I'm a single-issue voter: I'm a Democrat

[mdlbear]

I want my country back, and the only way to get it back is to vote for a Democrat in every damned election I'm qualified to vote in.

The Department of Health & Human Services moves to define "contraception" as "abortion".

I live in California. Our initiative process has made it entirely clear that any small, cynical group of greedy bastards can cobble together enough special-interest votes to get almost any hare-brained scheme that benefits them passed by a simple majority. The Bush administration and their puppet masters have done that on an even larger scale; the entire Republican party has been turned over to the religious right as a way of keeping a small group of extremely rich, extremely cynical people in power. This latest move is a blatent attempt to drag mainstream Catholics into the conspiracy, and it may very well succeed.

One more term with a Republican in office, and there will be a right-wing nutcase majority on the US Supreme Court. DO YOU WANT THAT? If you have to think hard about it, I'm not sure I want to know.

I am old enough to remember why a crossed-out coathanger is the symbol for the abortion-rights movement. It's because, back when abortion -- and even any other form of contraception -- was illegal in most of the US, a common way for a woman to try to end an unwanted pregnancy was to attempt to stab the fetus to death with an unfolded coathanger. DO YOU WANT THOSE DAYS BACK?

I am old enough to remember when black people were in danger of being dragged out of their homes and lynched. When gays in the military were lucky if they were merely beaten to death when they were discovered, and not tortured in the process. DO YOU WANT THOSE DAYS BACK?

I am old enough to remember people driving across state lines to get abortions. To buy contraceptives. DO YOU WANT THOSE DAYS BACK?

I am old enough to remember when Jews and Catholics, as well as African-Americans (as we call them now) were routinely discriminated against in jobs, housing, and college admissions. When restrooms, drinking fountains, and schools were segregated. When Jewish kids like me were routinely teased -- if not worse -- at school. DO YOU WANT THOSE DAYS BACK?

I am old enough to remember when a divorced-and-remarried relative couldn't go back home to Italy for fear of being arrested for bigamy, because divorce wasn't legal there. DO YOU WANT THAT HERE?

Think about whether you want the bad old days back before you vote Republican, because that's what you're going to get, and worse. Much worse.

We are one Supreme Court justice away from a right-wing religious dictatorship. If that. It may already be too late, because the ones pulling the puppet strings aren't necessarily tied to the religious right. That's just where they can get the votes now. If that coalition falls apart, they'll start to cobble together a different set of single issues. We may only have one or two terms to root them out. They already have a head start.

I am also old enough to remember when Richard Nixon was considered by many to be a corrupt right-wing nut case, and to remember that he was somewhere to the left of most of today's Democrats. I am old enough to remember when "liberal" was considered middle-of-the-road. I am old enough to have been proud to call myself a radical.

I am old enough to remember when the US had a middle class. When most rich people paid their fair share of taxes. When we learned the Bill of Rights in school, and knew that our government was there to enforce it and not to undermine it.

I am old enough to have learned the Pledge of Allegiance before a Republican administration added the words "under God" to it, and I still say it as I learned it.

DAMN IT, I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK!

Thanks to this post by snobahr, this post by kyburg, and this post by ravan. Planned Parenthood has an online petition.

Comments

[mithriltabby]

This country has drifted so far that even the Democratic party is right-wing by global standards, and the left wing doesn’t dare snub them lest the Republicans make things even worse. This is why I support the Center for Voting and Democracy’s efforts to implement instant-runoff voting and make third parties viable. Just imagine if you could vote for someone you liked and then have your vote count for the lesser-evil choice when there wasn’t enough support for the person with real sense.

So what you're saying is

[capplor.livejournal.com]

I haven't moved left at all, everything has shifted right underneath me.

(I really mean that about me, but if the shoe fits).

