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The Democratic Party Failure

  • Posted on September 18, 2010 at 1:01 pm

This video says a lot to me about the disrespect shown to Hillary Clinton during the 2008 election.  It’s subtle but it still shows me a lot about the men in the party!  I will always remember those words, “Likable enough!”

The last couple of months we have been hearing about how the Democrats are going to lose in November.  There has been much talk about which seats would go and how many are needed for the Republican Party to take over the House or even the Senate.  It almost feels like we have already voted.  I always find in interesting when pundits tell us what we, the people, are thinking.  I don’t know how they could possibly know what people are really feeling these days.  Most people don’t participate in polls, many don’t have land lines, and many don’t answer their phones for anyone but their friends.  This has made me think about what I’m thinking about all of this.  From my viewpoint, if the Democratic Party loses it’s because they still didn’t repair the problems created from the 2008 election, and they have governed more like Republicans than true Democrats.  If they lose, they deserve that loss.

Back in 2008 my primary vote was taken away here in Michigan and given to Barack Obama.  I didn’t vote for him and if I had been given an opportunity to revote, I would have voted for Hillary Clinton.  The Democratic Party then chose to even take some votes from Hillary and give them to Barack, a very undemocratic thing to do.  This and what happened in Florida has set the stage for a lot of what’s ailing the Democratic Party today.  The Democratic Party has for a long time acted in an elitist manner.  They have assumed that they know what is best for their constituents, even if their constituents think otherwise.  This is the main problem with the party.  They don’t listen to their people.  I called the Michigan Democratic Party when all of this was happening and I was treated poorly and even hung up on.  It’s hard to trust a party when they treat you like crap.  Well, fast forward two years to the November election.

It’s hard to see how anything has really changed.  I had high hopes that President Obama would do something to make me trust the party again.  I hoped that I could start respecting Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid again.  It hasn’t really happened.  I’ve written on here that we should vote for the Democrats because the Republicans are worse.  Isn’t that just a wonderful reason to vote?  Neither party is worth a damn these days.

The Democratic Party and President Obama have framed the last two years so there are four things that come to my mind:  We are still in these stupid wars.  We have a health care bill that no one seems to understand.  We have bailed out banks that didn’t bail out the American people.  We have a president that much like his predecessor likes to go on vacation a lot, acts clueless when it comes to real people and their needs, and has even embraced some of his Republican policies.

When President Obama came into office I was hoping he could convince me that he was the right choice.  It would be foolish for me or anyone else to want him to fail.  We’re talking about our country here.  I don’t want us to fail.  However, after two years, it’s hard to see what has really changed.  For all that talk about how things were going to “change”, much has stayed the same.  Washington is as hateful as it always has been, it’s as corrupt as it always has been and it’s as clueless as it always has been.  Even in the midst of economic disaster these politicians cannot seem to get anything done for the people.  They are too busy trying to get reelected than to do their jobs!  So if they lose their jobs this November, I have no sympathy.

Everything the Democrats have tried to do they have washed down so much that it looks more like a  Republican plan than a Democratic plan.  The health care bill didn’t fix anything.  We won’t know exactly what it will do until 2014 when much of it kicks in.  We do know that people with a more progressive agenda did not get their way.  Single payer was taken off long before the bill was completed.  John Edwards said if you let the corporations come to the table they would eat all the food because they’re a bunch of hogs.  I know, there I go about John Edwards again.  He is a horrible person and that’s what we are supposed to remember.  What I choose to remember are the policies he talked about.  He was right about this one.  President Obama invited those pigs in and they ate all the food.  Special deals were made.  Drug companies and insurance companies must have been pretty happy after all of this because they now have new customers that must buy from them.  It’s a closed market.  We are forced to buy from a corporation without any real cost cutting measures in place.  In fact, the people that supported a more progressive agenda for health care issues were not even invited to dine to supply their ideas on this discourse.  The people that really wrote the deal were insiders for the insurance companies.  You can’t play that slight of hand trick with the cards over and over and expect your people to continue to believe in you.  Of course the Democratic Party knows what is best for us even if we don’t.  This elitist attitude is what’s ailing the party.  They just don’t respect the intelligence of their voters.

Many of us Democrats, or used to be Democrats, would like to see the money that is going over to Iraq and Afghanistan come back home and help our war torn societies.  We have spent so much money overseas that we don’t have the money we need to run our city and state governments.  Times are tough.  Most of us want to take care of our own.  Many of us would like to see these wars resolved and the troops brought home.  President Obama was supposedly against the Iraq war but what he has done is really just shift the troops to Afghanistan.  It’s like these wars will never end.  If you have a child in kindergarten, chances are he may be fighting in the Middle East after he graduates!  At home we have to down size everything in our governments which means less police, less service, less education, basically less of everything so we can keep fighting over there.

The Democratic Party is clueless to what was happening with the American people.  The number one priority should have been jobs.  James Carville was right when he said, “It’s the economy stupid!”  It is the economy.  The stimulus package did some good but it fell far short from what it could have done.  The bickering over extending unemployment didn’t help.  Making the unemployment issue into “politics as usual” didn’t help.  When the Democrats cry that they can’t get anything done because they don’t have enough Democrats when they have so many, they appear ‘WEAK”.  They make the Republicans look strong as opposed to appearing just plain bad.  If the Democrats can’t figure out how to run things with the numbers they have, maybe they deserve to lose.  The Republicans didn’t have those numbers but they always managed to get what they wanted when they had control.  This tells me that either there are far too many DINO’s or Republicans are just better at the game.

