I Dreamed Of A Teapublican

 

 

Just before I woke up this morning, I dreamed of a Teapublican. I am aware of her via social media. I will call her Lisa.

I write for the political blog Addicting Info, and I utilize various websites and public Facebook pages for content. Lisa is one of the many Teapublicans I follow. She is also aware of me and has said some pretty nasty and scathing things about me, so my association with her feels more personal, even though we’ve never met.  While following her, I have learned a little bit about who she is. She has a pretty good sense of humor. She has sadness in her life, which she has made public. She loves to laugh. She loves her family. But because she is a Teapublican, she also picks on people – some celebrities, some political, and I will grant her they are fair game. But when she picks on them, she becomes quite nasty. She uses hatred to ‘entertain’ and it clearly works with her Teapublican following. They latch on to her negativity and when I see it, I feel anger. I get very upset with how divided we are as a nation.

I often use sarcasm in my articles and blogs when writing about politics. I don’t believe I have used hatred or been the ‘mean girl’ and I do make an effort to promote voting and making sure I am truthful, as well as backing up my work with valid sources. I have found that Lisa also uses sources but many of them are very much like FOX. She likes to source Breibart and Drudge often and they are not always – or even often – reporters of the truth. But I digress.

In my dream, Lisa and I attended some kind of conference. It’s a bit fuzzy, so please forgive the fact I am not super-detailed, but I think the conference was not political and it gave me a chance to view her as a woman, a mother and a person who might be a friend of mine if the parties weren’t so divided. In the last part of the dream, we were on a bench and she had a cute animal on her head (it made sense at the time) and I was cooing to the little critter. I looked at her and felt love (not romantic, just to be clear) but in that moment, I didn’t see her politics at all. I recognized that we have differing views but I genuinely felt love for her as a human being. I remember feeling so sad that we were unable to really connect because our political passions kept us on different sides and frankly, I cannot stomach the hate and lies she preaches to her loyal followers.

I wish to add that neither side—the left or the right—are completely innocent or perfect. If you are familiar with my opinion and writing, you know that I am often sarcastic and get in my zingers. I am not afraid to call out the trolls and I say it like I see it. Often the other side sees that as offensive. But I don’t lie and I don’t promote hate. Tea Party folks have called me an “ugly liberal,” “ slut,” and  “ baby killer.” I have been accused of being part of the left’s fringe and my personal favorite—on Twitter, a woman said I was a “disgrace to humanity.”  I have an agenda: I want people to vote. Of course, I want everyone to vote Democratic down the line on November 6, 2012 but more importantly, I want EVERYONE to wake-up and get their butts to the voting booths and let’s see what shakes out. It should be about what the majority wants.

Getting back to the dream: Before I woke up completely, I continued to dream about Lisa. I dreamed about writing this blog. A strong feeling overcame me and I felt like for some reason, even if only for me, I needed write about the fact I felt love for a person who in my waking hours offends me. It’s not that I think it will make any real difference or that all of a sudden, everyone will come together in love but maybe it’s just an exercise in compassion and an opportunity to not bitch about what ‘the other side’ is doing.

I’m sure as my lovey-dovey morning fog wears off and the caffeine kicks in, I’ll be back to reading her posts with my jaw on the floor and a complete sense of disgust. Before that happens, I just want to immerse in the idea that underneath it all, we all just want to be loved and happy. Maybe if Lisa were happier, she would see things differently. I don’t know. I DO care. And I hope the U.S. is able to overcome all that divides us. I believe with some real effort, we can —and with a second term for Obama and a Democratic majority in Congress, we will. (Ha ha – had to get that in there!!!)

 

 

An Open Letter To The Women Of The GOP From A Liberal Woman About The War On Women

***WARNING: This post contains very, very strong language.

THE WAR ON WOMEN

The majority of GOP women say The War On Women is a liberal distraction. It isn’t real. They like to paint liberals as self-admitted whiny victims and maintain this “war” against us is a manufactured one. I will illustrate how this war is real and debunk the myth that liberal women look the other way when liberal men call any woman a name.

Rush Limbaugh launched a nine-hour attack on Sandra Fluke, calling her a slut and a prostitute and demanded to see her sex video. He lied and said she stood before Congress and complained that she was having so much sex she could no longer afford birth control and wanted it to be free.

The truth is that Ms. Fluke stood before Congress and addressed them politely and eloquently, and made the case that birth control should be available on all insurance plans. She made the point that it isn’t available through her current insurance provider. Rush Limbaugh LIED and passed it off as news, fully expecting his audience to believe what he was saying was truth. Not a joke or satire.

