Saturday Political Soap boxes 1 - 3

I thought I might catch up my vast army of blog followers as to the Saturday Political Soap boxes I've been posting on Facebook.  I will try to do this now on a weekly basis.

Saturday Political Soap Box 1

Health care costs and Health Care Reform got you down? Well, for right now, live with it. It's the best thing that could have passed given the bitter and divisive political climate. Anything less than true universal health care is going to fall short. Medicare for All is the only effective solution. Everybody in the same boat...pay through increased medicare tax on both earned and unearned income. No more private insurance gouging and overhead, cost negotiated by a front of 3oo million plus people, no more medical bankruptcies, no more your health insurance quality dependent on an employer whose primary desire is to reduce their own costs, no more people dying from lack of access to decent care. C'mon, people, get off your ideological high horses and let's do the RIGHT thing, the fiscally sound thing, the only thing that makes moral sense! If you push the politicians hard enough, they will come around.

Saturday Political soap Box 2


An insanity has gripped the nation. Well, at least the mainstream media. Here we are, unemployment rate inching back up, job growth moribund, and what are they talking about? The deficit! 24/7! Is it something we have to get a handle on? Yes, eventually. Is it the most important thing during a recession, when the most important thing is to accelerate demand? No, most economists say that austerity measures will actually significantly slow or even reverse the recovery. Right now, we need to shore up state and local governments so that they stop laying off essential workers, accelerate infrastructure improvements, make America the leader of the world in greening the economy, focus on education, and frankly, like it or not, get money into the hands of those who will spend it. The austerity measures contemplated by the Republicans and sadly many Democrats will only accelerate the middle class' decline and our jolly romp to Third World status.
 
Saturday Political Soap Box 3


Is there any more fundamental right in a democracy than the right to vote? Whenever people refer to our soldiers fighting for America and our way of life, I believe that is what most often comes first to people's minds. Yet, this fundamental right that so many have fought and died for is being chipped away. For the first time since Jim Crow and the poll tax, Republican legislatures throughout the country are passing new laws that restrict voter's access to the polls in more and more draconian ways. Voter ID laws are being constructed in ways to increase the odds that such groups as African Americans, the poor, and college students will be less likely to vote. This is most often done with restrictive Voter ID laws. But there are also laws putting up serious blockades that make it harder for people to register to vote. In Florida, the venerable League of Women voters have decided to stop trying to register people to vote because of the way the new Florida law restricts and criminalizes registration. What do you think? Should barriers continue to be put up to voting?
 
Feel free to comment on any or all of these.  I breathlessly await your responses.