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Contact Me:
jacquelyn.k.thompson@hotmail.com
Welcome
Hello and Welcome:
Over the summer of 2010 I began to ask myself, "what do you do if two of our Rights, as citizens of these United States, are diametrically opposed?" I came to the only viable conclusion: you compromise. Our great Nation works when there is compromise.
Right now most of you will agree with me that our political system is broken. What we currently have is: the politics of destruction; special interest groups who have the power and money to dictate policy; politicians who must spend their time raising money for the next election instead of doing the People's business; and, there are those who are so concerned about getting re-elected they cede their responsibilities to the citizenry to those groups making the loudest noises and the greatest threats.
The attacks that we were inundated with during the this election cycle belittled the democratic process. Shame on everyone involved. And, shame on the political obstructionists who are more interested in gaining and maintaining power than doing the people’s business. During these very difficult times all of us should be supporting our President. The challenge for all of us is, how do we improve upon this imperfect union that we call the United States of America? One thing I know for certain...it is not by dividing us.
I can remember when I was sixteen years old there was a day when my father called out to me, "Jackie, come quickly. You have to hear this. It's Winston Churchill. Come listen." I raced to the radio and for the first time heard a recording of Churchill's speech to a Nation standing alone against the greatest evil the world has ever known: "...we shall defend our island no matter what the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; and we shall not surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until in God's good time, the New World, with all it's power and might, steps forth to the rescue and liberation of The Old."
That day my hero was born. Where are our heroes today? jkt
I'm curious. What is the psychological profile of the owner of assault
weapons? Violent? Military wannabe? Blood lust? Hate? Fear? Paranoia? Bully?
Inadequate? Menatally ill? Killer-in-training?
What do they think about while they are firing hundreds of
rounds of ammunition into a target? Do they become aroused? Do they imagine the
dead bodies as they're pulling the trigger?
I see it every time a news program shows them lined up firing
their killing machines, some with their children by their side. I see as they
salivate at the gun shops and shows for more and more. Meanwhile innocents
die.
Twenty six people were shot to death in a grade school yesterday, 20 of them children.
I wonder how large a massacre must occur before it pierces the hearts of the gun owners and they lay down their arms willingly. For the children.
The Huffington
Post reported today that a Pennsylvania judge has postponed the enforcement of
the state's new strict voter ID requirement until after the November
presidential election. In response, the Post says that Republican Pennsylvania Rep. Daryl
Metcalfe, who sponsored the voter ID bill, lashed out at a "judicial
activist decision" he called "skewed in favor of the lazy who refuse
to exercise the necessary work ethic to meet the commonsense requirements to
obtain an acceptable photo ID." The Judge, he wrote, has chosen "to
openly enable and fully embrace the ever-increasing entitlement mentality of
those individuals who have no problem living off the fruits of their neighbors'
labor."
When did the Republican Party become the Party of haters? From its Presidential
candidate, Mitt Romney, to U.S. House Members (and probably some Senators) to
Republican State Congress men and women the Party has become inciters of
hatred.
Since the time of
Nixon, the Party has become a very real and serious threat to our
Democracy. Watergate was a
constitutional crisis. The Republican majority on the Supreme Court decided the
2000 presidential election. George Bush
countenanced torture. Republican-controlled
Legislatures are now trying to disenfranchise the elderly, the disabled and
poor voters through Voter ID requirements and other nefarious means.
I think what troubles me the most is that so
many Americans who identify themselves with the Republican Party think that these
tactics, these threats to our Democracy, are acceptable as long as it brings
victory. The "end justifies the means" mentality pervades the minds
of so many Republicans, as evidenced by the number of people who are willing to
embrace Romney and his cohorts no matter their behavior. Very troubling for the future of our Nation.
Not only are Metcalfe’s words disgusting, the behavior of the Republican Party leadership
is reprehensible.
