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Mitt and Mini Mitt

  • Posted on August 14, 2012 at 7:37 pm

( Justin Sullivan / Getty Images ) Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) speaks as Mitt Romney looks on during a campaign rally at the NASCAR Technical Institute in Mooresville, N.C.

By now, everyone knows that Mitt Romney has made his VP choice.  I have had a few days to digest this information and really feel that Mitt just picked himself in many ways.  Not that Ryan had the same life as Mitt but Ryan looks a lot like any one of Mitt’s sons.  I saw the two of them on stage together wearing similar shirts.  It reminded me of an image I can remember of my many brothers lined up in their white shirts and dark pants, except for the pattern on the candidate’s shirts.  The image of Representative Ryan is that of an all-American family, much like Mitt’s image.  However, the family that currently resides in the Whitehouse is just as all-American as Mitt’s family except for the ingrained image White America has of themselves.  In many ways, the image Mitt portrays is a message he continually sends out when he refers to President Obama as not sharing your values.  This ad is a message about values that I personally find repugnant.

I personally believe in a separation of church and state.  I do not believe President Obama has declared a war on religion.  However, the image and message are clear.  If you are white, the president does not share your religious values.  He probably wasn’t even born in this country and he probably isn’t a Christian.

Therefore, we have the two religious candidates that share our collective values, a Mormon and a right wing Catholic.  I’m not sure that those protesting nuns agree with Representative Ryan on his vision for the poor, so maybe they too are un-American because they don’t share these exact values.

We are not all the same.  The beauty of our country is the fact that we are a melting pot of people, cultures, and ideas.  I believe our greatest strength is the diversity of our people.  With our diversity we are able to develop and create new ideas and stimulate thinking beyond the cookie cutter mode of one size fits all.  We are not a cookie cutter nation where the religious right owns our brains.  We can and must think for ourselves.

As an educator, I am appalled to be inundated with narrow-minded thinking that implies we are all of the same values…one size religion for everyone.  How many times are we going to be told that we are a “Christian” nation?  In our country, we are able to be what we want to be whether it involves religion or it doesn’t.  No one has to buy into any of this nonsense.  It’s like a subtle brain washing.  I always thought that religion was a personal matter between a person and their God.  I have never looked to a politician for my values and I doubt I ever will.   When I think of most politicians and how they got where they are I certainly don’t think of religion.  It’s backroom deals and money that talks.  You scratch my back and I’ll scratch your back.  We largely don’t have control over whom we get to vote for because it’s the money that gets them where they are.  It isn’t God and it isn’t love of country.  This is the same old crap they roll out every year to get the masses on board for the next big thing (You know tax cuts for the wealthy and shared sacrifice for everyone else).  They put up something about how religious they are and stupid sheep follow them.  Take your blinders off and see these people for what they really are.

Mitt Romney was a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth.  He used his own religion to get out of fighting in the Vietnam War.  He has five sons that will never go to battle for anyone except a hostile takeover of some company.  He had a “cushy” gig in France where he tried to convert French Catholics to the Mormon Church.  I think he converted two.  While he was there, he had a car accident that I would like to know more about than I’m currently reading on the web.  He is wealthy beyond our imaginations and he won’t let us know about his taxes because it’s none of our business.  He has a lot of money outside of this country and we are supposed to believe that is a patriotic thing to do.

Then there is Representative Ryan who cannot wait to dig in and dismantle the social programs created by FDR.  Here is a man that lived on the safety net of Social Security and Pell Grants but wants to deny them for the future citizens of this country.  He wants more breaks for the wealthy and less for the poor and middle class.  He believes in the same old trickle down bullshit the Republicans have been spewing for years.

I don’t see the pick of Ryan as being that big of a stretch for Mitt.  They both are really after the same things.  With these guys, the rich get richer and the poor look for the scraps left by the rich.  Social programs and social justice, those things we were taught in church when we were kids are just some left wing Commie plot that we should avoid.  In their world, they are self-made men and the rest of the world better get in line and pull up their bootstraps.

Last night I was talking to my son and he told me he watched “The Dictator”.  Now I am not a Sacha Cohen fan but Josh wanted me to watch the dictator’s speech on Youtube, so I did.  What can we learn from this?  Where is our democracy?  I will leave you with the dictator’s speech, as it is a parody filled with truth!

Worker’s Hell

  • Posted on August 26, 2010 at 11:46 am

A handout picture provided by Chilean President Sebastian Pinera showing a handwritten note with the message "All 33 of us are fine in the shelter", written by the miners trapped deep underground for 17 days, in Copiapo, Chile, 22 August 2010. EPA/JOSÉ MANUEL DE LA MAZA/CHILEAN PRESIDENCY/HO

A Mining Family

Okay, if you have been here before you now understand the title of my blog, “What’s on Katie’s Mind?”  My brain is always going.  I’m always thinking about things that relate to politics, art and education and of course I have my own unique perspective.  If I’m out shopping I might see some obscure thing that may give me an idea for an art project for my students.  My brain tends to hop around a lot in thought from one thing to the other.  Maybe this is the way everyone processes information.  I don’t really know.  I just know that since my son, Josh, gave me this blog, I have found it really rewarding to write about some of the many ideas and thoughts that come to me on a daily basis.  Much thanks to my wonderful son, Josh.  Today I’m thinking about several things again, as always.  It’s hard to pick just one topic to write about.  These are the thoughts I’m having:

Worker’s Hell:

The risk is always at the bottom and the payoff is always at the top.