Another thing that has really bothered me about the Democratic Party is their lack of female candidates.  The Republicans were smart enough to realize that there were a lot of women upset after the 2008 election and the way Hillary was treated.  I have noticed there are a lot of Republican women running for office.  They sound a lot like feminists even though they have a conservative agenda.  I want more women in office.  I could be tempted to vote for a Republican woman just because women are so under represented.  We are over half of the population and yet our laws are still largely written by white men!  When the Democratic Party comes out and attacks these women much like they have this last week with Christine O’Donnell they are tugging at another old wound from 2008.  Many of the women that I have come to know online since 2008 that were Democrats could easily vote for some of these women.  Many would like to see more Democratic female candidates but we recognize that the Democratic Party treats their female candidates horribly.  For as much as the Democratic Party would like us all to believe that they are a “big tent” when it comes to women, they still want us kept in our “place”.  Much like the Catholic Church we are supposed to sit on the sidelines and be supportive.  We are expected to be out at the grass roots level helping to campaign for the candidates.  We can lick envelopes, pass out flyers, make phone calls, canvas an area and make a financial contribution but we aren’t supposed to run the place!

Now I finally come to President Obama.  He governs much like his predecessor.  In fact I think he is a Republican.  He appears to be channeling Ronnie, not Jack or Lyndon and certainly not FDR!  A few weeks ago I heard a woman on CSPAN refer to Barack Obama as a socialist.  I can only wish he would have more of a social agenda.  She is dead wrong.  She said that the media didn’t do their job.  If they had shown what a socialist he was, she and a lot of other people wouldn’t have voted for him.  I thought that was ridiculous.  He really is everything I expected from the election.  I always thought he was more of a Republican and that’s why I didn’t care for him.  I heard his speech the summer of 2007 at the National Education Association conference and he talked about “merit pay”.  (I watched the video on the NEA website.)  Merit pay has always been “union busting” talk from my point of view.  This has been something the Republicans have pushed for years.  It came true under a Democrat.  Unbelievable, but true!  I don’t know exactly how it will work.  I do know that if you want teachers to teach for a test, that is exactly what they will do.  The problem is; it’s just a test.  It may not mean anything when it comes down to real education for your child!  President Obama has also been absolutely insensitive to working class America.  At a time when so many people are out of work and struggling to make ends meet, he vacations continually.  His family vacations much like President Bush did.  We have seen so many pictures of the Obama family on vacation that they don’t look like they have a care in the world.  President Clinton could “feel our pain”.  President Obama looks and acts like he is clueless to what the American people are going through.  If he had a clue, he would dial down these many vacations.  A lot of people gave up their vacations.  Others haven’t vacationed in years because they can never afford it!

In conclusion, if the Democratic Party loses in November, they have no one to blame but themselves.  It’s not because the Republicans are a better alternative, far from it.  The Republicans are a horrible choice.  It is because the Democratic Party forgot the people that put them where they are today.  We voted them in and gave them their jobs.  We handed the keys to the house and expected it would be taken care of.  Instead when we got home it’s like the wayward teenager that had a party.  Some stuff got broken and it didn’t get fixed.  We’re mad as hell parents looking for answers to our wayward teen’s choices and we are getting ready to ground him.  If the Democratic Party wants us to get fired up to vote them back in, they better start coming up with better excuses for their behavior than what we have been hearing!  They better stop taking all of us for granted.  They better repair the damage they created in 2008 and they better start respecting women!  They also better stop sounding like REPUBLICANS!  If we want a Republican in office, we will vote for them.  They could take care of a big issue right now that would show what a true Democrat would do.  They could let the tax cut for the wealthy expire.  Instead we keep hearing talk of an extension which means in 2012 there will be another fight to either extend it or make it permanent.  If they would act like Democrats right now and vote to extend the tax cuts for the working people and get rid of it for the wealthy, they could maybe save their party!

Truthfully, I should be thanking the Democratic Party.  If they hadn’t stolen my vote in 2008, I might not be writing this today.  I probably would never have even considered dealing with my thoughts on this website at all.  When my son set this up as a place for me to write this past Christmas, it was largely because of the events that happened in 2008.  He knew I was online a lot and writing comments on other sites.  He thought I might like writing my own blog.  I never had really given it much thought.  Now, I have discovered my voice.  In many ways I have always considered myself to be, “Silent Kate”.  I would go online and even post many places under that moniker.  I was a silent voice looking for a home.  I now have my home.  I just don’t have my party.  This woman will be silent no longer.  There are a lot of women out there like me looking for a political party that will actually represent them.  If the Democratic Party would like our votes, they should step up to the plate and encourage more women to run for office and they should stop belittling every Republican woman that runs just because she is a woman.  So, if the Democratic Party loses in November, they deserve it!

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Have You Taken Your Hate Pill Today?

  • Posted on August 21, 2010 at 9:08 pm

You have a choice to make: Hate and fear or more of the same. This is not an easy choice.

I’ll be the first one to tell you I have no love for the Democrats because they stole my primary vote on May 31st, 2008.  However, as much as I dislike the Democrats the Republicans are infinitely worse!  If you are thinking of voting those Republicans back in power really give some thought to what it would mean to the health of this country.  They are political obstructionist that won’t pass any legislation that might get this country moving again.  They deserve to be booted out of office, period!  If you are thinking about voting for a Republican just watch this video from the 2008 election.  It’s pretty snarky but pretty true.  Think about poor BP when you watch this as some Republicans felt so sorry for them.

