After The Rally

 Dear Reader, I am passing this on, because one of the many lessons that I learned the hard way, by working in a small Non-Union Cleaning Service--That Is the Religious Right will say and do anything for the Almighty $Dollar$ and to Get Elected and/or con a person into voting away their Rights.

President Obama's marriage equality statement that made my blood boil.

One of the big right-wing groups said the president's stance will lead to "fatherless and motherless homes."

OK – I admit the boiling-point of my blood may be well below the national average – but who are they kidding?

I've never been more proud of my LGBT friends and the beautiful families they're raising – and I think it's time we all do what we can to get them equal rights already.

The president's announcement has inspired and energized a lot of people, and with marriage campaigns heating up in states across the country, I asked my friends at HRC if I could set up a matching gift challenge. If you donate, I'll donate. Together we'll make history.

Become an HRC member in the next 24 hours, and I'll match every dollar you give with one of my own, up to $50,000.

It's not easy to watch haters attack people you love.

Obviously these extremists have never met my friends. If they had, they'd know that same-sex parents face the exact same issues as the rest of us – affording healthcare and college savings, planning for retirement, getting gum out of a six-year-old's hair.

And while they're trying to remember to buy milk and pick up the dry cleaning, a bunch of people are screaming about how evil they are.

We can all do more to ease the burden of discrimination, whether we've shouldered it ourselves or watched it impact friends and family. Hey, I know it's hard – sometimes the burden of discrimination makes me want to get up on a soapbox, and other times it just makes me want to get a cocktail. But if you've been waiting for the right time to donate, I think we can all agree this is it.

I've been seriously impressed with the breadth and sophistication of the work of HRC.

Case in point: within 24 hours of President Obama's announcement, they started a campaign to get every single member of Congress to say – with a simple yes or no – whether they agree with him. And for months they've been building up huge volunteer operations in states like Maryland where right-wing groups are trying to stop marriage equality from going into effect. But HRC needs the resources to win.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT--->

I recently happened to be at an event where billionaire George Soros was being interviewed. The right wing hates Soros because he is: (a) liberal, (b) rich, and (c) fearless. [I could also make a case that they hate Soros because he is (d) Jewish, but I leave that up to you.]
Soros said a lot of things, but he said two sentences that I wish that everyone could hear. This is what he said:
“You can’t cut your way out of a recession. You have to grow your way out of a recession.”
The simple truth in those nineteen words seems to have eluded our policymakers, both Democratic and Republican, for the past four years. Here is a chart that proves it:

The chart has been featured regularly at Daily Kos, but it comes from the Calculated Risk Blog. It graphs job losses during and following each post-WWII recession, month by month, as a percentage of total employment.
As you can see, the job losses in America since 2008 are not only the worst in postwar history, but also feature the weakest “recovery.” In every single other recession, employment returned to peak levels in less than four years. (In fact, leaving aside the Bush Recession of 2001, employment returned to peak levels in less than three years.) Yet here we are, four years after the Great Recession started, still almost four percentage points under peak employment.
Which is five million jobs. Five million people who can’t find work. Five million people with no income.
So, as Soros and I might ask on Passover, “why is this recession different from all other recessions?” There is a simple answer: the austerity fetish. The bizarre notion that cutting is healing.The Wall Street Journal recently confessed that without local government layoffs – police officers, firefighters, teachers and others – unemployment would be a full percentage point lower. I think that that’s an underestimate. If those police officers and firefighters and teachers still had jobs, we would be safer, and our children smarter. But beyond that, as those public employees spent their earnings, a lot of carpenters and waiters and real estate agents and cashiers would be able to get back to work.
And we have no one to blame but the cut-cut-cut policymakers, in whichever party. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman put it three weeks ago:
Consider, if you will, the current state of our nation. Despite hints of economic progress, we’re still in the midst of an immense disaster, in which unemployment and underemployment are devastating millions of American lives. And none of this need be happening! There has been no plague of locusts; we have not lost our technological know-how. Americans should be richer, not poorer, than they were five years ago. Yet economic policy across the board has become almost passive, has essentially accepted this disaster instead of trying to end it.
Soros and Krugman are right. It’s time to end this man-made economic disaster. It’s time to stop slashing our own economic wrists. It’s time for jobs.
Courage,

Alan Grayson

Thank You 4 your consideration.


By The Way--The Rally that I was at was-->

Rally outside FirstEnergy's annual shareholder meeting > Event Details
Thanks for signing up for Tuesday's rally outside of FirstEnergy's shareholder meeting in Akron.

May 15th rally in Akron

John S. Knight Center
Tuesday, 15 May 2012, 10:00 - 11:30 AM
On Tuesday, our friends at the Sierra Club and SEIU 1199 are hosting a rally outside FirstEnergy’s annual shareholder meeting in Akron to make sure the company knows that local residents expect it to start prioritizing people and public health over profits.

Status:

Private, open for RSVP, 9 attendees (max. 100)

Address:

77 East Mill Street (Map)
Akron, OH 44308

From what I heard and saw we had a pretty good turn out, especially by the Akron Police Department who kept a very close eye on us, even though we were very well behaved.  How effectual it was, is a Good Question--Excellent Question--Suberb Question--A.K.A. I have no idea, yet. Only Time Will Tell.
By The Way, If by chance, pictures from the Rally start circulating--I was the one wearing an tie dyed Peace T-shirt, which I got from the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame and black hoodie sweater tied around my waist and holding a sign--Or better yet, IF I See any pictures of me--I will post any here.