We Won!!!

"Democrats now see the election win as a mandate."

Well duh!!!  Hey President Barrack Obama, you have just been re-elected, what are you gonna do next?  "Well, I am gonna thank my wife."

Really?  That's it?  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the First Lady, she is easily more palatable than the democratic national platform, but is thanking HER really our first priority?  Is there ANYTHING, in the world more important?  I would think maybe peace in the middle east, energy independence, maybe creating a renewable economy?  Oh, I've got one, how about building a high speed rail system?

Nah, let's thank the family for their support...then what???

Hey, how about a couple of words about the war in Afghanistan, or how about global climate change? Like many other liberals, I want for 'progress'.  I want to wake up in the morning to a plan.  I want for there to be something for me to work on, as a progressive liberal.  But there isn't...  I wake up each morning wondering, "Well, what now?"

First, let's address these "secessionists."  Please, pack up, and find another country to plague with your talk of disunion.  This is a united we stand divided we fall world, people.  We need now more than ever, to be united to a wider broader world, and not be cut off from one another.  Comparing Texas to island nations or even Australia is utterly devoid of the reality of ending our union with the U.S.  Our current trade policy with Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Louisiana is most ideal, right now.  Changing this would almost certainly cause a 'trade tax', and this is just my first thought as to what such a reality might mean.  This entire venture is being perpetrated on the populous by less than .3% of the population of Texas.  A few ten thousand can embarrass and otherwise tarnish a state of over twenty-five million sound minded rational adults, just for fun.

What is there to gain by holding back the progress of a nation?

If only the President had something better to do...

Disaster Relief and F.E.M.A.

"We need to cut back on disaster relief programs as a way to balance the budget."

Romney actually said during the debate that he wanted to send disaster relief programs back to the States, or better yet to the private sector.  I don't understand how anyone can say that with a straight face.  Hurricanes can consume "States," and quickly overtake municipal or 'private' resources.  Some catastrophes are so bad that even Federal resources are stretched to the point of ineffectiveness.  Why would anyone even consider arguing that we should cut disaster relief?

There are right now fellow Americans homeless, without proper clothes, shelter, with loved ones declared missing or dead.  They need our help.  Now is not the time to cut funding or undermine our domestic aid system.  To do so would be a crime of the highest sort against general civility.  This is a united we stand, divided we fall world.  All that we have is each other.

In parts of New York and New Jersey there are gas lines miles long, so why don't we have a fleet disaster response helicopters that can air lift in whatever resources are needed for that area at that moment?  We have the technology to deliver M1-Abrams Tanks to the front lines of a battlefield, why can't we get a tanker full of fresh water or gasoline to an isolated town?

We can set up a complete hospital in the desert in Iraq, but we have Americans living in the streets without a roof over their head, right now.

Americans are in need, why aren't we using ever available resource to offer them aid and comfort?

Subjectivity, Concepts of

"I just don't see the world as you do."

Isn't it the truth...?  We ALL look upon the world through OUR own eyes and experiences.  It is difficult to remove us from any judgement we make about something we see.  However, it should be our goal, if only a lofty one.  We should try to see past ourselves, and see things for what they are, and not as we would have them be.  It is not our experiences, but rather the pure quality of attributes presented that matter.

Introspection is how you understand you, and what you want for you.  This is of great import in deciding which direction you will head next in your life, but when analyzing the world- exterior, you need to take off the blinders of your bias.

Politically speaking, this means, ceasing to see candidates through the letter next to their name.  It is their record that needs to be directly addressed, and only their record.  Rhetoric too should be shunned as a source campaign bias.  Neither party affiliation nor empty campaign promises can tell anyone how someone will govern.  Their record however, is the direct effect of their leadership style and decisions on 'We the People'.  It is the only thing that matters.

Votesmart.org 

It should be required reading before voting.

WE Have to Build Tomorrow

"The Democrats just don't have a plan."

Herein, I have to agree with the Republicans.  Democrats, we aren't pushing bigger better ideas.  Why aren't we fighting right now for a single payer health care system?  Why aren't we pushing paying down the debt, as a way of making the money in your pocket more valuable?  Why aren't we suggesting we build bigger wider roads, as a way to reduce travel costs for businesses?  Where are our big ideas for tomorrow?

For YEARS, I have been pushing high speed rail, that carries both passengers and their vehicles, powered by only renewable resources.  Look around, isn't it nice?

Where is our 'tomorrow'?  We've got great gadgets and media devices, but where's our infrastructure of a new age, where are the new means and ways?  Tonight is the third debate, and I likely will not hear any more about bigger and better ideas there either.

Clearly, conservatives are stuck in the past, absolutely unwilling to let go of the old ways, and accept that there are better days ahead, if only WE accept better ways.  So, why aren't progressives out there pushing for a bigger better tomorrow?

