I started this year on an up note… I was going to attack my health problems head on, starting with an exercise program I could live with.  As usual that fell through about a month into the process.  Partly it was my own damn fault because I could have/should have chosen to go ahead and keep swimming on my own when Joe became unable to go swimming because of his problem with his foot.  But I didn’t because it had been one of the few things we did together out side of sitting at home watching TV or going to the doctor.  So the first resolution to take care of myself went out the window so early in the year it was hardly a memory when along about the 1st of March, I thought I was having a heart attack.

Yep.  That is what I thought.  Chest pain — like an elephant foot pressing into my chest… shooting pains down my left arm.  Jaw pain and neck pain that didn’t want to quit.  I put up with it silently and then one day some talking head on TV in a red dress said “You might be having a heart attack if…” so I made an appointment to see a doctor.  Now this in and of itself was a horrible decision to make.  You see, I have no health insurance.  I have not had health insurance since my husband became disabled in 2009.  We had to give it up at the beginning of 2010 when I was no longer covered by the University’s health insurance policy that we had to pay for to keep Joe alive.  Had I wanted it, the price would have doubled and at the time I thought 57 and more or less healthy — I’ll be fine.

Don’t believe you will be fine without health insurance — especially if you are in your late 50s.  Your chances are not good.  Even if you are relatively healthy, anything can happen.

I blithely went to the doctor, thinking that I was probably going to get an EKG and a scolding for being too fat.  No.  When I walked in and told them my symptoms the Nurse Practitioner, who had started her nursing career in our local hospital’s  Emergency Room, turned me right around and said “Go, NOW to the ER. Do not go home and get your husband, do not go anywhere else, go straight there and tell them what you told me.”  So I did.

I spent the next two days in the hospital having tests on what is called a “step down unit”.  This unit is a one-off from the Intensive Care… your telemetry can be transferred immediately to the Intensive Care unit (conveniently located on the same hall, within steps of your room) if need be.   Ultimately they decided that I had some coronary blockage but not bad enough for bypass just yet, and, worse, anxiety. Severe anxiety.  No kidding… And just to make me more anxious, they sent the social worker by to talk to me about the bill… one that has after a second hospitalization for more chest pains in June, has now risen to the $35000 range.  Hell, if you had my life you’d be anxious too.  But then everyone with anxiety feels that way, or we wouldn’t be anxious, right?

And we’re only up to June.

Why am I anxious?  Well, I am unemployed since September 14, 2009.  I have applied for 97 jobs since then and I have 97 form letter rejections to go with each of those earnestly written cover letters for each of those 97 positions.  With each rejection comes just another tightening of the throat, a little more pressure on the chest and pushes me just a little closer to the acceptance of the inevitable.

What, you may ask in this case is “inevitable”.  Now, this is something I must accept and yet, the first time I wrote these sentences, I used conditionals like “most likely” and “probably”.  I have edited those words out… Here is the inevitable truth that I must accept before I can move on to the next phase of my life:

The inevitable truth of my condition of unemployment is that it is permanent.  I will never work for another person again as long as I live.

Not because I don’t want to, but, because of the length of time the economy will take to recover from the depression that the main stream media and the powers that be refuse to call anything but a “recession” and then only on the darkest days.  This, combined with my age and education makes me the least desirable possible employee.  Another inevitable truth that is coming out of this “depression/recession/downturn” is:

Someone who is old, over-educated and unemployed for over 2 years is UNDESIRABLE.

Recently I read about a petition being circulated to urge Monster.com (and other job websites) to ban advertisements that tell applicants not to apply if they are currently unemployed.  It would seem that some employers have an interesting “policy” that if one has been unemployed for 6 months that one may not apply for the jobs being offered to the general public.  Some how this seems discriminatory — but of course isn’t because “unemployed” is not a protected class.

So what does one do when one finds that she must give up the idea of being an employee and become what? Self-employed? (because I love to work at nothin’ all day?) With all due respect to Bachman Turner Overdrive, I liked going to work…even when I was annoyed.  I find it annoying that there is no work for me, a well educated, hard working, literate human being who actually wants to be in an office or somewhere, productively creating for the good of humankind and receiving remuneration for same.

