Occupy Wall Street

I have to admit, this college professor sums up the movement for me. I work for Scrouge, who bought an island in the Bahamas last winter and spends several weeks there every so often. Meanwhile, I don't have health insurance but do have paid time off. I have three weeks a year, the same amount of time my boss spent in the Bahamas during the winter last year. Of course, he went back a few more times, but who is counting?

Sentimentally, I am with the movement. And it is those who stand up and object that change of the system. But I can't help wondering if the movement is actually the pawn of those who are orchestrating change for their own profit. I watch the grass roots protests springing up across the country. I watch the nonviolence and remember the '60s... Indeed, for the last several years I have been acutely aware that history cycles and that it was time for another generation of protests. When I heard about the beginning of the movement, I knew "this is it." But I watch the news, the financial markets, other similar protests in other countries, and I wonder.

A friend pointed out the other day that it's easy to infiltrate such a non-organized group and be the one arrested, the one in the media, the one people remember. And I wonder.

Nevertheless, I stand behind the ideals of the movement. I watch Scrooge drive his extended cab pick-up truck with satellite feed and I struggle to pay my bills, wish I had medical insurance, wrote the check for new glasses and resented not having vision insurance. Partner's benefits four paid for Cameron's last hip and I wonder how we'll pay for the other one now that he can barely walk...And I wonder.

Budget Cuts and Planned Parenthood

Anyone else noticing the antics of our lawmakers and the contradictions of their actions?

The House of Representatives just voted to cut all screening, prevention and family planning funding from Planned Parenthood. Apparently our lawmakers believe that if they remove all funding from Planned Parenthood, they can prevent funding abortion.

Hello? Research? Proof?

In case our lawmakers aren't paying attention, people are not going to stop having sex. Unwanted pregnancies can be prevented with condoms and education. Rather than providing services to low-income persons who otherwise will have yet more children they cannot afford to raise, our lawmakers preach morality and refuse to provide services. Meanwhile, they drive nice cars, live in the burbs, and have health care coverage.

Moreover, the consequences are far more expensive than the prevention of unwanted, unintended pregnancies. According to Reuters, raising a child costs $291,570. This price does not include childbirth or college. So for the lack of a condom, our nation will assume the cost of education, medical and other needs. And if the child lacks attachment figures and other needs, thereby winding up in the legal system, the cost increases even more. A quick Google search suggests that housing an inmate in the legal system $20,108 per year or about $55 a day, not including building maintenance, staff, etc.

I've been through four layoffs in my lifetime. I'm familiar with the end of the year push to salvage this year's numbers to justify next year's existence, regardless of the consequences. It horrifies me that we run our country that way. We look so closely at the final bottom line number for this year that we refuse to read the fine print indicating consequences for the next year, the next ten years or the next generation.

To add fuel to my rant, this is one of those things from Facebook that I posted on my wall:

Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP's War on Women

1) Republicans not only want to reduce women's access to abortion care, they're actually trying to redefine rape. After a major backlash, they promised to stop. But they haven't yet. Shocker.

2) A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to "accuser." But victims of other less gendered crimes, like burglary, would remain "victims."

3) In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that couldmake it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care. (Yep, for real.)

4) Republicans want to cut nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids. 

5) In Congress, Republicans have a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life. 

6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said.Women should really be home with the kids, not out working. 

7) And at the federal level, Republicans want to cut that same program, Head Start, by $1 billion. That means over 200,000 kids could lose their spots in preschool.

8) Two-thirds of the elderly poor are women, and Republicans are taking aim at them too. A spending bill would cut funding for employment services, meals, and housing for senior citizens.

9) Congress just voted for a Republican amendment to cut all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers, one of the most trusted providers of basic health care and family planning in our country.

10) And if that wasn't enough, Republicans are pushing toeliminate all funds for the only federal family planning program. (For humans. But Republican Dan Burton has a bill to provide contraception for wild horses. You can't make this stuff up).