A-Z continued, G is for Government Bullshit

I have become quite the little activist thanks to Twitter. I have voted since I became eligible a thousand years ago, but I never campaigned for anyone and rarely made a huge deal about it. The biggest I'd say would have been in 1992 when Bill Clinton was elected. That was kind of huge considering I was on the campus of Furman. It's not the kind of place you find a lot of democrats. There's a whole lot of money. It's mostly why I felt so alienated and like a failure. My grades and SAT scores gained the admission. My origins on a tobacco farm in Surry County, NC were like I'd aligned myself with the Japanese on Pear Harbor Day. It may not have been so drastic in reality, but it felt like it. There was one girl, Frances Chang, who seemed to get it. I have no idea whatever happened to her. I tried to look her up when I went to Hilton Head on vacation a couple of years ago. That was the address on a letter I received from her right after I left campus. I'd like to know where she is now. I made two good friends there, one I've seen in the ensuing years since. The other, we've kept in touch through letters initially, then the internet. My point is, the only person I recall being a Clinton supporter like myself was my Spanish professor, el Senor Bost.

I do recall that our country was founded by people seeking religious freedom. Those people then took away freedom from the indigenous people already inhabiting the land. I find it bitterly ironic that we are in such a place in 2012 that the men who have been battling for a position in which to run for the title of leader of the U.S. are focusing on issues that revolve largely around religion. It's just been a few hundred years since all of the frontier shit happened. If you read an article about a teacher who lost her job because she was pregnant before she married being fired from a private, religious-based school you might easily think someone has mistyped her name and it should be Hester Prynne. I am eager to hear the high court's decision on this one. 

Where the hell did the platforms of education, the health of our citizens and the welfare of our sick and disabled go? Where are the long ago candidates like FDR and JFK who spoke with eloquence, if not charisma, yet made things happen that MADE our country a better place to live on this giant blue marble we call Earth? Every single President who has inhabited the Oval Office can be found guilty of some indiscretion or even a breakage of law at some point would be my unequivocal guess. The only one who, in my book, horribly dishonored the office was Nixon. However, as it stands today, the race of 2012 is not shaping up to offer any of the real belief of goodness in the future of my homeland. The race I see brewing is one of school yard bullying and name calling. It will be about who comes from the better side of town, who prays or tithes to the better church, or the color of skin. I see the political factions regressing about 60 years. The "issues" are turning out to be things white men with money don't like. 

Don't get me wrong. I like white men. I love them. I married a couple or three of them. My point is that the make-up of the Republican field, which was narrowed to a main character today, seems like you could have pulled it from a magazine in 1966. In 1973, women gained the legal right to have control over their bodies and that is being chipped away like the Titanic took down a mountain of icebergs. I don't see fair challenge happening over things that matter like the people who work 60 hours a week just to scrape out enough change for Hamburger Helper or outrageous unemployment numbers. I don't see anyone jumping up and down to reinstate music and art education monies, both of which are scientifically shown to increase success in school (secondary and post-secondary), lower use of drugs (shocking isn't it!), significantly higher levels of math proficiency (I am an anomaly), and on and on. Statistical references


Regardless of whether you like our current administrator or not, he is not the antichrist. He is not out to get any one or attack a group of people. He isn't out to limit the rights of anyone. If the taxes I pay are going to be outrageous and my health care premiums are going to take the rest of my paycheck, I sure as hell better not have anyone telling me what to do with the rest of it or the body that earned it. That's why I am the squeaky wheel against the as-is GOP. It doesn't mean I am FOR anyone or anything else.

 
And that… is what… I… think… of the letter G.