What a well written analysis of the awful SAE fraternity video. I particularly appreciate the points made about how this is not something new to these students. And the tie in to the President’s speech this weekend. Nicely done Mr. Bookman!
Please don’t wish your religious beliefs on me
So here goes – I don’t believe in God. There it is. When I’ve told a couple of other friends they were shocked. One was visibly appalled. So, of course, I don’t voice this all that much.However, I am not an atheist. I do believe there is more to this planet and universe than just US. I am not quite so self centered to think that humans are the highest consciousness there is.I believe there is a lot more out there. To me, specifically, it is a higher form of energy/vibration/intelligence. I do not believe it takes a single form or identity. It is fluid, and constantly changing. What I don’t like much at all is organized religion of ANY kind. Because they ALL rely on some form of monotheism. What sets me off the most? When someone says “Oh, if it is God’s will, so be it.” I say: GAH!!!!!!!!!!! You can imagine just how much I cringe when a sports figure thanks God & Jesus for letting them win. ARGH!
No. Never. Whatever is out there is NOT sitting on my shoulder minute by minute pulling my strings like some mindless puppet. I do not get to relinquish all responsibility for my life by simply laying it at the feet of this God so many worship.
You have free will. You make your destiny. Sometimes you fuck that up. And when you do, you know who gets you back on your feet? YOU DO! I believe that your strongest source of belief needs to be in YOU.
Now, that is not to say that You/I am an island. We surround ourselves with a community of support and love that, if we are wise, we stay connected to and ask for help/advice when needed. AND, we support THEM. So, first on the human level I believe in ME, I love ME and I approve of ME, and then I extend that love and empathy and nurturing to my community.
Then there is that higher source of energy. I believe it is always there buzzing around us and again, if you open your heart and mind, you can tap into it. It is the source of intuition and inspiration. THAT is what you tap into as you meditate, visualize or affirm the things you need. It is NOT one all knowing gender based human type being. It is not ONE *thing*.
At least, that is what *I* believe is true in MY life. What you believe is personal to YOU and I would *never* try to convince you otherwise or WISH that you believed anything that doesn’t work for YOU in YOUR heart and life. If you believe in God & Jesus and that makes you feel loving and kind towards yourself and others, then BRAVO! Do what you need to do.
I am in the Live and Let Live church of all religions and no religion as warranted 🙂
That is a LONG intro to say, while I feel as if I have to hide my lack of belief, I also read this piece by Ana Marie Cox with a ton of empathy & lots of nodding of my head: Why I Coming Out as a Christian. Even though my personal beliefs are completely different, I love *just about* every sentiment she expresses here and I do love to see how relaxed and happy and joyful that she is in her life. It does come across in her more recent TV appearances and it is lovely to see.
BUT…and you knew there was a but….I take issue with her very last line:
My hope is that His love is somewhere underneath the ego and grievances that inspired me to write this. I believe that it is. What I pray is that you can find it for yourself as well.
Sigh….why? I don’t wish that Ana was not a Christian. I don’t wish that she did not believe in God. Implied in her final line is that she prays for all of us to find ‘His love.’ No thanks. I’m very happy, connected, loving, and joyful without believe in such a thing ma’am. What I wish for is that everyone find their own path towards the same whatever that may be.
Privilege, feminism, race & intersectionality.
Some thoughts that need to tumble out of my head as spurred on by the comments made by Patricia Arquette after she won her Oscar, and then the subsequent reactions on twitter. Whenever the idea of intersecitonality and privilege comes up, I think of this analogy I long ago read or heard somewhere that so perfectly illustrates the issue:
Imagine a footrace with various people at the starting line, the gun goes off:
Out of the blocks first is the white man
…15 seconds late the white woman
…15 seconds later the black man
…15 seconds late the Hispanic man
…10 seconds later the black woman
…10 seconds later the Hispanic woman
You get the picture, also include LGTBQ individuals, various citizenship class etc.
As racers they are going full force, panting, running as fast they can.
As a straight, white woman I recognize I am disadvantaged relative to the white man, but in a place of advantage compared to the other groups. I’m hard working, putting in as much work but because of that time delay the odds are staggered. That 15 second delay between me and the white man could be wage discrimination, sexism. Think of the other gaps as racism, housing discrimination. It doesn’t matter how hard I work the RACE is rigged. I am still hardworking and smart and fast but the system has created a hierarchy in which I benefit quicker than those who start behind me.
It’s why I often say that people of color have to be TWICE as good at something to get the same validation that whites get in half the time.