But, I’m told, I must learn to cope with this change.  The inevitables that aren’t going away.  The lemons that must be made into lemonade.

I used to work for a corporation that arrogantly published the “core values” and then made us all wear them on our name tags so that we could remember what the corporation was trying to accomplish.

Well, I have core values too:

I expect to perform meaningful work for the betterment of humans.

I expect a living wage for the performance of that work.

I expect high quality medical care that keeps me alive and healthy and will not send me to bankruptcy court.

I expect decent housing that is affordable, manageable and maintainable.

I expect city/county/state/federal services that provide sanitation, good roads, clean water and air, and ensures my safety in times of danger.

I expect to pay for these services with reasonable taxes.

I expect honesty from all levels of government.

I want to go on, write a manifesto, a constitution, a declaration… but the very interesting thing is that those things have been written.  We don’t need new ones we need to respect the old ones.

Oooops.  Did I use that word “old” as in “too old” or “outdated” or “unemployed for more than 6 months” … Our world is a dangerous place.  Is it any wonder I am….

ANXIOUS?

©2011

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

This quote is from his April 1953 “Chance for Peace” speech regarding (among other things) the death of Lenin.

Eisenhower in the Oval Office

He also

• Ended the Korean War (which wasn’t really a war but a policing action – Presidential Proclamation No. 2914, 3 C.F.R. 99 (1953), which remained in force until 14 September 1978);
• Authorized with Canada a joint construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway;
• Did not bomb the hell out of Puerto Rico when  five representatives were wounded in House of Representatives by shots fired by Puerto Rican nationalists;
• Extended Social Security coverage to farmers (make something bad out of that, Michelle Bachman!);
• Signed the The Interstate Highway System into being;
• Signed the 1957 Civil Rights Act which seeks to protect voting rights (which btw many of our Repubican Governors are working dilligently to infringe);
• During his administration Explorer I, the first American satellite launched;
• Signed the bill establishing National Aeronautics and Space Administration (and now we can wave byebye to NASA and NASA engineer’s jobs);
• Signed the National Defense Education Act, providing loans for college students and funds to encourage young people to enter teaching careers (raise your hand if you went to school with an NDSL loan?  I did);
• Signed the act admitting Hawaii as the 50th state;
• With Queen Elizabeth II he opened the St. Lawrence Seaway (built in an astonishing 5 years! US & Canada workers work quickly — It has been 10 years since the WTC crashed to the ground and they’re still not finished with the new WTC building… maybe they should have hired some Canadians); and
• Last but not least, he warned us about the Military-Industrial Complex.

He had good reason to because….

The above is a list of good things…

here’s the bad news – the Military Industrial Complex news:

• Replaced the government of Premier Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran with regime loyal to Shah Pahlevi;
• Did nothing to stop Joe McCarthy and his commie witch hunt;
• Signed the Communist Control Act outlawing Communist Party (was this the beginning of infringing on free speech??? Maybe);
• Signed Southeast Asia Defense Treaty (SEATO) (NB: don’t believe it when anyone tells you that Viet Nam was Johnson’s fault… the US was obligated by this treaty to be in Viet Nam);
• Sent U.S. forces to defend Formosa against Communist aggression;
• Eisenhower Doctrine bill signed, authorizing use of U.S. forces to assist Middle East nations threatened by Communist aggression (I guess we’re still fightin’ commies in the Middle East, huh?);
• Sent U.S. Marines into Lebanon at the request of President Camille Chamoun; and
• Permitted U-2 flights in to the USSR (Remember Gary Powers????)

Not everyone is perfect – just as Obama is not the Perfect Democrat, Eisenhower was not the Perfect Republican… BUT there was a balance to the guy.  It is hard to see “balance” in any of the current contenders for the job.  I’d just like to find a Republican like Ike… one that isn’t “all” bad.

©2011

I’ve complained loud and long to my little circle of friends there about Tea Parties, Earthquakes, broken air conditioners and automobiles.

But I haven’t written anything substantial and I haven’t made a contribution to the world of blogs in quite some time. So today, I make the commitment to have something substantial, readable, enlightening and exciting up by Monday the 29th or else I expect all five of my subscribers to write me a note that says something along the lines of “HEY! What was that you wanted to say????”

