Margie Robben

Is Obedience a virtue or a sin? As children, our parents work to make us obedient. For most of our lives we tend to be obedient, not only to our own rules or regulations but to the rules and regulations of others. If we view the person making the rules as someone of authority we may be obedient. But obedience can be tricky. It is not all good. Obeying a command, a custom, a rule, a vow or a pledge can be virtuous or sinful.

If you were a Catholic growing up during the 40s and 50s, like I was, you came to see the Church and its priests as good authority figures and worthy of following their rules and regulations. Don’t eat meat on Fridays. Go to Mass every Sunday and Holy Day. In order to receive the communion host on Sunday morning you had to fast from food and drink from 12 midnight the night before until Sunday morning Mass. You also had to fast from something you loved during the 40-day Lenten period every spring. I always chose to deprive myself of candy during that time and I would save it up and eat it all on Easter Sunday.

Catholics had to “avoid the occasions of sin” – no petting or sex with your boyfriend until you were married. And when you were married the only form of birth control you could use was the faulty “rhythm system”. You were told you would go to hell if you did not follow the rules and regulations. As a Catholic girl I was scared most of the time, while at the same time, I was totally obedient.

But being Catholic was really no different from being Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, Evangelical, or Amish. They had their rules too. No bacon or pork, use different sets of dishes for different foods. Dress in black garb and always cover your face. No driving or going out into the community. No dancing or using modern technology.

Sometimes obedience teaches people to be followers instead of leaders. It puts a damper on creativity and exploration. I was told by the Catholic authorities to be a “sheep” following the “Shepherd”. I didn’t have to think for myself. It would all be done for me. I just had to walk behind the Shepherd.

A certain paralysis of the mind seems to set in and take up residence when there is too much unthinking obedience. Following the Shepherd takes away free will and analytic thinking. I have seen devoted but mindless older Catholic people get out of a sick bed to go to Sunday Mass because of their own discipline and the fear of the childish notion they would go to hell if they missed Sunday Mass. It seems to me that caring for the life force of ones own body, to nurture and heal it at a time of illness, to stay in bed to restore the body’s health, would have been a better choice. To do otherwise, to me, is sinful.

The German people during World War II were so sinfully obedient to and fearful of German authority they were willing to follow an evil leader and participate in the killing of millions of people. Hundreds of books have been written about this evil and sinful time in history. The German people were one of the most obedient people on earth.

Today, some American politicians are so sinfully obedient they are willing to see the Country teeter on the brink of disaster. Out of fear of going back on a pledge to their Party not to increase taxes, they refuse to compromise. Out of a vow their Party made to “take down this President” they are ready to destroy America as well as the man. Their minds are paralyzed and unable to move or think about what they are doing. The pledges they made have replaced their primary pledge of allegiance to the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

It is worth thinking about.

Don’t you think?

SHOUT OUT THEIR NAMES FROM THE HIGHEST HILLTOP

They are national treasures! Shout out their names from the highest hilltop. You will find a reason to rejoice because of the experience of five women. They are:

JAYCEE LEE DUGARD !
TERRY PROBYN !
ALLISON JACOBS !
LISA CAMBELL !
REBECCA BAILEY!

Here is why:

JAYCEE LEE DUGARD: A young 11 year-old child, walking to her school bus in California, gets shot by a stun gun and pulled into the car by a convicted child sexual predator and his evil wife. She is impregnated two times and held captive for eighteen years. When she is fourteen years old she gives birth to one daughter, and then, two years later a second daughter is born. In the first weeks she is kept naked and raped while being handcuffed. She has no doctors, no nurses, no dentists, and no teachers. She lives alone in a shed in the back of a house. She lives in squalor. No sunshine, no play, no books. She finds a spider to keep her company. Later, she is given a kitten, but it disappears. She is given a second kitten, but that disappears too. Too much to comprehend.