White privilege allows you to drive down a highway in (for example) a BMW without cops assuming you are a drug dealer. White privilege allows you to visit Arizona without the sheriff assuming you are undocumented. These are just examples, how this shows up in your real life may be different.
So, recognizing that there is, indeed, privilege built into our society, I was then educated on the idea of the intersection of those groups. For instance, the words Arquette chose to use on stage right away were a little problematic because she stated “Think about all the women who have given birth!” OK…sure…but I immediately thought about my friend who couldn’t have children of her own and is an adoptive mom. Or another friend who is gay and (finally!) married, but she and her wife chose not to have children. Do those women not also deserve equal pay? So to me it was an odd choice of words for Arquette to use because right away they *excluded* a whole segment of the female population.
Then, once she went backstage, it got worse.
So the truth is even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America right under the surface there are huge issues at play that really do affect women. It’s time for all the women in America, and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.
(emphasis mine)
It starts off well enough with “all the women in America”. Then there’s “all the men that love women” which…well, depends on the type of love you are talking about here but the default is usually romantic and so this excludes gay men….BUT…I get that it most likely means men, in general, who love women (such as their moms, sisters, friends etc).
But then it spirals downwards and gets harder to excuse…”all the day people”…. (some of whom are women) and “all the people of color” …(more women!) What happened in that isolation of those groups is that she implies that there are no impacted women who need equality in those two groups. No gay women, no people of color who are women. (and how about the black, lesbian for instance?!) So many variations of INTERSECTION with the gender she is trying to pull up and the other minority groups she is calling out to boost her cause.
Then she refers to how “we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.” As if women were always allies to gays and people of color and that the fight for THEIR cause is OVER now? First of all, when women won the right to vote let’s be clear it was WHITE WOMEN only, (just one example of the history being missed) and there is NO WAY that you can declare the battles for equal rights for gays or people of color to be over!
And again, by singling out the other two groups, she is IMPLYING “white women”.
The better statement should have been to stop at “So the truth is even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America right under the surface there are huge issues at play that really do affect women.”
She just should not even have called out any other groups.
Now, I know there was no intent behind her words to erase the women in those groups as she did. I believe completely that she’s just never been told how that language comes across. I know that even 5 short years ago for instance, I probably would have made the same errors out of ignorance and my own privilege. But I’ve since been exposed to reasonable explanations from people of color and gay people and just folks more educated on the history of all these interactions. And now I see it. I read those words and immediately cringed and saw what was happening.
But, I was also NOT completely stubborn about clinging to my ignorance once I was taught.And that is where many white feminists have a problem. Attempts to draw their attention to another viewpoint, another way of thinking about things brings up this huge wall. They cannot, or do not, accept their position of privilege. Not only do they shut down their ability to learn, they go on the attack and accuse the people trying to educate them of tearing them down. Ah, it’s exhausting!
I’ve watch so many truly reasonable folks try to crack open those doorways in the minds of some self described progressives and it’s just mind boggling how threatened they feel.
I have no thrilling conclusion here – just a hope that as a few folks step back from the heat of the arguments over the coming days, that some of this slides through their closed minds. Man, just get the concept of that foot race analogy in your heads at least! We gotta start somewhere…and yeah, some of us get to start a little further ahead than others. We didn’t make up the rules of the game, but we can try to change them.
My First Protest at Netroots Nation – UPDATED! It Worked!
Look at this email that just arrived in my inbox!! This is HUGE!
Well, I am spoiled now, aren’t I?
One Way to Save Economy According to GOP Deep Thinkers: Have More Kids!
Oh, this is rich. In a manifesto entitled Room to Grow: Conservative Reforms for a Limited Government and a Thriving Middle Class published by the YG Network, outline a justification and means towards making cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
First of all, it’s interesting to note who the YG network is. This stands for the “Young Guns” of the GOP and consisting of Congressmen Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy and Eric Cantor. The latter having just been primaried out of his seat. The editors and writers include some slightly longer in the tooth members of conservative think tanks such as the Manhattan Institute, as well as editors and writers for the National Review and National Affairs. Seriously thinkers and, one would assume, educated in economic policies.
Or not.
There is not a lot new offered up. Tax cuts, tax credits for health care and education, deregulation, vouchers and, naturally, cuts to social supports as well as this not so new idea to help the long-term unemployed: temporarily *reduce* the minimum wage.
OK, so you’ve heard all that before and are still waiting to see those proposals or policies actually WORK as intended. Well, maybe they DO work as intended since those policies historically have only created a LARGER gap between the haves and have nots and we all know that politicians, especially conservatives, work primarily for the haves.
