The beauty and glory of Western Pennsylvania in the Spring!

Is there any place more beautiful than western Pennsylvania in the Spring?

I went out this sunny spring morning here in California to check on my tulips, beginning to bud.

The cool crisp air of this sunny morning here reminded me of Easter in my hometown of Carnegie, PA

I remembered how every Easter Day, on my way to Church, I would go down a long walkway from our home high on the hill, walking through a pathway of Irises and many other flowers, all decked out in my Easter finery, new every year, a little girl in a finely made dress and coat (navy wool, with a beautiful little cape), a fine straw hat, purchased in a wonderful department store in Pittsburgh, PA with a blue, velvet ribbon (to match the coat), bedecked with flowers, with new patent leather shoes and little purse to match, and, oh yes, always, new, white, gloves.

I felt utterly nostalgic for the beauty and generosity of that time. Grateful to my Mother who did all the beautiful sewing and shopping with me for the occasion, and, of course, to my father who was so admiring, and who made our beautiful home on the hill possible. (It was a lovely Chateauesque mansion we lived in perched high on a hill in Carnegie, PA, where in keeping with Sicilian traditions, my father and his two brothers lived with their families.)

And Easter Sunday was so special in our Italian parish church, gloriously bedecked in Lilies. I felt just like a princess, running home, then, to Easter baskets, filled with hard boiled colored eggs my brother and I had dyed the day before and just a little bit of chocolate (probabbly a Hershey Bar, put in by my Dad.) And to the lamb dinner around the family's beautiful dining room table, with a Sicilian Cassata - all fluff, custard, rum soaked sponge cake and canned fruits -my Mother had prepared for our dessert.

Yes, nostalgic for Easter in Carnegie, PA. and for Western Pennsylvania.

Karita Hummer
This Passionate Progressive Patriot will always be a Pennsylvania girl!

The Socialist Shibboleth, is false at the core, and contrary to the American Social Contract

Crying over the distortion of America!


March 4, 2010

Last night I had a bad dream....., and it went like this: I dreamt the Health Care Reform Bill failed. In the dream, I was lamenting to a friend, a doctor, how a handful of right wing, well-funded, Tea Partiers are determined to tear our Country's progress down, almost in self-destruct mode. (The trigger for the dream must have been something I read in an article by Dave Sirota on the unimaginable nerve of Glenn Beck declaring his hatred for the word, “community” at the infamous Tea Party Convention. Now, how awful is that? A community can be good or bad, but we, of the community, should make it good for all its members. Now, that’s how I read the Gospel, according to Matthew.

For a wonderful example of advocacy for the community as good, visit the site of The Social Contract Project:
http://www.neighborhoodsonline.net/SocPhilosophy/socphilosophy.html

Neighborhood Social Contracts: Principles
“A community,” St. Augustine observed, “is a group of people united by the common objects of their love.” The principles underlying the Social Contract Project grow out of this basic definition of community.

We can summarize these principles as follows:

1. Building community is the process of defining the values that we share and that we are willing to work together to achieve.
2. The basic values that we share as citizens are the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
3. The framework for community embodied in the Preamble to the Constitution, in turn, asks that “we the people,” “insure domestic tranqillity,” “establish justice,” “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” and “promote the general welfare.” These principles shape our expectations of community in America, as surely as “equality,” “inalienable rights,” and “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” define what we expect as individuals.
4. Whereever we live, we all want our communities to be clean, safe, economically viable, and decent places to raise our children. This is what “to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” means to us.
5. In accordance with these principles, we expect public officials to perform what the Constitution requires--however we understand these requirements. This is the fundamental social contract between government and the people.
http://www.neighborhoodsonline.net/SocPhilosophy/socphilosophy.html

Then waking this morning, I saw an editorial cartoon in the Mercury News about a citizen immersed in shark infested water, sinking fast, and being devoured by sharks, refusing, terrified, to reach out to a rope with the label, "Socialist Rope" printed on it. Amazing, isn't it? How long a group will continue to tap that old socialist shibboleth, and be so successful as to prevent people from even reaching out in self defense to exmine the true nature of the rope, and, if it's been mislabeled?

Downright demoralizing for this Passionate Progressive Patriot!

So, what’s a real populist to do?

Well, fortunately we have a group (maybe several) around to come to the aid of true, real populists,, their revenue stream being only the constant inspiration of the true Social Contract imbedded in the Preamble to our Constituttion.

From Social Contract Project:

http://www.neighborhoodsonline.net/socialcontract.html


”All governments set forth a social contract between public leaders and the people. The American social contract grows out of the Preamble to the Constitution, which demands that “we the people” work in partnership with government to “establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.””
>

This crazy “socialist” talk has a direct line in the regressive politics of Conservative ideology in America. I remember, all too well, Spiro Agnews, fomenting negativism through his calls to the so-called “Silent Majority”. Almost like yesterday, I remember when H.R. Haldeman tried to degrade my whole profession of Social Work, saying Social Workers never earned an honest day’s wage in their lives. Yes, the socialist shibboleth has been around a long time. It was used to fight Medicare, and now it is being used to fight health care reform, and every manner of reform for the common good.

Let’s heed George Lakoff’s advice, call a spade a spade and use the language of our convictions. Let us take charge of the debate. Let’s put the Socialist Shibboleth in its place, no place int the American social Contract.

Let’s join groups like Campaign for America’s Future and broadcast our beliefs, with the full weight of the Constitution behind us. Don’t let "them" shred our Social Contract and mis-define it for poisonous consumption.

http://www.ourfuture.org/

http://citizensposse.com/


Campaign for America's Future, convenes in June in Washington, where we can mobilize and strategize how we can win th debate.

Let's go!

http://ourfuture.org/now

Or join their Citizen's Posse in Washington on March 9th.

http://citizensposse.com/



Karita Hummer

p.s. My nightmare was real!!





Crying over the distortion of Ameria!