Frequently Asked Question: “Can I be a Puma if I’m a Republican?”
Answer: Who you vote for or how you like to think of yourself politically is up to you — this really IS a free country. I can’t say that a person who is registered as a Republican can’t be a Puma. Of course they can,
BUT — does it make any sense?
If you are a Republican who supports the Constitution and rejects the concept of classes of citizens; AND (not or) embraces the truth that the state has ABSOLUTELY ZERO legitimate stake in when, where, and how American citizens choose to bear or beget children (Supreme Court: Griswold, 1973); AND (not or) is fundamentally opposed to the tenets and belief systems of ANY religion being established in state or federal law or policy (including all flavors of Christianity),
then, hell yeah — you’re a Puma.
- You think there should be NO path to citizenship for illegal immigrants now in the country? Fair enough. That’s a valid, debatable position– expect to be disagreed with and to listen to opposing points of view that are equally valid.
- You think we are over-taxed and under-served by our government? Super. Me too — what do we DO about that is a legitimate, important debate for citizens to have with each other in a civil manner.
- You think the leadership of the Democratic party is lazy at best and corrupt at worst? Cool — so do we. But we also know that the Republican leadership is at least as bad.
So, it’s not so important what the letter is on your voter registration card. What really matters is how you respond to the above.
From Our Mission page: Our mission is to hold our elected officials accountable to the will of the voters, and to demand unbiased coverage from the media of all candidates, regardless of their gender.
Last year the Democratic Party leadership led us astray.
- Ignoring the Popular Vote in the Primaries
- Disenfranchising tens of millions of Democrats in Florida and Michigan
- Standing by idly as sexist attacks hobbled an accomplished and historic candidate for President
- Dismissing whole states and voting blocs as “irrelevant” to an imaginary “new” coalition
From our Year of the Puma 2009 page: Puma PAC is in this for the long haul. Our Action Teams are working non-stop in six major areas:
- Passing the Equal Rights Amendment after 86 years of struggle
- Monitoring the 111th Congress and advocating for legislation that supports our mission
- Documenting and Protesting sexism in the mainstream media AND educating the public about its widespread and long term effects
- Developing a national women’s rights curriculum for all American children
- Researching and investigating voter fraud and campaign finance violations during the 2008 election
- Protecting women’s lives by strengthening anti-femicide laws and drawing attention to the crisis of woman-lynching in the United States
Our mission and goals haven’t changed much since Day One, June 3d 2008. Circumstances have changed; events have moved us and forced us to rethink and regroup on particular issues. Proposition Hate in California wasn’t really on our radar last summer, but now it is. For all those wondering What We Stand For and Why, try this:
- Constitutional issues, like equal rights and individual freedoms, are not left or right issues.
- Each political party tries to own some subset of issues and use them as an arsenal to pull people to their side and attack the other side.
- You may believe the left is actually committed to lesbian rights, reproductive freedom, and peace. We don’t.
- And we KNOW the right is not committed to the above.
- Who cares what either of the parties claim to stand for anymore? It’s all utter hogwash. I’m interested in what individual people think about issues; about talking to and listening to how individual people are reacting to politics.
- Why always this push for ideology? How would ideology benefit us?
- Does anyone actually believe that someone is keeping score? That life is a macro-debate of issues and that one ideology will eventually emerge as the undisputed winner? That we somehow “owe it” to some amorphous set of values and beliefs to be “true” to them? To fight for the side of right?
- A very small set of men are competing with each other every hour of every day for dominance. ideology is nothing more than the color of the uniforms on the people fighting in each army.
Also, anyone who appears to really truly BELIEVE the talking points of either side is either
- a cynical liar — a lieutenant whose job is to fire up the troops.
- not too bright.
The first should be ignored and disdained.
The second should be ignored and/or reasoned with to see if they can come to the light.
Also, I’m not so sure there are “major differences in the core values of those who would select one party over the other as the best reflections and hope to have those values reflected in policy,” as some say. Take out the homophobes and the sexists, as we (sometimes imperfectly) do, and I think we’re left with a (very) big group of people who are trying to sort out reality from talking points and ideology. And there are PRECIOUS little resources for people like us to do that. Where are we going to look? Fox News?? MSNBC?? the Blogger BOIZ?? So we look on the internet and stumble here or other places that are attempting to criticize and analyze politics and society as it is practiced by the homophobic, sexist, corrupt, corporatist, war-profiteering, insincere, lying jackasses who rule and the So Called Free Press that props them up.
