In Response to Main Stream Media

The main stream media wants you to believe that all the protesters both tea partiers and health care rioters are based out of some ultra-conservative, super right wing, Republican backed camp. And once again, they are over simplifying a growing situation in order to keep a rebellion down. They want to claim that anyone who does not support the President of the United States is a racist, like many of his supporters did while he was nominee Obama.

I say that the unfortunate thing that the main stream media is ignoring is that the United States government, a government that claims to be "for the people, by the people" is in fact using the people as pawns in their little game. The Democrats are crying about the town hall meetings turning into shouting matches with people being removed and physical altercations set up by corporation backed, special interest parties. Meanwhile, at tea parties, the Republicans claim that ACORN sent out it's mobilized troops to stir up the crowds in order to discredit the movement.

I'm sorry, but I thought that the First Amendment gave us the right to assemble. The freedom of speech. I thought this country was founded on telling those in power where they can stick it, because we won't take it. I thought we were a nation founded on the principles of truth and justice, and not being told what to do. Yet this administration is doing just the opposite. They are telling us how and where we can spend our money, and if we don't like it tough. The "Cash for Clunkers" program, while great on paper, tells Americans that they can only spend their money on new cars or not get it. That 2 extra billion the government pulled out of thin air, while maintaining a trillion dollars debt, and owing around that same amount to Communist China, a country that not only oppresses the freedom of religion, and speech, but tells its people how many children they can have, leading to numerous amounts of baby girls being left out in the mountains to die, that 2 billion is not for the American people, it's another auto industry bail out.

The program is called "Car Allowance Rebate". Allowance, like we are children that need to be told what to do and where we can and can not spend our money. As I said in my "Conspiracy Theory" post, this money is designed to put more new cars out on the road. And while I'm all for green technology, and cleaner more fuel efficient cars and energy, why is the government telling us that this is the only place we can spend $4,500? At least Bush sent us the check and told us we could spend it however, and where ever we wanted. Americans don't need to go further in debt with car payments, yet many are because the government tells them to do it.

Meanwhile, this administration promised no new taxes on middle income families in the form of payroll taxes, etc. However, just like any true politician, the President has side stepped the issue of no new taxes on families directly, to indirectly adding new taxes. The already passed and in effect taxes on vices such as alcohol and tobacco, and now there is still talk of taxing soda to pay for health care. A policy that eventually will be fully run by the United States government where the government tells you what policy is best for you because you don't know any better. And while I still have questions about it, I do know that the current bill still allows for tax payer money to fund abortions, it also will force Americans to take on the government's health care if a citizen wants to simply change their out of pocket expenses.

I know that many of my views come off as Republican, and the main stream media will just say that the Republicans are poor losers and are crying about losing the last couple of elections. And nothing could be further from the truth. If you had talked to me this time last year, my views would have seemed more Democratic. In fact, in local politics my last two times, when I voted for the main stream parties, it was Democrats. I am a firm believer that there needs to be an end to our supposed democracy based on two party system.

But, back to the point I was trying to make. I think by claiming that those who speak out against government interaction are backed by some corporation and their sole mission is to bring down the President is a dangerous accusation. The Democrats have already claimed that they will pass the health care bill with or without bi-partisan help. Kind of like the kid at school who will listen to why you want to use his ball, but tells you in the long run, it's his ball and he'll play with it how he wants to. I am not backed by a corporate sponsor. There is no sponsorship on this blog, the closes thing to it is what books I like to read. Instead let me give you another theory, one that was stated 10 years ago, and rings truer today more than ever:

"I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." -Fight Club (1999)

One of the trending topics on twitter today is #nevertrust, and I say, Never trust a government that is going to tell you how to spend your own money. As teens we fought our parents on how we were going to spend the money that we earned, and now the Federal government is acting like our parents and telling us how and where we can spend our hard earn money, and we should be very, very pissed off.

Tea Party

I think that it's easy for those who we can call the "liberal, Obama loving media" to pigeon hole the Tea Party Movement into simply just a bunch of "whiny, poor loser, right-wingers" who are upset at having to pay taxes. And as a whole, this is what the media has done to dismiss the protest. Which is fine, it really is as expected and is what they have been accused of since President Obama won the election. And to some extent this pigeon hole is correct, and one can even say fueled by the fact that Fox News was the only "news" outlet that continuously covered it.

