Can a Tea Party Man Set a Misguided Liberal Straight?

A TEA PARTY FRIEND TOLD ME THIS WEEK he felt sorry for me because, as he phrased it, my political beliefs were "misguided."

I admit that line brought me up short.

With a critical election nine weeks away, it seemed like this would be a good time to examine my conscience. After all, liberals know there is always a chance that the other side in any discussion may be at least part right. We're not like so many conservatives in that respect. We don't believe the pursuit of truth ended with the publication of the King James Bible or when the Founding Fathers closed up shop and headed for home.

According to Michelle Bachmann you can cure "gayness" with the right therapeutic approach. Might there be a cure for "liberalness," too?

I decided to make up a list to sort out my innermost feelings:

A is for Ann Romney. When she told her story on TV this week about receiving the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis you couldn't help feel for the woman. She teared up, just talking about how Mitt stood by her side. A liberal wonders:  how sad would this have been if another American family, just as loving as the Romneys, with both mom and dad working at non-union companies and lacking health insurance, got the same diagnosis? What would that family do lacking millions in various bank accounts?  Okay: this liberal still sees virtue in Obamacare.

B is for "you didn't build that." We know the other side took this phrase out of context; and we have our own opinions, besides. We think if conservatives can credit Romney for "building" Staples, we can credit carpenters and roofers who built the stores, truckers who hauled concrete, clerks who stocked shelves, and the blue collar guys in the paper mills. We say they deserve good wages and benefits. We believe something is wrong when the average CEO in America makes 231 times what the average worker does.

C is for communism? WTF! The right throws this epithet around like a football at a Manning family reunion. Liberals don't believe in communism, but notice when productivity rises dramatically since 1980, and the wages of the average American worker fail to keep pace. (See B, above.) Liberals see the stock market reports and take note that corporate profits have been huge the last two years. We don't remember hearing in economics classes that communism and corporate profits went hand-in-hand. (See O, below.)

Drill, baby, drill--we won't dwell on the fact that the lady who coined this cry was a numbskull. We don't feel misguided at all if we remember the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, courtesy of BP. Your side likes to insist that government is the problem. Our side notices who has to do the cleanup. We are sorry if we remember Love Canal and Exxon Valdez and the damage done to the ozone layer. We are sorry if we believe Romney is going too far when he suggests letting states decide who can drill for oil in national parks. We love this country for its beauty and want to hand it down to following generations in good shape.

E is for economics--and, oh my, how your side hates wasteful spending! We know you love a balanced budget like you love a 1950s America. We can't understand, though, why defense spending can never be cut. Somehow, your side believes a dollar of spending to build a bomb doesn't add to the deficit. It's a magic dollar. Yet, a dollar paid for early child education, that dollar is a stab in the heart of freedom-loving Americans.

Fiscal restraint--speaking of not trusting BP, we aren't trusting the GOP, either. We know the Founding Fathers gave the House of Representatives "the power of the purse" and we know your party has controlled that body for all but four years, from 1995 to 2012. And frankly, fiscally, your record sucks.

Greed/government--government can be the problem. We admit there are politicians ready to dip their hands deep into the public till. We remember one of our own, Congressman William Jefferson, who stashed $96,000 in bribe money in a home freezer. We've heard about the $535 million wasted by Solyndra because sometimes we watch Fox News, but normally only for comic relief. Still, we worry about greed and government in a different way. We notice that Solyndra was run by crooked business types--the real issue, we think. We remember Halliburton making obscene war profits in Iraq. We worry about the decision in Citizens' United, the handiwork of your very own conservative court, which allows Sheldon Adelson to pour $100 million into political campaigns. We think $100 million might tempt politicians of all stripes. Even Congressman Jefferson.