When Ronald Reagan was President my mother used to say, “Have you taken your hate pill today?”  The Republicans were always good at breeding hatred.  They like stirring that proverbial pot of hatred and fear.  With the up coming November election I find it very interesting that we are discussing everything except what needs to be discussed, the economy.  This past week is a fine example of the smoke and mirror politics that continues to prevail in our country.  While most people are more concerned about the health of the economy, we are busy hearing talk about September 11th and whether a Muslim cultural center should be built a couple blocks from the World Trade Center site, whether President Obama is a Muslim and whether we should repeal the 14th amendment.  I, for one, am tired of the same old scare tactics that Republicans have always used to get people in line to vote for them in the next election.

The truth is both parties have problems but Republicans brought us to the brink of disaster and it is not time to reward them for that behavior.  It was Republican policies that lead us to this disastrous economy.  We have been told for years by Republicans that old tired theory of the “trickle down” economy.  We, as a country, have been rewarding the wealthy with tax breaks and special deals in the hope that one day all of it would trickle down to the little guy.  That hasn’t happened and it never will.  Republicans are good at changing the subject during an election cycle.  Currently, we should be talking about ways to move the economy and what are we doing?  Once again we are spreading hate and fear with the help of Republicans.  It’s popular now to hate Muslims.  After all they have that crazy religion and the women all look like nuns so it’s easy to pick on them.  We also hate those cute little brown babies the illegal Mexicans give birth to just so they can stay in this country.  You know the “anchor babies”.  I wonder how long those Repubs set around thinking that one up. President Obama must be a Muslim after all his skin is dark, his father was a Muslim and his name is so different.  What if the President really were a Muslim?  What happened to freedom of religion?  Many people could care less about religion but when it comes to politics it becomes an issue.

The Republicans breed hatred and fear.  They have hated gays for years and have done everything they could to obstruct gay rights issues during the political campaign seasons.  There are many gays that are practicing Republicans such as the “Log Cabin Republicans” but in my book they are all hypocrites that help to breed hatred and fear.  The abortion issue has been settled law since 1973.  It’s about a woman’s “choice” and yet this issue has been continually used by the Republicans to get votes.  They aren’t interested in really repealing the issue as it is settled law but they are interested in getting people riled up so they go out and vote Republican.

FDR famously said, “The only thing you have to fear is fear itself.”  Republicans want you to fear everything so you will vote for them to take care of you.  We are to fear our neighbors because they might be Muslims, illegal aliens, or heaven forbid “terrorists”!  We are supposed to watch each other like psychos on the “Big Brother” show but this big brother is the government of Republicans.  We are also to fear the government as it is bad.  The government doesn’t know how to do anything.  They fail at everything they do including education so naturally you don’t want the government to do anything.  This is the plan of the Republicans.  Fear the government but make sure you keep those tax cuts for the wealthy because if you don’t you will lose your job when they fire you.  Fear that dumb voters!  Hate brown colored people and crazy pro-choice women but most of all hate Democrats because they want to tax you and take your money away.  Republicans breed hatred and fear.  I’m a positive person.  I don’t hate and I refuse to fill my life up with fear.  I know the Democrats aren’t much better than the Republicans but at least they don’t breed hatred and fear.  I can live with that.

I just had to add this today to this post!  I guess I’m not the only one that thinks the Republicans are the party of hate!

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Sarah, Sarah, Sarah

  • Posted on April 22, 2010 at 2:40 pm

When I first heard about Sarah Palin during the 2008 election I had much curiosity.  I had been bullied by the Democratic Party during the primary, so I kept an open mind about Sarah.  When the Democrats started treating Sarah much like they treated Hillary Clinton I became even more curious.  I found myself drawn to her for many reasons.  When the Democrats made fun of her down to earth attitude and folksy voice I was amused.  No she didn’t have an “ivy league” pedigree but I kept thinking “thank God”.  I’m really tired of the attitude the Democrats have taken against these two strong women, Sarah and Hillary.  I found Sarah to be a breath of fresh air, someone that seemed willing to tell it like it is and not cater to certain groups of people, like wealthy Republicans!  I listened intently to her speeches and found them to be more against corruption than anything else.  This was something I grew to admire as I think there is much corruption in government that leads to government waste.  I even admired the way she held her baby in one hand and managed campaigning with phone calls and all with the other hand.  Fast forward to the Republican convention and this electrifying speech:

I liked what I heard and I was totally annoyed with the Obama team anyway.  I continued to like and to be drawn to Sarah, even after the election.  I continued to follow her and even bought her book, Going Rogue.  I enjoyed the book until I got to the all powerful, all important, Ronald Reagan, section.  I couldn’t believe this woman that I had admired could herself so admire Ronald Reagan.  I kept thinking this must be for her base, you know those crazy Republicans!  I still liked Sarah’s take charge attitude and her willingness to remain a fairly “normal” person.  I could even over look many of her faults and found her interesting even though many of her ideas were diametrically opposite my own.

