Protesting Planned Parenthood

Today was the big nationwide protest against the infamous abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. While I've been fairly quiet about the controversial videos released which proport to show Planned Parenthood executives and staff engaging in illegal activities (organ trafficking, infanticide, etc), know this: I am, and will always be, pro-life. My pregnancy and subsequent birth served to reinforce and enhance that which I had been taught regarding the sanctity of life, both in AND out of the womb.

A card my hubby picked up from the registration table. If you don't respect life in utero, you'll view it as worthless outside of the womb too.

It's one thing to see a picture of an ultrasound baby on a poster or hold a plastic fetus at various stages of development. But it's also something totally different to actually see the fetus wiggling and floating around in utero, real-time in front of your eyes and instinctively know "wow. That's mine. I made that."

It would be one thing if Planned Parenthood actually did what it claimed to do and offered STD testing and treatment, counseling, women's health care, etc. But it doesn't. Abortion is ALL that Planned Parenthood does, and the dishonesty put forth by that organization is an injustice to women everywhere. That has always been my beef with Planned Parenthood, even when I did not have the vocabulary to articulate it in the way I wanted to.

While I am largely in favor of crisis pregnancy centers as a means of giving women an alternative to murdering their offspring in utero, I've gotten away from blindly supporting them like I used to. When I got pregnant, I went to a crisis pregnancy center (CPC) not because I wanted an abortion, but because I was a low-income individual seeking to get low-cost prenatal care. I was hoping a CPC could assist me with that.

On the Right

Having just returned to the world of blogging, I've had an opportunity to look at my past posts and see how I used to be. There is a most definite right-wing bent to my past posts.

My impression: What in the HELL was I thinking?!

The answer: I wasn't.

I grew up in a rabidly right-wing home, with family who treated Rush Limbaugh's words as Gospel and who never failed to malign anyone who was not conservative or who supported causes that were anything other than conservative ones. And even certain conservative causes, like the pro-life movement, were viewed with suspicion. Naturally, I fell right in step with such devotion. What reason did I have to think different?

Then while on hiatus from blogging, I did what most people never achieve in their lifetimes. I grew up.

And, in the process, I discovered how full of shit right wing America is. Xenophobia is one thing, disenfranchisement, military worship/warhawkism, and straight-up ignorance encouraged by festering Bible-thumping and apocalypse fantasies are other notable traits. But as if that wasn't enough, then came the insane claim that lowering taxes on the wealthy will magically produce jobs. I believed that lie until I began my working life a few months after I'd done the good deed and graduated from college with a degree. Despite having a degree, the only work I could find was a slave-level job in a call center, doing customer service for a major wireless provider.

A good Republican would say, "well, it's better than nothing! You need to work hard and find a better job or better yet, take a second job! Or, better yet, go back to school and get a degree that will earn you money!"

A person with a brain in their head says that there is something very wrong with this picture.

There is nothing like working in a dead-end industry like customer service to see just how bad capitalism, the rabid right with their insane cult-like devotion to Ayn Rand, Israel, and the super wealthy; and the castrated moderate right that calls itself left wing, have failed us. The best and brightest are maligned, while the mediocre and the conformist are held up as ideal; all the while singing in three-part harmony about how wonderful supply-side economics is and you better fucking support the troops!

The result has been a severe uptick in income inequality, more people turning to welfare and food stamps in order to survive, a spike in the cost of living, and two entire generations (mine and the one prior to mine) of working-age people who will never know what it was like to have job security and the income to sustain a middle-class existence.

But of course, nobody in the the government, both the rabidly right wing and the moderately right wing that characterize the Democrat party, will do a damn thing different. Their patrons stand to lose alot of money and influence if any of that should happen.

But now what about those poor people? You know, the ones who need food stamps and Section 8, and Medicaid? Fuck those leeches! CUT CUT CUT! If people die of starvation, who gives a shit-this is AMERICA where you don't need a handout from the government! You pull yourself up by the bootstraps and do it yourself!

By the way, unless you have a means of supporting yourself, it's a wee bit hard to pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Try it sometime.

The funny thing is, you look around Eastern Europe and Latin America, and you can clearly see where the politicians are bought and sold, where there's a tin-pot dictator calling the shots, where crony capitalists hijack the economy, where income inequality is extreme as all getout, where you're constantly under surveillance and the police act with impunity, and think "what a shithole that place is".

It's never occurred to you that we're right on par with those very shitholes you were observing. Perhaps even worse so because our media has done so well hiding what a plutocratic police state America has become.

I can see it right now. Someone from the right will read this post and go "this lazy, brainwashed liberal here is  bitter cuz she doesn't wanna work hard and would rather be a Communist!"

LOL. Communism is just the flip side of your beloved capitalism. One uses material goods for social control, the other reduces humanity to just a commodity to be bought and sold as needed. They both make material goods into god, treat economic activity as a mystical force, and assert itself as a religion (albeit a "secular" one).

I can also see said right winger go "if this communist here doesn't like Amurrika, she should leave".

A thought, I will concede, but a full-on revolt would be alot cheaper and involve less paperwork than moving internationally. Poverty has a way of keeping one tethered.

