Thursday, December 13, 2012

Weakley County Republicans Bully 'Anti-Tax Hike' Demonstrators.

Once again the Republican Party has shown exactly how tolerant and open-minded they are.  Today, my husband and I joined a small group of concerned citizens and tried to hold a peaceful demonstration at the Martin field office of Congressman Stephen Fincher. We were greeted with threats of violence.

When my husband and  I arrived I was a little nervous - there were hecklers. Who would heckle an "Anti-Tax Hike" demonstration?  That's kind of a weird. I really thought they must just be there to watch.

So off we went, marching down Lindell Street past the new fountain in the park. We had to sing! UGH.  I had been to the teacher rallies in Nashville last year - there's a protection from such a big crowd that makes it perfectly fine for me to sing in public! A rural rally is a lot different, people were definitely going to hear me sing.  But I did it anyway. And I was right, there they were -  a group of about 5 big guys waiting for us. They ridiculed working men and women who don't want their taxes to go up. It made no sense. I really couldn't believe what I was watching. It was embarrassing. Five old white men booing and mocking and giving the thumbs down to a group of mostly middle aged women. The animosity was shocking and it felt genuine.

And then I realized it really didn't matter to them if we were there to announce the cure for Cancer. We were Democrats - so they didn't like us, politically or personally. It was clear that they viewed us as enemies. It didn't really matter that we are taxpaying citizens. We were told that we couldn't assemble as a group; we had to meet with them individually. We were told we couldn't take pictures in a public office. We were told the press wasn't free to record video or audio in a taxpayer funded public office. It was abundantly clear that we were not welcomed in a public space.

We are their neighbors.  I see these people at the Iris Festival, the Farmer's Market, on campus and what did they do? Tennessee Republicans shouted "go get a job!" to a roomful of retirees, educators, a small farm owner, a marketing executive and a social worker. These weren't some nameless faceless online commenters ranting about a birth certificate; they are our neighbors and they told us that we didn't pay enough taxes. They are public servants and they treated us like we didn't have a right to be there.

And then - just to make things interesting, one guy who refused to provide his real name grumbled that he was "anti-demonstration" and said "I'm going to kick the dog-sh!t out of you" to the organizer. The weirdest part of the whole thing - they called the cops on themselves!!

People have been giving speeches at Congressional Offices for as long as there have been congressional offices  - we should not have to defend that right.

Congressman Fincher's office has some serious explaining to do about how it treats citizens.


We were there to oppose a tax hike.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Once Citizens Experience with Tea Party Governance

I'd like to share part of my story about my experience with state officials - in particular Representative Andy Holt and the rest of the Tea Party crew who came to power in 2010.

In 2010 - my husband and I were enjoying a beautiful Spring walk on our property and we were greeted by a horrendous smell - there at the bottom of our beautiful rolling hills were thousands of gallons of raw sewage  oozing out of the ground onto our property. It was shin deep and glistening and spread almost evenly across a full 8 acres. The thick porridge like substance was also flowing into two local streams - streams where I know that kids play in summer months.

The city came out and explained that the pipes were old and needed to be replaced but that they didn't have the funding to do it so they would apply for a grant. That was over 2 years ago.

Over the past 2 years, I contacted Representative Holt and Congressman Fincher on numerous occasions asking for some sort of assistance. Third world countries have open sewage pits - not the United States. Should we really be expected to lower our standard of living just because we live in a rural town and not an urban area? I learned that most of the small towns throughout West TN have aging sewers in need of repair  - and given the unemployment rate in our area, it certainly seemed like a no brainer for a newly elected Congressman and State Representative to secure funding for a "fix the basics" program that includes sewer upgrades in NWTN. Seems logical, right.

I have come to realize that there is nothing resembling logic or reason associated with either Holt or Fincher. I have contacted both of our government officials no less than 24 times over the past 2 years. I've contacted them via phone, email, facebook, and in person. Mr. Holt had the audacity to just delete my very reasonable questions from his facebook page. At the legislative breakfast at UTM this year, Mr. Fincher told me to "get more people to complain". When I told him that 24% of the households in Dresden signed the petition to apply for the grant and asked exactly what percentage would be needed for him to show concern about raw sewage - he looked at me a blank stare, mumbled a little bit and waited for his aide to rescue him. Fincher's office has yet to follow up on the issue even though he serves on a committee with a legislator from Delaware who helped spearhead and manage a similar project in her district. She's a Democrat though and God forbid Mr. Fincher should break his campaign promise of ever working with a Democrat - even it means providing jobs and modern sewer systems for his constituents.

