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politics

Eminem, The Storm, Marshall Mathers, BET Awards, Donald Trump

If We Do Not Recognize, We Cannot Heal

by Deborah Cruz 2016/11/17

I’ve been having the most hopeless feeling since the election results came in. I’m in a state of profound mourning. I am grieving a loss, not of an election but an immeasurable loss of the promise of a better tomorrow. I’m trying to pull myself out from under the rubble of the darkness that is my collapsed hope and faith in humanity.

This is a scary situation to anyone who understands the gravity of it. It isn’t like during a normal election when both candidates are somewhat qualified and then we go from there. Donald Trump is just not qualified for the position. Money can’t buy you experience or expertise. He doesn’t have a clue how the system works and it’s to his and our detriment. This has nothing to do whether we like the man as a human being or not, he is simply not qualified and I can’t believe people chose to totally overlook that fact when voting. It amazes me.

It’s been a week but I can still barely bring myself to speak outside of my bubble inside my house, the one that knows my plight and my heart. I’ve only felt this vulnerable on one other occasion when I miscarried my third pregnancy and all the possibilities were stolen from me by nature. But this election wasn’t the result of a cruel twist of nature. It wasn’t beyond our control it was chosen by people who either refuse to know what terrible they’ve done, don’t believe it is as terrible as we say because it doesn’t affect them directly or worse, those who prefer to go backwards than to live in the light of a new world of endless possibilities built on hope and equality.

I’m exhausted and weary. I can barely muster the strength to defend my fight. The fight that I’ve fought all of my life but I will. I can already feel my senses creeping back in. My heart has been singing a lullaby of Make me an instrument of Your Peace and I’ve decided to have peace, I must fight, educate and not yell; though I want to scream at the top of my lungs in the face of this miscarriage of hope. But no one hears what you’re saying when you yell. They only hear the anger and the words fall on deaf ears. I need my words to be heard. We need to fight harder than ever but we need to take the high road.

Last week’s election has opened my eyes in a way that I didn’t even know that they needed to be opened. I know I’m marginalized. I face it every day as a woman and as a Latina. I’ve had to fight to be seen and heard for who I was since I was old enough to realize that I was only being seen for what I was.

Friends, I get that many of us are disheartened and feeling hopeless about the Trump win and subsequent appointment of Bannon. Some of us fought really hard over the last few months to get Hillary Clinton elected. Some of us have been fighting our entire lives to make America equal. It was so much more than just a hashtag for us. It was a movement and a promise of a better way of life; an easier life. A life where we were not judged on the color of our skin, our religion, our sex or sexual preference but measured by our merit as people. What a beautiful dream it was.

I feel your sadness, your frustration, and your anger. It is natural to want to strike out when faced with such dismal prospects but this fervor to right all the wrongs, I wish it would have shown up before the election. But the PC veil has been torn down and now, none of us can unsee the hatred that is staring us directly in the face and screaming slurs at us.

The most frightening thing for women, disabled Americans, minorities, people of the Jewish faith, Muslims and people in the LGBTQ community is that Trump built his campaign by promising those alt-right “Make America White again” people that he’d let them have that and they are coming to collect. They took it as permission to hate out loud. I’m not even sure if he believed all the stuff he said but he has opened a can of worms that he can’t close and the fallout has already begun all over the country.

People are going to get hurt and those of us who are marginalized are going to suffer the worst. His rhetoric and this campaign have set our country back 100 years. I just hope we can survive it without a civil war that destroys us altogether.

I don’t have an answer as to how we get through this. I feel like so many of us are in jeopardy and danger under this new regime. I won’t lie, I’m in fear for the safety of our country from threats abroad and within. I’m mad that someone who had no qualifications and no experience and ran on a platform of crazy and hatred is what so many American’s craved in a leader, so much so that they ignored his lack of being able to actually get the job done.

I’m all for making an informed decision and choosing a candidate whose ideology lines up closest to your own. I believe in the right to choose whoever fits best for the America you want. That being said, I completely hold accountable those who put their blinders on to convince themselves that their own welfare outweighed that of the nation. They may not have all voted with hatred in their heart but there certainly was no compassion or care for those of us who would be affected directly by this outcome.