H is for hot (i. e. "global warming"). We know you don't believe this is happening. We also know NASA reported the Arctic ice sheet has been reduced by 40% this summer with two months of melting to go. We know it's statistically possible that this is nothing more than a normal, albeit extreme, variation and not evidence of climate change. We also know that the Cleveland Indians could win the next 30 games and sneak into the playoffs. We just don't think that's a bet a sensible person would make.

I is for illegal immigrants--Your side hates them. We know. Then again:  it's usually boys in Big Business who hire 'em. We're suspicious though. We sniff a strong scent of racism in what some on the right have to say. We liberals are proud of what the USA has long represented:  hope for "the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, yearning to breathe free." We don't believe a great nation like ours should turn its back on a heritage as glorious as that. We love America and support the Dream Act.

Jobs--remember when the Bush tax cuts were passed, how they were going to produce all kinds of jobs? Remember how the GOP took over the House of Representatives in 2010 and said they were going to focus on jobs, jobs, jobs? Liberals notice that your greatest efforts, related to jobs, have focused on dropping the axe on teachers, police officers, fire fighters and social workers. Hardly the classic definition of "job creation."

K is for KIA, which liberals usually hate. We know war may be necessary but we believe your side is too itchy on the trigger, too happy to send young American men and women off to die in places like Iraq. Now you want to send troops to join the fray in Syria and planes and ships to attack Iran. Liberals love America. See. We just aren't as anxious to see young Americans get killed, or young Iranians, for that matter. (See L.)

L is for Libya/lying--remember when President Reagan bombed Libya in 1986, because Muammar Gaddafi supported terrorist attacks? Remember the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, which killed 270 innocent civilians? Well, our boy, President Obama, managed to use U. S. military power in calibrated fashion to knock out the longtime scuzbag dictator and not a single American life was lost. (See K!!!) He didn't get us bogged down in the mess in Syria, either, when your side said he should. Come to think of it, we liberals believe your boy, Dick Cheney, and some of his sorry crew lied to drag us into Iraq.

M is for increasing the minimum wage. Call us crazy, but we think any American willing to work deserves a living wage. We know your side's argument--ooooooo, we'll have to pay more for our pickles and peppers if pickers get paid minimum wage. We think the sacrifice might be worth it. We don't want to see America become Bangladesh.

N is for Noah/NASA--we are sorry, but sometimes we liberals prefer science for explanations over the Bible. (See H, above.) If you want to believe it rained forty days and forty nights and covered up the earth, meaning it rained 726 inches every day in order to inundate Mt. Everest, you are welcome. We'll take NASA and its pictures and you can have the strange preachments of Glenn Beck, the former radio DJ.

"N" WAS ADDED ONLY AFTER AN ASTUTE READER NOTICED THE MISSING LETTER.

O is for oligarchy--which the ancient Greeks felt meant death to democracy and freedom wherever it sank its roots. We liberals fear a system where swarming lobbyists, in the service of mega-corporations buy up members of state and federal legislatures like cookies at a July 4th bake sale. We absolutely fear the decision of the conservative majority on the U. S. Supreme Court in the Citizens' United case. (See G, above.)

P is for Paul Ryan, the man with the piercing blue eyes. Also the man with the plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system. That's right, we know what Representative David McKinley, of West Virginia, said recently. He's reminding voters that he gave thumbs down to the plan when it came up for a vote, warning that it “would privatize Medicare for future retirees, raise the retirement age and keep in place the Medicare cuts included in last year’s health care bill.” In a campaign flier, Mr. McKinney added: “The Congressional Budget Office determined the plan would nearly double out-of-pocket health care costs for future retirees.”  We liberals believe McKinley, a Republican we might add, knows his stuff.

Q is for questioning. We liberals love to question the status quo. We believe the world can be made better. We also believe in freedom of speech and the press. (See Z.) We have noticed, however, a tendency among some on the right, a willingness to wave guns about and warn us to "go to Russia" if we don't love the country in exactly the same manner as they do. We think this smacks of fascism; but the letter "F" has already been used.

