An Interview With Poet, Activist and Teacher
Diane Wahto

post from Everyday Citizen on 09 April 2012 02:52:19 AM. © Everyday Citizen

One of the great pleasure of the Everyday Citizen blogsite is reading the blogs of Diane Wahto. A[...]

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Fellow Citizen Expressing His Views On President
Obama

post from Texas Liberal on 09 April 2012 01:08:46 AM. © Texas Liberal

Below is a fellow citizen who agreed to model for me the shirt he was wearing in Downtown Houston this past Saturday. To his credit, this gentleman did not ask me if I agreed or did not agree with the views he was expressing on his shirt. If only President Obama were a socialist, a [...]

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Economic Injustice

post from jobsanger on 09 April 2012 01:07:00 AM. © jobsanger

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U.S. Sending Medicated Soldiers To War

post from jobsanger on 09 April 2012 01:06:00 AM. © jobsanger

The United States has been fighting the war in Afghanistan for over 10 years now, and some soldiers have been deployed to a war zone for two, three, or even more times. Any reasonable person would think this is a prescription for disaster, and would result in mental problems for many soldiers -- and that is exactly what is happening.

According to the U.S. Army surgeon general, there are at least 110,000 active-duty soldiers that are currently on some fairly serious psychological medications -- antidepressants, narcotics, sedatives, antipsychotics, and anti-anxiety drugs. About 8% of active-duty soldiers are on sedatives and another 6% are taking antidepressants -- eight times as many as in 2005 (four years into the war).

Now these numbers would be shocking enough if all these soldiers were stateside and under the supervision of doctors. But it is much worse than that. Many of these soldiers are serving in combat situations in a foreign war zone (where they can receive little or no medical supervision). When they are sent back to Afghanistan, they are given a six month supply of whatever drug or drugs they are on -- leaving them free to take too much of the drug after a particularly hard day, or even sell or trade the drugs to others.

Knowing this, should it be a surprise to anyone that the military is experiencing a rise in suicides, and other types of violent behavior? The government not only is repeatedly sending soldiers into high-stress combat situations, but continues to do so even after the soldiers begin to exhibit psychological problems. And they're doing it for a "nation-building" war that cannot be won. They continue it because the politicians (of both parties) are too cowardly to admit they were wrong and end the war.

A large majority of Americans now believe it was wrong to wage the Afghan War in the first place, and want it ended as soon as possible. Americans don't want to be in Afghanistan, and the Afghani's don't want us in their country. It is time to stop this insanity and bring ALL of our troops back home (where we can take care of those who have been physically or psychologically damaged).

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The Loser

post from jobsanger on 09 April 2012 01:05:00 AM. © jobsanger

Political Cartoon is by Jack Ohman in The Oregonian.

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Children Go Without Insurance In Texas

post from jobsanger on 09 April 2012 01:04:00 AM. © jobsanger

After seeing the mean policies of the Texas Republican leadership, this shouldn't have surprised me -- but it did. I already knew that one out of every four children in Texas lives in poverty (significantly larger than the one in five national average) and state leaders didn't seem to care, because they slashed the social and educational programs that would help these kids the last time the legislature was in session. But I thought surely they would supply these kids with a minimum amount of health insurance.

I was wrong. Using both state and national government data, the non-partisan Center for Public Policy priorities has determined that there are at least 1,200,000 children in this state that have no health insurance at all. That puts these children at serious risk, since 90% of children with insurance are considered healthy while only 58% of children without insurance are healthy.

This disgraceful situation exists in a state that Republicans nationwide say is a model for other states to emulate. But they say that because Texas has very low taxes for the rich and corporations (while the workers and the poor pay a much higher percentage of their income in taxes) -- and the rich are the only people Republicans care about.

There is no excuse for 1.2 million Texas children to be without health insurance. But the governor and legislature think it is more important to play politics on the health issue than to actually provide help to these children (or adults, where the uninsured rate is 27%). They have turned down federal funds tied to health care and severely underfunded Medicaid -- just to please their teabagger base.

What will happen to these kids? The only health care available to them will be in hospital emergency rooms, and is not set up to provide that kind of care. It just makes those emergency rooms more crowded (and more expensive since these patients will likely be unable to pay). And too many kids with serious diseases will find it too late to be helped by the time they are sick enough for an emergency room.

The Republicans claim they cannot afford to cover all these children with health care, but the truth is that it must be paid for somewhere. They have just made sure it will be paid for the most inefficient and expensive way (by raising local taxes for public hospitals, and by raising the cost of all medical procedures in both public and private hospitals -- which raises the cost of insurance for everyone).

This is just one more example of why Republicans should be voted out of power.

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The Sad Truth

post from jobsanger on 09 April 2012 01:03:00 AM. © jobsanger

Political Cartoon is by Jack Ohman in The Oregonian.

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Tulsa's Racist Killers Are Caught

The pictures above are of the racist killers in Tulsa that shot five innocent and unarmed African-Americans in just a few hours -- killing three of them. They are Jake England (19) and Alvin Watts (32). They were found after England tried to burn his pick-up to hide their heinous crime.

I have to offer kudos to both the Tulsa police and the town's community. These killers were caught in an amazingly short period of time for stranger killings (which can be among the hardest crimes to solve). The reason it was solved in such a short period of time is because the Tulsa Police made it known quickly that they would spare no effort in bringing the killers to justice, and the Tulsa community responded quickly with a flood of tips leading police to the culprits.

Tulsa Police Major Walter Evans, who led the task force quickly assembled to catch the killers, said, "In my 23 years of law enforcement, I don't think I've ever seen any crime as heinous as this. But at the same time, I don't think I've seen such an outpouring of support and cooperation from the community." That outpouring of support and cooperation is a good thing, and hopefully it can serve to bring the community closer together to defeat racism (or at the very least lessen its impact in the community).

There are already a few people trying to drum up sympathy for England, saying his father was killed two years ago and his wife committed suicide in front of him six months ago. I'm sorry he's had some hard times, but that in no way justifies his shooting of five unarmed strangers (of any race ). This was nothing more than a hate crime, with the victims being shot simply because they were African-Americans.

There is talk of charging the two men with a hate crime enhancement. I don't have any problem with that, but I wonder if its necessary. If I know Oklahoma, these two guys will spend the rest of their lives in prison -- if they are able to avoid the death penalty. I doubt if a hate crime enhancement will make any difference in the penalty they receive for their dastardly crimes. Hate crime or not, they have obviously given up any right to ever be free again.

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