Jim Wallis: "[S]lashing programs for the poor while exempting the rich from sacrifice is repugnant to our spiritual values and contrary to scripture." Apparently the span covered by the adjective "our" needs to be further defined, since this is not true for all Christians.
Read The Moral Default, by Jim Wallis.
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
The Age Of Greed
The Age of Greed is the title of a new book by Jeff Madrick. It comes with the recommendation of Michael Winship, senior writer on the now defunct Bill Moyers Journal.
At a minimum, Winship's review of it. The book itself sounds like a good read, too.
At a minimum, Winship's review of it. The book itself sounds like a good read, too.
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Matt Damon Is My New Hero (As He Schools a Dumb Reporter)
I always liked Matt Damon, now I like him another bit more.
This is exactly how to confront the drivel of too many libertarians and Republicans, and their platitudes about economic incentives in the free market.
This is exactly how to confront the drivel of too many libertarians and Republicans, and their platitudes about economic incentives in the free market.
A More Equal America?
Doing Debt Ceiling Battle the FDR Way is a very timely post by Sam Pizzigati on the history of debt ceiling battles while FDR was in the White House. Very instructive, and a little depressing, considering how low we have sunk since then in our national conscience.
The Return of the SHITTERS
Fox ‘Expert’ Blasts Expanding Access To Birth Control: ‘Are We Going To Do Pedicures And Manicures As Well?’ (via Think Progress)
Need I say more?
Need I say more?
Sunday, July 31, 2011
A Reply to "Facts on Taxes"
Over at The Constructive Curmudgeon, a highly tendentious post appeared in the last 24 hours entitled Facts on Taxes.
This is my rebuttal.
If the title of your post had been Opinions on Taxes, I would have not written this response. But you chose to call it Facts on Taxes. Can you please source the facts, with data and not the names of known partisans like Thomas Sowell?
I like to accompany the opinions I express on my blog with facts, as I did in a post called On The Fantasy That "Taxing Job Creators Is Wrong", which is my view on the myth that taxing "job creators" is wrong. Please read it, as it addressed the fallacies of your assumptions in this post.
Envy, by the way, has nothing to do with asking for the rich to pay a higher rate on some of their income. Progressive taxation is based on the assumption that it is fair for those who have more discretionary income to pay more than those whose income is barely sufficient to make ends meet. Not to mention the fact that the rich benefit more from public services and infrastructure more than low-income Americans, directly or indirectly.
Besides, for someone who believes in the "religion of the free-market", can't you see that a strong economy needs to leave more money in the pockets of those who are more likely to spend it--lower-income Americans--than in the pockets of those who are more likely to save it, or invest it--often outside of the United States?
Finally, if I hear one more time that "we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem", I am going to throw up. It's just a talking point, a clever but mendacious one for the most part.
Of course we have a spending problem, mostly driven by elective wars and the greed of mega-corporations in the oil, banking, and health services industries. But we also have a revenue problem, created by George W. Bush tax cuts which were supposed to have "sunset" by now, and have been extended by the outrageously weak and inept President Obama. Or did you miss the news that revenues are at their lowest point in at least 50 years, if not since the Great Depression, and that top tax rates are at their lowest point since Eisenhower (with the exception of one of the Reagan Years)?
Ironically, remember, that President Obama was accused by his opponents of being the most liberal Senator when he was running, a lie easily born-out by his first 30 months in the White House. He is a centrist at heart, and has been governing from right of center. Of course, in a country where politics is dominated by right-wing extremists, governing from right-of-center still makes you look a liberal extremist, I guess. But compare Obama's policies with FDR's, Johnson's, and even Carter's, and you will see that he is a pro-business, pro-establishment politician. Far from being the socialist populist he has been depicted as by most of the media, he is a corporate socialist.
Peace out.
This is my rebuttal.
If the title of your post had been Opinions on Taxes, I would have not written this response. But you chose to call it Facts on Taxes. Can you please source the facts, with data and not the names of known partisans like Thomas Sowell?
I like to accompany the opinions I express on my blog with facts, as I did in a post called On The Fantasy That "Taxing Job Creators Is Wrong", which is my view on the myth that taxing "job creators" is wrong. Please read it, as it addressed the fallacies of your assumptions in this post.
Envy, by the way, has nothing to do with asking for the rich to pay a higher rate on some of their income. Progressive taxation is based on the assumption that it is fair for those who have more discretionary income to pay more than those whose income is barely sufficient to make ends meet. Not to mention the fact that the rich benefit more from public services and infrastructure more than low-income Americans, directly or indirectly.
Besides, for someone who believes in the "religion of the free-market", can't you see that a strong economy needs to leave more money in the pockets of those who are more likely to spend it--lower-income Americans--than in the pockets of those who are more likely to save it, or invest it--often outside of the United States?
Finally, if I hear one more time that "we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem", I am going to throw up. It's just a talking point, a clever but mendacious one for the most part.