Mr. Holt on the other hand was even worse. Fincher at least didn't hide that fact that he had no interest in fixing critical infrastructure in his district. In public, Mr Holt acted concerned but did nothing. Over and over again I contacted him asking for one simple thing - a letter of support for the grant from his office to the Governor. When I first met him I tried to point out that there was plenty he could do legislatively; infrastructure banks for maintenance, emergency public works funding, stricter oversight laws, the list goes on. He did none of that, and to this day, I still have not received a copy of the letter of support. Holt spent a lot of time overturning the will of the people of Nashville, fighting for horse slaughter facilities to be legalized in Weakley County; he spent an exorbitant amount of energy fighting imaginary child labor laws that right wing talk radio completely made up out of thin air. But he didn't have the time to ensure our district has the basic infrastructure needed to support new business and private residences.

In fact, when I confronted Mr, Holt yet again at the candidate meet and greet in Martin a few weeks ago, he said that he didn't even know the grant application had been submitted. To date, the only thing that I know for sure Mr. Holt did was pose with a giant publishers clearing house size check at city-hall once the grant was finally approved.

It gets worse. Mr. Holt, after deleting numerous messages from me on facebook, after not responding to email, after condescendingly admitting that he was in Hawaii when the final deadline for legislation passed - Mr. Holt had the absolute nerve yesterday to post a message on facebook wondering why I hadn't given him any thanks or praise!!!

Mr. Holt. When we get a heavy rain, sewage leaks from worn out pipes in Dresden; this has been going on for over 2 years. And, it is going to take another year to get it repaired. I reserve my praise and thanks for exceptional behavior - not mediocrity.

So, to the readers of the Weakley County Press - know this, if you wake up one morning and find yourself wading through shin deep sewage in your yard, there's a good chance that it could take not a few weeks, but a few years for anyone of our state or federal representatives to do anything about it.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Andy Holt goes far beyond the 47%


Last month presidential candidate Mitt Romney made headlines not because of a great new job creation idea but instead because his true feelings about almost half of Americans came to light. The candid video of Mr. Romney at a $50,000 per plate fundraiser shows him explaining that the 47% of Americans who do not pay federal income tax will never be convinced “to take personal responsibility for their lives” and that "they think they are entitled to food."

As it turns out – this “fact” has been pervasive on right wing talk radio for years – so I guess it’s now clear who has influence over Mitt Romney. He was embarrassed by the tape, but not remorseful. He stood by his remarks that if only those 47% paid income taxes (and we gave tax breaks to billionaires) the world would be rosy place.

So who are the 47%? It includes military men and women deployed on combat leave and disabled veterans. At one point we were compassionate and unified enough as a country to agree that combat soldiers and disabled vets could be exempt from income tax. Now we have elected a presidential nominee who thinks these patriots are freeloaders. What has become of us?

This 47% group of Americans also includes students who work full or near full time while attending school, also full or near full time. After school costs, these students earn less than the poverty level. Again, there was a time in this country when we thought that kids (or working adults) trying to get a college degree were folks we wanted to invest in – now the leader of a major political party thinks they are moochers who are holding the rest of us back.

The Republican leader didn’t stop with combat soldiers, disabled veterans and working students, though. Just for good measure he needed to make sure we all remembered those real evil-doers – the worst of worst – senior citizens and the working poor. Seniors who live on little more than Social Security and working families who make less than $30,000 can also qualify for credits that reduce their federal income tax bill to $0. We used to be a country with compassion – one who decided in a bi-partisan way that working families deserved a shot and senior citizens living in poverty is a national disgrace. Now we have a man who is “this close” to being leader of the free world who believes life was so much better when the majority of seniors lived in poverty and working poor families had little if any chance to move up in the world. It was called the Gilded Age – and while national Republicans fled the scene faster than a jackrabbit – there are plenty of folks who doubled down on Mr. Romney’s view of poverty. Our state representative, Andy Holt, is one of those people.

At the candidate meet and greet last week in Martin I had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Holt about a whole range of issues – including poverty. Mr. Holt proudly explained that he believes the best cure for poverty is poverty – his words not mine. It’s a naive and simplistic point of view, but his meaning is pretty clear. Poverty is a motivator and any help for the poor, whether it’s an income tax break, a school lunch for a hungry kid, food stamps for a single dad or a homemade meal from a shelter is counterproductive. Helping the poor just encourages people to stay poor.  In fact, Mr. Holt went a step further and equated anti-poverty programs with slavery! He believes that anti-poverty initiatives no only give the wrong message – but they actually force people to stay in poverty.

We used to be a country that declared war on poverty – not on the impoverished. What happened?