Loyalty Pledge? What's that all about?

What’s all this about a Loyalty Pledge the Republican Chairman has come up with? Support the “Party” choice no matter who wins the Primary Election? Campaign not going to plan? Not going to happen.

It is time to accept that a massive social change is on the way and the political bosses are losing control. The old ways are dead. In a last ditch effort to change the primary process because some maverick candidates have somehow seized the lead, the old guard party bosses are trying to gain back some control by making delegates promise to support the “party” choice.

So the “interloper,” Donald Trump signed. He pledged to support the Republican Party goals and ideals, (didn’t mention candidate) and gained the promise of all the rest of the contenders to support him if he won. A clever move.

The worst nightmare of a career politician has happened. The nation’s voters are out for blood. The constituency has become aroused. The revolution has begun. Say what?

We, the people, are fed up with politicians who talk a good game, promise change, and after  elected turn into self-serving hacks wanting only to share the celebrity, the perks and the wealth, and to hell with what the people want. 

My state, Arkansas, saw the truth in action when a bought and paid for legislature ignored the U.S. Constitution and voted to force public water systems to add fluoride laced with lead and arsenic to our water without our permission. They voted to forbid us to declare our town free of discrimination, punishment yet to be determined. 

 What happened? The constituency  became aroused. The revolution began. Say what?

When I was young, just getting into politics, I met an old old, hard line Chicago Democrat at a meeting. He was feeling generous to this enthusiastic but dumb neophyte and decided to give me advice.

“Little lady,” he said,  (it was 1954) “One thing ya gotta remember. Never arouse the constituency. Once that happens, and they get mad, it’s all over. There’s no tellin’ what they’ll do.” He went on to relate a harrowing story. Seems the son of a Ward Heeler (they’re now called block organizers) had a son who was an over sized bully in school. The kids were afraid  of him because his powerful politician father, who doted on him, protected him. Well, the parents finally had had enough and they hired a bigger bully from the South Side of Chicago to do justice. The kid ended up with various broken bones and when his politician father visited him, in the hospital, he said, “Son, you learned a good lesson today. Never arouse the constituency.”

Well, we’re aroused. No more seemingly sincere candidates who don’t care about us, or what we want; they just want to get rich and get all them perks. Election to even state office is a guaranteed million by the end of the term. On a national level, it gets worse. Never mind the Constitution. What do voters know? They’re trained to vote the party, no matter who’s running.

All that stuff political organizers learned in college on how to get elected to office has been trashed. Confusion reigns. The rules no longer apply with mavericks like Donald Trump, or Ben Carson, or Carly Fiorina running. We’re done. We’ve had it. It’s our turn.

The problem with change is that you have to elect a strong, determined warrior to get it done…somebody with fire in the belly, who knows how to swim with the sharks and drain the swamp to get rid of the alligators. We have the warrior, as long as he has a wise partner who can help clean up the mess. Let’s get out there and vote.

UPYO, or, A Politically Correct Christmas Greeting

 I have had occasion to research teen language for dialogue revisions to my new work of fiction, a romance due out next summer, working title: Love in a Small Town. They talk in shorthand, like OMG, meaning Oh, My God. Hence my addition to the lexicon. I have invented a new response for all you twitters and texters to reply to opinionated tools who want to tell all of us what to think.
     UPYO.  Meaning get out of my face. To all those haters who want to trash Christmas Carols, remove patriotic or religious monuments, denigrate our servicemen by objecting to flag displays, and pick on Duck Dynasty for expressing religious belief, UPYO.
     This country was founded by brave men and women who felt they should be entitled to have an opinion, be heard, and decide on their leaders without minority interference. We've fought several wars defending that notion, so UPYO.
      You want to accuse my four-year-old of sexual predation if he hugs his little sister? UPYO.
      You want to You want to suspend my fourth grader because his half-eaten ham sandwich resembles a gun? UPYO. I could go on, but I'm offering the ultimate in ridiculous . . . a piece of writing I found in my file with no indication of the original author. It expresses how far we've gone to be politically correct about Christmas and how silly we all are behaving in the face of bullying by a few. That's what it is. Adult bullying by trying to outlaw wearing red t-shirts at Christmas. So, UPYO. Enjoy.
                                                 
                                                         Seasonal Greetings
     Please accept, with no obligation implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally correct, socially conscious celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the parameters of your religious/secular persuasion, or not, for the calendar year of 2014, but not without due respect for the calendar of your choice in other cultures without regard to race, creed, color, origin age, or physical ability, computer platform or sexual reference to the wishee, with an amount of affection and sincerity you might deem appropriate.
    Disclaimer: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawl. It implies no intent upon the wisher to actually implement any of these good wishes and is void where prohibited by law.
 Merry (00000)mas!  

Women in the Military – 1860’s Style

The political and financial chaos in the world last week, continuing into today with the European plan to raid private savings accounts to bail out inept governments while Syria attacks Lebanon, both colossal messes brought on by weak male leaders, I began wondering what has happened to the voice of women leaders in the world. Will there ever come a time when the world’s women will say, “Enough,” and take over?

From the inception of this democracy in the 1700’s we cast our women in the role of the submissive, the pious, the conciliators, concerned with family and children—a notion reserved for the upper-class Victorians, because real life required a different set of survival skills. Of necessity, women worked at low-paying, menial jobs, the only ones open to them, because they had hungry children. They followed their husbands westward to live in sod huts, because that what women did, and died from the hardship.

But not always. History changed in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, when women claimed for themselves the inalienable rights men granted to themselves in the Declaration of Independence. It began in a small way, most of it ignored by historians. 

Were you taught in grade school about the women in England who died in jail because they dared demand the right to vote? Probably not.

And did you know that the Revolutionary and Civil Wars in this country provided the chance for hundreds of women to dress as men and enlist in the military? That 250 documented cases of women serving as soldiers and the probability of many more is one of the best-kept historical secrets of the Civil War?

They Fought Like Demons, a book written by DeAnne Blanton and Lauren Cook, Louisiana State University Press, 2002, tells the story of these brave women who, disguised as men, fought and died, enduring hardship without asking for any quarter.

Why did they do that? For many, it was simple patriotism. Northern women fought to preserve the Union; Southerners fought to preserve a way of life threatened by the hated Northerners. Some joined to be near loved ones; others to escape the sheer boredom of Victorian life as women knew it. The pay was better and often there was a signing bonus. Many joined to escape unbearable marriages or an untenable lifestyle. Thus the legend of the female warrior, which prevails in our literature today, was born.

After reading this book I asked, “Where are women like that today--the ones willing to defy convention and persecution?” I can think of a brave Muslim teenager. Where are the rest? Surely we can see the state the world is in after a thousand years of male dominance and incompetence. Catholic women are speaking out, demanding a role in the church, why not Muslims?

You know that any five women in a room can have the nation’s budget balanced in a week. Getting elected President of the United States is not rocket science. You tell the electorate what they want to hear. In this last election they wanted security, safety and predictability in their life. Even though the one candidate was showing alarming signs of not having a clue, his opponent was such a wimp he let the other party beat up on him like a schoolyard bully. This was the guy who would tell North Korea if they so much as lobbed one nuclear bomb at us they would be a pile of dust within 24 hours? I don’t think so.

So, it’s time to take charge. You will have to do it. I’m entering my eighth decade and find being a local elected official is all I can handle, besides being a published author. If you can find the courage to speak out, expect to be trashed by the liberal media because we all know they’re terrified of what women united can do. Have at it and the rest of us will rally the troops.