070113: TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION - AMERICAN DEMOCRACY FOR SALE?

Never in the history of America have we seen ANYTHING like this on this massive a scale. With perhaps the exception of the Civil War. This is now beyond the beginning of the demise of the United States as we know it UNLESS WE act.

I wrote this opinion piece last fall the day after the vote in California. But, it BEARS repeating. AND, it BEARS discussion. BIG TIME, because if WE AS A COUNTRY do NOT begin to get a handle on all this, then WE ARE DOOMED as a nation. That simple. So, read and then weigh in. What do you think? AND what do we do now to counteract all this malaise and apathy at the voting booths of America? READ THIS, PLEASE. NOT just to agree with me but to SEE AND THINK ABOUT what is happening in America. Right now. RIGHT NOW!

THEN, share this with friends, family, acquaintenances. Post it on FB and You Tube and Twitter and anywhere else there are forums for THOUGHTFUL PEOPLE to gather and discuss and THINK.

Comment here, at the bottom of the page. Let's get a good discussion going on what is happening. THAT is the FIRST STEP to solving the problem. We have to DISCUSS, DEBATE, THINK...THEN DO. If we IGNORE, the animals seize the farm and we ALL end up pig slop and cow turds. You ever smelled a cowplop in August? That will smell like CK Obsession by comparison to what WE ALL will smell like if the Koch's and the elites get any more power and control over the rest of us.

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FACT: California has the 2nd LOWEST smoking rate in the country, behind Utah. So, if you live in California, chances are...you don't smoke. Chances are ALSO good that you don't even know anyone else who smokes. That's a FACT.

FACT: Americans HATE Cancer.

Yup. We do NOT LIKE Cancer. Cancer is a BAD thing.

SO, when California decided to put on their state ballot an initiative (CA Prop 29) that would add $1 to the cost of a pack of cigarettes...the proceeds of which would go exclusively to CANCER RESEARCH, well, DUH?

SLAM DUNK, RIGHT?

OK, YEH.

And a few short weeks before the special election, the voters in California were for that idea. Not even close. Over 2/3 of Californians supported the idea of a tax on cigarettes to fund Cancer research. In MARCH 2012, they did. Yup yup.

BUT...not so fast, bad breath voters.

THEN, the tobacco industry began an advertising campaign. A BLITZKREIG. They spent roughly $50m on trying to defeat the proposition. YUP. ALMOST $$$ FIFTY MILLION BUCKAROOS $$$.

Then election night, and Californians who only 6 weeks before were OVERWHELMINGLY FOR the measure VOTED IT DOWN. 

DOWN. IN FLAMES. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERroooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Dahwn. Pfffffffft.

The point AND the issue here is NOT whether or not anyone agrees OR NOT with the tenets of CA PROP 29. Nope. That is now almost irrelevant.

They was FOR it...B 4 they was agin it. Where have I heard THAT before.

HOWEVER, what IS the point AND the issue is THIS.

The votes of the voters of the State of California were bought and paid for. There is no nice or easy to say that but it's true and it's obvious.

They liked the idea. OH YES THEY DID. THEN...big tobacco spent $50m on tv commercials and subsequently the voters turned against it.

If THAT FACT ALONE doesn't tell you that American's principles, their values, AND THEIR VOTES...ARE FOR SALE, then nothing will, but even if it doesn't? Doesn't change the FACTS. A MAJORITY OF CALIFORNIA VOTERS, NON-SMOKERS mind you, overwhelmingly, voted AGAINST the prop. BECAUSE of $$$ spent in opposition to the prop BY a special interest group. WHICH had a perfect right to do so, but again. That ain't the point. They voted for tobacco and for lung cancer primarily, because of $$$.

Then there is Wisconsin, where the Walker voters CLEARLY voted AGAINST THEIR OWN BEST INTERESTS to keep an ethically-challenged governor in office who has proven numerous times that he is against the middle class & for big-money interests like his buddies David & Charles Koch (Koch Industries) & Karl Rove, and he was also seen sidling up to Mitt Romney and his Bain Capital bunch of financial perverts.

