Workplace Hell: Being Punished For Something You Have No Control Over

All of us have had workdays that start or end with unexpected events. There are a myriad of things that can make you late for work, or force you to leave early.

That traffic jam you’re stuck in on the way to work with no way around it, so you’re forced to sit impatiently, drumming your fingers on the steering wheel. During winter months your commute might be unpredictably affected severe weather. Then there’s the off chance, God forbid, you’re involved in an accident. Flat tire?  I’ve had them.  Perhaps one of the kids has hurt themselves and has to be taken to the ER. Maybe even you’ve had a veterinary emergency as I have.  You just can’t help it. Your kid gets sick at school and has to be sent home. A family member is rushed to the hospital.  Someone in your family is close to death or dies.  There are many things that we have absolutely no control over.

For 6 months I worked for Garden Ridge as a Front End Manager. In all my 40+ years of working I had NEVER worked for a company that had an attendance policy as unbending, inhumane and intolerant.

Put simply:  There was absolutely no excuse to arrive late for work or to leave early.

None.

Garden Ridge had a demerit system for being late or leaving early. If you got 7 points in a year you were out the door.

The following events happened while I worked there:

I had a vet emergency with one of my older cats.  She was falling over while trying to walk.  I tried calling the store: no answer. Attempted to call my supervisors, again no answer.  I had to take the cat to the vet as I feared she’d had a stroke.  Off I went and made sure I left the vet’s with a documented receipt showing where I was.  I dropped her off at home and went directly to work.

Even though I had the printed page showing Chloe’s treatments and a credit card receipt to prove where I was, I was still written up for being late. I wasn’t given the chance to make up the 2 hours, either.

Another employee thought she may be having a heart attack while at work.  911 was called.  The ambulance took her to the hospital.

She was written up for “leaving early.”

An employee who was injured on the job by a shelving support beam dropped on his head was driven to the hospital by one of the managers. He was x-rayed and it was determined that he had a mild concussion. After being told to go home by the hospital staff – and put on medical leave pending reexamination by a physician – he too, was written up for leaving early.

Another woman’s daughter went into premature labor.  She was not allowed to leave early and written up when she did.

My favorite aunt was finally succumbing to cancer after a 5-year battle. Her body was shutting down.  She was dying.  This woman who had been like a mother to me was given 1-2 days at most.  I knew I had to make the trip to California.

Our district manager happened to be in the store that week.  First, I’d gone to my store manager, Aaron, who was familiar with my aunt’s story. I asked if I could leave an hour early the next day to fly to California.  He said it would be fine with him, but since Bruce was in the store I had to ask him.

Bruce told me no.  “If I do it for you, I have to do it for everybody,” he stated.  I reiterated the situation again – that there wasn’t much time.  He refused again.  “Oh, sorry about your aunt.” he said as I walked away.

I returned to Aaron.  I was crying.  I said, “Bruce said no. I’m not coming in tomorrow.  I’m getting on a flight to California.”

A few hours after I’d arrived at my aunt’s home she died. I’d made it just in time to say good-bye.

I was out west 3 days.  On my way home in a layover in Atlanta I checked my cell phone messages.  One was from Bruce which said, “If you still want your job, you’d better be at the store at 7 tomorrow.”

I got in at about 11 that night and had an hour and a half drive to get home.  I got no sleep and was at work to open the store the following morning.

During the day I was called into Aaron’s office. No surprise here.  I knew I’d get written up for not showing up on Friday.

First he told me that, yes, I had been written up for not showing up on Friday.  Then he said that I would be paid  3 days of bereavement pay -but- that I would be written up for those 3 days because I didn’t give them 2 weeks notice!

HOW could I have possibly given them 2 weeks notice that my aunt was going to die?  What kind of twisted logic is that?

I suspect that part of this policy was to prevent employees from ever getting to the 6 month point where they’d be eligible for benefits.  Those who were chronically late because they overslept were the first to go. People such as myself who had legitimate reasons soon realized what a heartless company this was.