Recently, I have had to give up on Sarah.  It seems the Sarah that I was drawn to has disappeared and been replaced with a new Sarah.   The new Sarah is more about making her own money than helping others make and keep theirs.  The new Sarah is making crazy statements at Tea Party events that I find terribly troubling.  We live in a violent society.  People that are seemingly at their wit’s end because of the economy or whatever else is ailing them don’t need someone encouraging them to act out with violent actions.  Sarah can say that her words mean something else but most of us see that as just more political double speak.  Words do have meaning and saying things can have an effect on people at their most vulnerable times.  The new Sarah has embraced the most right wing of the Republican Party.  It is unfortunate that the Republican Party has encouraged her behavior because it’s good for their business.  They like the money she can bring in at these events.  They are banking on these Tea Party people voting for them.  Many of those Tea Party people will probably vote Republican but it isn’t because they liked GW and how he spent money.  They are banking on the Republicans becoming more conservative with their money.  However, it defies logic how anyone can view these Republicans as being fiscally responsible.  They bank rolled these two wars on the future taxes of our youngsters.  They’re good at spending money on war and pretty much nothing else.  Sarah speaks with that same old rhetoric when she talks about our soldiers.  She creates this picture of such noble, greatness when the truth is neither of these current wars could possibly be described as being noble or great.  The soldiers are doing their job and sometimes their job requires extreme bravery.  This is noble.  They sacrifice much but the Republicans that put them there are anything but noble.  They would send anyone’s child to war but not their own.  Of course there are exceptions to this.  We know that both Sarah Palin and John McCain have children in the military and are willing to send them off to fight but there are many that had better things to do with their time as Vice President Cheney claimed during the Vietnam War.

I am deeply troubled with the antics of the new Sarah.  I can’t embrace the verbal assault that she continues to make about the Obama administration and the federal government in general.  I want a solution driven Sarah, one with ideas, not violent tinged rhetoric.  As far as the Obama administration goes they have yet to earn my trust.  However, it would be foolish for any American to want them to fail in any way.  We are at the center of a storm.  We must work together creatively for a solution to the problems we face.  Democrats and Republicans should be working together for the common good of our nation.  The economy is in dire straits.  While some of the losses have been recouped from the stock market crash of 2008, much of that wealth has not spread to the little guy.  Sarah has much new found wealth but I fear with her wealth she has lost touch with the rest of us.  I can see that President Obama may be trying to make some changes to the banking industry.  I see this as a plus.  The verdict is still out on his administration but it is still far superior to the Bush years.  Those years have left our nation in a world of hurt.  For anyone to want to revisit those years they would have to be insane!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp89-6_7Zsk

The two parties missed a great opportunity to help our nation during the health care debate.  Instead of real reform we ended up with some washed down version.  People and businesses would have all been better off if this reform had included a single payer option.  The cost of insurance is just mind boggling and I don’t see this changing with this watered down plan.  Sarah was against all of this.  On a personal basis it should be noted that her children and Todd already have health care because they are Native Americans.  Sarah doesn’t have to worry about health care for her children.  Unfortunately, most Tea Party people don’t know this information about Sarah.  When Sarah talks about death panels she omits the death panel that visited my sister that didn’t have health insurance.  My sister had her own death panel when her doctor made it very clear that she wasn’t “worth” much to him.  She didn’t have the true care that she deserved because she didn’t have insurance.  When my sister had insurance she doctored.  When she didn’t, she avoided going because it cost too much.  When she finally was forced to go it was late in her cancer, treatment was expensive and that in itself was a death panel!

I’m no longer looking to politicians for anything insightful.  I thought John Edwards was insightful but he was so busy screwing up his own life that he lost track of that insight.  He was a common man that I thought really cared about me.  John changed.  Sarah had something special.  She had a way of communicating to the common people that made us want to believe that she is one of us and that she cared about us.  She has lost all of this appeal.  She no longer interests me.  She has grown up into a full fledged millionaire that just doesn’t care about us little guys.  The Tea Party people need to figure this out.  Ronald Reagan was never one of us like so many tried to convince us.  George Bush wasn’t one of us either.  These politicians were wealthy people that were powerful and made to look common but were not common.  Sarah was common and powerful now she is wealthy and powerful but she doesn’t really speak the truth of the common person any more.  It is more Republican rhetoric and talking points.  Her power holds no truth and it is dangerous to have power and no truth!

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The Stepford Wives and Women Today

  • Posted on April 6, 2010 at 11:16 am

The Stepford Wives Movie With Katherine Ross and Peter Masterson.

For three bucks I purchased the original “Stepford Wives” movie from BigLots.  I had never seen that movie even though it came out in the seventies.  The remade version with Nicole Kidman in my opinion is just about awful!  I always loved Katherine Ross because I thought she was so beautiful so I decided to watch it.  It was interesting watching the old cars and the way people dressed in the seventies but some things stay the same, like the beautiful wife married to the balding, not so great looking, guy.  The movie is largely a statement about the threat women’s liberation is to men and their egos.  In the original movie we don’t end up with a satisfying ending.  In fact we are terrorized in the final thirty minutes of the movie when we realize what’s really happening.  I could feel the terror and confusion that Katherine’s character felt when she was trying to figure out what was happening in the village of Stepford.  Why were these wonderful, engaging, thinking, talented women suddenly turning into robotic images of themselves?  She was in fear of losing herself.  Just as all women secretly fear losing their identity when they marry a man and take his name.  In fact many women today keep their maiden names so they can hold on to their own identity whether it is for work purposes or to continue their heritage.  In the movie the men have formed a club, a club of men that work to make their lives perfect.  Perfect means a wife that is more like a robot than a human, a wife that will think you are a great lover, even if you aren’t, and one that will build you up and make you feel like you are the most important person in the world and can also cook.  The movie assaults men by making them appear to care only about the outward appearance of their women and nothing else.  The men were faced with a decision to rid themselves of their “nagging” wives by “creating” a better model of the imperfect one, one with larger breasts who could dolt after her husband and never challenge him in any way possible.

