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The End of Summer Vacation

  • Posted on August 31, 2011 at 12:35 pm

Beautiful Duck Lake in Norhtern Michigan

This year has been challenging for me.  In addition to teaching my regular art classes at school, I chose to take some courses so I could move up on the pay scale.  Originally I was going to take my 20 credits over a period of two years.  However, with everything our governor was busy doing in Lansing, I decided to escalate my goal to be completed in one year.  The classes I took were online courses that were actually very involved and demanding of my time and effort.  This summer I took the final two courses, both involved with using technology in the classroom and developing 21st Century literacy skills.  Now that I have finished my original goal, I have some time for reflection before the students start coming into my classroom.  I am really proud of what I accomplished this year.  While I’m glad I was able to get a pay raise, I was actually surprised at what I have taken away from the courses I took.  I know that I am a better teacher today because of them.  I always thought I was a pretty good teacher.  I have always been very dedicated to my profession and to my students.  What I have learned over this past year were some very useful strategies for helping students to become more motivated in the classroom, better classroom management skills, a greater understanding of adolescent student behavior, and ways to develop and integrate 21st Century literacy skills into my art classes.  That sounds like a lot and trust me it was!

I finished my courses on July 18th and since I hadn’t had a moment from the time school was out until then to have any summer at all, I decided to see if I could find a cottage where I could spend a week on a lake just relaxing.  My online search led me to Traverse City Chalet which is a cottage on beautiful Duck Lake near Interlochen and Traverse City.  As the picture reflects, this decision gave me a peaceful summer retreat.  This was just what I needed to get ready for the next school year!  I even managed to spend some time drawing and painting.  I loved it so much I’m going back next summer.  Two of my brothers, Joe and Paul, reside in Leelanau County so I invited them over for a barbeque.  I really didn’t want to leave the lake but I wanted to see them.  My brother, Bob and his wife, Sue, were also visiting Michigan from Alaska.  The dinner party included Joe’s wife Karin and Paul’s ex-wife Bonnie as well.  I am so happy that I got to see everyone as I haven’t been up north in a couple of years.

Given my families love of politics and discussing political issues it didn’t take long before the conversation turned to politics.  What I noticed was the fact that I was surrounded by political conservatives.  I consider myself to be a liberal.  These of course are just words that we attach to ourselves and most people don’t really understand exactly what they mean so I’ll explain what I mean.  My parents were really FDR Democrats.  They were married in 1934 and lived during the Depression and their experiences were shaped in many ways by the Depression.   They were savers and they didn’t waste anything.  My mom and dad were both teachers and my mom was very involved in the union at her school in Kingston, Michigan.  They supported the Reese teachers during their strike.  I can remember going to Reese as a kid!  In my young life both as a Catholic and as a child of my parents, I learned about caring for other people.  So when I say I’m liberal, the policies I’m talking about are policies to help and lift up people so they can become productive citizens.  I believe in helping people that may not be in the best circumstance to be their own advocate.  This doesn’t mean that I think I know what is best for people.  It just means I believe in finding ways to level the playing field.  This can be done mostly through public school education in many ways because the truth is education is the big divider in most countries.  Those that have a good education can usually attain a more successful job and lifestyle than those that don’t.

So I’ll get back to the dinner I shared with my brothers.  What I came away with was how deeply divided politically my family really is.  My brothers grew up with the same teachings I did but we are a world apart in our views.  Bonnie and Sue both like Representative Michelle Bachmann because she is a tax attorney.  I was shocked because in my mind she has said some crazy things.  My brothers are over the top conservative.  Paul even talked about child labor laws and how they are detrimental to the work ethic for young people.  I said the laws are put in place to protect children.  Of course it made me think about the governor in Maine that is working on changing those child labor laws.  This divide that I witnessed at our dinner really seems to be all across our nation.  It isn’t just my family.  It may be your family as well.  The next day my brother Bob came back because he forgot his hat.  We chatted a little longer and I asked him how he could possibly have become so conservative given our parents and our upbringing.  He said he was a Mormon.  Several years ago Bob became a Mormon and that was his response.  I don’t personally know if all Mormons are politically conservative like Bob, but that was his response.  It felt like that was a standard answer.  I didn’t get an in depth response and of course religion choices are always very personal and I don’t think it’s my place to question him about his decisions any more than he should question me on mine.  This dinner party was relaxed and fun and nobody was fighting about politics.  Paul did bring up my hefty donation to John Edwards and made some snide remark about how I helped pay for John’s mistress.  Of course, I told my brothers that I don’t look to politicians of any type for my moral code of ethics and that I still believe in what John Edwards talked about.  He wanted to give a voice to the voiceless, you know the poor!  Of course Paul says John’s a big old phony and that’s the end of that.  Unfortunately, with Edwards being the constant poster child for scummy politicians that voice for the poor is silenced.  On both sides of the political arena politicians have been all too human.  I wouldn’t put any of them on some kind of moral pedestal.  Some of them have even been fairly good presidents though.  Everyone knows about FDR and his mistress or Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.  Bob said FDR was a terrible president.  Bob said he read some books and I could feel hatred from him for FDR.  My parents loved FDR and they lived during the time.  I have to wonder if Bob’s feelings have more to do with the morality issue than the policies.  It doesn’t matter.  Our country is divided.  We can’t even agree on how to teach our kids.