Lets be clear here. The people of Wisconsin had ample information on what a sleaze ball Walker was (and is). His morally dubious exploits in Milwaukee County were well known. YET they made this bleep governor. And he just kept on proving what an ethical mess he is. SO then voters had a chance to remove him, and again they did NOT. They left him in office to keep on doing damage to Wisconsin. Good God.

The democrat in the recall election, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, raised $3.9m from inside Wisconsin and Walker raised over $40m and most of that came from outside WI. Principally from the aforementioned Kochs & Karl Rove's AFP & GPS astro-turf groups. Most of that massive amount of money went for TV ads near the end of the campaign. AND, it worked. 

But WHY? HOW? How can mere $$$ sway election results THAT EASILY?

TWO more examples of the downside ramifications of Citizens United. But, while I may rail against and decry the actions of unscrupulous politicians to be sure, what to me is even MORE troubling...is HOW EASILY the average American voter out here can be manipulated and bought. WHOSE VOTES can be bought. WHY? HOW? How did we GET to this?

THAT is the bigger story and the most troubling aspect of both races...and I do NOT think it bodes well for EITHER the November 2012 and then the 2014 electoral races OR the future of the country as a whole.

If YOUR vote can be CHANGED by a barrage of negative (& frequently fact-challenged) ADS? ALONE? That's IT? Then WE AS A COUNTRY are in even worse trouble than I have previously thought. BUT...just those two races alone last night shows quite clearly, that is what is happening. Sad day. Sad day...NOT what America has EVER been IN OUR HISTORY.

YES, there have ALWAYS been smarmy politicians like Scott Walker (R-Wi), Rick Snyder (R-Mi), Rick Scott (R-Fl), John Kasich (R-Oh), Corbett of Pennsylvania, Paul LePage (R-Me), Mitch Daniels (R-In), not to mention Branstad (R-Ia) & that idiot Phil Bryant (R-Ms), et al...AND there have always been low-information, apathetic and dis-engaged people in the electorate as well. Nothing new there on either front.

Was it not Jesus who said the poor, politicians, and used car salesmen you shall always have with you. (When I asked him why, he said Heaven didn't want them either, and like it or not...)

BUT, in this age of instant communications and mass media and IMMENSE resources to provide the average voter with FAR MORE information at the click of a mouse than EVER BEFORE IN OUR HISTORY, and yet? We have MORE ignorant voting in this country now than at any time in our history. WHY, for Gods sake?

For one thing, apathy.

Less than 1% of Americans support elections financially or with their efforts. SO we get what we deserve in terms of the candidates we get and the legislators we wind up with? MAYBE. But it's perhaps not just that alone. For at least the past 30 years, we have been slowly and systematically drawn to the idea that NO government is good. Started with the 1st Reagan term and all those dispassionate hate-filled Republicans who have NO compassion for the downtrodden...began to suckle from that trough like a calf to its mothers teat. 

This coming from people who DO believe in government...just not the government they don't control.

& some people, especially the more unsophisticated and less literate among us, seem to buy into this BS...IRREGARDLESS of how IDIOTIC and IRRATIONAL that idea might be.

JUST THINK. the next time you feel compelled to consider RANTING about the shape of the roads in your area, THINK. NO GOVERNMENT. NO GOVERNMENT $$$ for roads. YOU be paying for the roads by your house out of your lunch $$$.

You wanna support the Hoover Dam AND the TVA out of your salary? 
HMMM, BUCKWHEAT?

AND do I need to remind ANYONE of the devastating consequences of the repeal of the protective legislation [Glass-Steagall] which had been enforced BY the government for decades that HAD PREVENTED what subsequently happened AFTER the repeal that cost millions of Americans their homes, jobs, cars, 401K's, life savings, pensions, etc? & is still doing so? The entire world economy ALMOST COLLAPSED as a result. Yeh, way to go you anti-gov DOLTS. 

Have you hugged your BANKER today?)

Yeh. WE DEFINITELY NEED MORE of THAT happy horseshit, and all the unsophisticated and dis-engaged mostly rural and not exactly on top of things political DOOFUSES...were drawn to it over a long period of time by the special interests, the BIG $$$ people who WANT an ignorant and dis-engaged electorate because it is MUCH easier to manipulate the uneducated and the apathetic than those who have quick minds and use them. No question about that. History illuminates that over and over & by lying through their forked tongues and fanged teeth and by trying to, in the words of Scott Walker 'DIVIDE & CONQUER', they are slowly but surely convincing ENOUGH voters of that idea to sway elections at the ultimate expense of those same voters...AND everyone else to boot.

