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America Can You Spare a Dime's Worth of Difference? (Hurl-tastic)
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's City Brights Blog ^ | Barbara Sehr

Posted on 08/17/2010 3:06:04 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

For that is the true genius of America -- that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.-- Barack Obama, Election Night 2008

How is that "hopey-changey thing working out for you? -- Sarah Palin, February 2010

America is at war with change, as a time of decision approaches. Anger rears its ugliness from a nation stripped of its hope, whether a silly confrontation between a passenger and a beleaguered flight attendant, a state of fear in Arizona, or the political fabrication of xenophobia based on the wings of a basketball court, and a prayer in a Manhattan neighborhood. Our national attention span-- ill fed by too much misinformation -- seems incapable of separating reality from the meltdown of our once-and-future tolerance.

Meanwhile, many of us face real issues such as poverty, hunger, and homelessness, as unemployment continues to shred our hopes for the future. This country invests our precious dollars in killing fields overseas, and factories built overseas on sweat equity more foreign to American tradition than any Mexican drug gang. What we "can and must achieve tomorrow," seems on an extended vacation far longer than the current Congressional break. Fear is America's interloper when the national blood pressure rises to unhealthy levels. We are free to imagine our personal bogeyman when it becomes too difficult to resolve our reality. America's history is vibrant with imaginary antagonists ready to seize our individual foundations. Why blame ourselves for failing progress when our continued comfort calls for a scapegoat.

This is a nation, like Linus from Peanuts in search of a blue blanket. The familiar is the comfortable, and strangers that don't look like us or share our history are as un-American as the natives that met Christopher Columbus. If Catholics want to put up a Church across the street from the "happiest place for children on earth" -- Disneyland -- it is free to do so, even if there is a history of pedophilia in the organization. If, on the other hand, Moslems want to pray and/or play basketball in a building not far from where some of its membership were victimized along with "regular" Americans, it should not happen because a few that looked like them flew planes into buildings. If corporate growers are encouraged to import desperately needed laborers for their farms because of loose immigration laws, the laborers should be punished for their dreams, instead of corporations for their tightfistedness and their defiance of the law.

As a White German immigrant to this country, I have not experienced the fears of xenophobes. There was a time of course, when Germans were not held in high esteem in this country -- as were other immigrant waves throughout this country's experience. But, I have experienced a different kind of isolation, stemming from a different kind of change. Surrendering male privilege is not something that is appreciated in this country. No one really born "male" would do so. Yet, I am looked upon askance because I corrected a birth defect and became the woman I was meant to be. Fortunately, I do not represent a massive movement that threatens the future of all that the X chromosome engenders -- liberty, inequality, and adultery. I can't be legally blocked from living my dream, but I can be shadow-boxed into dishonorable discharge from our society.

As I face the hardship of poverty at the age of 62, after two years of fighting for basic employment with my qualifications tied behind my back, I wonder when the time will come when America not only can change, but accepts change. Until it does, I may find myself accepting change at freeway entrances.


TOPICS: Conspiracy; Politics; Religion; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: groundzeromosque; illegalaliens; illegalimmigration; immigration; obama; palin; transgendered
Again the Left tells us who they fear. See any mention of Governors Romney, Huckabee or Pawlenty or Speaker Gingrich?
1 posted on 08/17/2010 3:06:05 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

They talk and reason like idiots. Change isn’t a destination. There is right change and wrong change based on the details but then again they don’t want us to look at the details critically or think about what their “change” means to our liberty. They want change that empowers them and those who are wholly dependent on them. Let’s stop talking about change and start talking about consent.


2 posted on 08/17/2010 3:09:06 PM PDT by Maelstorm (This country was not founded with the battle cry "give me liberty or give me a govt check!")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
This is a nation, like Linus from Peanuts in search of a blue blanket.

That would be you socialist nanny-staters looking for the government to coddle you. Us Conservatives are individuals who value individual freedom and liberty and don't need a nanny-blanket! Now buzz off! And take your Linus blanket with you!

3 posted on 08/17/2010 3:10:58 PM PDT by avacado
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
"Yet, I am looked upon askance because I corrected a birth defect and became the woman I was meant to be."

Being born and man is now considered a birth defect?


4 posted on 08/17/2010 3:16:43 PM PDT by avacado
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
"...Until it does, I may find myself accepting change at freeway entrances..."

Anybody can tell you, getting a degree in journalism and minority studies is likely to end up doing this for a living.

5 posted on 08/17/2010 3:25:43 PM PDT by rlmorel (America: Why should a product be deemed a failure if you ignore assembly and operation instructions?)
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To: avacado

Oh good God, I completely missed that.


6 posted on 08/17/2010 3:27:48 PM PDT by rlmorel (America: Why should a product be deemed a failure if you ignore assembly and operation instructions?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Well, I’m sorry she’s unemployed, but it’s obvious that writing is not her future.


7 posted on 08/17/2010 3:39:25 PM PDT by BfloGuy (It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect . . .)
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