Teddy and Chappaquiddick - Save it

In response to a forwarded message reminding me about Teddy and Chappaquiddick.

Ron, I think you and I are going to be unreconciled politically this year. Bush started out in a hole with me during the 2000 election and has gone down steadily from there, with the single exception of the invasion of Afghanistan, which I supported. Since then, the record of the administration and the congress under Republican control has been a steady and unremitted sellout of the American people to their Corporate sponsors. I am near despair because there does not seem to be anyone in Congress or the White House representing the interests of the average American, and the media - totally in the control of 6 corporations, as opposed to the 50 or so when you and I were growing up - avoids the real story of the sellout like a plague. And our two-party system has locked us into a choice between the wimpy Democrats and the totally corrupt and toxic Republicans. Wave Chappaquidick all you want, it's old news, and Ted Kennedy is actually one of the people who are trying to hold the tide of Corporate control of all aspects of our lives. I have not always thought that, but Bernie Sanders has won me over. We are living as serfs in a Corporate feudal state, courtesy of the Democratic Leadership Council and the Republican party.

Thanks to Bush, the guy who makes his living clipping coupons and cashing his dividend checks pays a lower percentage of his income as taxes than the guy who is trying to support a wife and four kids on $50k a year. That guy probably does not have health insurance, or pays a lot for it. His health care costs are higher than any other country in the world, but his next baby is more likely to die an infant in this country than in 12 or so other developed countries in the world. His job, if he has one, is likely being evaluated to be shipped overseas to China or India by the Corporation who controls it, where he will be placed in direct competition with a worker who makes $3.00 a day. His union has been busted by right-to-work laws put in place for that purpose, and he is alone against a corporation whose sole value is profit and who answers to nobody, the government having been bought out. With a few thousand campaign contributions, magically, environmental restrictions are lifted, anti-trust measures have their teeth pulled, and even corporate welfare prevents horrendous management from failing. The corporation, which used to pay about 15% of tax revenues now pays about 7%, but that is still too much, so they move their headquarters to Bermuda or the Cayman Islands, and avoid U. S. taxes altogether. Meanwhile our hero gets a job a Walmart, where he makes a fraction of his old $50k salary, has no benefits at all, and if he saves real hard, he may be able to buy cheap sneakers made in China. Our trade deficit builds exponentially, representing a direct threat to our economy. Our hero continues to pay taxes to finance wars in which his sons, but not those of the feudal lords, are at risk, and to finance the tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires and more Corporate welfare. His kids go to a school where, due to No-Child-Left-Behind, he studies to pass tests, but doesn't get much of an education, thus preparing him splendidly to be propagandized by Rush, Bill O'Lielly, Ann Coulter, Niel Boortz, and Sean Hannity into voting for those who are doing this to him in the name of Patriotism and family values. All of this propaganda comes from the Heritage foundation, or right-wing think tanks like it, financed by Richard Mellon Scaife and Joseph Coors, and spewed out daily in talking points for the Southern Command and the "No-Spin Zone". And if he starts to suspect that he is voting against his own interests and for those who are making it impossible for the middle-class in America to exist, he will get Chappaquidick and "liberal bogey-men" waved in his face.

Billionaires are an expanding class in America
Millionaires are an expanding class in America
Middle-class is a shrinking class in America
Poverty is on the rise in America
Job growth is not keeping up with the number of people entering the work force
George W. Bush is on track to be the first President since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of jobs in his Administration
Between them, the Bush dynasty has not created A job.
$70 million was spent by the Republicans attempting to pin something on Bill Clinton over a failed land deal and a tawdry sexual escapade - unsuccessfully.
The Bush white house has committed treason - actual treason - by spitefully outing a CIA agent, ironically who was trying to track actual Weapons of Mass Destruction, and whose husband told an inconvenient truth that embarrassed the President who lied in the State of the Union Address. The white house has stonewalled the investigation.
George W. Bush, a reputed conservative, has run up the highest deficit in American history. He is borrowing money from Kaleb to pay off his Rangers.

I could go on, but I suspect I have said more than you want to hear, and none of which you will agree with. But you knew this was a hot button for me. It is crystal clear to me that our country has been hi-jacked by neo-con zealots that bear no resemblance whatever to an actual conservative.

You are a smart guy, Ron, but if you are buying the crap the right wing is pumping out now, you need to look deeper. Liberals and progressives are our only hope. The good things in America throughout our history have been accomplished by liberals. If you can name me one thing since 2000 that has been done by the Republican party that is primarily for the American people and not for some Corporate or other special interest, you will have done what one Republican Congressman has not been able to do.

I will leave it there. Chappiquidick used to be a big deal to me, 20 years ago. He has rehabilitated himself many times over by resisting the steady erosion of the American Dream at the hands of Corporate power.
Hang in there, Teddy.