In 6 months I’d accumulated 5 out of 7 points, all for events I could not control.

That was the final straw!  I decided that I was going to look for another job.  I found one, albeit part-time, and quit a few weeks later.

IF You Shop On Thanksgiving, You’re Playing Right Into Corporate America’s Hands

Encroaching consumerism into Thanksgiving

Regarding shopping on Thanksgiving, a parody of the line from the Kevin Costner movie, “Field Of Dreams,” comes to mind.  Although, “If you build it he will come” is the exact line – I like to use the most often misquoted line:  “If you build it they will come.”

To reference the Thanksgiving shopping day, I’d like to change that to:

“If you sell it they will come.”

If you shop on Thanksgiving – YOU are playing right into corporate America’s greedy hands.

YOU are telling the almighty gods of corporate America that you approve of their dismantling of Thanksgiving and are buying into the growing aspect of greed and consumerism.

Step foot inside a store on Thanksgiving, whip out your credit card and buy just one thing and you’ve put your stamp on it. It’s like voting: you’ve cast your vote to further erode one of the last two holidays this country truly has; Thanksgiving and Christmas.

For YOU to get that Thanksgiving deal, someone else had to give up their Thanksgiving holiday.  They had to stay home and go to work just because you wanted to shop.  Any holiday plans they could have made, perhaps travelling to visit friends and relatives, went by the wayside because they had to work.

There are people who work on Thanksgiving  who normally never have the luxury of being off.  Police officers, firefighters,  ambulance or hospital staff, air traffic controllers and many others critical to the functioning of certain areas of our society.  True, but they knew they were signing on for this when they made their decision to enter these fields.

No, I am talking about the greed that has permeated our society from both the corporate level on down…, the hypnosis of consumerism which has convinced us that we ~must~ shop.

Why?

We’ve been brainwashed into thinking that we need things.  We’ve been seduced by the notion that more is better, we must have the latest contraption at rock bottom prices; that we must be first in line no matter what the time!

Holidays have been withering for 30 years.  Gone are holidays like Veteran’s Day, Easter, July 4th – all dissolved into SALE days for the stores and work days for millions of people who otherwise would have had the day off.  Sadly, I’ve even seen some sales advertised for holiday that hasn’t been in existence very long: Martin Luther King Day.  How long will it be before we see sales for September 11, which our calendars masquerade as “Patriot Day?”

I’d like to see the news reports of sales on Thanksgiving say that shopping was a disappointment.

It’s up to YOU!

Shoving Christmas Down Our Throats

Christmas in OCTOBER?

Christmas doesn’t mean the same thing to everybody.  Of course if you’re a little kid, it means toys and fun stuff.  To some adults it means shopping till they drop. For others still the spirit of the season does shine through, but for many people – myself included, it’s a time of deep disgust.

I’ve worked in retail for a long time now.  I used to like Christmas…, oh about 40 years ago.  After seeing what people do to get that deal for their holiday shopping, it makes me sick!  I’ve seen fights in the aisles, arguments that almost came to blows, near panic just for a stupid set of Christmas lights or bulbs, a blow-up Santa and tugs-of-war over a lighted reindeer  set!  It’s enough to make one run off screaming into the distance across the parking lot after work!

Christmas.  It used to mean time with family.  It used to be the celebration of the birth of Christ.  In Pagan times, way before Christianity, it celebrated the return of the Light from winter, which is a perfect translated metaphor for the Christian Christmas.

Now it’s just another lame excuse for corporate America to shove crap down our throats that we don’t need.  To add insult to injury,  Christmas NOW starts in October when the stores roll out their decorations and Christmas displays! Stores across the country put up Halloween in late September and right on its heels, Christmas!  Now we’ve got the battle for Halloween and Christmas!

I’m not the only one who bemoans this.  Many people I talk to feel the same way: let’s go back to Christmas starting AFTER Thanksgiving and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade!

