Solid evidence of "moderate" failure: my own story further south
I just read this in the Wa Po (registration required, it seems) .
That article is a story about a lesbian couple who left their home for the same reasons me and my life-mate left Ohio. That article is the very same story for a hell of a lot of same-sex couples today, in the Land of the Free, USA.
Whatever perspective one wants to embrace, the issues around medical and financial security are not "radicalism" and have absolutely nothing to do with the far "Looney Left." Such issues have everything to do with the basis of living as a citizen in a decent, civilized society.
Here's a taste of what I mean - of what Eric and I, ourselves, lived in relation to our own medical and fiscal security. For the reasons mentioned in this article (and restated below), we now live in New York State.
If you are, know, love, care about, or even just-remotely-give-a-hoot-about a GLBT person somewhere in the USA, you need to read this article linked above and think about the kind of person you are - and for whom you cast your vote.
As far as those arguing "Evolution, not Revolution;" who use the term "Moderate" and "Liberal" interchangeably; who argue for the endless date-rape of "bipartisanship" and "common ground" and mutual solutions: this article is where I, a member of "The Radical Looney Left," stand my ground and say, "This moment is the last straw: I'm done." This ability for a President, his Party, and his Religion to turn people into legal "sub-humans" happens with the support of people like Billary and LIEberman, all in the name of a "moderate" and "bipartisan" sell out.
And this is the point where, as I watch that asshole who wears the mantle of "President" flap his lips on the television; as I watch the very man who pushed (1) these amendments noted above - these amendments that forced the two women in the article from their home, (2) irresponsible tax cuts, (3) deficits, (4) fake data for a fake war, (5) an environmental agenda that is anything but, (6) an economic policy about as useful as the environmental agenda, and (7) criminal surveillance against American Citizens without due process, that I say, for myself, "Enough!" Should you come back to me and argue Moderation and Common Ground with this man and his Religion and his Political Party?
Drop my number from your speed dial.
Tear out the page with my address and number - do not send me holiday cards.
Lose my E-mail.
And don't say "hello" to me as you pass on the street.
Quite simply - if you are focused on such superficially-reasonable views to help this guy get more of what he's already got? I have no use for you . . . and you most assuredly have no use for me, either.
Remember this, too: history has a way of repeating itself.
Senator Douglas, in trying to avert the Civil War, sought precisely such a compromise as many Dems seek today with such greedy, corrupt people as have power today. Douglass authored The Missouri compromise (click here for Malin Hodder's STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS; scroll down to 233) which was a "Moderate Solution."
The end result of the Moderate Missouri Compromise was, in Douglas's own words, printed in the link above, that he "...could ride from Boston to Chicago by the light of his [my] burning effigy by night and in sight of his [my] hanging effigy by day. For the first time in his [my] life he [I] was unable to pacify the mob that greeted him [me] upon his [my] return to Chicago, " (again, section 233 , scroll to appropriate section number).
Or, to summarize in the greatest brevity, "fuck this crap: like the folks in Chicago on Douglas's return, I refuse to take it anymore."
|
That article is a story about a lesbian couple who left their home for the same reasons me and my life-mate left Ohio. That article is the very same story for a hell of a lot of same-sex couples today, in the Land of the Free, USA.
Whatever perspective one wants to embrace, the issues around medical and financial security are not "radicalism" and have absolutely nothing to do with the far "Looney Left." Such issues have everything to do with the basis of living as a citizen in a decent, civilized society.
Here's a taste of what I mean - of what Eric and I, ourselves, lived in relation to our own medical and fiscal security. For the reasons mentioned in this article (and restated below), we now live in New York State.
It wasn't new to either woman that they weren't entitled to all kinds of benefits that straight, married couples enjoyed: No leave from work to care for a sick partner. No access to a partner's Social Security payments when he or she dies. No right to live together in a nursing home.
Barbara and Tibby never had those rights and never made a fuss about it. Having been raised in what they describe as the patriarchal, deeply conservative climate of Salt Lake City in the 1940s and '50s, they expected little as women and even less as lesbians. But now there was no room to be silent, to not make a fuss. An aneurysm in Barbara's brain, first detected in 2001, had changed all that. As the Affirmation of Marriage Act made its way through the Virginia General Assembly, Barbara became gripped day and night by images of herself unconscious, on a respirator, with someone other than Tibby beside her, making decisions for her.
"If this goes through," she warned Tibby, "we're outta here."
No, no, no, Tibby replied. This is where we live, this is our community. Tibby began researching the law, and asked Barbara not to tell anyone in Fredericksburg that they might move. "I thought the minute we say something, it's like a train that starts to leave," she says.
But there was no changing Barbara's mind. And, eventually, there was no changing Tibby's, either. Supporters of the law insist that it isn't intended to take away anyone's rights, but to affirm traditional values and an existing law that already banned gay marriage. But no one Tibby consulted -- legislators, lawyers, activists -- could tell her what judges might do with medical directive documents and wills under the new law. The legislation would have to be challenged in court before anyone could know for sure.
If you are, know, love, care about, or even just-remotely-give-a-hoot-about a GLBT person somewhere in the USA, you need to read this article linked above and think about the kind of person you are - and for whom you cast your vote.
As far as those arguing "Evolution, not Revolution;" who use the term "Moderate" and "Liberal" interchangeably; who argue for the endless date-rape of "bipartisanship" and "common ground" and mutual solutions: this article is where I, a member of "The Radical Looney Left," stand my ground and say, "This moment is the last straw: I'm done." This ability for a President, his Party, and his Religion to turn people into legal "sub-humans" happens with the support of people like Billary and LIEberman, all in the name of a "moderate" and "bipartisan" sell out.
And this is the point where, as I watch that asshole who wears the mantle of "President" flap his lips on the television; as I watch the very man who pushed (1) these amendments noted above - these amendments that forced the two women in the article from their home, (2) irresponsible tax cuts, (3) deficits, (4) fake data for a fake war, (5) an environmental agenda that is anything but, (6) an economic policy about as useful as the environmental agenda, and (7) criminal surveillance against American Citizens without due process, that I say, for myself, "Enough!" Should you come back to me and argue Moderation and Common Ground with this man and his Religion and his Political Party?
Drop my number from your speed dial.
Tear out the page with my address and number - do not send me holiday cards.
Lose my E-mail.
And don't say "hello" to me as you pass on the street.
Quite simply - if you are focused on such superficially-reasonable views to help this guy get more of what he's already got? I have no use for you . . . and you most assuredly have no use for me, either.
Remember this, too: history has a way of repeating itself.
Senator Douglas, in trying to avert the Civil War, sought precisely such a compromise as many Dems seek today with such greedy, corrupt people as have power today. Douglass authored The Missouri compromise (click here for Malin Hodder's STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS; scroll down to 233) which was a "Moderate Solution."
The end result of the Moderate Missouri Compromise was, in Douglas's own words, printed in the link above, that he "...could ride from Boston to Chicago by the light of his [my] burning effigy by night and in sight of his [my] hanging effigy by day. For the first time in his [my] life he [I] was unable to pacify the mob that greeted him [me] upon his [my] return to Chicago, " (again, section 233 , scroll to appropriate section number).
Or, to summarize in the greatest brevity, "fuck this crap: like the folks in Chicago on Douglas's return, I refuse to take it anymore."