©2011

Simple things, simple pleasures, simple actions.  Simple is usually considered to be “easiest” or “fastest”.  It is rarely thought to be difficult to take the simplest way.

Difficult, though, is just what simple can be.

Simple kindness… for some kindness is difficult.  It is never easy to let go of one’s ego and be compassionate.  Usually compassion requires some form of sacrifice – at least on the part of one taking compassionate action.

Simple pleasure… how does one simplify pleasure – one first must remove ego and allow pleasure to infuse the soul.  The simple pleasure of a sunny day… one first must shove aside all the intruding needs, wants and have-tos to be able just to acknowledge that it is a sunny day.

The concept of harming none – the concept of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you – the concept of being excellent to each other – these are simple concepts.  But the actions required to achieve these concepts are very, very difficult – particularly when ego is in the way.

We must give up our egoic point of view.  We must remove ourselves from the equation.  “What’s in it for me?” should never be the first question or even any part of the question.  Heart-felt love, kindness and compassion for others and one’s self are not self-ish or self-centered – even if the love is for one’s self.  As long as egoic aggrandizement is not part of the motivation, love and even self-love — loving kindness and compassion for one’s self — supports the heart and builds the ability to give loving kindness and compassion to others.

A social worker I once knew had a moral compass that required her to ask “Will a child die?” To her, the worst possible outcome of any action was the death of a child.  While I agree that is the worst possible outcome, I think that even if the answer is “no” the question might just be the wrong question.  Harm comes in many shapes and sizes.  So too actions… the moral compass needs to be something along the lines of “Who/what is harmed?”  If by telling a “little lie” – nothing that seems “big” – you somehow cause another person to become homeless, you have caused great harm.  Is this possible?  Yes.  It very nearly happened to me.

“Ah!” you say, “very nearly” – well the results of that person’s “little lie” have not come to completion yet… I and my family could still become homeless.  Fortunately for me, there are others in my world that are far less egoic than the people who lied and caused the crisis.  Fortunately, should that horrible moment come that me and mine would have no place to live, there are those who would take us in.  And so, was there harm in that “little lie”? Of course.  Might it also create a change for the better?  Possibly. But was it worth it?  Not to me.

©2011

Honestly, I don’t know of too many websites that allow a comment like that go through much less blow it up in type size and advertise it on TV.  Basically, most people will either just delete a maniac’s comment or, if they find it credible, turn it over to law enforcement.

As a “left leaning blogger” I want to stand up and say:  “No threat of violence against another human being is justified.”  I do not care if you don’t like someone else’s politics…I certainly do not like Sarah Palin’s politics.  I continue to think that she is unqualified for most jobs, but especially World Leader… whether that world leadership is as President of the US or just a talk show host.  She has a right to her opinion just as I have a right to mine.  She even has a right to be irresponsible in her choice of graphics on her website – I do not believe that the use of cross-hairs is a credible threat, I simply believe it is irresponsible of the un-coronated queen of the National Rifle Association to to put cross-hairs on a map of “targeted” seats.  For anyone to blithely suggest that those cross-hairs were symbolic of a surveyor’s sight is disingenuous at best.  We all know what the symbol meant and it was not that Palin, et. al. were surveying those seats.  They were targeting the seats – the irresponsible part – because obviously they do not know how to evaluate responsibility – was that a maniac could look at that and think “kill”.  I do not for one minute believe that Sarah Palin et. al. were advocating murder.  Nor do I believe that the Maniac of Tuscon saw the cross-hairs and took it as a message – since his politics were decidedly leftist, he came to that conclusion without Sarah Palin or any other right-leaning talking head’s urgings.

What I want today almost three years after starting this blog is the same thing I wanted then:  civility in politics, responsibility of action by our politicians, and for those politicians of both sides – or now – all sides of the aisle to remember who they work for… WE the People!

© 2011

Easter 1960 - me at the ripe old age of 8-1/2 - a short 50 years ago. Note the chubby cheeks - I was less than 18 months away from my first menses. The curly perm didn't help either.

