Tell me again how the Republicons aren't racist

Tuesday night, 2 GOP delegates were thrown out of the RNC convention because of their actions: They threw peanuts at an African American camera woman(who works for CNN) saying, "This is how we feed the animals!" Yes, they were escorted out and banned, but in what century would normal people think this was something to say or do? Or appropriate? Only in a time that it was fine to think less of people that were different than you and you knew that the people around you wouldn't be bothered by heinous behavior. But, if we look at the republican platform, it has dropped to the lowest common denominator of hatred, or at least oppression of others. Not only does the platform scream, "OPPRESSION!", but the candidates do also. Mitt Romney loves to repeat the lie that President Obama has cut the welfare to work rule when in actuality he did what many Republicon governors(including Romney) wanted: instead of the federal government telling the states how to use the funds, the federal government gives the states block grants and the state decides how to use the funds. But we all know that its Obama kowtowing to his "base"...too bad that most Americans don't know that 60% of the people who use forms of welfare are white! He's played the "birther" card in Michigan and loves using the adjective "angry" when speaking about President Obama--haven't figured out where he sees "anger"...must be when President Obama is singing or joking...its not like Mitt knows how normal people act. But even before Mitt was the frontrunner, we had these soundbytes: Gingrich quoted about the "food stamp president"(again, more whites than blacks use food stamps) and taking poor urban kids out of school and making them clean the bathrooms(there are more poor rural white kids than black) Who can forget Santorum's "blah" remark? "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money." How about Ron Paul arguing that the legislation outlawing Jim Crow laws was a moral evil and violated white people's liberty? I'm sure there's nothing racist in that rant. Oh, and let's not forget Michelle Bachman waxing nostalgic and saying that Black families were stronger when enslaved than now(sure, loved to see their children sold off). But, another very thinly veiled remark is Romney's "Keep America, America", a play on the Ku Klux Klan's slogan, "Keep America American", although I doubt they were taling about Native Americans. Do you mean to say that the RNC or the Romney campaign weren't aware of the similarity? No one brought it up to them? I doubt that. Now, am I saying that all republicans are racist? No. But I am saying is the Southern Strategy is alive and well in the RNC and they will prey on the fears and ignorance of their base. It's been used since Nixon and Reagan probably used it best, first by announcing his run in Philidelphia MS to making up the lie of the "welfare queen". I guess the only good thing about this is that, for the most part, this is probably the last election this will work. Most polls show that many more people have less disparate views on race and the larger amount of racists are dying off and are not being replaced.  Hopefully we can keep history from being taken over by the right wing as they've tried(and are doing a pretty good job in places like Texas) and ensure that President Obama is reelected. Otherwise, I'm not so sure we can keep our history and our country on an honest path...specially if the guy who refuses to show us the same respect all other candidates have and release his tax records. Mitt--show us your tax records!

My letter to the editors--now, if it gets posted....

I sent this letter to different newspapers: The Sun-Times, the Trib(HAH!), Daily Herald, Springfield and my little DG paper. Let's see who posts it!

I am a state retiree, one of the "regulars", whose pension averages around $25,000 a year. I'm somewhat luckier than over 75% of my fellow retirees because I can collect Social Security, yes, that's right. Over 75% of state retirees do NOT collect Social Security--all they have is their pension.
I worked for the Department of Corrections for about 30 years, over 2/3 of that time at Stateville, not what I would consider a "cushy" job. But we, that worked there, felt that we made a difference, we were to be firm, fair and consistent with inmates, we dealt with their families and with the public. I had worked my way from the young woman who had a low paying clerical job, to a correctional officer and then counselor. I could take care of my family and I paid taxes. I never made 6 figures at the job...not even close, but I knew I would be secure in my retirement because we had a contract, we had a pension and I kept my part of the deal and I paid my 8 - 9% of my pension cost every paycheck...but the state(and the people of Illinois) don't care and don't want to live up to their side of the deal. It's not that Illinois is spend drunk. In fact, we're 47th in revenue spending and 50th in state employee per citizen capita in the United States. What we are, is tax-phobic.
Not that the state doesn't make deals--over 2/3 of the state based corporations in Illinois pay NO state income tax and/or sales tax! We allow corporations to take many of the same deductions  that the Federal tax system uses, but on our flat income tax, those deductions are destructive to our financial situation and a majority of states have dropped these deductions.
Ways to raise revenue? First, we need to get rid of the Single Sales Factor--this alone costs us about $600 Million just from Caterpillar annually!  Drop the federal accelerated depreciation and go back to normal depreciation rates(would bring in about $300M annually), a deduction that allows no tax on dividends paid by foreign corporations to US parent corporations in Illinois(gain $400M annually). Getting rid of the Retailer's Discount on Sales Tax, at least for large retailers--Walmart keeps about $9 million annually of what we Illinois citizens think we're paying in sales tax! Like the Waltons need that money more than our citizens. That would bring in another couple hundred million annually.
And before all of the "OH NO, The nice corporations would LEAVE if we make them pay their FAIR SHARE!!!!" If Illinois tax structure was the same as Iowa's, we'd raise $6 billion more in revenue every year...Wisconsin's?  We'd raise about $9 billion more. Illinois taxes are not overtly high, that's just the sound byte.
I'm tired of seeing how my finances could be ruined over time while CME, Sears, Motorolla, United, Boeing, Caterpillar pay less in taxes than the average Illinois citizen. Its time to see the real problem, and its with the ones that control what's seen on TV and what stories get printed in the paper, not the 70 year old teacher living on your street--she deserves her pension, she worked for it, as we all have. And we demand to be respected. We're not demanding 6 or 7 figure pensions as some of our pols get. We want what we negotiated--a livable pension, nothing more and certainly nothing less.