Your Money's No Good Here, Pal...
Just take this very simple test...
This isn’t an official 5 a.m. Story, it’s just something I want to say, in a forum that happens to be my own.
Given all that is going on in our country, and the warp speed with which it’s hurtling toward us, it is kind of hard to focus on a single low point. Who knew the bottom of the barrel would be so vast?
But every now and then I come up for breath and see something especially personal, something that really gripes my soul.
Last weekend, my wife and I went down to the Indiana Statehouse on a very wet Saturday and protested, as did millions of others in dozens of cities, in blue states, red states, purple states, and even overseas.
As I looked around at the sincere and earnest crowd of people, I already knew how the opposition was going to spin it.
They would say, without a shred of proof, that we were paid protesters.
And they did just that, before our umbrellas were even dry.
As if.
I’ve been protesting all my life. For civil rights in the 1960s, against a senseless war in the 1970s, for women’s rights in the 1980s. I marched for reasonable gun control, compassion for homeless people, a woman’s right to choose, animal welfare…
Here’s where I’m going with this. The default MAGA position is that the folks attending rainy day rallies and town hall shouting matches must be getting paid.
Please stop to consider the depravity that this assertion reflects.
Every day, there is some new travesty committed against our friends and our neighbors and our Constitution, often perpetrated by a failed truck maker not a single person voted for, and yet the Republicans really think we will only voice our resentment in exchange for some ready money?
There is a very simple way to test their delusional fantasy. They can come to one of our rallies and offer us money to switch sides. To chant, sing protest songs and march for them.
They can try holding out thirty pieces of silver to change our stand from justice to injustice.
From compassion to cruelty.
From freedom to oppression.
From light to dark.
If they try that, they will see what real grass roots commitment and conviction look like.
They needn’t expect to stay at our rally very long. They can just leave the Tesla running…
.
with the MAGA crowd, every accusation is a confession.
We tend to judge others by what we know best, ourselves. Which is why DECENT people have so much trouble understanding how this mess could happen.
A prime example: my friend was volunteering at a 5k to raise money for single moms in need. We've volunteered together for years at the local YMCA fundraiser 5k/10k. I told her if she needed help, I was available. She looked puzzled because she knows that I am pro-choice. I don't feel ANYONE can tell someone else what to do with their own body. But the other 'side' thinks what they believe MUST be forced on everyone. I guess in her confused mine, she sees pro-choice as pro-abortion?
I am horrified at what's being done in the US. I have environmental cancer, which will NOT be cured. It's controlled, but for the rest of my life, every 30 days, I go for bloodwork, get a refill on oral chemo, and an infusion to counteract side effects of the chemo. The town that I lived in has an unbelievably high cancer rate. The CDC investigation tracked the cause to a medical devices mfg plant. That company still refuses to admit they did anything wrong. The ONLY thing they changed was removing the memorial rock garden for all the employees who had died from cancer, and merging with another company so they could change the name.
Oh, and when I go for my monthly appt, I get to see the name of the company that caused my cancer all over the devices at the cancer center.
Getting rid of oversight isn't going to make things any better for people living in the US. Letting idiots who don't care anything about how or why destroy programs is...well, to put it very lightly, a BAD idea.
To say I am angry is an understatement. Thank you to everyone who shines a light on all this crap. Thank you to everyone who lets their voice be heard.
As a Canadian reader, Mr. B, I want to thank you and your wife for marching.