I used to think we have come along way baby, much like the Virginia Slims commercial from decades ago but now I feel that women have taken a huge step backwards.  It was brought home in the 2008 election when both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were treated with such disrespect by the media, bloggers and even other candidates.  We all remember hearing about Hillary’s “cankles” and Sarah’s beauty was served up to destroy her credibility.  I thought we were living back in the fifties with the attitude toward these two women in politics.  I realize now that given the decades between the Stepford Wives and today nothing has really evolved all that much.  Men are still pigs as witnessed by the behavior of the Tiger, Jesse and Johns of the world.  Women are still trying to please their “man” as witnessed by the women who choose to get involved with these characters.  Most were probably opportunists that used their bodies to get what they thought they wanted, fame, fortune or whatever they were seeking but none of them were looking for self-respect which is foreign all of them.

As a young woman I never wanted to be “dependent” on a man.  I don’t know if it is because I have ten brothers or what.  I just knew that I wanted my own identity.  As an older woman I don’t care one way or the other but I am “man-less”.  I am a divorced woman of many years and I have never been interested in any real relationship since.  In fact I never put myself in situations where I could develop another relationship.  That in itself is probably strange for most people to understand.  However, I do have a strong sense of who I am as a person and what I’m willing to put up with.  In the Stepford Wives movie women with a strong sense of self were eventually beaten by the man and their identities and lives were brutally destroyed.  In real life today women are still putting up with men who don’t appreciate who they really are.  Women are still buying every product they can to please their man whether it be some beauty product, fancy negligees or even implants.  While women do everything they can to attract their man and keep him men continue to think the world revolves around them.  They have been told by their mothers that they are perfect and many of them believe it.  They can be bald, fat, and ugly but women will still appreciate them.  Women on the other hand better stay as they were in their twenties and thirties or they may risk losing their man to the younger version of themselves.

I don’t think women need to be more like men.  I just think it’s time that both sexes were honest with each other about what they need.  Men need to listen to their mates and really appreciate them and women need to see men as more than a paycheck.  Men control the world but need to let women have more involvement in the process.  The world would be a better place if we could use both sides of our brains.  Depending on men for everything only utilizes half of our potential as a race.  If we want peace in this world then we should try putting women of substance in powerful positions.  If we want equality then we should treat each other with respect.  If men love their daughters they should push for equality of the sexes and equality doesn’t mean a woman can choose which implant to get or what dinner to cook.  Equality means making decisions on your own without being pushed into situations you really don’t want to be in.  Equality means not being discriminated against because you are female.  Equality means you will be respected because you are human not because you are a man or a woman.

The Stepford Wives never knew what was happening until it was too late to change the inevitable.  People today, both men and women, can stop this disrespect of women by not feeding the frenzy pushed by the media and not buying into every gadget that is supposed to bring you fulfillment in finding a mate.  Equality will come when we have self respect.  This is not equality.  http://www.pressherald.com/news/Women-march-topless-in-Portland-without-incident.html While women might think acting like a man will get them what they want; it doesn’t.

Source: Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer The Portland Press Herald

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Women in Politics and What’s in the Fridge?

  • Posted on March 6, 2010 at 2:22 pm

How to Keep People From Stealing Your Food at Work

I was having lunch with a couple teachers in the teacher work room.  Another male teacher walked in took bottled water out of a bag in the bottom of the fridge and said, “I guess it’s unclaimed, so I claim it.”  This made me think about the differences between men and women.  There was another female teacher there and I said to her, “You would never take anything out of the fridge that didn’t belong to you, right?”  She said, “Of course not.”  So the other male teachers in the room pointed out that if something has been in there a long time and it’s unused, they would all eat it.  I told them, “So that’s why I was losing my bottled water a couple years ago.  I now drink it at room temperature and keep in my office.”  What this discussion meant for me was there is a vast difference between men and women and what they think about their place in the world.

The men felt entitled to take whatever was in the fridge as long as it had been unclaimed for awhile.  It almost sounded like they look in the fridge daily and make a mental note of what’s been in there for awhile.  Women on the other hand would never take somebody else’s food for several reasons.  One, they think it’s stealing.  They know it doesn’t belong to them and they don’t feel “entitled” to it.  Two, they don’t know what’s in it, who has touched it or how old it is and finally there is that whole germ phobia thing!

