Dear Editor, Liberal Tidbits

By Sherry McKnight

Overwhelmed by political campaign promises and pondering your 2012 November election choices? This liberal leaning opinion writer's compilation of "Letters to the Editor" may help you decide how to vote. However, the imperative is Be Informed! before you make such important decisions! The collection offers insight of America's governing atmosphere since 2009 and offers factual graphs and charts supporting/refuting several issues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sherry McKnight
• Release date: Jun 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476127941

Sherry McKnight

Retired church administrator now free to exercise my lifetime yen to become a published author. I was born in Kansas City MO and lived there until my relocation to South Carolina in 2005.

Book preview

Dear Editor

Liberal Tidbits for a Tea Party

By Sherry McKnight

SMASHWORDS Edition

Copyright June 2012 Sherry McKnight

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

* *

To my dear Lisa, who shares my concerns,

viewpoints and passion for a better America.

She holds the lantern which guides me.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Abortion, Birth Control, Contraception

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution Proposal

Budget, Economy & Taxes

Civility in Public Discourse

Election Day - November 6, 2012

Energy & Environmental Concerns

Entitlements

Financial Industry & Regulations

Greed, aka Capitalism

Healthcare, Social Security, et al

Liberal vs Conservative - what makes us one or the other?

Myth Busters

The Party Line, Talking Points, Propaganda & Dogma

Pledges, Those Republican Attachments

President Barack Obama

Religious Freedoms (also see Abortion, Birth Control Contraception)

Separation of Church and State

The 99%

Unemployment

Voter Fraud

My Vision for Humanity’s Future

Foreword

How do we arrive at our opinions, our viewpoints? Diehard politicos often suffer from familial programming with no growth, no maturity, no evolution of thought for they espouse, actually regurgitate, the pabulum from childhood onward, culminating in a concrete set of stone markers, attitudes stuck in time, filling the cemetery of opinion in their mind. Others seem to cling to the beliefs formulated throughout their life journey, many during particularly difficult experiences in their trek.

This compilation of Letters to the Editor, combined with several fact-based graphs and charts, is my effort to offer facts, to open minds, and to urge all voters to make electoral selections based on information and avoid prior programmed party affiliation. I want to preserve actual Democracy - I see groups attacking it.

Our country is headed into very dangerous waters and your informed vote is needed to buoy all our boats. You can help secure a brighter future for all of us, and, while I’d relish influencing others to my liberal viewpoints, my intention here is not to direct your vote, it is to encourage you to make election choices based on a better defined understanding of the issues.

The Tea Party folks’ vow to take back our country only succeeded in creating a more caustically divided - NO Compromise America, certainly not a better environment. This movement re-invigorated the extremist, right wing, religious zealot minority, who have resurrected intolerance and hatred for any who are ‘different’. This Christ-avowed faction seeks theocracy. Take back our country? Our America has definitely been taken BACK-wards!

The conservative leaning U.S. Supreme Court unleashed the corrupting influence of big money into our political campaigns, producing the real possibility of high (covert) bidder takes all oligarchy/plutocracy. A few billionaires will contribute hundreds of millions of dollars attempting to buy elections for Republican candidates and policies - local and national - which further their interests and build their empires with little care for anyone else. These few power-hungry giants have their own agendas and the prosperity of ordinary Americans is not on their lists. (see Elections: Billionaire Puppet Masters)

Imagine the positive change which could be affected if those billions were instead directed toward ending poverty in America - 150 million Americans live in poverty - 1/4 of American children! These titans of industry could truly contribute to their country, instead they yearn to control it. We need housing for the homeless, clinics for the sick, actual job creation through infrastructure projects, research and development enterprises - the list is endless of common good needs which could be met.

I know it sounds paranoid to foresee the right wing, smaller government ideal as a mega-rich strategy to thoroughly privatize America, but it is possible. If millionaires and billionaires can abolish government entities while redirecting Federal funding to their for-profit enterprises, they will literally capitalize the only alternatives. Abolish the Department of Education/public schools and the taxpayer-funded voucher system enriches corporate, for-profit schools.

When labor unions cease to exist, there will be fewer worker rights in the workplace and corporations could experience unfettered profit margins. Kill EPA regulations and corporate wealth will quadruple. We un-favored suckers may struggle to survive in our allotted but poisoned landmass, fighting one another for the opportunity to serve in luxury preservations for the rich.

The fantasy of 2022’s overpopulated and totally polluted Earth, where the natural resources have been exhausted and the nourishment of the population is provided by Soylent Green was imaginable to Brazilian Claudio Carvalho. I propose, what one can conceive, someone will create, especially if there is money involved.

From my vantage point, I am confident my attitudes evolve, perhaps even daily, but definitely over time as my exposure to a myriad of life situations occur and I recognize that which I did not previously consider or visualize. My less than perfect life choices took me down paths which certainly color my perspective on issues such as abortion, birth control, parenthood, the glass ceiling, armed conflicts, divorce, and equal rights.

I’ve held opinions which have morphed and even reversed, however I do cling to a precious collection of core beliefs for which I see no alternative - whether inbred, inborn, pragmatic, whatever the origin - I hold fast against inequality, which envelops so many situations and I will always oppose racial, ethnic, gender and religious bigotry.

Still, if we are to participate in the American system of democracy, one does need to cast a ballot for one entity in each category, whether it be for an officeholder or a local proposition question. For many reasons, which undoubtedly have become evident in this Foreword, I am very supportive of Barack Obama and voted for him in November 2008. I was truly taken aback at my tears of joy reaction to his election as our President. I realized my tears were a sign of my inner relief that injustice would vanish and hope for the future was now a real option for my country and my future.

President Obama’s presidency has awaken many emotions within citizens of the United States, including a regrettable, deep-seated hatred, aka bigotry, in some. So many harsh critics spout lies which should be easily categorized as such, yet too many willfully choose to believe them to fuel their fires of discord and animosity. I soon became alarmed at the viciousness with which many