My friend John Tumminelli penned this parody to “Jingle Bells”

Dashing through the mall on a warm October day,
Check out our nice stores, come in, spend and pay!
Up go Christmas lights before Halloween,
We’ve got big sales left and right, it can only mean, HO!
Buy, buy buy, spend, spend, spend! Do your shopping here.
We want Christmas every day instead of once a year, SO!
Buy, buy, buy, pay, pay, pay! Get our stuff because
We’ve ‘X’d Christ out of Xmas and it’s all ’bout Santa Claus!!

(copyright 2013 John Tumminelli)

This says exactly what I feel.  It’s OCTOBER, folks.  Christmas has no place IN October!  It should be about pumpkins, fall, raking leaves, football games and getting ready for Thanksgiving – the giving of thanks – for what we have – not the shoving of greed down our gullets!

Corporate America has somewhere decided – and we have blindly gone along with this – that we NEED Christmas in October.  Why?

Greed

This is the same reason that more and more stores will be open on Thanksgiving; this year Macy’s has announced it will join J.C. Penney, Garden Ridge, Walmart and others to cash in (pun intended) on American’s seemingly endless desire to buy, buy, buy and spend, spend spend!

Greed ruins another holiday:  Thanksgiving. It used it be that Thanksgiving was a day when every business was shuttered. One could barely find a gas station open!

Now however, millions of people across this country will be at work because the corporate heads have decided that it’s mandatory that their store will be open on Thanksgiving.  Once a holiday to again be with family and friends, many of us will have to work because the almighty Gods of commerce have decided that YOU should SHOP on Thanksgiving.  Sadly, there will be people out there who will be brainwashed by this tactic.  If you feed into it, folks – they will continue to push it.  There will come a day when Thanksgiving is just another shopping day!

Why not  buy, buy, buy and spend, spend, spend LESS this year?  YOU can do it! We all can do it!  This could be our message TO corporate America about their greed! Just think of it — if we all bought less (or nothing!) this Christmas, what a message it would send!

Tell them they can  ~KEEP~  their Made in China crap!  The fact that 99.99% of the junk in the stores is Chinese-made which boosts China’s economy, not our struggling U.S. job market.

It’s all about the bottom line, folks, bottom line – that’s what Christmas is to corporate America.

Don’t make yourself a part OF the “bottom line” this Christmas!

Why WE THE PEOPLE Don’t Run This Country

Medical and insurance costs are through the roof.  Politicians are on the take.  Corporate America says who gets what and owns our lawmakers. Even though laws are made the aren’t followed or are subverted.

If anyone reading this has the idea that our country is run by the people, get your head out of your ass.

WE THE PEOPLE are screwed.

We no longer have any say in what happens.  Why?  Because we only get one say every 4 years or every 2 years.

That’s it!

We get to elect our president.

We get to elect congress and senators, or so we’re told.

That’s IT!

Other than that we have absolutely no say in what goes on in our government.

Oh, we have these things called “laws” which are supposed to keep things on the up and up.  Except for enforcing laws against the people of this nation, that’s it.

Our government can give itself a pay raise.  We can’t.

Lawmakers have all the perks.  The average person who has no job or isn’t a part of a union – which are being gutted anyway – has nothing.

Our government has its own set of rules.

It lets corporate America, the health care industry, the food industry, the insurance industry get away with the rape and pillaging of the American people.

We”re screwed.

How can there possibly be ANY rights for us if the government is run and lobbied by the likes of the health industry, the gun lobby, the anti-environment lobby, the oil lobby and any other lobby that has more money to buy and threaten lawmakers into doing what they want INSTEAD of what’s BEST FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?

Read the attached article on the healthcare industry.  Although we know most of this about overcharging – it will still, pardon the pun, make you sick!

There has to be something that “We The People” can do.  God help anyone who tells me to vote to make a difference.  I did but the person I voted for is outnumbered by greed, the good old boy network and status quo.