All of this made me think about men, women, politics and living.  Living with ten brothers I know the women in our family took second place at best.  The men always came first in everything.  When my oldest brother brought his future wife home she couldn’t believe all of the baked goods my mom had laid out on the counter tops.  She wondered what they were all for.  She thought maybe a bake sale or something.  By the end of the night she knew it was for all those boys.  They ate until the cows came home, all kinds of pies, bread, kolaches, all of it was gone.  My mother was a saint cooking for them.  When the boys were young we lived on a farm and they worked out in the barn.  My older sisters worked in the house trying to keep it clean with all those boys.  One day my parents were gone and my older sister Colleen was in charge.  She had just washed the kitchen floor and Paul, who was younger than my sister came in with his dirty boots from the barn.  She told him not to walk on her drying kitchen floor as she had just mopped it.  He ignored her as men are apt to do and walked on it any way.  Colleen took a broom and cracked him on the head with it.  I think she thought that was the only way to knock some sense into him.  I think the broom broke but that defiance that my brother showed came out in many ways from the males in our household.  One of the boys was five, who will remain nameless to protect him from adult embarrassment, just in case he finds this blog, was too lazy to go inside to take off all of his snow equipment; you know the old snow suit, etc.  So, he would soil his pants so his older sisters would have to clean him up when he came in from playing.  Luckily for me I was the youngest in the family.  He also had the nerve to tell mom that he would kick in the china hutch glass if he couldn’t have his way.  He didn’t get his way and the glass was gone.  None of us girls would ever have acted that way.  Now plenty of those ten boys would never have done that either but it’s interesting that some boys grow into men that feel “entitled” to certain things that don’t necessarily belong to them.

My brothers as youngsters and even as adults have never shown great respect for their sisters.  I don’t know why.  I just know that I have been disrespected in many ways by them over the years, not all of them, but a lot of them.  I don’t think they are so different from most men.  Some men from a younger generation that are growing up today may be different.  They help out in the house and all of that but from my stand point I still see them as thinking certain things can belong to them after a certain amount of time.  You know if it’s unclaimed or something.  I think when boys are young the whole world revolves around them and they grow up thinking that the world is their oyster for them to pluck whatever they want from it.  Women on the other hand are usually brought up to nurture.  We don’t think about our needs like most men do so it affects our choices.  The effect of all of this is that women do not feel that they are entitled to anything that they don’t work for themselves.

If you think back to the 2008 election many of us saw the bullying of both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin.  Both of these women seem to make men a little bit crazy.  I can’t quite figure out why.  Even though their basic politics are different, they are both strong women that carry themselves in a confident way.  They both are competent politicians that have proven records of that competency whether you agree with them or not.  So why were they able to be bullied by the press and the other politicians?  Why in this age was this allowed?  I’m still scratching my head over it but I have a better understanding after the male teachers were able to take what they wanted from the fridge and justify doing so.

I think that male politicians will take what they want from the election because they feel entitled to it.  Who is this woman, you know Hillary or Sarah, who so daringly tried to take what rightfully, belongs to them?  She’s just a woman.  Men know the difference because they have been entitled all of their lives.  When Hillary Clinton thought she could run for the office of the president she didn’t count on the male “club” of senators and congressmen that secretly went to Barack to get him to run.  She wasn’t part of that male club so no matter what kind of networking she was used to she could not possibly be part of that club.  The club allowed a few women in only because they could “control” them.  One that comes to mind is Claire McCaskill who openly admitted to supporting Barack because her teenage children wanted her to do so.  I remember my teenage son wanting me to do a lot of stuff, you know because everyone else is doing it.  I was a real spoil sport as a parent!  This boy’s “club” used their powerful influence to make Barack president.  They didn’t want a woman and they surely didn’t want Hillary Clinton.  They allowed Barack Obama and his cohorts to treat Hillary with much disrespect by using everything from music to racism.  Nobody screamed, “Foul!”  On the other hand Barack could do anything he wanted from playing foul music about “bitches”; you know that was secretly Hillary, to hanging out with Reverend Wright to having Bill Ayers host his first fund raiser for getting into politics.  Nobody cared because “boys will be boys”.  That attitude has let many men stay in politics when women can’t even get their shoe through the door.

After the primary and Sarah Palin was brought on the scene much energy was spent trying destroy her character.  Men were scared of this woman that could draw crowds bigger than Obama.  She was made into a cartoon figure.  Men acted like they would like sleeping with her but wouldn’t want to have her as Vice President.  She was totally disrespected by the media and the other male politicians and even the people John McCain supplied on her staff.  Is there any wonder why more women aren’t in this dirty game of politics?  Personally, I think our country is sick of the same old politicians and maybe it’s time to get some women in that don’t necessarily feel like they are entitled to everything they see.  Maybe more women of the caliber of Hillary and Sarah would think twice about spending my money because they wouldn’t feel entitled to it.  I’m just thinking out loud here.  The men have been running the show for years whether they be Democrats or Republicans and frankly I don’t think they’re doing all that well.  I would love to see more women in politics.  I know they will think twice before they get us into some stupid war and they’ll think twice before they send my kid to war or your kid to war.  They will also think twice before they waste my money on some stupid program that some lobbyist dreamed up.  They will do this because they don’t feel entitled to anything they see in the fridge.  No, women will think twice before they grab anything free out of our fridge.  That’s the kind of person I want to see in politics!

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The Angry Sting of Political Manipulation

  • Posted on February 15, 2010 at 1:22 pm

Do they represent us to the best of their ability?

I’m sitting here on this cold February President’s Day thinking about the past decade and of course politics.  I have come to the conclusion that I, like all Americans, have been manipulated by politicians, the government, media monsters and of course the corporations that control them.