When I first heard of the tea party movement I was amazed. I also wondered where and what they were going to dump. When I found out it was a mere gathering to protest taxes on tax day, I thought it was a good start, but it didn't go far enough. Now, I'm not promoting violence, the original tea party was a non-violent act against the English rule. There needed to be a walk out, or a march, not a series of protest where political figures are allowed to speak. There should be no political figures speaking. This should be a gathering of the people who cry out in one voice "We will not take it anymore".

Another great way the media has dismissed the Tea Party was to say it was just a bunch of people who don't want to pay taxes and don't understand that President Obama has ct taxes for 95% of America. Well I would have to disagree. I don't believe that this was a blatant "I don't want to pay taxes anymore" protest. And while yes, the president has cut taxes for 95% of Americans, his government has raised taxes on other goods such as but not limited to cigarettes and liquor. So, while he technically cut taxes, keeping his campaign promise, he found alternative revenues to get the people. And of course, I understand the argument "well you don't have to smoke or drink", it has been seen that liquor sales have gone up since the recession.

I want to make this perfectly clear, and for the record, I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Republican Party. I just believe that our system of what we want really badly want to call a democracy is broken and has been for a long time, maybe since the beginning. Our checks and balances alone kills a democracy. Any one branch can cancel out the other, and they, whenever they want, can cancel out the will of the people, is not a democracy but a republic. We have representatives who the majority of us vote in and they do what they believe the majority of their people want.

However, since the formation of the colonies, and the first elected presidency, there have only been 2 major parties. It started with the tories and the wigs and has evolved into the Republicans and the Democrats. Anyone else running under any other party, especially for the highest office in the land is viewed as "waisting their time" and their supporters are "waisting their vote", again, not a very democratic view. And, on top of this two party "conspiracy", you need to be a card carrying member of one of said parties to 1) vote for who should run on that parties ticket and 2) work the booths during Election Day.

These are the principles that should have been, and were the foundations for the Tea Party Movement. And while the Obama-loving media may want to pigeon hole it's attendees into some nice little niche that they can easily dismiss by saying where was all this protest during the Bush years, maybe they should take into consideration the fact that not only did Bush's approval rating drop to historic lows, NOT only did they want to impeach Bush BUT it was with their help and love for Senator Obama and dislike of Sarah Palin that aided in Obama's 8 million vote advantage. Of course, McCain didn't help his cause either, but that's beside the point.

My only real question is, for those of you who want to so easily dismiss the Tea Party activist, can you do it without using the term "teabaggers" or "teabagging"? I mean seriously, who really is the immature ones here?

Tea Parties and School Closings

Let me start off by saying, that I support the Tea Party movement as much as anyone. As I explained to my coherts, this is someone doing what we want to do, and in this case, the more the marrier. This is something that I have been waiting to see happen for a long, LONG time and I think that ultimately its good for the nation.

That being said, I'd like to switch the focus over to school closings. I know kids everywhere when they hear those words get excited, I know I did. However, this is no cause for celebration. Due to federal and state budget crunches, states are now considering closing schools to help right their ships. This simply can not be allowed to happen. Closing the schools down is worse then Bush's "No Child Left Behind" policy. Instead of vouchers for schools it will simply allow state governments to close schools that are deemed poor or failing. And allowing the government to do this is an injustice to the community, that schools students and teachers.

I think, in the spirit of the tea parties, that we as a Nation need to unify, in one voice that enough is enough. If the Federal government is allowed to give taxpayer money to financial institutions and auto industries under the guise of it being too big to allow to fail, then the same messures need to be taken to protect our schools. There is no bigger investment, no bigger entity in our nation nor anything bigger for the future of our nation then it's education system.

By allowing schools to close down, we are simply forced to transfer those students to alternative schools without the intention of making said schools bigger. This leads to the obvious problem, schools will become over crowded. Teachers, instead of the 15-20 students they currently have, will be forced to have double that, giving even less one-on-one time that students may need with their teachers.

This is not a worse case senario, Detriot may have to close 23 schools which would save the city $303 million dollars but put $600 teachers out of work. This is not a major city issue either, as New Albany, Indiana may be forced to close 2 schools. One of the schools in New Albany, a town just north of Louisville, Kentucky was visited by President Bush for it's improvments thanks to his "No Child Left Behind" and has recently recieved blue ribbons for being an exceptional school.

Ladies and gentlemen, I understand at times we may not agree. I also understand that this is a difficult time for all of us. However, President Obama promised us better schooling for our children. And while he may focus on higher education and making college more affordable, we need to keep elementary schools open so our children can grow up with dreams of going to college. This is where we need to draw a line in the sand. For a president who said that Wall Street was too big an entity to allow to fail, WE need to say that the children on Main Street are too important to allow to fail.