Me and the War On Class

More and more lately I'm reminded me that I live in a country that was structured by rich white douchebags to benefit rich white douchebags long after their deaths. I imagine it sounded so perfect to them as they wrote it down on paper and passed it around for mutual approval. They were fairly certain all they had to do was will it on the masses and it would become ironclad, same as those flat earth guys a few centuries before them who were certain they could control everyone with some totally mindfuck stories they threw together after eating  moldy bread.

And like any good old power hungry waste of human skin, they killed off a few skeptics, a whole bunch of "other color" and of course, lots and lots of women to make sure no one questioned the veracity of their hallucinations. In order to get away with this they had to create the other, the bad person, the evil one, the not us that is so easy to program into the heads of the weak and terminally stupid.

My whole adult life, starting in my teens, I considered it honorable to be one of the others, and I still do. I am proud to be a Liberal because those are the principles that built the good things in this country, the kinds of things we once were admired for by the rest of the world. We took care of our own. Our leaders would have been mortified to have other countries know there were people dying of hunger in the richest country in the world, so they fought hard against the rich white douchebags to make sure those images would never be part of the image of America by passing Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, Heating assistance. We took care of our own because that is what an adult country did with its weaker citizens. No one had to ask if it was right or wrong; it was America and that was good enough for most of the country.

I am proud of my atheism because it has allowed me to question the easy answers and go straight for the best part of the questions. I can't imagine letting someone do my thinking for me or forcing me to believe what they believe simply because someone else told them they had to believe it. You can't walk upright if you're always on your knees.

I am happy for my education because it gave me an opportunity to rise above the circumstances of my early life. It taught me I could make a living with my mind as well as my body, that I had a choice which one I chose to use, or I could even use both. I had a choice because education gave me a choice. I didn't have to help build someone else's dreams once I knew I was perfectly capable of building my own. And I will fight and argue and defend everyone's right to an education because I know how the rich white douchebags hate it when people like me become educated enough to fight back. That's when they start referring to my education as class warfare, because it taught me I had the right to fight back.

These same douchebags want to take away that right to an education because they don't want people like me getting educated enough to fight back. They want trade schools, training camps, company towns where the population is grateful and never dreams of more because they know there is no more. Before the digital divide was even uttered as line creating an us and them society, there was education.

Those who learned to read in early times were the powerful, even if they were poor, even if they were not part of the elite ruling class. And it was that way and is still that way in so many parts of the country. It is shameful that in America, there are still people who can't or won't read, even more so because it is intentional.  Entertainment is sitting in front of something and letting yourself be passively entertained. Reading takes opening the book (or kindle thingie) and actively processing what is coming into your brain. That's dangerous to the douchebags because it also teaches you to think. You can't read without comprehending, and you can't comprehend without thinking.

I'm also very glad of my working class roots and the days of outright poverty I endured growing up. Since it was before food stamps and welfare, we often had to depend on the kindness and generosity of others. I learned that those who have something are always willing to share with those who have nothing. It comes natural. It's not something the one who has thinks about. They have and someone else doesn't and it doesn't feel right.

The only downside I can see to growing up poor is that I'm happy with less and so I've never had much in the way of things. I've always lived close to the edge so I could create, write, and exist without a hand on my neck demanding I get down on my knees for dollars. I've done my share of manual labor. I've worked for some of the biggest and meanest assholes on the planet. I've had to share space with the selfish, the whiny, the privileged, and the mediocre spawn of the middle class trying to claw their way to official douchebag status.

And you know what? Getting old evens it all out. I spent my life living with less so I don't miss what I never had. I give away whatever I can to those in need because I'm human and I feel their hunger, their pain, their sadness if I don't. I can't walk away from another human being in need because there's nothing of material nature out there worth giving up my humanity for. Nothing.

I see those who always wanted things, people that I spent some of my life with throughout the decades. They're getting old and they're afraid because they don't know how to survive with less. They don't know that people matter more than things, that love is worth far more than the latest anything they could possibly buy. I have so much less and yet I am far more secure because it really is true, if you have nothing you have nothing to lose. I care only about losing those I love. They are what I value and everything else is just junk store room fillers that can be replaced at any time.

This is what the douchebags just can't change or write into law to benefit them. I got away. I am me. I have survived and will continue to survive and I am fabulously wealthy with friendship, love, and the integrity of my own heart. They will never be able to say that so I can confidently say to them: yes there is a class war, and I've won you poor pitiful douchebags.

One Voice, Many Votes by orsobear
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Some recommended reading and viewing:

In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton

One Woman, One Vote

Me and the War On Class

You Don't Piss Off The Women!

On January 7th, 2009 I wrote this blog entry Strong Women and the continual battle to stay strong. I was angry that pharmacists were forcing their religion on women trying to fill a prescription. I was more than annoyed at the way, in that political season, women were treated less seriously than the male candidates for the same offices. And as always, I was upset with my sister-women who failed to respect the women who took to the streets, suffered beatings, humiliation, prison and death, just so they could win the right to vote for them in 1920. It took less than a hundred years for their sacrifices to suffer the ultimate humiliation of women refusing to participate at all in electing their leaders. How astonishingly ungrateful can someone possibly be? I was embarrassed and ashamed for them. I hope one day they will realize how cheaply they treated what was fought for them, and that they will make up for it by helping register other women to vote and then making sure they get to the polls.

But all of that was history. I had my moment in the streets as a young woman. I lived and honed my ethics and principles on fighting for equality for all of us, not just the wealthy, not just the white, not just the privileged, and certainly not just one gender. But I felt it no longer was my generations battle because we did manage to accomplish a lot with our activism. We did drag equality into the 20th century. We did accomplish the standard of a woman's right to her own body. We didn't give up until it was done, but we also knew it would never be done because the same people who fought us are still fighting and trying to dismantle everything we accomplished.

But as I got older, as the women of my generation got older, we began to believe it no longer was our generation's battle.  It was the battle of the generations who will suffer from staying home on election day, who see no difference between one vote and another vote, who believe all politicians are the same, who will let those with horrible agendas claim the power that was rightfully meant to be shared equally.

I think in many ways we did too good a job. The generations who came after ours took for granted the right to control their own bodies, the right to be treated equally no matter your gender, color of your skin, or your sexual orientation. They never questioned their right to apply for scholarships that paid them to learn how to excel in their sport of choice. They grew up seeing women delivering the news, sitting in positions of power in both corporations and all levels of the government.

