Miss the America You Grew Up In?

Which America did you grow up in?

The Jim Crow America? The America that denigrated and underpaid women? The America that taxed wealthy Americans 90%, where rivers regularly caught on fire, where victims of sexual assaults were blamed, where pedophile priests went unpunished and their assaults hidden, child abductions were ignored, or the America that sent 50,000 mostly unwilling draftees overseas to die for a cause that they did not agree with?

Or the America before Corporations were declared people, the Voting Rights Act was not trashed, abortion was a woman's choice, science was not denigrated and denied, school children could recite a Pledge of Allegiance that did not have the words "under God" added, currency had the motto "E Pluribus Unum" ("Out of Many, One") instead of "In God We Trust," colleges were more affordable, CEOs only made 50 times what their workers made instead of 300+ times, Social Security was a worker-funded retirement insurance program and not a welfare entitlement, Earth Day was part of a non-political environmental protection effort and not a job-killing liberal scheme, executives overseeing fraud went to jail, lapel flag pins were not proof of patriotism, and more working class people had well-paying jobs and company pensions that weren't transferred to an under-funded government agency and didn't have benefits slashed?

America has problems now, America had problems in the past, America will have problems in the future. Longing for an idealized, romanticized America that never existed. Be careful what you wish for.

Protests by "sons of bitches"

Sad. They are not boycotting America. They are protesting discrimination and police brutality. Americans have given their lives for the right to free speech, which includes the right to protest, and Trump's incendiary remarks (while mostly ignoring Puerto Rico's devastation) have resulted in many more athletes joining in the protest. No, they are not advocating violence against police; they are protesting violence and the killing of people of color.

The President of the United States publicly calling those athletes "sons of bitches" (later spun as "simply stating that pride in our country is a good thing") is what we should be complaining about. Patriotism and loving America is not waving the flag and yelling "Love it or leave it!" Patriotism is supporting The Constitution and working to better people's lives, supporting each other in times of need, protecting this country, working to protect our air, water, and soil, and protesting injustices where we find them.

Someone kneeling to bring attention to a problem is not disrespecting America. It is fighting for people's rights, the same as when suffragettes marched for the women's vote, the same as when blacks fought for civil rights and equality, the same as when in 1912 women mill workers went on strike to protest slashed wages and horrendous working conditions, the same as when people protested the Vietnam War and the wasting of the lives of tens of thousands of our soldiers, the same as protests for American Independence (remember the Boston Tea Party?). Protests are part of America's history.

A boycott of America? Not supporting America? Sons of bitches? Really? Sounds like you agree with the police who clubbed and arrested those striking women mill workers. Think about what you believe and what you are telling other people.

Regarding the Review of Automobile Emission Standards

Dear Administrator Pruitt,

Maybe you don't believe in Climate Change. But your dismissiveness of science and how science works aren't going to change reality. The EPA is tasked with protecting our environment and our health. Or don't you believe in your mission? You obviously don't care about our health and protecting the planet we all share and you are willing to damn us and future generations in your single-minded pursuit of whatever twisted ideology you believe in. If you don't think you can handle your job requirements then step aside and let someone who is not ignorant and callous and consumed by greed do the job.

You don't believe that just a slight rise in average temperature can cause the extreme weather we are having. You don't think that the rise in temperature means that the atmosphere holds more moisture or that the heated oceans hold more energy. You would ignore the melting of Arctic and Antarctic ice and the creation of the Northwest Passage. You would dismiss the emergence of frequent 100-year and 1000-year weather events.

And now you want to put the prior administration's emission standards for automobiles under "review." How many more protections are you going to trash? Will you keep taking a wrecking ball to our environment until our oceans are dead, our rivers are once again on fire, our soil is polluted, our water unsafe, and our air filled with more toxic chemicals? How many people have to die until you are happy?

Keep the emissions standards. Or kill people. Your choice.

Keith Wilson


SIGN THE PETITION: TELL PRUITT NOT TO ROLL BACK OBAMA’S CLEAN CAR STANDARDS