Category: Politics

Everyone is getting het up at the idea of age appropriate sex education for younger children in order to protect children from ‘sexual predators’,. I hate to say this, but the lion’s share of children who are abused suffer at the hands of people whom they know and should be able to trust=90% of children under 12 who are raped know their attacker, according to Child Help.

3 million cases of child abused in all its forms are reported each year, out of  a total US population of approx 400 million people, and they say that they believe abuse is underreported and might actually be as much as 3x greater, or 9 million cases. About 9% of all cases relate to sexual abuse as of the 2006 statistics.

When I was living in the UK and Ireland, in conjunction with the police, doing outreach in schools and communities, I taught ‘stranger danger’ to a variety of younger children, which focused on inappropriate requests and touching.

It is only by a child developing a sense of self and personal likes and dislikes that they can stand up to an adult who might try to take advantage of them. Asking for ‘respect for one’s space, and listening to their instincts if they feel something is ‘wrong’ does not need to be sexually explicit.

It also included not just strangers, but other people in their lives that they  might have felt uncomfortable around.

The parents were taught along with the children to help reinforce the message.

In the UK, there are less than 35,000 abuse cases reported, out of a total population of approx 60 million. In terms of sexual abuse, versus neglect or physical abuse such as hitting, there are only about 2,000 sexual abuse cases reported.

So clearly there are some serious problems in the US that need to be addressed.

It is more important to protect the children, than the sensibilities of squeamish adults.  It is certainly not a subject that anyone should be trying to make political capital out of.

Russia is setting up military manuevers, in Venzuela, no less. Their military aircraft are on there way, though I have seen reports of 2 ‘super planes’ already there.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080908/ap_on_re_eu/russia_venezuela_naval_maneuvers

And they will do naval training too:
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/russia-sets-war-games-in-caribbean/85365/

Bolivia expelled our ambassador on the 11th

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/bolivia/2801579/Bolivia-expels-US-ambassador-Philip-Goldberg.html

chavez expelled our ambassador on the 12th
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Venezuela-President-Hugo-Chavez-Expels-US-Ambassador-Giving-Him-72-Hours-To-Get-Out/Article/200809215097944?f=rss

We returned the favor on the same day, accusing him of being heavily involved with the drug trade in Columbia.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-expel12-2008sep12,0,1330385.story

It is indeed a mess, and it is right on our own doorstep close to an area already plagued by disasters.

So why aren’t either of our presidential candidates talking about this? It happened prior to the Wall Street Crisis!

It appears that nothing has really changed in the USA in the over 400 years since it was first founded.

It is clear from the media treatment of Sarah Palin and her daughter, that many of you want the same treatment for people you disagree with.

It’s just that depending on what you label yourself as, democrat, republican, white, black, latino, feminist or chavinist, you want your ‘opposite’ to be attacked, reviled, and punished.

So, since this is an equal opportunity country, I have the PERFECT solution:

Let’s TAR and FEATHER ALL of them

Clearly this is the only thing that will make all of you bloggers and media people happy on the internet.

So let’s look at them all in turn to see what they are ‘guilty’ of:

Joe Biden-a Catholic-unthinkable to have one in office til JFK paved the way-tar and feather

Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton -Women? They have only had the vote for 80 years in the USA.  How DARE they try to win public office!

Tar and feather!

Hillary Clinton for clearly being a “closet lesbian” because of the pantssuits, tar and feather

Bristol Palin, pregnant teen daughter of ‘bad’ mother Sarah Palin, tar, feather, and stone her too while you are at it.  Well done, all of you.

Sarah Palin and her Down’s syndrome afflicted son Trig,: a second helping for her for having him, according to Alan Colmes, Trig for being ‘different’, disabled, tar and feather.

Barack Obama-African American, there are STILL counties in this country where he could not own a home, or marry the woman of his choice if she happened to be white-skinned. Tar and feather.

John McCain, -according to Letterman’s constant jibes, for being elderly!

Tar and feather

John McCain  for being a military man,  Tar and feather

John Edwards, adulterous liar, tar and feather

Bill Clinton- semi-adulterous liar, tar and feather! him AND the cigar!

Mike Huckabee, a Baptist, tar and feather!

Mitt Romney, a Mormon, tar and feather!