This country needs to STOP DOING BUSINESS AS USUAL because it is killing us and bankrupting us.  By “us” I mean the little guys.  The rich have all the protections of money, influence and power.

For instance:  gas prices have gone up about 50 cents in a few weeks.

Why?

The oil industry.

The government has let them.

Right now I am totally PISSED at every single member of government who has let the lobbyists run this country.  The rich are strangling this country and the rest of the world.

I am at a loss as to what we can really do because those who make the laws don’t make laws for us.  They’re made for those who have lined their pockets and made exemptions for themselves.

There is no more “We The People” here in the United States.

It is “We The Corporations.”

RELATED:

The Healthcare Industry Is Making Us Sick   (Time)

Guns, Bribes, Corporate Greed: What Has Happened To Us?

Day after day I sit at this computer reading news headlines, and day after day I wonder what in the hell has gotten into us?

Lately it seems  that we’ve lost our flipping minds!

Missing lately is a sense of common sense.

Our respect for others is gone, any sense of compassion for the citizens of this country by corporate America has vanished. Our voice in government has been obscured by money & influence. It’s like “We The People” don’t matter any longer.

GUNS:

Under the Second Amendment, as least for the moment, citizens can buy guns that are almost identical to military issued weapons.

These weapons have only two purposes:

• To kill as many humans as possible in the shortest time.
• To kill them so effectively that they are literally shredded.

However, these military-type weapons are legal for ordinary citizens to buy because one can use them for target practice or hunting or shooting events.

That’s nice.

That’s also insane.

Why are citizens allowed to have firearms so close to what police or the military have?

This is even more insane!

This is a lack of common sense and responsibility by our highest court and the United States government.

It’s kowtowing to special interest groups (read NRA) and a ridiculous fear that we’ll hurt somebody’s feelings or ~God forbid~ violate Second Amendment rights.

Bullshit!

There are plenty of other firearms to have to hunt and target shoot with.

Grow up, people!

~~~~~~~~~

GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION & INFLUENCE:

Our government has been corrupt for a long, long time.  I am not a political law person, just  an ordinary citizen who has some questions.

Why isn’t it illegal to influence our government officials?

Obviously lobbying isn’t.  Obviously bribery isn’t.

It’s done in the halls of this government and in every state every day!

If it IS illegal then we need to lock up most of our government!

The only losers:  the majority of the American people and the environment.

For instance, companies like Monsanto are using the world as Guinea pigs with GMO food, herbicides, pesticides and the United States government is letting them get away with it.

We are dying of increased rates of cancers. Our pets are dying of cancer, bees are disappearing, our groundwater has high concentrations of Atrazine and Round-Up.

Little children are getting cancer whereas this was once a disease of older people.  The FDA, USDA, EPA have been influenced – or should I say -threatened – by Monsanto and other monolithic companies.  Yet we have our richest of the rich like Bill Gates, under the guise of being a humanitarian, is promoting Monsanto’s agenda to help feed ~and poison~ the world!

We are also being systematically poisoned and sickened by food corporations by the use of additives and chemicals that in some cases, have only the say so of the manufacturer that they are safe.

The FDA has ruled for the food companies, allowing manufacture and sale of these foods, using the test results OF the food company’s biased testing, while omitting review of any independent tests.

This is fraud!

We are held hostage by the corporations and our own government.  Oh, there are a few who are fighting for us in Washington but those who are in it for the greed and money outnumber them.

To me the scales have been tipped so far out of the hands of the American people to favor corporations.

We literally have no say any longer.

What has happened to our elected officials working FOR THE PEOPLE instead of the corporations?

Simple:  money!

This is despicable!

What can we do, though?  If the ones who write and pass the laws are influenced against us – how can we ever hope to change things?

I am sickened at what our government has become:  fighting like a bunch of little children, totally ignoring why they’re in government in the first place ~and~ ignoring the American people…, but still they bicker on, passing watered down legislation to supposedly protect us or help us.  The corporations and special interest groups have more money and thus, more voice than “We The People.”

This is NOT our government any longer – we have been shut out!

