WHY I WRITE THIS BLOG

WHY I AM SO OUTSPOKEN AND INDIGNANT

Some of my followers have suggested that perhaps I get upset too easily, that I really have no reason to doubt the outcome of what America will become. It has been suggested even that we should just step aside and become spectators. The reasoning is that there are enough voices out there to counteract the madness, the lies, the fanaticism, the radical right-wing militancy and yes the religious fanatics that keep insisting that America is a Christian nation and would like to turn it into a theocracy.

I am an old man. I have lived a lot and seen a lot. From my formative years back in a corrupt and backward society that was ruled by a ruthless dictator (52 years ago) I saw how the demagogues and leftist radicals took over my country…and it was said then that “it could never happen here”; but it did. We ended up with a system that was even more tyrannical than the one it replaced. There continued to be a 1% only now it was the communist elite that held the power and the access to the wealth.

Then I came to a forced exile, too young to have a say on the matter as I had to accompany my parents and I have gone through untold humiliations and have suffered in my own flesh the sting of discrimination. I was even denied my place as the Valedictorian of my high school class because I had an accent.

Yes, I lived through the John Birch Society years and through the Civil Rights movement…I was right in the middle of the Vietnam era and the hippies…a very poignant and controversial culture war. That opened my eyes. I can't help but remember the similarities the Birchers and the Teabaggers have...ideology, right-wing insanity, xenophobia, homophobia and defending the wealthy when they don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.

I put myself through college and held some of the most unpleasant jobs anybody could have, even cleaned bed pans at a hospital. After graduation, I lived a relatively frugal life, always saving, always doing the right thing, never frittered away my money so that I would not have to be a burden on my children but most importantly I paid my taxes gladly because I felt it was the price for the freedom and the opportunities that were offered me. I found myself in the autumn of my life almost penniless, not as a result of my foolishness but because the system is designed to make you part with your riches. Both my pension and my 401K were gone at the end of 2008 and I was left only with my Social Security check. Yet I hear these Republicans talking about how this is a SOCIALIST measure, the safety net we have for older folks like myself…and they are even suggesting that it should be privatized, done away with altogether along with MEDICARE and MEDICAID.

We have seen how the greed by banks and Wall Street who applied pressure through the last two decades and got enough politicians in their pockets in order to systematically eliminate all regulations so they could engage in speculative and risky endeavors brought on the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression…and you want me to stay idle? You don’t want me to say anything? I should just lick my wounds and go on accepting the unfair and immoral actions of a few greedy bastards that took over the Republican Party?

I might be too much of an alarmist and not enough of an optimist, that may be true but I see a lot of danger and risks we are taking unnecessarily by standing on the sides just watching the whole thing unravel. I saw the Watts riots in Los Angeles and the police raids on gay bars in the 60’s and 70’s and you still don't think I am entitled to my rants?

When I see that a country like Spain, the very country that gave us the Inquisition now has same sex marriage, when I also see a country like Argentina, traditionally one of the most machista societies in Latin America enact legislation that allows same sex marriage…and then I look at America, a very progressive and developed nation, wanting to bring back DON’T ASK DON’T TELL; how in the hell will we ever have equal rights for everyone if we allow the right wing, the religious fanatics take over the political process and shape our future according to their views of the world?

How in the hell are we ever build anything that lasts, plan for a future that has viable infrastructure and a sensible renewable energy system in place so that our children will inherit a better place than we found it...if the fucking Evangelical-Fundamentalists are in charge and we all know they are unwilling to build anything because their ideology tells them the world is going to end the day after tomorrow.

I see how religious fanatics like Evangelicals and the Mormons can change the whole nomenclature. By using their wealth to overturn a law that gave equal rights to LGBT, they succeeded and are causing a lot of damage to our society and a lot of pain and suffering to hundreds of thousands of people…using tax exempt dollars to carry on a misguided agenda…misguided because their religion is nothing but a cult, their interpretation of the Scriptures is erroneous and their raising of funds through coercion and pressure on their church members to use it for these purposes is illegal and immoral. Should I stay quiet? Let them do as they please and have no resistance from us secular-progressives?

I watched with dismay that awful Citizens United Supreme Court ruling and I knew that could very well spell the end of the democratic process. Now we hear Republican Presidential candidates claim that corporations are people.

I don’t think so and I don't think that Americans will allow the country to collapse because of greed and religious ignorance...we are better than that and the majority of the people are not buying what these extremist conservatives are selling.

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