That, my friends, is why I shredded my Republican registration card and said to hell with you people. Now that I am free of the clutches of the right wing's idiot machine, I will not hesitate to speak out against the right for what they are-the REAL enemies of the state.

tamtam

a funny joke

in the spirit of good humor and keeping some light in this dark world of ours, here's a joke-courtesy of patrice lewis over at "rural revolution".

Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson, Brian Williams and a tough old U.S. Marine sergeant were captured by terrorists in Iraq. The leader of the terrorists told them he'd grant each of them one last request before they were beheaded and dragged through the streets.

Katie Couric said, "Well, I'm a Southerner, so I'd like one last plate of fried chicken." The leader nodded to an underling who left and returned with the chicken. Couric ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."

Charlie Gibson said, "I'm living in New York , so I'd like to hear the song 'The Moon and Me' one last time." The terrorists' leader nodded to another terrorist who had studied the Western world and knew the music. He returned with some rag-tag musicians and played the song. Gibson was satisfied.

Brian Williams said, "I'm a reporter to the end. I want a tape recorder so I can describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe, someday, someone will hear it and know that I was on the job till the end." The leader directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder and Williams dictated his comments. He then said, "Now I can die happy."

The leader turned and said, "And now, Mr. Marine, what is your final wish?"

"Kick me in the behind," said the Marine.

"What?" asked the leader, "Will you mock us in your last hour?"

"No, I'm NOT kidding. I want you to kick me in the behind," insisted the Marine.

So the leader shoved him into the yard and kicked him in the behind. The Marine went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9 mm pistol from inside his cammies and shot the leader dead. In the resulting confusion, he emptied his sidearm into six terrorists, with his knife he slashed the throat of one with an AK-47, which he took, and sprayed the rest of the terrorists killing another eleven.

In a flash, all of them were either dead or fleeing for their lives. As the Marine was untying Couric, Gibson and Williams, they asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them all in the first place? Why did you ask him to kick you in the behind?"

"What!?!" replied the Marine, "and have you three report that I was the aggressor....?"

while blogging about the election on myspace, i wrote this comment: in 2008, journalism as a respectible profession, died and left a rotting, stinking carcass behind.

i hope they all go under...>:[

tamtam

Islam and freedom of speech - The Boston Globe

Islam and freedom of speech - The Boston Globe

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the price of free speech

dear readers,

as you may have heard, or perhaps not, congress is interested in pursuing an order that would ultimately chase us conservatives off the air and possibly into jail, depending on the state we live in, cuz we dont agree with the majority ruling party.

not only is this wrong, its illegal. under the first amendment, all forms of symbolic and spoken speech so long as they don't incite violence, are protected. the founding fathers made that a guaranteed right because they faced shit and persecution from the british monarchy for speaking out against the crown. it seems that we have once again come around full-circle. though free speech has been an age-old struggle, only in modern times has the censorship become as extreme as it is (see china for example). the right of free speech has been the goal and cornerstone of a solid democracy wherever there is one, and to take that right away is almost a sure-fire regression of all the things that modern democracy has stood for.

besides, conservative radio is very lucrative. thats why theres so many so many stations are dominated by conservative shows as opposed to liberal (or as they're referred to nowadays: 'progressive'). if you saw the electoral map after the 2008 election, you saw that most of america is overwhelmingly conservative. because of that, conservative radio flourishes while liberal radio shows are restricted mainly to the cities cuz thats were all the liberals are. aside from that, its all about the money. people who advertise on the radio are more apt to advertise on stations that carry conservative shows because they make more money that way (more listeners=more people hear about the product=more buyers=more profit). its just that simple. the laws of economics spare no one-and rewriting them to fit your idealogy only makes things worse for everyone else (yeah, im calling out you liberals and everyone who supports these massive gov't payoffs that are being passed thru congress).

opposition is not a bad thing-it keeps those politicians in touch with reality. i know you can't please everybody, but when you take a vow to uphold and defend the constitution as law, how about actually DOING that!! but then again, when the majority of drones are in office, they can do whatever they want.

seriously-the freedom doctorine (or whatever pseudonyms it may come under) is a scary thing for us as a country. if talk radio can be censored, then print and the internet are next. well, the newspapers are already in the tank for the left (and the likes of sam zell are wondering why their circulation numbers are down), but the internet belongs to no one. the internet will be a little harder cuz its worldwide, but if china and iran can do it, then its possible for our government to attempt something similar. we know it can be done, and thats the scary part! call me a fearmonger, a reactionary, overreactive, whatever, but truth be told-when you're rotting in a gulag somewhere because you spoke up and said that you thought the government was spending too much money, don't say i didnt warn you.

it used to be a good thing to live in america. now, thanks to the liberals, its all on the verge of destruction. all that america has stood for will be gone unless we on the right can rise up and say ENOUGH!! we will not be crushed like roaches cuz we disagree with the left!!! we conservatives stick to things that work, like free speech, low taxes, tax breaks wherever possible, and LIMITED GOV'T. all those things have been proven to work-if you knew your history, you would know that. all those things made america the beacon of the free world and inspired democracies all over the world. to take those things away would mean the ultimate fall from grace: here is the world's greatest super power crashing down like a tree without roots. i dont know when that will be, but i hope we as americans can wake up and bombard our representatives in congress to not pass the freedom doctorine before its too late.

from az with love,

tamtam