Tea Party Has Become a Mockery

When I first learned of 'tea parties' popping up across the country, the idea intrigued me. I envisioned a grassroots drive to allow tax payers to show our discontent with our federal government ‘gifting’ our tax dollars to any and all failed financial entity.

It was finally a chance for the American people to show our dissatisfaction against out-of-control taxation. I am behind this 100%. We are being taxed into the poor house with very little ability to stop it. That is, after all, the spirit of the original Boston Tea Party. “No Taxation without representation”.

But as momentum built the focus changed. Instead of being owned by all Americans this movement somehow became a republican platform to be used as a tool to attack a so-called “socialist” Obama agenda. No longer is it just about being overly taxed, now it has morphed into a conduit to reiterate bizarre claims about Obamas’ true birthplace and that he is really Muslim, and cable converter boxes are brain-washing devices, and that our children are to be interned in re-education camps. Crazy stuff.

I feel soiled by associating myself with what has basically been turned into a republican gripe session. But in all fairness, the loonies who are tossing around these unfounded and disproved notions are coming from the most ‘right’ of the right-wing zealots. The craziest of the bunch. The only reason these people are seeing the light of day is because the republican party is frantically searching for new leadership and evidently they are open to anyone who wants to apply.

After any contest, there is a very short time period where everyone, out of deference to the loser, allows the loser to grouse about losing. This time period after the presidential election is long past. The Democrats have been voted in and the Republicans are now playing a secondary, but still important, role. The focus now should be to help our president get America out of the mess we are in so we can ALL move forward.

The GOP should work on finding new leadership, but to place that search as your primary goal while doing whatever you can to disrupt America’s recovery is just plain self-centered. You republicans need to get over it. Because you really do look incredibly foolish and clueless.

Don’t Attack Iran

I found an article on AlterNet.org by Reese Erlich, entitled “Bush’s Agenda in Iran”.

In an effort to reach as many people as possible I have taken the liberty of posting here a portion of the final paragraph of that article.

“…the decision whether to bomb Iran depends, in part, on actions by the American people. Now is the time to let your national and local politicians know that we don't need another human disaster in the Middle East. Code Pink is organizing a national campaign to get local city councils to pass resolutions against attacks on Iran. Now is the time for anti-war demonstrations around the issues of both Iraq and Iran.”

Bush and Cheney must be stopped. Do not believe their rhetoric. Attacking Iran will only serve to push us closer to the brink of the end of America as we now know it. We do not want terrorists in our streets. Bush, Cheney and many others, guided only by political loyalty, are pushing us toward that reality.

Please read the article in its entirety here and visit Codepink.org today.

We can help keep gas prices low

Gas prices are going up, no surprise. We all complain about having to pay more at the pump, but how many of us are actually doing something to cut down on our gas consumption?

Do you know how much gas your car uses when accelerating from standing still? If you accelerate slowly you will use far less than if you accelerate quickly.
When you drive at 80 miles an hour you are using more gas per mile than if you drive at 70 miles per hour.

If we teach ourselves to cut back a little on gas consumption then we won’t have to buy gas as often. Then we could at least eliminate this as the reason for high gas prices.

Whenever I see someone practicing bad driving habits resulting in higher gas consumption I see a person who is taking more than their fair share of gasoline. If we all conserve we all will have gasoline for a longer period of time. To those people: are you really so selfish that you can use up more than your share of gasoline to get someplace a little bit faster?

Try this experiment. Time yourself in getting from one place to another using your usual driving habits and then travel the same route following all posted speed limit signs. How much time do you really save? Now do this same experiment starting with a full tank of gas for each driving habit and see how much less gas you use by driving the speed limit. I am certain everyone would be amazed at the difference.
We can all help each other and still help ourselves. If we cut back on gas consumption then gas stations will feel the pinch and begin lowering prices in order to get us into the gas pumps.

There has been talk of boycotting certain gas stations or boycotting at certain times (mostly only when prices take a huge jump), but more conservative driving practices would be the ultimate boycott, by not using as much. Lets all give it a try.

Some people will say that their change in habits will not have an effect but let me tell you, there are so many people driving that if everyone saved a little it will have a tremendous effect. Think about this, if there are 150 million drivers (with the U.S. population, this is a conservative estimate) and every one of those drivers saved one gallon of gas a month that would be 150 million gallons of gas that the oil companies would not sell. Do you think they would take notice in this drop in sales? Of course they would. And if it happened every month, do you think they might decide to lower prices to try to encourage people to buy more? Yes they would. Then we would see how they truly care about gas conservation.