As Jaycee gets older the abuser, disinterested, leaves her alone. She finds comfort and companionship in her two children. She teaches the children to read and write. She found a learning program to teach the children by tuning into a small television set the abuser and his wife put in the shed. She was taught to be terrified of the “unknown” outside the backyard. After many years, Jaycee and her children were allowed to leave the shack and move into the main house. After 18 years, the abuser, feeling confident he would not be found out, takes the entire family to an “event” on the campus of the University of California, in Berkeley, where he got permission to distribute religious pamphlets.

TERRY PROBYN: Jaycee’s mother, who for 18 years never gave up hope that her daughter would some day return. Not only did Jaycee return but she brought two granddaughters with her. One child lost and three return

ALLISON JACOBS AND LISA CAMBELL: The two University of California policewomen, working the “event” on the Berkeley campus see Jaycee and her children walking around. The sight of them sparked a strong emotional instinct and intuition. The faces of the children were overwhelmingly sad and dull and the women knew that something was dreadfully wrong with them. The University workers went to their computers to see if the man who accompanied the children was on a list of sexual predators. Bingo! His name was on the list. The women’s instincts were right. The police were called and the man and his wife were arrested.

REBECCA BAILEY: Jaycee’s therapist, who has the skill and courage to work with the family, to listen to their heartbreaking story and to help them heal and find love and joy in their present life. Ms. Bailey’s work is intense and on-going. It takes a toll on a therapist. We salute her.

THE PERPETRATOR: The name of the perpetrator will not be spelled out here. He will not be afforded the dignity of an identity. The man was known to the police and was on probation for a previous child rape. He was wearing a GPS ankle bracelet during the 18 years he held his victims. He was visited 60 times by the California Probation Department and never once did the Department look into sheds in the backyard. The police GPS printout showed that he was in the backyard more than he was in his house. For eighteen years no one’s curiosity was raised. One police video showed how the Probation Officer rushed through the house with the abuser and his wife right behind him, aggressively chattering trying to steer the officer away from further investigation. It worked! The Probation Officer couldn’t wait to get out of the house, away from these evil people, and into the sanity of his own car. It was also reported that at one time during the eighteen years, a neighbor reported to the authorities that children were living in the backyard.

In spite of the negative odds for a good outcome, we must celebrate the feminine instinct, intuition, and a mother’s love, protection, and courage of these five women. Jaycee’s ability to survive, her mother’s unending belief that Jaycee would some day return to her, the University of California policewomen, doing their job with gusto, and the therapist with the skill to do the healing work. Hooray for them all!

Shout out their names. Jaycee Dugard, Terry Probyn, Allison Jacobs, Lisa Campbell and Rebecca Bailey. We salute them from our highest hilltop. We award them the Women’s Medal of Courage and Valour.

Jaycee Lee Dugard has written a book about her experience which has just been published called: “A Stolen Life”.

This week, while going to Chase Bank on the corner of Lockwood Lane and the Post Road in Riverside, there appeared a large billowing cloud of dark brown dirt blowing onto the sidewalk and street, covering both pedestrians and cars. Accompanying the cloud of dirt was the roar of several leaf blowers.  This is a daily, any-time-of day occurrence in Greenwich every Spring, Summer, and Autumn.

 I went inside Chase bank and reported it to the Manager who was talking with a teller. They shrugged their shoulders and looked out their window and did nothing.

  Caroline Calderone Baisley was a major reason the summer leaf blower ban didn’t pass over a decade ago and it looks like she’s a major player now.  One wonders what her stake is in always upping the ante, making it more and more difficult to bring common sense and a healthy environment to Greenwich.

The present ban has never been enforced by the majority of landscapers nor enforced with stoppage and fines by the police over the years. The landscaper workers give you the middle finger if you say anything to them and the police consider the whistle-blower who calls them to be a nuisance and think it is beneath their dignity to try to control the landscaping lawbreakers since it is a constant, never-ending job trying to enforce.

