I DOUBLE-TRIPLE DARE YOU
By Nancy Greggs

When I grew up back on the block in New York, to dare another kid to do something was one thing. But to challenge anyone with a double-triple dare was a whole ‘nother story.

With a little fast-talk, you could usually walk away from a dare without losing the respect of your peers, especially if it involved kicking your elementary school principal in the backside in full view of your fellow students, or shaving your kid sister’s head the night before picture day.

In such instances, the dare-ee could garner the sympathy vote, while the dare-er was vilified for setting out a challenge deemed to be (a) impossible or (b) one that carried adult-administered consequences beyond the endurance of even the bravest eight-year-old.

But to walk away from a double-triple dare meant being labeled a wimp forever, and your only hope of escaping a lifetime of shame was to beg your parents to pack up and move to another town – preferably on the other side of the country.

On that basis, as our elected officials head home for their summer vacations, I double-triple dare each and every Republican currently holding office – and currently controlling our government – to do the following:

Arrange an assembly at a local school, and explain to students, parents and teachers why you have allowed our educational system to deteriorate due to cutbacks in funding and a complete lack of oversight in maintaining meaningful academic programs.

Visit with the parents, siblings and spouses of military currently serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, and explain why, on your watch, troops are still going without body armor, vehicle armor, and sufficient food while over a billion dollars per week is being expended on this war.

Visit a local VA hospital, and explain to the patients why you voted to slash veterans’ benefits and pensions, and how that squares with your publicity-seeking boasts about supporting the troops.

Visit an unemployment center, and explain to those on line how your support of job outsourcing has benefited them as individuals, and the country as a whole. Explain to them why, thanks to you, corporations that move their factories and plants to cheaper labor markets are rewarded with tax benefits for doing so.

Arrange a slide-show at a local church featuring photographs from Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, and explain to the congregation how your complicit silence on the topic of torture is in keeping with your oft-touted Christian beliefs and values.

Visit a seniors’ facility and explain why you voted for a drug plan that has made their necessary medicine financially beyond their means, to the overwhelming benefit of the multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical industry.

Visit a hospital emergency room, and explain to the people waiting there for hours why you refuse to support any kind of global health care program that would cover the cost of a visit to a doctor’s office, and support policies that let employers, even the largest and most profitable, off-the-hook when it comes to providing medical benefits to employees.

Visit a homeless shelter, and explain why social programs are continually being gutted while you have diligently voted to make billions of dollars available for useless pork-barrel projects and endless military expenditures.

Visit a daycare center, and explain to the children why both of their parents have to work just to make ends meet, and how they will have to work three jobs when they grow up just to service the interest on the national debt you have allowed to accrue. Explain to them how your support of tax-cuts to wealthy individuals and corporations will increase that debt load even further.

Visit a prison, and explain to the inmates why they have to ‘pay their debt to society’ as a consequence of breaking the law, while you have allowed the president to break the law on an ongoing basis to the detriment of our entire democratic society.

Arrange a meet-and-greet at a gas station, and explain to the customers why you voted for tax subsidies for the very oil companies that are gouging them at the pump.

Visit with employees who are paid salaries they cannot possibly live on, and explain why a raise in the minimum wage is unwarranted while your own self-voted raises are totally fair.

Visit a courtroom where bankruptcy hearings are being held, and explain to those who have lost everything why your support of the bill that keeps them in debt to banks and credit card companies is justified.

Arrange a field trip to a polluted lake or river, or a strip-mining site in your state, and explain to your constituents why getting on this environmental stewardship bandwagon does not make any sense.

So there it is; the gauntlet has been thrown down. The challenge has been made. The double-triple dare has been called.

And it is a dare that I can guarantee, without a scintilla of doubt, will not be taken on by a single Republican representative, now or ever.

This is the Grand Ol’ Party, my friends: too self-serving to have done right by their countrymen, too guilty to explain their actions, and way too spineless to take a double-triple dare.