The Times they are a Changin'

I am in one of those days where I feel as if I forgot to pay my electric bill… Everything seems dark and of course, my humor can’t be any different.

Every time I read the news, I am faced with horrible stories, whether these stories are a catastrophe somewhere, a murder, a report of child abuse, the never-ending war in the Middle East and the many wars being fought right here at home, amid an already unnerving and unstable situation.  Yes, you heard me right, wars that are being fought right here in our homeland: war against women, war against the middle class, war against the poor, war against the citizens, war against integrity, war against education, war against homosexuals, war against the elderly, war against race, war against ethnicity and the worst war of them all, the war against our intelligence.

We are being attacked on a daily basis in every way imaginable.  On-line, on the news – regardless if the news you watch is local news or propagandistic news such as Fox "News” which we all know by now is anything but real news and Liberal news that doesn’t offer us a much better scenario.  We are watching everyday how the local governments are restricting people from exercising their constitutional right to peaceably assemble (Amendment I of the Constitution), and are treated as enemies of the State while those that were elected into office by those same individuals being arrested, ignore the constitution while claiming how much they adhere to it.  Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that in order to assemble you must have a permit.  Nowhere.  Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that you can only peaceably assemble if you agree with the current status, what need would the people have to assemble if in agreement?  Yet, these officials send out the troops as if to combat a member of Al-Qaeda, in full riot gear, pepper spray and batons in hand, guns and weapons that up to now have had rubber bullets, to fight, arrest and disband those that dare to exercise the first amendment.  This extreme use of force was NEVER used on the "peaceably assemblies" of the Tea Party members sporting guns.   We are witnessing similar situations taking place all over the country; we’re outraged, we go crazy posting in Facebook, Twitter, signing petitions and talking about it.  I’m guilty as sin of the same thing.  When are we going to join these groups?  When are we going to be physically offering our support?  Can’t we understand that there are many of us and few of them and if we all grew a pair of balls, leave the comfort of our homes and join them no one could stop us?  Yes we do, but we are always hoping for others to do what we could do ourselves and we prefer to stay home and remain safe.  

Of course, there are those that know how to manipulate the masses.  We have so many important things to do, such as watching the football game (October and end in February); Golf (January – November); Baseball (April – October); Indy (March – September); Basketball (October – June); Hockey (October – June); Tennis (January – November); Miss Universe, The Oscars, The Grammys and so much more that we get easily distracted with and they succeed at keeping us entertained and with our eyes off the ball.  There is not one month of the year without a sporting event, heck, there is not one day of the year without one and, this is a nation that loves sports and it seems that this nation loves sports much more than they love liberty.  Perhaps that is the reason why the last civil war took place so long ago, in a time when sports didn’t run the course of this country, civil duty and honor did.

The latest thing they’ve tried to keep us away from the important issues, on an election year, is the same thing they’ve been whining about for the last three years: the Health Care Reform.  This time, since the Catholic Church decided that it was against their “moral” and religious views to supply contraceptives in their insurance plans and they were enraged by the interference of government in their “business.”  The Catholic Church backed by the extreme right wing Senators and Representatives and most if not all of the Republican members of Congress – particularly Senator Rubio, Senator Blunt and Representative Fortenberry – decided to openly and defiantly fight the bill in Washington.  President Obama amended the bill in an effort to respect the religious views of the Catholic Church and any other religious institution that might feel the same by ensuring that these institutions will not financially contribute to these contraceptives.  Obama changed it so all insurance companies had to offer them, free of charge, to any employee or beneficiary under a religious institution’s plan.  Since the matter was never a financial matter – even when they said it was offensive for them to pay for something that went against their beliefs and was the argument originally used.  In reality was just an effort to repeal the Health Care bill, these institutions still "cried" wolf, and the right wing behind them cried wolf even louder!  So, in a move that I can only categorize as the stupidest political move in ages, that began as nothing more than a distraction from the Republican Presidential Race (they have so many inapt candidates that I can’t blame them) congress and the religious institutions waged a war against women… They sure didn’t expect the outrage of the women and the support these women received from people from all political groups, all genders, from all races, ethnicity and age groups.  

I don’t know what the mentality of the new Republican party is, it is as if they are trying to push their boundaries and try to come up with more and more outrageous ideas the closer we are to the elections.  I know they are conservatives, and as the meaning of the word conservative (1) they prefer to keep things as they are and which makes them comfortable they are confused with the meaning of conservative and retrogress.  We can say, without a doubt, that the Republican party is NOT a conservative party, it’s been a long time since they ceased to be conservatives; they are a retrograde (2) party and that will work against them, there is no nation that can move forward while moving backwards – it is physically impossible.

We must renew our efforts in moving forward.  We can’t go back to the time where only white men had a voice and the rest of society had little or none, as the case of women long ago.  We can’t allow this to be a religious nation, it is imperative that it remains, as our Founding Fathers wanted it to be: a secular nation!

Don’t stay home, don’t stay idle, keep a diary of all the proposals, advocacies, ideas and ideals of the GOP so you will not forget when they throw at us another distraction.  These are dangerous times, our future is on the line, if we are not to march and protest against them, let us at least make our voices heard by writing to them, calling them, email them and write to your local newspapers denouncing them and most importantly… On Tuesday, November 6th, let’s kick the rats out of Washington!

⁽¹⁾ adj. tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions: traditional

⁽²⁾ (1) moving, occurring, or performed in a backward direction (2): occurring or performed in a direction opposite to the normal or forward direction of conduction or flow