And like all things one takes for granted, there's someone waiting to just take them. And when you get complacent, you don't see the thief sneaking up on your rights. You just wake up one day and find out you're the wrong gender, the wrong color, the wrong religion, the wrong nationality, the wrong fit for a world that changed while you were sleeping away complacently and content in the safety and foreverness of your rights.

That's why as much as I was infuriated by the whole Planned Parenthood/Susan B. Komen attempted religious takeover of our healthcare, as much as I thought Congress had lost its collective mind with the 1950's mentality waging a war on women, as much as I detested that flatulence-infested bag of crap Limbaugh, as much as I want to vomit when I hear or read another women actually defend anything of that, I am in a strange sort of way, grateful to them for being such stupid and clueless dickheads.

You fucking pissed off the women! How stupid is that? And it's beyond stupid because you also woke them up. It's going to be a lot harder to pull your shit because they're awake now and angry. You will pay, and you will pay hard. And this time, it's not just one generation. It's all of us. That's what you did with your stupid and assinine War on Women. Nice job, MORANS.

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You Don't Piss Off The Women!

To the Next Generation

I had an interesting discussion with a woman close to my age today. She wrote to me after I posted a comment on a facebook discussion about needing to step up the fight against the Republican Party's War On Women. I said that while I would continue to actively play a role in the battle, it was no longer my generation's fight, and that it was up to each generation to choose their battles.

At the risk of sounding like one of those tedious old folks blathering on about young whippersnappers who just don't understand the sacrifices we made for them, I still feel it's important to do a bit of generational back slapping for what we did accomplish and explain how all of that is at risk now.

As archaic as it may sound, I grew up in a time when birth control was limited and not very affective. For women who don't even think twice about filling their prescriptions for the varieties of protection available out there, here's something to think about.

When the pill first came out, women couldn't just go and get a pack or two for themselves. They had to be married and in far too many cases, had to have their husband's permission to get a prescription. No, this wasn't the dark ages. This was the late 60's, early 70's. We wrote notes for each other pretending to be each other's husbands saying yes, we give our permission for our property to get something to put in their bodies.

Can any of you imagine doing that today? But we did and we also began to object, to protest, to demand the right to get our own prescriptions, to take charge of our own bodies. It wasn't easy and yes, some of us lost our jobs over it, were considered no better than prostitutes if discovered that we had a prescription without being married. And today, any woman has the right to get any kind of birth control she wants. It's so easy, most women just take it for granted and ignore there's politicians in office right now who consider birth control as a form of abortion.

And speaking of that topic that is guaranteed to stir up heat in any discussion, try this one on. Women of my generation and before either gave themselves abortions that often killed them or left them torn up so bad many of them never had to deal with an unwanted pregnancy again. Or they went to some backroom butcher that did the same thing, only he/she charged them lots of money to do so.

Or they did as my mother did and went to Mexico to some dirty little clinic just over the border that was a short bus ride there and what can only be described as an horrendous bus ride back. I was about nine or ten when a cab pulled up to the house (an unheard of luxury as they were expensive and rare) and the driver half carried my mother to the porch and left her there bleeding. She wouldn't let us call an ambulance because she'd probably end up in jail for having an illegal abortion. I became pro-choice that day and along with other women of my generation, fought hard for the right for women to have safe and legal abortions.

And now we live in a time when women can find a safe abortion, even though they may have to travel to another state. They really don't think about how they may not be able to get one, or that they can't afford it, or that it could kill them or leave them seriously infected or butchered.  Thanks to my generation they know they will not have their insides ripped up, infected, destroyed, and then left bleeding on a doorstep.

But we also live in a time when immoral bastards on Fox News and hate radio promote the active killing of Abortion doctors. If this doesn't get women's attention and compel them to action, then maybe it's time they woke up because those same crazy politicians that consider birth control as a form of abortion, want to classify  abortion as murder. So the next time you pop that pill in your mouth, remember that some vicious little tyrant is plotting on how to charge you with murder.

And even though racism and discrimination against women, gays, and minorities exists, it was our generation who took to the streets and demanded change, who protested and got ourselves arrested, and walked arm and arm with each other until equality for all people is the norm instead of the exception.

But we aren't there yet. There are still far too many people who use all kinds of blatantly transparent bullshit to cover up their racist hatred of Obama. There are still parts of this country where Gays and Lesbians get beat up and murdered just for being born homosexuals. There are still places in this country where women are second and third class citizens and who are routinely beat up, raped, and killed.

And far too many people look to their friends of color, their Gay and Lesbian friends, the women who hold public office and positions of authority and think not much has to be done anymore. This is where my new email friend said she felt like we did almost too good a job in changing the mindset of our culture away from racism and bigotry and toward tolerance. Because it's no longer so blatant, it no longer seems like such an important thing to fight.

But even as I write this there are people in power who are working to find ways to take away the equal rights we fought so hard to make ordinary. There are people fighting to roll back all the work we marched in the streets for, made phone calls to politicians for, wrote books for, composed music for, made art for so that equality and tolerance and acceptance of each other as human beings would seem ordinary.

Which brings me to my biggest complaint, my biggest whine as a 60 year old aging activist: how dare you not vote! I get really angry when people tell me there is no difference between the two parties, that they don't even bother voting anymore. To these people I say they need to go read up on the women who took to the streets, who got beat up, who got shunned and had their families destroyed so you unappreciative little shits could say voting was meaningless. And oh yeah, it wasn't exactly ancient history. Women in America got the right to vote in 1920. It's a good chance your grandmothers had baseball bats taken to their heads so you could stay home on election day.

And finally on that there's no difference between the parties crap...it's not the Democrats who are trying to take away the rights my generation fought so hard to make sure you could take for granted. Educate yourself and find out who the real dangerous party is right now in America and get off your ass and vote them out or everything my generation worked so hard for will disappear.

But as I told my friend, maybe that's the way the cycles move. Maybe you don't want those rights. Maybe they mean less to you than other things. Maybe the concern with the state of our planet is so dire that you can't afford to take time to fight any other battles. I have to admit I partly agree with you on this. It is a battle that must be fought.

You also have to continue the work we put into peace because it sure didn't work out too well. We still have stupid wars, stupid bought and paid for by defense contractors politicians, and too many ways the wealthy get even richer from war.