I want to believe that voters didn’t do enough research into Trump as a candidate and didn’t fully realize the ramifications of giving him the presidency. None of us will survive this term unscathed. Our country, our very way of life, will be changed for the worse.

Peacefully protesting to let the world know that Donald Trump is #NotMyPresident is a great way to show that we don’t support the Trump presidency but unfortunately, he is our president and we are vulnerable because of it. Contacting your representatives to make your voices heard is a step in letting them know that you hold them accountable, even though realistically it probably won’t change anything this election. Crossing your fingers and hoping that Hillary Clinton gets the presidency because of rogue electoral votes is probably not going to happen. We need to face that reality.

We need to have a new plan. Shit didn’t turn out the way we hoped or planned but seldom do they. The marginalized of us are used to disappointment. We’ve been training for this outcome our entire lives but we hoped for better. Our fatal mistake was believing we’d won the race before we actually had. We got complacent.

We have to change our plan of action. We don’t have Hillary to help us. We need to be stronger, fiercer, fight harder and never give up. We need to work for good, to defend our rights. We have to fight tooth and nail to protect our children from the fallout. And make no mistake, this presidency is not just bad for those of us who identify as marginalized. Sure, it may seem that way at the onset but it’s bad for all Americans because a country guided by a leader who has no clear direction of how to get where he’s going is a vulnerable country that will find itself in turmoil.

I ask that you all educate yourselves, your friends and your children (anyone who will listen) on our political system and the election process and government in general so that in the next election, in 2 years, good people can make good, informed decisions. This is the beginning of our revolution. History is happening right now.

We can’t let this stand but we have to use our words. We have to make them listen. We have to organize and mobilize. We have to use our minds and our voices. We have to get our shit together and stop crying and start doing and that is where I am this morning.

2016/11/17 5 comments

How Donald Trump will Destroy America for our Children

by Deborah Cruz 2016/03/17

written by Deborah Cruz

I wanted to write a lighthearted Saint Patrick’s Day post today but Donald Trump has me terrified. It has nothing to do with being a Republican or a Democrat; it’s him, as a person. I am a Political Scientist by degree, I’m not sure many of you know that about me. Politics are my jam. I know all the ins and outs and I have my affiliations but I’m not asking you to vote the way I vote, I’m just asking that you consider all the facts.

I absolutely believe in the right to free speech and the right for every single person who is a citizen of this country to be able to vote for who they want to lead us, we are the people of “we the people”. It is our country. The President is an elected official. By staying silent and allowing a monster to be elected, because you don’t want to get called for jury duty, makes you part of the problem, not the solution and your (yes, you!) vote counts!

I’m not here to Trump bash, though if you know anything about me, you know I can’t stand his politics. But this is Throat Punch Thursday and I don’t think anyone deserves a bigger punch to the gullet, with a Chuck Norris round house kick more than Mr. Trump. If you support him, we’re probably not friends and aren’t reading this so I won’t worry about you unfriending me but on the off chance you are a Trump supporter, I would love to hear why you think he is the best candidate for you in the comments.

When I think of Trump the businessman, and I know many people think that the United States needs a business savvy person to run the country to fix the economy, I think of the top 1%. He is without a savvy businessman. He has more money than he knows what to do with and I think with that comes a God like feeling. When you don’t need people, I think you begin to lose touch with reality and that is a slippery slope to losing your humanity. It’s almost as if he can’t help it. He’s lived in this Trump bubble of his for so long that the situation the other 99% lives in (paycheck to paycheck) is not even fathomable anymore.

What scares me the most about the thought of Donald Trump winning the presidential election is that he thinks he is above all reproach. He will not be held accountable. He incites hatred and has made racism, misogyny, bigotry and xenophobia acceptable behavior by American people. In the short amount of time since he has began campaigning, people are crawling out from under their rocks and hurling hatred at one another in the most disgusting ways and it’s trickling down to our children.

