John & Charley
Teri Copely
Janine Turner
First off, belated happy birthday wishes go to two of my favorite actresses who celebrated their birthdays yesterday, on Mother's Day, Desireé Cousteau and Rosario Dawson. Desireé has since retired, Rosario keep up the good work!
Today we celebrate the birthday of Teri Copley, the star of "We've Got It Made," and the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. A very underrated and beautiful actress who has also retired. Happy birthday Teri!
I need to mention one more actress today, the lovely Janine Turner, of "Northern Exposure" fame, one of my very favorite actresses, who still works occasionally, when not wrangling steer on her Texas ranch, but unfortunately has become a vocal right-wing lunatic, who has taken it upon herself to teach us all about our Constitution. http://constitutingamerica.org/
And it's not her birthday. Not until December.
But I wish to discuss her attempt to manipulate other right-wing lunatics, and fledgling, prospective right-wing lunatics into the belief that our Founding Fathers shared their right-wing lunatic agenda exclusively, that the Obama administration and Congress (surprisingly not the Judicial branch. Apparently the conservatively tilted Supreme Court is just fine with her) has departed from the Founding Fathers vision, forcing their socialistic, fascist principles and policies on the entire country.
I agree with her on one issue at least. The country does not today work the way the Founding Fathers envisioned. But Janine and I would differ as to why that is.
Her main argument seems to be the Constitution stipulates that the country is a representative democracy, or a republic, which indeed it is. But she carries it a bit further claiming, like so many Republican politicians and right-wing media hosts such as Glen Beck and Sean Hannity, that they and no one else speak for the majority of Americans, as if they had the majority of Americans in their back pocket where they could pull them out anytime they want to prove the spurious point they're trying to make at the time. They don't. They don't speak for the majority of Americans. If they did Barack Obama wouldn't be in the White House.
Janine seriously would like to think that she speaks for the majority of Americans in this country, and predicts that because of the new health care reform laws recently passed, the Democrats well lose seats in Congress in the upcoming November elections, as if the majority of Americans believe providing health care for everyone is a bad thing. Well I don't have the majority of Americans in my back pocket (they won't fit in my slender jeans), and I have no idea what the majority of Americans are for or against. That's what elections are for.
Janine's ideas may be based on polls, which may or may not be based in reality, and depend on so many factors, such as how biased the questions on the poll are to one particular side of an issue, and how well informed that informant is before answering the question. It's my sense that when the issue of health care is fully explained to those taking the poll, the majority leans toward favoring reform, rather than rejecting it. But I have no proof of that, which I'm willing to admit.
In any case it's the President's and Congress's job to do what they think is right for the country as a whole, and not pander to particular groups, or base their decisions on polling results.
But again I do agree with Janine that the Founding Fathers would not like to see the way the country is being run these days. They wouldn't like the corruption which runs rampant throughout the federal and state governments. They wouldn't like the strangle hold that powerful corporations hold on this country. They wouldn't like they abuse of power displayed by the previous President, and the loss of civil rights in the name of national security. They wouldn't care for the attempts to manipulate the populace as a whole by partisan interests. They wouldn't like the blatant attempts to mix church and state. They would indeed object to the notion that this is a "Christian" country. I'm positive they wouldn't like so many things about the country as it is now run, and took exhaustive measures to ensure the nation didn't wind up like it has. I agree with Janine on this.
This post was inspired by another post I read just this morning, written by Tom Degan, and can be found at http://WWW.laprogressive.com/progressive-issues/john-steinbeckamerica/ It briefly describes my favorite author's trek 50 years ago this year throughout the country, John Steinbeck and his poodle Charley driving around the U.S. in a camper (Steinbeck displayed a certain fondness for the state of Texas, Janine's home state, which I do not share).
"What the two of them found was a thriving, vibrant though troubled and tormented nation. In spite of her many demons, America in 1960 was a land of hope, almost giddy with optimism," Degan writes. "It boggles the mind to ponder what these two noble travelers would have made of the America of 2010. Can you even imagine? I can’t. I swear to you, I can’t."
I'm so sad to say that I can't either.