- What DO we do about illegal immigration?
- The 40+ million uninsured Americans?
- Unjust, imperialist wars?
- Presidents who trample on the Constitution?
- A Congress bought and paid for by corporations?
- Maniac islamicists who terrorize women and anyone who gets in their way?
- A culture so inherently sexist that Hillary Clinton was not even allowed to run for President, never mind win?
The left AND the right have ready answers to all of the above. Pumas, and people like us who don’t yet know they are Pumas, do not. Because we’re honest and able to address complicated questions with complicated answers and ideas. And, for the record:
The FINAL results of the 2008 Democratic Primaries and Caucuses:
Hillary R. Clinton: 17,857,446 votes (48.04%)
Barack H. Obama: 17,584,649 (47.31%)
Hillary won the Democratic Primaries. And she would have knocked the socks of McCain in the general.
And she would have been a truly great president.
p.s., via mick, the number of voters not registered with either of the two major parties is at its highest level in 70 years.
If you’re a Puma too, JOIN US Today!
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Ario 05.27.09 at 5:14 pm
great post murphy…bravo!
greenfun 05.27.09 at 5:40 pm
Hillary would have been a great President dammit.
……………and just one the many reasons BO is not.
Great article over at Salon:
Bank bailout: The greatest swindle ever sold
The six biggest ways (we know about) that TARP scams taxpayers.
( I just put in a couple of my favorite paragraphs )
What cannot be disputed, however, is the financial bailout’s biggest loser: the American taxpayer. The U.S. government, led by the Treasury Department, has done little, if anything, to maximize returns on its trillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded investment. So far, the bailout has favored rescued financial institutions by subsidizing their losses to the tune of $356 billion, shying away from much-needed management changes and — with the exception of the automakers — letting companies take taxpayer money without a coherent plan for how they might return to viability.
The handling of the bailout makes at least one thing clear, however: It’s not your health that the government is focused on, it’s theirs — the very banks and lenders whose convoluted financial systems provided the underpinnings for staggering salaries and bonuses while bringing our economy to the brink of another Great Depression.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/05/27/kroll/
catsden 05.27.09 at 5:41 pm
Outstanding murphy ((((((((((((((((murphy)))))))))))))
catsden 05.27.09 at 5:51 pm
greenfun:
and colluding with other banks in other countries who thought to make a quick buck on our mortgage default system as well as other credit defaults the scammed up. Those other banks in other countries got a lot of our hard-earned taxpayer money which they will never have to repay.
scarlet 05.27.09 at 6:01 pm
On the newsstand today:
http://larrysinclair-0926.blogspot.com/2009/05/coming-to-news-stand-near-you.html
Pfffft!
scarlet 05.27.09 at 6:04 pm
Congressman’s Dealership On Chrysler List
Automaker Planning To Close 789 Dealerships
KEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — Even a member of Congress is on Chrysler’s dealership hit list.
Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., a businessman who has owned car dealerships since 1992, learned Thursday that his Venice, Fla., Dodge dealership was among those scheduled to be terminated.
“It’s an outrage. It’s not about me. I’m going to be fine,” said Buchanan, the dealership’s majority owner. “You’re talking over 100,000 jobs. We’re supposed to be in the business of creating jobs, not killing jobs.”
While many dealers learned the news through United Parcel Service letters, Buchanan found out from a House colleague.
Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., ran into Buchanan and told him, “I heard you’re going to lose your Dodge franchise.”
“I said, ‘Oh, really?’” Buchanan recounted.
Shelby Curtsinger, the Dodge dealership’s operating partner, said he was stunned by the decision because the dealership had been profitable since it opened in 1999 and typically sells about 700 vehicles a year, more than twice the sales of an average Chrysler dealership.
Curtsinger said he and his wife sank their life’s savings into the dealership, which employs 60 people.
“This could very well put us out of business,” Curtsinger said.
http://www.10news.com/automotive/19463330/detail.html
greenfun 05.27.09 at 6:30 pm
catsden—-and where is the outrage? It seems as if most citizens are completely oblivious to the fact that we are being royally screwed. The whole country should be raising all kinds of hell, and looking for Geithner and BO’s head. But instead BO has a 60 something percent approval rating-unbelievable. I’m beginning to see how this country ended up with 8 years of Bush.