~~~~~~~~

CORPORATE AMERICA:

The American worker is screwed.

Back to corporate America:  GREED reigns and the workers who are out on the floor of the large corporations are treated almost like slaves.

We’ve lost our jobs to third world nations to “save money” in corporate pockets.

Walmart, the nation’s largest employer, buys clothing from factories in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia – yet they still screw their own workers regarding wages and benefits.

Before Obamacare, companies like Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and others adopted the cost saving initiative of only hiring people part-time for just enough hours NOT to qualify for any benefits.

I worked for Lowe’s from 2003-2007. When I was hired people could work full or part-time.  Now, only their top store management and some department people are full time.  Everyone else is hired part time.

The corporations of this country are purposely destroying the lives of most of the workers in this country by denying hours, a living wage and benefits.

We are going to become a service-orientated nation, fighting over jobs at fast food restaurants.

We are going to die premature deaths because ~like me~ millions of people cannot afford healthcare so we do not go for regular checkups.

More of us are going to lose our homes because we cannot get enough work to keep up the mortgage payments or taxes.

WHY?  Because this country is now run by greed by corporate America!

They will NOT invest in this country; they will not spend the money it takes to create the jobs that millions of us need.

They will just continue to take, Take, TAKE and walk on the broken backs, shattered dreams and lives of the average American citizen.

