By Guest Writer 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/, We Are Woman at http://www.wearewoman.us/ and Progressive Democrats of America at http://www.pdamerica.org/. 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.