The sad thing was that no one gave me the tools to be “fit”.  My mother couldn’t – she didn’t understand.  She was naturally thin, she was naturally energetic – she mowed her own lawn until she was 70.  She jumped off of a 30 foot high platform in the middle of her brother’s East Texas woods on a rope swing at 73 and at 74, one year before she died, she went parasailing.  My father, a salesman, worked hard, ate pie and coffee for lunch and when he gained 10 pounds he cut the sugar out of his coffee – he also died at 54 so I am feeling lucky since I’m now 58, I made it 4 years longer than he did – and counting.  My brother was an athlete and even now, at 53, he’s maybe 20 pounds over weight but nothing close to “fat”.

All through high school I had to take physical education (PE) classes – wearing those vile uniforms with the pleated shirt and bloomer drawers.  ugh.  And then they wanted us to play softball or basketball or volleyball  - awful having to take something like a bat or your hand and hit the ball or put the ball in a hoop hung on the wall.  Even worse, calisthenics – jumping jacks and lunges – squats and crunches – double ugh.  One year they offered archery for 3 weeks.  I loved it but they never offered it again — who knows why — probably too dangerous.  Dance? Again it was fun but short-lived – three weeks max during the coldest months because, well there was also basketball that we could play inside and the PE teachers weren’t really dancers.  Swimming? I could swim but I was afraid of the water – they, of course wanted us to swim long laps, competing against each other, in an Olympic sized pool that went from 4 feet to 15 feet — along about 6 feet, I would start to tense up because I could see the bottom of the pool dropping away below me — terror!!!  By 10 feet, I couldn’t get to the side of the pool fast enough – thought I was going to drown. Tennis? OK but I still had the hand-eye coordination problem I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with the astigmatism I had in my right eye, that, though corrected aesthetically, caused depth perception problems.

Flash forward to now.  Well, actually about 4 months ago.  Almost exactly 40 years since the night I lay in bed in deep heart pain over my agonizingly thin body. I was feeling my body.  The convex belly that I had to poke through to even feel the barest tips of the hip bone – the sheath of fat over my ribs – the ribs are still there – but well padded.  I thought about the night so long ago when I had decided to become this.  Not exactly, but had just decided to give up the 500 calorie diet and the amphetamines.  I lay there wondering “I wonder what it is like to be fit?”  I wonder.

After I gave up the prescribed drugs, I needed to eat more food – without the tools to get fit – in spite of trying to teach myself how to eat properly and even sporadically exercising – mostly the hated calisthenics - I gained weight.  For a while I looked “normal” but then by the time I was in my mid twenties, I was “heavy” and by the time I was in my early 30s, I was “fat” and by the time I was in my late 30s, I was “obese”.

About 13 years ago, I started taking water aerobics classes.  As exercises go, water aerobics is pure magic.  If “they” back “then” had only combined the hated calisthenics with the fear-inducing swimming, “they” might have taught me to be fit.  It combines the benefits of calisthenics with the ease of being in the water and eliminates the fear factor of swimming because you can either touch the bottom or use a flotation device.  I actually love it.   I became so enamored of water aerobics I took classes in teaching it, although my fear of teaching it because I am “still” fat keeps me from teaching.  I have worked up WA routines using dance moves, sports moves, and of course, calisthenics.

After a while, 12 years or so ago, I calculated that I had lost approximately 20 pounds of body fat in a relatively short period of time – about 3 months. “Weight” lost was not 20 pounds because I’d gained muscle mass, but I was on a road to “fitness”.  And then (here comes an excuse) my beloved Mom died.  Gone.  Left the planet. This set me back so far it was astounding.  All the comfort eating came back in a rush and I didn’t have to sneak eat because I lived by myself so all the food was mine.

Since then, sporadically, I have done my water aerobics thing.  I still love it and, up until August of last year, my spouse and I were regular visitors at the indoor therapy pool near our home.  Did I say I love water aerobics?  Well I’ll say it again.  I do… but I also love being in water.  It is so incredibly relaxing.

The pool we use has a couple of different jetted areas – the standard “hot tub” but also a jetted area of the swimming pool where extra hard jets of water come out.  Sometimes I arrange myself where the water just beats hard against my shoulders – massaging all the tension and stress away – other times I float in the bubbles a distance away from the jets – feet hooked into the side rails of the pool – like floating in a glass of champagne. It becomes almost a sensory deprivation kind of relaxation – except there is the sensory stimulation of the bubbles and the lovely sound of rushing water.