 Leaf blowers are a “convenience” only to the workers.  Let them prove they will lose money during the summer months if they don’t use them. The noisy machines are used for cleaning the dirt and garbage from the sidewalks and blowing it all onto the people walking in the streets and into ongoing traffic. I have even seen leaf blowers being used to remove snow in the Winter. Talk about “weapons of mass destruction”……….don’t look any further than the streets of “our town”

Greenwich Time has a “You said it” column, somewhat like “Letters to the Editor” of other newspapers. I was a bit confused by the recent letter on May 18, 2011 when an Old Greenwich resident wrote the following:

Getting Osama    

The vow of George Bush, the brilliance of Dick Cheney, the force of the Navy Seals – all American patriots – tracked down and ended     the scourge of Osama bin Laden

Huh? Was this tongue-in-cheek or did the writer believe what he wrote?

Usually, when someone writes satire, somewhere before the end of it you understand whether the writer is joking or whether they believe what they are saying. In this case, there was no clarity.

Since it is not clear, I thought I would respond to it as if the writer believed what he wrote.

In college, in order to graduate, I had to take a math class. I decided to take “mathematical logic”, and because I had no high school math and because I was twenty years removed from high school, I took the math course on a pass/fail basis. And thank god I made that decision. I would never have had a passing grade if all I took were tests. Homework assignments got me through. It took me ten hours to complete an assignment when it should have taken only one hour. The professor took pity on me and asked me if I learned anything. Yes, I said, I learned how to deal with frustration.

What I did learn from the course was to understand you can make many statements, true or false, and if your conclusion proves the premise, then a statement can be logical. But, I also learned that logic says nothing about “truth”.

Logical statements

1. President Bush is an American patriot, and he made a vow to track down and end the scourge of Osama bin Laden.

2. Cheney is an American patriot, and he also tracked down and ended the scourge of Osama bin Laden.

3.  The force of the Navy SEALs, all American patriots, tracked down and ended the scourge of Osama bin Laden.

That is the logic.

Truth analysis:

1. President Bush made a vow nine and a half years ago to track down Osama bin Laden. After looking for him for a while he publicly admitted he lost interest and said he didn’t care about Osama bin Laden any more and that he was probably hiding in a cave somewhere, or even dead.

2. Vice President Cheney worked closely with Bush using harsh interrogation tactics on prisoners which he thinks were somehow responsible for finding Osama bin Laden. He did not find Osama during his term in office and after eight years he, as well as the President, left the pursuit of Osama to the next President.

3.  The CIA, working on a top-priority goal of President Barack Obama, tracked down and found Osama bin Laden, and the Navy SEALs, given orders from the President, ended the scourge of Osama bin Laden.

That is the truth.

Any comments or questions?

E-mail Marge at mbrobben@aol.com

It was a quiet Sunday night just before 10 p.m. I was settling in for a long night’s sleep searching the television channels for something interesting to watch. Being a “news junkie”, Sunday night is not the time to find anything that satisfies my habit, and I usually settle for watching a serial drama as a second best.

While searching, I noticed a line of print running across the bottom of the screen. It said that President Obama would be making a special announcement at 10:30 that night. Oh my! What is happening? Nothing ever happens on Sunday night. There must be some mistake.

 I called down to my husband, to share the information, but he was watching the Mets and he didn’t hear me call out. I called down again ten minutes later. No response.  I kept seeing the same words running across the screen on every station, I shouted as loud as I could. John! Come upstairs! He heard me the third time.

We were very worried. We lived through many “big announcements”. Most of them were not good. We started speculating.  Did it have anything to do with the spreading of radiation from Japan to California?  Was it North Korea and a potential attack on us?  Did Libya’s Kadhafi surrender or was he causing more mischief? 

The TV people were running helter-skelter as live backdrops to the news stations. They reported their major associates were called up and told to “come in fast”. They use the word “grave” when talking about the announcement.

