Politics

Incensed and impotent

/ josephpatrickrichards / Leave a comment

5 September 2011

Good evening all.

I have no real claim to being smart or savvy or really much at all. I’m just a regular human who does some things well and some things poorly.

I say so to acknowledge, once again, that what I share tonight is nothing new or groundbreaking.

My friend shared an article titled, “Goodbye to all that: Reflections of a GOP operative who left the cult.” I finally had a chance to sit down and read the piece and found my heart dying a little more.

I believe in humanity. I really do. More than anything. But I also know some people want power and control no matter the cost. (I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same. But I’ll safely judge for now.)

Politics in the United States are no longer a joke. They are a disaster. A constant battle that is destroying our people and our country. (Please read the piece mentioned above for an actual articulate analysis.)

I still don’t get it. Why do we talk about gay marriage and abortion and immigration and birth certificates? Why do we not all somehow make our way to Washington, DC and stand, yell, sleep and sit in the halls of Congress until insane Republicans and feckless Democrats stop fucking with us?

I will buy as many bus tickets as possible for anyone who wants to come out here. That’s all that I know how to do. Fuck petitions and phone calls.

Idiots who protect their own interests need to see us. See us gather and realize that we fucking elected these fucks. They work FOR us.

I don’t know what to do.

I like this country. I like the opportunities we have. I like our people and I like what we bring. But I think our elected officials, especially Republicans, are fucking us over while convincing us that voting for them is in our best interests.

Waiting for heaven won’t matter if we all have to deal with fucking hell while we’re here.

So, I’ll just remain angry and ineffectual, safe in front of my computer screen, agonizing over an overthrow that I can’t even start.

Equality has not been achieved

/ josephpatrickrichards / Leave a comment

15 August 2011

GF and I are watching the HBO documentary Gloria: In Her Own Words.

I don’t understand where we are in the US. Did progress stop? I don’t know. I really don’t have an answer. I do think we have, at least, hit a plateau in women’s equality. I think in many ways, as well, we are moving backward.

For example, how is abortion access still an issue? How can the ERA not exist in the US Constitution? How can so little funding go to day care and education?

The United States of America, as a whole, as a political entity denigrates and despises women. There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary.

Sometimes I hate being a man. I hate belonging to a group of misogynist fucks who are so afraid of everything that the solution is to undermine others.

“We’ve been much too law-abiding and too docile for too long.”

Dis-credited argument

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6 August 2011

I am reading a story detailing Standard & Poor’s downgrading the US credit rating from AAA to AA plus. I don’t claim to understand economics or credit ratings, but if I can use my amateur knowledge of batteries, I don’t really see the big deal. I think the AA battery is more useful and even seems to last longer (based on an entire lack of evidence on my part). So, the rating should be a good thing, right? I look forward to our country eventually having the rating of the mighty D, my second-favorite battery. What battery do you put in a flashlight (torch for our UK readers) when you want to go into an old cave by the river and read poetry until one of you commits suicide due to feeling trapped by the professional pressures of his paternal guardian? D, dammit!

The article regarding the credit rating reiterated the extreme opposition of Congressional Republicans toward even the discussion of increasing taxes.

As you can tell from my battery musings, I am far from genius. Which is why I am sure that it is my mere stupidity holding me back from seeing the brilliant rationale we, as humans in the US, have for not all (or at least tens of thousands of us) descending on the US Capitol in DC and demanding that each member of Congress:

A. Foregoes health and dental insurance until everyone in the US also has affordable access to the same quality of care.

B. Agrees to accept no more than $75,000/year as salary at least until ALL people living in the US are able to make a living wage.

C.  Lobbies for the Equal Rights Amendment, works to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and Hyde Amendment and drafts and passes a bill requiring Congress be made up equally of male-identified and female-identified persons (which would include trans individuals).

I apologize for even sharing such a foolish notion. I know there are an incredible number of reasons we as humans in the US are not angrier with Congress, are not constantly out of our homes and on the streets demanding Congress stop fucking with us.

Pardon the delusions of a simpleton.

Tether ball

/ josephpatrickrichards / Leave a comment

5 August 2011

I was dressed and prepared for work quicker than usual this morning, most likely because “casual Friday” affords me the opportunity to slacks off a bit in my attire.

With the extra time, I scrolled through Twitter to read the latest news and came upon a story about Texas Governor Rick Perry preparing to hold a revival tomorrow “to pray for what he calls ‘a nation in crisis'” according to NPR.

Let me put aside my belief that no one in a governmental leadership position should ever lead by or speak about religious beliefs publicly while in office. (Rick Perry and others calling on God’s guidance to lead public policy is no different, although perhaps worse, than me calling on the spirit of Jacob Marley to lead our economic policy. Either one is beyond poor policy-making.) Let me instead, if you will allow, speak to the fact that Mr. Perry and his ilk are completely off-base with the entire point of their rally.

The US is not in a shit hole because gay people exist, or people have sex outside of heterosexual marriage, or people get divorced, or people are atheist or women can use birth control or hold public office. The US is in a shit hole because we believe in business over humanity. We value corporations more than human life.

I seethe when I read ignorant, damaging rhetoric. Part of it may be a proclivity toward self-affliction casting outward because I used to be dogmatized. I used to walk around and spread the cheer of the Gospel (because only Cheer gets your Gospel whites whiter) and try to convince people to accept Jesus. Maybe that’s the problem. We’d rather have people accept Jesus than accept themselves or each other.

I got a card from my friend today. He wrote the card five years ago, but just mailed it. He mentioned a tethered, oppressed mind. That’s where we are as humans in the US. We are mentally tethered to ideas that are outdated, outmoded and outrageously devastating to our humanity.