So yes, I can see there's a lot to choose from but I'd sure hate for all the work the women of my generation put in to go to waste. It's much more valuable than that and hopefully you will realize that and fight to keep it for the next generation to take for granted.

Fight For Rights by orsobear
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To the Next Generation

Why I'm A Political Beast

Someone asked me the other day why I let myself get so wrapped up in politics. It's one of those questions that's nearly impossible to answer because it falls in the category of  if you don't live it as I do, then I can't explain it so you will understand. Because I care about the person who asked, I'll try and explain my passion for this mean and nasty piece of life.

I wasn't always political. What people often misinterpreted as politics was an inner sense of fairness that could never be denied. To me it is not and will never be a complete world until it is a just world. And I really believe we can't have a just world as long as there is war. We can't have a just world as long as people aren't equal. We can't have a just world as long as there are victims. We can't have a just world as long as there is greed, selfishness, intolerance, racism, bigotry and hatred.

It's as simple as that on the surface.  In my life I've learned there are certain things that  need to take place before the world becomes a just place, and they won't happen by themselves. It's too big a job. So I use my talents as a writer, as an artist, as a passionate person who cares about this planet to educate others into what needs to be done.

First and most importantly, we need an end to war. There can be no justice without peace as a foundation for a better world to grow its roots. People tell me it's an impossible dream, that we humans are a warlike species that will never know peace.

I disagree completely. I believe we all begin as peaceful creatures but life twists us around, wounds us, teaches us the wrong things, and we grow up believing we are a warlike species that will never know peace.

We need to walk back from this untruth and it requires the most difficult of all things to even get a grip on the path toward peace. It requires first and above all that we take a good look at ourselves, that we learn who we are, what shaped us, what created us, what gave form to the essence of opinions, dreams and desires we are as human beings.

But to do that we have to set aside a lot of crap. One of the biggest pieces of crap is religion. I don't care what people believe individually. I even think spirituality is good for people, that it gives them a focus, a center from which to evolve. But religion is a different thing all together. It is a business, a giant system of brainwashing large groups of people to believe just one point of view and nothing else.

This is not spirituality. This is mind control for the purpose of using human beings for things they were never intended to be used for. Religion fills the heart with hate instead of love. It creates an us and them world where there is only you and those who believe as you do against the enemy, the outsiders who are bad where you are good.

Without religion, people would question the need to go to war. They would question the need to believe in only one ideology. They would go outside their own safe little reality and explore, examine, and come to understand there are many truths.

But that makes humans dangerous to those who need war, because you see, war is a need. It is what makes people obscenely wealthy inventing and selling machines meant for only one thing: killing people. And that's where politics enters the picture. No arms merchant can sell his death tools by standing on a street corner with a cart and a cardboard sign. Arms merchants need politicians to convince the people of the need for war. And their reward is wealth and power and prestige. For a politician, this is what it means to be a human being.

And that's why I spend so much of my life educating myself and others about politics. I want people to see how they are manipulated, how they are used, how they are controlled  by those whose only desire is to make themselves richer. It's all about money and that is the disgusting simple truth of it all.

I can't fight the powerful with money because I don't have any. But I have a strong sense of who I am from decades of taking a stand for things that affect me but are not me. It is how we grow. We MUST step outside ourselves and look at what's out there from a different perspective. This is my fight, this understanding that what we are and what we believe was fed to us by those who don't really give a damn about us as living beings. We're tools to them and I am offended and disgusted by this.

And since I've never been one to sit around, I let people know about the corruption in politics, the bad people, the hypocrites, the racists, the bigots, the mean-spirited and greedy. I treat them like the cockroaches they are and shine a light on them because as they scatter and run for the darkness where they can destroy the world for their own personal gain, they know that I'm out there, that there are others like me out there, and that we care enough about the earth and those who share it with us to never let them operate freely without fear of being caught. We're waiting to catch them and they know it.

It won't stop them completely but it will slow them down. And since I believe in evolution, I have faith that even the worst in our species will change over time if they have something to change towards that is vital and alive and precious instead of evil, greedy, and dead.

 I am a patient person as is anyone who has ever planted seeds in a garden and waited for them to grow. I know I won't see world peace in my life time, but I learned long ago to content myself with seedlings knowing I  had a hand in their growth. And those seedlings are why I stay aware of politics and politicians, why I'll never shut up, why I'll never stop doing my part to make a better world. Multiply me by several hundred thousand over a period of time and you have the world I know is possible.

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Why I'm A Political Beast

Note to Bigots, Racists, Homophobes, and other Losers

I was blessed or cursed, depending on your perspective, with an abundance of the optimism gene. It's allowed me to get through a life that might have killed those weaker or less stubborn. I've always been able to see the positive side of a situation along with the negative. I've always believed that evil can be overcome by good, that hate takes effort and love does not, that humans for all of our flaws, are basically good creatures.

I still believe that, but in the last few months with the advent of the teabagging crazies and  their "creative" spelling known as TEABONICS or Texas Schoolbook Learning,  infecting the country with such manipulated bigotry and hatred, I have finally accepted that in order to be a decent human being some basic requirements must be met.

First, you must understand the planet is home to many people and they're not all going to look like you, worship the same imaginary friends, embrace your narrow ideology, or have the same definition of truth. If you think it's all about you, then you need to seriously grow up and open your eyes and especially your heart.

Which leads me to the requirement of compassion. If you don't have it, then you really don't have any claims to the title of human being. You're something else, something small and mean, something incomplete and lacking an essential component that says I am more than a list of skin, bone, chemicals, fat, and ego.

If you can look at another human being and consider him or her less than you because he or she does not worship where you do, does not have the same skin color as you do, does not stay within the same gender lines as you, does not speak with the same stress or lack of it on the same syllables of the same words, does not come from the same piece of dirt that held your mother's body as you fell out on it, then your claim to the label of human being is seriously in doubt.

I've said many times that love is easy, it's hate that requires you get up every day and say today I am going to hate, today I'm going to be an intolerant asshat shoving my worldview down everyone's throats. And all day long you have to feed that hate. You have to make up stupid shit about people and then get others to believe it and help you spread it, much as most of the world spreads manure on their crops.