The conversation moved on to education.  I personally think the push for constant testing is crazy.  Of course we have to meet certain standards but there is far too much emphasis on passing “The” test.  I told my brothers that a test isn’t what any of us remember from our days in K-12 education.  We may remember taking the ACT or SAT as those were memorable days because we were getting ready for college.  However, what most of us remember about our schooling is either some teacher that made us feel great or some teacher that made us feel lousy!  The rest is probably not that important to us today.  What is important for students today is still having great relationships with teachers.  Students need teachers that truly care about them, not how they perform on some test, but about them as children.  Teachers have a powerful position.  They can elevate dreams or crush them!  To me the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top are both programs that have forgotten the key element to a quality education.  Money is tied in both of these programs to test scores.  This is ridiculous.  The push towards merit pay is not a true standard for teaching quality.  Ultimately, what will be retained by the students in the end after all the dust settles is whether a teacher cared about them or not.  Those students won’t remember the test as being important to them.  They will remember the teachers that treated them like an individual with a heart and a soul.

Monday and Tuesday of this week we had our first “teacher days” at Sturgis and our open house at Sturgis Middle School.  Of course I was in my room last week unpacking my supplies that were ordered for the coming school year and working on my room getting it ready for the open house.  Last Friday I invited a couple of seventh grade girl students to come in and help me and we had a lot of fun.  We took a break and ran to McDonald’s to get some lunch.  We brought it back to the room and those two girls had me laughing so hard I could hardly stop.  I know they are going to remember that silly day they spent with Ms. Svoboda and I will also remember it.  They felt special and I felt special to have some time alone with these two girls to get to know them even better.

Last night we had our open house.  I came away from that open house knowing how much so many of my students really do love me.  It is a wonderful feeling to know that I am having a positive influence on a child’s life.  I had a girl come back to see me.  I was astounded to realize that she is a senior this year.  I told her I wanted to show her something.  Back when she was at the middle school she gave me a student picture of herself.  I had taped it inside this swivel draw under my desk.  Whenever I open that swivel drawer, I see that picture and think of her.  I know she was blown away that I really do remember her and care about her.  She told me she is going to bring me a senior picture.  The point I’m trying to make is when these students are treated special by their teachers, they will remember those teachers.  I love teaching and I love middle school students, even the ones that on occasion drive me crazy!  I know they can have bad days but I also know that if I can reach them and develop a positive relationship they can accomplish great things.

I ended the night an hour after open house because I had a long conversation with a parent and a child that I really care about.  I gave them what I felt was some good advice so that this child will hopefully have greater success in her other classes this year.  As they were walking out the door the little girl had to come back to give me a hug!  I know she knows I care about her.  The point I’m trying to get at is not how wonderful I am but at how important it is for all of us teachers to remember that what is most important in our students’ lives today is not some test, but is still the relationship you create as a teacher.  As a teacher, I feel I wear many hats.  I have to teach, sometimes be a parent, sometimes a friend, and sometimes a counselor.  I have to know how to get a student back on track when their having a bad day, or had a fight with a friend, or seemingly doesn’t care about anything.  Anyone that thinks being a great math, science, art, music or any other type of teacher can be scored by a single test a student takes is just plain stupid!  The true measure of a teacher has more to do with what they have in their heart and their capacity to be persistent and patient and loving with the children they mentor and teach.  I don’t know exactly how this can be measured but I do know that when you can see it in action, you can recognize it!  Great teachers are those teachers we all remember in a positive way.  We hold them in our hearts and remember how special we felt because of them.  I have two teachers that I remember the most.  One gave me a briefcase for my books when I was moving away.  I was in second grade.  The other was a teacher that I remember paddling a boy almost daily when I was in fourth grade.  I know which one I have always aspired to be like.

