Captives Grateful to Captors Rationale

When I hear people wonder why women vote for Republicans these days, the only rationale I have been able to come up with is Stockholm Syndrome. I was about to post something to that effect on Facebook, then my son showed me this.



Affirmation.

War, Assault, Campaign: Women Still Lose

This article, "Dispatches From The War On Women: Turning Pregnant Women Into Criminals"
 http://www.care2.com/causes/dispatches-from-the-war-on-women-turning-pregnant-women-into-criminals.html#ixzz1vVNloZqq, cites an editorial in the Sunday New York Times, saying the editorial "... minced no words, breaking down the attacks on reproductive rights, access to health care, and challenges to equal pay laws and domestic violence protections. ...  'Whether this pattern of disturbing developments constitutes a war on women is a political argument. That women’s rights and health are casualties of Republican policy is indisputable.'”
http://www.care2.com/causes/dispatches-from-the-war-on-women-turning-pregnant-women-into-criminals.html

No matter how you slice it, there is nothing conservative about this strategy to repress, subjugate and 'second-class' females in the United States.

Even without the GOP policies that blast ever-widening chasms of disparity between the mega haves and the other 99 percent of Americans, it is beyond comprehension that any woman who can vote in this country would ever vote for any these modern-day Talibanesque Republicans.

Wealth Has Been Redistributed--to the Top 1%

You know that "redistribution" of wealth the Repubicans are constantly accusing liberals of perpetrating? The truth is, that something they're doing, but by accusing progressives of it, they put themselves on the offense and their opponents, who aren't doing it, on the defense.

Redistribution of this nation's wealth is something Ronald Reagan started and that the GOP and DINOs have been accelerating ever since.

In 1979 the top 1% got only 9% of all personal income in the U.S. Now the top 1% gets 25% of all personal income. And the interestingly, that's OK w/folks who don't realize how much it's hurting them. They, in fact, love it. It makes them feel good.

Why? Because, just like with sports teams, star atheltes, and entertainment celebrities, Americans love and want to back winners. We live vicariously through them. We think that being a fan associates us with whoever or whatever we're being a fan of and, in a perverted kind of way, that raises (if you want to use that perspective) us to their stratosphere. Backing them identifies us with them, and, might even work to make others think more highly of us. We become part of their community, so we need to look out for them. Defend them. Don't sit still when others disparage them.

So it's OK with people who think and behave like that to think that it's OK to give the rich a break. People with that mentality don't mind bearing the rich's load for them. That makes the poor schmucks who do really good guys -- and maybe the rich and famous, in turn, will really like them and perhaps even throw them a crumb.

Here's a story in the New Yorker magazine that explains it.  http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/04/23/120423crat_atlarge_lemann

GOP's Protected "Untouchables" Class

President Obama's opponents are trying to shoot down his debt-reduction plan, which includes fair treatment of rich people and for-profit corporations (=>), by charging him with waging class warfare.

Plus, they say, equalizing the tax structure to bring rates for the rich up as high as the rate middle Americans pay would reduce the debt by only 10 percent.

Ten percent? In my truly conservative opinion, I'd say that's quite a dent.

Or as my husband said, "That's a good start."

He then came up with what I think would make a great debt-reduction mantra:

"Start with fair,
Work from there."

As for declaring class warfare, that's exactly what Republican have done, proving once again that going on the offensive by accusing their enemies (yes, they do indeed consider Obama the enemy and, as they have repeatedly said that limiting him to one term is their number one priority. Not reducting the unemployment rate. Not getting Americans back to work. Not returning the middle class, which has been shipped overseas, back to the U.S. Not ending wars this country is waging in other countries. But vanquishing Obama.), of doing what they are, in fact, doing themselves.

Republicans are the ones who declared class warfare. They did that by turning millionares into a special class. By making them a class of 'untouchables'.  By putting them off limits in the "shared sacrifice" that other Americans are being told they must participate in.

BTW, notice how those who oppose leveling the rate-rate paying field are rich?

Poor Louisana GOP Rep. John Fleming is crying crocodile tears because Obama's proposal might take a bite out of the $200,000 he spends, according to his math, on feeding his family.

Fox darling Bill O'Reilly says being subjected to the same tax rate as middle Americans, which is what Obama is proposing, will prompt him to quit his $10 million-a-year TV-talk job.

Sob stories abound. 

Norquist Appropriates (R)s' Fealty

I keep hearing and reading about a pledge a private citizen named Grover Norquist who has no official position in government at any level forcing  Republicans elected to Congress to sign a pledge to not raise any taxes of any kind or anything that smells like a tax without an equal amount being cut in some other area.

My question is what are these elected officials doing commiting fealty to an individual who has no constitutional or legal authority over them when they have taken an oath to their constituents to represent them and act in their best interest?