However, even if you disagree with liberals like me and truly believe those policies WILL work to make ALL citizen’s lives better…..I find it hard to believe that you can support this one:
In support of a specific set of social insurance cuts, the authors write:
Social Security and Medicare have ‘crowded out’ the traditional incentive to raise children as a protection against poverty in old age. Today, most workers can reasonably foresee getting enough support from the public retirement system to stay out of poverty when they get older, making it less likely that they will have to call on direct aid – either in cash or in kind – from their own children
Now, I may be viewing this all wrong, but doesn’t that basically state that if only folks would have more kids, then we could stop relying so much on public retirement support? Because then those kids (who magically must be doing quite well themselves in this economy somehow?) would be able to house and support their retired family members, right? Given that the average Social Security check is only $14,000/year it sure seems like adult children can handle replacing that! Forget that most young adults are currently in a downward mobility spiral – or the cost of raising kids and getting them through college (because they would HAVE to go to college to earn enough in their lifetimes to support multiple generations you know!) – just HAVE MORE KIDS!
Can you see the eye-roll I am giving to this suggestion?
Can you see why it is really difficult to take this entire manifesto seriously when *that* is one of their deeply thought out arguments?
I mean, aren’t conservatives supposed to stay out of our personal lives?
Oh, right…they want to remove a woman’s right to choose and they sure as heck don’t want us to safely and easily obtain the health care and birth control that we want so that we can have the same opportunities for a career and upward mobility without relying on a man. It’s like they want us to go back to being barefoot and pregnant and….hey now! FINALLY, it ALL MAKES SENSE! MORE BABIES!
Sigh…..I’d suggest those Young Guns go back to drawing board.
Hat tip to the American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner (link to his online articles here) There will be a write up on this manifesto by him in the next issue (July/Aug) of the print version of the magazine. Attendees at NN14 got a copy in our swag bags 🙂
Netroots Nation 14 – My First Protest!
On Friday the 18th in Detroit, the Netroots Nation attendees added their voices to a planned protest against the water shut offs in Detroit. I joined in to what was my first ever march or protest. I didn’t carry a sign because I wanted to take pictures, but I did chant “Fight! Fight! Fight! Water is a Human Right!” Here’s some of my pictures:
This was also the first protest march for my buddy Bill – he was INTO it!
Hey, when The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) tells you to march, you MARCH! Also, yes, I was that close and yes, he was looking right at me (swoon!) 🙂
The atmosphere was really fun.
We wound up at the base of this obelisk in Hart Plaza – there was supposed to be a stage but the police took it away – so the organizers improvised.
Some of my NN family – Vicki, Pam & Norm.
The best part is that the protest made a difference. Because so many of us went out there, the march got much more widespread media coverage and the water official who had previously refused to meet with the leaders of the movement promised a meeting the following Monday. And then they put a 15 day hold on water shut offs! Apparently they conceded that the programs available to low income households were not well known so they stopped the process to allow the folks in danger of losing their water to make payment arrangements. Basically they were shutting off water without properly offering up any other options. In the meantime a really cool thing happened on twitter when two folks wondered if they could find a way to connect generous donors with needy households – yes, they could (more protest information & photos at that link)! Click here to help out!
I get that services need to be paid. But, I also believe that water is perhaps more basic than anything to people and one would hope that a balance between need and sustainability can be found. It’s pretty disgraceful when the UN declares a humanitarian crisis in one of the largest cities in the wealthiest country in the world.
NN13 Day Two – Moms and Storytelling
Reference links – Mother Talkers and MomsRising (session 1) and Kate Stayman-London (session 2)
Friday dawned with a schedule that promised to be more about socializing than sessions. I’ll write a separate post just on the parties and Pub Quiz 🙂
Session 1 – Parenting Caucus hosted by MomsRising
When I go to Netroots (originally Yearly Kos), I always attend the Parenting Caucus. Run by Elisa Batista who is a founder of the Mother Talkers blog which I joined when it first launched, the parenting group is a small but active group of progressive minded parents. No, it’s not just moms – in fact once year Elisa insisted that her husband participate too (Markos of Daily Kos) along with a bunch of other dads. We’ve had a few “off campus” gatherings but recently it’s been a regular session, and she’s been inviting some great speakers to join in. Now she works for Moms Rising so this was technically their event, but it was still relaxed and fun. Elisa always hands out some great swag such as a sweet MomsRising supermom t-shirt! Oh, plus they fed us what was probably the healthiest food I had the whole weekend! A fabulous array of fresh fruits and vegetables and Naked Juice to drink. I always go in saying I am just going to be there to listen and support Elisa (and eat of course!) and then I always end up joining the conversation no matter what 🙂 We do tend to focus heavily on education of course, but also on issues like women’s access to health care – which allows us to control how many kids (if any!) we have – and also family and sick leave time for working parents. It really does boggle my mind that in a country supposedly as “wealthy” as we are that we have the *least* amount of paid family leave. Whether it’s to be home when a new baby is born or adopted, or to care for an elderly parent, working people struggle trying to balance those needs and remain financially stable in the U.S.