R is for rape. Your side likes to believe that women who are raped can't possibly get pregnant; but if they do, God says they can't have an abortion. Our side tends to believe in science--and God, too--but we do have our questions (see Q) about when life actually begins. Certainly, we believe a victim of a brutal attack has the right to decide whether or not to carry a resulting pregnancy to term.

Small business--we support neighborhood business. We know the bar owner and hair salon operator work hard for their dollar. Still, we wonder how your side thinks it's fine if defense contractors get "cost plus" contracts that guarantee huge profits, pass on the inflated bills to taxpayers and then, like GE mangage to pay zero taxes. We do wonder how giant corporations and even Mitt Romney can get away with hiding money in Cayman Island bank accounts. We liberals think Big Business is happy to screw Small Business, whenever it can.

T is for terrorists. Remember when your side said President Obama would be soft on terrorists? Well, we do. We remember the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, as well. Slice your baloney thick or thin, however you like it. When your boy W. was in office he failed in eight long years to take down the mastermind of 9/11.

U is for unions--and we liberals do like labor unions. That doesn't make us union thugs and it doesn't mean we believe unions are perfect. We just happen to like the average American worker and know the average union worker makes $10,000 more annually than the average non-union worker. We think that's good; and we wish more workers were in unions. We think America needs a strong middle class. (No offense, but your side seems to love hedge fund managers.)

V is for vouchers--and don't you try to deny it, Mr. Paul Ryan. (See P, above.) You know you're just itchin' to turn Medicare into a voucher program. We're not going to say something stupid, like, "You want to unplug granny." But we think, if Granny discovers the truth, and we're going to try to be sure that she does, well, Granny is not going to be happy.

W is for wind power and alternative energy. We liberals don't focus narrowly on Solyndra. We take note of the solar farms all over New Mexico and Arizona. We pedal our bicycles across the entire United States (at least this writer does) and see wind farms spread across Indiana, Illinois and into Iowa, and farmers making good money for allowing installation. We see a report that Xcel Energy, Colorado's largest utility, was producing 57% of the electricity it provided, during one recent period, relying on nothing else but good clean American prairie winds. We see a push for alternative energy and see a chance to break the stranglehold of Middle Eastern nations on U. S. foreign policy. We think that's good. (See K.)

X is for Title IX. As far as liberals are concerned, it's simple. If you have a daughter who plays sports at an advanced level, in high school or college, thank a liberal. Title IX, baby. Sometimes government isn't the problem. Government is the solution. The same for Medicare, the program you say you want to save, but we know you plan to gut.

Y is for Y chromosome. We liberals believe women have equal rights. We believe, unlike Rick Santorum, that they can serve bravely in the U. S. military. Forty years ago we were arguing that women could work outside the home, that they didn't have to focus entirely on family, that it was okay if they weren't always subservient to the will of their husbands. In fact, we paved the way for Ann Coulter. (That probably classifies as "collateral damage.")

Z is zeal for freedom. We're not misguided at all and love freedom just as much as you. We don't want to take your guns away. We do think it might be nice to have registrations so felons can't get weapons in their hands as easily as they do. We believe in equal rights for gays, because last we checked they were Americans, too. We love the First Amendment almost as much as you love the Second. And we don't like torture, not even waterboarding. Your side is fond of capital punishment. Our side is less so, because we keep hearing about all the mistakes. Finally, we like all the amendments, including the V, VI, VII and VIII.

I FEEL BETTER NOW, not misguided at all. Like any good liberal, I'll vote my conscience in November. That's what good Americans always do.

I need to go find an empty chair and take a rest.

We liberals think this is a beautiful country.
We believe we should pass it down to future generations looking the same way.
(Near the top of Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park.)
Again:  sometimes government is the solution.

 

Mitt Romney Takes on Teachers' Unions!

I WOULD ARGUE THAT TWO RECENT STORIES ABOUT Mitt Romney and his family have a direct bearing on the subject of U. S. education.