But the crops of those who hate, those who are intolerant, are the mean and hungry gardens of bigotry and intolerance. And the most fallow of those grounds belong to the racist, that fraud of a human being who thinks that people are things to categorize like so many dead insects on a cardboard backing. The only reason to separate human beings into little herds is so they can be separated from the rest of humanity and be at the mercy of bigoted jerks who take out their hatred of life on them.

For many months now, and for a good deal of my life, I've dealt with bigots and racists differently, depending on who they were. I was much more willing to ignore the stereotypical joking of some elderly old fellow who barely remembered his name ,much less understood that his world  changed so much that the mildly racist joke that cracked everyone up in his youth, now made his listeners uncomfortable.

I never laughed, but I wasn't strong enough to walk away, especially if he was a relative or the relative of a friend. I called that being tolerant, being accepting of someone who meant no harm, but was merely old and oblivious to the changing mores of the planet.

I don't know if I was wrong to not say anything, to just listen uncomfortably. Was I respecting the elderly or was I helping grow what became the overtly racist and intolerant Teahadists with my silence? If I was wrong, I can console myself with knowing I never had a bit of a problem openly calling out a racist who was motivated by pure hatred and nothing else.

There were several times in my life where I put myself in really stupid situations for the sake of my ethical soul. I don't regret them even though I'm appalled at how oblivious I was to the danger. Idealism is like that. It blinds you to the dangers so you can move forward and make the world a better place. Not everyone survives that leap. I was lucky and lived to raise hell another day.

And because I did, I continue to speak out to the obvious racists. I won't let up on the Teahadists because they are as ugly as the KKK is ugly, as ugly as jackbooted thugs are ugly, as ugly as the Inquisition burning Pagans and other non-Christians in the name of their viscious and bloodthirsty god is ugly. Hate is ugly. Bigotry is ugly. Intolerance is ugly. Selfishness is ugly.

As human beings, we have only one enemy and it the ugliness that ferments in other human beings. I thought it could be defeated by love and yes, in those that still have a heart, those that are not sociopathic thugs, those that can see beyond the smallness of their world view, it can be defeated and made whole by love.

But I also understand there are those who are lost to humanity. They are mean little creatures who both direct the haters and thrive on the hatred they create. They do not know what it means to love authentically. It is all about usage rights with them, things that do not require compassion or understanding.

And yes, many who hate are poorly educated and ignorant. Racists are people who have only had their own race as friends. They are ignorant of other people, cultures, literature, music, ideas, and beliefs. It is a willful ignorance because it is the most easily cured if they wanted to cure themselves.

But they don't because more than anything, bigots and racists are lazy. They don't want to make the effort to understand because it requires doing more than moving sluggishly through a life where everyone but them is calling the shots. People who think for themselves are not easily led.

Freethinkers would never let a hateful, pill-infested moron named Rush Limbaugh tell them what to think, what to believe, and whom to hate. That's for the masses, the ignorant and willfully uneducated "morans" who are too lazy to think for themselves. They are the fodder, the rabble, the used and abused by everyone who has more power and influence. They are nothing and know it, which is why they hate.

And they allow the Becks of the world to yank their very short leashes and command them to take to the streets in support of the very corporations who keep them at the bottom of the shit pile of life. This is beyond stupid. This is lazy, willful ignorance. And it is damaging to the planet, to human beings and all living creatures.

These are the people I will no longer politely turn away from. I will fight them with everything I have. I will expose them for the miserable pieces of human shit they really are. I will write about how easily and stupidly they allow themselves to be manipulated because they are too lazy to take charge of their own lives. I will be mean. I will be nasty. I will beat them over the head with facts. I will humiliate them with truth. I will overpower them with the forces of good that drive me and command me to defeat their forces of evil.

And I will win because love is stronger than hate, peace is more powerful than war, and truth always always wins, even if it takes a while. Do you hear me, losers? Truth ALWAYS wins. And when it does, this is what history will show as your legacy:

As for the rest of us, we'll be working to make a better world, one where all living creatures have an equal right to exist, to share in the bounty of life, love, and yes...happiness. Without mean, hateful people to infect the earth with their vitriol, maybe that happiness thing will be a lot more in reach. Especially if people like me and others keep lifting the rock on hate because we all know it can't survive once exposed to the light. It needs the dank, ugly darkness to survive and decent people are all carrying lights these days to expose you.

Note to Bigots, Racists, Homophobes, and other Losers

An Open Letter To President Obama

Dear Mr. President:

I followed the story of your grandmother with heartfelt interest because mine was also a huge influence on me. She was the one constant in a dysfunctional family with a father who was absent most of the time and a mother who worked all of the time. As the oldest child it often fell to me to take care of my younger brother and sister and the household too, especially since my grandmother was already a senior citizen when she came to live with us.

My grandmother immigrated to America a couple years after we did. It took that long to save the money to sponsor her, and during that time she struggled to survive until we could send for her. As I was growing up, she was my support, my encouragement, my source of hope. And she had endless stories of what it was like to live through two world wars, how she managed to stay on the safe side of political struggles that redefined the boundaries of her home every few years, and all the ways she escaped the horrors of the Nazis and the Fascists.

But there was one story I did not learn until after her death, and it was about one of her sisters who remained behind. In retrospect, she probably suspected her sister was a Lesbian, but in the period of time that extended from the turn of the century through the 1960's, it was not a topic one discussed lightly in any of her homes: the former Yugoslavia, Italy, or the United States. But it is a story that haunts me because it is one that is far too common even today.

My grandmother's sister lived with her partner for most of her adult life. I can only imagine what it was like to live openly with her "roommate" all those years. I'm sure they had friends. I'm sure her partner had family. But we never knew any of them. We never knew if she was safe, if she was fed, if she was afraid. She disappeared into a world where secrets are kept for life. She disappeared into a world where it was impossible to immigrate as her sister had done, as just about everyone who was related to her had done. She was left alone with only the woman she loved, a woman we could never bring here because she was not related to us by blood. In the eyes of the law, she was not family, no matter how many years she lived with my grandmother's sister as her life partner. The law would let us bring her but not the woman she loved. The law would make her abandon her partner. She chose the path of her heart and stayed behind.

I think of what my life could have been like with more than one granny, more than one adult who could nurture me, who could help me grow, or who could just help me in the many small ways that left me exhausted when I should have been playing with all the other kids. And I think of how lonely my grandmother's sister was when her partner died, how alone she must have felt. I can't even think of this without breaking into tears. I can't even begin to comprehend the unfairness of it in any way that would sense.

