America the Immoral, Part One

By Deb Equality Della Piana on January 15, 2013 • ( 0 )

Don’t misread the headline. It doesn’t say “America the Immortal.” It does indeed say “America the Immoral.” As a political junkie, I spend a lot of time rooting around, digging up information, and generally keeping myself informed of the day-to-day events going on in America and abroad. We still have that self-righteous swagger that goes along with believing that no other nation is as great as the good old USA. However, one thing I am absolutely sure of is that America can no longer claim the moral high ground…and I’m not just talking about our politicians either.

I’m confident that this will be a long diatribe. It will be a two-part effort. Stay tuned for part two later in the week.

An unprecedented level of greed exists in this nation. The rich simply want to get richer and, while they’re at it, they’d rather not pay their fair share in taxes. We have multimillionaire businessmen like CEO and chair of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, given the charter to reduce the deficit. According to greedmeister Blankfein, the “entitlements” need to be slowed down and contained. Eat shit, Lloyd. First, they aren’t entitlements. They are earned benefits paid for by the taxes of working people. And Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid do not contribute to the deficit. That would be caused by war and the tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. If millionaires paid Social Security taxes based on their real income, instead of paying the same rate as someone earning $110,000 a year, Social Security would be all set for decades to come. If these “earned benefits” are cut, the money saved would not go toward reducing the deficit. The money would simply go back into the program. I call having millionaires figuring out how to reduce the deficit immoral. And I call their insistence that the responsibility lies with the poor, middle class and the elderly immoral. There’s one more issue with these so-called “entitlements.” How about the federal government stop stealing money from these programs to fund unrelated programs? Let’s call in the IOU in addition to having the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share. If we do that, the programs are more than all set.

Our president has no moral center. It’s a fact that I voted for Barack Obama. It’s also a fact that I voted for him because, as a woman and an LGBT American, I simply do not vote for the GOP. Ever. (And I also refuse to boycott elections because I don’t believe anyone has the right to complain if he or she doesn’t go out and vote.) That doesn’t mean that I think Barack Obama is the answer. He’s anything but. He continues on with drone warfare, indefinite detention, and his self-anointed “kill” list. Guantanamo is still open, despite his promise to close it when he ran back in 2008, and he has no intention of closing it during his second term. All of those things define the word immoral.

The Obamabots of the nation, and there are plenty, refuse to even discuss these issues. They ignore them because it’s more convenient to ignore them. Instead, they post pictures of him in his Wayfarers on Facebook and every other social site because he looks “cool.” And, by the way, we’re still not sure that Barack Obama won’t offer up those so-called “entitlements” to appease the GOP (another pack of immoral bastards) because, by nature, Barack Obama is not much of a fighter. He’s only a progressive when he’s on the campaign trail. After that, better keep your eye on him because he’ll sell out the poor and middle class as quickly as the GOP if it’s politically expedient. The Obamabots shrug their shoulders and say, “Hey, that’s politics.” No it isn’t, actually. It’s called “lying.” And that’s immoral too.

The GOP is immoral on a whole lot of levels. Oh, this could take up one whole post. Basically, the GOP doesn’t work for a living. Instead, they spend their time trying to block meaningful legislation unless it benefits the millionaires who put them in office to begin with. Apparently, Barack Obama isn’t the only politician who hasn’t heard that he got a mandate from the American people back on November 6th. The GOP doesn’t “get it” either. They are up to their old tricks: Threatening to crash the economy unless the Dems agree to their “deficit reduction” plans. (Frankly, the Dems should just let them do it and then spend the next year pointing the finger at them, but I doubt that the Dems have the courage to do that.) Or how about continuing to spend millions in taxpayer dollars to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), even though it has now been declared unconstitutional eight times? It doesn’t matter to them that every single GOP candidate who spent his or her term trying to screw the women of this nation over and redefining the parameters of “rape” lost this past November. They are still all about marginalizing women. I call that immoral.

Here’s another thing I call immoral: Refusing to pass legislation to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy, yet spending millions of dollars defending DOMA. It only finally passed the House (and a scaled-back version, mind you) on the 4th of January because John Boehner would have had a full-tilt revolution on his hands. Even his own party was disgusted. At the end of the day, it’s not about the bullshit “fiscal cliff” or “spending,” it’s about lives.

