They Act With Impunity

I watched Rachel’s show last night and, as always, I was impressed at how she told the story of Reagan’s crime against this country. He wasn’t supposed to sell arms to Iran, yet he arrogantly did and others took the fall. This country changed when he was in office. I had my first child in 1980..I was 22 years old..but I knew that his election would begin the ruination of this country. Trickle down economics..imagine that. Like any rich person is going to make sure the poor are “lifted up” out of poverty. It’s as if the poor get what’s left over, if any. It was that same kind of arrogance that led to the crash in 2008, and that repealed the assault weapons ban. It also led the Supreme Court to stop the vote counting in Florida and hand the presidency to someone who was so unprepared to be president that he couldn’t even form enough coherent thought to, in turn, form coherent sentences. Somehow, I just thought presidents should be eloquent. And intelligent. You know, understand the constitution and all that.

And now that arrogance has led the Supreme Court to declare that corporations are people. Do actual people even count anymore? Apparently we don’t because the sequester is happening. Meals on Wheels recipients are affected, as are cancer patients, Head Start, and Lord know who else. I used to work for an Area Agency on Aging, and our Meals on Wheels program was vital to the seniors who received meals each day. For many, this was the only nutritious meal they got. And for Congress to act to stop airport delays, but to not act to end the sequester really demonstrates how far we’ve fallen.

We’re all tired of these idiots having power over our lives. The deck has been stacked in their favor for far too long. They shoot from the hip – make it up as they go along. This doesn’t serve our country. This lifts up no one except for Congress and their friends who support their campaigns. They ruin the economy and yet they don’t go to jail. They torture prisoners, and yet they don’t go to jail. They take us to war on a lie, yet they don’t go to jail. They try to suppress the vote, yet they don’t go to jail. They do everything to get around the constitutional protections we enjoy in this country, yet they don’t go to jail. But God help the medical cannabis activists in Idaho, because they returned from a trip to find their children had been taken away – just because they believe in cannabis as medicine and speak out.

And they do all this with impunity. They can out a CIA analyst and the actual people involved don’t go to jail. Those in power decide everyone else’s fate. When I hear someone say, I want my country back, it usually has to do with the other side being in power. I think we have an even bigger problem. It doesn’t matter which side runs roughshod over us, it’s the fact that they can that’s disturbing. The fact that the Bush administration is still running around, free to live their lives, is ridiculous. The fact that Reagan didn’t have to face charges for what he did is ridiculous. When did that become okay? When did we decide we have no power? The Occupy folks were a little disjointed at times, but they actually represented us. They stood out there, they marched, they got sprayed in the eyes, they got beaten..all to say, no more.

Look, I have no problem with various income levels. That’s always going to happen with capitalism. But when it’s done at the expense of others, it’s wrong. Trickle down economics was a sham and it says something when some of us still buy into it. It represents arrogance that we cannot afford. Either we’re a country that believes in equality as well as the rule of law, or we believe in bowing to paternal overlords who decide everything. We can’t be both. We must vote the idiots out in 2014. We must require more of our legislators than we currently do. A basic level of intelligence would be nice. I’d also like them to know the constitution. Understanding how the law works would also be a plus. And understanding that we can still have a Second Amendment without letting everyone and his brother have assault weapons should be a given.

They act with impunity because we let them. We need to stop doing that.