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Cedar Valley Voices: Where is the honor in Iowa legislature?
by Clara Oleson · Op-Ed · February 05, 2011
All week we witnessed the arrogance of a business controlled Iowa House of Representatives and Executive Branch saying they want a balanced budget while advocating a $200 million tax cut on the backs of pre-schoolers.
This week you had to look at CNN and the streets of Cairo, not the back rooms of Des Moines, to find honorable folk of fervor and belief. Those overseas efforts made the Republican controlled House seem corrupt in trying to sell corporate greed as public policy.
Comparing and contrasting the citizen filled streets of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez this week with the screaming white males lined up at last year’s Health Care Forum around Iowa is also enlightening. Where are we to find the voices of revolution? This question is an honorable one for any American.
In both instances the cries were of oppressive governments, in both instances the protestors were predominately male, in both instances the crowds vilified their leader, Mubarak as a dictator, Obama as a Muslim socialist.
To create this juxtaposition is to expose the juvenile character of the rage of tea party Americans. Juvenile because of their petulance, of their insisting on their toys, i.e. guns, of their individualism gone amuck, of their lack of collective responsibility. My American brothers were enraged, but uninformed; enraged with selfishness.
Throwing a tantrum in the nursery versus going “into the street” to demand democracy.
It is not a bad question to ask of reformers and/or revolutionaries: “What do you want and why do you want it?” No taxes, little government, unregulated profit making, no unions, no adequately funded education seems to be the Republican agenda. In the light of Cairo it seems like a childish tantrum.
In Egypt angry men are in the streets to overthrow a dictator, a serious endeavor. In Des Moines angry men are in the state capitol to dismantle government, break public sector unions, demean the judiciary and spew hatred of gay folk. Where is the honor here?
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