The Bucks Underground Railroad

January 14, 2012

The Republican Presidential primary campaign season has just begun and the last few wanna-be’s are confirming President Obama’s response about his preference for an opponent.  The President said he perferred to wait and see who will be standing after all the other candidates are “… voted off the island”.

In the meantime you and me gasp in embarrassment as we witness a group of shallow-brained Republican candidates insist they can lead America to a better future.  Their message is filtered through homophobic pronouncements, racist statements, exclusive economics, and religious piety.  It has caused laughter from people across all nations hundreds of years older than us–infants in comparison to the rest of the civilized World around the plantet.

This season of campaigning often described by media pundits as a “reality show” has caused many Americans to shut down, throw their hands up and in a deafening cacophony of wails, shout their disinterest and vow not to vote on November 6.  Voters are disappointed.

Somehow Pennsylvania’s Disappointed wrongfully morphed  into 65% of registered voters who  Disappeared in November 2011 leaving an average of 35% of registered voters to choose the new Rulers.  That disappointment margin has created a Republican party controlling government in Pennsylvania:  The Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches of our Commonwealth…They Now Rule. 

In Bucks County it returned an administration and a lot of Row Office holders consumed with ancient ideas that continue to produce a moldy, stagnant direction to lead.

The Disappeared also came true in the November 2011 elections in Bucks.  We were offered a genuine opportunity to change the direction of County government.  It was a chance to replace smarmy incompetency with dedicated leadership.  I know of what I speak:  As a former 20-year employee at the County, many times my head shook in disgust witnessing the lack of inclusive governance.  In my October 29, 2010 post, Now is the Time To Get In The Way, I wrote, “…they remind me of someone who’s been employed at the same place… who shows up for work every day; and with clipboard securely tucked under arm, struts throughout the building with a superior attitude, appearing to be irreplaceable, but in truth, not completing one iota of work for the betterment of the company.”

During the 2011 elections many voters were unaware that the 2012 incoming legislators going to Harrisburg were given the power to recommend a change of  legislative lines that will determine where you and I vote for candidates running at the State and Federal levels.  In many cases these lines give us a narrow voting choice and favor the majority legislative party at the state and federal level of representation.  In many cases these lines have divided your neighborhood and/or community.   So few know the power of this process which you can read in my April 11, 2011 post, Redistricting is the thief taking away my country.

35% of Pennsylvanians voted into office a governor whose support came heavily from the gas and oil industry.  This allegiance from Them to Him will forever change our Commonwealth –

Where trees will be replaced by ugly drilling towers.

Where polluted water, running unseen in acquifers underground across local-county-state boundaries, may pop up in wells or rivers or streams to cause irrreversible damage to humans, plants and animals.

Where narrow macadam roads, buckling from the recurring load of trucks transporting ditritus matter of all kinds will require the replacement of those roads.  Replacements where money is not available from local governments.

Where the air becomes so foul it permeates the bodies of resident and worker alike creating severe illnesses—many undiagnosed because the gas and oil drilling industry has no regulatory responsibility to inform you and me of the chemicals used to frack for gas from underneath Pennsylvania land.

Where proposed legislation allowing Corporations to use Eminent Domain may negate any and all local zoning rules in order to frack for gas on your land or your neighbor’s land. 

Oh yeah—I’m Disappointed.  But I refuse to Disappear.  Next Post–it’s all about the Nation.  Don’t be a Disappeared Voter who has become Disappointed.