Suicide by Proxy

The budget quagmire in Washington has me thinking too much about politics. I wish I could disconnect from the Internet, turn off the TV and radio, and set down the magazines and newspapers, but I can't. I care too much, and so should you. Our future depends on what is happening right now.

We have elderly friends who eat up every scrap of misinformation that comes out of the Fox News propaganda mill. They forward us the phony Obama birth certificates, the disparaging caricatures, and the other hate email that is accepted as truth by people like them. These friends are almost wholly dependent on Social Security and Medicare, and yet they vote Republican in every election. If House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and his Republican cohorts had their way, these programs would be gutted or eliminated entirely.

It makes no sense to vote for representatives who not only don't care about you but who are actively working against you. You might as well hand them a gun and say, "Shoot me!" The entire financial agenda of the Republicans is focused on enriching themselves and their cronies at the expense of the poor and middle class, who are enabling it through their fear and ignorance.

Cuts in spending for Planned Parenthood, National Public Radio, and the National Endowment for the Arts do nothing but promote the Republican social agenda. Programs that promote social justice and the common good must be saved if we are to preserve our way of life and avoid the ever-widening gulf that will eventually replace our democracy with an oligarchy: Of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.

We saw in Madison that people will only be pushed so far before they fight back. If Republicans continue to ram through their unjust legislation, in the name of necessary budget cuts, then we should expect to see angry people rioting throughout the country.

It's not too late to support the people who support the programs that benefit you, me and everybody else. Let's work to ensure a future worth looking forward to.