This morning, we are planning our first trip back to the pool.  Funds have been so short for so long and we were unable to afford the fees until now – now we’re just making it happen – choosing fitness over something else – it really isn’t much money for both of us – and we received a little Christmas money from our family, so it is the perfect use.  Pool time.

Today.  January 4, 2011. I choose to be fit. The beginning is the return to the pool.  After that – better food choices. No silly diets, no has-been stars trying to convince me that their diet plan that got them back into a bikini is the right one – I don’t need or want to wear a bikini again.  I am not planning on a flat stomach – and certainly not a concave stomach.  I don’t really even care if I never change dress sizes again . . . I just want to be fit.

I allow my image of me as a fat, overeating, sneak eater – that my former doctor so casually created for me during my formative years – I allow her the formal death that she deserves.  She really doesn’t exist – then or now.  She was created in that tension-filled, sterile exam room that smelled of antiseptic.

1/8/2011

This was hard to write and I have removed the parts that I “can’t stand” – sorry.  If you read the parts I edited out, thanks.

© 2011

Today, occasionally, I think of the fashion models and wonder if they ever lay in bed at night feeling their hip bones, ribs and concave stomachs and I wonder… do they feel the way I felt that night?  Horrified?

I was horrified. I didn’t have a “flat stomach” that all the various diet drinks, gyms, and magazines “encouraged” me to have.  I had a concave stomach.  CONCAVE.

Best I can tell, no one tells you that you should have a concave stomach, pointy hip-bones and countable ribs.  Back then, the doctor wanted to get my weight in line with the then current insurance chart.

See, I was a fat pre-teen.  I gained weight just prior to puberty (which was at 10 years old)  - prior to that I had been a skinny kid – so much so that my doting Mom worried I was too thin.  She was “too thin” all her life and knew how hurtful that was to a young girl – of the 1930s and 1940s anyway.

You tell me - are these two "too thin"? Maybe in 1956... and that's the problem!

But then her too-thin child became fat – quickly.

She took me to my pediatrician.  This was the first visit to him since I’d hit puberty and he told her that he would no longer treat me.  I needed an “adult” doctor.  So she took me to the doctor she believed in – the doctor who had saved her life from breast cancer.  She took me to her doctor and told him she believed there to be something wrong with me – that I gained the weight so quickly and she was worried there was something wrong – that my metabolism was slow, was it glands? hormones?

Now, doctors in the 1960s – even more than doctors now, if you can believe it – believed they were smarter, faster, better than the average person and I suppose that in many ways the docs then were “smarter” than the average person – we now have the internet to look up our symptoms and read about our ailments – doctors hate that, but do seem to tolerate it somewhat better because they somehow acknowledge that all this information can help them diagnose a person.  Back in the 1960s though, medical information was a closely held secret, making doctors like wizards doing magic.  Trying to “help” the doctor diagnose someone – yourself – your kid – was not acceptable.

So the doctor told my mother “Yes, there’s something wrong: she’s fat because she eats too much.”  My mother had the audacity to argue with him.  She was a feisty one.  She’d argue with anyone.  She shot back at him, “No she doesn’t.  She doesn’t eat any differently than I do or than my husband or my son … none of the three of us are fat … she eats the same food we do but she has a different metabolism … she gains weight, we don’t.  Why is that?”  She thought she had him there – and she probably did, but he retorts, “She sneak eats.”  Mom: “She does not.” Doc: “You overfeed her – you give her cake and candy and Kool-aid.” Mom: “I do not.  We have healthy fruit and vegetable choices for snacks, I don’t bake or buy trash food. And as for Kool-aid, it is not in my house. We have fruit juice or milk.”

Please bear in mind that this little “adult” drama is being played out in front of my 12-year-old eyes and it was not an argument my mother was going to win.

To review:  I had just been called a fat, overeating, sneak eater by the supreme authority figure of most people’s lives – a doctor.

