Critical 4th of July

I am almost too damned cynical to be writing this post today. I've come to believe that the capture of our local, state and federal government by the monied interests (read financial oligarchy disguised as the republican party and various tea-party groups) is almost absolute. Yet I still find myself making the attempt to help wake up the American electorate.

So in that vein here's some contributions from others who feel as I do and something that you the reader can do if you wish to help out.

First a little snark to start off the process. This comes compliments of Crooks and Liars. To read the entire article you can go here. To paraphrase, it is a commentary on the corporatization of our country with new words for the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance
To the Bathtub
Of the United Slates of Norquist.
And to the Republicans,
For which it scams,
One Corporation,
Under Fraud
With Liberty & Tax Cuts for All....
corporate jet-owning billionaires.

The next offering is again from Crooks and Liars and is a fictional speech ( we really wish he had delivered this speech though) that should have been given by the president on the debt ceiling and the current debate, craziness and blackmail by the radical right to further impoverish and harm the majority of our citizens. You can read the whole speech here.
Let me just say that in the speech he lays the facts out and addresses what is really going on now.

Last is a real speech given by Bernie Sanders on the house floor. It is a letter to President Obama. This was brought to my attention on the blog Time Goes By, an elder blogging site dedicated to the issues affecting folks my age.



If after hearing Bernie's speech you would like to sign the letter yourself, you can do that here.

When I signed there was a little over a hundred thousand signatures. By my count there ought to be at least a hundred million people who should be on board with Bernie. We truly face another threat to our independence this Fourth of July. This threat is to our financial freedom. The proposals of the far right will mean a further decrease in the well being, happiness and live styles of countless millions of us, while helping to increase the already tremendous gap in wealth and power between the top 1% and the rest of us.

I wish you a happy fourth and hope you'll join in what may be the most important fight of your generation.

Peace,

RT