Mr. President, I tell you this story because this story is still being played out all over the world. I have American friends who are gay, who fell in love with citizens of other countries. In so many cases these other countries have afforded them citizenship rights and recognized the legality of their marriages. I have friends who have lived in other countries with their partners for many years and now they want to come home to the America that has new promise, new hope because of your Presidency.

But in order to do so they still have to make the choice my grandmother's sister had to make. I want to believe we are a better people than that time. I want to believe that we no longer split up families, people who love each other because of bad laws. But all the evidence says we still do and will continue to do so.

That's why I'm asking for your help in passing the UNITING AMERICAN FAMILIES ACT. It's time to bring home your citizens who want to help make America realize it's true potential as a beacon of hope and promise to the rest of the world. They want to be part of what we're creating together. But please, Mr. President, don't make them choose between love of country and love of their partners. Please help pass this vital piece of legislation for all Americans, no matter what their sexual orientation.

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black and brown requests "Equal rights for everyone." A better world is
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Familiar recycle symbol in purple, green and blue says "Peace, Love,
Equality" in different colors. Support equal rights for all people or
the better world we want to build will stay just a dream. Click on sweatshirt to purchase or visit my Cafepress store for more selections here

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An Open Letter To President Obama

Strong Women and the continual battle to stay strong

I know so many strong women, so many capable and intelligent women, so many women who have advantages some of our own mothers only dreamed about. I think of my teen years when I followed the path of the women in my own family and worked to bring equality to my gender. I remember the jobs where I did the work and the male manager got the credit. I remember the difference in pay between me and the man hired months later for a higher salary than I received for the same job. I remember having to lie and say I was engaged in order to get my first prescription of birth control pills in the 60's that were only for "married women." I remember my neighbor telling me in the 70's that I was going to the polls because she had fought for women's right to vote as a young woman in America.

I also remember fierce arguments about whether women belonged in the military or in politics because of their hormonal instability as newspaper headlines screamed about men who snapped and shot up schools, shopping malls, post offices, and work places. I also remember the Mormon Church in Las Vegas loading up the big yellow school buses with stay at home moms, driving them to the polls and directing them to vote against the equal rights for women amendment so it wouldn't be ratified. (It never was) I also remember wondering if they dragged out those same school buses in California to vote against the right for Homosexual-Americans to marry.

I remember the Reagan years and the power suits that women wore so they would look more serious, more like men, less feminine so they would be taken seriously. I remember men wearing pink shirts and no one accused them of looking less masculine because they had all the power and that was masculine enough.

In the next few years, I watched the religious shackles start to appear again and grab for the ankles of women as more and more restrictions were imposed on a woman's right to choose. I watched in horror as pharmacies denied women the means to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, and then made her drive hours and hours out of town because abortion clinics were suddenly few and far between. I watched these same religious groups lose interest and financial support for the fetus once it was a real live human being.

I watched young women start to have babies they couldn't afford nor were able to care for because they were still in high school with no job or parenting skills. I watched the churches interfere more and more with freedoms that women of my own generation fought for: the right to choose, the right for safe access to birth control, the right to learn about our own bodies, the right to run companies, the military, and our own government.

And now I am watching us go backwards. I am watching 16 year old celebutards given rock star treatment for having babies so that insecure and unhappy teens can eat it all up and start popping out more responsibilities they can't afford to feed nor care for adequately.

I am watching women who are strong, opinionated, educated, intelligent and smart run for office and get called castrating bitches and other put downs drawn from the most ignorant of 1950's insult banks. I am watching the news media judge women by different standards than they do men. I am watching them do wall to wall coverage of bad women, naughty women, evil women who kill their children by drowning, shooting, strangulation, starvation. And I am watching them do wall to wall coverage on men who kill their wives by shooting, strangulation, drowning, starvation.

I am hearing young girls say I can't more often than I'm hearing them say I can. I am hearing them ignore the strong women they see on television and focus on the Palins and Spears instead. I am seeing them dress up as mini hookers because brains aren't as sexy. I am watching them vote for Palin and not care that she is dumber than a rock because it takes the pressure off them to be smart. I am watching us go backward in time.

I would hate to see my long ago neighbor's work to get us the vote go to waste, I'd hate to see all the work my friends and I did to get some semblance of equality in the workplace, some fairness in hiring practices, some equal standards for handing out both academic and athletic scholarships get sent back to the 1950's. I would really hate to see women lose the right to choose what they want to happen to their own bodies. I would hate so much to see women die in wars that they can now participate in but have no say in determining whether they are fought or not. I want a woman president who doesn't have to wear a power suit to win respect. I want a world where young girls have heros who do something instead of having something done to or for them.

So I opened a store just for women and young girls to spread the message once again that we are equally smart, capable, strong, and able. I am sorry that once again the message is needed. I had hoped after all these years, all these battles, that I could just sit back and watch the seeds of equality, tolerance, respect, and peace take hold. But like all gardens, it needs constant tending or it will die. Here are some of my seeds to keep it alive.

Powerful words to wear on a shirt, bumpersticker or other way to
express what many need to hear and read for true equality to take hold
"My inner child is a strong woman." Click on design to purchase or visit the Strong Woman store

A rainbow of women with hands connected illustrate the words "The
strongest fabric, women supporting women." Show your woman power as a
piece of this powerful weaving. Click on design to purchase or visit the Strong Woman store

Bright orange red pow shape forms the background for "packing awesome
inner strength." Show off your woman power with style and confidence
that what's inside matters as much as the outside. Click on design to purchase or visit the Strong Woman store

Starburst shape in pink colors and bolts of lightning form the backdrop
for the rainbow colored words "Girl Power." Lead with your strength and
help women and young girls find their power. Click on design to purchase or visit the Strong Woman store

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Strong Women and the continual battle to stay strong

Time to put the religious crazies back in their boxes

The religious crazies, having lost the election, have stepped up their hateful efforts to turn this country into an English language version combination of Iran, the Taliban, the Inquisition, and the mother of all door knocking campaigns: the Crusades. And before I get mail telling me I give these loonies too much credit for being able to organize and think their way out of an outhouse, keep in mind I see them, as their puppetmasters see them, as simple tools to be manipulated for control and rampant unchecked war profiteering and financial looting.

