It must be sarcasm

I have been puzzled by the audience response at Republican debates.

I could not understand it when they cheered at the suggestion that if people

got seriously ill and could not afford health care, they should just die.

I could not understand how they could cheer in support of Cain as he

defended his right to sexually harass female employees and made Anita Hill

jokes.

I could not understand how the audience could cheer Gingrich as he accused

the media of being liberal because they didn't ask Occupy Wall Street

distorted questions.

I puzzled over this and finally I had a revelation.
It must be sarcasm! When I think about it this way, it was actually funny.
It is utterly absurd to believe that it is acceptable to allow sick people

to die for lack of health care in the wealthiest nation in the world .
It is utterly absurd to think that using one's financial position over women to

extort sex is anything short of rape.
It is utterly absurd to believe that because people express that

corporations are not people and they need regulation and that over 25% of

the nation's wealth should not be concentrated in 2% of our population, that

they are claiming that businesses should not be allowed to make any profit.

It is even more absurd that people would cheer this. This is very funny

sarcasm. So why is no one laughing?

Republican claims of fiscal responsibilty is yet another lie.

Republican claims of fiscal responsibility is yet another lie.
The reality behind their 5 year plan belies their true objectives.
They propose 6 trillion in cuts to medicare and medicaid, environmental protection, and other programs that assist the poor and middle class. But do not be fooled into believing that this will all go to balance the budget. they plan 4 trillion dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy.

Four trillion dollars in cuts to health care and the environment is solely to enable another 4 trillion dollars of cuts to the wealthy (who already pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than the poor and middle class).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/us/politics/11deficit.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

The Truth Will Out!

While Wealthy corporations can spend millions to support Republicans (without even reporting it), Republicans continue to mount an attack on anything or anyone who might express opinions which differ from theirs.

1) They threaten to end funding for public radio and television.
2) They are systematically destroying unions
3) Now they are attacking the free speech of college professors, Gov Scott Walker and journalist Rachel Maddow.

State employees are often forbidden from supporting candidates or engaging in political campaigns. This was intended as a means to protect employees from being used by elected state officials, who might exploit them.
<A conservative Michigan think tank has requested all personal emails from labor studies faculty.
State employees can't support candidates, but they surely have a right to express their opinion on issues. Freedom of speech is a right guaranteed to every American. Well it used to be.
Oddly enough the think tank is concerned that labor relations professors might be expressing an opinion on labor issues. What next will Biology professors be forbidden from expressing their opinion on evolution?

Even more bizarre is their basis to request personal correspondence from an elected official (who surely has a right to express his opinion on issues) and Rachel Maddow (one of the few reporters who are not right wingers).

This is a blatant attack on anyone who would express opinions other than accepted Republican doctrine.
What are they so afraid of?
The Truth!
We must continue to speak the truth and speak it loudly.>

Social Security Under Attack!

Social Security is a Federal Insurance program into which every worker pays. In return workers have a guaranteed pension in their retirement and insurance/financial protection in the event of disability. It provides survivors benefits to protect a family after the loss of a bread winner.

It is entirely separate from the budget. Yet Republicans, who hate the Social Security program (or any program the doesn't make the rich richer), will attempt to cut Social security benefits under the guise of balancing the budget.

Any cuts to Social Security will be especially devastating to women. Women overall make less than men. Many women choose to take time from working out side the home in order to care for children. Because of this and the lower wages of women, women's social security benefits are lower. Many women already have inadequate or barely adequate Social Security benefits. They cannot afford cuts.

Some media sources are reporting that Democrats are willing to accept a budget compromise that would make deep cuts to entitlement programs. The New York Times continues to report that Senate Democrats are standing firm.

Contact your legislators!

Lessons of the Great Depression

Are we destined to repeat the great depression, because we failed to learn from it? Reagan initiated trickle down economics, deregulation, and the corrosion of collective bargaining rights. We slowly continue to implement it. Our wealth is being concentrated in the hands of the top 1% of Americans. The percentage of wealth concentrated in the top 1% of our population has only been this high one other time since 1913 (before the great crash and depression). Workers bargaining rights and progressive income taxes had insured that wealth was more evenly distributed and that America had a strong middle class. If giving the wealthy more money creates jobs and the wealthy have more money than they have had since 1929, why is unemployment so high? If their trickle down economic were a vaild theory , record wealth at the top should correlate with record employment. The hidden truth is that jobs are created when the middle class has money to spend and create small businesses. Trickle down creates increases in poverty, homelessness and unemployment. What direction are the extremists in this country pushing? To cut public jobs (increasing unemployment). Roosevelt took us out of the great depression with a public jobs program--not massive public job cuts. To cut Social Security benefits. Many elderly and disabled individuals who paid in and relied upon these benefits will be driven into the streets. Maybe we will throw them into concentration camps or execute them--like the Nazi's. To dismantle collective bargaining rights What will be left besides the rich, the slave labor (that makes them wealthy) and millions of homeless left to die in the streets. We must not sit back or be driven by these insane and faulty slogans. We must make this Country understand the dangerous path we are on before we all end up real life characters in "The Grapes of Wrath".