Musings { But seriously

I know I have spent the summer posting YouTube and dodging commentary on the big issues. But I needed a break to be self-absorbed. Now that the mid-term election is less than 2 months away, it is time to get serious. I fear if we do not enact appreciable change and shake up the composition of the Federal Congress, and to a lesser extent the MN State Legislature, we will have lost our last chance to save what is left of our way of life. If we do not enact turnover, and remove from power those that have willingly handed our future, our economy, and our personal liberties to this Imperialist Administration, we may never get a second chance (check various news agencies, the next two months promise to be a flurry of legislation legalizing the worst of what the Bush Administration and its cabal have committed, from illegal NSA wiretapping to torture of prisoners). I send this call for removal to any and all members of Congress who have not had a stand against this Administration, who tow the Administrations line without question, and remain silent while atrocities on a level never before seen in this country occur to its own people. The status quo must be broken.

I have had in the last week, many poignant discussions with people who are ideologically on the other end of the spectrum. We were able to agree on some issues (illegal wiretapping, DM&E, and education) and come to agreements of disagreement on others (like abortion, I understand their religious feelings on the subject while not agreeing with it, and they understand that my point is from a personal liberties stance and that legislation reduces a woman's freedom) without resorting to name calling, sound bytes of vitriolic hate or lasting anger towards each other. Why can't our elected officials do this? We are all in this together. Stop grandstanding and start fixing some of this before it is too late.

Vote in November. Vote change.

Round up of my hot-button issues:
* NSA wiretapping (stop it immediately)
* War in Iraq (we should get out and should never have been there in the first place)
* Presidential abuses of power (from signing statements to torture policy, ITMFA!)
* Bring up the entire administration in an international court on human rights violations, we push for this against other leaders of other countries, because we are currently the biggest and baddest doesn't mean we can be held accountable
* universal health care
* universal access to anyone who wants to go to college
* separation of church and state (we need it for a reason, politicians are free to worship as they see fit but leave the sermon at church and out of legislation)
* stop to corporate welfare
* harsher penalties to corporate violators (on anything from EPA regulations to SEC violations) such as the removal of corporate chart and forced disolvment for the worst violations
* removal of corporate donations to political entities (corporations are entities, not indvidual citizens, they should not have the same constituational protections)

Ah, that felt good.

My fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball, but
tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward,
and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.

-- Kodos gives a speech, "Treehouse of Horror VII"