Hey sports fans,
Welcome to today’s edition of my favorite full-contact
sport: culture war via electoral politics.
It's questionnaire season and the rightwing think tank, Center
for Arizona Policy's, questionnaire is known far and wide as the liberals’
3rd rail of politics. Designed and framed make Tea Party theocrats look good
and everyone else look bad, "it'll kill ya if ya touch it!"
At least that's what progressives are generally told. Timid
consultants typically warn if a progressive tries to answer, CAP'll twist every
answer to make them look as vile as possible, usually through distortion and
cherry picking answers. So, I figured, 'why make 'em cherry pick?' & tried
to guarantee every answer would curl their hair.
Most progressives or liberals haven’t ever had a peek into
the actual mechanics of rightwing propaganda. & even fewer of us get an
opportunity to know that the smartass retorts we always like to think up ever
have a chance to be received by those they’ll most annoy. The specific
structure of the questionnaire also added the extra poet-intriguing
constriction of requiring all answers be 25 words or less, turning each reply
into a pithy practice in Twitter-age long-form haiku. Or something like it.
Here are their questions and my answers.
Why are you running?
The religious right-wing are destroying our country and
someone needs to devote themselves full-time to dismantling the power of the
GOP and groups like CAP.
RATE these topics:
support, oppose, decline to answer:
Repealing the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act.
Greedy corporations, irresponsible think tanks and heartless
doctors have attacked American patients for too long. Attacks on the ACA have
to be stopped.
Providing Federal funding to Planned
Parenthood and other organizations that provide abortions.
Planned Parenthood is our most important women's health
organization and its opponents create havoc and misery. Groups like CAP must
stop trying to control vaginas.
Arizona’s voter-approved constitutional
definition of marriage should be defended to the fullest extent legally
possible
As a voter, I disapproved of that piece of anti-American
injustice and will work to dismantle it.
Protecting individuals and businesses
from being required to provide services or use their artistic expression in a
manner that violates their moral or religious beliefs.
There are all the protections in place necessary for bigots
who value ideology over commerce. Let them be left behind. America doesn't want
them.
Amending the U.S. Constitution to require
Congress to balance the federal budget every year.
What a waste of energy! Our government has purposes to serve
that transcend petty propaganda. Folks who want this understand neither
government or humanity.
Raising the federal minimum wage.
I oppose greedy bosses who want to treat workers like slaves
and sham think tanks that shill for American poverty in trade for campaign
donations.
Prohibiting abortion except where it is
necessary to prevent the death of the mother.
I resent your religious values framing the question and note
your opposition to women's rights. Why should you guys dictate people's
reproductive rights?
Adding “sexual orientation,” “gender
identity,” or “gender expression” to the protected classes of race, religion,
age, sex, and ancestry in antidiscrimination law.
Considering hate-based, profit driven organizations like CAP
we need these protections for our citizens against hate-groups’ predatory and
deceptive nature.
Allowing all parents to use tax credits,
vouchers, or educational savings accounts to enable children to attend any
public, charter, private, homeschool, or online academy.
CAP and other rightwing anti-American groups keep trying to
dismantle public education and promote theocracy. This traitorous attack on
American education ought to be criminalized.
Legalizing marijuana for recreational use
I am the legislative liaison for Safer AZ, the organization
working to end cannabis prohibition in AZ and challenge CAP endorsement of a
prison-industrial complex.
Building the Keystone Pipeline.
The Keystone pipeline is an environmentally destructive,
profit-driven, insufficient stalling technique when it comes to addressing our
energy future. America must transition past petroleum.
Using human embryonic stem cells for
research purposes.
I oppose anti-scientific repressive theocracy dictating
public policy, medical technique and scientific progress. If Luddites want to
live that way, sure, but not make policy.
Congress should consider the selective
removal of the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts when they fail to observe the
separation of powers.
Is this a joke question? A test to see if I'm attentive? If
Congress did that THEY would be failing to observe separation of powers.
Changes to the World Wide Web that would
make pornography available online only as an "opt-in" service.
Again w theocracy? Your most laughable suggestion so far.
Besides the enormous impracticality of implementation, the immense popularity
of porn shows how wrongheaded this is.
Amending the federal Indian Gaming
Regulatory Act to place further restrictions on the establishment and expansion
of gambling by Indian tribes in the United States
Theocratic condescension + repressive business regulation to
stifle competition of an already oppressed severely disadvantaged minority.
Sounds like you guys.
For more fun battling the right in general and CAP in
particular, the Mikel Weisser for US Congress campaign encourages
activist-readers to support and/or join AZ’s premier CAP-bashers: Citizens for a
Better Arizona.
Led by Randy Parraz,
one of AZ’s premier progressive activists, and some of AZ’s
most dynamic progressives such as Chad Snow, Paul Casteneda, Carolyn Cooper
& Fred Barlam, Citizens for a Better AZ is a “a 501 C 4 nonpartisan
organization committed to improving the lives of all Arizonans.” CBA
challenges the Right on a variety of issues including immigration, education,
& civil and voter rights. As you could imagine this battle pits CBA against
CAP on a recurring basis.
THX for all your time and effort, CBA, glad to join the
fight!
To join in the fight & the fun yourself against CAP,
contact Citizens for a
Better AZ here.
To join my fight & create your own campaign against the
Right, contact me here.
No comments:
Post a Comment