All we have left to us is the constant hope and mission to make this country a better one, and to turn back to the great vision our Founding Fathers did share for this nation.
Today we celebrate the birthday of Teri Copley, the star of "We've Got It Made," and the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. A very underrated and beautiful actress who has also retired. Happy birthday Teri!
I need to mention one more actress today, the lovely Janine Turner, of "Northern Exposure" fame, one of my very favorite actresses, who still works occasionally, when not wrangling steer on her Texas ranch, but unfortunately has become a vocal right-wing lunatic, who has taken it upon herself to teach us all about our Constitution. http://constitutingamerica.org/
And it's not her birthday. Not until December.
But I wish to discuss her attempt to manipulate other right-wing lunatics, and fledgling, prospective right-wing lunatics into the belief that our Founding Fathers shared their right-wing lunatic agenda exclusively, that the Obama administration and Congress (surprisingly not the Judicial branch. Apparently the conservatively tilted Supreme Court is just fine with her) has departed from the Founding Fathers vision, forcing their socialistic, fascist principles and policies on the entire country.
I agree with her on one issue at least. The country does not today work the way the Founding Fathers envisioned. But Janine and I would differ as to why that is.
Her main argument seems to be the Constitution stipulates that the country is a representative democracy, or a republic, which indeed it is. But she carries it a bit further claiming, like so many Republican politicians and right-wing media hosts such as Glen Beck and Sean Hannity, that they and no one else speak for the majority of Americans, as if they had the majority of Americans in their back pocket where they could pull them out anytime they want to prove the spurious point they're trying to make at the time. They don't. They don't speak for the majority of Americans. If they did Barack Obama wouldn't be in the White House.
Janine seriously would like to think that she speaks for the majority of Americans in this country, and predicts that because of the new health care reform laws recently passed, the Democrats well lose seats in Congress in the upcoming November elections, as if the majority of Americans believe providing health care for everyone is a bad thing. Well I don't have the majority of Americans in my back pocket (they won't fit in my slender jeans), and I have no idea what the majority of Americans are for or against. That's what elections are for.
Janine's ideas may be based on polls, which may or may not be based in reality, and depend on so many factors, such as how biased the questions on the poll are to one particular side of an issue, and how well informed that informant is before answering the question. It's my sense that when the issue of health care is fully explained to those taking the poll, the majority leans toward favoring reform, rather than rejecting it. But I have no proof of that, which I'm willing to admit.
In any case it's the President's and Congress's job to do what they think is right for the country as a whole, and not pander to particular groups, or base their decisions on polling results.
But again I do agree with Janine that the Founding Fathers would not like to see the way the country is being run these days. They wouldn't like the corruption which runs rampant throughout the federal and state governments. They wouldn't like the strangle hold that powerful corporations hold on this country. They wouldn't like they abuse of power displayed by the previous President, and the loss of civil rights in the name of national security. They wouldn't care for the attempts to manipulate the populace as a whole by partisan interests. They wouldn't like the blatant attempts to mix church and state. They would indeed object to the notion that this is a "Christian" country. I'm positive they wouldn't like so many things about the country as it is now run, and took exhaustive measures to ensure the nation didn't wind up like it has. I agree with Janine on this.
This post was inspired by another post I read just this morning, written by Tom Degan, and can be found at http://WWW.laprogressive.com/progressive-issues/john-steinbeckamerica/ It briefly describes my favorite author's trek 50 years ago this year throughout the country, John Steinbeck and his poodle Charley driving around the U.S. in a camper (Steinbeck displayed a certain fondness for the state of Texas, Janine's home state, which I do not share).
"What the two of them found was a thriving, vibrant though troubled and tormented nation. In spite of her many demons, America in 1960 was a land of hope, almost giddy with optimism," Degan writes. "It boggles the mind to ponder what these two noble travelers would have made of the America of 2010. Can you even imagine? I can’t. I swear to you, I can’t."
I'm so sad to say that I can't either.
All we have left to us is the constant hope and mission to make this country a better one, and to turn back to the great vision our Founding Fathers did share for this nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment