I'm MAD AS HELL!

It's been many, many years since I have felt like acting out that scene from the movie Network and yelling "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it any more!" 

I held back all throughout hanging chads and missing ballots. 

I didn't scream it when the Republicans jiggered with the Gore-Bush election and the Supreme Court handed it over.

I didn't consider it very often throughout the Bush, Jr. era, even when he abandoned the hunt for Bin Laden to revenge daddy and invade Iraq leading to the deaths of thousands. 

I held my tongue when the Citizens United decision was announced.

But this Republican party, you know the one that is run by elite rich white men who think they know what's best for everyone, particularly women, has finally done it.  So let me say, loudly and clearly, "I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!"

I always considered myself a moderate with a good set of values inherited from my blue collar military-brat Catholic upbringing. Although I unabashedly have aligned with Democrats all my life, I never thought of myself as on "the far left". I always was fairly progressive with social issues but leaned more conservatively on fiscal issues. I can even say that I have at times voted Republican. 

But NO MORE.

Values are defined as "the moral principles and beliefs or accepted standards of a person or social group."  Some of my core values are compassion, integrity, honor, tolerance, equality, family, peace, justice, and respect. The current Republican party fails on all of those in so many ways, more than I can discuss here.

Moreover, the one thing I abhor most of all is a hypocrite.  You believe something different than I?  That’s ok, that’s what diversity and democracy are all about.  But 30 years of corporate real world experience showed me that you if you don’t “walk the talk” you won’t be respected as a leader - as my mom hammered into me, “Actions do speak louder than words”.  

So let’s review recent actions of the current Republican party:

• Does the Romney-Ryan budget strike you as compassionate and in line with Ryan’s professed Christian values? One advertised as necessary for deficit reduction and designed to reduce services to the poorest of our country, radically changing Medicare for seniors while providing huge tax cuts for the wealthy and outrageous subsidies of taxpayer dollars to industries that have no need of them? And a budget that won’t do a thing for the deficit for more than 20 years? The LA Times explains the Ryan budget here. Even the Catholic Church doth protest!

• Do the efforts of many Republican governors, state legislators, and party operatives to suddenly discover a non-existent voting fraud problem they are determined to "fix" in a myriad of ways that serve only to prevent likely Democratic voters from getting to the polls sound anything like integrity, justice or honor?  Does this sound like the actions of a party that respects our Constitution and the rule of law (or is it using law to get to rule??)  Ohio is working hard to disenfranchise voters as just one example.

• Does the continued war on women, from transvaginal probes right up to this week's most egregious affront to women regarding rape sound like justice and equality? Does this sound like a party that really believes in “the sanctity of life” at any cost? Or is this just being used so even more restrictions to abortions, contraception and the morning after pill can be codified into law, ensuring America comes closer to conforming to one particular religious point of view? And the "war on women" is real and goes deeper than "misspoken" words. It is embedded in the official Republican party platform.

• Does the mantra “Don’t tread on me”, or such diatribes as don’t “let the government get between you and your doctor”, or we believe in “protecting” all life, or any of a number of Bible references to justify some ideological stand square with the likes of trying to legislate thru constitutional amendments who can marry whom, and what choices a woman can make about her own body?  Does that sound like smaller government to you?  Why is it ok to pass laws that restrict personal choices of an intense individual nature such as gay marriage (which hasn’t hurt a single person as far as I know) but not regulations that protect the environment and prevent horrific water and air pollution? Such regulatory laws bring hoards of “big government” hacks out of the woodwork, yet in the absence of such regulations hundreds of thousands have been harmed at a cost of billions per year (medical costs, cleanups, etc.). Why is science an “inconvenient truth” to the GOP? Science is what moves our world forward.  Yet the GOP seems to latch on to any junk science that supports their ideology regardless of who it may hurt.  My goal in life is to protect my family, and the generations of my family to come.  But if the GOP has their say, we likely won’t survive beyond a few generations.  Does this sound like a party that really respects “life” and the “family”? The party continues to march right to the extreme while driving us to extinction.

• Is the constant assault on groups who "aren't like them" such as our diverse citizenry, our LGBT community, and specifically Latinos, African-Americans and Muslims sound anything like equality and tolerance?  Does the hate that spews forth from any number of right wing religiously driven organizations that are embedded within the Republican party square with what you were taught Jesus would preach?  Does a nation that values its heritage of diversity built on immigrants who made this country what it used to be, respect that other religions may have their “God” that is just as valid and loving as the Christian one?  Our nation is NOT founded as a Christian (or any other religion) state and a few key individuals worked to keep it that way.

• Does a government that has the largest military in the world and wants to spend even more on defense represent a party that respects peace and justice as it’s first line of offense?  According to SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, “The United States spent $728 billion on its military in 2010, or about 45 percent of the world’s total, more than the next 14 largest military spenders combined and nearly six times more than the next biggest spender, China. The US spent slightly less in 2011.”  At a time when budget austerity is the mantra of the day, why is it necessary to INCREASE the defense budget and rescind sequestration of it at the expense of the middle class and programs that serve them?  Why are members of Congress continually pushing for defense programs in their constituencies yet crying about the need for spending cuts anywhere else that isn’t in their backyard?  Why do they push programs even the Pentagon doesn't want? Jobs? Then why are many other job creating programs getting cut? (The Wind Production Tax Credit comes to mind.) Again, government driven jobs = “big government” doesn’t it? Or are the big government jobs only ones not in their own district? Does this sound like a party that truly acknowledges a real fiscal crisis? 

Romney and many of his Republican cohorts are spending this week scrambling to distance themselves from Todd Akin, but it’s not out of horror at what he said - it’s the specter of defeat, possibly costing them control of the Senate, that is their driving force.  It is not because they recognize that he crossed any line - that line doesn’t exist in their world. But he did possibly throw a real kink in the works of their goal of total control.  

Conservative is defined as "disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change." (I shudder to think how far back they wish to preserve....) Be aware, and be scared people.  The election is only 77 days away now.  Our choice is clear - conserve the status quo, one which moves us ever backwards down a dark path of government by the rich for the richer, based on a false theocracy and ruled by plutocrats, or one in which true democratic principles of freedom, equality and justice are respected and will have room to flourish and serve to make us a “more perfect union”?  The choice, hopefully, will be ours through the voting booth (for those of us who can actually get into the voting booth) and not sold to the highest bidder.

So, get up out of your chair....but before you do, watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThB0uAbjhGY

Note to readers who made it this far: I recognize that there are many good people in the Republican party who do not necessarily buy into the far right extreme either. I am not intending to disparage all Republicans and certainly the Democrats have had their issues too.  But the above reflects the platform of the party and the policies being pushed by their leadership and hence, drives my rant!