The Day After...

So crisis averted...at least for now. With a stroke of their magic wands the powers that be kept the government open and agreed to a record 38 billion in spending cuts for the 2011 fiscal year (of which we are halfway through). This is 22 billion less than what was originally passed by the Republican House. But what's a few billion here or there when the deficit is in the trillions. These people act like they are playing with monopoly money and we are just 300 million pieces on a board.

Why? Because we allow them, we the people roll over and accept the slop given to us and smile. At the local level and in our communities we are saddled with ineffective and inefficiency. Latest reports on spending from BP oil spill funds revealed spending on items that have nothing to do with the clean up. In Arizona state officials complain of health care reform sending people to the "Death Panel" while cutting several families who needed organ transplants from medicaid. Arizona is the same state that has been using state funds to fight the injunction against its law requiring suspected immigrants show proof of status. It is the same state that has tried to ban multicultural education. After such long strides to get a piece of the pie...to establish that which is our own place in the sun we are here in a place with coded language run amok. We have Mississippi which may give permission to the creation of a license plate for Nathan Bedford Forest aka the first Grand Wizard of the KKK. Mississippi is the same state where over 40% of Republican voters believe miscegenation should be illegal.

So what does this have to do with anything? Things are not new...we have been here before. We have just forgotten and lost our way. Once upon a time we did more with a whole lot less. We knuckled down and understood what it took to get ahead.  The world around us is going crazy and we are busy twiddling our thumbs.  It is time to take a stand and demand better from those around us. To hold people accountable for what they are supposed to do...instead of allowing them to sit around scratching their heads wondering which way is up. We must hold ourselves and our inner circle, and our children to a higher level. That is the only way we will push through this phase of ridiculousness. Across ideological lines, religious views, and race/gender/sexuality we all want the same basic things. It is our commonality that bonds us together and will strengthen our efforts to move ahead. Stop allowing the powers that be use divide and conquer strategies to subjugate us to our particular points in life. Time for us to break through...we've done it before.