GRAVE?  Grave is serious, sober, solemn, weighty, threatening a seriously bad outcome or involving serious or critical issues. The television anchors continued to say they “would not speculate” but you could see some of them were visibly disturbed.

We sat together waiting for the big announcement. Ten-thirty passed. Ten-forty five. No Obama. Piece by piece. Bits of information about the event were reported. They were saying Osama bin Laden was killed. Osama bin Laden was killed by the American Navy SEALs. This wasn’t “grave”, this was “joy”!  Can “grave” be “joyous” at the same time. Yes it can!

President Obama finally appeared on the screen and he gave the details of the killing of Osama bin Laden. He said the U.S. Navy SEALS took command of Osama’s dead body and put it on the helicopter with them. Hooray!

The college kids in groups began emerging from their dorms all over the country, singing the American Anthem. Chanting USA! It was a good night for the American people and justice for the destruction Osama orchestrated on September 11, 2001.

For almost ten years, under the direction of Presidents Bush and Obama, we looked for this evil man, found him, and ended his life so he could not live and destroy again.

God bless the United States of America.

The good and evil forces within the human mind have always been at work, not just in America, but in the entire world. It is in America, though, that something quite unique is taking place.

We, as fellow human beings, and fairly intelligent ones at that, are working to destroy others at a pace I have never seen before. It is not that destroying others is new, but, rather, what is new is the ease and speed it is being done.

Today’s new technology introduces us to instant information. A thought by you or me, true or false, can go viral within minutes and millions around the world can read or see it before the sun goes down.  Don’t get me wrong, I love most of the new technology, and use what I like, but there are definitely drawbacks to a lot of it.

I am not out to bad-mouth driving while tweeting, walking while texting, bicycling while telephoning, bullying from the comfort of your home, or eliminating Apple from knowing your every movement while using their I-pad. The motto today seems to be – If you make it we will use it, for good and for evil.

What is more complex and harder to integrate is the mountain of false and hostile information getting passed on through the new technology. One push of the “send” button and all sorts of evil and misleading information is passed on to millions of our fellow human brains. These aggressors of evil intent have found ways to take a good technical invention and suffocate it with crippling intentions. They have a life or death weapon in their hands and they are using it.

Some children are trying to destroy the reputation and character of other children on face book, by twittering and tweaking, and by thumbing text messages on their phones.  The same goes for the junior and senior high school crowd and the kids away at college. Bullying is not a strong enough word to describe what they are doing. It is not enough to say “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what I was doing”, when their victims kills themselves.

President Obama’s character and reputation has been assaulted by the evil users of modern technology as soon as he came on the scene in Chicago to announce he was running for President. Since then, hundreds of lies and half-truths have been “invented”, so much so that there was a need to establish several “fact-check” investigating websites to tell us what is true, what is false, and what is “pants on fire” false. The President has been called an alien, not like us, not born in America, a socialist, a communist and so much more I will not dignify it in print.

Americans should be standing proud with our first dark-skinned American President. A man, open and accepting of others, outstanding in intellect and in his grasp of complex problems, respected by foreign nations, and who is working with great speed and enormous physical and mental energy to make America a more perfect union. The media is telling us that almost half the people polled believe in some or all the lies. They believe and then stop thinking. No fact checking for them. Very discouraging! Hatred has a blinding effect on truth.

 A elected member of the U.S. House of Representative recently e-mailed her friends a picture of the face of President Obama photo-shopped onto a baby ape with the caption saying this was the reason Obama didn’t have a birth certificate. After getting caught, she justified sending the picture out and saying it was “just a joke”. Our elected adult political people seem to be the new role models for American kids, showing them how to use new technology for evil purposes.

