Well…over the last couple of years I have been admonished a few times by my friends to not take things so personally, especially politics, and I have taken that advice to heart for the most part…but, as I reflect further on the state of affairs in this country, I may have been wrong to listen…I am coming to a new way of thinking about things; that maybe the only way to effect change in our great country is to take all of the blows personally, to take torture in my name as an American personally, to take the concentration of wealth fostered by the repubs personally, to take the unrelenting partisanship in politics personally, and to take the gutting of the middle class personally. I don’t know if it will help or not but I think we need to do something different…especially when I hear of the “great social values awakening” that is the plan of the new Republican governors that were elected in November. I take it personally when these guys, including the new gov of Michigan Rick Snyder, are going back to the old, divisive ways of the past repub administrations where they try to shove the religious views of the minority of the electorate down our throats by legislation that is by design discriminatory…can we say more restrictions on women’s rights? Can we say legislating the permanent second class status for gays and lesbians by denying them the rights that the rest of us have? These are the guys that spout off about the constitution constantly, and how we have gotten away from it’s original intent….but it was never meant to restrict any groups rights, but to grow those rights as the society changed.

I take it personally when any political party abandons all principle for political gain….where, over the last 30 years. the repubs have been trying earnestly to kill the federal government by starving it of the tax revenue it needs to provide the protections that all societies provide to it’s citizens…and yet show it’s just a political ploy when one of their “stars”, Governor Jindal of Louisiana, goes on “Meet the Press” today and bitches that the federal government should have had ships, etc. sitting and ready to cope with any oil spills in the gulf….okay, Bobby, where do we get the money when your party is still trying to bankrupt the government by giving the rich a $700 billion dollar tax cut? Explain this to me…it’s the governments job to clean up after all of the business polluters, but it’s not the job of government to support citizens with UI benefits when we are in the greatest recession in all of our lifetimes? Can you see why I think I have to start taking all of this stuff personally again? But, I am going to try to convert those feelings into some sort of action…don’t know what it is yet…but this question keeps running through my head..”if not now, when”…geez…