American Pork

I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut about the killing of Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. What happened on that rainy night in Florida is really none of my business, but the more I think about it, the more I realize it is everyone’s business. Everyone who watches over their neighborhood to keep their fellow residents safe, everyone who peeps out their widows to keep an eye on their neighbors’ homes and properties, everyone who sees suspicious activity and calls the cops, everyone who thinks they should be their brother’s keeper, God forbid them to actually do something to protect their community…or ultimately themselves.

Common sense dictates what happened that night. George, driving through his gated community on his way to the store, spots a suspicious person in the area, stops and calls police. Trayvon runs. George gets out of his car and tails him to see which way he’s going so the police might catch him. They tell him not to follow the suspect, so George returns to his truck, where the blindside assault takes place because Trayvon is appalled at George’s audacity for following him, suspecting him of criminal activity, or calling the cops on him. Whatever the reason, for sticking his nose in Trayvon’s business, George deserved a bashed in skull, a broken nose, and a beatdown.

George finds himself on the ground, dazed and bloody, fists pummeling him. Fight or flight instincts kick in. Trayvon is on top of George, so flight is out of the question. He screams for help, but no one comes to his aid. The gun he legally carries is his only recourse, and as consciousness starts slipping away, as well as rational thought of the consequences of using the gun, he gets off a shot into Trayvon, not with the intent to kill him, but to end the beating. One bullet guided by fate or the hand of God, no one knows, takes Trayvon’s life.

The cops question George for five hours, determine it was self defense, and release him without charges. That sets off a firestorm of criticism and demands for justice and Zimmerman’s arrest. So in comes a hot shot special prosecutor with a second degree murder charge. This has to happen, you understand, to stem the possibility of violence in the streets, rioting, the burning and looting of stores, the beating of innocent drivers trapped in blocked intersections. George has got to pay for protecting himself. It’s for the good of the community, as a whole.

So let this be a lesson to you, or any civic-minded citizen who even thinks of volunteering to serve their community or insert themselves into a dangerous situation to help the police nab a suspicious person. If things go wrong, that same community is going to lynch you. No good deed goes unpunished.

And that’s American Pork, my friends.

Just the other day, a woman put Mitt Romney on the spot during a town hall meeting in Kalamazoo Michigan and demanded he take a stand on the abortion issue. His response: “We need people who recognize that pro-life is the way to go, and we’re getting more and more people joining our cause as time goes on. I’m a pro-life person, and I’ll be a pro-life president.”

Exactly what does this mean in real-life terms?

I hear it all the time: “Repeal Roe v Wade. Stop abortion now. We are a nation of baby killers.” Pro-lifers stand on their soap boxes and spew this kind of rhetoric time and time again, but not a one that I’ve heard, or heard of, or could find on the Internet, claims to have a solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies.

A normal person would assume that Romney and Pro-lifers want things to go back to the way they were before Roe v Wade, when desperate women were forced into the hands of back alley butchers to get an abortion. Back to a time when both she and her doctor could be incarcerated for decades should it be discovered they’d aborted an unwanted pregnancy. Back to a time when women used coat hangers to do it to themselves.

Is this what Mitt Romney would have women do?

Abortion isn’t anything new. It goes back to Roman and Greek Empires where it was practiced freely. And the pros and cons have been debated ever since, by nearly every nation and every creed. In the United States, the death rate from illegal abortions created the need for anti-abortion laws to restrain women from subjecting themselves to a procedure that put their lives in such serious peril. Not to protect the fetuses, mind you, but to protect women from their own desperation.

What is the alternative to going backward in history? Should we force women to have unwanted children? Should we incarcerate and/or institutionalize these pregnant women to wait out the gestation period under state supervised medical care until the baby is born? Strip them of their rights as we strip any felon’s rights? Make them do things they don’t want to do?

Is this what Mitt Romney would have us do to our women, our teenage daughters?

And what about the unwanted children born into this system? Statistics range in the millions. According to the National Adoption Clearinghouse 500,000 people are waiting to adopt children. Should the state go into the business of adopting out babies, distributing babies? Or should the state set up a huge network of foster homes and orphanages? Who is going to pay for all this? We can’t even afford to educate the wanted and loved children we already have.