When GOP women talk about Limbaugh, they are quick to call out liberal women and say that we have said nothing about Bill Maher calling Sarah Palin a cunt. Or David Letterman referring to Sarah Palin as slutty and (making a bad, bad joke) that one of the Palin daughters was "knocked-up by Alex Rodriguez" at a Yankee game. Ed Schultz called Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut.” And last, Larry Flynt’s publication, Hustler, created the depiction of conservative, S.E. Cupp, in a mock-up photo to look as if she had a penis in her mouth.


GOP women – you are dead wrong when you declare liberal women have said nothing. I have. You can read what I said about all of it in this post. Additionally, I have tweeted to Maher and Schultz, expressing my disappointment with their choice of words.

There is a glaring difference though. These men who painted derogatory pictures of women by using shaming words were name-calling. Unlike Limbaugh, they did not spend nine hours lying about what any of these women did. There is a difference. Limbaugh has an audience that believes what he says is news and accepts it as truth. Letterman and Maher are comedians and everyone understands that they are not passing themselves off as newscasters.

That said, I don’t believe men should ever refer to any woman, no matter her political affiliation, as a cunt or a slut. These words are shameful and specifically geared toward taking away a woman’s credibility because of her gender. I appreciate the right to free speech but personally, I would prefer men, especially smart, prominent men, to refrain from using that language when referring to women. Why? Because it does no one any good.

White men, so far, have had a free pass on this kind of shaming epithet. If you wish to insult a white man, what do you call him? An asshole, a douchebag, a motherfucker? Of course there’s plenty more but none of these words hold the same, specific, incendiary connotation. Conversely, if you wish to use words to shame other groups, well, they exist and here are a few:

African-Americans – Nigger, Coon

Mexicans – Wetback, Beaner

Gay men - Faggot

Jews – Hymie, Heeb, Kike

Women – Slut, Cunt



These words are used only for shame and it’s wrong for anyone to refer to another individual this way. So your argument that liberal women stay silent about liberal men calling women names is a crock and let’s please move on to what the real issue is.

As a woman who champions women’s rights—including the women of the GOP—I will continue to do what I can with the platform I have to make sure we are all treated fairly.

Here are some questions I pose to conservative women:

Do you believe you should make the same money as your male counterpart is paid for doing the same job? If so, what do you have to say about the fact that every single Senate Republican blocked the Equal Pay Act? Seriously, you’re okay with that? If you are, why? What if your daughter gets a job in a company that pays more to a man doing the same work as she does? Do you think that’s fair? Did you know that when a woman makes less over her lifetime, she also sees less in her Social Security checks when she retires? Is that okay with you? And if so, why?

Do you think that pharmacists should have the right to deny you birth control based on their personal opinions? In Kansas, pharmacists have that right.

How many of you conservative women are single moms? Would you want the government to penalize you, calling your marital status a “contributing factor to child abuse and neglect?” Well, Republican Senator Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin introduced a bill that would criminalize single mothers. Do you agree with this? If you do, I’d like to hear why.

Now here’s one that may incite some anger but Ladies of the GOP who identify yourself as pro-life, please, please tell me how this can be? In Arizona, a doctor has the legal right to withhold life-threatening medical information from a pregnant woman, in case she may—may—be considering an abortion. So, basically she may DIE. The fetus may also DIE and the doctor doesn’t have to tell her in case she MAY want an abortion. Now I get that you are against abortion. But how can you be against it so much that you’d be willing to let a woman and/or her baby DIE in the name of a pro-life agenda? Can you understand that this is hypocrisy? How do you justify that? I would really like to know.

Every single one of these bills/laws was introduced by a Republican.

I would like to end this with an example.

A conservative, 35 year-old, married, pregnant woman with three children under the age of five finds out there is an 90% risk of her dying if she follows through with her pregnancy. If she dies, her unborn fetus would too. Her family would be without a mother. The father would be left to take over the responsibilities of both parents while grieving and explaining to his children that it was better that mommy died as a result of a dangerous pregnancy rather than have a safe, legal abortion and live. What would you do in this situation? What would you want your daughter to do in this situation? I can tell you right now, Rick Santorum’s wife who was faced with a similar problem, chose to induce labor, knowing the baby would die. She did not technically have an abortion. Here's an interesting point that Jezebel makes: "Santorum's even against abortion if there were no hope of the fetus surviving to full term, or even if the woman carrying the fetus risked death doing so. Karen Santorum would have died if the fetus were not removed, and labor was induced and not halted knowing that the fetus would not survive. How is this not technically "abortion?" In Santorum's world, it would probably qualify as infanticide."

