I'm not buying them pizza....

I stand firmly with the protesters in Wisconsin. While I'm certain nobody is surprised by that declaration, I have been thinking seriously about it. I'm not a member of a union, nor is my husband but I know their rights matter to me. Lets get all the logistics out of the way. First they are public servants. These are the people that teach children, respond in an emergency, and put out fires on the possessions a family most cherishes. Second, it's a vendetta. The union had already agreed to compromise and bargain on the very reasons the governor wishes to eliminate their bargaining rights. Third, if these lawmakers wish to cut the budget by decreasing benefits, perhaps they should look at their own. Through this economic crisis, my battle cry has remained constant, no it is not popular, but taxes have to go up and the government has to make real, substantial cuts and not only to programs they disagree with such as Planned Parenthood or NPR and PBS.

Unions do affect me, they affect everybody. Unions create the framework of workers rights from the steelworker to the McDonald's worker. These unions are accused of being a communist idea. This is the current scare tactic being used. If we look, we can see communist threads everywhere, the truth is that our democracy is not and has never been pure. (Gasp!) Sure , unions have a bad name, perhaps their start has not been so ideal. But here we are with the Patriot Act, which fails a democracy litmus test every day. We are often a nation of double standards. Perhaps if our people were taken better care of, unions would be unnecessary. Unfortunately this is not the case.

I am not buying pizza for the protesters, but I stand behind them. I stand behind them as a parent, a community member, and an American. I stand behind them because they are victims of an agenda conservative America has against unions.

For only 20 cents a day, you can help Little Susie

All week I've been trying, trying hard to not mention the whole Planned Parenthood debate. I know it's overdone and nobody is going to meet in the middle on the abortion debate. Here's the issue, abortion is 3 percent of what Planned Parenthood does, 3 percent. So our current lawmakers are saying that an organization the provides services for women, services that some women can get no other place (I am not referring to the 3 percent abortion rate) should be cut. But this is not an attack on women. If not then who? This is not a budget cutting method, budget cutting entails getting into real expenses, like defense or funding Israel. Balancing a budget and fixing our economic issues will require a tax hike. I know it's a dirty word, but cutting funding for poor women to obtain birth control is not a long term budget cutting mechanism it's a way to keep women on the system, probably where they like them. If these tea partiers in Congress wish to cut the budget so badly, perhaps they should cut their own salaries, or is it ok for our grandchildren to pay for that?

I am not comfortable with white men making decisions about services provided to me. I saw a few tweets from Canadians asking if we had women in our Congress. Even they see this is an attack on women. Because it is. While we take birth control to developing nations in an effort to stem their population explosion, why do we shut our own women down?

I am also not comfortable with the Pope making decisions for me. We do not live in Rome, we are not under the power of the Catholic church, yet we bend to their will. In fact we take their opinion on public policy. Our public is not Catholic, we are atheist, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, many other faiths AND Catholic. Catholicism did not even provide the basis for our nation.

In addition to my disdain for this attack on women, I am also very concerned. If poor women lack access to birth control, and middle class women slide into poverty as the income gap widens, where will we be?

Why I Want to Immigrate to any Other Country

Top 6
1. Tea Partiers
2. Demise of Planned Parenthood
3. Our backing of Israel
4. Lack of quality childhood education
5. The proposition of cutting the WIC program. Yes, let's just not provide infant formula to infants whose mothers are poor. Great plan!
6. Demise of PBS and NPR

I believe our president is a great man in terrible times. This does not change the priorities of our people, so selfish they cannot see how they should have to sacrifice to help fix our economy. I once naively thought people could cause change in America. I now see how very wrong I was. We will all sit by as our country steps backwards and hovers closer to a developing nation despite the sacrifice of those before us. We have forgotten.

What does Egypt Have to do With Tea Partiers

I find myself cautiously happy for the people of Egypt. I'm concerned about the outcome, but am inspired by them. They faced all mortal fear to demonstrate in huge numbers and have their voices heard worldwide. People briefly forgot that they are not predominately white or Christian. Watching this unfold has reminded me that Americans have demonstrated in huge numbers. Sometimes a change has occurred, sometimes not, but the hope is unsquashable.

Listening to all of the talk of Egypt makes me wonder what other nations thought of America's fight for independence. Was there concern over a power vacuum or the fear of who would control the nation? While this may come to bite me later, I think the group Muslim Brotherhood, is thrown around to induce fear and it is working. Now they are the new boogieman, as I'm sure people thought George Bush was.

Now to the Tea Party and ultra conservatism; I see more than a fight for independence, I see a fight from people with no real economic options. I see a chasm between the haves and have not's in Egypt and the gap continues to grow in America to such a degree, it is feared the middle class will become extinct. If the mentality continues here to only cater to wealthy people through governmental policy the gap will grow larger and the lower rung people will feel even more disenfranchised. This creates a group of dissatisfied people, a group with nothing to lose, a group with demands that can hit the streets in huge numbers. As our government grows larger than life, not in size but in unattainable economic size, the believe that all people have a voice erodes further. This causes me to wonder, will this create a power vacuum that may be filled by militias from Wyoming......