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DINOS, RINOS, and the Two Party System

  • Posted on July 22, 2011 at 2:08 pm

I have been wondering what happened with Cenk on MSNBC.  I noticed that Al Sharpton was working during his time slot.  I thought Cenk was on vacation but since I haven’t been really watching much of MSNBC this summer, I didn’t really know what was going on until I came across this video today.  http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/cenk-uygur-explains-his-departure-msnbc

I’m not writing about Cenk being canned at MSNBC.  I’m more concerned about something he said in his video.  Like many people that think like I do, he states in the video that President Obama is a Republican.  I’ve been saying this for a long time.  However, what really got me was that he basically said he knew this because he was once a Republican himself.

The Democratic Party was infiltrated by these Republicans, probably because they lost their own home in their own changing party.  As the Republican Party moved more right, so did the Democratic Party because of the shift of these people from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.  I always have found it strange that people like Ariana Huffington and Markos Moulitsas were speaking for my party.  They both were Republicans before they were Democrats.  I could never understand how this happened in “my” party.  Who would have ever thought that both Governor Perry from Texas and Representative Bachmann from Minnesota were once Democrats?

Yesterday I read something over on Hullabaloo that just made me angry.  http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/donkey-in-room.html

Now I want to disclose here that I haven’t really associated myself with the Democratic Party since they stole my vote during the 2008 primary.  I consider myself to be an FDR democrat.  In fact I passed out flyers for Michael Dukakis long ago.  So when I say, “We Democrats!” this is what I mean.  It seems that we Democrats, are supposed to keep carrying water for President Obama because he’s the best we’ve got.  I never got on that ship to begin with, so when it’s sinking it’s not my job to bail out that water.  If President Obama wants to get my vote, he needs to stop modeling himself after GW and start reading books about FDR, protect the programs FDR helped create, and get us out of these wars.  In the article that I mentioned here, there was much talk about “progressives”.  I just want to state right now that I have come to hate that word.  It’s bullshit really.  In my own life, I consider myself to be liberal in my politics.  That word has been so libeled by the media that people are afraid to admit their liberal.  I think of liberal as being “mind expanding, open minded”, and not closed off to new ideas.  Essentially, I am liberal because I believe in letting people make their own choices in life.  While I am rather conservative in my social values, I believe that everyone needs to be treated with respect and that includes respecting their choices.  I personally don’t believe who people are sleeping with, or their religious choices or non choices needs to be a part of politics.  This is why I can still be deeply disappointed with what John Edwards did to his family but still understand the politics when he said he wanted to be a voice for the voiceless.  I am not moved by the scandal story of the day that is probably put out there at some opportune time to get rid of certain politicians that aren’t quite “falling in line”, much like Cenk at MSNBC.

My politics speak more about social justice than anything else.  I find it, yes, morally offensive, when my government decides it is more important to feed and clothe the wealthy than to take care of the least of its people.  I know that sounds rather religious in tone but truthfully it is about being human and compassionate.  How can a real human walk by and ignore suffering that they see?  Too many times I’ve heard conservatives use those words, “They should just pick themselves up by their bootstraps.”  The problem is what if they have no boots, little education, and no hope?  When we can provide all three, a pair of boots, education, and hope, we should do it.  In the end, everyone will be better off because that person will become a productive member of society who could potentially be the next person to give a hand to someone else.

A few weeks ago, I saw part of an old movie, Spencer’s Mountain, with Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara.  The movie is about a family.  The dad is a miner and he comes from a family of miners.  His oldest boy is the top in his class and the family realizes that this is an opportunity for their son to create a better life for himself and potentially the rest of the children by going to college.   Yes, I know you can remember the show, “The Walton’s”.  In Spencer’s Mountain the father’s dream was to build some grand home for his wife and family.  However, he eventually gives up that dream for the real dream which is his family, and helping them have a better life.  Here is the most important part to the movie and it is the point I want to make here.

As a person who really has the heart of the real Democratic Party in her soul and is not some come to the party lately person, I think our country should be helping those at the bottom elevate so they can have dreams too.  I’m not talking about letting people sit and do nothing.  I’m talking about helping people get a good education, find a good job, and fulfill their dreams and even help them get dreams.  As an educator, I think we must fund quality education for all.  Job creation should not be a problem.  There are plenty of things that need to be done in this country.  Instead of building roads and bridges in Afghanistan, we could be building and fixing them here.  We have an infrastructure that is failing from our road system, to our electrical grid, to even some of the old schools that need to be updated.  There is plenty to do here.  Some of our big cities look like war torn zones.  We could go in and fix these as well.  We should be thinking about the future.  What is going to draw business to your state or my state?  It seems to me that as a government we aren’t doing much here in our own country which is leading to not only a failing economy but also a failing of our people.

