Putting Our Collective Foot Down..

When I attended a lecture by His Holiness The Dalai Lama in May, he emphasized the role of mothers in creating a better world. He said that mothers had a special responsibility to make their children feel loved. Boys, in particular, need this. As a mother of two boys, now men, I've thought about that counsel almost daily since then. Both of my guys turned out to be intelligent, responsible men. So I think I did an okay job. I respected and welcomed their opinions. I let them know their feelings mattered...that they mattered. Kids need to be treated with dignity and respect so that they in turn do that for others. They were my focus and it was my responsibility to make sure they understood how to navigate through life in a respectful and honest manner. This isn't to say that I was one of those mothers who related to my kids as a friend. I saw that happen in some families and it was a recipe for disaster. How do children learn to respect authority if their parents won't assume that role?

But none of this matters if some crazy person with a gun can come out and kill my boys whenever he feels like they're up to no good. Apparently our kids aren't safe anywhere - not in school, not at the mall, not walking home from the store. And yet, some of us go insane at the notion of not having access to military style assault weapons and extended clips. Why on earth would we set ourselves up for such disaster? Why on earth would we create laws that seem to go a little too far into personal choice when defining our right to defend ourselves from harm? Using a weapon to stop an attack is acceptable. Chasing someone down who did nothing to you and using the weapon when the person decides to defend himself against your actions defies all sensibility in the first place. To think a guy like that was found not guilty of such an act should scare the hell out of all of us.

There's a meanness out there now. Everything seems like an assault on one group or another. SCOTUS gave personhood to corporations, so the rest of us are inconsequential. They gutted the Voting Rights Act, just in case we didn't understand what they did to all of us with Citizen's United. How many ways can the highest court in the land tell the citizens of this country that they don't matter? Texas just made it more difficult for women to seek health care, particularly in the case of abortion, with another new bill introduced which prevents abortion after 6 weeks. For the love of God, we don't always know we're pregnant at 6 weeks. Why come after women this way? When we respond, and we will, you won't like it. I promise. 

Women want peace. We want calm. We want to go about our lives feeling safe and want everyone we love to feel the same way. We don't want to be disrespected - not by our partners, children, employers, friends, communities, governors, Congress.. We're tired of seeing news reports of our children being riddled with bullets at school. We're tired of our hearts breaking and knowing that doesn't matter so much anymore. 

Sybrina Fulton didn't want to be a role model for every mother out there who has lost a child to violence. She's far more noble than I would have been if one of my sons had been murdered. Particularly if the murderer got away with it as in the case of her son, Trayvon. 

My mother used to "put her foot down" about one thing or another, and I knew at that point that whatever I wanted was about to fly right out the window. That woman was so effective that although I entered college at 16, I continued to ask permission to do things until long after I moved out at 18. Maybe that's what all of us need to do. Maybe we need to put our "collective foot" down and say we've had enough. We've had enough of laws that protect the bad guys. Doesn't matter if it's a gangster or a bankster, we've had enough of other people destroying lives with impunity.

Who doesn't agree with that? Because the outrage is growing. 

#Tampongate????

You know the GOP in Texas has completely gone "off the rails" as they say when they instruct the police to confiscate all the tampons women in the gallery have with them. I guess they finally stopped, but good night nurse. I read they were worried about how unruly the women would get when the Texas legislature voted to screw them over. Yeah, I'd be worried too. But to be worried about tampons being lobbed like projectiles over the balcony is just stupid.

Trust me. Anything that gets thrown at the legislators will likely be far heavier than a tampon would ever be. Unless they threw cases of tampons. That might do it.

2014 is coming. And #WomenNeverForget.

How about a little Compassion?

Does the GOP care about anyone else besides those people who fill their election coffers? I really have to wonder. The GOP controlled House just passed the Farm Bill without extending food stamps. The Senate had passed their own bill 66-27 which apparently included extending food stamps. Now the House passed its own 216-208, throwing poor people under the proverbial bus, promising to get back to it some other time.

