Dumb Things Americans Believe

I just want to thanks Newsweek for writing this up, and sharing it with the rest of Americans.
I am going to give my take on some of the things that really bother me most.

1 in 5 Americans believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim.
Something we all know is not a fact, and is certainly unfounded. The tabloids and right wing extremists clearly are winning with numbers like this though. Even if he was Muslim, who cares? We are a country rich in diversity, and founded on religious freedom, or is that only if we are Catholic or Christian?

21% of Americans believe in Witch Craft. Breaking it down they learned that some believe there are real people who believe in spells, sorcerors, conjurers, and warlocks.
I say, they have been watching too much Harry Potter!

4 in 10 Americans believe in "death panels" through the Health Care reform.
I think we all learned almost 2 years ago NOT to listen to anything Sarah Palin has to say! Yet her facebook posting that health care reform will include death panels, and people picking and choosing who gets what health care, and who doesn't is still a popular belief in our country. Just going to show how little people know about health care reform, and what is actually going on.

41% of Americans believe that Saddan Hussein had WMD's and was involved in 9/11.
Nearly four years after the invasion of Iraq, and proof that not only did Saddam Hussein did not have any weapons of mass destruction, but overwhelming proof that he had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks. American's still ignorantly believe that he was involved and we found something when invading Iraq.

More than 3/4 of Americans could name two of the seven dwarfs, but not two of the current Supereme Court Justices.
Um, I have no words for this... all I can do is hang my head in shame.

63% of Young Americans cannot find Iraq on a Map, 9 out of 10 cannot find Afghanistan on a map of Asia.
Apparently people, including the young American's who are loosing peers in this war failed geography in school.

1 in 3 Americans do not believe that the first amendment applies to groups like Muslims or those who are often classified as "extreme".
I guess we can just pick and choose which regions are valid now in the US huh? It is a true shame that most American's are this ignorant. The worst part of it all, two out of five American's think TEACHERS should be able to lead prayer in their classrooms.
What a shame!

What in the hell is happening to this country?

What is a Political Blogger?

Certainly not me! I hear some out there saying I was taking a turn into becoming a political blogger, which couldn't be further from the truth. I created Political Mom as a place that I can air my opinions of current events. I leave the true political blogging to those who specialize in it. I am simply a Mom Blogger who enjoys saying something on occasion about the things going on in the news.

On a side note, I invited a friend of mine to also become a contributor here. I call her SM, but I am sure she may want to use another name, or initials, or a personality for contributing here.
I am excited to have her on board. But I will let her introduce herself, and give her views on things, although I am sure we won't be too far off from each other in that sense.

Bittersweet Iraq

A little over 5 years ago I lived in North Carolina. Fort Bragg to be exact. My then boyfriend was a Sargent in the United States Army, 82nd Airborne, and I had moved from my home after a 6 month long distance relationship, a deployment to Iraq, and a romance we thought would last the ages. My way of life changed from hanging out with my friends, midnight movies, and work to being a army spouse although we were not married.

Deployments ate away at me, while they ate away at my friends and family members lives. I lost a number of good friends I had made while living there, men that would stop their evening to run to the store for me for a gallon of milk by choice, not because I asked. People who would watch my dog when I took a long weekend trip back home to Connecticut to visit my family. Men that would give the shirt off their back on a cool spring evening if that is what I needed. Amazing, young, vibrant, selfless, respectful men who made the brave choice to sign up for our armed forces knowing there was a great possibility they would be going off to war.

Dead, coming home missing body parts, loss of memory, and various other conditions that started during an injury in the war. And I saw my own relationship quickly deteriorate after the last deployment I was present for. Night terrors turned into day terrors, which turned into PTSD and in the end, a relationship he just could not handle after all he saw and experienced.

We cut our losses and went our own ways. I returned home to my friends and family, and two short years later married a good friend from high school, and welcomed our first child not in that order.

Last night, watching the news, seeing the last of the combat troops leaving Iraq was certainly bittersweet for me, as someone who knew though all my experiences, that we had no business in that country to begin with. Our troops will continue to be present in Iraq for probably decades as peace keepers, but now the men and women involved in combat operations will be moving into Kuwait, and over to focus more on Afghanistan, and probably moving into Iran. It is only just a matter of time.