BE CLEAR! These cretins do NOT want SMALL OR NO government, any more than Hitler or Stalin did. They want Government all right. THEIR government. THEIR government which RULES over everyone in a totalitarian way. PLEASE do NOT think that that is an overstatement. I only wish it were. We see this ALREADY (if people will only look) in Michigan, Iowa, and Virginia to name but three states where we really don't have democracy anymore. Legislating and ruling by FIAT. That's dictatorship, NOT democracy. & now there is Wisconsin, Ohio, Texas, the Carolinas which makes me want to cry. This RAMPANT voter ignorance is stunning.

The Republicans idea of 'every man for him/her self' and let everyone else fend for themselves is NOT what our founding fathers believed. THEY believed in individual liberty to be sure, but also a sense of community. They were not without fault, but THEY had HEART. THIS new crop of Republicans lack even the SMALLEST of humanity components.

Sad day indeed.

Ultimately the question to be posed is: when you are heading to the polls, STOP. LOOK IN THE MIRROR. WHO OR WHAT are you voting for? WHY? & HOW will YOUR vote affect the lives of both yourself, your friends and family, and the COUNTRY.

That is NOT Pollyanna-ish. That is CRITICAL if this country is going to survive. Individual liberty is massively important, BUT SO IS COMMUNITY.

If you got the one without the other, WE as a country are DOOMED.

Sooner or later, the protests over the last 18 months or so will grow.

Anarchy is possible.

And then what?

DOOMED?

Post Citizens United, perhaps we already are.

BECAUSE IF YOU THINK FOR ONE MINUTE THAT THE 30 STATES THAT ARE MOVING TO LEGISLATE VOTER SUPPRESSION ARE DOING SO BECAUSE THEY LOVE OUR DEMOCRATIC PROCESS? You are wrong and worse.

Moving AGAINST women, minorities, unions, voters, gays...whose next? Christians? Don't laugh. Stranger things have happened. THAT has happened...when the majority began to take what they have for granted and let apathy begin to rule. Unfortunately, apathy has many friends in low places..although the term 'friends' may be a bit of a stretch. That is when the swamp critters emerge and take over. Many are already in Congress, in the state legislatures and doing a LOT of damage in the process.

BUT IF YOU THINK THEY ARE JUST OH SO PRO-AMERICA? Boy are YOU deluded. They are doing it to CONSOLIDATE POWER FOR THEMSELVES. PERIOD. POWER. $$$. GREED.  That is the GOD THEY are serving.

Sad day. Sad day. But they can't accomplish ANY of this WITHOUT the cooperation of the rest of us & the ultimate irony is they don't even like the people they are using to get their way. Do you think for one minute that Karl Rove or the Koch Brothers care a rats' ass about YOU? 
Gimme a break. They will use you and everyone else UNTIL they get what they want and then you and I and the rest are and will be DISPOSABLE, and if you have children and/or grandchildren? WHAT ABOUT THEM? Do you care SO LITTLE about your own family that you are willing to saddle them with a tax burden that makes our taxes now seem like milk money?

BUT, every major economist says, Democrat AND Republican, that THAT is EXACTLY what will happen to them if the Republicans of today get their way. This will make Haiti look like a RESORT by comparison.
90% of the wealth in Haiti is held by 10% of the population. THAT is what the Kochs and the Waltons and the rest of those bastard elites WANT.
THEY want to BE the ten percent and the rest of us their indentured servants. 

I don't know about you but as I remember the 1800's, they weren't a lot of fun. We had to HITCHHIKE to Disney World...and sleep in the barn when we got there.

Will YOU...SELL-OUT...AMERICA...TODAY? 

THEY hope you will...& too many of us ALREADY ARE.

Good GOD.

BUT, it's still not too late. MAYBE.

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Ok, what do YOU think? HUH? Weigh in. Share this on Twitter and Facebook. Send it to your friends. Talk about it. THINK. What DO we want for the country we all claim to love? HUH?

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PS: Watch for the upcoming
"WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE"
coming soon.