It wasn't the crazies who put out conflicting is Obama a Muslim or is he an America hating Christian courtesy of the Reverend Wright? It was their masters, the Fox (fake) News, the Murdochs, the Kristols, and other neocon war profiteers who pulled their strings. read more. And as an aside, as crazy as that preacher sounded, he seems tame in comparison to someone like Falwell or Dobson or others who tried to blame lesbians and liberals for 9/11.

Christian crazies like to think of themselves as an army, and in this sense they are correct. But they are dead wrong in thinking they are an army with orders from god. Their true marching orders come from the neo-cons, the Halliburtons, the corrupt senators and house members who pander to anyone and anything to keep feeding at the trough. They are controlled, directed, and led like obedient sheep to the polls to vote away the rights of Homosexuals, Women, and non-Christians.

They are emotionally brainwashed to sign up for wars that are nothing more than land and oil grabs under the guise of Crusade II, the shameful 21st century sequel. And they are so blinded, so ignorant, so brainwashed that they can't see the hypocrisy of demonizing an entire race of people (Arabs) as religious extremists (Muslim) because their extremism (Islam) is not their own extremism ( Fundamentalist Christianity.) No one tells these poor fools that the very word "fundamentalism" is what makes them no different than the fundies who flew their planes into the twin towers.

But just in case you manage to find someone who both calls him or herself Christian and is actually willing to engage in a civilized dialogue based on the understanding that religion and faith is a personal preference and not a law, here's some excellent sources to begin the conversation:


Is God in the Constitution?

"It has often been seen on the Internet that to find God in the Constitution, all one has to do is read it, and see how often the Framers used the words "God," or "Creator," "Jesus," or "Lord." Except for one notable instance, however, none of these words ever appears in the Constitution, neither the original nor in any of the Amendments. The notable exception is found in the
Signatory section, where the date is written thusly: "Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven". The use of the word "Lord" here is not a religious reference, however. This was a common way of expressing the date, in both religious and secular contexts. This lack of any these words does not mean that the Framers were not spiritual people, any more than the use of the word Lord means that they were. What this lack of these words is expositive of is not a love for or disdain for religion, but the feeling that the new government should not involve itself in matters of religion. In fact, the original Constitution bars any religious test to hold any federal office in the United States." read more

The People, not the Government are America

"The American Constitution begins with the phrase "We the People," and its significance cannot be overlooked. This establishes that sovereign power rests with the people and that all government power and authority derives from the consent of the people. It's a repudiation of older European ideas that governments are established by God and derive their power or authority from God (for example, the divine right of kings). It's also thus a repudiation of the Christian Right's arguments today." read more

In doing some reading on the conflict between Atheists and Christians, I found this great collection of articles and news bites from a group called Atheists of Silicon Valley. Here's some of what caught my immediate attention:



"A British atheist group has a bus ad campaign:

“There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

The American Humanist Association also has bus ad campaign:

“Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake.”

The Atheist Foundation of Australia tried to do a bus ad campaign: “Sleep in on Sunday mornings.”

Who wants a similar campaign here? Email Mark.

You can contact me (MarkxThomas) at m_w_thomas @ hotmail.com (Remove the spaces around the '@' character.)

Be sure to put Atheism in the subject line so that the spam filter and I will know that it's not spam. I won't open any attachments.

Thanks,
Mark"

I plan on sending Mark an email, and since I live in Washington state where the very wise Governor has chosen to honor our rights to worship or not worship in equal manner and has therefore allowed both a manger and a plaque promoting Atheism in a government building for the holidays, and in so doing has incurred the wrath of that mouth-foaming nutcase Bill O'Reilly, I encourage you all to protect our rights by speaking up for freedoms the God Party are trying to steal from us one tantrum at a time. Get involved in repealing Proposition 8, requesting that your own beliefs or lack of them be represented at any publicly funded place that allows Christian holiday displays, and not letting your own voice be silenced because the religious extremists think the loudest and most obnoxious side wins.

Atheist, Atheist, Repeal Proposition 8, separation of church and state, Governor Gregoire, Washington state Atheist plaque

Time to put the religious crazies back in their boxes

Overturn Proposition 8

Bumpersticker from Ursine Logic's Gay Right's store. click on image to purchase.

Let me put this in terms that just about any moron can understand: proposition 8 was not about gay marriage; it was about voting to take away one group's civil rights. It wasn't even about marriage. All legal marriages are civil marriages. If you get married in a church without that official STATE license you have to fill out, sign, pay your fee and send back to the STATE, then you are not legally married.

Proposition 8 was a church-funded assault on the civil liberties of one select group of citizens and their right to engage in a civil ceremony. It was bigotry and hatred on a scale that brings shame on these churches for even invoking the name of Jesus.

Where in those damn holy books does it say one group of human beings should be denied a civil ceremony because of someone else's religious beliefs? And why are churches who politicize the pulpit allowed to keep their tax-exempt status? When they take funds from their donors/congregations for influence peddling and election tampering then they are officially PAC's and need to register as such. And they need to pay taxes on the money they raised for political actions because it sure as hell isn't going to help the poor and hungry.

And let me put this another way that just about any moron can understand. My grandmother's sister was a Lesbian. She was born in the late 1800's and lived with her partner in Italy for their entire adult lives. They were two women who shared a home for decades. And not even their own families knew they were a couple, knew they were part of an enduring life-long relationship they had to live in secret.

And when my grandmother's sister died the secret some had suspected was revealed in the lone photograph of her lover, the woman she shared her entire life with. We don't know her name. We don't know how and when she died. We don't know if at that time and place, close friends were allowed to be with each other when the other died. We don't know if it was as it is in so many hospitals here that only one's "legal" family can be with the dying patient, no matter how many years they shared, how much they loved one another, how lonely they must die without the presence of the other.

How can a church justify this kind of sorrow, this kind of heartache and loneliness? How can its congregation think such pain, such despair is approved by their precious Jesus? Will someone please explain to me how hate came to mean love and how tolerance came to mean interfering in someone else's right to the same rights as every one else? And if you can, then maybe I will understand why so many thought it was acceptable to hurt so many in the name of their god. If they think that's okay, then maybe they need a new god.

