Saturday, February 12, 2011

At Risk: Our Children, Our Teachers.

Your family works together to take care of each other. Your children deserve a community that works together to create a prosperous, competitive future. When politicians turn on that community, we see the result of electing radicals to office. The Tennessee Legislature returns this week dominated by such radical conservatives, bent on destroying the middle class that elected them. Two bills that would disastrously harm our communities have turned heads here at home, because the victims would be among our most vulnerable: our school children.

SB102 removes the right of the professional teaching community to elect teacher representatives to the Board of Trustees of the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System. Teachers have every right to be involved in decision making regarding their hard- earned retirement benefits: it’s their money, earned honestly. This bill weakens the teachers’ voice, making seats on the Retirement Board into plum political appointments. HB 130/SB 113 is a bill that would completely repeal the Tennessee Professional Negotiations Act. This bill would silence the voice of teachers regarding all aspects of employment, including working conditions, salaries, and benefits. But remember, working conditions for teachers equal learning conditions for our children.

The Legislature can be a down-right confounding place, but one thing is crystal clear: when our leaders are willing to sell-out our children’s futures, traditional values have gone AWOL. They've been replaced by fear, fed by politicians willing to scapegoat large groups of American citizens for wanting one of our most precious American institutions: representation. Our teachers and children will pay the price. And why? Why in the world shouldn't we pay fairly for teachers? I’ve loved every one of my son’s teachers; they have been among the most dedicated, loving, and talented people I have ever met, and not a penny over-paid. But even had they not been stellar, how would taking away benefits, having less job security, no pension, and no voice improve the situation? We have to keep our American values and priorities in sight: our future lies in our children and we need great teachers for them. And we get what we pay for.


Without the ability to negotiate fairly for themselves, teachers will be left to the mercy of government bureaucracies. If Sumner County won’t pay our hard-working teachers decently, we will gut the future prosperity of our county, undercutting our competitive edge, making us the losers, unable to grow our economy with new business. Now broaden your view: Sumner County Public Schools is the county’s single largest employer. Our county budget depends not on how little we pay our teachers, but on our sales tax revenues. Restricting the money spent here in our home county on groceries, clothes, movies, household goods, by the largest group of people living and working here is indeed cutting our own throats.

These are the pragmatic reasons we should support our teachers. But there’s also this: we all want to share in a proud public school experience that pulls our community together and gives our children memories for a lifetime. Children of all incomes have the same right to an education and our county has the solemn obligation to provide the education that every child deserves. Universal educational opportunity is the defining feature of equitable, modern and competitive societies. All the children of Sumner County have the right to a high quality educational opportunity. That opportunity should not hinge on their parents’ income. If it does, we will take ourselves back in time to a nobility class, lording over the rest of us commoners, whose education simply needs to be good enough to serve the rich. Our founding fathers believed that America is about much more than that, and so do you.



Sadly, radical conservatives are merely delivering on their promises. Representative Debra Maggart was all but invisible here at home during her recent re-election. She spent more time campaigning for leadership among other politicians than talking to voters at home. Now she’s leading the radical movement to gut our state’s middle class; slapping a quality public education out of the hands of our children, and cutting the throats of the dedicated stalwarts of the middle class, our teachers. Instead of representing her hard working constituents, Maggart’s allegiance lies with an authoritarian mind-set. A kind of thinking that sacrifices real people on an altar of ideological rigor. Why inflict this violence on our community? Debra Maggart leads the movement to punish those whose political goals clash with her own, regardless of the suffering of innocents. The blunt lies being told about our teachers and their right to representation hurt us all. Our children, from poorest to richest deserve a great education and our teachers have the right to security, respect, and most importantly, a voice.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

HR3: the Rapist Right to Inseminate their Victims bill

Welcome to the brave new Congress, where rapists and pedophiles will be happy to note that the campaign to reinstate their long-eroded right to inseminate their victims no longer falls on deaf ears.

The GOP's Plan to Redefine Rape

Some things are so unbelievable that it's hard not to fall into the defensive position of satire.

taken from the American Century for Inseminationist Rights lobbying newsletter:

Rape not Yet in the Clear

The new law is not without some caveats. The new Republican dominated Congress has decided that the decades-old ban on "roughing up" your victim will stand. The new standard that rapists and pedophiles will need to acquaint themselves with will be "forcible rape." This new definition of rape opens up an avenue of non-forcible rape for the RAP (rapists and pedophiles) community to explore. While Statutory Rape remains illegal, the adult seducers of young girls will be secure knowing that this new kinder, gentler rape means their progeny has a chance. Even though most likely incarcerated (the pre-born constitute a particularly viable genetic evidence trail), a rapist or pedophile who successfully inseminates their victim won't be the only one sentenced. Underage rape victims without financial means will no longer be eligible for pregnancy termination under Medicare, unless they can meet the undefined new "Forcible Rape" standard. Clearly, it lies in the hands of adult predators to navigate this tricky gray area.

Date Rape Baby Boom

Expectations run high for serial acquaintance-rapists. While regularly hidden in the so-called "gender-role confusion" community, rapists who formerly limited their enthusiasm to taking their victims by surprise when they switch out of their "nice guy who paid for dinner" persona to assume their "she wants it rough" demeanor, are feeling empowered to set higher goals. "I've always wanted to be a dad," states one convicted rapist, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The 6 months probation I served after my last rape conviction didn't take my heart out of it, but I felt I'd been there, done that. Now with fatherhood on the horizon, all I have to do is find the right impoverished hottie and I can become a baby-daddy. With privileges."
Satire off. //

The devil is in the details, and apparently in these legislators hearts. Rape is evil. Purposely creating a society where rapists rights are more important that the victim's is abhorrent. Why do these radical conservatives love rapists so much? I know. Apparently to these minds, unless a woman is battered, broken, and otherwise physically harmed in ADDITION to having her innermost self violated, it's not heinous enough to warrant their notice. Children who are seduced by pedophiles, women who are drugged and raped while unconscious, women whose bodies go into shock and paralysis under trauma, who don't come out with broken ribs, concussions, and savage rips: these are all cases of rape that could be described without the word "forcible." This law would say that all these women and children, their spirits and bodies and futures, their individual liberty and right to own their own decisions, are less important than the sperm a rapist would inseminate them with. We have to say no to this. No one wants to hear about rape, but we can't go backwards. Why do these radical conservatives love rape so much?
Sign petition here
Stop HR3: the Rapist's Right to Inseminate Victims bill.

Check out my new Congressman, send her a note and ask:
Why do radical conservatives love rapists & pedophiles so much? Diane Black, you owe your grand-daughter an answer.