Session 2 – Why Screenwriters Make the Best Organizers: Using Storytelling to Build Empathy
I targeted this session because I thought it would help me with my developing writing skills and I must say I took some awesome notes!
The speaker was Kate Stayman-London – here is snippet from her NN13 bio:
You may know her writing from that one video with the cast of The West Wing, that other video with Cher and Kathy Griffin, or all those emails you get from Change.org (among other organizations). Kate worked for many organizations in the progressive movement (AFL-CIO, CREDO, etc.) before heading to Hollywood to get her MFA in screenwriting from USC.
Kate opened up by making us cry. Lovely! But really, when you watch that 6 minute silent montage at the beginning of Pixar’s UP, you probably start sobbing like a small child too. Why? Because great storytellers know how to build up empathy between characters and an audience. Here is the one sentence Kate told us all to write down to sum up that premise:
“Somebody wants something badly and is having difficulty getting it.”
The idea is to create a character people can relate to who is trying to achieve a goal or solve a problem. There are stakes involved of course. Either the high of reaching the goal or the drama and foreboding of what could happen if they fail. In that opener for UP, the initial sense you are left with is failure. The characters who you want to achieve their dreams are thwarted. First, it is the loss of their dream of having a child, then it is their inability to go on the dream adventure trip (which replaces the dreams of a baby) before Ellie dies. (dear gawd how I both HATE that movie for pulling on my heartstrings so much and also ADMIRE it for what it accomplished)
ANYWAY….(sniffle)
After she ripped us apart with that video, she went on to show how storytelling like that can translate into activism. When you are trying to motivate people to organize and support a cause, you definitely want to tell real life stories that pull people in like a movie, but the difference is you want to end the video with a sense of hope – your target audience needs to believe that they can change the ending. That their efforts will pay off to make life better for themselves and/or the people in the tale.
And that makes total sense doesn’t it? Given that the way you grab the attention of people right now is through images and, particularly, video, you can see how this screenwriter’s strategy would work. Six minutes is all it could take to move you deeply enough to say “I’ve got to DO something about this!”
Huh – look at that – 3 weeks removed from that session and just glancing at my notes brought all those thoughts/feelings/ideas back to me. Well done Kate!
More to come….including a picture of me with…a hip hop artist? Yep. Seriously.
#NN13 Day 1 – Blogging and Climate
The first thing that happened when I got to the convention center was a delightful encounter with a young man named Henry Burner.
Here is his site: http://henryburner.com/
Here is the result of that encounter: http://treesflowersbirds.com/2013/06/30/video-interview-from-san-jose/
I arrived in San Jose early enough to kidnap my friend for an off campus lunch outing to In n Out so that he could have his first taste of a Double Double. That, of course, is one of the highlights of my weekend since any one on one talking time I can get with Stormy is rare, but so much more satisfying than our usual 140 character twitter conversations or texts and emails. (OK, we don’t text in 140 or email like that, but you know what I mean!)
Anyway…that all meant that my first sessions were not until the afternoon, and I was able to attend two. As usual, I picked my targeted panels a few days earlier basically based on a combination of either topic, panelists or both.
The first one was right up my alley in terms of topic + panelists, and I chose it since I knew the one it conflicted with was being recorded for later (Mansplaining panel which I will watch right after I hit post on this!)
“Getting Paid to Blog” was the title and with Chris Savage, Digby & Katherine Haenschen on the panel, I couldn’t miss it.
First off – links to their blogs:
Chris Savage – http://www.eclectablog.com/
Digby – http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/
Katherine – http://www.burntorangereport.com/ – this one is particularly prescient right now given the recent activity in the Texas state senate and the monumental filibuster by Wendy Davis.