The first focused on Ann Romney's love of horseback riding. The other outlined her husband's first big speech about schools, and the policies he would implement if elected president, to address America's supposed "education crisis." Governor Romney, who once famously said that he loved Michigan because all the trees were "just the right height," wanted his audience to know that when it came to schools, he was less sanguine. Apparently, America's teachers aren't the right height or don't have enough leaves.

In any case, Mr. Romney's main points can be boiled down as follows:

A. teachers' unions are really, really bad (and, by the way, support President Obama)
B. all parents are really, really good (and should vote Republican) and totally committed to their children's education
C. therefore, we can fix everything if we set up more charter schools and have more parent choice
D. ...because, if we didn't already mention it, all parents are really, really good and committed to their children's education
E. and teachers' unions are really, really bad and frankly, most of their members are scumbags
F. so, we should grade all schools; then parents, all good, all committed, can choose schools wisely, and, of course, all parents will choose wisely, because, well...you get the idea
G. and since private enterprise is always good, and because unfettered business cures all ills in all societies, it would be great if we turned public schools over to for-profit companies, which would mean we'd end up with nothing but "A+" schools, because companies could break teachers' unions (which support President Obama)
H. and have we mentioned yet that teachers' unions are responsible for every problem in U. S. public education?

NOW, DON'T GET ME WRONG. In most stories I've read, Governor Romney comes across as a gentleman. He's a devoted husband, good father, regular church goer, a good human being. Ann Romney seems like a likeable, lovely woman. But it would be stretching the truth beyond recognition to assert that people like the Romneys understand the kind of  realities that confront families farther down the economic scale, teachers who work with children of those families, public school teachers, in general, or the issues that most affect America's public schools as we enter the coming election season.

Indeed, like so many others who claim to want to fix the public schools, Mr. Romney's family long ago decided that the public schools weren't quite good enough for their son and sent him off to an elite prep school at the end of seventh grade. So Mitt never had to walk down a high school hallway, in some city, say Detroit, and rub elbows with any gang members. Not many homeless kids could afford tuition at Cranbrook School, where young Romney was insulated from contact with society's less fortunate individuals. And you can bet he wasn't hanging around with classmates who came to school hungry in the morning, or who went home to neighborhoods crawling with drug abusers at night.

The problem now, when Mr. Romney talks education, is that his isolation from reality is complete. He and his loved ones live in rarified air, and Mrs. Romney, for example, is able to indulge her love of horses. She competes in riding events at an elite level. She has a dressage tutor, who helps her with form, a top man in his field, so successful he has been known to serve guests at his riding school from $4,000 bottles of wine. In fact, on their tax returns for 2010, the Romneys were able to claim a $77,000 loss related to part ownership of a horse named Rafalca.

That's more money than most families see in a year.

Meanwhile, Mitt and Ann's four sons, raised in a home where they had every possible advantage, including good parents, fared well in school. But a recent study by John Hopkins University tells us that not all students come from the same kind of homes. Instead, 15% of U. S. students have problems with chronic absenteeism.

That is:  they miss 10% of all class time, or more.

I taught in a fine district until I retired. But I could explain to Mr. and Mrs. Romney, rather quickly, that not all parents are good, no matter how fine the district. Not all parents are like them, or like Mr. and Mrs. Obama, or the majority of moms and dads I met. I had Abe in class one year. Abe was absent or tardy 107 times in a 180-day school year. When he did arrive, often late, for first period history, I had trouble educating him not because I was a member of a teachers' union, but because Abe had a devil of a time staying awake. I remember once when he told me his mother let him play video games until four a.m. the night before.

So, Abe's mother wasn't an Ann Romney. She wasn't like the mothers Mitt Romney has in mind when he talks about fixing U. S. education. Abe's mom soon added several lines to her goofy parent resume when she came down to school to pick up her older son, who happened to be getting suspended for fighting, and got into a battle with our school resource officer, leading to her own arrest.