So then exactly what does Mitt Romney mean by his pro-life rhetoric? Remember, he was Pro-choice during his gubernatorial race in Massachusetts. Why the flip-flop now? Because he thinks he’ll get more votes from the pro-life movement than from the pro-choice people. He’s taking this stand for his own personal gain, not to protect unborn babies or women’s rights.

He’s a classic example of American Pork in action.

For those of you who want to know, here is a link to Roe v Wade, the actual rulings by the three judges. Don’t read the syllabus, read the words of the men who took on this debate and had nothing personal to gain by doing something about the problem of unwanted pregnancies. You’ll find no rhetoric here: Roe v Wade

I don’t know about you, but as an American, I am sick to death of hearing the Republican candidates and talk show hosts bash our President. Barack Obama was duly elected by the majority of the people, and he deserves the respect his office affords. He’s not to blame for the financial crisis, the housing market meltdown, the unemployment rate. He’s not to blame for the health care fiasco. He’s not America’s whipping post.

Everyone who points the finger at him and cries “Obamacare”, for example, doesn’t understand how the system works. Obama had a vision for this country, to eradicate the worst insurance company practices perpetrated against the American people. This is nothing new. Since the early 20th century, Presidents have been trying to reform our health care system, but they couldn’t get Congress to act against their most lucrative financial supporters. Obama did.

However, it was Congress who made health care reform into an 1100 page fiasco. I took the time to read it (well, most of it). Did you? Nearly every paragraph has references to ten other paragraphs; it’s next to impossible to follow. Congress convoluted health care so badly that everybody hates something about it, but guess who gets the bad rap for it:

Our President, Barack Obama.

This blame-game makes for great talk radio and debate fodder, to wit Glenn Beck. If it wasn’t for freedom of speech, this guy would be in prison for treason. He bashes the President. He bashes the country. He preaches our doom and how he’s been warning everyone for the past two years that the Obama administration is going to bring us to our knees. He sells a lot of books to people who will mosey up to his pig trough and gobble up the slop. Dan Caplis is another arm-chair politician who professes to know what’s best for this country. He calls our President “weak” and demeaning to the world. If he’s so damn smart, why doesn’t he run for President? Because he can make more money sitting behind a radio mike and bashing the man who has stepped up to take the whippings for health care, the bailouts, and the stimulus package that so horribly failed.

Was his stimulus package his failure? Congress passed the law to give us all some spending money. To get the economy going. I got my check. I spent it. Did anyone here send their check back to the government and tell them “no thanks?”

Congress, not Barack Obama, bailed out the banks and the auto makers. Of course they did. Big money begets big favors. He agreed to the bailouts because his advisors told him countless jobs would be saved. Countless retirement accounts would be salvaged. Mine was. Were the bailouts a failure? Not for me, but ask Beck. Ask Caplis. Ask the Republican presidential wannabes. They have the answer. The bailouts were a failure; blame it on Obama.

Congress is the pig in the room, folks. And we are the ones who put them there, so lay the blame where it belongs. Whip them and not our President. That’s American Pork.

Come on! “Do you feel the country is headed in the wrong direction?” What kind of question is that if not over-the-top sensationalism? It assumes that the country IS headed in the wrong direction, so when 75% of Americans answered yes, anyone with a shred of common sense should conclude the answer is subjective. An unemployed person’s vision of where the country is headed has to be different than an investment banker on Wall Street. A housewife, a single mom, a homeless drunk, a retiree, a factory worker, and an entrepreneur would all have different expectations from our government. Thus anything that works against those expectations would garnish a ‘yes’ answer and completely ignore the facts.

If you don’t want to buy health insurance and the government is going to force you to buy it, the country is headed in the wrong direction. If you are an investment banker and Congress is about to stick you with tougher regulations, the country is headed in the wrong direction. If you are a general in the army and you’re about to be pulled out of a combat zone, the country is headed in the wrong direction. If you’re a senior citizen listening to talk about cutting entitlements, the country is headed in the wrong direction.