Bumper sticker from Ursine Logic's Wild World Shirts. Click on image to purchase.

overturn proposition 8, prop 8, separation of church and state, tax the churches

Overturn Proposition 8

Dividing The Sheep

I realized the other day, after yet another heated virtual discussion broke out on among list members, that every single mailing list I'm on has degenerated at some point into name calling, insults, and hurt feelings. No one can talk anymore. No one can have a discussion without it deteriorating into a flame war shouting match. There's no more middle ground, no more giving way to the possibility that the other person's candidate, religion, political party, choice of relationships, place of employment might be equal or gasp! even better than one's own. We've become a nation of petulant children who must have our way or else.

It's easy to lose hope that we'll ever get along again, but I'm an optimist. It's what's kept me alive and kicking in situations that would have destroyed or even killed others. I always believe in people far more than they deserve to be believed in at times. I have to, because to believe that people really are as awful in real life as they are on mailing lists and discussion forums is to give up on the world. I'm not ready to do that yet, if ever. I'll probably go to my death still believing that we can be better than we are.

But there's some things we need to do in order to reclaim the title of human being. Here's a partial list. Feel free to add to it in the comments section as I consider this a world community project where those of us who really do want a better world are prepared to lead the way toward it.

1. Stop listening to those who insist on creating a divided world. What right do they have to create wedges between human beings, and why are you giving them the power to do so?

2. Stop perceiving human beings as being superior and inferior to each other. If you hate, if you're a bigot and harbor prejudices, then you are a tool waiting to be used. Look at History and see how people's hatreds were manipulated by those with evil intentions, by those with an insatiable hunger for power and greed. It's way too easy to stir up a crowd of people if their noses are already pointed in the direction someone wants them to go. Be aware of those who preach hate. Ask yourself what they have to gain if they succeed in making you hate along with them.

3. Make compassion the core of your being. It's a lot easier said than done because in order to know compassion, you have to receive it. So make  a point of giving it away because it is the only way to create a more compassionate world. There's nothing that can be pointed at and said this is it and this is not it. Compassion is one of those misty things that can only be felt, and if you've never felt it then it's impossible to understand.

4. Step outside your own needs and desires and pay attention to what others need and desire. Once you step outside your tiny little world, then life becomes larger, the world becomes larger. And yet it becomes interwoven once we realize we all have the same basic needs and desires. If we create a world with these as our foundation, then no one need suffer from lack of them.

5. Accept that there is only one way to create a world filled with healthy people, prosperity, knowledge, creativity, and scientific marvels and that is to do away with war. It is the single act that has prevented human beings from evolving to their full potential. We must embrace Peace with the same fervor, the same enthusiasm, the same desire as we do war, or we will never become complete human beings.

Shirt and other gifts with peace penguins available at Ursine Logic

peace, anti-war, compassion, tolerance, divided America

Dividing The Sheep

Del Martin

For those of you who somehow missed hearing or reading about Del Martin, here's a synopsis of her remarkable life.

"Del Martin, a lesbian rights pioneer who took part in one of California's first same-sex weddings, died today in San Francisco after a long period of declining health. She was 87." read more

This amazing woman and her partner Phyllis had a very large impact on my life. It started with my grandmother's sister who was a Lesbian in Italy. She was born somewhere before the turn of the century in Yugoslavia. I can't imagine how difficult it was to have anything like a normal life in that part of the world at that time. And yet she did, and lived with her partner until death parted them. I know that my grandmother didn't really know until she was at least in her 70's and 80's and even then it was something impossible for her to wrap her brain around. It was easier for my mother to understand and accept. Recently, one of my cousins is trying to track down the her partner's family because through our grandmothers, we are connected and that needs to be acknowledged, their love and commitment for each other needs to be acknowledged.

It was for my grandmother and also one of my cousins that I am grateful for Del Martin's responsibility for getting the American Psychiatric Association to stop classifying homosexuality as a mental illness.

I also owe her for being one of the fortunate few who broke the chain of domestic violence in our relationships. My mother was often severely beaten and abused. Del Martin's work to publicize domestic violence opened the door to women like me being able to walk away from a relationship that had the potential for violence. Through her I knew I deserved better than the hell my mother endured. And through her courage in speaking out to all women in similar situation I was able to break that chain.

As one of the many people who attended far too many memorial services in the 80's for friends who died of AIDS, I saw my share of life partners denied those precious final moments at the bedside of those they loved before they passed away. Del Martin's work to change this horrible tragedy allowed life partners to share in all aspects of their loved one's lives and deaths. It allowed them to marry in California and the day it became legal to do so, she and Phyllis married as did many of my friends who live in the Bay area.

So thank you Del Martin from this straight woman who owes you so much. You will be sorely missed, but what you leave behind will continue to heal and inspire people for generations to come.Technorati Tags: Del Martin, Gay Marriage, Lesbian, Domestic Violence, Equality

Del Martin

Oh My that sense of entitlement...

Before I get to the point, you first need to understand my objection to the very concept of entitlement and how I came to feel this way about it.
This is how Merriam-Webster defines "Entitlement."

1 a: the state or condition of being entitled : right b: a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract 2: a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group; also : funds supporting or distributed by such a program 3: belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges.

Over the years I've lived with and among those who have embraced definition #3 as their personal savior. They're the ones who got the mortgage that was a little bit more than they could afford because damn it, they were entitled to a nice home, not just any home. It didn't matter that they couldn't afford it because that was irrelevant in their world. They wanted it and therefore were entitled it.

I'm not talking about the working poor who squeezed their dreams into a trailer, manufactured home, or apartments given a paint job and renamed condos. I'm talking about the privileged little princes and princesses who were raised with the latest fashions, consumer goods, and tuition paid adventures in the land of College.

They are also the ones who grew up and refused to deny themselves anything because damn it, they were worth it. They handled their few broke moments by never getting their hair cut at the discount places, and they always chose the more expensive stylists because they were entitled to something to make them feel better by looking better. It didn't matter if they chose feeling better over paying their utility bills, buying groceries, or meeting the mortgage on that home they couldn't really afford. That wasn't their problem. SOMEONE would take care of it eventually. That was the way it always was and always will be on their planets.

I've lived with such people and I never understood the selfishness of someone who would stick their roommates with their share of the bills just so they could get a haircut or an outfit or a car or a vacation to make THEM feel better. Now I know they weren't selfish but entitled. How silly of me to not know.