THIS MAN, ROMNEY, WHO WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT, who says he knows how to fix the schools, sees the world through the green-tinted glasses of the top 1%. My wife, a speech therapist, still working in the public schools, could reveal grimmer truths. She once worked with a child with severe emotional disorders who lived in a rusted out automobile with Uncle Buster, a regular marijuana user, but still his best option, because mom and dad were long gone from the family photo. She worked with a nine-year-old boy, a victim of sexual abuse by his father, who had what medical people call encopresis, or leakage from the anus, around partially-formed stool, a common problem in cases of abuse. So he had accidents at his desk almost every day. On yet another occasion a mother "interested" in her child's education came to school to see the principal. Mom was carrying a butcher knife and said she was "tired of being followed." Then she chased the principal down the hall, out of the building, and across the parking lot.

It's not just anecdotal evidence Mr. Romney might consider. Take Chicago, where in 2010, the average student missed 26 days of instruction. We know that tens of thousands of teens in the Windy City belong to gangs; and in one twelve-month period 245 school-age kids were killed or wounded in gang-related violence.

What solution does the Governor offer for that?

Let's grade schools!

Mr. Romney might even pick up a newspaper and see what he could discover. It's never hard to find sad examples, of parents who fail; but here's one of my "favorites," a story I stumbled across in 2008, involving a Pennsylvania mom named Elizabeth Ann Fox. Ms. Fox was charged with child endangerment after leaving two sons, ages 4 and 2, home alone for hours. Police were notified when the boys managed to crawl out a bedroom window. One officer entered the home but was driven back immediately by the overpowering smell of garbage and human feces, which littered the kitchen floor. A second officer located mom--at a fast food restaurant, of all places--where she was enjoying a hamburger and a shake.

Mr. Romney ought to try to work those kind of examples into his next speech about what must be done to fix America's schools.

In the end, Governor Romney is blind to all the ugliness, because he travels only in circes of wealth and privilege. Or perhaps, because he hopes to score political points, he doesn't care to look for any ugliness.

Too bad, too, because we know there are 1.6 million homeless children in the United States today. We know that in 2010 more than 70% of black children were born to single mothers. We know on certain Indian reservations poverty, depression and hard drinking add up to mean that one in four children will be born with fetal alcohol syndrome. We know that here in Ohio, one out of every ten children in Scioto County, where illegal use of painkillers has spread like plague, is born with illegal drugs in their blood streams. And we know that at any given moment, 1.5 million American children have a parent in prison.

If Romney and the critics wanted to see the full picture they wouldn't stop there. What about parents who kill their children? Even these stories are not hard to find; and nothing Mr. Romney has to offer, so far, when he talks about education, would ever do the unluckiest children in our society the slightest bit of good. Consider one example, out of many, a case from West Palm Beach, Florida. It involves Jorge Barahona, accused of murdering his stepdaughter, Nubia, and for the attempted murder of Victor, his ten-year-old son. The boy showed evidence of prior injuries: broken collarbone, broken arm, burn scars on buttocks and abdomen, rope marks on wrists. Emily Rodriguez, Victor's first grade teacher, later told reporters she remembered how Nubia used to visit her class at the end of the day to see how her brother was doing.

Does Mr. Romney really believe the key here would be to focus on Rodriquez because she's in a teachers' union?

YET, THERE THE GOVERNOR WAS, telling an audience last week:  "Wouldn't it be great if we could look back on the last four years with confidence that the [school] crisis had been confronted and we'd turned the corner toward a brighter future?"

Nope. The problems won't go away. Blame it on President Obama. And blame his evil allies, the teachers' unions.

They just can't seem to alter harsh realities.

I am pleased to say that this post was viewed almost 13,000 times on AddictingInfo.Org.

Teachers are getting fed up with all the attacks we face.

Mitt Romney and a whole lot of others who criticize us have no clue.