As someone who has been learning about online marketing for the last two years, it was really interesting to hear them pretty much outline the same strategies to make money online as any non-political business would need to enact. They didn’t necessarily focus on SEO, but they did talk about the importance of excellent content, content worth reading and sharing, and using guest blogging as primary tactics. All of that has to be used to create an audience (website visits) large enough over a sustained period of time, to attract the attention of the blog ad networks. With a politically focused site, they discussed the opportunities for using pop up paid petitions, sponsored content widgets, holding fundraising events, and approaching campaigns early for advertising opportunities.
*As a side note, while my blogs have never meant to be sources of income, I did like the idea of using sponsored or affiliate link widgets on the side as long as they are product or companies that I can personally support. That was a particularly well timed note for me to take – see session #2!*
“Getting Real on Climate” – with my long time twitter friend RL Miller (Climatehawk) & Darcy Burner (mom to Henry). Those two were my reason for attending 🙂
Links to the sites relevant to this panel:
Darcy’s up and coming business: http://terraheating.com/
A company I wish was in CA – but that will be on my blog soon: https://ethicalelectric.com/
It’s easy to assume when you go to a climate change session that you will hear all sorts of depressing statistics on how we human beings are killing the planet. Well, we are, but thankfully, these panelists knew that we didn’t need to be convinced. We were, as it is, the choir, and we didn’t need preaching! What we wanted, and what they provided, were answers.
First of all, there are the two companies listed above. Different approaches to how energy is provided that will move the country away from fossil fuels and will only invest in other companies that support the same. The continuing explosion in solar electricity has shown that consumers are completely willing to switch to alternative methods of utility deliverance – PARTICULARLY if it saves them money! As always, hit them in their wallets, right? As someone whose next big home project is to figure out the best way to switch to solar, I get it. An electric car (hey, a Tesla perhaps?!!) would make me giddy. Of course, I need to gather up some money up front in order to save that money over the long haul, but I would happily do it. Since I am getting closer to that being a reality for me, I am going to be exploring every option I can. This session opened my eyes to more possibilites. Including the fact that Ethical Electric has an affiliate sale offer for people willing to list them on their websites. Yes, a widget will be coming to my blog very soon (See? Tie in to panel #1!)
Also, if the climate is important to you, then please do follow @ClimateHawkVote on twitter and sign up with your email for updates on ways you can help elect politicians who are true climate hawks.
So that was Day 1 – I’ll be back later with more panel write ups and tales of parties and TWiB!
Lessons from State of the Union
(These are my own humble, not a professional anything responses to last night’s speeches. Grains of salt and all that.)
- Those politicians seated on the aisles who get to shake hands with all the entering dignitaries and, more importantly, get their faces on camera a LOT? Some poor interns from their offices pretty much warmed those seats all day to secure those. Cracks me up how folks who will stand on that same House floor with cameras rolling and call the President all sorts of names and accuse him of all sorts of anti-American shenanigans – and yet there they are on SOTU night, copies of the speech in their hands asking for his autograph like some sort of geeked out fan as he goes by. Lordy.
- Whenever the White House in the future – ANY White House – provides an enhanced live feed of the speech complete with charts and supporting statistics – watch it. Those charts and statistics help to illustrate where that particular President is coming from in terms of his policy proposals. Agree or disagree, they help to bring you to an understand of why he or she (someday, I hope!) thinks that issue is important. Also, they sneak in some pretty cool and often funny pictures (like the one last night of POTUS and McKayla Maroney doing the “I’m Not Impressed” scowl.)
- You can get a pretty good idea of what the President wants to emphasize by looking at the guest list for the family box where the spouses sit. Whoever, is with them will be featured and probably named in the speech and tied back to one of the policy initiatives POTUS wants to highlight.
- I thought this SOTU followed up nicely on his inauguration address. He kept consistent with his visions on where he would like to see his second term focus. What I wish is that EVERY policy idea he outlines would be followed up with “And I’ve appointed “x” or tasked “y”” to start hearings/meetings to write up the legislation” similar to what he did with regards to gun violence after Newtown. Or else, cite the specific legislation that is already making it’s way through Congress so that people can petition their representatives to vote on it or keep it moving. There were a few direct examples like that but not all and not the majority and that left me feeling like the proposal was way too much rhetoric and not yet enough action. Which, I suppose, is true of every SOTU but is certainly something that feeds into the “All talk, no action” impression that the majority of the public has about DC.
