by Margarita Mercure Hibbs
'When Jimmy Kimmel said, "This just wasn't Rick's year. 1954
is Rick Santorum's year." He is not kidding. The GOP wants to take women
back to the 1950's and strip us of all our civic,
healthcare/reproductive and labor rights!
Every
woman's and Democratic organization better start hosting Voting Guide
Open Houses with good hard copy articles, resourced charts and good
training and candidate DVDs to go along with good food and drink to get
them to understand the importance of voting. Too many of all voting age
women are not even registered to vote!
Time to break out
the template of presentations that Mary Kay Cosmetics uses. If they can
sell makeup in an informal, cozy fashion in small groups of women 6-12,
around a kitchen table or living room, then surely we can get them to
see the importance of voting. It is good to see Organizing for America
doing something like this. Otherwise, women are going to find themselves
without hard fought rights, freedoms and opportunity.'
I
posted my opinion above and apparently a few men found it offensive. For
this offense, I received two private messages telling me some very
unpleasant things and another, quoted P.J. O'Rourke, of all people in
the Conservative Realm, as an attempt to equate what a huge majority of
women view as civil rights and freedoms, to "rations of slavery and
human cattle"?! How charming?
After more than 1000 bills
and proposed legislation in states and in the GOP Controlled House, if
people really believe that Women do not have a legitimate reason to feel
under attack, then this whole discussion is too ridiculous to even
pursuit. Romney has stated along with his Extreme Right members of his
party, that they have more than business, profits and a deficit on their
agenda. Remember, he and his fellow Presidential hopefuls signed
Pledges to "Personhood" and Grover Norquist.
Thanks to the
many miles of video tape, we have a really good picture about what
Romney intends to do from the perspective of his great expertise as a
"Gordon Gecko" Corporate Raider with regards to the economy. Let us not
forget, all the Chicken Hawk FOX Pundits ranting to push us into war
with Iran, as if we don't know that this is nothing more than a craven
pursuit for military industrial profits, at the expense of our sons' and
daughters' lives. While they hold down investment in rebuilding our
own country and press for more and more tax breaks, they ask us to
forget that tax revenue is our government's income.
Most
of us women have to balance our household budgets every day and know
that when we don't have enough income, we can't pay our bills. When we
don't take care of our credit rating, we have to pay more for our
credit. The GOP showed us that they are irresponsible in their spending
when they are in control of the purse strings, especially if they own
the White House, Congress and Senate and last year's Deficit Battle and
the resulting S&P rating was proof of their ignorance or arrogance
in managing our country's credit rating.
As women,
many of us know quite well what that means and has meant to us from
businessmen like Romney. You see, we don't hate wealth or wealthy
people. We hate greed that is bathed in craven indifference to the
struggling, elderly, disabled and poor. We are working our asses off in a
stark economy, that has been created and made worse by too many
Corporate CEOs who focused on Profits to Shareholders and principals,
over working people for the last 30 years. Because of
corporate types like Romney and Carly Fiorina, we have seen our
manufacturing jobs shipped overseas for cheaper labor while demonizing
organized Labor and walking away with Golden Parachutes; Wall Street
Lobbyists bought our Congress and Senate to legislate in their favor, on
taxes, trade and special access.
Do not insult our
intelligence or frayed nerves by telling us that President Obama is a
socialist, fascist or Nazi. This is a Republic rooted in Democratic
representation. This is not a Dictatorship. So as much as I want
President Obama to be more liberal and progressive, he is not. Sadly we
are all too aware of how broken our government is now that some of the
mega wealthy and Extreme Right are just plain greedy and don't want to
pay their fair share of taxes.
The Extreme Right
along with Wall Street, have also worked systematically to rig the
lobbying, voting laws and the Courts while exploiting the many in our
ranks through their faith communities. They claim that the poor should
know the dignity of work, as if the poor don't want to work. They say
that they represent Christ's greatest mandates; Feed the Poor, Clothe
the Naked, Love One Another and then through hypocritical
representatives such as Catholic Cardinal's threaten not to do these
things because they oppose Birth Control coverage to their female
employees.
It is an indisputable fact that the
GOP has taken our country and economy to the very brink of more
financial disaster, simply because they hate President Obama more than
they love their country and their people. He has been obstructed since
the first day after the Inauguration. There are miles and miles of
documentation to prove this intent; "Our goal is to make sure that
President Obama is a One Term President. We will not compromise or
collaborate on anything! We want President Obama to fail!"
While
raising children or not raising children, often working 2 or more jobs,
we women have no intention of going back to Pre-Roe vs. Wade, simply
because we are desperate to keep our jobs or businesses. But it is very
clear that they also now think that we should not have access to birth
control on the same par as men have to Viagra and Cialis, as part of a
healthcare prescription plan. Nor will we let slip the attacks on
Planned Parenthood. pay parity and redefinitions of Rape be changed to
accommodate male chauvinism and control over our vaginas. Birth Control
is still the most effective way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and
abortions.
As you may have noticed, the "Marvelous Ryan
Plan" includes a great many callous cuts to programs that help disabled,
elderly, working families, poor women and children. For Romney and his
GOP, sanctity for human life only applies to the babies in uteri. For
the record, even though I happily acknowledge the many good fathers who
raise their own children, you know very well, that it is the women who
still do the majority of child rearing. If Romney and Ryan get their
way, this will be all the harder.
If you are a
woman or you love women and are not registered to vote, please
register. If you care about the War on Women and equal rights, please
sign the petitions to support the Equal Rights Amendment
http://equalrightsamendment.org/ and get involved in the National
Organization for Women at http://www.now.org/ and We Are Woman at
http://www.wearewoman.us/. Contact your Congressman or woman and tell
them how you feel about their actions and remind them that they work for
us, not Corporate America.