When I was young, we revered education. My father introduced
me to art, to music, to philosophy and even demanded that I take science
courses "because, Jackie, everyone needed to have an understanding of the
world in which we live". When Dad announced that I was going to take advanced
algebra and physics, I cried and I pleaded to no avail. I was rotten at it. But
in the end, It instilled in me a respect for scientific inquiry and the
advances that have been made because of it.
How did it happen that the Republican Party embraces
superstition over science? If the evidence is there to
support the scientific findings, then we should embrace them, not deny them. I
am so enthralled by everything we have learned and by everything to be learned.
Let us return to those heady days of the sixties when we truly believed that
nothing was impossible and our mission was to "boldly go where no man has
gone before". Somewhere along the way we took a wrong turn and we need to
get back on track.
Ohio Republicans are attempting to end early voting, which is favored by minority voters, over the last weekend before the 2012 election. 93,000 Ohio voters voted the weekend before the election in 2008. Our Republican Secretary of State says we don't need it this year because he is mailing out absentee ballots to everyone. Well. What about all of the voters who have moved in the past year? How many of those will not receive ballots?
In 2000 the Ohio Republicans thwarted many Democrats who went to vote by putting too few voting machines in the precincts that favored Gore (e.g. in the inner city and on campuses) and packed Republican-leaning precincts with machines. People waited in line for up to 8 hours. Many had to leave and never got to vote. I was a poll watcher for MoveOn in a heavily Republican Precinct that day. At some point I went inside. There I espied a room full of voting machines and not one voter, while elsewhere Democrats were waiting for hours to exercise their right to vote.
OLIGARCHY. "A government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes; also: a group exercising such control." -Merriam/Webster-
Make no mistake about it, the American Corporate and Wall Street Oligarchs are making a final grab for complete and total power, abetted by the Republican Party.
Well, it finally happened. Rep. Todd Aikens' remarks about "legitimate" rape of women, his suggestion that a woman raped cannot get pregnant, and his opposition to the availability of an abortion for those victims of rape left me speechless for two days. Let me tell Mr. Akin and the other conservatives who are marketing and promoting their gobbledy goop....6 blocks from my home a man shot and killed his wife and two children. He violated his wife horribly; the police could not tell whether it was done while she was alive or after he murdered her. He raped her and mutilated her. That is the reality of rape. And, to go off topic for a moment, the man had commited an act of violence against another woman and was convicted, but still was able to obtain the guns that slaughtered his wife and children. The man was able to obtain a concealed carry permit, even though he was not eligible. I can't get the vision of this poor woman and her beautiful babies out of my mind. So, when you read my comments going forward, know that all of this is up close and personal with me. It is not some abstract. Has Mr. Akin no pity? Throw the rapist in jail and protect a fertilized egg. But no mercy for the woman abused.
I cringe when I think of the possibility that the GOP and Right to Lifers may succeed in banning abortions amd restricting birth control. I grew up when women didn't have the rights they enjoy today. The Republicans are chipping away at women's freedoms and our privacy. I hope the young women of today don't wake up one morning and find themselves stripped of those rights.
When I was a young woman, someone very close to me got pregnant. The father was a military man temporarily stationed near by. He had no interest in becoming a father. This young woman was desparate. The social stigma attached to an unmarried pregnant woman, fear of her father and her inability to raise a child on her own drove her to seek an abortion. Desparate, she flew all alone to her destination and had an abortion. She made it back home, thank God. However, within a day she was hemorrhaging and was rushed to the hospital. She survived, but she was never able to bear children because of that botched abortion performed in a back room in the slums of Pittsburg, PA.
Women have always sought out methods to prevent pregnancy and there have always been abortions. The fact is that there will always be abortions. It's just a matter of whether they will be available to everyone, no matter their socio-economic class and whether they will be performed safely in a sterile medical environment.
Statistics show the links between family planning and a Nation's increased prosperity and security. Do we want a strong and prosperous country or do we want to sink back into the dark ages of servitude?