[harmonyheifer.livejournal.com]

You hit the nail on the head. I am younger than you but even at 49 I can see how drastic the loss of our middle class has been. People like my dad, who is 84 and actually lived through the depression can see the changes even more starkly than the boomers. We are skidding so close to disaster socially, financially and politically that for anyone who is paying attention it is just plain horrific. Economists are talking about 1929 and the great depression, sociologists are making valid comparisons to Nazi Germany and the gilded age where there was no middle class. Mainstream media and the talking heads are blathering on about flag pins and Jesse Jackson and only a handful of people seem to realize that the Republican candidate for president is totally unable to speak unscripted for more than about a minute, has trouble even following a teleprompter and has anger management issues that terrify his Republican peers in the US Senate. We have a Supreme Court and a legislative branch that are either controlled by or trampled by the executive branch, which has expanded to ridiculous levels of power and corruption. Our national infrastructure is crumbling, working people are homeless, mentally ill people get no treatment at all, and millions of Americans get their medical care only in emergency rooms because they have no insurance.

As a country we are fearful of anyone who isn't white and afluent because those "immigrants" are murderers, rapists and taking from us in any number of ways, but we are too stupid to see that the people who are really raping and pillaging our country are the rich white people in the gated communities. The fears they are projecting onto the masses are their own fears, that someday the working poor will take to the streets and rise up and beat them to death for what they have done in the name of security, patriotism and religion. This country is obsessed with security while we bomb other countries into the stone age. We feed the little shop of horrors monster plant that is our Military Industrial Complex and as long as we have the narcotic diversion of television, cell phones, and a few creature comforts, we will sit in our recliners, have a beer and repeat the canned talking points of pond sucking scumbags like Karl Rove and think that what we are saying is not just true, but an original thought. "Americans can be counted on to do the right thing only after they have exhausted every other option." Churchill was right, and I pray every night that we have finally exhausted every other option, because there isn't a lot of time left, and things are getting a lot worse a lot faster now, like a boulder rolling downhill.

America needs to wake up. As your post so beautifully puts it, it is much later than we think it is. I was taught that our system is self correcting. Many of the things I was taught in school have turned out to be lies. I hope that the self correcting nature of our government isn't one of them. There are days when I have hope, and there are days when I think this country is already lost.

I take hope because the people in power now have screwed up so totally that they have wrecked our economy, and that is bad for the uber rich robber barons who pull the strings. Those guys need the working poor happy and complacent and they really do have nightmares about the unwashed masses swarming over their gated walls. Maybe those nightmares will make then think twice about stealing a third presidential election in a row. and giving the presidency to a drugged up puppet. Especially if the angry masses who have had it rise up and vote out the scum that have been selling us all down the river. It is hard to fix a landslide to look like anything but a landslide, or so I have been told. We will soon see if that one is true as well.

[rowanf.livejournal.com]

Went and signed the PP petition. Thanks for the heads-up. And, as much as I want my party (the Greens) to get that 5%... I'm gonna probably vote Democrat. Sucks though.

Welcome to the 19th century

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I read this elsewhere earlier today, and was horrified. We are sliding into the mentality of the 1870's, where the country was declining into a depression, women and minorities were being scapegoated, and birth control devices (condoms) were being outlawed around the country. (It was also when the California constitution, which granted unprecedented rights in its original form, was rewritten and gutted.) I won't go into all the details, but let's just say, as a historian, I can only look on this current movement with well-justified alarm, when I think of how things have gone in times past.

[roaringmouse.livejournal.com]

Civic lessons, one o one...
If the HHS wants to change the regs to say "contraception is abortion", they have to re-write the regulations. This new regulation is published in the Federal Register. Usually, there is a 90 day (three month)commentary process. After the commentaries come, then the final regulation is written and it takes affect in 30 days. 90 days from today would be October.. It could take a couple of weeks to write the final regs.. then publish and take affect in 30 days. December.... Plus if you are working for this agency, you can slow down the process... ie.. Jimmy Carter wanting to sell off Bureau of Land Management lands to developers etc.. the USDA/BLM did a unofficial slow down. It never happens... da daaa!! Viola..

