Almost Thanksgiving

It's almost time to buy the Turkey and cranberries and sausage for the stuffing (called dressing by my mother and the ladies of a bygone era). As we prepare for another winter season, I hope that more people will start talking about their success in landing a job. My son, who's been unemployed for over a year is finally employed! All of my chil'ens seem to be on the upswing and that's good.

Politics 24x7
I volunteered some time this fall with the Minnesota DFL (Democratic-Farm-Labor) party in the hope of getting out the progressives to vote in Congressional District 2. It's a red district so it was an uphill trek. And the Corporatist Party won the day once again in the mid-terms. We are stuck with John Kline for 2 more years! I sure hope Shelley Madore runs again in 2012! She really has it going on, and she knows what's going on in CD2 as well as Minnesota and the country. She would be a fabulous Congressional Representative for our district and our state...and I hope she'll make the sacrifice and run again!

And in my State district (38A) my Representative and Sentor did not win their bids for re-election. The myopic voters in this district decided to vote against incumbents... but to what end?? They definitely didn't vote for the better candidates. I hope Rep. Masin and Sen. Carlson will take up the fight again next time around.

Meanwhile we wait for Mark Dayton to be confirmed as our new Governor. Alas, we'll have to suffer another recount but I feel a little less anxiety about it knowing that the vote spread is large (almost 9000 votes), so it shouldn't be as contentious as the Franken-Coleman recount in 2008.

The country is divided...and what is so very frustrating to me is that almost 1/2 of the voters in this country continue to vote against their own best interests. We need a strong middle-class...and we were growing that middle-class, there was a war on poverty happening, civil rights were finally expanding to include all Americans, wages were coming up, manufacturing was strong, education was top-notch. Without a middle-class what do we have? Do you remember reading about the feudal system in history class? Did you have any history in your history class? I know I did back in the 60s and 70s.

...and then....

Ronald Reagan, the actor, charmed the public into believeing something called "trickle down" economics. He broke the air-traffic controllers union. He wasn't a friend of the middle-class. He was another minion of corporate interests and he had a certain gift to charm the people and make them think that taking away their rights was a good thing. So they began the dumbing down of America, tweezing out important history from the text books. Moving the educational system toward the model we have now - Tell them what to think and not HOW to think - aka, teach to the test.

There are tomes written on the Bushes...so I'll leave that to the experts... Family of Secrets is a good place to start. They've been soldiers for corporate plutocracy since the 19th century...and they did a lot to destroy the country that the Greatest Generation fought so hard for!

Now we are looking at trying to get DADT and the DREAM act passed before the corporate take-over begins in January. The TSA has run amok groping travelers who don't want to be subjected to dangerous xrays. All because someone is making a ton of money on full-body scanners. People are now being terrorized by the TSA. Privatization is not the solution to this one! Do you want Blackwater groping you instead?? Not me, thanks.

Locally, the residents of Minneapolis were given notice that their property taxes will be going up in 2011, double digit increases, in most cases 16%and 17%. The main reason for this increase, in addition to funding cuts from the state, is stated to be the hit that the city pension plans took because they were invested in the stock market. They should be nationalized as the poster child for NOT PRIVATIZING SOCIAL SECURITY...or this could happen to that fund as well.

As to Social Security and Medicare, what a lot of people don't realize is that it is NOT affecting the Federal budget, deficit or national debt. But the people who want to cut out the safety net put in place by FDR want everyone to be afraid (more terrorism) and to give them the power to take it away by telling them that privatizing it will fix everything. There are other ways to fix this. How about raising the cap on the withholding??? The current cap on OASDI (Fica/SS) is 108K...so people who make more than 108K a year don't have any SS withheld on "earnings" over 108K. Here's the annual report if you want to geek out on it...Ipersonally like the charts and graphs.

I am Pro-Choice. I support repeal of DADT. I support the DREAM Act. I support my President, with one caveat...if he leans any further to the right, my affection will cool. We need Single-Payer healthcare! While I support the Affordable Health Care Act...it fell short of giving the country what it truly needs and wants! Single Payer!

I think it's time for people across the country to stop being AFRAID! We are Americans. This is supposed to be the home of the free and the brave, right? Stop letting terror rule your lives. Let's fight for jobs here by saying NO to companies that off-shore jobs, that ship raw goods to countries with low wages, where they manufacture and assemble into finished goods and ship the stuff back to the U.S. That only works for the CEOs who are looking at profits and cost margins and not the betterment of the people in the U.S.

Next time, I'll post something more upbeat about pets and knitting and spinning and the winter solstice. This time, though, I had to vent a bit.