Really Laura, Afghanistan???

Afghanistan-Jewel of the Middle East

I will avoid the obvious Terry Schiavo case, and just say I think it is sad that the Republicans (The party of supposedly smaller government) feels the need to stick their noses into our medical decisions. I do not want George, Dick, Karl, or Tom making any medical decisions for me. I really do not even want a lawyer involved in any of my medical decisions. My medical decisions need to be between me and my Doctor. Whether they are that I do not want to be kept around by artificial means so my parents never really have to go through the grieving process or the decision not to bring a child into this world. Get out of the doctor patient relationship.

I want to talk about the tour of Afghanistan that our first prude err I mean lady just finished. I heard a quote from her today saying that Afghanistan is exotic and would be a great tourist destination. Can you hear the tour guide-“This is Tora Bora. This is where we had the terrorist mastermind, Osama Bin Laden, trapped. Until the President of the United States and US Military decided to let Osama’s former allies try and get him. Somehow he escaped and is still on the loose here in exotic Afghanistan.” Or maybe a commercial- a loud booming voice saying “Come to the land of heroin, come home to Afghanistan.” Or “Come to Afghanistan if you like democracy go to Kabul, if you like anarchy anyplace else in Afghanistan is for you.”
Do they really expect us to believe that Afghanistan is a tourist destination? Why not “Come to Iraq we will help you separate your mind from your daily worries.”? Do they think the American people are really stupid enough to believe their jargon? Do they want us to believe that Afghanistan is now secure?

Maybe someone could explain it to me.

United States of Avaritia

All hail George W.!! That is what America is coming to. We are becoming the Rome of today. We can not continue to force our beliefs and views onto the world and pretend that we are good and the rest of the world is evil that we are the enlightened and the rest of the world is backward. George is quick to point out that “They” hate us for our freedom, but never wants to look at the fact that “they” might hate us for our policy. As our foreign policy continually grows toward unilateralism and hegemony and as George morphs the lines of Christian beliefs and American patriotism “their” hatred will continue to grow. We will never be able to defeat intolerance and hatred with our own intolerance, hatred, and violence. If we can not see that this is a cycle which we can not break with a bigger bomb or a missile defense system then our children and grandchildren will never be safe. As long as America is dominated by greed and corporate corruption and our elected officials are indebted to them we will not be safe. We will continue to be hated as long as our foreign policy decisions are based on our corporate interest instead of social justice.
Our current status in the world as the only “super power” left should make us accountable to a higher standard of morality. We should be trying to affect change without using our military and we should be affecting this change everywhere not just where there is oil. The current poverty situation in the world and America for that matter is unacceptable. We are the richest nation in the world but unfortunately all the wealth is becoming more and more concentrated along with the power. We are becoming the United States of Avaritia instead of the United States of America.

This was a recent Letter to the editor that I sent to a local paper. I wanted to make sure the world could read it.

Necessity: The Mother Of Invention

They say that the title of the entry is true but the corporate minded Republicans continue to ignore the fact that we need to get off oil. Instead of forcing American ingenuity to work, they would rather stick an oil rig and pipelines any where and everywhere. (Georgie made his money in oil and has only altruistic motives for wanting to open ANWR up for drilling—He would never lie to us)
I heard two Republicans this week say that we just do not have the technology to stop polluting our environment. Our own Mrs. Shelley Moore Bush errr Capito said that we need to drill in ANWR unless we have a major push for conservation. We all know that the Republicans think about conservation. To quote Dick Cheney “Conservation is not an energy policy.”
Hey Dick and Shelley maybe if we were actually forced to conserve a little instead of having to go to war to continue the flow of oil from the Middle East, we would not be in such a financial and energy crisis.
I can guarantee that if America was forced to come up with cleaner technology then we would. It is that simple. As long as corporate America wants to drill for oil and burn dirty coal for our energy needs the Republicans will do everything they can to protect their profits. The Republicans will continue to downplay the fact that we in West Virginia can no longer eat the fish in our rivers due to mercury from the coal fired power plants. They will continue to downplay the fact that the Dirty Skies Act will actually increase the amount of pollution allowed and increase the amount of time it is allowed.
If you want to implement a tax on a group of people that will help everyone, tax the hell out of the idiots that make Humvees and also the idiots that drive them. Let’s make the automakers come up with automobiles that are actually fuel efficient instead of just bigger. Let’s put some real effort into a public transportation system. Let’s actually try to protect the environment we live in for our grandchildren’s sake instead of forcing them to clean up our mess.

Well I have skimmed the surface of enough issues for now and have worked myself into a pollution induced asthma attack.

Social Security Overhaul

Why does George and his Republican friends want to destroy Social Security?
1. It Works
2. It is a program that gives working class Americans a chance to live with dignity in retirement.
3. It supports disabled Americans and we all know they are just not productive enough for Republicans.
4. Their Wall Street friends ask them.
5. It gives wealthy Americans more control and allows greed to rule the day.
6. Greed, Greed, Greed, Greed, Greed

These are only a few of the reasons. George would tell you it is because he is a problem solver. Well he has not fixed Medicare only made it worse with the pharmacy benefit that is about to go into affect. It was a give away to drug manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers with no hopes of actually controlling drug cost. Why must we as young Americans subsidize our grandparents sex life. Yes that is right the Medicare Part D plan will pay for Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra. This is how George solves problems.

Lets go on a sixty city tour of America at tax payers expense to explain that Social Security will begin to use its surplus in 2018. We will not address the fact that Medicare is already running deficits. If he really wanted to address the solvency issue and feels the stock market is the answer then invest the surplus in the stock market. Oh we can't do that for a couple of reasons.
1. Wall Street would not benefits nearly as much. Imagine if the government invested the money there would be no broker fees collected.
2. It would mean that Clinton was right when he suggested it and we all know he was a terrible president.

I am tired of expounding for now; I will see you in a couple of days.