His solution to my overeating/sneak eating was to put me on a 500 calorie diet (yes, five hundred) and give me an Rx for little black-and-white amphetamines and threw in a 5 mg Valium Rx as well.  Gawd.  All this happened between the 6th and 7th grade.  The beginning of the summer of 1965, I was on the following diet:

• 1/2 grapefruit or 1 orange for breakfast
• 1 bowl of soup for lunch (this amounted to about 1/2 can of soup)
• 4 oz of meat, 2-2oz servings of vegetables and 1 cup of lettuce (no dressing) for dinner
• Snack:  unsweetened iced tea

I was not allowed to eat bananas, milk or any type of bread products.  I had to limit my fluid intake. I also could not have any added salt to my food. I was actually lucky if the above amount of food actually totalled up to 500 calories.  I don’t know about you, but ANYONE would lose weight QUICKLY on the above diet.

At first, I lost so much weight that we thought the little yellow pill (Valium) he’d given me was a diuretic.  Then my Mom asked the pharmacist what it was and he told her it was a tranquilizer.  When she asked the doc about this, he said “It is so she can sleep.”  That summer I went to Girl Scout Day Camp (in South Texas 100 degree heat) and summer school and my parents moved to a new house and at 12, I had my own set of duties during that move as well as household chores. Thanks, I could sleep just fine – with so little food, I was exhausted.

One of my aunts was so impressed with the weight loss, she went to the same doctor and he put her on the same diet, only her amphetamines were triple the strength of mine – after all – she was an adult.  Sheesh.

That summer, my aunt and I lost weight together – I lost about 40 pounds – she lost 75 pounds.  We both looked like walking skeletons.  But remember, this was 1965 – the heyday of Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy.

Twiggy (from the Wikipedia entry) doesn't look great here - she looks tired and hungry - just like me and my aunt Marlene. But we all could wear tiny clothes!

For the next 6 years, I was able to maintain the weight loss – I could actually eat some more food but I took my amphetamines every morning so that, instead of food energy I had drug energy.  By the time I was 18 I had also become the sneak eater that my doctor had originally accused me of.  But I was SKINNY!

On my way to my Senior Prom with my date, Dennis, in my Vogue Pattern, Givenchy-designed gown handmade by my mother in about a week because Dennis was a procrastinator. Check out those collar bones!

The gown was tiny – I still have it – sizes then were different than they are now – this would probably be somewhere around a size 2 or maybe 4 now.  I haven’t gotten it out to measure it.  At the time it was an 11.  In the above picture of my Mom in 1956, she wore a size 12 — but those were in the days when Marilyn Monroe wore a size 16.

So back to that night in 1971, when I was laying in bed, feeling my bones, my concave stomach, I thought, “Enough.  I am not going through this any more – I am not starving or taking pills.  I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”  And that was that.  By the end of that year, I’d gained about 20 pounds – went from 115 in the May prom picture to about 135 in December – I am 5’6″ tall, so 135 wasn’t bad – Somewhere in there “they” changed the clothing sizing and we went to the “new sizing” and my size 11 became a size 9 so when I gained that 20 pounds I was actually still wearing a size 11.  Go figure.  Thanks New Sizing!  But that is a whole other blog entry!

There’s much more to this story, and I will tell it in part 2, but now, since we’re over 1300 words… I’ll just say – watch for Part 2.

© 2011

One of the articles presented this very interesting portrait of Sarah Palin looking (to some I guess) “presidential”.  Frankly, I think she looks worried.  It’s a great suit by the way – but the flag pin is a bit big – not so much for the actual collar of the suit, but just IMHO because I think the size of the flag pin signifies the size of one’s (Republican) intention to take over the US – but that is just me – so put me and not all 8 of my readers on a watch list somewhere.

There is another article that says that one Republican strategist doesn’t think she’s electable.  Eh – maybe – personally, I hope not for all the reasons I wasn’t wild about her in the first place – she isn’t qualified – ‘course when did that ever stop anyone from running for anything – I would add to that the simple fact that for some reason, she just couldn’t fulfill her obligation of being Governor of Alaska.  What does that say to you that you spend lots of money (presumably not only yours but OPM as well) and then, once you have achieved what for many has been the pinnacle of their political careers, you bail? Call me crazy but what if she does become POTUS and decides she doesn’t like it and that the offer of a reality TV show – let’s call it Ex-POTUS – seduces her away from the job.  Hey, maybe it would turn out to be a favor, especially if she had a compromise-but-great VP choice – say Mike Huckabee or Bobby Jindal, but does anyone really want to go down that road – as Nixon showed us, “abdications” are so messy?  So, here I am an avowed Liberal Libertarian agreeing with the likes of Sig Rogich and Karl Rove – as for Christie Todd Whitman – she’s right – Palin might energize the base but the base doesn’t get anyone on either side elected. 

