Voting Gives You the Right to Make Sensible Noise

Are you registered to vote?  Are you aware of the things that are happening politically?  Not just the fact that there are bunch of ego-driven boobs on the Beltway who think they know what is good for us.  Are you aware of the various agendas being driven by obscene amounts of money from corporations who have been given citizenship status.  

I went to the Oregon Democratic Summit last weekend and had the opportunity to listen to three of Oregon’s US Representatives and Senator Al Franken from Minnesota.  Sensible words from sensible persons…  not afraid to stand up in front of their constituents (unlike Rep. Walden).  They validated what we keep hearing from media not controlled by big money.   The GOP has one, and only one, agenda regardless of who ‘wins’ the nomination.  They don’t care one iota about jobs for Americans, or helping homeowners to stay in their houses, or actually making medicine affordable for everyone.  No, their ONE GOAL is to ‘take down President Obama.’  

The persons in the House and Senate who decide which bills get to be presented and voted on don’t much care about middle America.  Just last week, when the first chunk of President Obama’s Jobs Bill was ready to be voted on are you aware of what the GOP did?  They dragged up yet another anti-abortion bill to vote on.  And if you aren’t already aware, the federal government does not and never has paid for abortions.   They could have been moving forward with positive action for unemployed Americans.  Instead they were pushing their “Women Must Die” agenda.  Not sure what this is about?  Check out what a number of state legislatures are ramming through their agendas … supported by corporations who are not citizens.   And something else they are doing is supporting the changes that are starting to happen with being able to register to vote.  Do you see a pattern here?   Back to the dark ages...

I will freely admit that I am a news junkie and have been for a long time.  Also a political junkie.  I will very proudly say that I have never, to my knowledge, not voted in a primary or general election since I was old enough to vote.  My children will probably remember accompanying me to voting booths no matter the weather, and standing in line to vote.  “Mom, are we done yet?”   No, we are never done voting.  Nothing less than 100% turnout should be acceptable.

When I was at the Oregon Summit, I bought a pin that says “I am one of the 99%.”  In the last week I have had some very interesting conversations with store clerks.  Sadly, three of them were young mothers who said they had no idea what was going on in the world, let alone the United States.  Only one of them was registered to vote but said she had never voted.  The other two said it didn’t matter whether you voted or not so they weren’t registered.   One of them thought her husband was but didn’t really know for sure.

Voting gives you the right to complain and protest and make noise.   I make noise so my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will be able to live at least a life with a roof over their heads and food on their tables.  

Changes

Seems like September was a month of changes.  Procedures that I was used to suddenly did about-faces without warning.  Of course, Facebook was the big one.  And I’m still frustrated with the fact that it was working just fine as we all know, now it doesn’t work as fine, but all those “tech wizards” think it does.  Why didn’t they ask first? 

And then I discovered that eBay took it upon themselves to add a line under the title of my auctions letting potential buyers know that I don’t accept returns.  In 12 years of selling fun and wonderful items on eBay I have never had an item returned but the option was always there.  But, I never had to give a bidder a black or white choice.  Again, eBay did not ask if this was a good idea or not.

Then, I got a computer generated notice from my credit union asking if I still needed my Line of Credit availability.  So off I go to the credit union to find out what is happening with this.  Since I have all of my accounts here, one would assume that the Line of Credit account is okay.  Turns out they don’t do these  anymore and “I don’t need it .”   Well, it took a long time and a lot of hard money managing to achieve this piece of financial safety and did they bother to ask?  No, they just decided to do it.  I have asked them to please leave it in place and if I have to pay for it then to please inform me first.  One can hope.

There is far too much of this decision making being taken out of our control.  I am an intelligent adult and appreciate being asked first before changes happen.  Even if I am in the minority, it is still a sign of respect and honor to be asked.