BY SHARON MARTIN
If you see politicians and power brokers destroying the country and do nothing about it, you are part of the problem.
Let the brave people in the Ukraine be our role models. For freedom from oppression, they were willing to stand. They knew some of them might die. Some did. This should make us ashamed to say, “I don’t get involved in politics.”
We are involved whether we like it or not. By abdicating our duty to speak up, to vote, to really get to know the issues, we allow someone else to speak for us, someone who might not have our best interest at heart.
Worse are those who protest, speak out, and vote without really knowing the facts. They get all their news from one source or they do as their boss or pastor says, often supporting things that slit their own economic throats.
Reaction to the Affordable Care Act is a good example of how misinformation trumps good sense and good politics.
A lot of people in Oklahoma are uninsured because our governor chose to reject the Medicaid expansion. This largely hurts the poor and the hospitals that serve them. She let the federal government set up the insurance exchange but she put up information roadblocks. This hurts those who might qualify for good, affordable care.
How many people who might have been covered will badmouth the president because his healthcare reforms aren’t working for them? How many will fail to blame the governor who rejected the expansion or state leaders who monkeyed with the exchanges?
Then, there’s the Farm Bill. Perhaps you’re cheering that politicians were able to attack the spending problem by cutting SNAP benefits. Just so you know, the cuts they made on one end they put back on the other. Children may go hungry, but the agribusinesses won’t.
Fear, greed, and psychology drive most decisions these days. With our permission wealth is being redistributed from the bottom up. It will continue until we have ruined this country from the inside out unless good people get involved in politics.
We must all take action to save this country, a land of opportunity for the people, not just for corporations and a moneyed aristocracy.
See you on the picket line.
See you at the polls.
– Sharon Martin lives in Oilton, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
The Oklahoma governor has proven where she stands on her healthcare concerns. As an Oklahoma resident I can no longer stand for her ill-intended decisions in the name of Oklahoma residents. She has rejected the Medicaid expansion, and also has her hand in refusing to mandate insurance coverage for autistic children and individuals. Families and individuals alike need money to receive treatments. Oklahoma families can roughly spend out of pocket $40,000- $50,000 a year. Oklahoma legislators need to be questioned if they are concerned for the truth behind Oklahoma’s true health care needs.