Complaint Review: Gray Panthers of Austin

This is supposed to be be an organization where old and young people work together for social change. I hope it is not for Hope and Change because look where that got us.

I thought that it was supposed to be about the things that concerned senior citizens and to help us organize and give us a voice and a common cause.

I was inspired by the late  Maggie Kuhn who founded this organization back in the 1970s to combat "ageism" which this town is full of. 

And AGEISM in itself is a RIP OFF!

"Age and Youth in Action" was the Motto of the Original Gray Panthers.

Now that I am forcibly retired both by disability and a very bad economy that promotes age discrimination in employment, I decided I want to do something which will better the lot of older people and maybe I can volunteer and help out.

I called the Gray Panther Office and was told by the young man on the phone that they were moving to a smaller office. 

I wanted to know when they were meeting and at what time and he told me the second Tuesday of the month at the Central Market upstairs at the HEB on North Lamar, the one beside the Austin State Hospital. Rather pricey food selection in there too. Seemed reluctant to give me a time as well.

He seemed very reluctant to give out any information when I asked him what exactly does the Austin branch of Gray Panthers do?

He said that they fight corruption in local government and just fight corruption.

I was under the impression that they fought for the rights of senior citizens and I had a few issues that I wanted to bring up for discussion.

I didn't think that a free and open discussion would be welcomed or encouraged and I did not understand the evasiveness and the unease with which my questions seemed to be answered and so I hung up.

Throughout the South there is this silent understanding that there are some places where some people do not go. It may appear that anyone from the public is invited to go there and that you will be welcome there -- like a Southern Baptist Church for instance --but you know that you will be glared at, ignored and eventually asked to leave. You job may be threatened as well.

Like in the days of SEGREGATION which the SOUTHERN DEMOCRATS strictly enforced and it wasn't always by parading in pointed-headed sheet costumes with burning crosses either.

I felt like my presence was neither wanted or desired wherever these folks, whoever these folks were would be meeting. And I was supposed to be in their target age demographic--well, one of them anyway.

d**n! Ageism in an Austin, Texas organization that is supposed to be fighting ageism in a town that is all about ageism.

I DID NOT SEE A COMMITMENT TO LOBBY FOR SERIOUS ISSUES FOR OLDER PEOPLE HERE!

SO WHY DO THEY EXIST AND  WHY ARE THEY NOT FOLLOWING THE IDEAS OF MAGGIE KUHN MORE CLOSELY?

Guess I should have gone to the Gray Panthers of Austin website BEFORE I called.
because all the answers are there. When you look them up in the online phone book, you get the National Gray Panthers website and you eventually find the Austin branch of the organization's website.

Gray Panthers Austin is apparently part of a group of Liberal/ Progressive/ Democrat sympathetic organizations -- like a game piece on a political chessboard to be used whenever needed.

Those groups in the network include:

The ACLU of Texas -- Why is it the only time I am contacted by them is when they ask me for money and why didn't they help me when my home was vandalized by anti-Jewish thugs in a certain Texas county with neo-n**i sympathizers in the Sheriff's department...Where were you alleged Civil Rights advocates then?

Alliance for Democracy - Wanting a Single Payer Healthcare which will include death panel/life reviews aka medical reviews same as in the 1933 German HealthCare Act otherwise known as the Final Solution where the government was free to execute anyone it did not like for any reason.

As usual, this Liberal organization has a very nice-sounding title but you have to look behind the title ,as Lenin and Trotsky taught us to see what they are REALLY about and the Single Payer Healthcare is NO friend to Older Americans.

Alliance for Retired Americans - This was touted to be an alternative to Socialist-biased AARP which is more interested in peddling its mediocre to poor insurance than looking out for the safety and rights of its members. Turns out there is a LOT of Democratic bias on this site!

Gray Panthers National -they have their own site which you can access from the Austin site.

Health Care For All Texans - Dr. Dan Wirt is credited on this cite with maintaining. It promotes the Single Payer System of Healthcare. I do not want to be executed by the government just because I am over 55 and have become a "useless eater." I do not want your healthcare with the tainted vaccines and experimental medications and big pharmaceutical firms using us for guinea pigs without our informed consent..Leave me alone and let me die in my house of natural causes.

Is this doctor taking any Medicare patients, by the way? Just wondering.

Mad as Hell Doctors - More about the Single payer health system which is NOT in the interest of older people or anyone else that people like the Nazis would want to be rid of in their physically perfect world. Interesting.

Media Watch

Save Our Springs Alliance

Texas Civil Rights Project

Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

Texas Public Interest Research Group

The Peace Alliance

Validation Training Institute

Word Press.com

I am intrigued. How can all of these organizations help Older Americans?

We all know that there is a big discrepancy between what politicians SAY and what they DO Especially Neo-Con/ RINO ( Republican In Name Only) Republicans and Democrat Socialists --and you can not tell the one from the other.

Why do I have the feeling that the Gray Panthers here are just extras on standby like a flash mob to be called out when the Democrats need to show the public that they have support on a senior citizens' issue? and they can turn out the citizen vote.Like hell.

Why do I have the feeling that all members apparently have to be screened and vetted and pre-approved before they can attend meetings?

And why do I have the feeling that nothing I say will matter.

If this is supposed to help older people, I haven't seen much evidence of that. The guy on the phone seemed to be rather impatient with me and not at all interested in talking about real senior issues like the institutionalised ageism in Austin. I guess I wasn't asking the right questions that Socialist- oriented  people want to hear, excuse me, I mean PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS want to hear.

JUST TELL ME IT IS A PAC. This group should NOT  PRESUME TO SPEAK FOR AND EVEN REPRESENT ME AND PEOPLE LIKE ME. I AM REAL GRASSROOTS NOT ASTROTURF.

If you are not a Democrat or a Neo-Con, and you are an older  person and youj think this organization will speak up on your behalf--- YOU THINK WRONG and could get RIPPED OFF.