The list of examples is endless, I’m sure, so this CBS Poll is actually meaningless. However, it gets one’s blood pressure up and the blame finger wagging. Never mind that seniors just got a 3.7% raise. Never mind that our troops are finally pulling out of Iraq. Never mind that Federal, State, and City governments are being forced to trim their budgets to operate within their means. Never mind that health insurance companies can’t deny you coverage anymore. Never mind that retail businesses are booming and consumers are spending more than ever. Never mind that the stock market has recovered more of its losses than experts predicted. This list of examples is endless, as well.

I’m fed up with Obama being blamed for everything that’s wrong in the eyes of the 75%. Fifty four percent of those polled said he doesn’t deserve to be President for another term. Never mind that he’s the only President who succeeded in any kind of health care reform. Never mind that he bailed out the banks and the auto industry and saved hundreds of thousands of jobs (and last I heard over 90% of that money has been paid back). Never mind that he got Osama bin Laden, Never mind that he’s ended the war in Iraq. And for everything the 54%ers say he’s failed to do, don’t forget he’s up against a Republican congress determined to undermine him at every turn in hopes of pissing off enough voters and regaining the White House in the next election.

So CBS, your poll is a joke. But worse, it’s a sham perpetrated on us for the sake of journalistic sensationalism. I’m sick and tired of all the whining. And for those doing all the whining (Occupy Wall Streeters included) move to another country so the rest of us don’t have to listen to it.

Oink Oink. And that’s American Pork.

On the eve of this country’s darkest financial hour, the Super Committee is no longer trying to reach a deal on the nation’s deficit. They are trying to decide how to tell the American people they have failed to come to an agreement. The sorry part about the whole fiasco is that the Super Committee was destined to fail from the start. And here’s why.

Any business that’s in financial trouble must do two things to recover. One: reduce expenses. Two: Increase revenues. This is business 101, folks. Anything less is certain bankruptcy. So as the United States attempts to solve its financial woes, it too must adhere to this strategy. Congress, having failed to reach an accord last summer, voted into law the Budget Control Act which setup a Super Committee of six Democrats and six Republicans. They had six months to find a way to trim 1.2 trillion dollars from the deficit over ten years. As the nation held its collective breath, what we didn’t know at the time was that the Republicans on that committee had signed a pledge not to raise taxes for any reason.

What “pledge”? It’s called the Taxpayers’ Protection Pledge, the brainchild of Grover G. Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform. He is said to be the most powerful man in Washington.  Republicans running for office, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the President of the United States are forced to sign this pledge or suffer certain defeat at the poles. And if one should be so foolish to renege on the pledge they’d signed, the ATR would spend untold sums of money to inform that Republican politician’s constituents and get them voted out of office, essentially ruining his or her political career.

And here are the names of the Super Committee Republicans who sold out their country for their careers:

Jon Kyl – Arizona, Rob Prtman – Ohio, Pat Toomey – Pennsylvania, Jeb Hensarling – Texas, Fred Upton – Michigan, Dave Camp – Michigan

The entire list of shackled Republicans is here (PDF): http://tinyurl.com/7qxola8

So with their proverbial hands tied behind their backs, the Republicans entered into negotiations demanding cuts to Social Security and Medicare rather than risk their careers on any measure that would raise taxes. Mind you, the proposed increased taxes were not new taxes at all, but the monies recouped by simply allowing the Bush tax cuts on the rich to expire. Still, the Republicans held firm and demanded the Democrats approve a deal that would land the country’s debt on the backs of the elderly, the sick, and the poor. That’s not only unethical, it’s morally reprehensible.

So what’s next? Congress had included a measure in the Budget Control Act which stated that, should the Super Committee fail to reach an agreement, 10% cuts in spending across all government agencies would go into effect automatically… in January 2013, that is. In reality, Congress had simply given itself 13 months to rescind that measure, and guess what, folks, it’ll be business as usual in Washington.

Already I’ve heard my fellow Americans blaming Barack Obama for the Super Committee’s failure. Democrats blame the Republicans. Republicans blame the Democrats. But who is really to blame? Grover G. Norquist.  Here’s a link to pledge for Senators. (PDF) Read it and weep.

http://tinyurl.com/67aybgm  

How’s that for American Pork?