What Wisconsin Elected

People who are called conservatives these days say they want smaller government and for government to keep its nose out of people's lives.

But that sure doesn't appear to be what's happening in red Wisconsin—red, because Republicans won the governorship and both houses of the Legislature in November.

One of the first laws this triumvirate enacted is actually a huge poke of the government's nose into Wisconsinites' lives. This law restricts individuals' rights to sue, and limits the amount of damages juries can award people who have been harmed. The law not only raises the bar on lawsuit eligibility, it caps punitive damages at $200,000 or double the amount of compensatory damages, whichever is greater, and keeps noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases involving nursing homes from exceeding $750,000. It further prohibits nursing home-abuse reports to be used as evidence in civil and in criminal cases!

First, in the corporate world that kind of money doesn't even rise to the level of chump change. To large, profitable companies, $200,000 has about the same value as a penny laying in the street that nobody even bothers to pick it up.

More importantly, though, what is government—a Republican-controlled government at that—doing meddling in people's (and I'm talking about actual human beings who walk, talk, breathe, eat and vote) business, people's own personal business of deciding whether or not they should be able to file a lawsuit? And what is Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled "small" government doing meddling in juries' decisions on what award they (juries) think best fits the harm and/or the negligence or intent of the culprit, or whether or not it's imperative to teach a lesson or send a message to an irresponsible company?

Doesn't such a law violate the U.S. Constitution's separation of powers in that it says the legislative and executive branches can usurp the judicial branch's responsibility? Whatever happened to judges deciding the merits of a case and juries determining what the economic punishment should be?

Proponents of this law say it will curb frivolous lawsuits. But judges have long had authority to dismiss a case on the grounds that it is frivolous.

No, this sure sounds like a nanny government to me, a government in which the governor and legislators are saying they know better than judges and juries, so have to take over the judicial branch and their job for them.

The idea behind this law, as I understand it, is to create a more business-friendly environment. But at what cost? Individuals’ rights? That seems like a pretty liberal (as in generous) policy toward businesses. And very parsimonious and callous policy toward individuals.

And what kind of rap on the knuckles is a $200,000 judgment against a company that puts profits above individuals' health, lives and safety? Shouldn't negligent and/or malevolent corporate decision makers get whacked in a way that really gets their attention?

That’s what a jury decided to do in 1999 when it levied a $4.9 billion judgment against General Motors because four children were severely burned in a car fire that was caused by a known faulty design? One of those children in the Malibu accident, by the way, lost part of one hand and bore grotesque scars over much of the rest of her body, including her face, that were almost unbearable to look at when she attended the trial, which took place several years and 70 surgeries after the accident.

Key to the jury's decision was that the gas tank in the 1979 Malibu in which the victims were riding was mounted behind the rear axle so close to the rear bumper that it was more vulnerable to exploding in a rear-end collision than if it had been positioned in front of the axle. Trial testimony and a smoking-gun internal memo indicated GM officials decided against a safer design that would have cost less than $20 per car more, because, they thought, it would be cheaper to settle any lawsuits that might arise from exploding gas tanks.

The jury said the judgment was intended to do two things: One was to make it so large, it would get GM's attention so that GM wouldn’t just chalk up it up to the cost of doing business. The second was to say that a company making such a cynical, calculated decision that knowingly put the cost of human life at less than $20 a car was not acceptable. The judge in that case reduced the jury's award to $1.2 billion and GM's appeal requested a further reduction, but the judgment sure did get the corporate world's attention.

A friend told me he thinks a $4.9 billion judgment is outrageous. Perhaps, unless it was his child or grandchild who was injured so grievously, had to endure years of unimaginable pain and nearly 100 surgeries, and suffer permanent grotesque disfigurement that was caused by a callously greedy corporation that not only knew about the risky design, but might have been able to prevent it with a $20 fix.

Product-liability jury awards like that in the GM case are an extreme rarity, yet they are trotted out like fairytale boogie-men in order to get laws passed that leave corporations unaccountable, strip power from the third branch of government and rob individuals of their rights, not the least of which is the right to seek redress.

And corporate execs' response to such cases is to fight all the harder—not for consumer safety—but for so-called "tort reform." As Wisconsin's new law proves, the corporate world is winning. That, I believe, is what last November's election was really about.

So, just what did Wisconsin elect in November?

In this case, Wisconsin elected corporate profits over the health, safety and lives of its children—and adults. Because now, if a child or an adult in Wisconsin is permanently disfigured and/or disabled, that child, adult and their families' redress will be the corporate-world equivalent of that penny laying on the street that's not worth anyone's while to pick up.

I'm way too conservative to favor a law as business-liberal as that is a good thing for the people of Wisconsin.

www.anatomyofatrial.com