TIME TRAVEL?

I just saw something I thought I would never see in my country.  Students who loved their school and wanted to stay there were dragged  out by uniformed police officers.  Yes, you read that right.  The students do not want to leave their school.  They love it there.  They are learning there.  And uniformed officers dragged them out, while the students screamed in terror.  It should probably come as no surprise to anyone that these students were young, female and black.  This would never happen to white middle class kids.

I feel like I have time-traveled back to the fifties, when black students simply wanted to go to a good school, and whole towns fell completely apart.  I hope there are people out there who care and will stand up for those young people.  Apparently, it is not going to  be their elected officials.

Most people know by now that in Michigan our Republican legislature and governor gave unbelievably broad powers to Emergency Financial Managers (EFM).   These EFMs can not only nullify contracts, they can fire local elected officials and sell off assets.  In other words, EFMs do not have to listen to the people in the communities they take over.  They become dictators.  Local citizens’ hands are tied; they can only resort to begging -- and civil disobedience.

The EFM in Benton Harbor this week stripped all power from the Benton Harbor City Council.  Oh, excuse me, not all their power.  They can still call meetings, accept the minutes, and adjourn meetings.  That’s it.  All other decisions will be made by the EFM.

And in Detroit, the EFM decided to close schools, including the Catherine Ferguson School, a place for young women who are pregnant or have young children and still want to pursue their education.  These young women and their children will grow into adults.  The best case scenario is that they are educated.  I guess that will not be happening now.  An effective place of learning is being closed down by the EFM.  The young women decided to turn to a technique that broke down the walls of Jim Crow in the fifties and sixties.  They had the courage and will to turn to to civil disobedience.  They  held a sit-in at their school.  Their thanks for trying to get an education?  They got dragged out of their own school and hauled off to jail.

I am sick about it.  I hope you are too.

We simply cannot sit by and do nothing when dedicated students are dragged out of their own school by uniformed police officers.

I talked to my state representative about the Emergency Financial Manager bill today.  She seemed to think that because the mayor of Benton Harbor did something wrong, it was okay to take over cities, sell off assets, end contracts.  I was disheartened to think she was returning to the same “blame the victims” mentality that has been used since the beginning of time to oppress people.

There are actions we can take.  There is a rally at Benton Harbor at noon on Wednesday.  The more people that come, the stronger statement we make.

Soon there will be petitions to circulate.  If we can get signatures to equal 5% of the people who voted for the governor in the last election, the law is stopped in its tracks until it is put to a vote of the people.  We simply must stop this travesty.

This week it’s Benton Harbor and Detroit.  Who is next?

WHAT EVER HALPPENED TO TELLING THE TRUTH?

"Not intended to be a factual statement."

Within a matter of just a few days those words have become iconic.  Just to make sure you're aware of the back story here, that is the excuse  Senator John Kyl's office staff gave when asked about a grossly inaccurate statement he made.  Right on the floor of the Senate, Senator Kyl said 90% of Planned Parenthood's funding went to abortions.  When faced with the truth,  that only 3%  went to abortions, his staff came back with that reply.

"It was not intended to be a factual statement."

In other words,  Senator Kyl knowingly lied to the American people on the Senate Floor.  His lie has now been written into the Senate Journal.  Maybe Senator Kyl should put out a disclaimer on all of his statements.  Let us know which ones are  intended to be  lies.

The Colbert report has poked a good deal of fun at this comment.  Many others have joined in the fun, too.  Say anything you want, as a matter of fact.  When someone asks about its truthfulness, you can always just say,  "it was not intended to be a factual statement."

It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

The truth has become so scarce that someone actually thought this was a sensible thing to say -- and that would explain this egregious attempt to tell a bold-faced lie to the public from the Senate floor.
An entire industry has grown up around the lie that President Obama is not a citizen and thus is not serving legitimately.  Now Donald Trump wants to run for president based on that lie.   Joe Farah of the website World Net Daily, which has promoted that lie consistently, admitted to Salon.com this week that his site publishes "some misinformation."

At what point did some of our Republican leaders decide that lying was acceptable?   

Senator Patrick Moynihan once commented that we are entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts. I agree.   We base  our own personal decisions on facts; we must have factual information to make our public decisions as well.

That's why something that happened at the state capital recently is so disturbing.  Mitch Bean, director of the Non-Partisan House Fiscal Agency, has been going to member's districts teaching citizens of our state about the budget problems we are experiencing, how we got to this spot and how we might find our way out.   When he speaks, citizens are suddenly informed and empowered, better able to make good, solid decisions.

Interestingly, Jace Bolger, speaker of the House, has now informed Mitch Bean that he can no longer make these presentations in members' districts.  When I contacted Speaker Bolger's office asking why, he didn't even have the guts to respond.

Our forefathers were clear when they put this democracy in place.  We must have an informed citizenry if we are to survive.  That will be difficult with the Senator Kyls, Joe Farrahs and Speaker Bolgers of the world attempting to shut down the truth.

GOVERNMENT SHUT-DOWN ANYONE?

Big drama coming from Washington last week -- will the government shut down, or won't it?  Will our armed services get their pay or won't they?  Will senior citizens receive their Social Security checks or won't they?  The Tea Party was itching for a government shut down, but fortunately, wiser heads prevailed.  Compromises were reached and the government kept on working.  But the challenge is still with us.

 

The rich are still getting richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class is shrinking.

Why?

Because the wealthiest among us -- and the top corporations -- don't pay their fair share of taxes.  It's that simple. This is true at both the federal and state level.  Fair taxes equals good roads, good schools, good health care.  But they have somehow convinced Americans that if the wealthy keep their cushy  tax cuts, we all benefit.  That has never been true in the past, and it is not true now.  Those tax cuts the wealthy receive are making them richer at the expense of the rest of us.

There is a simple solution -- fair and uncomplicated:  a  fair tax code. But it never gets talked about and is never even up for discussion   And why is that?  Because the wealthy corporations own the media.  They simply do not want us to know the truth.  That is why is is important for us to start our own communication systems if  America is to be strong and vital -- and its citizens thriving.

According to Thom Hartman in an April 8 article from Common Dreams, corporations used to pay for 30% of our publicly-collected money.  They now pay for 7%.  No wonder there is a "budget crisis".  And make no mistake, it is one that has been carefully developed over many years. 

So we in this country have a huge problem.  Our founding fathers knew that freedom of the press was critical for a democracy to survive.  And indeed, we do have a free press.  But we also have a press that is corporate-owned  and doesn't really want us to know the truth.  The don't want you to know the wealthy are skating off without equal responsibility, while the rest of us have to have lower quality schools, roads and health care.  And as long as the truth is elusive, we cannot fix it.

That's why it is important for us to educate ourselves and stand strong together.  If those of us who are hurting with this present system come together with one strong voice, we can still get our country back, still have good schools, good roads, and safe drinking water.  But the time for action is now, lest we wait too long.

Let's stay informed, stand strong and assure our government is in the hands of the people, not the corporation.