Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
The Congress, led by the Republicans, where members get free healthcare and a tax payer funded pension, are insisting that Social Security and Medicare must be cut to get a budget deal to prevent a fall off the fake fiscal cliff. Isn’t it great that people who don’t need a social safety net want to cut and gut it for those who do? Isn’t that what America is all about?
One aspect of the current fake fiscal cliff argument and one that has existed since the 2012 elections (and I would say long before that) is the need of the GOP to want to cut “entitlement” programs. How they frame that argument points to how dishonest Republicans can be in budget battles. It is all about the window dressing and nothing about the contents.
During the current debate about the fake fiscal cliff, one of the issues we have been hearing about “entitlement reform” which include any government program for the poor, seniors, and the disabled.
I remember watching the CBS show “All in the Family” when I was a kid. It ran from 1971 to 1979. One of the main characters, Archie Bunker, was a white middle class bigot and the show highlighted his bigotry for comedy. Bunker usually was shown to be wrong and he would seem to change his ways at least until the next episode. I was reminded of him when thinking about the current members of the Republican party and one of my conservative friends who likes to call me names even though he is wrong all the time. They don’t see the farce they’ve become by irrationally holding on to ideas that are no longer valid.
Here is how Archie Bunker is described in the Wikipedia entry for the show “All in the Family“:
There was an organized protest of Walmart employees timed for the largest shopping day known as Black Friday. Some cheap labor Republicans complained about the protests saying it was an attack on job creators by Unions. One of my conservative friends said that people should be thankful to have a job. When I hear that excuse for poor treatment of workers it makes me mad. Walmart is one of the worse offenders and if we didn’t have laws against sweat shops they would probably do that too.
The battle between Arabs and Jews flared up again this week with rockets being fired into Israel and Israel countering with air strikes and threats of invasion. I’m not a believer or a fan in either of the religions at the heart of the conflict but I can understand the arguments. I don’t agree with the US government official stance that Israel has the right to defend itself only because I reject the entire Israeli political and military policy to date. I agree with the need of the Palestinian people not to be treated as 2nd class citizens in the land their family has called home for centuries but I don’t approve of use of rocket attacks or terrorism. There will be a two state solution but the question is how many people have to die until that happens.
The land that is Israel is claimed by Jews and Arabs as a homeland. History gives both strong evidence in their claims.