Children hear and see everything. I discuss politics with my daughters. We have dinner together every night and we discuss our days and the news. I don’t believe in keeping my kids in bubbles. I think that kind of gullibility makes them vulnerable and susceptible to other people’s opinions so we discuss. I allow them to form their own opinions by presenting the facts. They know that they don’t have to agree with me but they do need to make informed choices in life.

I’ve worked really hard parenting my children to become good human beings. I don’t want Donald Trump to ruin our children’s futures with his agenda of hatred. Personally, I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job of parenting and I want my kids to stay on the trajectory they are on as good, decent human beings who see other human beings.

What do you think of Donald Trump and his campaigning antics?

Donald Trump: A History of Violence“

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2016/03/17 2 comments

Donald Trump, racist, presidential candidate, 2016 presidential election, republican party, Muslims, Mexicans

News Throat Punch Thursday

Is Donald Trump the Next Hitler or a Hoax?

by Deborah Cruz 2015/12/10

written by Deborah Cruz

On a daily basis, Donald Trump says something that either shocks or appalls me. The man says the most outlandish, hateful and bigoted things; things that seem almost as if he is testing the American people just to see how stupid they really are; how far they will allow him to go, like a toddler testing their boundaries. I don’t know about you, but Donald Trump and his proposed immigration reform scares me.

I cringe every time he insults another race because each time he does, more and more American racists stand up and cheer. There is strength in numbers and with a presidential candidate crazy enough to vocalize the hatred in the hearts of many prejudice people, he gains more support and more influence and that scares me as a Latina woman and as a human being. In the midst of all of this, the brazen racist are revealing themselves; crawling out of the dark corners and alleys and rallying their aryan battle cry.

This goes way beyond Republican and Democrat party lines. Donald Trump is calling for banning entire groups of people from entering the country solely based on the color of their skin and their religious affiliation. He wants to build walls and mark people to identify them. You’ve heard the saying, those who don’t know their history are destined to repeat it? Well, hello, Mr. Trump sounds a little too much like Adolf Hitler to me. In the beginning his over the top antics were certainly controversial but almost comical because, surely, they were not genuine but now, I believe he’s blatant because he just doesn’t care who he offends.

I don’t know about you but I can’t stand by and watch this man round up all those he feels are unworthy to come into our country and persecute them. People who were escaping religious persecution founded this country. People who left everything they knew and loved behind in pursuit of freedom, happiness and a better life for themselves and their families. It’s the entire mission that our country was based on and now; Trump has made it his personal mission to shut people out; to discriminate and persecute the very people that need our refuge. The scariest part of all of it is that with each bit of hatred he spews, more Americans stand up and support these ludicrous, radically racist ideas.

I keep thinking that this has to be a joke. No one can hate these many people. Hatred even in the name of patriotism is still hatred.

Donald Trump must be trying to see how far he can go before someone stops him.

Surely, he cannot be this bigoted. He is a businessman who has made money working with people from all over the world. Am I to believe he has secretly despised them all? Surely, this must be a hoax. Maybe this is a ploy to capture the Republican nomination only to alienate himself so badly that the American people have no other option but to vote for a democrat. Maybe he is a political genius who is a secret democrat.I hope none of this vitriol is real.

If we believe every outlandish thing he’s said, we’d have to believe that he wants to ban Muslims from entry into the United States solely on the basis that because of their religion they should be considered dangerous. Well, I think the Westboro Baptist people are pretty dangerous but I don’t see him trying to kick them out of the country.

He wants to ship the Mexicans out because he wants the American people to believe that we are all criminals, rapists, murderers and drug cartel members. According to his proposed immigration reform, I would be sent to Mexico even though I was born here and have never lived there. He also doesn’t particularly like Asian people or women either. Each thing he says is crazier than the last and still his support grows. What’s next? Will he try to deport all of the African Americans back to Africa? Or maybe he will try to reinstate slavery or make it legal to continue to shoot unarmed black men?