Want more? The GOP continues to vote to repeal Obamacare, and gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while they get free benefits for life on the backs of the people they’re trying to screw over. I call that immoral.

All hail the Guns, God and Guts crowd. They don’t come any more immoral. This isn’t just about what goes on in the hallowed halls of DC, and it isn’t just about the NRA — although they both are a large part of the picture. It’s also about the American people and this immoral attitude that you solve your human relations problems with a gun. Where does that come from? Frankly, it comes from the top. That’s how our nation deals with its human relations problems. We don’t talk to our enemies. Hell no. We don’t have time for that. We simply invade, kill and occupy.

In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, massacre of 20 innocent children and seven courageous adults who put their lives on the line to protect them, the American people’s response has been to push gun sales to an all-time high. That is a giant WTF, folks. Oh, for shit’s sake, let’s not deny the American people their Second Amendment rights. First of all, the NRA has done a hell of a job twisting the Second Amendment to suit its own purpose and the American people are just plain ignorant enough to eat it up. We spend time dicking around with the definition of “assault weapons.” The media doesn’t clarify it very well, but that isn’t what matters. Does anybody need a gun that shoots six rounds a minute? Does anyone need 100-round clips? Hell, no, not for hunting anyway…unless you’re hunting and killing your fellow man. For sport? To protect your loved ones and your home? Not hardly. Nobody needs those. For the record, the use of guns to protect property and loved ones is virtually nil in this nation. People simply want those types of weapons. (However, just in case there needs to be clarification on these weapons, here’s a resource for you.) And the surge in gun sales isn’t from new gun owners. It has been from people who already own guns. There have been stories of people from my own state of Massachusetts flooding gun shops in Iowa before new restrictions are in place. Jesus H. Christ on a cracker. Get real, folks.

Here’s the NRA’s solution: Put an armed guard in every school. Hell, we had two armed guards at Columbine. How did that work out for everyone? They’ve even suggested arming the teachers! Does anyone actually “get it?” That’s the NRA creating a new market and more gun sales for its corporate entities. It’s called profiteering off a massacre. And that’s downright immoral. The NRA and many GOP politicians are floating the idea that the plan is to take everyone’s guns away. That’s bullshit. Here’s what gun control looks like: Ban all assault weapons (or whatever the hell they’re called). We had that in place until 2004, when the Bush administration allowed the law to lapse. Everything was fine here without them. As I’ve said, nobody needs those weapons. They have been the weapon of choice in most of the massacres since Columbine. It would be better if people did not have access to those weapons.

Beyond that, what we are asking for is a thorough background check that includes a psychological assessment prior to getting a gun. If you’ve got a problem with that, then you’ve got something to hide and you probably shouldn’t have a gun to begin with. The loopholes for gun shows needs to be closed, and sales over the Internet for guns and ammunition needs to be stopped if some type of background check cannot be put in place. Of course, the magical members of the GOP will take the position that background checks infringe upon American freedoms, but that’s bullshit. All I hear about is that the Constitution says we can carry guns, and the government cannot tell us that we cannot have guns. I keep hearing from people on Facebook that it’s about the Second Amendment and the Constitution. Well, here’s a little question for all those Second Amendment whack jobs: How about the Constitutional rights of those who have been murdered and denied their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness because we have to protect the rights of people to arm themselves…even if they are batshit crazy? How about those rights? Here’s the bottom line: We are cowboy, gunslinger America. We don’t really need guns. We want guns. I keep hearing that we have to protect ourselves against the government. Really? It’s right-wing paranoia. Period.

In Japan, you can’t own a gun unless you are a hunter. You need a license for that. Japan has all but eliminated senseless gun deaths. If Japan can do it. We can too. We simply don’t want to do it. We’ve had these foolish “Stand Your Ground” Laws that allow citizens to simply shoot one another without any ramifications if they perceive another person is committing a crime. Again, these laws were a corporate brainchild run through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and it was done simply to increase sales for those Corporations while helping them to get around the legislative process. This stuff needs to stop. It’s immoral.

Stay tuned for Part Two!