That is for Federal funding of Medi-Cal. The state won't do this; therefore, its just words....

Vote, wisely and often.

[mdlbear]

Not just words, it's a blatant play for votes in November.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

New slogan: WATERBOARD CHENEY!

[mdlbear]

Too good for 'im.

[carmiel.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a true blue independant - Don't trust *either* party automatically. Check out each canadiate w/ a microscope before you vote. Sadly, I've been burned w/ Democrats too. :(

[mdlbear]

Doesn't matter this time. That's what I mean by being a single issue voter: nothing is as important right now as getting the Republicans and their puppet masters out of power.

I'm not too happy about either of my Democratic senators, but I vote for them because they're not Republicans. I wasn't too happy about either Clinton or Obama. But they're not the Republican. It's going to be bad, but at least we might get out of it with some shreds of the Constitution intact. That is emphatically not the case if we have another eight years of the religious right running the country.

[tagryn]

But, its Democrat-or-die thinking like that that's allowed the CA Democratic Party to become as corrupt as they are. They *know* they have the state majority virtually guaranteed no matter what they do, so there's no healthy fear of being voted out.

Have to agree with carmiel: we should look at the individual candidate, not blindly vote by party.

[mdlbear]

At the state and local level, I do, but since I generally agree with the principles of the Democratic party and violently disagree with the principles of the Republican Party Religious Right, it's invariably an easy choice.

At the national level, the damage that a corrupt Democrat can do is minuscule compared to the damage the Republicans have already done and can do in the future. As long as the Republican party is controlled by the Religious Right and their puppet-masters, there is nothing as important as keeping them out of power.

[joecoustic.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post! It's other people seeing the truth about how bad and surreal it's become that keep me from feeling truly hopeless about the situation.

While I do agree with you that a Democratic majority is needed once again I also am incredibly confused and angry about what the present representatives of the party have been agreeing to and what they have been giving up. I can't decide if it is stupidity or a complete shift in values - but whose? I feel like they are willing to do anything and/or nothing because they know that many of us feel the way you do. We will re-elect whatever they do - so it doesn't matter. I actually have decided that many of the party leaders feel that they can be blackmailed by the present administration - that they were as involved and knew about many of the decisions that we are angry about. They are willing to let justice and the constitution slide in order to cover it up.

I have no answers, absolutely none but maybe you are right, because we do have to do something. Maybe once the ball gets rolling the Democratic party can be cleaned up from the inside and the good honest Republicans can also accomplish the good they want to do without the horrifying party lines on both sides. Yep, idealistic pipe dreams for all, I know :).

[joecoustic.livejournal.com]

I just reread this and realize that I made it sound (at one point) that the Republicans are good and honest and not the Democrats. As someone who identifies as a Democrat I was just focusing on what they need to do to clean up the party and wanted to acknowledge that there are also those Republicans who want to do good as much as there are Democrats who want to do good (such as Hagel). I want us to get back to where I believe that everyone is trying to do good - just in different ways and with different philosophies. I know people like to claim that is all that has been going on now but I just can't agree.

[mdlbear]

"It's other people seeing the truth about how bad and surreal it's become that keep me from feeling truly hopeless about the situation."

Thank you. I feel much the same way. There may be hope.

[semy-of-pearls.livejournal.com]

When Jewish kids like me were routinely teased -- if not worse -- at school.

That happened more recently than you know. shadowwalkyr was routinely beaten at school. Worse, he was beaten by the other Jewish kids as well.

[mdlbear]

"...the other Jewish kids..."

Unfortunately, it's never hard for kids to find an excuse to hate somebody. Race, religion, subculture, weight, nerdishness...

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thank you for a powerful post.

I am only 44, but I remember when we had a normal country and not an insanely right wing one. I remember when "in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children" was a quote from an old story and not a serious goal of a whole political party.

[mdlbear]

You're welcome!

I just wish I knew what to do about it.