EDITORIAL....my views regarding this election.

Hi Steve,

I don't know if you hang out with intelligent women who talk politics very much, but I like to think I am one of those women.  Having lived in DC for a decade, you really become a captive audience to politics, whether you like it or not, and you learn an extraordinary amount of the tricks they use and the BS they sling about...you learn to see through the smoke and mirrors too.

I saw a story on Facebook today, (link):   http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/koch-industries-sends-pro-romney-packet-employees-195709471--election.html;_ylt=A2KLOzLNLnxQmBAAtr3QtDMD  that motivated me to write the following rant:
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THE MONSTERS MEN CREATE FOR THEMSELVES

I look around at the current political hotbed of issues, and I think to myself, "if the Republicans truly believed in Romney as being the best Presidential candidate on the ticket, NONE of these stupid shenanigans that they are doing would be happening." The Koch Brothers are now telling their employees that if Obama wins, they may have to fire them from their jobs. They included a pro-Romney packet for every employee, coercing them to vote for him over Obama, with the threat of losing their jobs if they don't. I find this to be reprehensible, and deplorable, and it should be illegal.

But when you think about it a little deeper than the surface, if Romney loses, (which by all circumstances seem to point to what they all seem to be anticipating), the Koch Brothers will simply have to stand by their unfair bullying tactics and fork over millions of dollars to pay unemployment benefits to those employees that they fire, and deal with all the unfair termination lawsuits too. 

They really are just creating their own monsters, aren't they. 

Why do men do that? Think about all the man-made monsters that have been created out of greed, lust, power, and war over  the centuries, and tell me how, exactly, these things have made our world "better?"  Slapping a band-aid on a gaping wound will only result in hemorrhaging to the point of death.  There is no arguing that fact, whether you're talking about it in a medical perspective or a political one.  The same rule applies in nearly every situation that desperately needs long-term planning and care.

This country needs more than just a band-aid.  We all DESERVE more than that.

Long-term thinking, however, is a very rare talent, and one that the Republicans don't seem to know how to do. They simply live for the "now," the present day, to make as much money for themselves and their families and friends, rather than to plan ahead for their great-grandchildren's great grandchildren in the future. Regardless of which way you lean politically, I am a firm believer in the fact that short-term thinking is the thing that is killing our country slowly, and ripping people apart into a bipartisan boiling cauldron.

We are currently living in a similar political cesspool that occurred in pre-war Nazi Germany, in many ways. Read "Ominous Parallels," by Leonard Piekoff if you don't understand what I am talking about.  You'll see it for yourselves.  I see it because I have studied that history most of my life, and I see how history repeats itself.  Frankly, the similarities are extremely frightening.  We are RIPE for the wrong man to take power over us, for all the wrong reasons.  It happened then, it can happen now.

Apparently after spending an aggressive 18 months of deliberately alienating women, elderly, students, the poor and minorities, it suddenly dawns on these Republican supporters that "hey, whoops, we didn't realize that those 47% of people Mitt doesn't care about, will eventually all go out and VOTE!" 

But, they don't seem to understand that, if you're told repeatedly for 18 months that you will no longer have the right to choose your own reproductive rights as a woman, and that your health benefits will be taken away after a lifetime of working to earn them and in your elderly years, when you finally NEED them---the mere threat that you will just simply be denied health care is more scary than whatever disease you may be facing at that point---and when you tell students that they will have to continue paying through the nose for education, where exactly is the incentive for them to WANT one? And when you tell minorities that "voter fraud is illegal and could result in your arrest if you try to vote without registering," all you sound like, from all these intimidating threats, frankly----is the Gestapo.

And we all know how THAT little dalliance ended, don't we.

But rather than change their course and try to fix the problems they created for the past 12 years for themselves, Republicans just continue on a destructive path that makes things worse for them.  They decide to make a film full of propaganda and lies about Obama, simply to scare people. They put up billboards in Florida, to intimidate people with a fraudulent claim of "voter fraud," (which is something that doesn't even exist, but hey, why not, let's just make up a problem and then scare people with it)--and then, they stoop to this level of racist bullying of hard working people by trying to threaten their livelihoods based upon how they vote. 

The employees of Koch Brothers who were previously undecided, should now have a clear and more fair choice on election day. 