“Bases” are just about 30% of the voters on either side of the middle line – the other 40% are the ones that swing the election right or left. 

I am going out on a limb here, albeit not a very dangerous one, and saying that there’s no way to call the 2012 election from here at the end of 2010.  Why? Well, because the 2010 election is just over and the newly-elected haven’t even had their chance to fail – and they will.  We are in a wholly new place with TPTB.  We the people are giving them (TPTB) about 10 minutes to do it right (figuratively of course) and then we are moving on.  Our tolerance for inaction, inability and failure to follow through is becoming very short lived and, should the newly-elected not do what they came to do in, say approximately 270 days from taking office, We the People will be back on a “fire the bastards” band wagon.

Gone are the days of the 1990s when We the People allowed the opposition an entire presidential cycle to screw up. 

© 2010

That was what I was reminded of when I read Naomi Wolf’s most recent piece in the Huffington Post.  She scared me two years ago – that was my brain – now she’s scared me again – that is my brain on the drug of complacency.

We have to snap out of it NOW.  Otherwise, we will find ourselves living scared constantly.

Several things in the past few weeks have sent up red flags if you are paying attention.  None of this stuff “started” here – but it all will finish We the People if We don’t wake up.

Several weeks back we had the scan and grope by the TSA begin in earnest.  This did offend people.  BUT the mainstream media went out and found plenty of people to stand up in front of a camera for their 10 seconds of fame and say “Oh if it keeps planes from blowing up, I’m for it.”  Does anyone not think this is the modern day equivalent of Hitler keeping the trains running on time?

Earlier this week there was the announcement that Walmart would be running PSAs on behalf of the Homeland Security asking you to report “anything” suspicious.  Other little hotspots in the news on the ‘net have included a woman whose child was asked questions about her blogging activities by Child Protective Services.

I am feeling the Fascist state approaching here – unless of course you want to consider that it is already here.  Websites shut down, watch lists formed –

Just so you don’t have to go back and re-read it, I am going to list Wolf’s ten steps to a Fascist State here.  If you failed to react to them then, perhaps you will now.

The ten steps:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.

terrorism? Wikileaks? North Korea? Iran? Take your pick.

2. Create a gulag

run a Google search on domestic detention camps – much of the stuff was written in the past 4 years but as recently as July 2010 there was an article in a blog on internment camps hiring – see it here.

3. Develop a thug caste (Blackwater USA)

Remember Blackwater?  Well it changed its name to Xe.  Rebranding always works right?  Who would think “Blackwater” with a name like Xe.  Let’s just call it Xe – The thug caste formerly known as Blackwater.

4. Set up an internal surveillance system

Big Brother is everywhere – never forget it.

5. Harass citizens’ groups

Even the Tea Partiers have been listed by TPTB, taking down license plates and photographing people at the rallies.

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release

Let’s see – how about the radio personality who was detained for hours in a Florida airport because she refused body scanning and pat down?  Just for a start.

7. Target key individuals

When you begin to see “big names” targeted for their activisim, begin to worry – Who?  Oh don’t you remember when Ted Kennedy was placed on the No-Fly list – guess he finally got off the list since his passing.

8. Control the press

Remember you’re reading blogs for news now – don’t depend on MSM for anything but happy talk.

9. Dissent equals treason

One word:  Wikileaks

10. Suspend the rule of law

President Bush suspended Habeas Corpus in 2006 – President Obama may – or may not have reinstated it with his actions regarding the Guantanamo detainees.  Regardless of the status of Habeas Corpus in 2010, the fact that the President of the USofA has a pen that can sign off on any Executive Order he can dream up is enough to keep you awake at night.  Whether it will be this President or the next one remains to be seen.