Ron Paul, just for being boring, tar and feather

Governor Bill Richardson for being Latino, tar and feather

Ralph Nader, multiple time presidential campaign loser, tar and feather!

Rudy Guiliani, dumped by his first wife when he had cancer, remarried, but it smacked of adultery, and comes from New York, tar and feather.

Joe Lieberman, Independent and Jewish, tar and feather!!

Elliot Spitzer, for reasons too numerous to count, plus the obvious one, tar and feather! Him and his knee-high socks!

The media, for their lies, bias, sexual orientation, and anything else we like or dislike, tar and feather!!

And for keeping us so distracted with ‘fluff’ stories about Sarah Palin that we are losing sight of the economy, the war, the housing crisis, the high food and gas prices, the unemployment crisis (after 18 months, they drop off the listing, and all the others who also dropped off– over 30% of people are self employed now, because their jobs all vanished)

TAR and feather the homeless, the tax man, and Arnold Schwarzenegger just because he is German and such a bad actor!

There, does that make you ALL happy?

Hope I haven’t left anyone out to hate, tar and feather?

So now you can all tar and feather yourselves for being ‘different’ according to the others’ point of view.

Newsflash-we all suffer, and all wish to be happy and fulfilled and protect our families.

Choose the party that you think will help bring that about for EVERYONE in the USA, not just yourselves.

Choose a leader you are willing to follow, not the media hyped personalities that some want to award sainthood to, while others want to tar and feather.

And then get involved. Nothing will change if you all do nothing except sit complaining, and stirring your pots of tar.

Create a country you can be proud of one day at a time. Not one so bogged down in negativity that we might as well all be tarred and feathered.

I have been wondering why I am so galled and appalled and really deeply disgusted about the recent events regarding Sarah Palin, when I am a democrat.

I think I finally hit the root of my deep perturbation. And yes, I am a woman, and loathe the way her family life has been paraded all over the place, but it goes way beyond sexism.

If we are supposed to believe that a political candidate can go beyond their own PERSONAL opinions and self-interest to work for the benefit of EVERYONE in the country, regardless of political affiliation, or even whether they can vote (eg, those under 18), we can and should be able to expect no less from news-related journalists.

They are supposed to present us with FACTS, regardless of which way they have decided to vote.

This election has shown that we need to hold BOTH up to high standards from, now on, and make them accountable for all their words and actions.

And that includes the internet bloggers and email writers who have produced wholesale FICTION on both sides. Which was then reported as FACT by no less than the New York Times.

Why? Because it was what that journalist WANTED to believe. Because the “FACTS” were filtered through their biased lenses based on their own PERSONAL point of view.

Gibson snapping EXACT WORDS was the last straw for me.  They were NOT her exact words that he was quoting, nor was his definition of ‘the Bush Doctrine’ accurate.

The media are actually making themselves MORE powerful than the people meant to govern this country.

The Geraldo Rivera fake war reports in 2002, Dan Rather letters in 2004 and the coverage of this campaign all proves they can build a person or issue up, and equally easily tear it right back down–after all, it makes for great headlines, and viewers, and readership.

Obama was up 14 points in the polls, he is now down 4. Up, down, up, down.

Who benefits from these ‘lies, scandals, and poorly edited videotape’?

The media moguls benefit. They sell ads, they get more and more money. They win no matter what.

We are still left wondering when someone is going to talk about REAL issues, real suffering by real people all over this country, like homeless women living in San Francisco in organized, patrolled car parks to try to stop them from being raped or worse, being homeless because they have been foreclosed upon.

Kids who can’t afford to go to school if they lose their free bus pass, unless they choose not to eat.

REAL people, real suffering.

But the media (and some of the candidates) would rather rant about pantsuits, lipstick, pitbulls, who can or can’t use a computer, and scrappy kids from Scranton.

On Monday, one harmless, inexperienced journalist, with the help of Google, a 6 years old news article,  and his own lack of checking of the facts, nearly brought down United Airlines on the stock market in less than an hour from the time his story hit the Bloomberg newswire.

He was NOT badly intentioned. Just think if he had been intent on mischief, though.

Which demonstrates that the media has TOO MUCH power.

Freedom of speech is a positive value, but not if it is being used against the American people to manipulate in order to achieve their own agendas, be they those of the left, right, green etc.

And not when a personal attack becomes indistinguishable from a political one, and vice versa.