The thing that Republicans hate, is that Obama kills them with kindness.  He rises above these racist bullying tactics, and these powerful millionaires who all think they can buy democracy by coercing others and threatening more who depend on their paycheck to live. They cannot understand how he still manages to succeed at getting things done, when they have put up every roadblock they can possibly think of to prevent him from succeeding at anything! 

When will men realize that creating monsters out of thin air only results in sealing your own karmic doom?  It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that most Democrats AND WOMEN can see.  Why then can't Republicans see it too?  Women have intuition as well, which lots of people might scoff at, simply because they don't understand it.  But whether you believe it exists or not, intuition is a power to be reckoned with.  So when you think with your brain AND go with your gut insticts, AND feel things with your heart, 9 out of 10 times, you make the right choices in life.

That is a universal truth.  Ghandi knew it.  The Dali Lama knew it.  Mother Theresa knew it.  Martin Luther King, Junior also knew it. That truth will always prevail.

Playground bullying tactics in this current political arena are actually a form of veiled racism. Putting up billboards in Florida that show handcuffs and announce that anyone who commits voter fraud will be arrested at the voting venues---how does this actually spin a positive message to anyone?  It doesn't.  

The billboards were created to scare away African Americans who may have had bad experiences dealing with police, (a stereotype, by the way), and the Republicans who create this farce hope that "those people" will decide not to vote at all.  The billboards were also created to scare miniorities such as Latinos, Asians, Muslims and Mexicans and anyone with friends and family who may be considered "illegal aliens," (another stereotype), and the Republicans hope that "those people" will fear they may be guilty by association, so they are trying to get them to decide to avoid voting altogether.

What those billboards are saying to ME, and to anyone with half a brain, is that FEAR seems to be the biggest--and maybe the ONLY---tactic the Republicans use during elections.  Keeping people in fear allows them to keep power over them, you see.  However, after centuries of this tactic failing miserably in most cases, time and time again throughout history, you'd THINK they would realize that it simply doesn't work anymore on anybody who knows about this regurgitated, stale and lame strategy.  

In fact, if anything, the fear tactics actually push people to rebel even more.

What they THINK is going to work in their favor, actually succeeds in the opposite.  It is simply common sense mixed with a little bit of Karma.  Isn't that what most good things in life are all made up of? These two forces, common sense and Karma, are among the common denominators in most positive and happy things in this world.

Go ahead and test it for yourself....go tell a teenager that they cannot date the boy or girl they are currently dating....make up whatever lie you like about him or her, and repeat that lie over and over. Then, threaten that teenager with being grounded, disowned, cut off from financial assistance, whatever-----and watch how fast they ELOPE.  Rod Stewart wrote about it in a song, as a matter of fact.  "Young hearts, beat free, tonight....time...is on...their side...don't let 'em put you down, don't let 'em push you 'round....don't ever let 'em change your point of view."

A song nearly 30 years old, still played daily on the radio stations in our country.

So go ahead, Koch Brothers, and be the bully on the playground.  Go ahead Mitt Romney, and be the jerk-faced, rich frat boy in that old 1980's teen movie who lies and cheats to get his way, only to find that he loses and falls on his face at the end. Hasn't anyone in the Republican Party learned ANYTHING from history?  Haven't they seen it happen time and time again, (ie. HITLER and every other evil leader in our world), how scare tactics, bullying, intimidation and threats really do not result in positive happy things?  Don't they know that it only creates more monsters for themselves?

Seems simple and obvious to me. I mean, just look at the leader of Iran, and tell me how popular HE is among other countries.  Do you think HIS fear tactics and threats are going to go on being ignored or unpunished?  If so, perhaps you're not paying enough attention to what he's doing and what those countries are responding to it.

Obama may not be the perfect human.  But neither is Mitt Romney.  The 12-year Republican MESS that we all endured in this country is one that NO MAN can fully fix and clean up in only four years of trying.  The two-party system in our country does not work anymore, folks, I think that is obvious.  However, if you're like me, you know that your civil duty as an American---especially if you're female----is to VOTE, if for no other reason than to honor the suffragists who fought and DIED for me to have this right----and unfortunately, sometimes that simply means until we have more than 2 parties, you have to choose between the lesser of 2 evils.

My choice is to re-elect President Obama.  

