Answering the RNC’s Call: Go, Joe, Go! Keep Kicking Butt and Taking Names!

October 20, 2011 · by Anne Caroline Drake · in Leadership. ·

Murder will continue to rise.

Rape will continue to rise.

All crime will continue to rise.

– Joe Biden, Vice President

The Republican National Committee (RNC) wants me to condemn remarks made by Vice President Joe Biden in Philadelphia. VP Biden is lobbying to keep teachers in the classroom and cops on the street, and Fox News reports that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and his buddies at the RNC see his jobs plan as a “temporary” fix. VP Biden simply said what most of us are thinking:

Let me tell you, it’s not temporary when that 9-1-1 call comes in and a woman’s being raped. If a cop shows up in time to prevent the rape, it’s not temporary to that woman. It’s not temporary to the guy whose store is being held up and has a gun being pointed to his head if a cop shows up and he’s not killed. That’s not temporary to that store owner. Give me a break ~ temporary.

I wish these guys who thought it was temporary, I wish they had some notion what it’s like be on the other side of a gun or a 200-pound man standing over you telling you to submit.

There’s no way in hell that I will condemn what VP Biden said because I’ve been that woman terrified of a big guy with two loaded guns telling me he can “kill me and get away with it.” I know exactly what it feels like when the cops don’t show up. It happened to me in 1992, and I still have PTSD flashbacks. And, there’s no way in hell that I’ll keep quiet so that the 1% of the folks the RNC represents won’t have to pay the taxes that will keep the 99% of us safe at home. No way. No way in hell.

I am insulted that Sen. Mitch McConnell has the audacity to suggest that VP Biden is manipulating me “for political gain.” He and his fat cat 1% buddies have spent so long ensconced in their gated communities protected by an army of body guards that they’ve lost touch with the reality for the other 99% of us.

He’s the guy who “for political gain” keeps outrageously suggesting that the Bush Tax Cuts create jobs. Right. In China. In India. At Wal-Mart. He’s the guy who created “class warfare” and is now bitching that it is now coming back around to bite him in the ass.

Paul Allen's Yacht

If you make $1.1 million when, God willing, this passes, you will pay next year $500 more in taxes.

You got that?

Now, the average income for the group of people we’re talking about is $3 million.

– Joe Biden, Vice President

There’s a reason Occupy Wall Street has gone global. There’s a reason for the Arab Spring. There’s a reason there’s rioting in Greece. It’s like, you know, the original Boston tea party ~ not the one formed by racists who can’t handle the fact that we have a brilliant Black president who is doing things the Bush Administration was unwilling to do. Like taking a bite out of the Taliban and sending Osama bin Laden to swim with the fishes and Moammar Gadhafi to dictator hell.

Republicans’ No. 1 priority is to defeat President Obama, and

their strategy is to keep the economy weak as long as possible.

So they oppose legislation we know beyond a shadow of a doubt will support

400,000 American jobs without adding a penny to the deficit.
– Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

I’m not a Harry Reid fan. But, he knows something about unemployment. Nevada has the highest unemployment in the nation. And, he’s smart enough to see the link between unemployment and increased incidents of violence against women. In February, 2010, even Tea Party favorite Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) reached across the aisle to block a filibuster on a jobs bill.

As a survivor, [Scott Brown] answers to his own blunt ideology of self-preservation.

– Washington Post

At the time, Sen. Brown was about to launch his book tour for Against All Odds, an autobiography about his experiences with child abuse and poverty. The Tea Party favorite, who voted against unemployment and welfare benefits, admitted in the book that he had engaged in crime to keep food in his stomach and clothes on his back.

I was at the table when Donald Rumsfeld hatched his plan to eradicate the US middle class. It grieves me deeply that most folks still don’t comprehend that there’s a reason he started out by getting rid of unions. There’s a reason his fat cat buddies bought up the media outlets to repeat political bullshit until people think it must be true.

Then, he moved on to shipping all the good-paying jobs overseas. People terrified of losing their jobs saw their benefits go poof. Then, their jobs went poof along with their nest eggs. Their kids aren’t getting a proper education, and they aren’t safe at home.

When I was young and naive, I bought your code words, Sen. McConnell. But, I’m older and wiser now. I’m not buying your “guns, God, and gays” manipulation of folks who were absent the day of the wolves in sheep’s clothing lesson at church.

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Sen. McConnell. Sen. Biden (D-DE) was the chief sponsor of the Violence Against Women Act. I trust him to keep me safe at home.