Make no mistake, Donald Trump is dangerous. I don’t want to hurl insults and go off on a tangent about how ignorant I think what he’s saying is but I want to be clear that I am disgusted by his racism, his political tactics and his blatant disregard for basic human rights and I am scared for our country that there are some people who think this is okay. There are people who silently walk past me on the street and inside their head, they agree with him. This makes me feel vulnerable and unsafe in a way that no terrorist ever has. Trump running for president is entertaining to some until he actually gets elected and is corrupted completely by his power.

What are your thoughts on Donald Trump for President?

2015/12/10 0 comment

women's rights, recreational abortion, abortion, miscarriage, throat punch thursday

Politics Throat Punch Thursday

Throat Punch Thursday ~ Senator Hatch, There is No Such thing as a “Recreational” Abortion

by Deborah Cruz 2013/02/28

written by Deborah Cruz

Can someone please explain to me what a recreational abortion is? Well, once again my guest recipient for today’s Throat Punch is a politician but surprisingly it is not a Republican. This time it is Democratic Senator Jack Hatch of Iowa. He’s one of the good guys. He doesn’t believe that women don’t have the right to choose. He doesn’t typically support the theory that women are frivolous creatures who choose to end pregnancies for selfish reasons but when giving a speech recently he must have forgotten how to use his words or simply forgotten which side he was on. All I know is that his flub has earned him a good hard throat punch just to remind him to use his words.

While discussing the likelihood that Iowa Republicans will once more come after the state’s Medicaid coverage of abortions in the cases of rape, incest, and the life of the pregnant person, Hatch told the Associated Press that the Republicans will be unsuccessful, noting that these are “medically-needed” abortions versus “recreational abortions.” Uhhm, what the fuck did he just say?

When I think of a recreational activity I think of something fun like playing a sport, something involving frolicking, laughing uncontrollably, splashing or a cocktail and watching the sun set on a tropical island. I think of being out of this world happy; probably because recreational activities are at a premium in my life these days.

I do not think of making one of the hardest decisions of a woman’s life. I don’t think of tears and remorse; surgery and pain. I don’t think of changing my place in the world and living with that choice for all eternity. That’s not what recreation is in my book; not in any woman’s book. Is it recreational when a man is castrated or gets a vasectomy? Is that fun for men? Do men like to be kicked in the balls?

Fortunately, I’ve never had to decide to have an “abortion” but I did have a medically needed D & E (Dilation and Evacuation) after I miscarried. I had no choice in the matter but I will tell you that it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to live through. It nearly broke me. It was not fun. It is not a hobby of mine. It was not something that I took lightly or will ever forget. That procedure changed my life, the very fabric of who I am. It was not something I would ever associate with recreation, whether you chose it or it was forced on you out of medical necessity, like mine was, the end of a life is not recreational.

It’s my assumption since Senator Hatch is one of the good guys that what he meant was medically necessary meaning that there is no choice and by “recreational” he meant that it was a choice but boy was his choice of words wrong. They came off as flip and demeaning to women.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again; if you weren’t born with a uterus and vagina, stay out of mine. You have no idea what you are talking about. There is no way to understand the toll abortion, pregnancy, infertility, birth, labor, delivery or loss of a pregnancy of child have on a woman, unless you have been in her shoes and experienced it first hand.

Abortion is never done without thought, no matter what the run of the mill pro-lifer will try and have you believe. A pregnancy affects a woman on some level from the moment she knows it has happened. There is a weight that comes with the ability to bring life into the world and we women know it, we feel it and we live it. We don’t need anyone else to tell us how to feel about it or when its okay and when its not or give us permission to do what we want with our own body. How is this even a political discussion? It’s a personal decision not a political one. It doesn’t affect the country; it effects one woman and her life.

What do you think of using the word ‘recreational’ to refer to abortion?

