Tear Down The Statue Of Liberty

by Mary Pitt
September 19, 2010
　
It seems that the Statue of Liberty has lost its meaning and so might as well be razed and the island on which it stands can be put to better use, something like another huge amusement park for the enrichment of Disney or some other large entertainment corporation. If you doubt that this is true, try reading and really thinking about the words that are inscribed on its base:

Send me your tired, your poor
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Your huddles masses yearning to be free
Send these your tempest-toss'd to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door

Does that make sense to you? As if we didn't have enough tired, poor, and wretched refuse of our own! Why should we import more? There just isn't enough money to keep them alive but they would be better off dead, right? Just ignore them and let God handle the problem.

If those who sprung from the Tea Party to win the primary elections really represent the "will of the people", we all have to change our political philosophy. A good start at that can be accomplished by the destruction of the Statue of Liberty. It, like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, has become another tool for the take-over of our government. We all need to "dumb down" even more than during the Bush administration and stop bothering to read those historic documents and the history of the country. You see, our leaders will be those who wear Statue of Liberty costumes to Tea Parties even though the impressive statue was not even there during the Revolution. It was a gift from France (!) to celebrate the centennial of our beginning and the assistance that we gave them in the fight for their own democracy.

The ultra-religious Right has also neglected to familiarize themselves with the contents of the Constitution. They insist that President Obama is not a citizen despite his birth in Hawaii because his father was Nigerian. In one place, the Constitution speaks of "natural-born" and in others the phrase "within the jurisdiction of the United States". This means that anybody who is born in a facility or location where the laws of the United States apply is, thus, a natural-born American citizen. There was no outcry about John McCain being born in Panama both because his parents were American and because he was born in a military facility. Further, upon the granting of independence of the Philippines, children of one Philippine citizen and an American could choose their nationality.

Now we find ourselves faced with the problem of the tired, the poor, the tempest-tossed wretched refuse from Mexico and points South. There are too many of them to deport all at once and many are parents of United States citizens who are too young to leave behind. Would it over-crowd the country to let them stay? Surely, this great nation can manage to do all the paperwork that would be necessary to document them. Then, perhaps rather than to build walls, we could build ports of entry at the border where they could present themselves for documentation. After a computer check to prove that they are not felons or diseased, the proper papers could be furnished to let them walk in openly. Initially, it might be necessary to provide housing while they wait but, if the Golden Door will open for them, they will tolerate it patiently.

That Golden Door has opened for people from every nation in the world and every one of them who came with the yearning for a better life has become a productive part of society. Why not now? Because it would take too much money? Aye, there's the rub! We would have to pay taxes to cover the expenses and the payment of taxes has become a burden to those with "money to burn." And the more they have, the harder they hang onto it. They don't want to pay an honest wage for an honest day's work and they don't want to pay taxes!

Despite their loud protestations of Christianity, they have chosen to serve Mammon. AND THEY ARE WINNING! We thought our nation had undergone a change for the worse during the Bush administration but, if we allow this union between the religious right and the extremely wealthy to succeed in taking over our country, none of our sacred documents will mean a thing. In that case, we may as well tear down the Statue of Liberty, burn the Constitution, and stack the Declaration with the other books of fairy tales.

"Once upon a time, in a land far, far way, there was a beautiful land where all people were created equal and had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."

This writer is eighty years old and has spent a half century working with handicapped and deprived people and advocating on their behalf while caring for her own working-class family. She spends her "Sunset Years" in writing and struggling with The System.

With Friends Like These

by Mary Pitt
September 7, 2010

My middle-American heart swelled with pride in January, 2009, as our new President took his oath of office: pride in an America that could choke back two hundred years of prejudice and go to vote for a young, untried man to lead us out of the swamp in which the last holder of that seat had stranded us; pride that we had survived with sufficient strength that we could avail ourselves of the opportunity to rebuild out nation to the land of freedom and opportunity that we once enjoyed, and pride that the common people had come out in force to win the election and restore our ownership of our own democracy.

How wrong!

The very same people who elected this man and, in addition, gave him a predominantly Democratic Congress to assist him in his task, are the ones who are sitting on their haunches and wailing like a pack of forlorn hound dogs. "He set the wrong priorities!" "He isn't doing enough!" :He isn't doing it fast enough!" He's a failure!" These are not the words from the opposition. They are the words of his supporters! Those same people who turned out in droves and, at times, literally fought their way to the polling places so they could participate in the re-birth of a nation. The same ones who declared their Progressive stances celebrated the end of Bush-Cheney with hoots and cheers. We were admirers and friends of Barrack Hussein Obama and were aching to get on with the task ahead. These wonderful people are now opting to get off the bandwagon and walk!

It started very early. "He should not have appointed Hillary Clinton to Secretary of State. She will sell him down the river." "He has kept too many retreads from Bush and Clinton administrations." "He failed to jam the health care measures that we wanted down the throats of Congress." In short, while Obama has completed some tasks which many thought, and attempted to prove, were highly improbable, he is now being condemned for failing to perform the impossible! "The budget is still not balanced!" "The deficit is growing!" "We still have combat troops overseas!" This sort of thing is to be expected from the right wing as they attempt to regain their congressional control but to hear it from Democrats and even Progressives is disheartening, to say the least.

This widespread depression among the Progressives is certainly understandable. We wanted universal health insurance issued by the government with uniform premiums, total coverage, reasonably priced with no allowance for profit; we wanted some form of public employment to compensate for the loss of jobs; we wanted re-negotiation on all the "fair trade" agreements which took the factories offshore; we wanted a prompt end to the Bush wars. We wanted Christmas! However, we were not able to provide a Congress with a sufficient majority to carry those plans through against the determined opposition of the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats arrayed against us.

So now what do we do? We sulk in a corner, vote third party or vote with our feet! We act like a bunch of unhappy children on Christmas morning because "Santa Claus is a fake!" This is the time for us to re-affirm the dedication that we professed for the improvement of humanity by stepping up, stepping out and working for the new Congressional Progressive candidates for re-election and giving the President as much support as we did before his election. We can still control the damage inflicted by the Tea Party and the millionaire manipulators behind the Republican Party so we can continue to get as much improvement as possible in the next session.

It's time to put on our Big Boy pants, roll up our sleeves and get out the vote for Our Side. Just remember that it took eight years for George Bush to tear down the nation as we knew and loved it and it was silly of us to expect Barack Obama to re-assemble it in less than two years. Let's get out and promote the Progressive viewpoint, turn out the vote, and give the only President we have as much assistance as we can for the next two years. Then there will be plenty of time for us to choose a new progressive candidate for 2012. Allowing Republicans to take total control will result in the cancellation of improvements that we have accomplished and cause still more damage to democracy. Otherwise, we will find ourselves with another Great Depression and/or another war.

The choice is ours.

Mary Pitt is eighty years old and has spent a half century working with handicapped and deprived people and advocating on their behalf while caring for her own working-class family. She spends her "Sunset Years" in writing and struggling with The System.