Way to Go!

Congratulations to our local school district--the community came through, raised over $200,000, and saved 7 teacher positions. It was truly a joint effort of the School Board, administration, staff, teachers, and local citizens. They should be proud of the work they did for the kids of our community.

Are the Brownshirts far behind?

Our country said good-bye to civility during the 2008 election, when Sarah Palin was sent out on the campaign trail, not to talk about issues, but to discuss how un-American Barack Obama was. Then came the teabaggers, who wasted taxpayer resources (met in public areas, wasted time of police for "protection", threw pollutants (cloth tea bags) into rivers) to protest paying taxes. The "birthers" just won't go away--the whispers about President Obama's true nationality have appealed to the "true Americans" who just can't get their heads around a "black boy" as president. Now the Republicans, who have not put forth a health care alternative of their own, have unleashed their lobbyists, who in turn have riled the rabble. As I was listening to a report of these protestors, my mind immediately jumped to visions of Hitler's brownshirts, a group of his thugs who were sent in to political assemblies for opposition candidates for the sole purpose of roughing up attendees.

No polite policy discussion, no sharing of ideas, no attempt to understand. Just shouting and intimidation. Worked for Sarah Palin, and now it's working for those who don't want to see our health system reformed--they're making way too much money on the present system. The puppetmasters understand this game far better than we do.