What is needed RIGHT NOW is for the people of these United States to realize that freedom is theirs if they can keep it and to keep it we must work for it.

Your reading list:

Declaration of Independence

Constitution of the United States

Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for Revolutionaries, Naomi Wolf

The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Naomi Wolf

© 2010

I was that.  My family had always been Democrats.  My parents were invited to the Inauguration of Lyndon Johnson because of their hard work campaigning, donating and generally being “good Democrats”.  I was, at one time a Democratic Precinct Chair in Houston – fifteen years, until I moved from Houston to Kansas.  I was proud of my service then and I am still proud of that service.  I worked well with my Republican counterpart – we made sure that, according to the rules, each party was represented equally when the polls opened their doors every single time there was an election – big or small – National or Local – we were there – donuts and coffee in one hand – poll lists in the other  - figuratively, of course.

If you have ever read any of my previous posts, particularly those before the Presidential election, you may well and rightly assume that I was a Democrat during that election.  I am also proud of that – I believed in what we accomplished – the election of the right person for President.

And today?  Well.  I am sad.  I believe that someone somewhere along the way from then – 2008 – to now – 2010 – someone hijacked the President I believed I elected.  I know there are those who would say that he wasn’t hijacked – this was who he was all along.  Maybe. Maybe you are right.  In one sense, that really doesn’t matter – what matters is that right here, right now, he is doing some things that most of us – We the People – don’t want him and the rest of the government to do – and more importantly, some of those really important promises made when talking about Change We Can Believe In, didn’t happen.

Oh change happened all right.  Change that has caused a huge problem in the financial world, the economic world, and at my front door.  But it is NOT the Change I thought I was signing up for way back in 2008.

I wanted something different – a better version of the USofA – an upheld Constitution – honoring our Declaration of Independence – honesty in government – jobs.  Not billions in cash printed and handed out to corporations and institutions deemed “too big to fail”.

I have big news for all the Minions out there — we’re all “too big to fail” even the minimum wage earners – why? because if We the People don’t have jobs, and thereby earn money, we don’t spend money and then, after a while, no one has a job – we’ve all failed.

The shock of all this is that I used to believe that our President and our Congress and our Supreme Court could and, more importantly, would do something right and for US – We The People -  and now I don’t.  I am not sure we can recover from this.  The shock is too great.

Many still say that 9/11 was a wake-up call for America.  That we came out of our long sleep and realized that “they” were out to get “US”.  Perhaps for The Powers that Be, it was – I mean – TPTB took us to war over it.  But for the rest of We the People – well – we went back to sleep – hopeful that TPTB would take care of things as they always have – and they did.  Only now that we are awakening once more, we are seeing that TPTB’s new clothes are, well, not there. We are beginning to understand that the way “they” take care of things are not the way we WANT them to take care of things.  Unfortunately, along the way, they took away some of those inalienable rights that our Declaration of Independence talks about -abrogated rights afforded by our Constitution.  Many of the liberties we assumed were ours are going, going or gone.  We could make a list of the ones most important to us – like the right not to be touched in public by a uniformed person wearing latex gloves – or better – the right not to have our minor children touched in public by unformed persons wearing latex gloves.  Everyone in that little scenario is a victim.  Us, the kids, and even the uniformed person (remember, our ire at their action creates a hostile work environment for them – and if you think they’ll make a difference by refusing to grope us, well there are others to step into their jobs after they are fired for not doing their job – personally I’d rather have the person who doesn’t want to be searching me or my kid doing the searching over the one who does want to do it.)

So now what?

I have more to say – you knew I would – but for now, I will refer you back to a couple of articles I wrote when that Other President was in charge and things seemed so scary:

Naomi Wolf Scared Me

and

Habeas Corpus

Years ago, in a political science class I took, at night, at University of Houston, the professor required a particular book of us called The People Shall Judge it was a good book – the fact that I still remember a textbook used so long ago just speaks to that – but more importantly, every time she would finish a discussion of some right of the government to govern us – We The People – she would say, “Who shall judge?” then pause for dramatic affect and finish with, “The people shall judge.”

Let us remember that We The People have freedom only when we work to keep it.

© 2010