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2013/02/28 2 comments

Dear America, election, Donald Trump, parenting, politics, racism, misogyny, bigotry, children, America, American values, xenophobia, America is great

News Women's Issues

It doesn’t matter if You are an Ass or an Elephant, this Election is about Humans

by Deborah Cruz 2012/09/06

written by Deborah Cruz

This election is a game changer. I’ve been sucked in, once again. I never think of myself as overly political. Yes, I am technically a political scientist. That is what one of the degrees in my office says anyways. I own it. But I’ve tried to stay out of it this election season but when others begin to attack me for my beliefs solely for my stance on an issue and then try to place blame on my suspected political affiliation, I take offense especially when the case in point had nothing to do with political affiliation and everything to do with calling bullshit on something that I found to be disingenuous. I don’t appreciate being called names and having my beliefs questioned simply because someone suspects I’m a democrat. I take offense because I don’t practice politics with blind, unfounded hate. There is no you and I. There is only “WE”, we the people.

There was a point in time where I loved absolutely everything about politics and history and the United States and law, but that was a lifetime ago. There was also a time that I was a Republican and almost fainted when I got to shake the hand of of George H.W. Bush at my campus rally. he was no Bill Clinton but hey, we can’t all be that damn charming. Yes, that was many moons ago, as well. But that is not who I am anymore.

Today, I am a grown up. I have children, responsibilities, parents who are retired, a mortgage and a quality of life. I can’t play fast and loose with my future. Today, I know that life is not black or white but various shades of gray ( maybe 50 or so). When I vote in an election or choose a candidate to support, I don’t vote straight democrat or republican because I am not blind, deaf and dumb.

I do not live in a bubble. I vote on the issues. I vote for the candidate who is going to make the world, at the very least, this country, a better place for my daughters to grow up in. I vote for the person whose ideology most closely resembles my own and who has the capability to make the changes in the world that I want to see. I vote issues and if the person who agrees with my issues happens to be charismatic, that’s a bonus.

I want a doer not a talker. I want a person of integrity and action. I want someone who is accountable to their constituents. I want someone who understands what an honor and privilege it is that we are bestowing upon him/her.I want someone who respects and values women and our control over our own bodies. I want someone who doesn’t think of women as property or cattle. I want someone who treats everyone fairly regardless of class, sex, religion or color of skin. I want someone who only sees red, white and blue and not just green.

I want someone who understands the American people, after all government is supposed to be for the people and by the people. I think a lot of people have forgotten that. We have the right and privilege of electing these people. They are our representatives. Their job is to make our government reflect our wants and needs, not the other way around. People seem to have forgotten that. Government is not for big business. That may be who funds campaigns but that is not who votes them in. That, my friends, is you and I.

An election is the chance for you and I to Change the world

My point is that we are voting for people who we hope can fix the issues that are important to us. We are voting for humans not mastheads.I generally try not to be outrageously political on my site, but sometimes you have to take a stand for what’s right. Do what makes you happy. But I become a little bit dismayed when I see politics being played so blatantly only for votes, where there is no substance, no relevance and deceptions are being transpired. A presidential election should not be a beauty contest or a popularity contest, a presidential election should be considered with the weight and gravity that it holds. An election is a chance to change the world and the person we vote for is the person we trust to make that happen; to represent us, to fight for us, to protect our basic rights. The person we vote for in this election needs to be able to truly identify with ‘we the people’.

I don’t understand how some people can be so blindly partisan that the minute you mention one candidate or the other, walls go up, insults are hurled and grown adults become as undignified and rude as overtired, tantruming children in the toy aisle.

Please vote in this election, it could change all of our lives

I know who I am voting for this November. It’s the same man I helped put into office four years ago. The same man who changed history. The man who is making a difference for the better. President Obama was handed a mess when he took office and he’s been working his ass off to clean it up. He’s like a mother with several children under the age of 6, trying to keep everyone satisfied, fed and clean while trying to make ends meet and maintain a successful relationship with the people around him on little to no sleep. He’s doing his best and it’s making a difference. Slow and steady wins the race, my friends.Fast talking and promises with no merit mean nothing.

Please vote wisely. I don’t care who you vote for this election as long as you know the issues and choose the candidate that you feel can truly do the most good for our country, no matter if he happens to be an ass or an elephant.

God Bless you and God Bless America

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2012/09/06 3 comments