It's Tuesday, November 8, 2011...
Exactly one year ago today, I did my civic duty and sent a strong message to the hapless Democrats that I was just fed up with them. On Election Day 2010, I didn't vote...I just stayed home. I know I wasn't the only one who was tired of all the compromises and lack of leadership that just wouldn't stop. Or tolerating a President that wouldn't listen to what I thought was important. Same went for that empty suit of a former majority leader that finally got ousted. Who cares if Nevada has Sen. Sharron Angle to deal with now? I don't live there, and ANYTHING is better than that deadbeat Reid.
And I flew over the top when I was labeled as "f*cking retarded" by Rahm and when Gibbs said he thought that I ought to be drug tested. At that point, I was so livid I had to double up on my blood pressure meds. I told those who were reading the writing on the wall to STFU and leave me alone, because I had already made up my mind. I remember unplugging my landline when all the fundraising robocalls came in and I forwarded my mail to avoid the deluge of election flyers.
Even if I'm not exactly part of the "professional" left, still...I'm supposed to get riled up about all this stuff because most of my fellow progressives do, so I did what I knew was right. I said buh-bye to the Democrats last year.
"Yeah, I showed 'em."
The weekday morning traffic here has been getting worse since the Republican-controlled Congress decided that those who work for the government or the state are "special interests". So now there's extended worker furloughs, work hours cut, reduced personnel and less funding for infrastructure. The state was in the middle of retrofitting and widening the freeway that I take to work every day, but the Republicans and Tea Party reps cut those stimulus fund projects off after they gained the majority. Even the ones who were at the ribbon cutting ceremonies said no more. Those funds are now needed for both Korean War II and the never-ending war in Afghanistan. Not to mention the Bush tax cuts that were successfully extended until 2021 with the bill that passed in January. So now I wait an extra hour in traffic every day both ways, which equates to two hours a day lost that I could be spending with my family. But at least I don't have to tolerate all those broken promises about hope and change any more. My voice was heard loud and clear last year, and I'm damn proud.
"Yeah, I showed 'em."
Some people said that I was overreacting by using mere philosophical objections as the rationale for my non-vote. After all, that's exactly what select Republican voters did to their party when they flocked over to the Tea Party. But really, I don't care. I had to show the WH Dems that they're incompetent, behind-the-times and just a bunch of Clintonite political hacks. That's how you get things done as a citizen in a democracy. You stand up for what you know what's right, never settle for less, and send a clear message by doing nothing. They deserved what they got, plain and simple.
I may join the 99'ers soon (who are now the 120'ers, since Republicans don't want the deficit to rise any higher with extending unemployment benefits to those lazy and unmotivated drug addicts and bums). The small business I work for is suffering badly and my job will soon be on the chopping block due to zero access to company credit and tax breaks we were supposed to get (before Republicans successfully filibustered it for the fifth time this year). When they took over, they said "no more bailouts of any kind" and they meant it. See Dems? Unlike you, they KEPT their campaign promises, so maybe you should learn from them.
And I know that with my asthma and vision problems, I will probably be unable to work in another profession and will end up uninsured. All those newly elected AG's, SOS's and governors were able to obstruct the health care law with legal motions and voter propositions. That was before the Republicans were successful with incrementally repealing the health reform law with the amendments that they stuck into various bills. That old law would have allowed me to buy cheap insurance and get a COBRA extension, but the Republicans successfully gutted the whole thing. I can't believe that it only lasted ten months. But dammit...I don't care, because the Democrats and Obama decided on a watered-down reform bill as a solution, and us progressives have to stand for what we believe without compromise. I got no public option last year, so they paid the price via my non-vote.
"Yeah, I showed 'em."
This is the hottest November ever. I have to drive 100 miles a day to and from work with the windows down. When gas is $6.95 per gallon, you can't afford to run the AC. Republicans ensured that the oil companies would still get the subsidies and tax breaks that they've lived off of for decades, and the oil lobbyists made sure that the futures market speculators got free reign when it came to price fixing. Senate Minority Leader Dick Durbin tried to push legislation to reduce all the oil industry subsidies and tax breaks, but it was blocked twice. Congress also stopped the revised climate change legislation because, according to House Speaker John Boehner, Americans don't want to be stuck with a cap-and-trade tax. So I'll just have to deal with the excessive heat and the high gas prices, and maybe get a job on an offshore rig so I can cash in on some of that oil company bonus money. Or maybe not, since my vision is fading and my asthma flares up when there's toxic fumes around. The EPA was abolished thanks to the amendment that Boehner and McConnell pushed through, so who knows how much damage that stuff would do to my lungs? But the Dems didn't complete the climate change bill by the deadline that I gave them, so now they're paying the ultimate penalty for that unforgivable broken promise.
