AMERICA HAS CHANGED

MRS CLEAVER JUST DIED A FEW DAYS AGO

That idyllic 1950’s America of “Leave it to Beaver” is no more; most people are grateful for that. Those were the days when all you had to do was to be born into one of these WASP middle class families and your whole future was secured; you didn’t even have to finish high school…because there were plenty of manufacturing jobs, non-skilled factory work you could do and you were able to have a family of your own and live the American dream.

On October 16, 2010, “Leave It to Beaver” star Barbara Billingsley died at age 94, a family spokesperson confirmed Saturday. The actress was most famous for playing all-American mom and housewife June Cleaver in the classic sitcom, which ran from 1957 to 1963 (two reunion TV films were made in 1983 and 1997).

Of course, if you were a member of this elite class and you wanted to better yourself and get ahead there were a myriad of opportunities awaiting. You had the GI bill that offered you an education in exchange for military service. You were readily admitted to almost any institution of higher learning if your name was Baker or Sloan. But good luck if your name was Perez, Jackson or Brown; then the admissions departments went crazy looking for clues as to your ethnic background.

I say that because I lived it…I had applied to 19 different colleges and universities in California in those days and not one accepted me; hell, I didn’t even get a rejection letter from any of them.

The very darling of these conservatives…those who wanted to continue with the status quo of the 50’s was Ronald Reagan and he was the first one who betrayed those WASPs. He embarked on a quest to give big business and the very rich tax cuts, subsidies and to facilitate and encourage outsourcing jobs overseas so they could increase their profits. You see, Reagan was no friend of the working class, he was more interested in the rich and the corporations making a buck at the expense of the poor and the middle class.

This ideology which is still pervasive today as Reagan is seen as the sage and wise engineer of the conservative movement has caused a great deal of damage to the middle class and to America in general. Make no mistake about it; if you destroy the middle class you destroy the backbone of our country; and that is one of the many reasons I say that Reagan was one of the worst Presidents we ever had.

But change is inevitable and America’s demographics also changed. The blacks obtained their Civil Rights, much to the chagrin of the Southern Democrats who exited their party in droves into the Republican Party. The Hispanics reproduced like rabbits outdoing their WASP counterparts and the Latino population grew to where it became a force to be contended with…and they too started to exercise their right to vote.

June Cleaver America is but a memory and these people in the Tea Bag-Republican Party would like to return to those magical days. They want to erase any and all of the progress we have made in the areas of civil rights, education and in particular the biggest thorn on the side of these ultra right wing nuts: Roosevelt’s NEW DEAL. Gone would be Social Security and anything that resembles a safety net for the middle class if these Tea Bagger Republicans had their way.

So when they go to disrupt a Town Hall meeting and they yell “THEY ARE TAKING AWAY MY AMERICA”, they are right on the money…we are taking away their America because it is not theirs to begin with but it belongs to everyone.

WASPH (notice the H at the end, it stands for heterosexual) is no longer sustainable as a criteria to success in our country; meritocracy and equal rights belongs and has to be something every person in this country has the privilege to have. The pecking order was not fair and has ceased to exist. Now they are having collective birthing pains as the right wing, racist xenophobes and homophobes are having their collective cow.