Of course, once it was over, she and her husband wanted to make safe, legal abortions illegal, even when the mother and/or the baby are facing death.  You can also read this article in examiner.com about the choice the Santorums made. "Numerous sources report Santorum’s wife Karen had a second trimester abortion in October 1996. The Santorum’s, however, don’t like to describe it as an abortion. Instead, they call it a medically induced miscarriage. Yet for many, this is a distinction without a difference."

I am leaving the comments open and anyone may post a reply. I expect some angry responses, even some hate—all of which I will leave for everyone to see. If you choose to rebut this post with a hateful response, your true colors will be on display. I will not argue with replies that do not directly answer the questions I posed. I ask these questions because I don’t understand how you can deny that all women in this country are under attack. Our rights are at stake and I promise to do what I can to help change that. Not just for liberal women but for ALL women.

Thank you for reading and I leave you with a great song from two very strong, beautiful women:

Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves

“Now this is a song to celebrate the conscious liberation of the female state
Mothers, daughters and their daughters too
Woman to woman we're singing with you
The inferior sex has got a new exterior
We got doctors, lawyers (Yes we do), politicians too.”

An Open Letter To The American People - America Is Dying

WTF America????

Is this the kind of country our forefathers envisioned?

Remember when life was kind of normal? It wasn't too long ago. It's not hard to pinpoint when the downfall of this country started. November 2000. The fixed election. And yes, it was fixed, they made a movie about it - Recount.

The Bush Administration. It wasn't George W. Bush. He didn't have enough intelligence. It was Rove and Cheney and they were/are ruled by people like the Koch Brothers and The Rockefellers. The people with big money. Money talks. George was a pawn in the game, chosen because he was 'likable." "The kind of guy you could have a beer with." And when the numbers didn't get him the win, they manipulated the system and boom, WE ALL ACCEPTED IT!

We accepted this man, even though we knew it was fraud because life was still good. Big screen TVs, new cars, homes, vacations. No one was uncomfortable so no one did anything other than bitch and complain. We made fun of our idiot President and the stupid things that came out of his mouth. This was where our focus was. NOT WHAT WAS GOING ON BEHIND THE SCENES. The bigger picture. The demise of the middle class and ultimately, the American way.

As Americans, we are so easily distracted. We have the attention span of a gnat and when we allow insignificant information like the size of Kim Kardashian's butt or the funny Facebook picture to over-shadow what's really important, we feed the cancer that is killing our beloved American pursuit of happiness. Maybe because it's easier to deal with than the fact we are losing the country we grew up in, that we loved, that offered us promise. Nobody wants to believe this but sticking your head in the sand is not the answer. Pretending everything isn't that bad is only making it worse.

For nine months in 1981, when I was 12, I lived in Moscow Russia. I saw communism with my own eyes. I hear Republicans screaming that Liberals are Socialist and Communist and they've succeeded in making people believe these words have the same definition. They do not. What I observed when I lived in Moscow was that people had NO choice. They were told where to work and how they could live. Seven people squeezed into a one or two bedroom apartment and slept in the kitchen by the stove for warmth. Societies under extreme constraint never last. Ever. It's not equal or fair to the majority and whether it's for economic reasons or because people finally can't take it anymore and decide to revolt, those societies fail. This is slowly happening here. Our choices, our freedoms are, one by one, being stripped away. Extremism NEVER works.

As a country, we have fallen victim to fighting against ourselves rather than uniting and fighting against those who are slowly and very successfully stealing our freedom.

The answer is much simpler than we are allowing it to be. WE are the answer. This is OUR country. What terrifies me is that we are becoming so divided, fighting amongst ourselves and not doing what's important to secure our own and our children's future. We are doing exactly what the ones who are out to cut the middle class want us to do. I honestly don't know if we've gone past the point of no return. Hatred, fear and ignorance are trumping truth, common decency and remembering what this country was supposed to be: a melting pot with people of all colors and all religions. Not just wealthy white Christians.

In February of this year an elderly woman, Hallie Jean Mayes Knauss Culpepper fell and refused to see a doctor because Fox News told her that "Obamacare" had death panels. This woman was not stupid. She had run two businesses in her youth. She was a lifelong Republican and her news source lead her to believe that she was in danger of being killed if she visited a doctor. She died days later. This story proves that we are failing. We are doing ourselves in by refusing to seek the truth and instead believing the propaganda from those who wish to dominate and control everything. Call me paranoid but take a look around people. Our country has changed for the worse in the last ten years and these changes are snowballing.

