Makiah's Bill
NOW, that WE have children in the White House, let's make 'the children' the nation's TOP PRIORITY, as they are in Barack and Michelle's life.
Let's be a part of the integral age, while surfing the agriculture, industrial, information, conceptual, integral, magic and utopian ages. Let's ALL be part of the Dream Team, of playing the ultimate game of life.
Let's get Makiah's Bill on every desktop of every congressman, senator and the President of the United States of America. This is a TOP PRIORITY bill coming from the bottom UP...Let's start the NEW Year, January 20th 2009 with the world's highest priority, the children.
makiah.com
Fourteen years ago “It’s the economy, stupid!” reverberated in the consciousness and pocketbooks of millions of Americans as they went to the polls. In these few days before this historic election, I believe all of the rhetoric, lies and half-lies can be clarified through the lens of a slight variation of that slogan: This time around, “It’s for the CHILDREN, Stupid,” We hear so often that “children are our future.” For many, this is a mere platitude, but to me and millions of parents, teachers, school counselors and others whose lives revolve around children, we DO think of the future in terms of how well-prepared all of them must be to continue the dream and promise of America. And so to anyone still not sure whether to vote for Senator Obama, we would say: Please review the news of the past few weeks and months, or just open a comprehensive national newspaper today, and ask yourself: Does this describe the country you want for your children, or must we vote for change? Don’t automatically take my words for truth or lies--cross-check my statements against unbiased sources.
In today’s America:·
1. We spend Billions of dollars every month in the Iraq War Senator McCain supports, while our schools, bridges and highways here are crumbling. Working people put off important medical procedures because they have no insurance or can’t afford the co-pays. ·
2. When the Republican Majority and then Bush took office, the cost of a gallon of gas was $1.40. Major businesses in our towns are now closing. Retirement funds have dwindled because of unregulated risky stock market transactions and unethical, immoral mortgage practices targeting primarily middle and lower-income people. We who are “working class” know too many people who have lost their homes, been evicted, and are searching for help with food, car, medical payments and other basic needs. As a school counselor, I see this every day among our school population—including students, school staff and administrators. ·
3. Because of President Bush’s NCLB “reforms”, our students spend at least 7 weeks of every school year in preparation for and taking standardized tests. Right-wingers constantly insult us teachers and Teacher Union Members, but we are fighting to bring back our children’s freedom to learn.·
4. Senator McCain voted with President Bush to provide tax incentives to multi-billion dollar companies who move their operations OUT OF THE U.S., thus taking away the jobs of our middle-class. Why did even V.P. Cheney’s company, Halliburton move their headquarters to Dubai?
5. Most support jobs in our Military are managed by private companies. The shameful conditions for our wounded troops at Walter Reed were due to little or no oversight of private companies hired with our tax dollars to supposedly take care of them, and Blackwater and others in Iraq have created many of the controversial situations our Military personnel have had to deal with and for which they’ve had to pay a steep price.·
6. Do you remember the devastation of New Orleans because of the ineptness of what SHOULD have been massive, immediate Federal intervention before and after Hurricane Katrina? Do you remember the PDB memo read to President Bush on August 6, 2001 entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside the United States” and reports as far back as 1998 and ’99 about the possibility of using airplanes as weapons? Compare these glaring, tragic INACTIONS to the MASSIVE Republican Congressional and Presidential efforts to force continued care of the brain-dead Terri Schiavo. ·
7. Even though he has been in Congress for the 7 years since 9-11, 5 of which were completely under Republican control--Senator McCain did not sponsor nor pass any bills to make sure our docks, trains, and cargo are checked to avoid attack. Non-partisan safety experts have sounded the warning that it is largely due to good luck that we have not had further domestic terrorist attacks, but Bush and McCain, although they’ve had total Legislative control, have made no efforts to change this.·
8. Many religious Americans have sifted down all of Christ’s teachings to two areas: being anti-abortion and anti-gay rights. They believe that these are the only two issues that should determine who is a good Christian and for whom they should vote. I won’t press the usual arguments we’ve heard thousands of times that the decision to terminate a pregnancy is NOT an easy choice, and that being gay is NOT a choice at all. I’ll just ask that you realize this: NEVER in his 26-year career did Senator McCain nor any other Republican for that matter, despite, again remember, having complete Legislative control, NEVER DID ANYONE pass federal anti-abortion and anti-gay laws. President Bush NEVER presented such legislation; his party NEVER presented it. Why didn’t they, when they had every opportunity to do so?? I believe they would rather have this as an issue to DIVIDE US than to actually pass these laws. Isn’t it time that we look back to the real intent of our Gods as to what is important about our religions? ·
9. There are hundreds of other dire issues I could raise, time and space allowing, but the final point I will make has to do with the mind- and heart-numbing topic that for some reason we’ve heard very little of for several months: More than 4,000 of our children, parents, sisters and brothers have been killed in a war that has accomplished…WHAT? Really, WHAT? An estimated 100,000 have returned to Walter Reed, Bethesda, and other military hospitals, therapy centers and nursing homes—broken, battered, brain injured, and suffering from intense PTSD from the hell they lived. For WHAT?
I know many right-wing newscasters and talk show hosts regularly berate those of us who consider these statistics tragic. They call us unpatriotic; they call us un-American. But they did not hold my daughter as she wept at her husband’s bedside at Walter Reed for 4 months. They did not accompany us as we visited these broken men and women in the other intensive care units and V.A. nursing homes for 2 years. They did not help us wipe the saliva that dripped from their frozen faces; did not suction their breathing tubes as they choked; did not massage and move their paralyzed limbs. My children’s and thousands of others’ lives are forever damaged. The pain caused directly and indirectly by Bush’s and McCain’s policies is overwhelming; it is one of the biggest reasons why I could never vote for McCain-Palin: under them, the Bush preemptive-war philosophy would not only be continued, but would increase. I cannot bear the thought of my beautiful students, nephews or niece having to participate in future illegal, unnecessary wars.
Is this the world we want for our children?
Senator McCain would have us believe that HE and his perplexing VP choice are the change agents we need. He--the Republican Senator of 26 years, who by his own admission has “voted with President Bush at least 90% of the time” has tried to co-opt the message of the real, obvious symbol of United States’ Political Change—Barack Obama. To believe that McCain would suddenly do all the things he could have easily done in the last 26 years is to not be grounded in reality. McCain as Change-Agent is Delusion.
Barack Obama in every aspect of his personality, experience, and being is the personification of change. The Hope he offers is real. The good judgment and intelligence surrounding every move of his long campaign and career foreshadow the care and prudence that will be invaluable in the process of trying to reclaim the greatness of America that our children have the right to experience. Please vote for Obama-Biden. It’s for the children, stupid! --Bernice García Baca is with the Santa Fe Public Schools and has been a Teacher, Counselor and Child Advocate for 32-years.