Let’s not forget to include the media’s misuse of the new technology. They join the bullying phenomena as they pursue a high ratings game to justify their “duty” to report the news. They incessantly cover the negative hype, whether true or untrue, pretending they are not participating in the real-life reality game only reporting it. They have to cover it, they say. They ask over and over, “Who will run?  Who will win? Who is a blow-hard? Who’s just in the race to make money? Look at the polls this minute!”  Most of the poll questions are down-right stupid but the media pretends to take them seriously.

I get impatient waiting for people to catch up with technology. Seeing a women fall into a shopping mall water fountain while texting and then reprimanding her onlookers who are laughing at her stupidity makes me a little crazy. I get frustrated when the kids can say all kinds of brutal and intimate things with their thumbs and then are intimidated by a personal encounter with the same people they are texting to. The kids mistakenly think they are communicating, but in reality, they are missing out on the life all around them. Their heads are down, leaning into their phones, their thumbs are working at the speed of light, and they are oblivious. Very sad!

I have recently started driving with one hand on top of the car horn waiting to blast it, wake up the driver coming at me, protecting myself when the car approaching is over the yellow line, swerving from left to right. This happens several times a day. You can bet they are fooling around with their technology!

We are becoming an anonymous society. We spread constant negative and destructive information, a lot of which is false and evil. We play the reality game of taking down the President, making him a one-term President. We play the reality game of cam-cording our room-mate who is having a same-sex encounter and we send it over the internet. The guy kills himself when the video is exposed to all at his college. In Massachusetts we are jealous of a pretty Irish teenager our friends are taking notice of so we harass her until she hangs herself.

America is becoming a real-live home-grown tragedy you can post on you-Tube. A reality game with no consequences, no guilt, no responsibility, and no remorse. America needs lots of fixing and people courageous enough to stand up for goodness and respect of others.

My first experience with the United States Oligarchy of America was February 7, 1992. It was the first day of a week-long American Toy Fair in New York City and the costumed toy characters arrived and were joyously singing and dancing in front of 200 Fifth Avenue.

As toy buyers from all over the world arrived by taxis, they made their way through the performing characters. They also had to go through a group of protesters holding signs and chanting: “Boycott toys made in China” and “Wal-Mart’s way is not the American way”. The protesters were agitated by a letter sent out the previous November from David Glass, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Wal-Mart notifying the toy industry that independent sales representatives would no longer be welcome to call on Wal-Mart if they represented more than one manufacturer.

During that time I was working on the annual publication of The Toy Center Directory, a list of the companies participating in the New York City Toy Fair. I came from a family of independent sales representatives since the 1940s and the Wal-Mart message was a big concern to us. We represented more than three manufacturers of toys. Selling toys was how our family survived.

In 1954 our family was responsible for calling on 700 individual toy retailers; 50 of them were large retailers.  We represented and sold for manufacturing factories in Ohio, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. There were many manufacturers making Toys in America and independent sales representatives were the experts spending time criss-crossing the United States, and getting toys to the entire country.

Since then, only a few independent sales representatives have survived. Today they sell mainly to three major retailers: Toys R Us, Target, and Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is seen as being responsible for shutting down thousands of stores of all sizes, from Mom and Pop ones including Caldors, Zayre, Hills, Bradlees, etc. Most independent sales representatives are gone. Most American-made toy manufacturers are gone. Most toy industry jobs are gone. Toys are presently imported from other countries, they lack creativity, are cheaply made, break easily, boxed seductively, and may contain harmful materials.

Wal-Mart succeeded in convincing Americans they were doing something good and positive for them.  In the beginning they promoted their products as being USA-made and low prices every day.  Those ideas didn’t last long. The Wall Street Journal of February 22, 2011 says Wal-Mart is going through troubling times. Target is eating into Wal-Mart’s sales. Target says they give customers low prices every day while Wal-Mart gives low prices on things they advertise while shifting to higher prices on other products.

Wal-Mart is presently in a major struggle to open a retail store in New York City. The people of New York say they don’t want a Wal-Mart in the City. The New York people saw the destruction of retail businesses across the country when Wal-Mart moved in and they want to preserve the culture of their City as it is.

