A View from the Battlefield

Held Hostage by the Right: Rise Up You Mighty
Majority!

By Jamala Rogers - BC Editorial Board
BC
July 19, 2012

http://www.blackcommentator.com/481/481_vb_rise_up_cover_share.html

    These people are not just stupid, insensitive or
    misguided; they are dangerous to all living
    things.

You gotta' give them their props. The Right has been
diligently and systematically working on their
draconian strategy for over 30 years. Setbacks occur
but it presses on. Occasionally, it will boldly
announce its moves as if it knows its opponents are
powerless to response with a serious and sustained
fight-back. It's like a cat knocking a mouse around
with no plan for a quick kill but delighting in
ensuring the mouse's slow and deliberate death.

Ever since the GOP and their foaming-at-the-mouth
Tea Party pals swept state legislatures and the
Congress in midterm elections, they've been in
lockstep on voter suppression, jobs annihilation,
abortion restrictions, health care crush and the
biggy - making Obama a one-term prez.

For the 33rd time, the GOP-controlled the House of
Representatives repealed the Affordable (Health)
Care Act. Since it was first passed in 2010,
Republicans have wasted our tax dollars 33 times,
knowing the Democratically-controlled Senate
would beat it back. They're poised to repeal it
another 33 times.

According to a CBS News report, these repeal
charades have costs taxpayers nearly $50 million
dollars. Thinkprogress.org took the debacle a step
further by costing out what could have been done
with that kind of money. It could have provided
"subsidies for about 4,500 families of four in the
exchanges, or one year of food stamps for 31,131
people."

Since the High Court's ruling, some Republican
governors have shouted to the rooftops that they
will not implement the ACA. The sad and sick part
of this is that it's coming from the governors with
the poorest and least healthy citizens such as
Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Florida, etc.

The conservatives in this country are anything but
conservative, except when it comes to visionary
thinking and humane policies. They love to talk
about the beloved U.S. Constitution until they want
to disregard it as they have effectively done with
expansive abortion restrictions, making it hard to
tell that Roe v. Wade is supposed to be the law of
the land. The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling to open
the floodgates of unfettered and undisclosed cash
into campaign elections was a-ok. But when that
same Court upheld the ACA, they were accused of
everything from being anti-American to being an
activist court. Chief Justice John Roberts was
publicly vilified.

Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) testified during the repeal
hearings that a person with a brain tumor should
not be covered by the ACA. Foster Friess, a
billionaire investor and supporter of Rick
Santorum's super PAC, said that Bayer aspirin was
effective for birth control; gals can just "put it
between their knees." Former GOP presidential
candidate, Newt Gingrich, said that poor children
had no work ethic and needed to become janitors to
avoid being "future pimps and prostitutes." Indiana
Republican Rep. Bob Morris said the Girl Scouts are
"bent on Communism, lesbianism and destroying
America." And who could forget the infamous words
of Rush Limbaugh who called Georgetown student
Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" for
expressing her views on reproductive rights.

These people are not just stupid, insensitive or
misguided; they are dangerous to all living things.

The Right has amped up its racist, sexist,
homophobic and Islamophobic rants and
transformed them into policy and legislation.
Congressmen Emanuel Cleaver was spat upon by an
angry white Tea Party protestor as he ascended the
steps to the Capitol. Narrow definitions of marriage
have been imposed on us. A record number of laws
have been passed to curtail access to affordable and
safe abortions, abortion doctors have been
threatened or killed and abortion clinics have been
bombed and de-funded. And can we say Sharia
Law?

It's very clear to me and I hope to most fair-minded
people that these people are not just stupid,
insensitive or misguided; they are dangerous to all
living things. They are in positions of power that
influence or that directly impact the lives of
everyday people. The 99% aka the Mighty Majority
must escalate our efforts to educate, agitate and
organize our base. This is not just a numbers game;
this is a war between democracy and plutocracy, a
struggle between righteousness and savagery. The
Mighty Majority must re-affirm our collective
strength, wisdom and power. We must win.
____________

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member
and Columnist, Jamala Rogers, is the leader of the
Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis and the
Black Radical Congress National Organizer.
Additionally, she is an Alston-Bannerman Fellow.
She is the author of The Best of the Way I See It - A
Chronicle of Struggle

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