"Yeah, I showed 'em."
I got warning signs left and right last year about staying at home on Election Day. But I just ignored them all. I had to make it clear that watered-down legislation wasn't good enough. I didn't care that the financial reform law added Wall Street regulations intended to rein in decades of recklessness, or that Elizabeth Warren was eventually nominated to head the CFPA. Bottom line was that Obama hired Summers and Geithner, and he kicked Volcker and Roemer to the curb, so I couldn't forgive him for that no matter what. The banks weren't broken up, nothing was nationalized and CEO's weren't hung to dry and made penniless. That would have almost been a promise kept, but instead, we got that Wall Street reform bill which was just a huge giveway filled with cash and prizes. So yeah...I knew who the REAL enemy was all along, and I defeated them.
Sure, that student loan reform law will allow my son to avoid sending payments to Sallie Mae, but that's not good enough. I expect college to be fully subsidized by the government like it is in Europe. Yet another Democratic fail. My wife now has more equal pay protection than before, which was a big deal since she was the only female manager at the small business she works at (before they laid her off). But that's not enough for me. Obama ain't no progressive and I have to stand by my principles of punishing these bums by any means necessary. So that's that...I know I did the right thing last year.
"Yeah, I showed 'em."
I drove to Tucson last week to visit my cousin in jail. He was pulled over for having a broken tail-light and didn't have his birth certificate or passport in his car. So he was arrested even though he had no idea that his tail-light was busted. He'll probably lose his job because of the arrest on his record, and will have to give up his house since he won't have work. Congress was successful with the bill that nationalized Arizona's SB1070, as a means of easing the burden on state governments who wanted to enact their own laws. So now, every state border looks like the Berlin Wall back in the 60's, with armed guards in towers and security checkpoints on every interstate thoroughfare. Anyone with a darker shade of skin like mine or my kids', or a last name like Lopez, Gonzalez, Martinez or Fernandez is pulled aside for "special screening" and that can take hours sometimes. I remember the days when I could drive to Vegas on vacation or to Utah to take the family to Zion National Park, but now it's such a documentation hassle that we don't go anymore.
But I still had to keep Obama accountable for what he said on camera to Jorge Ramos back in 2008: immigration reform would happen during his first year in office. Dems had the majority, so they should have made it all happen. It didn't, so that broken promise cost the Dems my vote, along with everything else. I'm sure they're really sorry right now that they took my loyalty for granted.
"Yeah, I showed 'em."
I've had to move my family three times this year. In January 2011, my house foreclosed, and Congress decided to defeat the Mortgage Relief & Reinvestment Act of 2011 because the majority felt most Americans bought homes they couldn't afford in the first place. So I moved into a smaller rental, just a one bedroom home instead of three. But after only two months, I had to evacuate it due to deadly brush fires that consumed over 9,300 acres. I knew the house couldn't be saved because our state's governor, Meg Whitman, cut funding for the Fire & Rescue teams statewide after she was elected. Personnel was cut by 40% and firefighters came as far as Oregon and Nevada to assist with the fire here in California. Governor Whitman also decided that the Boeing Evergreen B-747 Supertankers that were used for past fires smaller than this were too much of an expense for the state budget to handle. So they were officially retired and dismantled. No replacement or smaller alternatives were put in their place.
Now I live in a hotel room, pay a weekly rate and take the kids to school on the city bus. Had to sell the car in order to keep up with bills and my wife has to work three jobs just to allow us to eat. I barely see her any more, except for maybe an hour or two a week. Everything I own is in a storage place that a friend helped me out with. If it wasn't for him, I would have had to give everything I own away. I doubt that we'll ever be able to go back to the way things were last year. I think that we're stuck here for good, until they either kick us out when we run out of money or maybe if these Lotto numbers I play finally hit one day. All of our relatives are either deceased, in a nursing home or out of state. So we have no one to fall back on but ourselves.
Well, that's all I can say for today. One 24-hour day feels like a whole week now. I'm constantly exhausted...have to squint to see the monitor...and the keys...when I type. But I still feel good about what I did a year ago. And what everybody else did. We all stood up for what we originally voted for and taught those DC elites a lesson with the power of our vote. Now all we gotta do is primary Obama next year and we'll be in even better shape than we have been at any time for decades. Activism at its finest. Democracy in action. It will be whole new world...and I can't wait.
I really showed 'em.