We should all be frightened by these two current parties!

My sister and I were talking last night and we both felt that the American people weren’t worried about some terrorist coming in the night and yet the American people are being terrorized by high unemployment, high prices for everything from gas to food, and now the latest threat, losing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  The terrorist in our lives happens to be our inept government!  The politicians have all swung so far right that they have lost touch with the American people.  I live in a Republican community and I have to say on any given day when I really talk with my Republican friends they aren’t that far away from my own thinking.  It seems that most of us want to be able to raise our children in peace and know that there is a good future waiting for them when they become adults.  That is the American dream!  We may have different ways and ideas about reaching that dream, but truthfully that American Dream is being threatened by a two party system that essentially has turned into a one party system.  Our government has swung so far to the right that they have forgotten that most of the American people are more concerned about their own personal families than anything else.  For years we were threatened with the” imminent” attack that awaited us from Osama Bin Laden.  I can remember many police sessions at my school where I was informed that it was an ideal place for a terrorist to show up because it was so unexpected.  We have been prodded like cattle to get on a plane or attend a political rally and we have given up the very freedoms that we proclaim to love so much.  Now, in addition to those freedoms, we are expected to give up those standards of American life, like Social Security, that we have paid into for all of our lives, to once again, stave off terrorism.  We have to pay for all of the things that we cherish like more money for defense, more money for homeland security, more money for politicians to run their offices, less money for education, less money for the arts, less money for Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.  Yes, for those of you that don’t understand sarcasm, I am being facetious here.  The politicians from both parties are telling us if you want to feel safe at night, this is what we have to do now.  I’m not buying it.  If this were all true they shouldn’t have taken 2% out of my payroll taxes and kept the Bush tax cuts in place last December.  Once again we are being sold a bill of goods.  While it appears that the two parties are so far apart that they are at an impasse, don’t buy it.  Something will happen and they will get a plan.  Unfortunately, it will not favor the majority of the American people.  We will once again be told that we all must share in this “sacrifice” when the only ones doing the sharing will be you and me.  I don’t have the answers but I know our two party system is broken.  We need to get rid of both of these pathetic parties and get fresh people in Washington that are not bought and paid for, that care more about the promise of America than the promise of their next election.  We have been told for years that we are stuck with the two party system but we have to change this government.  We need people in office that are not loyal to either party but loyal to the American people.  I cannot understand anyone in a party that would sign an oath to a person such as Grover Norquist.  The only oath they should be taking is one to the American people.

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Governors Gone Wild…..or is it ROUGUE?

  • Posted on April 2, 2011 at 3:38 pm

Labor Panel 7-9 which depicts Frances Perkins and the artist's parents.

It seems like every day some strange new occurrence is happening with Republican governors these days.  As an art teacher I find the latest happenings in Maine to be an insult to history and art.  In Maine a call went out to artists to depict the history of labor in the state of Maine for a mural to be put up in the Department of Labor building.  Judy Taylor won the commission.  She spent a year studying Maine labor history and creating the mural.  A fact most people probably don’t really know is that Frances Perkins is the first woman labor secretary.  She worked with FDR and many of the programs that we all know about today like Social Security, unemployment insurance, and child labor laws developed under FDR because of Frances pushing for them.  Now what does Frances have to do with Maine you ask?  She was born in Boston but her family came from Maine and that is where she really felt her home was.  The Perkins family has a long history in Maine.

Governor LePage decided that the mural, which depicts the history of labor and working people in Maine, had to go because it just wasn’t business friendly.  He had a complaint about the mural and so, it just had to go.  Even though the artist was commissioned to do the work and there wasn’t a problem prior to LePage being elected as governor, it had to go!  Judy Taylor is the artist.  I’ve decided she MUST be a subversive!  She must have secretly painted images to create propaganda and to control the minds of the people.  It must have been the images she used of her mother and father that put the governor over the top.  They were both depicted in the Frances Perkins panel.  She must be a SOCIALIST for depicting such a painting.  Okay, I’m laughing while I’m writing this.  I’m just so surprised that someone with the intellect of Governor LePage is actually running a state.  You can see the mural at Judy’s website.  See for yourself what has Governor LePage so distraught that he felt the need to CENSOR the artwork.  I’m sorry.  The word censor might mean he covered certain parts but no, he removed the entire piece.  No part of it was worthy of human, visual consumption in the state of Maine.  It has been put in storage and maybe it will be put on display somewhere else in Maine or maybe it won’t!

http://www.judytaylorstudio.com/mural1.html

Judy Taylor, the Artist

Here is Judy Taylor’s statement about what has happened in Maine.

