HAVE THE OLD REPUBLICAN MEN FORGOTTEN THE POWER OF WOMEN?

For all my life as a parent and grandparent, as well as a psychotherapist working with teens for decades, I learned never to power struggle with teenagers.  They will always win as they do not even value their own life and what they will put out there to beat you is not worth your part of the st.  Today there is a similar situation.  Perhaps Republican men, who seem to have their heads up their nether parts, don't realize that there are some things today that differ from the Bible days.  While the reason to not eat pork or scavenger sea creatures has changed, pleasure derived from sex has not changed as we are biologically programmed to release the hormone endorphin during orgasm.

The Caucus,(The politics and Governments Blog of the Times), has an excellent article by  Richard W Stevenson that is a must read if you want to understand the politically suicidal position Santorum has taken.  Of course he is joined by many politicians in state politics who are driving back the social clock by 2000 years.  The article is titled:  Focus on Social Issues Could Shape Battle for Women.  Click here to read the entire article.

Contained in this article is a graph, how women voted in presidential elections since 1992.  In today's world they are more than ever fired up by the issues raised to make contraceptives illegal and the readiness to 'rape' their bodies with unnecessary medical intrusions against their (and their doctor's) wishes.  Perhaps the foolish Republicans involved in this ridiculous affront have forgotten that such a great number of women have never known our country when contraceptives have been illegal.  Married women can pursue education and jobs without fear of unwanted pregnancies nor the need to resort to abortion. 

They have also forgotten that men (who are expected to support their family) no longer want more children than they can raise as they wish.  The term 'planned parenthood' offers the choice to raise the family you want, can love and support.  Many men have told me in therapy hours that they consider sex the equivalent to a baby's use of a pacifier.  If calms them (ah, that wonderful endorphin release) and allows the tension of the day to leave their body and allow sleep.  Women report a similar response.  And this is what the politicians want to deny their fellow men (and women)?

It would seem that Bob McDonnell, Governor of Virginia, has just blown any opportunity he had to make a name in national politics....at least a respected one.


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NOT EVEN THE REPUBLICAN BASE WANTS THESE CANDIDATES TO WIN

It is rather amusing to watch the Republican presidential candidates at work.  Now after 20 debates, not even the Republican hierarchy wants any of them to run the country.  It is hard to sell candidates that not even their party wants.  Why does the party not want them?  Well, I'm not a Republican but I can make a few guesses.  For the first, there is no real Republican party.  Under the broad umbrella is a fractured cluster of smaller parties.  There are the Teaparty, the extreme religious right, the pro-lifers, the entrenched (already sitting Reps and Senators who just want to continue their seat on the train to power, wealth, and perks paid for by the taxpayer fools who elected them and those that were on the losing side but are stuck paying anyway).  There are the Lincoln Republicans, and the Reagan Republicans and a few more whose agendas are less blatantly displayed. There are the Republicans whose families have been Republicans since the Republicans were what the Democrats are today...the party of the people.

 

Self-described in one word each, Paul was 'consistent'; Santorum 'Courageous', Romney 'Resolute' and Gingrich 'Cheerful'. 

The latest conspiracy theory, circulating, is that the Democrats brought up the contraception issue to make the Republicans look bad.  Now there is a lovely example of how far off conspiracy theories can be.  The Democrats have nothing to do with the 'personhood' bill which Mississippi voters threw out, nor of Virginia in which the male politicians by majority planned to force an intrusion into women's vaginas without their permission, or that of their doctor to force an vaginal ultrasound, and to make all contraceptives illegal once again.  Did no one learn anything through thee Prohibition debacle?

The most outstanding feature of the candidates today is that none of them can recognize the truth, or if they do, state the facts and truth.  Listening to the Republicans today, it is hard to remember which century we live in and what planet we think is our home.

IT CAN ALWAYS BE WORSE

Our American lot in life is not so good right now but we can all be grateful we are not in Greece.  Jobs are being paid at minimum wage to those lucky enough to have them.  Austerity is beyond a given.  Meanwhile, our leading Republican presidential candidate is fixated on using his rigidity to control citizens in America to his views on morality and religion.  I think he should be asked to read the Constitution again.  There is separation of church and state, ex-Senator Santorum.  For those who are backing him, you might wonder a bit more closely why he is an ex-Senator.  In fact, you might ask the same thing of Newt Gingrich; "Why are you an ex-speaker when your leaving was with some assistance?"

As bad as parts of the world may be, we must be joyous that Facebook has revealed the photos they will accept.   They call them guidelines and you can see them here.
The set of guidelines has reportedly been leaked, as reported by Gawker.com.   Anyone with someone else's secret is always willing to spread it. Why shouldn't corporate secrets be leaked.  The government does it.  What better way is there to get an idea of what people think of as change when the perpetrator is in a position to deny it as fact?

SANTORUM'S OBSESSION IS SHORT SIGHTED AND CONTRADICTORY TO HIS GOAL OF SMALLER GOVERNMENT

There are people who claim to believe in birth angels.  They presumably decide who gets which child.  I would wonder how the angels are to decide.  Do they see a future?  If the child could see its own future, would it choose to be born without mobility, sight, control of its limbs, retarded and a burden on society because it is rare that healthy children are outlived by their parents?  Women who are alive, possibly forced by economy to work outside the home while raising their children, and find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy are very often abortion seekers.  All lives are important, not only that of the fetus but of siblings and parents as well.

Having worked in a mental hospital, I can see how one child can be the destruction of an entire family. Before a child was adopted there was not the careful history of that child's background as should be done today.  Parents who also had three natural children  (I'm not sure if that was before or after the adoption) had to hospitalize that child in a mental hospital.  Hospitalizations was so costly it had taken all the family's savings, even what had been put aside for the other children's educations.  It was finally learned that the mother had been mentally retarded and schizophrenic, raped while in an institution and gave birth to this boy.  I do not know what happened to him but when the family's money ran out he was transferred to a state facility before most of them were shut down.