This reminds me of May 1st, 2003 though. When George W. Bush the worst President in history got up on an aircraft carrier, and gave this long winded speech with a giant banner proclaiming Mission Accomplished. What mission? The war is still going on. Nothing was accomplished, nothing was solved, and seven years later we are still not accomplished.

It hurts, and I cried last night, I cried at the senseless loss, I cried for the families of all those service members, and I cried because the American public is over excited for our combat troops moving out of a country our military will still be present in.
While it is a step in the right direction for us, it is still going to be a long road before all of our men and women are home for good.

Where Have Those Bridges Been?

I stumbled upon this clip this morning when reading about one of my favorite National train wrecks, Sarah Palin :



It has almost been a full nine years since extremists attacked our country, and killed so many people not only who were American, but international in the World Trade Center. In the recent weeks we have been hearing more than I care to hear about this event, because of the nature of the discussions.

Sarah Palin, as we know is just one ignorant conservative, like the blind leading the blind, and I am not surprised that her comments on the New York City Islamic Community Center planned for 4-5 blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center are just as ignorant as everything else she has ever opened her mouth on.

In the clip above, Palin, and some old white guy continue to ask about building bridges, and why the Muslim community hasn't reached out until this time to build bridges in the New York City area. Unfortunately for them, this question shows their ignorance as this community has repeatedly reached out, and is continually met with religious bias, racism, and hate. Like I cited in my post yesterday... In the years after 9/11 Muslim American's are more likely to be the victims of a terrorist act than anyone else in our country. Which is incredibly sad.

Now to insert my opinion.

As someone who is part of a minority community : Being a woman, if I was treated the way these same communities have been treated, I would not continue to reach out into the local community, I would not take others feelings into consideration, and I certainly wouldn't take their thoughts or concerns into consideration in anything I did.

People continue to forget, it was not just Americans, or Catholic, Christian White Americans that died on 9/11. We had Jews, Muslims, Blacks, Whites, Asians, Catholics, Christians, Mormons, and people from ALL backgrounds killed by these disgusting extremists. NOT only WHITE CHRISTIAN AMERICANS!

In fact there were people from a number of countries in that building working, visiting, and in meetings when those planes flew into the World Trade Center. It was not an American attack, while it was done on American soil. It was an attack on freedom. It was an attack on every person, company, and background in that building at the moment that plane hit.

Ms. Palin, get your head out of your ass yet again, and realize that the bridges have been partially constructed, and demolished by the ignorant hate of Americas, just like yourself!

9/11 & The Mosque That Doesn't Exist

In the past week, maybe longer I have been hearing a lot of chatter on the internet, facebook, news, and in day to day conversations about the so called "Mosque" proposed for "Ground Zero". From facebook status's saying it is disrespectful to those who died on 9/11 because we all know they were only White Christian Americans to the proposed space being a mere 600 feet from Ground Zero.

Before I go off on my rant, I want to point out a couple small but factual points about the proposed project. The project which is proposed for and I say project because it is not a Mosque, a Mosque by definition can only be a place of worship the space at 45 Park Place is not only 5 blocks away from the Ground Zero space, but it is also not slated to be a place of worship. It is scheduled to be a community center including a basketball court, and culinary school. Sounds like a real breeding ground for terrorists right? Martha Stewart look out! But seriously people, the panic and outrage is nothing short of the fight against racism we have been battling for decades.

By saying that a community center, with two floors of a thirteen story building being considered a prayer space is disrespectful to the people who died, their families, and our country is overkill. The sad fact of the matter is, since 9/11 and in recent years, a person of Muslim background, or Middle Eastern decent in our country is more likely to be the victim of an act of terrorism, than us Americans are.

There have been attempted bombings, beatings, threatening, and all of those cute little ignorant treatments we as American's should be ashamed of. All while over 4000 of our own Men and Women in our Armed Forced are being killed to fight for the religious freedoms of these same people.

The same people harassing them, attempting to bomb their real Mosques, and catching them in a dark alley way are the same touting their American pride over this war, which clearly they know little about.

I find it so upsetting that a country that was founded on religious freedom is so quick to persecute those of a different religion or background because of the actions of a small group of extremists.

I think Keith Olbermann put it the best...