Judy Taylor: Statement concerning the Maine Labor Mural March 30, 2011 As the artist who created the mural, people ask me how I feel about what’s

happening and what I would like to see done. Like many of the people of

Maine, I want to see the mural displayed publicly as it was originally

intended. I want people to see it and connect to Maine’s labor history. The

purpose of the mural is historical, the artistic intent to honor. It belongs

to the people of Maine and needs to be accessible to them.

Painting the mural is what I have trained my entire life to do. The theme of

figure and context is what I set out to chronicle in my career as an artist.

In fact, my first painting as a child was of my grandfather on his farm in

Nebraska, in the context of his work and life. I loved seeing my

grandparents work and followed my grandmother all over her farm and rode with

my grandfather as he delivered oil around the state.

I’ve always had a deep curiosity and passion for my family’s history as well

as our nation’s history, so when in 2007 I learned that the Maine Arts

Commissions was requesting submissions for a commissioned piece of artwork

detailing the history of labor in Maine, I immediately entered the

competition.

After a competitive process, I was awarded the commission and commenced upon

a year of research, preparation of archival materials, sketches of stories in

context based on historical fact and painting the panels. I added one

personal piece which was to include my mother and father as I had lost both

of them the previous year. My father is the young Army officer and my mother

the little girl in the Frances Perkins panel. My father served as a Forward

Observer during the Korean War and was awarded a Bronze Star. He was a man

who stood by every word he spoke, every letter he wrote. It was so

heartbreaking to learn that this controversy may have started with an

anonymous letter comparing this mural to a North Korean propaganda poster.

Perhaps we should hang my father’s Bronze Star for his service in Korea in

the now empty reception area of the Maine Department of Labor until the mural

is returned, as a symbol of the importance of remembering our history, and

not shuttering it away.

Robert Reich wrote a great piece on this subject.  I encourage you to read it because no matter what Governor LePage does, he cannot erase history!

http://yubanet.com/opinions/Robert-Reich-Why-Governor-LePage-Can-t-Erase-History-and-Why-We-Need-a-Fighter-in-the-White-House.php

What has become of our country when art is being censored?  Actually, this isn’t the first time art was removed for a controversial reason.  Anyone that is a student of the art of Diego Rivera will know about the mural that he created for Nelson Rockefeller.

http://www.diego-rivera.org/rockefellercontroversy.html

Let’s just hope the Detroit Institute of Arts doesn’t decide Rivera’s Detroit Industry murals to be too controversial for the viewing public to see.

A Panel From Detroit Industry

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103337403

It’s a sorry state I see our country in when governors can go wild with legislation to destroy public unions, limit collective bargaining and remove public art.  In the preamble for our constitution I don’t remember any mention of dictatorship.  It simply says, “We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”  It’s “WE THE PEOPLE” and we have a right to determine how we run our government.  I think it’s time to start recalling these so called “servants of the people” and get true representation.

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Jon Stewart “Must See” TV and Frances Perkins

  • Posted on March 4, 2011 at 9:53 pm

Last night I stayed up late just to watch the Daily show because I knew Diane Ravitch was going to be on the show.  It was too late to stay up but I’m not sorry I watched it.  Jon has a great staff.  They put together all of the important elements in their clips and it is truly “must see” TV.  If you do nothing else tonight, watch Jon Stewart’s whole show.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thu-march-3-2011-diane-ravitch

Diane mentioned Finland because that country has been sited so many times for their world standing in education.  Diane talks about this and also the relation of education test scores to poverty which I have written about here on my post many times before.

It is amazing that teachers have become the “scapegoat” for all that is wrong with education today.

After checking out Jon’s show you might want to get the new book on Frances Perkins.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Perkins

I, like most Americans, don’t know enough about our history.  Frances Perkins was FDR’s labor secretary.  My sister is reading a book about her and it sounds fascinating.  The book is, “The Woman Behind the New Deal” by Kirsten Downey.

If you cannot afford to buy the book, remember you can get it at your local library.  They will even have it shipped in from another library for you.

What is shocking to me is how little I know about this amazing woman.  She was truly a champion for workers’ rights and we all need to learn more about her.  When you think about the fact that a state like Mississippi hasn’t even elected one woman to congress in all of their history, then you read about Frances and “New Deal”, you will be absolutely amazed.  http://womenincongress.house.gov/

We need more women like Frances Perkins in public office today.

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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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