SHAME ON YOU CORPORATE AMERICA!  You can save this country but you won’t.

~~~~~~

Where IS common sense?

Why has it left our government?

Why aren’t WE THE PEOPLE organizing and fighting back to get OUR country back?

Why do we have corporations making decisions and literally, running our lives?

Don’t we matter anymore?

RELATED:

MONSANTO:  Feeding and Killing the World (Food Truth Freedom)

Atrazine & Round-Up: Persistent Chemicals  (Food Truth Freedom)

An Activist Is Something You Are

I guess because I’m an old hippie, part of the 60’s generation which cut our teeth on the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. We tried to raise the red flag on the environment and other causes. Perhaps, too, it’s because I’m a Libra:  the sign of justice and peace.

There is strength in numbers. Speak out, stand up for your rights and the rights of our fellow human beings!

One of the search terms that appears on my site here is the word “activism” and “how to be an activist.”

Activism is not so much something to “be” but more of a sense of what one is. Complacency about social issues does not make for good activism. Self-centered or wearing blinders isn’t conducive either.

Passion and love are also about activism. Compassion, too, is a large part of activism and so is anger! What moves you for the good of all? What enrages your soul about conditions, be they societal,  environmental, political or other?

Activism is many words: love, hate, compassion, sympathy, anger, hope, dreams, vision and direction.

It feels.

It is the fighter, the  Muhammad Ali in us but also the compassion of Mother Teresa. It is the determination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the peace of  Gandhi. It is the rage of every protest and a desire for accomplishment.

It is not for one but for all.

Whether you take on Wal-Mart, the NRA, civil rights, human rights, the environment,  our food system, animal rights, protection of children, the elderly, the greed of corporate America or politics – the list is endless – as are the emotions.

Activism is not a flat-line of spirit.  It is up and down, a heartbeat and alive. It is consciousness and moving forward.  Its direction is always for the good of all; never for the greed of one.

Activism is getting out there, connecting with those of like minds no matter what the cause.

It is writing, reading, researching and getting facts straight for your cause. Information is key to any battle, something that every four star general will tell you.  Know your “enemy,” your subject because for every fact that is hurled from you there will one hundred that are flung back in your face.

Like molasses, activism can be slow going.  One step at a time.  Like a sculptor, pieces fall but they also come together in the final piece.  This is why the minds of many are helpful. Activism is patience and also give and take. It is focus and determination.

So, activism is not something that you can BE – it is something that you are from your soul because it encompasses so much of you.

Are you ready?

GOP: Out To Destroy America For All But Wealthy 1%

Republicans are out to destroy this country. While the extremist right-wing GOP members scream about communism, they are advancing an agenda that only benefits the top 1%.  Every time I read an article about who wants to cut what, it always seems that the Republican party out to decimate a program or law that only extends the control of the super rich.

I’m sick of it and you should be, too!

What has happened to the Republican party?

They’ve become relentless in their destruction of anything which benefits this country or the majority of the citizens.

An excellent article in Reader Supported News about the 1% and this country.  I wish I could have written this piece, it’s excellent!

It seems that every article I read there’s some GOP spokesman saying, “NO!,” to a bill adding a protection for citizens; “NO!” to taking away corporate America’s power; “NO!” to an increase in taxes for the wealthiest (who can afford it the most) and  “NO!” to any regulations on corporate tax loopholes, worker’s rights or making the top 1% – and corporate America, take responsibility for any of their actions.

The super-rich control our country:  we do not! They dictate policy to government officials, sneaking in additions to the laws which benefit themselves.  They buy their way into political campaigns through that travesty of Citizen’s United.  They silence dissenters.

An excerpt from an article in the New York Times about the real fiscal cliff by Frank Rich writes:

“The Republican-led Michigan legislature just passed a “right-to-work” law, severely diminishing union power in a stronghold of American labor. Is this an overreach by a party fearing for its survival or the latest wave in a powerful anti-union surge?”
(Assistant editor Eric Benson replies:) “For all the Beltway hysteria about the fiscal cliff, the forgotten Americans in the debate are American workers: both those who are employed and have seen their wages stagnate and those who are unemployed and can’t find work. The fixed ideas in Washington right now — reducing the deficit, cutting entitlements, increasing tax rates for the upper 2 percent — do not begin to address this crisis. What the stunning victory of the Michigan GOP (the governor as well as the legislature) demonstrates is that while Romney may have lost, the Koch brothers and other right-wing industrialists determined to erode workers’ pay, benefits, and standing have only just begun to fight. If they can’t win a national election, they will pour money in at the local level in state after state, even seemingly blue states like Michigan and Wisconsin, to further their own financial interests. It’s going to be trench warfare in the coming years.” 