Yeah, like any of us believe that...

Then I read that the legislature in North Carolina attached an anti-abortion amendment to a motorcycle safety bill. Cue the hilarity on Twitter. We need a rule that prohibits amendments unless they actually have something to do with the existing bill. Women had fun with this one. Except it's no laughing matter. Abortion is a constitutionally protected procedure in this country and the GOP needs to stop trying to circumvent that. It's only going to get thrown out in court anyway. The only positive side is women see these people for who they are. Except we already do know and need no further reminder of how little we mean to them.

The GOP used to like the idea of immigration reform. But now that it seems it won't increase their voter rolls, they aren't interested anymore. I guess they only like reform when it serves them. Otherwise...not interested. Until you mention the border fence and a certain Arizona Senator gets the vapors.

It's not about fences. It's about relationships and elevating people out of poverty and the choice to live wherever you want. Immigrants just want a better life. To fail, year after year, to figure out a way to make that happen that isn't burdensome is just shameful. We have a tendency to create us versus them scenarios which only prevents any real solutions from being found. It feels like the GOP is more focused on exclusion rather than on inclusion.

Compassion is what's missing. Apparently they can't see past their own beliefs and consider another view. Just because abortion is law, a woman doesn't have to choose to  have one. It's about choice and understanding that it's a private matter that the government needs to stay out of. It's ridiculous that it ever needed codifying anyway.

Caring that your neighbor has enough to eat should be a given, but evidently the GOP disagrees with that as well. Some lawmakers have taken the food stamp challenge and discovered what it's like to live that way. It's not fun. One went out of his way to say it was easy peasy. What a liar. And then there was the comment that food stamp recipients buy crab legs with their cards. To that I say, so? Maybe they were on sale. Trust me, grocery store checkers are vigilant about what can be paid for with food stamps and what can't. I stood in line so long one day that I had to put back the frozen food I was buying because it was melting.

Millions of undocumented immigrants live and work in our  country. They raise families and live in fear that they'll be found out. Shady employers take advantage and pay them next to nothing. This is an outrage that, by refusing to get serious about immigration reform, the GOP preserves instead of fixes. Not to mention, it's illegal.

The President had to do his own version of the DREAM Act because again, Congress can't do its job. But it's not enough. Kids here because of their parents' choices should be given a path to citizenship if they want one. Their future shouldn't hinge on lawmakers who have too much vested interest in the outcome. 

How cold it must be in their world, caring only about the next election. How about caring about us? Does it always have to be about the 1% getting richer and your re-election? How about that old Love Thy Neighbor idea? It does work, you know...

Oh, Ricky..

Rick Perry is a shitty guy. He made the predictable, misogynistic response to Wendy Davis's filibuster of SB5. He's calling another special session next week to vote the anti-abortion bill into law. And it will be successful unless or until a court stops it.

You'd think a governor would have more dignity than to dismiss Senator Davis's graduation from Harvard as something she "managed" to do.  Mr. Oops also suggested that as a child of a single mother, as well as a teenage mother herself, that she should understand this issue. And yet, he lamented, she doesn't.

Mr. Perry, you look small because you are small. Your condescension only demeans you. Watching all the people in the gallery that night stand in support of Wendy Davis and the women of Texas gives all of us hope that a voice of reason still exists in your state. It's sad that as governor, that doesn't apply to you. 

Texas has joined other states that evidently believe that the Constitution really doesn't apply anymore. Abortion is constitutionally protected, yet, states are doing whatever they can to circumvent that. With the conservative activists on the Supreme Court, the Voting Rights Act was effectively gutted when they threw out Section 4. Now, voter ID laws are being implemented. In the case of Texas, that happened just hours after the decision was released. This disenfranchises minority voters the most. But that's not convenient for the conservative agenda. Whatever doesn't serve their needs, they just find a way around...until a court stops them. 

The problem is, people suffer while conservatives do this dance. And women in particular will not forget what happens. Three words, Ricky: Governor Wendy Davis.