17 | August | 2012 | Existential Ennui

Tags

abortion rights, code words, critical thinking, Election 2012, GOP, Mitt Romney, right wing, Romney and morality, taxes, Tennessee

A certain amount of attention is required to prevent being duped. And of course, if you don’t realize the deception soon enough, it may be too late to avoid the unpleasant consequences.

Perhaps the greatest gift of learning is the ability to think critically. We are all subject to lapses, and we all have varying abilities here. Most of us are woefully inadequate as any political or company ad will attest. We are overly subject to our past, our emotions and frankly our personal desires as to how we wish things were.

We would all do well to spend a bit more time checking under the bed rather than simply admiring the pretty quilt that lies upon it.

Cases in point:

The Right (does anybody find it as funny as I do that the Right is named right when they are wrong which is surely the oxymoron of the century) mains as often as it can, that the Left is guilty of blatant race-baiting. Now I find that usually silly. Recently Joe Biden claimed that the R & R would return people “to chains” a reference that really was a play off Willard’s stated desire to “unshackle” the banks from regulation. The Right was aghast with shock and outrage at Joe’s incendiary remark.

But of course we all know that the Right has been using code for-EVER in its attempt to remind its white audiences that THEY are not the same as THOSE OTHERS. If you want a clue about how to read between the lines, then scoot over to the Grio and read a good piece on the “new normal.”

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There are more ways than one to skin a cat. Whether that is true or not, there are certainly many ways to effectively stop abortions other than a blatant and at this time, illegal move to ban them outright.

Tennessee has managed to force the closing of a long-operating clinic in its state by passing a “seemingly” innocuous law that requires that every clinic must have one doctor on staff with “admitting privileges” to a local hospital. When their only clinician with such privileges died, the clinic was unable to secure another.

Why? Because now such privileges are denied to such clinics. So even though they have board-certified OB-GYN’s on staff, and fully capable Ambulatory Surgical Treatment Center, they cannot meet the new state requirement.

This is how rights are taken from people without their even being aware of it.

Of course Tennessee apparently misses the point that you can reduce abortions by: making sure that poor families have adequate food and health care, providing good employment training to the unemployed, providing services to new mothers, day care facilities to working mothers, better sex education that emphasizes something more than “not doing it”, i.e., CONTRACEPTION, and making contraception freely available.

Oh, wait, that would be helping people to be dependent wouldn’t it? We certainly can’t have that!

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Of course he’s hiding something. The Obama campaign sent an offer to Romney: release five more years of tax returns and we promise to never ask for any more. The offer was declined, with Romney telling us all that we can trust that he has reviewed them, and he never paid “less than 13%”. Since when is thirteen percent a good figure? Is that what you pay?

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This man ——->

Said this:

How can you go out there and tell people things that just aren’t true?” he asked rhetorically. He added, “This is a time for truths.”

Remember the old Star Trek show when they captured an old satellite that had gotten its commands scrambled and was trying to sterilize all life? The intrepid Captain Kirk sent it into a mental melt down by saying, “Everything I say is a lie. I’m lying.”

It appears that Willard has no more sense of truth than he has of the price of a loaf of bread these days.

Sigh….don’t we have a right to expect more from those who make decisions in our name?

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Much is made of the fact that Willard tithes something like 10 % of his income each year to his Church. He is wont to tell you that when you add his tax returns to this tithing, he gives “well over 20%” of his money to help others.

The assumption is that the tithe goes to charities to help others. Well. . . .not quite.

If you are interested in where all the Mormon church’s money goes, then link up to Crooks and Liars and read all about it. They have the charts and the figures.

It is a serious eye-opener.