The ancient Greeks described Oligarchy as “a form of power structure in which the power effectively rests with a small number of people”. Further, they say that some oligarchies are “tyrannical and rely on public servitude to exist” We can certainly use this description of oligarchy for how Wal-Mart successfully managed to destroy independent sales representatives, independent toy manufacturers, shut down factories, and destroy jobs.

Oligarchy in American politics is big too. The State of Wisconsin is involved in a bitter battle with their Governor and their State Congress who they recently elected. It appears the Wisconsin government, who has a Republican majority have enough votes to cancel the collective bargaining rights of all Public State workers. The workers are furious.

Collective bargaining to Wisconsin public workers is a source of  personal dignity, respect and pride. The workers use the unions to represent them in negotiations so that they will be able to sustain themselves and their families. Many years ago they fought long and hard for the right of collective bargaining.  The union workers will not allow their newly elected government to take these rights away.

The union workers of Wisconsin do not believe the reasons the Governor uses for eliminating their right of collective bargaining. They do not believe it has anything to do with the Wisconsin debt. What they do believe is that the Governor is paying back big contributors for their financial help in getting him elected. “We elected you Governor, now destroy the Unions.”

The giant corporate billionaires, Koch brothers, gave millions of dollars to the Wisconsin Governor’s campaign. Now it’s payback time. 

Both corporations and unions contribute money to our 2-party system. Corporations contribute mainly to Republicans and unions contribute mainly to Democrats.  If corporations, like the Koch boys could knock off the unions and prevent money from the unions going into the Presidential campaign, then President Obama and other Democrats would be more vulnerable in 2012.

In order for an evil Oligarchy system to work you need rich, deceptive, and tyrannical people on the top rung and the uninformed or misinformed people on the bottom rung. Once people get educated and begin to understand what is happening, they stand up and rebel.

Today the people are listening carefully to what has happened to the middle class and understanding how the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer and they are beginning to protest and rebel around the World. New York City is rebelling against Wal-Mart! Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio are rebelling against their Governors and State Congress! Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Libya are rebelling against their leaders. People have awakened like sleeping giants.

It is becoming clear that when wealthy and powerful people who are at the top, want more and more, and they take advantage of their status and disrespect the people who work for them; if you remove previous privileges from the people you have been elected to govern; if you disregard the middle class and less powerful, if you lie to these people and if you think you know what is best for those you govern despite their protests, you will eventually lose.

It was a sunny Saturday morning in Tucson. A loved woman named “Gabby” was getting set up to do her work as a U.S. House of Representative. She and a couple of her staff were preparing a table in front of a local supermarket so she could meet and greet some of the people she represents and listen to their concerns.  Gabby did this kind of event many times before.

This day would be different, though. This day Gabby would be shot in the head. Her closest staff members and some of her constituents would be shot also. Among the dead would be a nine year-old girl who wanted to meet Gabby and tell her that she was just voted to be a class representative.  

In all, twenty people would be shot. Some would die, others would be wounded. Gabby was wounded. She lies in a hospital in critical condition. Many people helped save her including a twenty year-old aide who held her head in an upright position so she wouldn’t drown in her blood. No one knows what Gabby’s life will be like if she survives.

Tomorrow, we in the Northeast expect a big snowstorm and many of us will be forced to stay indoors. The President of the United States and his wife will fly to warm Tucson and participate in a prayer service for the lives that have been affected by this act of desperation from a very disturbed young man. The gunman’s reasoning mind was lost. His act made no sense. At some point he planned to take down Gabby. No one knows why he fixed his anger on her. He brought a fully loaded gun with him to Gabby’s event. He purchased the gun at a gun store and his ammunition at Wal-Mart’s.

Many people in the community knew this young man needed help. It was reported he grew more inward and isolated in the past two years. After shooting Gabby, the man continued shooting until he was out of ammunition and as he tried to reload his gun; he was pounced upon and stopped by three 70 years-olds.  