We can't find jobs, we don't have enough money to pay for our own health insurance, we have extreme debt, both as private citizens and as a nation. We don't trust each other. And it's just getting worse every single day. The GOP is fighting to destroy the middle class. They hate Obama and will do anything, including opposing the very ideas they came up with if Obama decides to move forward with those issues. They call him a “Muslim” to this day and the die-hard Tea Party members refuse to accept his birth certificate as legitimate, providing a platform for extremists like Orly Taitz. Bullies like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter continue to further these lies. Coulter recently suggested that the right should now go after the Obama’s two young girls.

The responsibility lies with the people as a whole. Not an individual. It's not Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney, Ron Paul or even Barack Obama. None of these individuals are going to save this country from what is really happening. It's up to the American people. Either we stop hating each other and come together as a nation to have all the things that make life WORTH living or we continue to stew in our fear, our anger and our hatred and allow victory to those who want to create a country where the rich have all the power and the rest are left to serve. That is Communism. It's a decision YOU make to be tolerant. To work for the greater good for everyone. Otherwise, in ten more years we will be facing a very dim existence where no one is going have any choice, except the very few who have all the money.

I am not saying only the Liberals have the answer. Both parties have flaws. There have always been disagreements by the two parties. Before the Bush Administration, we were able to exist with compromise. Even centerist Republicans are saying their party is out of control and they don't like the direction their party has taken. It's not about Republicans against Democrats or the reverse. Barbara Bush was spot on when she said “I hate that people think compromise is a dirty word." “It’s not a dirty word.”

We all want the same things, no matter what political ideology we have. We all want good health care, an education, a nice home and some security, and then when we're old and no longer able to work, a system in place that takes care of us that we've paid into our whole working lives. Not hand-outs.

Educate yourself with the facts. Vote. Stop hating. Can we do this? Will we do this? Will YOU do this? It's really much simpler than we are making it. But we as a people must wake up and make the change ourselves. Otherwise, Hello Big Brother. Good-bye Freedom.

One person cannot provide the answer. It's each American choosing responsibility. Doing what's right for all of us. Not just a group or an individual. Not just a group or an individual. Vote. Participate. Volunteer and make sure that the GOP doesn’t steal the presidency again.

I ask this of you, if you choose to make a comment, make it productive. You can disagree but be civil and offer what it you can do that's positive and can help us unite rather than keep us divided.

Thank you for reading

Lawrence O'Donnell's Farewell To Andrew Breitbart









On Thursday evening The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell did a piece on the death of Andrew Breitbart. O'Donnell chose to focus on the positive side of Breitbart and recall a personal story where they met on the street while O'Donnell was on the way to a "liberal" party. The two, who were at odds publicly but were cordial privately, decided to attend the party together. O'Donnell reports that Breitbart stayed at the party long after he left and was engaging in a joyful conversation with a reporter who was also at odds with him publicly.

I saw a conversation on Twitter with Meredith: @jerzegrl and O'Donnell: @Lawrence discussing this. I wanted to chime in but this won't fit in a Tweet!

Meredith: All we saw of him was the "public" side. We didn't have the "pleasure" of knowing him the way you did. #Breitbart.  So you'll excuse some of us if we don't buy the "Trust us he was good people" argument.

O'Donnell: I understand that. You use the info you have in making judgments about people. I wasn't trying to change minds, just sharing memories.

While I admire anyone who will choose to stay on the positive side, I feel it's also important to recognize the truth of any situation. I do believe this is what O'Donnell does on a consistent basis. However, what O'Donnell didn't say last night was that Breitbart was part of a huge problem in America. Publicly he was very negative, which helped fuel the fire to the division this country is facing. This division is a cancer slowly eating away at the core of who and what our forefathers envisioned us to be.

I have seen some posts and commentary on social media that are ugly and not necessary, calling Breitbart names and expressing elation because this man has died. This does nothing to mend what's wrong with our country either. It actually increases the divide. But I think that only reporting on a fun night these two men had at a party is not serving the country. O'Donnell holds a high and important position and has influence. It's clear to me that his job is not only to report the truth but to somehow make a difference in a positive way. I would guess this is how he sees it too.

In my humble opinion, I believe Breitbart, as well as others who spew hatred needs to be addressed on a national level by an influential personality in a way that demonstrates how this negative rhetoric is tearing us apart as a nation. This doesn't mean that someone has to speak ill of the dead, rather the truth should be spoken with dignity and at the very least, suggestions tendered on how to move forward in a positive direction.

Reporting the truth of who someone was in life is not speaking ill of the dead. By only recounting a joyful experience O'Donnell had with Breitbart, I see an opportunity missed.