This child would have died

Santorum would do without prenatal care for women.  It is imperative to read this story from a women who writes her child would have died had she not had an amniocentesis which showed as RH factor problem which was able to be fixed while in utero or the child would have died. Without amniocentesis, her rare disease would have gone untreated and she would have likely died at birth.  Sarah Fister Gale tells her own story here.
This should be proof that politician's should not make laws prohibiting medical treatments about which they know nothing. They should not make laws raping us with ultrasound wands.  They should not lie about the services provided for women like the lie saying that almost all the services of Planned Parenthood are abortions when the actual number is 3% only, many medically necessary.


Someone should make a Federal law prohibiting lawmakers (who are not physicians specializing in gynecology) making laws without a proper panel of medical professionals and women making the recommendations.

SANTORUM TELLS ONLY PART OF A STORY

     My parents were both born in Greece in the 19th C.  There were no gynecologists, no hospitals for babies to be born in, no social security disability, and no way for people, who did physical labor all day to survive able to raise disabled children.  Today, Rick Santorum was quoted as saying the Democrats are trying to cull out disabled children with abortion by this pre-natal care and amniocentesis.
     If Santorum truly claims to want to make the government less in our lives, how can people plan to have children for whom they are unable to provide?  In past centuries, infants who were seriously deformed or disabled were euthanized at birth.  This was the only way families could continue to live their labor intensive lives.
      There are, in fact, many who do not believe a person exists before birth.  Therefore, an abortion, to them, is a kindness, not murder.  It is a kindness not to allow a fetus to turn into a human being who will live a life of nothing but hardship and pain, dependent on others for life..  Yes, there were children born 30 or so years ago without arms or legs as a result of some legal drug prescribed to the mother (thalidomide).  Many children were thus born deformed before the cause was determined and today pregnant women are not allowed to take this drug.
     Once such a child is alive, we must do all we can as a society to care for them.  We have some wonderful charities to assist, but much falls to the government (i.e.we taxpayers).
It would be unconscionable to do less once a child is sentient.   To my way of believing, that is when life starts.  It should also be noted that many disabled people never need governmental supplement of funds. The cost to taxpayers is never mentioned apart from Social Security as repayment to people who have paid from their wages as long as they have worked.  A few years ago, the politicians in Washington decided to use those funds for disability and now claim that social security cannot support itself.  It is not a subject that seems to be part of the pro-life and anti-abortion group, and it should be.

LITTLE ENTERTAINMENT ENTERTAINS THESE DAYS

Having lived through the depression of the thirties, the war in the forties, the post war terror of a nuclear attack from Russia, and all that transpired after, I found myself looking for an old movie and wondered why that thought occurred..  I found a copy of Pride and  Prejudice which was done in 1940,  At that time the country was not in a good place..  Money was still tight as people were recovering from the depression and frightened at the European threats by Hitler.

Reviewing entertainment at that time, it became quite clear that the emphasis was on happy endings and pleasant music.  Reality was low on the priority.  Jane Austen must have turned over in her grave at this presentation.  The costuming and hair styles were so far from historically accurate that anyone in knowledge of the times would have shuddered.  The girls were all beautiful but none near the ages the book had,   Elizabeth who was supposed to be 19, in the original work, was played by Greer Garson who, was actually 36 at the time. The book called for the era around 1813 in England.  Hollywood did its own version in everything.

As I pondered what entertainment should be, a relaxant and something to take us out of our dreary lives, today's excuse often falls far short of entertainment.  Some people like the abuse of sadism and masochism; others love to be terrified as it kicks in curiously pleasurable neurotransmitters.  I've been genetically deprived of those responses, thus find little of today's movie world for me.  What happened to the joyous musicals?  What happened to happiness in books and in one's off hours?  What happened to people practicing the Golden Rule?  I don't think we should be thinking of 'taking our country back'.  I think we should think of kicking out the hypocrites and selfish people trying to control the government and the middle and poor class and seem to have been quite successful.at their goal..

BE AN OPTIMIST

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society.  The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist invents the parachute. …George Bernard Shaw

There is always a bright side, just as there is on the moon.  The key to a happy life is that you must find a way to survive until you get to the bright side.  That is a real challenge because the bright side of life is not as time-predictable as the phases of the moon.  There is an art to being able to see brightness when your world is dark.  A wonderful psychiatrist with whom I had done a rather difficult family interview said, as we were leaving the hospital together, "You could find a diamond in a pile of manure,"  The analogy was gratifying because I felt that was what my life had been like...looking for that diamond when all I was seeing were the cow pies of life.

Some of us must be programmed as survivors; I guess I was one of them.  It was a slow evolution to this point where I have learned not to worry about things over which I have no control; to have faith that things will work out, even if they are not as I had planned or wished; that the chances of being hurt are there but the odds may be in my favor....or, if they aren't, there is nothing I can do to change them but just pick up the pieces and charge on.

There is no Wizard behind the curtain.  No one has all the right answers.  Most people, however, who do have the answers are willing to share them.  It is up to you to decide which ones work for you.  We must all be like Diogenes and look for an honest man.  Save yourself time and don't look for one among the politicians.  There may be a few there but they are harder to find than elsewhere in life.  Remember, there is no one size fits all, regardless of the people who believe there is. Life is not any more 'fair and balanced' than Fox Media.  Life is as full of random evil as it is of opportunity.

An apple a day may keep the doctor away but kicking in your endorphins with belly laughs as often as you can is way more pleasing and fun.