoms. To the commandment "Thou shalt not kill," we make the exception of war, to which we sacrifice so many of our own children.
In our era, we celebrate as inspirational stories of athletes performing miraculous feats on miraculously fashioned artificial limbs. Such celebration is a way for us to shift our vision away from the fact that a generation of our young has been blown apart and maimed, not by terrorism, but by the stupid response of our leaders to terrorism.
To the people who find that society must make exceptions to its own cherished beliefs, the power of individuals to make their own choices in regard to their own unborn children is to be denied.
Yes, the same people who would send our beloved, fully alive, children into the meat grinder of war, are ostentatiously, sanctimoniously concerned with the suffering of a being who, though barely conscious of being alive, is subjected to the instantaneous action of a morning after pill, or to an abortion.
When these people start recognizing the sanctity of life outside the womb, I will be more ready to discuss the sanctity of life before birth.
I once heard a professor explain the concept of "standing." He said that, in time of war, the society chooses, for possible sacrifice, those with the lowest standing, that is, young men without wives or families. Is there anyone in society with less standing than an unwanted embryo?
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