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In the September
29th issue of the Watauga Democrat, the local Republican Party published
its platform.
It contained
all the usual double-talk: "We do not believe in big government.
We do not believe in unfunded mandates. We are the party that knows
how to manage money. We believe in high ethical standards. We believe
we should let corporations take responsibility for environmental
stewardship. We believe in listening to the people."
Classic.
Isn’t it
clear by now that the Republican Party says one thing and
does another? Right before an election, they’ll say
anything to get elected, even if it isn’t true. Aren’t
we tired of being treated like fools?
The Republicans
favor no government intrusion, all right. They favor corporate intrusion.
And they’ve sold us out. That’s why Republicans met secretly
with Big Oil CEOs to hammer out tax dollar giveaways to Exxon-Mobil,
etc. When We the People asked for a list of who was present at the
meeting, they refused. The Party that says it wants to listen
to We the People said it was none of our business.
The Republican
Party is selling us out. That’s why Halliburton, under a no-bid
contract, rakes in untold billions while our soldiers in Iraq wage
war without the basic necessities of battle.
The Republican
Party is selling us out. They handed over control of the Medicare
Prescription plan to the pharmaceutical industry. They promised
seniors that Republicans were all about good health care, while
creating "donut holes" in seniors’ health coverage
and giving away over $776 billion of our tax money to the pharmaceutical
industry. Meanwhile, they clamped down on Americans’ trying
to get cheaper drugs from Canada, threatening to confiscate these
legal drugs at the border while refusing even to let Medicare open
up bidding for cheaper drugs.
The Republican
Party is selling us out. That’s why, while they talk "fiscal
restraint," they’ve shoved budgets down our collective
throats that cut spending on education, on clean air and water,
and on almost every service the government provides to poor people,
while giving huge tax breaks to the richest among us. While lecturing
us about "personal responsibility," the Republican Party
passed a personal bankruptcy law that was drafted by the credit
card industry. While scolding everyone else about fiscal responsibility,
they have spent us and our children into the nation’s worst
debt ever.
The Republican
Party is selling us out. That’s why, instead of staying focused
on the terrorists who were responsible for 9/11, they deliberately
misled us into Iraq. The result? Thousands of American deaths, hatred
of the United States worldwide, a new reputation for torture, billions
of our tax dollars disappearing every week into a no-exit, no-end-in-sight
failed policy based on personal arrogance.
The supposed "no-government-interference" Republicans spent our money and wasted our time to summon 435 representatives, 100 senators, and the president of the United States back to Washington in the dead of night to pass a bill in the Terri Schiavo case, aimed at interfering in the most difficult and personal decision that ever has to be made by families. The party of "no un-funded mandates passed the "No Child Left Behind" program in public education - a federal unfunded mandate that forces states to adopt high-stakes testing without giving them any of the money to do it.
The Republican
Party is selling us out. That’s why, locally, for 20 years
the county’s ambulance service contract was handed over to
a private business that received automatic 10% increases, no questions
asked, while it gouged the poor and elderly in our county. (It took
a Democratic Board of Commissioners to cry foul and straighten out
that contract.) That’s why in 2003, Republican commissioners
eliminated a provision in the county’s polluting industries
ordinance that had allowed people the right to speak out against
a polluter trying to set up shop next door, and they bitterly opposed
scenic byway status for the Doc & Merle Watson Highway. That’s
why in the last year Republican county commissioners voted against
a resolution supporting clean mountain air.
Those votes
may represent their core Republican values, but they don’t
represent core American values, and they certainly don’t represent
the values held by most of us here in Watauga County. Most of us
here say what we mean, and mean what we say; and we don’t sell
out our neighors or support those who betray us.
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