Monday, July 11, 2011

A Deficit of Morals and of Will

I find myself yelling at God, and I don't even believe in God.  I listen to fat, smug politicians spouting with cocky confidence their simplistic laissez-faire philosophies of government, that the problem is with spending, and in this time of joblessness, we need more of what has already not worked:  tax cuts.  No taxes on the important people in this country.  Corporations that paid 0 in 2010 would not be able to create jobs if they had to pay taxes in 2011.


If you are listening to any of this bullshit, it is making you crazy.  Unless you are wealthy and corporate, because you are the criminals that our Congress is representing.


So I try, I really try, not to listen so much to this bullshit, this travesty of government that is going on.  But when I do, I find myself screaming at the TV, and I, who does not believe that there is a God, is screaming at God:  "Why the fuck don't you do something???  Why don't you put these assholes on Medicaid???  Why don't you fire their asses and put them on unemployment, without health insurance, without unemployment benefits, and let them pay their mortgages on their million dollar homes by their ownselves???"


I admit, I am fit to be tied about the stupidity, the greed and the hypocrisy.  I can't even blame the politicians.  They are greedy assholes, but why not???  The middle class voters in this country listen to their horseshit, and they nod their empty heads, and they say, "Yeah, we can't let them (poor people, hispanics, old people...) take our money."  You idiots, the millionaires are taking your money, and laughing at you as they bring up votes on gay marriage and gun control and abortion.  You idiots are letting them rape and plunder us and our country.  These jerks that you voted in to office are screaming about the deficit and refusing to pay a penny more to invest in this country:  in education, technology, infrastructure, JOBS.  They all scream about jobs while voting to end the jobs that run our government, that teach our children, that build our roads.  AREN'T YOU LISTENING???


Thank you.  I feel better now.  I will probably survive, although I will never be financially secure.  Our children will suffer more than us, so that the wealthy fraction of a percent can hoard their gold and their power.


We are complacent enough.  It will take the pain of our children and their children to change the course of this country.  My grandparents fought for rights that my generation takes for granted, and that my children are just now beginning to realize are not there for them.


It appears that that battle will have to be fought, and fought bloodily, all over again.


My heart is broken.



Saturday, July 2, 2011

Beware of the Falsely Sincere

Michele Bachmann's well-played personal disclosure regarding her miscarriage and her faith left me chilled to the bone.  Her sincerity is disarming.  She has become exceptional at modestly telling us what an upstanding, moral individual she is.


I find it appalling that she parades her Christianity about as though without it we are, all the rest of us, dirty.  Her morality tale of her miscarriage and her subsequent commitment to life is bullshit.


Let me share mine:


I was a rebellious teenager in a dysfunctional family.  I acted out sexually into my twenties.  I was irresponsible and careless.  I became pregnant.  Thankfully, our nation's leaders, its courts, were sane and responsible during that time, and abortion had become legal.  I did the right thing.


Hey, Michele, I did the right thing.  I had an abortion.  It was difficult, painful, but to have a child at that time would have been morally wrong.


Later, I had two wonderful children who are now adults.  I am thankful that I was able to wait until I had time to grow up.  I was not forced to pay, and make a child pay, and make my family pay, for my irresponsibility and immaturity.


Had I been forced to bear a child at that time, I would never have had the two wanted wonderful children that I later had.


And Michele, I too had a miscarriage.  It happened between the first and third wanted pregnancies, and it was heartbreaking.  But I was able to love my firstborn and be thankful for her, and I soon had a son that I loved with all my heart.


Unlike you, I had that experience without feeling the need to judge other women and condemn their choices.  That is what makes you a smaller person than me, although you have the wealth, power and persuasiveness to attempt to coerce people to follow your rules in their personal lives.  


And as the anger rises in me for your judgmental insincerity, I first of all want to say that neither your god or mine give you the right to decide what my morality should be.


Secondly, your fight to deny those with less than you financial security, good educations for our children, health care for us and our families, belies your pretense that you give a damn about children, born or "unborn".  Or, perhaps to reframe the thought, you only care about life until birth.


Shame on you.  Keep your pretend morality to yourself.