The Republicans started a hate campaign against our US President, Barack Obama, almost immediately after he had won the Presidential nomination almost 8 years ago. One of the primary reasons this hate came about was because he broke the white chain of persons always being elected to the white house. The other most obvious reason is because he is black.
After his strong victory those Republicans in Congress and in the Senate vowed he would be one term president. Worst was when he defeated their knight in white shiny armor (Mitt Romney) during his second term elections. The presidential election was almost a landslide on Obama’s side. Before the elections the second time, the Republicans had already claimed Romney the winner. They were badly humiliated by the outcome of the elections.
The Republicans charged President Obama with not being an American citizen. To this day the Republicans still claim Barack Obama is not a US citizen. They have accused him of everything bad that is happening in the US and around the world. They have done this to embarrass him and his democratic administration. The Republicans have ignored the fact that president George W. Bush gave up the search to eliminate Osama bin Laden, while President Obama vowed he would continue searching for him and eliminate him. Which he did. Bush’s war in Iraq was brought to an end by president Obama. Our soldiers are returning home because of him. He has stated that no American troops will go to war unless our country is threatened in the future. The worst recession we have had in many years has finally been brought to an end under his watch. Unemployment is now under control. Strict control has been brought to the disgraces Wall Street has caused our country. The American student has experienced much-needed relief on student loans, The Environment Protection Agency has been empowered to have more power in protecting the environment. The economy has been getting better by leaps and bounds. Medical care has finally been made available to all American citizens.
President Obama has tried to work with Congress, but Congress has not been responsive to his amiable approaches. The Republicans hold a majority in the Congress and they just act in the most negative way earning the title “the do nothing Congress.” They are so lost in their own ideology, they have become a liability for the American way. The Republicans have stooped so low as to shut down government and started a movement to impeach the President.
They have repeatedly spread the big lie that President Obama is a weak president, has a failed foreign policy, and has brought the nation into the worst state of existence since the George W. Bush presidency. That he is responsible for the flooding of immigrants into the US. It would be a miracle to see the Republicans extend a hand of friendship to our President Obama and to help him finish his remaining time in the White House as President of the United States.
Raynaldo Yrlas
Corpus Christi, Texas
Democrats also irresponsibly “suppressed turnout” in this election especially among liberals and youth by not standing for progressive ideals and values. For example, you cannot convince voters interested in the environment and financial justice when you are accepting “donations” from oil and chemical companies and big bankers. Both Democrats and Republicans spend 50-80% of their time fundraising which then compromises their integrity in Congress. Potential voters are not that dumb and blind to notice. Our governmental system is broken, let’s face it. All the $4 billion wasted on this farce of an “election” could have gone a long way to solving our housing, food, health and infrastructure problems. How can Republicans constantly rail against waste and abuse without recognizing this? Big business and its CEOs hold Congress, the President, and the courts hostage, demanding tax cuts and government contracts which then give them the millions to use against effective governing for the common good. This, plus the revolving door for business managers to then staff government agencies ensures that no positive, progressive change ever comes about, with or without so-called elections. All the above, in addition to a bought-and-paid-for media (from campaign contributions), prevents an educated public to exercise their right for an informed vote. This is why there is such a poor turnout of voters. These are the issues that need to be addressed before we can again have a democracy.
Patsy Kelley
McCall, Idaho
Women’s issues are not about masculine versus feminine; neither are racial issues about people of color versus a white majority. These problems are about human rights and progress (or lack of it) toward justice. Until our society is able to distinguish the difference, it will be stuck in constant turmoil; until these issues are justly addressed, there will be no peace for anyone.