During the summer of 2008 I set up many tables myself as a volunteer to get people registered to vote in the Presidential Election. I not only brought the necessary forms for registration, but also had two 6 foot cardboard figures, one of John McCain and one of Barack Obama. I blew up red, white, and blue balloons and tried to create occasions of importance and fun. I went to shopping centers, beaches, and parks.

I registered many citizens from all political parties. In most cases, people responded with appreciation, amusement, and joy. But there were a few times when I became frightened by someone’s response of anger and potential violence.  One person tried to destroy one of the cardboard Presidential nominees and had to be stopped.

Public service is not for wimps. It must be cherished and appreciated. Our government has many Gabbys and we must care for them.

Three days before Christmas, after taking a “shellacking” at the polls in November, Mr. Obama put on his skates and lights up the red bulb on the net and scores three goals for Team USA! Wow!

First Goal: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Men and women in the armed services of the USA now do not have to live a lie about their sexual orientation if they want to stay in the military and fight America’s wars. Score one for integrity.

Second Goal: The ratification of a Treaty with Russia that will allow both countries to monitor each other’s nuclear bombs, making America safer. Score two for national security.

Third Goal: Congress passes a bill that will give sick and dying 911 “responders” the money they need for their health care. Score three for responsibility and recognition of a job well done by the men and women who dug out their “brothers and sisters” from a pulverized and burning death trap.

The ice was slippery and there were holes and bumps along the way. The opposing team was defeated by a sense of cooperation, guilt, and bi-partisanship. Many people played the game. The teamwork was terrific. Many shout-outs and hoorays were heard.

After taking off his skates and putting down his hockey stick, Obama flew off to Hawaii to join Michelle, Malia, Sasha, and Bo. Have a good Christmas Mr. President. You deserve it.

I have been to hundreds of sporting events. Some you win, some you lose.  You always feel sadder losing than you feel elated at winning.

Politics is like a sporting event. There is planning and scheming, cohesive teamwork, and reward for the winner. In the 2010 election Democrats had big losses in Congress. They are no longer the majority in the House of Representatives but still hold on to a small majority in the Senate. The President said “we took a shellacking”. You can see the sadness on the President’s face.

But, there is no sadness in the winners. The Republicans have much to be happy about. Two years ago, before Barrack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States, they started planning on ways to defeat him and the Democratic Congress. They wanted power back and they were determined to get it. Isn’t that what a team that wants to be Number One does?

The Republicans joined with and funded the manufactured Tea Party. Combining the Party of Lincoln with the “grass roots” people was masterful. The plan was unified and carried out with selected daily talking points, and if anyone in the group went “off message”, they were reprimanded.

The Republicans use the principle that if you consistently give people information, whether true or false, they will adopt the information as if it was their own. It worked best in the health care debate.

The main focus of the Republicans since January 2008 was to say “no” to all bills presented in Congress and to get vulnerable people in America to be afraid of everything. The health care debates some Congressmen held over the summer of 2009 were set up to include paid agitators bussed in and real grass roots people who were terrified by the daily talking points they heard or read on television, cable, radio, and the internet. 

Americans were made to believe the President had set up “death panels” in the health care program and that the country would go bankrupt if the health care program succeeded.  The talking points got Americans to believe their rights were being taken away from them, including life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, freedom, and their guns. “Don’t tread on me” flags were showing up in rallies and one was hung from a balcony in Congress.  None of the talking points were true, but the message was believed.

The Republicans set up a campaign to demonize Nancy Pelosi. Ms. Pelosi was a major threat because she was a strong and successful leader in the House of Representatives. The plan was that she had to be taken down and replaced. The goal was accomplished on November 2, 2010.

