Progressive Living

So much of Republican policy seems just plain mean to me: Kill health reform, attack people who work for a living while catering to the richest 2 percent, de-fund Planned Parenthood (which so many women rely on for basic health care needs), and then shut down the entire federal government because you can’t get your way.

My husband has a theory, and I hope it’s correct: He believes the clock is ticking for this hate-fueled movement and that its members want to do as much damage as they can before they lose power.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker thinks he has won in his battle to squash the public employee unions and slash public safety net programs.

The problem for him — and the hope for the rest of us — is that he violated open meeting laws, and perhaps a few others. Unless the courts are as corrupted by corporate America as he seems to be, the law can not be upheld.

Video of the meeting shows Rep. Peter Barca, the Assembly Minority Leader, pleading throughout that the meeting was illegal, that he hadn’t even been given a chance to read the law.

A Facebook friend posted a link to an article that said the public sector is shedding jobs at an alarming […]

On Tuesday, the NC House of Representatives will vote on H115, the bill that hands over control of the health insurance exchange to Big Insurance and their allies. I’m still hoping it can be stopped, but there hasn’t been much attention paid by the media, even though we advocates have tried and tried to call attention to it. The Raleigh News & Observer did a story, but there has been nothing out here in the western end of the state.

I heard a great joke this morning: A corporate CEO, a Tea Party activist and a union representative are sitting at a table. In the middle is a plate with 12 cookies. The CEO reaches in and takes 11 of the cookies, then turns to the Tea Party activist and says, “Watch out for that union guy; he’s about to take a piece of your cookie.”

It would be funnier of it weren’t so true. Right now, I see posts all over Facebook from friends who are fed up with the unions because of the abuses they’re suddenly hearing about.

This is the same thing the wealthy on the right did with health reform. They villify the Medicare system and other public and public-private hybrid systems around the world in an effort to make working people think any government involvement in health care would be a bad, bad, socialist, commie think to do.

Jobs, Planed Parenthood,living wages, health reform — it’s all the same issue, really.
Big business wants to get rid of the unions so they don’t have to pay benefits or decent wages. Planned Parenthood provides basic health care to millions of women across the country. It prevents many more infant deaths than it causes by keeping women healthy.

I put on my old tie-dye shirt this morning so I can go to the solidarity rally downtown at noon.

We the people are being attacked on so many fronts it’s hard to know where to fight. The answer is we have to fight on all fronts and we have to be united.

Here in North Carolina, we don’t have the right of collective bargaining for public employees. I want things to move in the right direction in Wisconsin.