It wasn’t that long ago I was a “Yellow Dog Democrat”.  You know that democrat that would vote for a yellow dog before she would vote for a Republican.  Even saying the word republican could cause me to go into convulsions of disgust.  Well, that hasn’t really changed but I find myself having the same feelings when I say Democrat.  I wonder deeply what has happened to my beloved party, the Democratic, big “D”, party.  How did we get from FDR to Kennedy to the current cast of characters including Obama?  I was a child of the sixties.  I remember sitting in my third grade classroom when we were told the president had been shot.  I remember the grief and sadness.  It’s one of those memories that will never leave me.  Everyone that was old enough to remember will remember what they were doing when they found out about Kennedy.  It was a life changing moment for our country.  We probably haven’t ever truly recovered from that loss.  We have wallowed in the consumption of conspiracy theories about his death only to have fuel added to the fire because everything is sealed.  It’s all too awful for us little people to comprehend.  Only those in power have the ability to understand what truly happened.  LBJ was probably a great warrior but the Vietnam War was the legacy most will remember.  While he signed the legislation for the “Great Society” and marshaled us through the civil rights movement, he will best be remembered for the horrors of the Vietnam War and its escalation and his inability to conclude it with positive results.  I don’t know if this was the end of the Democratic era or what but something happened over the course of the past many years that has ultimately destroyed the Democratic Party and my trust of it.

When I was in high school in the early seventies I was a political junkie fueled by my huge family’s constant discussion of all things political.  My parents were strong democrats and of course Nixon, or “Tricky Dick”, was in office.   Just the name “Tricky Dick”, tells how much he was respected at our house.  Nixon led the way for the first truly non Democrat, Democrat president to be elected.  Of course I speak of President Carter.  I spent many years defending Carter but now I find him pretty indefensible.  Would anyone out there believe that it was Carter that started taxing unemployment benefits?  Of course it became fully taxed in 1987 but who would think this would start under a Democratic president?  Well, it did.  That kind of sounds like a republican plan, doesn’t it?  Carter was a “moral” president, a seemingly very religious guy that wouldn’t even serve booze at the White House.  Well, he did serve wine but any Irish Democrat, like me, should have found that to be a distrustful thing to begin with.  It was a way of controlling other people and their behavior.  It was also a continuation of Democrats having to be southern and white to be president.  It seems Democrats couldn’t carry the south without it.  Those Democrats from the south tend to be a bit more conservative than their more liberal, northern cousins.  I gave Carter a “buy” all of these years for his inability to govern this country.  During the Carter years Michigan was devastated.  In fact it was during this time that many people left Michigan for greener pastures or at least a job in another state.  Our current situation in Michigan isn’t really much different than the late seventies and early eighties, which is another story for another day.  Well, I survived Carter and voted for Mondale but of course we all know that the supreme leader, Reagan, was elected.  Please note the sarcasm in my voice.  Republicans want us to believe that Ronald Reagan was the greatest president that ever lived.  I, of course, remember him for being a union busting freak.  We all remember the plight of the air traffic controllers.  He busted them like a twig.  It’s been a downward spiral for unions ever since.  Unfortunately, the propaganda that we have been fed about unions doesn’t help but unions are responsible for many of the work place rights, however small, we have as well as the salaries and protections and benefits that they helped negotiate.  Unions brought up the pay of non union workers as well.

After Reagan’s popularity it seems like the Democratic Party was looking for a Democratic version of Reagan.  Maybe this is why Barack has such an admiration of all things Reagan. Remember how he said Reagan was a transformative president while Clinton wasn’t.  Those were code words to get the old turncoat Democrats that had voted for Reagan and were secretly voting for Republicans to come back and vote for Barack.  After Reagan the Democratic Party put up Michael Dukakis.  He was a decent guy but of course quirky like Dennis Kucinich.  The Republicans were able to reduce him to a cartoon character.  Everyone remembers the helmet he wore, Willie Horton and of course the ridiculous question about if his wife had been raped.  He was quirky and nerdy which is not popular.  I remember he even mowed his own lawn with a push mower.  That wasn’t going to get the macho, white man’s vote.  I did my best to canvas the highly Republican town of Empire, Michigan with Dukakis literature.  However, with no measurable results as Leelanau county went for Reagan.  My heart was still in it.  I was still keeping my beliefs in the Democratic Party.  Those horrible Republicans, however, were still in office!  I suffered through those Bush years when my pottery sales started taking a hit.  Under Reagan there were many wealthy consumers out buying art at the art shows.  They didn’t mind spending a hundred bucks or more on a piece of pottery.  There were still many poor people but there was a group of young buyers that I was happy to see at the art shows spending big bucks.  Under Bush all of that changed.  People wanted the same pottery for less money.  Every artist had to adjust their prices if they were going to sell art.

The nineties gave us Clinton.  Now I love Bill but let’s be real, he really wasn’t and isn’t a big “D” Democrat.  If he was he wouldn’t have sold out the unions and everybody else with NAFTA.  He also wouldn’t have made all of the heartless cuts to welfare.  Business was booming during those dot com years that probably gave people a false sense of reality because for the “little guy” there really wasn’t a boom.  They actually just survived and got by which leads us up to the Bush years of gloom and doom and more war.  The problems Clinton had in office probably hurt Gore’s election but of course Gore hurt Gore as well.  We were all manipulated by the fake outrage about the Monica Lewinsky affair.  All of those Republicans and even Democrats, like Lieberman, were oh so disgusted with Clinton.  Well, of course today we are finding out that many of them have their own little skeletons in the closet.  They only are let out of the closet when we, the people, need to be controlled.  This is all part of the many ways we are manipulated.  We all have the fresh sting of the Bush years in our rear view mirror, where if you are a Democrat, you will always feel the elections, both of them, were stolen!  I learned to believe that Republicans steal elections.  Now, I know those Republicans think that Democrats steal elections because they always go back to the Kennedy, Nixon election and Chicago politics and vote counting.