- Now, this one is IMPORTANT – a CRITICAL lesson we must ALL learn! Ready?…….Mamas – do NOT let your babies grow up to give the response to the SOTU! Got that? Really, I mean it. Ever since I’ve been paying attention to this speech, the response has been just awful. Often it is awful in substance, or awful in delivery, or…well..both! Of course most recently this sorry task has fallen to the GOP, but even the last couple of Democratic responses that I recall were sorely lacking. I do not understand how a supposedly polished politician who has won elections and therefore most likely given a stump speech or twelve can STILL be so so so unprepared to give a PREPARED statement on TV. In a controlled environment! For just 5-10 minutes! With no applause or heckling (that they can hear anyway!)
- My one particular takeaway from the Marco Rubio response was this – no, not the water thing, I actually listened to it on a radio re-broadcast so I wasn’t distracted by those things – the GOP though, has still not learned it’s lesson from the 2012 election. That response sounded like a word for word repeat of a Romney stump speech from the last campaign. You know, the one they lost? Yup, the response was completely filled with the same perspective/attacks on Obama and his policies and then the same, rejected solutions. Guys? It’s not that the messenger (Romney) was weak, it’s that your IDEAS are weak! Having a fresh faced young hispanic senator repeat the same thing didn’t make it go down any better. Even WITH an awkward gulp of water 😉
When will the GOP learn?
Hey hi – I didn’t disappear – I just didn’t want to, you know – GLOAT too much after the election 🙂
Instead I have been watching and wondering what sort of reaction would occur on the right. Would they continue to just insanely ignore all facts n the ground and still try to spin the results to avoid those realities? Or would there be some cracks in the bubble?
There have been a *few* cracks. Mostly just the folks who already occasional showed some signs of reason & ability to criticize the GOP. Those people have rightly exposed the media bubble and voiced the need for a re-assessment of policies proposed, not just HOW messages are delivered.
The vast majority though are still encased in fantasy-land. Blaming things like Hurricane Sandy and the lack of real voting restrictions efforts to be put in place in time. Yes, there are some in the GOP who are being much more open about the fact that their voter suppression efforts WERE designed to keep Democrats specifically away from the voting booth. Somehow, that is more honorable than actually admitting your policies and candidates might be…you know…BAD!
No where is this more evident though, than in Michigan. A state that has districts that have been so gerrymandered that even though it overwhelmingly went for Obama and even though the total votes cast for Congress were also heavily Dem, they still send more GOP reps to Congress than Dems. HUH? Yeah, all about how district lines are drawn folks. Beyond that though is their state government. Currently still dominated by the GOP thanks to the 2010 elections (NEVER ignore the mid-terms Democrats! This is what happens!)
The message sent in November was that the voters FAVOR Democratic policies as laid out by Obama. It wasn’t just HIM, it was what he spoke about specifically that brought them out. Michigan state government though, didn’t quite get that. Governor Snyder who as recently as February stepped back from any union busting legislation (having seen the reaction in Wisconsin and across the country to efforts there)…well, AFTER a pretty clear national referendum in support of unions – he decided that Right To Work laws are suddenly fine and dandy and when both houses of the state legislature passed them, he signed it within hours. Gosh, no fast tracking there! Next up? Abortion! Let’s restrict access to it as MUCH as possible without quite crossing the Roe v Wade line. Also….go ahead and bring your guns to schools and day care centers. That would be cool. There’s more, but you get the point.
The GOP reaction in Michigan to voters telling them they don’t LIKE those policies? Tough noogies! We are still in power and as long as we are, we don’t care if this isn’t the stuff we ran on, we are going to do it anyway because we CAN. So There!
I think that’s what makes me most angry – even if you can say that Michigan voters got themselves into this mess by voting for these candidates – I do know that NONE of them campaigned on these issues. Union busting and abortion and gun laws were NOT on the agenda in 2010. So why have so many in the GOP legislated on them? It’s a bait and switch.
I just look at all this as such a huge waste of time and money. Michigan voters are fighting mad. Now they have to find legal ways to challenge all these laws and/or repeal them. They will most certainly vote a lot of these folks out of office and then that new administration will have to write new laws to fix these bad ones.
I try not to be TOO cynical when it comes to politics and I absolutely HATE conspiracy theories, but MAN it is getting harder and harder to not believe that so much of what they DO once in power is more as a pay back to a big money donor than it is to benefit the people they represent. And when it turns out that ONE particular set of billionaires (Kochs) and their public policy institute (ALEC) happened to WRITE and then fund the campaigns to get those laws put into place?
Well….speaking of not being able to see reality….perhaps I SHOULD be more cynical about all this!
Pragmatic Progressive 