What has happened to our government? It’s stopped being government.  It’s turned into a playground for the super rich to enable them to get their way.

Corporate America is an entity which has great wealth.  Because of Citizen’s United, it was given octopus arms exerting a python-like grip which it is strangling  WE the PEOPLE of this country with!  

Truthfully, we don’t have a government any longer. Oh, on the surface it appears that we do.  The checks and balances are corrupted.  There are a few who recognize this but they are far outnumbered by the greed of corporate America.  We the people, are helpless.  The only tool that we have is to vote the scums out of office.

How can we change the laws if the only ones who can do that – our government – won’t?  Most of them are in it up to their eyeballs; it threatens their entitled way of life.  Pass higher tax rates for the rich? They’re all rich; it will cut into their money.  Revamp the system so that they lose perks? That’s up to them, too!  Initiate corporate tax reform so that the biggest corporations have to pay their share? Oops – the crooks in government are owned by the likes of Sheldon Addelson, the Koch Brothers, the banks, Walmart, Monsanto, just to name a few.  They can’t do that!  Where would the Republican party get its money from?

Citizen’s United saw to it that the rich remain rich by controlling our government.   Could the Supreme Court been bought and influenced by the rich?  It would not surprise me a bit!  Only ~human beings~ are people. A corporation IS NOT A PERSON – it is a group of people and therefore should have no say in government.  Corporate America is an entity which has great wealth.  Because of Citizen’s United, it was given octopus arms with a python-like grip which it is strangling “We the people” of this country with!

After President Obama’s election in 2008, the Republicans attempted to make him a one term president through calculated evisceration of any and all of his policies during his first term. Those who didn’t bother to look and add up all the facts during the election, believing all the garbage spewed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, the GOP party itself and Fox News, voted Republican.  Still Obama prevailed. That alone tells me something.  Somewhere out there is a glimmer of hope.  My question is:  how do we make it erupt into a full-fledged fireball of concrete change and take back our country?

Related:

Robert Reich: Rich Keep Pouring Money Into Government

 

 

Bernie Sanders Has a Good Plan To Reduce Deficit

Top 2%-you CAN AFFORD to pay more & it’s time you did!

Senator Bernie Sanders is MY MAN!

What I don’t get though, is why this simple plan isn’t adopted.

Oh wait I forgot —- GREED!

I’ve got my own message for the top 2%:

OK — rich dudes, it’s time to pay up.  You’ll probably never miss the extra money you will have to pay.  You are greedy. To you we are nothing.  If you get your way, millions of us will suffer. You won’t.

Do you have ANY humanity in you at all?

You have made your money on the backs of the people of this country, then you abandoned them by sending jobs overseas.  In countries like India, China and other third world nations, you knowingly poisoned, abused and allowed workers to be enslaved.  This is because you could make even more money knowing you could get away with paying a pittance to these workers, engage in human rights violations, environmental pollution, tax evasion and other crimes you were unable to pull off here in the States.

Now you dare to try to hold the United States government & its citizens  hostage. Because of your wealth you can bribe, threaten & undermine every initiative which would threaten even a smidgen of your millions!  Citizen’s United added strength to your fight.  I want to know what you spiked the Supreme Court’s water with to make them stupid enough to pass this!

SHAME ON YOU, top 2%.  Show some compassion.  Listen to the voices pleading for you to do your share instead of taking more!  There was a reason that your candidate, Mitt Romney, lost the 2012 election.  WE THE PEOPLE spoke up and did not want corporate America to sink its hooks further into our government and its people!  SHAME ON YOU, 2%!

Here are Bernie’s 12 simple ways to cut the deficit:  http://www.vuvox.com/collage/detail/05d78951ee

Sign the petition, too!

http://campaigns.dailykos.com/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=127

GOP: Grover Norquist Was Not Elected President, Nor Does He Own You!

Grover Norquist does not own your soul, Republican Party!  Photo: CNN

Grover Norquist was NOT elected president, nor does he run the Republican party!

Sadly, members of our government are cowering because of a 20-something year old pledge which one man, Grover Norquist, keeps under lock and key.  ONE MAN!    Something’s very wrong when an individual has such a grip on those who make our laws, influencing them to go against the will of the people and common sense.

The only thing they should concern themselves with is what has transpired in the recent election. The American people have spoken LOUD & CLEAR in 2012.  They do not want continued tax relief for the upper 2% of  the population. They do not want more protection for corporate America and rewards when they ship jobs overseas.  They do not want massive cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare which would plunge millions more into poverty.   They want our government to realize we are still struggling with the effects of the recession. The last thing the people want is to go backwards.

It is heartening to hear that many Republicans are choosing to go against this pledge.  They realize that it is their constituents they must listen to, not the fanatical ravings of one man and his anti-compromise stance.