But of course I grew up poor so I knew what it meant to not be entitled to something, like a place to live, electricity, hot water, heat, a choice of what to have for dinner. I learned early that what I wanted was minor in comparison to the mythical being called "the greater good." It translated as eating everything on my plate, no matter how nasty it was, because there were children starving somewhere who would love the meal I was turning my nose up at. It meant seeing myself as lucky to have a crappy meal to eat at all, much less whining because it wasn't what I wanted or couldn't afford. It meant working my way through life and earning things. What a concept!

Yes, I could have bought a new car and struggled to make the payments each month because everyone had a nice car. I could have bought nice new furniture to go with the house I couldn't afford. I could have eaten at restaurants because I was entitled to a break from cooking, even if I had to max out my credit cards to do so.

And yes, I could have spent thousands of dollars on weddings, vacations, college educations, trendy degrees, and expensive toys because as a poor person I was entitled to get some of what the more privileged had. After all, I was entitled to it, wasn't I? Wouldn't my sense of self, my personal power be forever damaged if I was denied anything that others had?

But I couldn't afford to go to private high schools and alternative colleges where no one ever failed because it would hurt their self-esteem, or to schools where no one had to work beyond their potential because that was inflicting the stigma on them of being less than perfect, or universities where no one had to do much to get that piece of paper because after taking up space for a specified amount of time, well, damn it, they were ENTITLED to it. And besides, the parents who raised these societal sucks waited with their lawyers to enforce their pampered spawns entitlement to the same degree others worked hard to get. Or to get in the face of anyone who dared to utter the word "no" to their special little twits. Or to strongarm the teachers to change the grade into one that would get them into a "good" school.

I got married by the Justice of the Peace, went camping instead of trekking, worked my way through three degrees at average Universities, and bought everything already used and discarded by those who felt they were entitled to something better.

I found value in good friends, in the power of love, in the warmth in the heart that came from doing good for others. I lived simply. I didn't need much to be happy. If you had a childhood like mine, a roof over your head that no one is going to evict you from any day is an astonishing luxury.

I read books I bought in boxes at garages sales, or rescued from dumpsters where they were discarded by college students who were "done" with them, and avoided anything on the best seller lists because I couldn't afford either the cost or the brainwashing.

And because I knew what it meant to work and study and take care of the basics I needed to survive, I was able to get a far better education than those who wasted their money on trophy degrees or whatever was currently popular and must have. I read books I never would have read because they weren't cool or popular or special. But they were damn good stories. They were real. They shaped me into a more whole and complete human being.

And reading of the struggles and hard times of others made me strong enough to survive being used as a scapegoat for all the petty issues these entitlement creeps could dream up. They lied and made up stuff and looked for anyone but themselves to blame for things they did, because damn it, they were too special to have to take the rap or responsibility for their own actions. Better to take it out on me and others like me who weren't like them, who didn't grow up like them, and who were happy, content, and had a life filled with loyal and loving friends carefully and lovingly nurtured for years instead of things that gave nothing back.

For many of the entitlement bunch, it came down to resenting me and others like me for serving as an example that happiness wasn't something they could buy or command, that love was something that was earned and reciprocated, not something that was compensated for in divorce court. It came down to believing they always had the right to abortions, birth control, college educations, a chance at shattering the glass ceiling because damn it, they were entitled to it, not because people like me worked to make sure they had those rights.

They hated that in the real world no one gave a damn if they were special or not. They were shocked to discover if they couldn't do the job, they were fired and replaced by someone who could. If they didn't pay their mortgage, the bank took the house back. If they didn't pay their bills, there were repercussions. If they fucked over their friends, the friends went away.

I share all this with you because as someone who spent my teens and early twenties working for the right of women to be treated with respect and financial equality, as someone who spent several years of my life working for candidates who promised an emphasis on peace, equality, tolerance, and public service, and as someone who spent the last several years shaking off the leeches of entitlement that fed off me for far too long, I just want to say fuck you to the Clintonistas who try and diminish my choice of voting for Obama instead of Clinton. I've never been treated so badly or accused of such things as I have by people who believe that Hillary deserves to be President for reasons that have nothing to do with her ability to lead this country in a way it needs to be led right now.

I want to say I've earned the right to vote for whomever I want. And it's no accident that many of those whining that I have to vote for Hillary or betray my gender, my politics, my liberal seat on the bus, are the same people I wrote about above. Of course, Hillary, with her sense of entitlement to the Presidency would draw these pampered little entitlement brats. Of course. If they weren't so entitled, they'd quit attacking people like me and go after the real enemy, the Republicans.

But that would require compromise and entitled people don't compromise. I began as a Hillary supporter and I'll vote for Hillary if it's between her and a Republican. They won't. They'll throw an entitlement tantrum instead and then whine when nothing changes and their rights to abortion are taken away, their jobs get shipped to some third world sweatshop, and either they or their children end up picking sand fleas out of their dumb asses in Iran.

And of course it is their whiny little sense of entitlement that destroyed her candidacy, not Obama, not me, not people like me. They did it with their arrogance and bullshit the same way Bush and his minions did it with arrogance and bullshit. And they turned me and many others like me away from Hillary.

In the meantime, I'll take my history of working against war, for civil rights, for women's equality, for personal accountability and help make Barack Obama the next president of the United States because he, and not Hillary, truly represents me, the child of dirt poor parents who worked my way to a career I love and still managed to maintain my integrity, my compassion, and my belief that no one is entitled to anything just because they want it.

And the interesting thing about all this? It is the children of these entitlement creeps that are behind Obama's rise. They were raised with a Bush or a Clinton president and parents who went through life like a self-indulgent bulldozer. Somewhere in that strange and misguided world they found a clearer path to follow, a more honest way of living, an altruism that put their parent's so-called compassion to shame. And for them Obama speaks a language that reflects who they are and want to become together.

Oh My that sense of entitlement...

Thank you, Dr. King

As someone who grew up with the dream of equality and remembers the despair over your death I felt as a High School student, I look to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as proof it was not all in vain. And one day we won't have to refer to them as the woman candidate and the black candidate anymore. They will be simply candidates.

But until then, in the interest of fairness, I think we should refer to the GOP side of the ticket as those crazy ass white guys.

Thank you, Dr. King

Flies On The Wall #29

Flies On The Wall #29