For most of my life, I really hadn't paid much attention to election issues. I looked at candidate statements, watched the news and voted Democrat. I grew up in a lower-middle class neighborhood, with parents who cared more about religion than they did about their children ("gifts from God").
The last couple of elections opened up my eyes slightly to the corruption, hatred and religious furvor that permeated the Republican Party. How their lies continued to fall on the electorate as if by continuing to spout them they would become true.
All that changed in July of last year (2011) when I joined the civil grand jury in my county. California is the only state in the union that has civil grand juries - used to be a lot more states, but they have all tossed them onto the waste bin of politics. Each county in CA has a civil grand jury made up of citizens (11 to 23 members, depending on population of the county) whose job it is to investigate everything in the county that isn't federal or state. That includes inspecting jails, auditing county budgets, investigating special districts (schools, recreation, cemetery, etc.), and investigating city and county agencies for evidence of malfeasance or misfeasance.
More past the squiggly thingy.
The civil grand jury then issues reports on its investigations and the subject(s) of the investigation are required to respond (per the penal code) to the report. The reports also go to the local newspapers.
I asked someone what happens in other states and the response was "the newspapers do the investigating." My feeling then and now is, "only if someone in power doesn't stop them." The civil grand jury may get flack from the subjects of a report, but no one can prevent the report from being issued (and showing up on the county's website). Of course, there is a member of the CA assembly who keeps pushing bills to do away with the grand jury, but that's because he had been the subject of numerous grand jury reports when he was a county official.
By seeing the process of the grand jury and then reading the newspapers after meetings that I have attended, I sometimes wondered if the reporters really attended the same meetings I attended.
After starting on the grand jury, I have been reading the paper with an entirely new eye, especially local matters. However, there are just so many topics that can be reviewed, and some of the smaller issues get tossed to the wayside - sometimes they can be the most corrupt of the crowd.
So after hearing about the War on Women the Republicans started (and now they are saying the Democrats and Obama are the real evil here), I started looking at websites like this one and felt compelled to express my own weird opinion.
I fear for the future of the United States of America. We have become so divided, a country divided by hatred, a country divided by class (rich vs everyone else), a country divided by religion (Christian vs everyone else), a country where liberal has been turned into a dirty word, a country where compromise is an even dirtier word, I don't see how it can come back from the edge and be the great nation it once was.
Then I start thinking about a science-fiction story I read called, I believe, "The Screwfly Solution." The premise of that story is based on sterile flies being allowed to breed with females to prevent eggs being laid that could hatch into more flies. Only, in this case, the process is used to rid the world of humans. The first thing that shows up is the increase in attacks on women by men. More rapes, more murders, more torture of women by men. And it goes on from there.
Perhaps the Republicans are the vanguard of a human screwfly solution. Am I being too paranoid? Sorry, I guess my fears for the country, for the women and children of the country and even for the sanity of men in the country have set me off.
I'll go back to being the ignorant naif I used to be, I hope, and try hard to realize that at the age of 65 (this year), if I live as long as my parents, I have only another 30 years. Maybe I will live long enough to see a resurrection of the greatness of this country. Maybe I will live long enough to see the end of this country. Either way, I know it is not going to be pretty. End of my wordy ramble. Sorry it took so long.