Politics, Motherhood, and Politics

  Ok, we’ve been back and forth with lockdown since March.  I buckled down, even with the panic of possibly not having toilet paper, and we did what we were supposed to do. I guessed that most of today’s Americans are not used to making real sacrifices. I mean we send our sons and daughters off to wars that have been going on for almost 20 years, with the exception of those troops and their families, these wars have asked little from the American public.  Oh, wait, we have paid TRILLIONS of dollars since 2001 on these “Wars on Terror.”(Yeah, I know, we don’t call them that any more, but that’s what they are…) According to Win Without War, we have spent over 5 Trillion Dollars in the past 20 years, ( https://winwithoutwar.org/ ) enough for our federal government to pay back Social Security, fund Medicare-for-All, and feed everyone.  But we’d rather people die then take care of others with our tax money, which brings me to the point of this writing. First, I want to sa...

  My name is Jamie Wood, the interim Political Education Committee chair for our new group, Working Families Joliet. And I live on the far west side of Joliet, actually Kendall County Joliet. But for me, ALL of Joliet is my city, my home for 20 years. I am here with my colleagues from Working Families Joliet because I want change from Joliet to Washington D.C. And the way that is going to happen is if I remind you all of one basic right, NO, one basic obligation, and that is to Vote! Voting is the chance we have to change our democracy into something that works for all of us. Yes, I know many of you vote, at least in the U.S. Presidential Elections.  Many of you think that is enough, and that is the only time it matters.  But voting is important in ALL elections.  We must vote in Midterm elections, State Elections, Local elections, like city council, mayoral, school boards, county boards...dog catcher.  Every election counts, every vote counts. Alas, there are t...

  Forget Medicare for all, or any type of national healthcare system, after decades of trying to destroy these “socialist” systems, it seems those on the right and those who do not believe in a nation helping each other, might destroy those programs which we already have in our country. We have to keep fighting for the social programs that you would think would be untouchable, Social Security being one of them. Last week, the Trump Administration announced that it will do a “Payroll” tax holiday, which means that this is a bold step in defunding Social Security. “Employees now pay 6.2% of their income in payroll taxes — the money is withheld from their paycheck and used to fund Social Security. Employers also pay 6.2% of worker salaries.”- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trumps-payroll-tax-deferral-executive-order-how-much-will-workers-get/    Not only that, you all will have to pay it back during tax season, along with the COVID stimulus package passed earlier this year....

Trying to write in this political environment is such a difficult task. The current Administration is good at pointing at one thing while doing something else behind our backs. Even I have a problem with staying on one political topic.  Maybe that is the "stable genius" of Trump, saying and tweeting the dumbest shit to throw us all off.  However, my attention stays focused on unmarked Federal Agents/Soldiers/Officers being ordered to strike against their own. I know you all can’t believe it...But it's happening. We first saw this on June 1, 2020, when Trump (and Barr) had U.S. Park Police and National Guard troops tear-gas protesters in front of the White House to clear this buffoon's way for a photo-op in front of a church. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-church-visit-angers-church-officials Why?  If you are a supporter of this President, how do you explain this authoritarian show of force?  Did you cheer for it?  But it hasn’t ended...

Ok, people, for the life of me, I am not sure how the hell this became a partisan issue.  I do know that we seem to be the only country to have debated, and some people are just irate about this issue. What is this divisive issue? Well, it's wearing a mask.  How? Why are we idiots? Well, the how it became a partisan issue is self-evident.  We have become so divided that we separated a global pandemic into "red and blue".  What didn't help is the Trump administration's lack of a comprehensive national response to the pandemic.  It shouldn't have been that difficult to get us all on the same page.  In the beginning, even Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D) were and still are on the same page with similar emergency orders. They both were alarmed on how quickly the virus spread through their states. Both showed the same compassion and concern for their citizens. Gov. DeWine signed similar emergency orders, etc as his Midwestern D...

On the Friday before Father’s Day, I have decided to write about a topic not related to politics.  Ok, I am lying, it’s sort of a combination of things, mostly about my father and feminism.  Whether he’d admit it or not, it is because of him that I am who I am.  This is about my father raising me (and my sisters, but I am not speaking about their experiences, as they have their own voices) to be a strong independent woman, in a surprising and unexpected way. He raised a feminist. I cannot tell you the story from the beginning, but I can tell you from about the age of 9 when this “formation” began.  We were at the babysitter’s house in the summer in the small town of Francesville, Indiana.  The babysitter’s daughter was my age and other same-aged girls were there.  Some of us “lucky” girls would be invited to her room to play. Unless, the girl got mad at you, then you got kicked out, and then banished to the living room where the other 100 kids were playing....

Before I begin, I know without looking at your pathetic Facebook posts, that certain people in this country are probably decrying the riots and quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. regarding peaceful protest. "Why aren't these protesters being more like him?" What? Shot and killed? A great deal of certain Americans didn't even like him during his time.  So it's strange how his name is invoked by the same people who continue to directly and indirectly support racism. Even though King condemned violence, including rioting, here is what he thought on the matter:  "...that riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?" ( The Other America, Speech given at Stafford University, April 14, 1967) So what say you, America? What say you about the lynching of Americans right before our eyes over and over?  Maybe you need it defined for you: Lynching: "to put to death by mob action without legal approval or permission....

Like other people, I am scared of death.  I get fear. I am panicking...to a point. (Truth be told, I am a walking neurotic mess even before the virus.)  This virus is something that I really never experienced, ever, and probably true for most of us.  Though as a teenager in the 1980's, the threat of HIV/AIDS was a reality as I came into sexual maturity, that scared me more than this pandemic. But it didn't stop me from experiencing sex, but this one seems to stop me from life itself.  Not life as in death, but life as it was for me a few weeks ago. And I know I am not the only one.  But this virus has  Americans have showing their ugly heads for who we really are, as I am not afraid of this virus itself, but the greed that seems to threaten us more than ever.  Yet, we praise our greed, we defend it.  The existence of the virus of greed has been around longer than any other.  I guess, I am reminded how the poorest of the poorest might think, b...