What is holding us back?

Drug Testing Welfare Recipients

"Prove you aren't on drugs, or we won't help you."

Conservatives are filled with good intentions that are put forth with ill-conceived notions that have not been fully thought out, and that lack any foundation in fact.  Thinking that you can save money by eliminating drug users from the welfare rolls is a great talking point, when addressing republicans.  However, following through with such a plan requires you to ignore what happens when such a plan is actually implemented.  It also requires you to ignore why we provide aid to begin with.

First, it is important to understand why aid is so important.  When we give someone food stamps or welfare, we aren't paying them to do nothing.  We are providing minimal assistance to those who can't afford basic life sustaining resources, to keep them from stealing what they need.  We provide minimal sustenance so that we can be safe from them.  Believe it or not, people won't just sit around and wait to starve to death.  They can and will take part in some criminal action, to see to it that their basic needs are met.  Those on welfare or other aid packages are there because they lack options.  Oftentimes they are felons who can't find a job, single mothers without viable transportation or accessible childcare, or they are mentally or physically challenged.  Removing aid from them, simply because you don't approve of their lifestyle choices, isn't going to magically make them employable.  It will simply send them into criminal enterprises.

Second, it is of the utmost importance to see actual results of implementing such measures, like the state of Florida did.  Since the beginning of July, Florida has been testing welfare recipients with a $30 test, wherein, a whopping 2% came back positive.  So 98% of Florida welfare recipients received a test, that there was ZERO reason to administer.  Over 40 million Americans receive welfare or food stamps.  Drug testing each one would cost $1.2 billion, and at a 2% failure rate, such a program would COST the nation money, not save it.

Lastly, these tests are not fool-proof.  Passing a drug test is as easy as drinking a cleansing tea, and failing one is as easy as eating a poppy seed muffin.  Imagine now being a single mother of three, who's husband was killed without life insurance, who relies solely on welfare and food stamps to feed her kids and keep a roof over their head, who's just been told that she won't receive any government aid for 12 months...all because she ate a lemon poppy seed muffin and tested positive for opiate consumption?  How much of an appeal process is she entitled to?  How much will that cost?

The only conclusion that a rational person can reach is that stunts like this are a waste of time and resources trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist, with money we don't have, all to save money that we won't.  Slogan-isms make lousy legislation.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

"The President hasn't presented a jobs plan."

Constitutionally speaking, it is not the executive's job to write laws that would stimulate the economy.  If such a job exists, I would argue that the power to regulate the economy rests with the Legislature.  They would be responsible for writing or presenting a jobs initiative, and the President would then sign it into law or veto it.

Job growth has slowed and a GOP led Congress is blaming the President?  When last I checked, our Constitution laid out a system of checks and balances, wherein no one body was given complete control over anything.  For anyone to point the finger at the executive and claim specifically that jobs are not being created fast enough to keep up with market growth, is giving far too much credit to the office.  If a President alone did take steps to personally fix what ails the economy, he'd be a dictator.

That said, there is no jobs plan.  The President has not stated one, the Senate has not put one forward, and the Congress has also failed to produce any jobs legislation.  Wall Street too, although reaping huge profits in this time of want and woe, are also firmly seated on the bench in this jobs creation game.  No one has or is doing anything to create more jobs in America.

If any group is responsible for the lack of jobs being created, it's business owners, large and small.  The second group responsible is our legislators, those actually responsible for writing laws that run our country.  The President would only be responsible, if he were to veto a jobs bill that was passed by both houses.

All this said, our country lacks a cohesive goal for the future of humanity and the marketplace of tomorrow.  Jobs would be plentiful, if we just decided become a progressive people.

Fire Consumes 146 Young Women, 7 Remain Unidentified

On March 25th, in the year 1911 a fire consumed 3 floors of a New York sewing factory in a mere 30 minutes.  Even though fire rescue arrived within minutes, limited resources, elevators, and minimal fire escapes insured nothing could be done to keep scores of girls from leaping to their death to fall some 80 feet, attempting to escape the fire.

One onlooker describes the scene in utterly unimaginable phrases, "thud, dead, thud, dead, thud, dead, thud, dead...the first 10 shocking, but to look up and see scores more that too must somehow come down...the sound a body makes upon striking the concrete before becoming a pile of lifeless bone, flesh and clothes..."  Worse still is the fact that some of them didn't even make it to the ground, and were instead impaled upon the metal fence that surrounded the building.  All this because of cramped unsafe working conditions, and doors locked to keep union organizers out of the factory.

I only just learned of this event in a Human Rights class I am taking, and would like to begin a movement or process to possibly identify those 7 girls that yet remain unidentified.  This incident is more commonly known as the "Triangle Waist Factory Fire":

This event was the beginning of of labor standards we have today.  It would seem that enlightenment comes only from death and suffering.