Shame, Disgrace & Favoritism ...

The latest news about Social Security is that recipients will, for the second consecutive year, not receive a COLA (cost of living adjustment) in their checks. This is a disgrace. I would like to see the pensions and perks removed from every member of Congress and every past U.S. president. This would knock these demi-gods off their thrones and provide a windfall for the Treasury Department to distribute to our nation’s elderly, many of whom are poverty-stricken and struggling. I, personally, am acquainted with an educated, intelligent, responsible person who has worked all her life and paid into the system, only to receive a paltry $729 monthly check to live on (she worked during all those years when women’s earnings were disproportionately lower than men’s). When is something radical going to be done about the lopsided favoritism fostered by our government and its insidious way of relating with lobbyists and corporations, to manipulate "the system". Will it ever be about "we, the people", the citizens, and saving the inherent and natural goodness of our country, rather than making the rich richer?

Why the U.S. Needs Obama as President --

I encourage you to vote and to vote early, avoid the election-day lines. I voted for Obama. I voted for Obama because I feel that those of us who didn’t put Bush into office deserve an intelligent and caring president who will try his utmost to give us a chance for economic, ethical, environmental, and health-care respite, restoration, and renewal. We need him to help us rise out of the quagmire (actually a hellish cesspool) that the present administration has sunk us into; eight years of horrible damage in every category. Actually, at this point, probably almost everybody in our country deserves a respite, restoration, and renewal. I say "almost" because I still see vehicles with the "W" bumper stickers on them. These next eleven days will probably see a lot of dirt flying out of the McCain camp, more phony stunts like Joe the plumber. It is sad that a significant number of our citizens seem to fall in line behind such gimmicks to manipulate the rank and file. It would be nice (and healthy) if each of us, as Americans, could and would raise his/her self-image as a person (and realize our individual and collective potential to be part of the process of making things better). If enough of us do that, together we really can have the vision of a better country and a better world.

Religion and U.S. Politics --

In a recent post I wrote "the truth will speak for itself" and now I add, "I hope it will have more than a few who will listen".

As a person who leans away from corporate and conglomerate power, dogma, and narrow-mindedness...and toward tolerance, compassion, the freedoms of the individual, and diversity, I take strong exception to the (predictable) slurs currently being perpetrated about Senator Obama and his family of origin – and intended to put him on the defensive about religion. To begin with, he says he’s Christian and there is every reason to believe that he is. It is very disheartening that a candidate could be harassed on the basis of religion, by persons who are opportunists with an agenda.

But I’m just getting started. Has a sizable portion of the critical mass of our country drifted away from or allowed itself to be hoodwinked away from the freedoms cited in our Constitution? I hope not. The authors of that fair-minded document carefully worded it so we would understand that a person of any religion ... Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Unitarian-Universalist, Baha~i, Mormon, Wiccan, even Atheist, and any I may have left out ... can be elected president of our country if he/she is deemed to have the good judgement, ethics, intelligence, fair-mindedness, conscience, compassion, reasoning skills, courage, and statesmanship to effectively lead our country and be our talking head to the rest of the world. That a candidate now could be expected, indeed required, to produce acceptable religious credentials (acceptable to right-wing zealots and media) denotes danger to the freedoms of the entire U.S. population, not just non-Christians.

Currently, the struggle for religious supremacy between extreme Christians and extreme Muslims is mucking up the whole of life for everybody and, in unvarnished truth, is driven by the lust for power. In its extreme, dogma is dangerous. Our Constitution calls for separation of church and state for very sound reasons!