Why The Mayoress Supports the 99%

Three words: changing the dialogue.

Hey, remember the Tea Party?  Though a fringe group and certainly not the majority, they swung the overall American debate on all issues extremely far right.  Candidates on the right and some on the left had to start answering the questions they were asking.  Some even ran on their platform.

The #Occupy movement stands to do the same for the left, bringing a balance back to the discussion in this all important year before a major election.  Their theatrics invite media attention, which means that pundits and candidates have to respond in order to be newsworthy.  Perfect.

Yes, it would be nice if there were clear leaders and a well-outlined platform.  But you know what?  It would probably be less effective at this point.  Because now, you and I and most everyone we know are the 99%, and we can see a glimmer of our dissatisfaction with The Way Things Are, the way things are working - and more importantly - not working, in their frustration.  And that sympathy makes the movement more widely accessible, and gives it more possibility, at least for now.

So, cheers to everyone who believes in America enough to try to fix it.  As always, I admire those who get up and say or do something, even when I don't fully agree, over those who sit on their couches and talk about it.

Suck It Teabaggers

Seriously, anyone who positively associates themselves with this ridiculousness (or Glenn Beck, or Fox News) is severely ignorant and in need of a reality, morality, and compassion check.

A group of lowlifes at a Tea Party rally in Columbus, Ohio, last week taunted and humiliated a man who was sitting on the ground with a sign that said he had Parkinson’s disease. The disgusting behavior was captured on a widely circulated videotape. One of the Tea Party protesters leaned over the man and sneered: “If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong end of town.”

Another threw money at the man, first one bill and then another, and said contemptuously, “I’ll pay for this guy. Here you go. Start a pot.”

In Washington on Saturday, opponents of the health care legislation spit on a black congressman and shouted racial slurs at two others, including John Lewis, one of the great heroes of the civil rights movement. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was taunted because he is gay.

At some point, we have to decide as a country that we just can’t have this: We can’t allow ourselves to remain silent as foaming-at-the-mouth protesters scream the vilest of epithets at members of Congress — epithets that The Times will not allow me to repeat here.

It is 2010, which means it is way past time for decent Americans to rise up against this kind of garbage, to fight it aggressively wherever it appears.

Full Article.