He rises above the racism, the prejudice, the stereotypes, and he rises above bullying, and scare-tactics, and lies.  He is steady, stoic, professional, and organized more than any other President since FDR.  But he has been treated by Republicans as the janitor in the local elementary school, telling him to "go do his job," but thwarting every attempt at his doing ANYTHING by refusing to work together to solve problems, and then later on, they blame HIM for not "doing his job."  It's another monster that they have created, the BS that goes on in Washington DC on a daily basis, and it is futile and unnecessary, and it only hinders progress.

I lived there.  I saw tiny ripples of the same games being played all around me, at every job I had in DC.  In fact, I have been in his same position, with the tables turned. I was hired at a job where everyone in the department was of a different ethnicity, except me. Upon being hired, they were all nice to me, but when the job actually started, and I began doing what I was told to do and actually getting things DONE, they decided I was doing things in ways they didn't like, and it made them look bad because I was so organized and efficient.  So, after a few months of this, they decided to fire me.  

You see, I wasn't just sitting on my ass, milking the system, taking my sweet time to earn a paycheck and keep the "job security" of being SLOW to finish things, like they all did. In DC, the only real "power" anyone in the federal job system has, is to perform their jobs slowly or pass the buck, in order to ensure that they have that job tomorrow.  Now, do not misunderstand, I speak of this experience NOT as a stereotype, because this kind of political back-stabbing happens in EVERY job in DC, no matter what race the people are, or what experience they have.  It happens at every level, in every department, all the time, every day, like clockwork. It is truly ridiculous.

Needless to say, I did not fit in well in Washington DC.  I worked too hard.  I had too much passion.  I went above and beyond what was expected of me.  I overcame the games that were being played all around me, and accomplished things.

And that is exactly the same thing that Obama has done.

I mention my experience only to illustrate why I sympathize with Obama.  He's a black man in a white man's political world, and he's been treated like a "lowly janitor" whose job it was to clean up the mess of the previous Presidents, only to be prevented by those white men from doing that job at every turn, through the tactics of veiled racism, unfair lies, and fear.  

He's still managed to rise above it, however, nose to the grindstone, determined, motivated by being told what he "can't do," rebelling against the dysfunctional attitudes of those all around him, and what do you know, he has STILL managed to get things done!  However, he has also effectively made those others who don't think like he does, all look bad because of it. And those rich white men, mostly Republicans, don't like that one bit.

So now they resort to closing voting venues early, so people who have two jobs won't be able to make the time to get there to vote.  They create a "voter fraud" lie, just like the Nazis created "The Poison Mushroom" book for kids, telling them how evil Jews were. They created this farce simply to get people to stop paying attention to the real issues, and instead spin on the "what-if's," and the smoke and mirrors they want you to focus on, like the film in theaters about President Obama, which is based on lies and misconstrued facts and propaganda, simply to paint him in a negative light.

Has Obama resorted to making a film about Romney in response?  No, he hasn't.  Has he resorted to fear tactics?  No, not really, he's focused more on the facts and the polls and the information from his advisors.  Has he bullied anyone during this election process?  No, he has not done anything to bully anyone.  He has, instead, focused on the positive things that all American people deserve, and can achieve, if we all work together to make it happen. He has tried to UNITE people, rather than play the "Us vs. Them" game of bipartisan angst.  He has effectively done many of the things he promised to do, despite the problems he has been facing daily, on top of the mess of the past 12 years.  I don't know HOW he does it, but I am glad he is doing it.

THAT is a man I want as my President.  He's not perfect, I don't always agree with everything he's done and said, but overall, compared to the alternative candidate, I'd say Obama has taken the high road in a cesspool of garbage that is politics, and that is something I admire a great deal, and will continue to support with my vote.

Time is running out, people.  Think for yourselves.  Research each candidate.  Find out where they stand on the issues that are most important to you.  Ask yourself if you agree with the Koch Brothers and what they are doing, and if you think Romney should speak out against them about it or not.  Silence, in the face of adversity, is still a choice.

But ultimately, please read history, and learn how the universal truth still and always will ring true:  If we don't learn from history, we are only doomed to repeat it.

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Gotta go.  My fingers fell off about an hour ago.  Gotta clean up the floor.

Love, Rebecca