Alan Grayson of Florida had to go, too. He held up a poster on the floor of Congress explaining to Americans what the Republican’s plan for health care was. The poster said “Don’t Get Sick”. For a long time Grayson’s telling it like it is” was a challenge to the Republican chatter. He lost after being ahead in the election and after millions of dollars was collected for his demise via negative ads.

Unfortunately for them, the Republicans started too late trying to get rid of Harry Reid. They thought they had the Nevada Senate race won.  Maybe it was the fighter in old Harry.  He stood up to Sharon Angle, all her craziness, fake smile, and imported money from anonymous sources.

At the end of a sporting event you sometimes hear an athlete say, “We left it all on the field,” meaning they fought a good fight and used up every bit of energy they had during the fight. But with Harry, the Republicans left Harry on the field. As a young man, Harry was a genuine prizefighter. He had a few punches his opponent didn’t know about. 

The Republicans were able to keep Obama and the Administration from taking credit for the bills he signed. In two years he stabilized the economy from a major depression, helped middle class families keep their health insurance, allowed kids to stay on their parent’s insurance policy until they are 26 years old, reformed Education, banking, Wall Street, credit card companies and got the car industry back in business. The Republicans took advantage of the Obama Administration’s laid back persona, his willingness to cooperate and quiet modesty.  All the good deeds in the world were no match for the daily and continual negative assault from the Fox people, NewsCorp and Rupert Murdoch and his money.

One of the biggest talking points bandied about is over jobs and the President’s inability to create them. I have always been curious about why there has been a lack of reporting and investigation about why job growth is non-existent. It seems obvious to me that jobs no longer exist in America because our Corporations outsourced them all and manufacturing came to a halt. The Corporations would like you to believe the reason they outsourced everything was because they had to be able to compete. They could only compete if they outsourced to countries where workers are paid pennies an hour. The Corporations also want you to believe they had to outsource because of the Unions demanding a living wage for their workers.

The Republican talking points went right up the ladder to the President, a position Americans have always respected. Among many adjectives, they called Obama professorial, a Spock-like character from another planet, non-feeling, non-human, dispassionate, cerebral, a non-citizen, a Muslim, a socialist, a communist, a foreigner, and said he does not love America. They didn’t know which adjective would stick so they used them all in an effort that one or two would stick with Americans. The Hitler mustache, the Nazi signs, showing your guns at rallies and demanding Obama’s birth certificate were about as insulting and disrespectful as you can get.

Palin, O’Donnell, Ron Paul, Sharon Angle and others used hate and fear to stir up the emotions of the voters. Republicans in Congress kept quiet as was directed.  “No comment” was consistently the word of the day. Everyone was on the Republican/Corporation payroll. They played their role as demanded.

Republicans benefited by using the recent Supreme Court decision making it legal to form non-profit organizations around the country, collect money and to anonymously fund elections. Obama, in his Inaugural Address to Congress, warned that the Supreme Court ruling was a disaster and would have a harmful affect on American elections.  The Court decision allowed the Republicans to take full advantage of the new law while at the same time it protected big donors by keeping their names secret. There would be no transparency for Americans to view who was funding the elections.

There have been rumors floating around that foreign money was sent to the Chamber of Commerce and was used in funding Republican/Tea Party campaigns. Foreign money has always been illegal to use in American elections. It has strongly been denied by Republicans.

The Republicans have scored a victory this year. They have planned, developed and used winning tactics.  There is a worry, however, that their game is personally and collectively destructive. Their game is a lot like some of the professional sports leagues today that allows their athletes to compete in dangerous ways.

The Republican all-offensive team mantra seems to be, “Lead with the head”. Don’t worry about concussions. Don’t worry about early brain dysfunction. Don’t worry about death and disfigurement. Break their legs. Take the good guys out permanently. Disfigure them. Throw the injured and weak off the field.  Put in someone healthier to do the job. Winning is the name of the game. A little more money in our pocket. A little more stroking for our ego. A little more power in our belly. Win one for the Gipper.