As one of my favorite authors, Joan Walsh, says in her article, “Women Didn’t Cost Democrats the Election” [12/15/14 TPP]. The Democrats need to meet the people who usually vote for them because they don’t seem to know us at all. They didn’t pay attention to the fact that even our hero Wendy Davis left women’s rights behind and wouldn’t stand up for Obama’s (and the Democratic Party’s) wins in putting a leash on the insurance industry through Obama Care and provision of health care for people who could not previously afford it. She did not stand up to the inane ads by the GOP hammering Obama with the rebuttal that thousands of Texans will be denied health care because of Governor Guber’s decision to deny Medicaid to its citizens. Did she expect women and the poor to show up at the polls? And she was one of the best Democratic candidates. Of course, Texas is so thoroughly, and probably irrevocably, gerrymandered that it would take a skinny and strong snake to crawl the length of one district; Texans are disenfranchised. (Warning to the non-voters, this could happen to your state if you continue not to vote.)
That said, Mary Sanchez (“Election Is a Step Backward for Women in Congress” 12/15/14 TPP) is slightly off in her assessment that more women are needed in Congress just because they are women. I cannot think of one time that conservative Congresswomen stood up for women; the Republican women now serving are ciphers at best and ditzes at worst. I will take one Bernie Sanders over a million Michele Bachmans or Congresswoman Fox. For one thing, a woman standing up to the patriarchy is anathema to conservatives. If you watch these women in the usual line up, they are standing quietly, their hands clasped demurely. They are trained monkeys.
Those who would continue to divide us should remember that for this country to get rid of the shame of slavery, many white men and women (who still had not had the right to vote at that time) put their lives on the line to achieve abolition--just as many white and black men knocked themselves out to get the vote for women. Racial and feminine equality should not be divisive issues.
The underlying issue to all these injustices lies in the constant struggle of humanity to get its feet out of the parasitic goo of conservatism. Conservatives are takers, not givers. Their fear and loathing is contagious, as we have seen to our detriment.
P. Ann White
Meridian, Texas
In “What Would the Founders Do?” [12/1/14 TPP] Jack Kelly says the veterans of the Revolutionary War were only granted pensions 35 years after the war ended, and he then compares their situation with contemporary veterans. The circumstances of military service during the Revolutionary War differed from those of the 20th and 21st centuries in numerous ways, particularly in that no centralized federal government with a War Department had previously been established. Many of the Rev War soldiers served in militias organized and funded by the colonies for limited periods of time. Men in one militia in Virginia, for example, who served for 30 days, were paid roughly a pound of tobacco per day. The individual colonies that later became states (even, in some cases, local county governments) sometimes provided funds for injured soldiers and/or widows of soldiers with dependent children. After the war ended, several states granted their officers land. Virginia issued land grants in what is now Kentucky (formed from western Virginia): the higher the military rank, more acreage the veteran received. Georgia granted land to men who had served from the Carolinas and who had helped chase the natives out of that newly-formed state. The federal government, once it was established, later paid soldiers with bounty land warrants, particularly those who served during the War of 1812 and prior to the Civil War. Some bounty land warrants specified how much federal land, but not where it was, and the veteran could later sell it without ever having lived on or even seen the property.
Bill Johnston pointed out in his “Veterans Day 2014” [12/1/14 TPP] that his status as a “Vietnam Era Veteran” does not entitle him to the same benefits as a Vietnam Veteran, but says this has never happened to any veterans before Vietnam. This may be an apple-to-orange comparison, but I know of one soldier who served during Mexican War era (1846-1848), and later applied for a pension, but was rejected, because he was not in the war on the frontier. Making military carriages at the arsenal in Saint Louis, Mo., for four years was not sufficient duty, according to the pension application examiners in 1887. (The veteran had been issued a bounty land warrant for 160 acres in 1851, but that was not the reason given for rejection.) As you are probably aware, most of the land in what is now the US was first “owned” by one of the colonial governments-Spain, France, England, the Netherlands-and was “acquired” (or effectively stolen) from the natives. Those governments, as well as the newly-formed US or individual state thereof, granted and sold land to private owners. All private property real estate was once owned or controlled by the government, which, through eminent domain, can take it back again.
Evelyn Roehl
Seattle, Wash.
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2015
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