Education:

Is there a correlation with the drop in worker pay with the falling education scores?

19th Amendment:

Even though we celebrate ninety years, there are still inequities in pay and that ever illusive ERA has never been ratified.

Just heard on TV:

British spy murdered…Mystery…found in sports bag…..may have taken important work home.   Computer stolen…sex games…porn…quiet person….cyclist….  This might be interesting to find out more about the spying, that is!

I’d like to focus a little bit on that “Worker’s Hell”.

We have all heard about the Chilean miners.  I know everyone is praying for their safe return to their families.  We are being told that this reunion could take months so obviously these poor guys are in serious “Worker’s Hell”.  It is disturbing how many major catastrophes there have been for workers in mines and oil rigs this past year or so.  Maybe there are more or maybe we are hearing more about it.  One thing stands out for me and that is all of the mortal risk for these corporations that run these businesses is at the bottom of the pay grade.  It is the worker bees that suffer the personal losses of life, limbs and economic hardship.  The CEO at the top collects the pay off.  It would be extremely rare to hear about a CEO dying on the job unless he/she had a heart attack or die in a plane or automobile crash.  They just don’t die doing hard labor.

What seems to be over looked in this whole mine disaster is the safety of the mine to begin with.  We are so busy just worrying about the miners that not much noteworthy effort from news sources has been placed on this issue.  There was an accident in 2007 at this mine that killed two peoples.  There should have been much effort at that time to make this mine safer.   http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0824/Chile-mine-collapse-sounds-alarm-on-safety-standards

This is the most important excerpt from this article:

Chile has a free-market economy where the first principle is to maximize profit without any other consideration. We need to take other things into consideration, including worker security,” Augustin Latorre, spokesman for the Mining Federation, an association of 22 unions at private mines, said in a telephone interview. “The state should offer, in particular in mines, the necessary security measures and inspections. We aren’t demanding that mines be closed, but that they be secure.”

This sounds so familiar.  We could talk about the BP oil spill or the recent coal mine disasters but the truth is corners have always been cut to maximize profits.

I don’t want to speculate about these miners and the real hardships they are facing over the next several months with their confinement.  Mika, on Morning Joe, actually laughed this morning in reference to the fact that these guys are being told to “stay slim”.  If you don’t know Mika Brezinski, she is the spoiled, entitled brat of Zbigniew Brezinski who has been on a “fat kick” for years.  She likes to tell people to go on diets.  I couldn’t believe anyone could be so cold to find humor in any of this.  However, she will never be a “worker bee” that faces eminent peril.  She is too far up the food chain!  It is a nightmare beyond imagination to wonder how the scientists are going to pull these guys up through some endless tunnel to safety.  I cannot even imagine the terror of going up a short length of a dark hole let alone one that is 2300 feet underground.  I cannot and do not want to think about being entombed in a dark hole underground anxiously wondering about my rescue.  My heart goes out to all these people and their families.

My heart always goes out to the “worker bees”.  These are the people that move a country.  They put food on the table.  They mine the minerals that we use in everything from energy production to computers and jewelry.  These are the workers that use manufacturing equipment that can literally crush them.  These are the workers that can have limbs removed because someone cut a corner and either bought old, unsafe equipment or didn’t teach them safety standards.

No one should laugh at any worker bee as they take all the risk and receive the least amount of benefit.  The CEO, the president, the person at the top gets the pay off.  They expend the least amount of risk and receive the greatest benefits.

It’s time that we reward those worker bees.  The people that are at the bottom of this proverbial food chain that have jobs that are not safe should be protected and rewarded with greater pay for the obvious risks they take to put food on the table for their families.  Often times these people know no other way.  Dad worked in the mine.  Grandpa worked in the mine and there is no other choice for them.  So, they work in a mine.  Many probably would prefer other work.  I know you’re thinking someone has to do this work.  That may be true but the jobs can be made safer and more lucrative for the workers.  It shouldn’t be just about maximizing profits.  There has to be some financial reward for workers that work in very unsafe jobs.

We may have to pay a bit more for the products or the CEO and the administrators and owners of the company may have to receive a little less “bonus” money but it needs to be done.  This isn’t a radical thought even though I know someone will say and think I’m a socialist.  I may be.  I don’t know.  That’s just a label.  I believe in social justice as I was taught with my Catholic upbringing.  It’s time that the worker bees banded together and demanded social justice for all.