Republicans who are choosing to jump ship on Norquist are rising every day:  Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Peter King, Steve LaTourette and Scott Rigell.  Peter King of New York commented on Meet The Press,   “A pledge you signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago, is for that Congress. For instance, if I were in Congress in 1941, I would have signed a declaration of war against Japan. I’m not going to attack Japan today. The world has changed, and the economic situation is different.”

Jenna McGregor in an article on the Washington Post said that those who choose to stand up,  … [are] “having the courage to go right when others go left, and being willing to open oneself up to criticism to do the right thing for the greater good.”   Jeff Sessions of Alabama stated: “Oh I signed it, but we’ve got to deal with the crisis we face.   We’ve got to deal with the political reality of the president’s victory.”

Yes,  there is that reality of the president’s victory. The other reality is that our government is not run soley by some overblown clown who seems to have a mystical, supernatural grip on our elected officials, especially those in the Republican party. Get with it, GOP!  Norquist does not own you!

Even former President Bill Clinton weighed in last year reiterating an account of   Norquist’s raves against a bipartisan push to eliminate subsidies for ethanol producers. He (Norquist) perceived this to be a sneak attack tax hike.  Clinton stated that it was like any changes in the GOP platform should be “approved in advance by Grover Norquist.”  Clinton went on to say,  “You’re laughing,  but he was quoted in the paper the other day saying he gave Republican senators permission” to scrap the subsidies. “I thought, ‘My God, what has this country come to when one person has to give you permission to do what’s best for the country?’ It was chilling.”

Chilling, indeed.  The United States of America  is not a monarchy of which Norquist is king & supreme ruler. He is not God.  His faithful Republicans need to realize that or come the next round of voting, they could find themselves out of a job like their buddy, Mitt Romney.  There is no surety in politics.

Maybe all the Republicans still on the side of Norquist need to read the quote at the top of this page from that brave NYPD cop, Frank Serpico:

“Sometimes you have to go up against the odds to do the right thing.”

Fiscal Cliff = Economic Extortion By GOP

GOP and GREED: Don’t push U.S. Economy & the 99% off the fiscal cliff!

The so-called “fiscal cliff” that we’re going off in January is what some call economic extortion.

It sounds about right.

The President is attempting to do the least amount of damage to the middle and lower class and the economy.  On the other hand, we have John Boehner & his GOP cronies,  corporate CEOs & the Tea Party trying to preserve the entitlements of the top 1%.

From an economic standpoint, many  say that GOP demands will stomp on the economy, flattening whatever progress has already been made.

Significantly changing Social Security will hurt those presently in the system, those about to enter (read younger “Boomers”) and have little effect on solving the fiscal cliff problem.  Gutting Medicare & Medicaid without addressing the real problem  will only hurt its recipients and not rein in the abuses which are its cause.  Corruption, billing fraud, corporate lobbying, exorbitant hospital charges, insurance & drug company abuses: these need microscopic scrutiny and a good dose of revision!    In other words, without total reform of the existing system, it will still be business as usual for the crooks in the system.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!  To the corporate CEOs, millionaires, billionaires, Wall Street élite, as well as our politicians in both parties: stop whining about  the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts. You can afford to pay your share! Shame on you corporate executives  for your greed in sending jobs overseas to avoid paying taxes in America, skirt  environmental safeguards and bypassing U.S. wage and labor laws by creating jobs in China and  3rd world  countries ~instead~ of right here at home!   Because of you our manufacturing industry has been decimated in favor of cheap junk made in China!

Economic extortion, the threat of the “fiscal cliff” is just another smokescreen that the Republican party and corporate America can only benefit from.  Instead of closing tax loopholes for the nation’s wealthy, GOP and the mega-rich have it in mind to create secret loopholes included in the Fix the Debt initiative. Part of this is allowing exemptions of taxes for profits declared abroad.  Can we say:  “Global tax haven?” The ghost of Mitt Romney is alive and well in corporate boardrooms!

The Republican party lost the election because WE THE PEOPLE spoke out.  Thankfully there were enough of us who read, watched and researched Mitt Romney during the campaign. We saw through his veneer; his ties to corporate America.  He may be a brilliant business person,  but to run this country his way, as the GOP is currently attempting to do, will surely push us off that fiscal cliff.

GOP:  get real and serious about helping the 99% instead of corporate America. We are human beings struggling to keep our heads above water in this fragile economy. We’ve lost jobs, homes and our retirement money has been spent. Barack Obama still has more work to do to undo the Bush legacy that brought this country to its knees.  Realize, too, that you work for the American people and not corporate America.  Know that as we voted you into office, you can be voted out just as well.  Work with the President.  Make some concessions for the good of the American people.

GOP:  Help get us back on our feet instead of throwing us off the fiscal cliff!