Ok, so I survived those Bush years and was really excited about the 2008 election.  I thought the Democrats had a real chance to do something big and of course get us out of these wars which I have never believed in.  I believed in a candidate who has since become the symbol for “Worse Husband of the Year Award”.   I was deeply devoted to the candidacy of John Edwards.  I gave over five hundred bucks to his campaign.  Anyone that knows me will know that for me to give money to campaign, I have to be a true believer.  It was the message that I believed in which has now been killed because the messenger was imperfect.  I blame the Democratic Party for much of what happened in this past election.  They wanted Barack Obama and they manipulated all of us Big D Democrats to get what they wanted.  They knew all about John’s problems and probably know about current secrets of people in power.  They needed John to get Obama through Iowa.  If John hadn’t been in the primary, Clinton would have probably won the election.  Those of us in the “know”, know she had more votes in the primary any way.  It was those pesky super delegates and the way they divvied out votes in Michigan and Florida that hurt her.  After John got out I went to see Clinton in Southbend.  I loved her and would definitely have voted for her even though there were things I disliked about her husband’s presidency.  John and the other good boys including Obama staged a “coups” in the Michigan primary.  They knew what they were doing when they removed their names from the ballot.  They set everything up for May 31st, 2008 when my vote for John was confiscated and some votes also taken from Clinton and given to Barack Obama, a man I would never vote for because of his stance on merit pay for teachers.  That’s union busting talk for anyone that understands the lingo.  On that day my blinders were torn off and I saw the Democratic Party for the down and dirty dog it is, a shill for the corporations just like the Republican Party.  They aren’t “Blue Dog Democrats” or even “Yellow Dog Democrats”.  They are pit bulls for the corporations.  How long we have been manipulated, I’m not sure.  I know that we, the people, haven’t been represented for our own best interests, whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican, for many, many years.  I’m angry about being manipulated as I well should be but I can’t understand why more people aren’t fed up with this systematic manipulation of our vote and even our thought process.   The Democratic Party with Barack Obama can’t seem to get anything done.  It’s just a game folks as the stock market is fine with how things are going.  The wars that so many thought a Democrat would pull out of continue and business is the same as it has been.  Stimulus money is going to China and no one is outraged.  It’s just business as usual. A billboard of GW shows up in Minnesota asking if we miss him yet.  I say, “How can we miss him?  He’s still in office!”   For all the “hope and change” that Barack Obama said he would bring to Washington D.C. it is amazing how nothing has really changed.  The only thing that continues is the constant manipulation of the American people.  We hear about Sarah Palin writing on her hand and Robert Gibbs, Obama’s press secretary, yucks it up with the press about it.  More manipulation as we are told she is soooooo stupid.  I sit here unable to be manipulated and controlled any more by these two parties that are shills for the corporations.  I don’t care two twits about Sarah Palin writing on her hand.  She isn’t in office.  She doesn’t control my taxes, job and everything else in my life.  The government does.  I’m angry that Gibbs wastes time on such frivolous matters when there is so much unemployment, under employment and people hanging onto their jobs by the seat of their pants!  I’m angry about all of the political manipulation of my mind and most of all, my vote.  Do I really care who these guys are sleeping with?  You know that’s what done in John Edwards.  If I cared, I would probably have to hate FDR as we all know about his love life.  Today some woman is selling love letters from JFK!  Do I really care who he slept with or do I care about how he governed?  We all know that Jefferson slept with his slave, Sally Hemmings, who happened to be born from the slave of his wife’s father, and today we respect Jefferson as a great man.  I read that she may have been the half sister of his wife.  Of course his wife was dead when he took her to bed but come on we see Jefferson as one of the great founding fathers of our country.

The Democratic Party continues their manipulation with the sick portrayal of the TEA Party, Taxed Enough Already Party.  You know they didn’t refer to themselves as “tea baggers”.  I first heard that on MSNBC.  It was another form of manipulation.  Of course, I didn’t know what “that” meant until I googled it.  I couldn’t believe the media would be so distasteful.  I remember a lot of it coming from the likes of Chuck Todd and his cohorts.  As far as I am concerned people have a right to protest our government if they don’t feel they are being properly represented.  I know Michigan is not getting the representation that they need in Washington D.C.  We’ve been hurting for years and nobody seems to care.  They’re too busy working on their next election and finding ways to manipulate the masses into believing they are actually doing something constructive for the people.   The two parties, Republican and Democratic both work hard to manipulate the masses into going along with the current plan.  When Bush was in office we were manipulated by that phrase Bush used, “You’re either with us or against us!”  Today we are manipulated by the Obama administration with race.  If we don’t like the Obama way or policies we are automatically branded a “racist”.  Now nobody really wants to be labeled a racist.  For me all of this just makes me angrier and angrier because my party has let me down and through the corporations my country has been hijacked by these two ineffective, shills for the corporations, parties.  Corporations, as noted by the Supreme Court, have more rights than I do.  If you aren’t angry about this manipulation, like me, you should be!

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