TexasTigress 05.27.09 at 6:42 pm
Murphy , I like the cut of your jib
clink
catsden 05.27.09 at 7:06 pm
greenfun: sorry I got an important phone call I had to take and couldn’t answer you right away. I wonder about where the outrage went too. I think we have been manipulated so much by the powers that be in the past 8 years and probably long before that too, that people just accept whatever comes their way. It drives me crazy that no one wants to hear! Except a few, of course, who are always alert.
mick 05.27.09 at 8:40 pm
“Lady Justice wears a blindfold for a reason.”
snip ~
“The role of a Supreme Court Justice, Mr. President, is not to evaluate the matter at hand based upon the feeling in their “hearts.” Decisions and outcomes are to be based upon interpretation of the law and of the Constitution alone — not “empathy,” and surely not the ability to understand and identify with “people’s hopes and struggles,” as you said today. The role of a Supreme Court Justice, Mr. President, is not to make a decision based upon the interests of a single mother, a welfare addict or anyone else for that matter, just as the role of the judiciary is neither to favor the weak against the strong, nor the strong against the weak. When weighing a particular controversy, Mr. President, the role of a Supreme Court Justice is to instead look at the United States Constitution as written by this nation’s founders and interpret that document–preferably in as narrow a fashion as possible–as needed to adjudicate the controversy in question.”
snip ~
http://www.americasright.com/2009/05/sotomayor-and-lady-justices-blindfold.html
____________
Please read the rest of that Jeff Schreiber wrote on this topic.
To me, the gender isn’t important, not her race, not her background, not what she said in some forum speech. What matters is how Sotomayor interprets the Constitution. In the end, I have no doubt that Sotomayor will be confirmed, but I’m still very interested in what she has to say in the hearings about some of her rulings, specifically the Ricci case.
mick 05.27.09 at 8:40 pm
*what* Jeff Schreiber wrote …
antifish 05.27.09 at 8:56 pm
Excellent post Murphy!!
O/T but a very good lesson…
A nice young man came to my door earlier and almost sold me on changing my home alarm to his company. Thank Goddess I read the small print in the contract which would have locked me in to a 39 month fee even if I moved to a place where I did not need or want an alarm.
My son should be finished with the current phase of his college in about two years and I plan on selling and moving then. Had I not read the small print, I would have had to pay approximately $525 to this company when I moved or start a new 39 month contract in my new digs.
LESSON: ALWAYS read the small print.
antifish 05.27.09 at 9:13 pm
A Dem female is running for governor of Florida…
Democrat Alex Sink will run for governor
By Aaron Deslatte | Tallahassee Bureau
May 14, 2009
TALLAHASSEE — Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink jumped into the 2010 governor’s race Wednesday, a day after Gov. Charlie Crist set off a cascade of political course corrections by announcing he would run for the U.S. Senate instead of re-election.
Sink, 60, becomes the instant front-runner for her party’s nomination, with more than $1.1 million already raised. Party activists, still stoked by Barack Obama’s Florida victory, see her as their best chance to gain control of the Governor’s Office for the first time in 12 years.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-alex-sink-governor-051409,0,6965404.story
mick 05.27.09 at 9:14 pm
antifish #12
so TRUE … i just went through a shouting match with a dish network woman today over this very issue. seems that when i signed up with them a year ago there was some fine print about a two year contract with them … which i didn’t see AND none of the representatives mentioned that it was a 2 yr. contract or the hidden fees associated with ending the “contract”.
i NEVER would have signed such an agreement had i none about it. anyway, today i disconnected the service and now dish network wants me to pay them $120.00 for the disconnection. i’m not paying them another dime. dish network SUCKS!
antifish 05.27.09 at 9:18 pm
Aw mick, I’m sorry. Yep, they will get you coming and going. I signed up with Comcast last year for internet and cable. My bill has been around $78 a month until this past month when my “promotional” rate ended. My bill suddenly jumped to $147! Now, I’ll have to read my contract to make sure I’m not obliged to them before I change providers.
antifish 05.27.09 at 9:31 pm
OMG! Have any of you heard of the movie “What’s Your Point, Honey?”
Here’s the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcdeAzsR1Kw&feature=related
and the website
http://www.whatsyourpointhoney.com/front/
murphy 05.27.09 at 9:44 pm
Happy News posted,
take it up up upstairs!
ALLL the waaay up!
here’s a link to make it easier:
http://pumapac.org/2009/05/27/happy-news/
(antifish and all, please repost links)
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