Of course we have a spending problem, mostly driven by elective wars and the greed of mega-corporations in the oil, banking, and health services industries. But we also have a revenue problem, created by George W. Bush tax cuts which were supposed to have "sunset" by now, and have been extended by the outrageously weak and inept President Obama. Or did you miss the news that revenues are at their lowest point in at least 50 years, if not since the Great Depression, and that top tax rates are at their lowest point since Eisenhower (with the exception of one of the Reagan Years)?
Ironically, remember, that President Obama was accused by his opponents of being the most liberal Senator when he was running, a lie easily born-out by his first 30 months in the White House. He is a centrist at heart, and has been governing from right of center. Of course, in a country where politics is dominated by right-wing extremists, governing from right-of-center still makes you look a liberal extremist, I guess. But compare Obama's policies with FDR's, Johnson's, and even Carter's, and you will see that he is a pro-business, pro-establishment politician. Far from being the socialist populist he has been depicted as by most of the media, he is a corporate socialist.
Peace out.
Country [Club] First!
Rememeber the McCain/Palin campaign slogan? Country First? They almost had it right. It should have been "Country Club First", as easily visible in the Republican intransigence at closing loopholes and raising taxes on the richest Americans.
I have read somewhere that asking the rich to pay their fair share is actually envy (a sin, according to the Christian fundie who wrote it), masked as a cry for social justice. Well, well... is that the nutshell that American Christ-ies see in the debt ceiling "debate", Republican-style? That the elderly, the dispossessed, the jobless, the evicted, the sick in this country should be asked to pay their "fair" share by Republican leeches for the rich, instead of being "soooooo envious"? Or is the righteous exasperation of the trodden-upon being mistaken for envy by the deluded and by the peddler of the "American exceptionalism" delusion?
You should ask yourselves, because the answer is readily available. In fact, it is available in a very readable, astute, and acerbic post by Hunter on the Daily Kos. The guy tells it like it is on the wholly Republican debt ceiling debacle, and this is the paragraph that--best of all--captures the folly of the whole affair:
And this is the apt closing:
Read the rest of Hunter's post here.
I have read somewhere that asking the rich to pay their fair share is actually envy (a sin, according to the Christian fundie who wrote it), masked as a cry for social justice. Well, well... is that the nutshell that American Christ-ies see in the debt ceiling "debate", Republican-style? That the elderly, the dispossessed, the jobless, the evicted, the sick in this country should be asked to pay their "fair" share by Republican leeches for the rich, instead of being "soooooo envious"? Or is the righteous exasperation of the trodden-upon being mistaken for envy by the deluded and by the peddler of the "American exceptionalism" delusion?
You should ask yourselves, because the answer is readily available. In fact, it is available in a very readable, astute, and acerbic post by Hunter on the Daily Kos. The guy tells it like it is on the wholly Republican debt ceiling debacle, and this is the paragraph that--best of all--captures the folly of the whole affair:
We're at this point because Republicans insist that the rich pay not one penny more in taxes, despite enjoying the lowest effective tax rates in modern U.S. history. Instead, Republicans demand cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Straight-up class warfare, though they will send for the fainting couch if you point that out.
And this is the apt closing:
This has been the worst display of governmental incompetence for a very, very long time, and that is saying something. If ever we needed an example of partisanship clearly and unambiguously taking precedence over the economic needs of the country, this would be the textbook example. Let's hope we still even have textbooks a year from now, though, because the one thing have been Republicans are being most unyielding on is the demand that we do all of this all over again within six months or a year or so, in order to let them extract even deeper cuts and even more asinine demands.
Crooks, the lot of them.
Read the rest of Hunter's post here.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Republicans Playing Politics With The Future of America?
As Pat Garofalo points out at Think Progress, "when the Republicans held both chambers of Congress from 2003 to 2006, and had a Republican in the White House, they not only didn’t approve a balanced budget amendment, they never even held a vote on it."
Wait! You mean that the debt ceiling frenzy of the last few months is just political posturing to gain advantages for the people the Republican party truly represents, i.e. the super-rich? Get out of here!
Wait! You mean that the debt ceiling frenzy of the last few months is just political posturing to gain advantages for the people the Republican party truly represents, i.e. the super-rich? Get out of here!
The Job Creation Myth
Hello! I just stumbled across a post on the "job creators" myth on the blog of a radio personality from St. Louis: Paul Harris. The guy has the right ideas about job creators and he hosts a show on poker. How bad could he be?
Businessweek: Republican Leaders Voted for Debt They Blame on Obama
Via Joan McCarter of the Daily Kos:
Businessweek: Republican leaders voted for debt they blame on Obama.
No big news there: Republicans are behaving like the hypocrites they are. But look at the chart in McCarter's post. And memorize it. And print it. And show it to all the Republicans and Libertarians and Ayn Randers who will no doubt try to lecture on out-of-hand spending and the problem is not on the revenue side, and all like bullshit.
You should be tired. You should get mad. You should take to the streets, like they do in the rest of the world when they learn the politicians are playing games with their future. And you should rebel against this kind of hypocrisy and stomp it out. Or it will continue to grow like an incurable cancer in your lives.
Businessweek: Republican leaders voted for debt they blame on Obama.
No big news there: Republicans are behaving like the hypocrites they are. But look at the chart in McCarter's post. And memorize it. And print it. And show it to all the Republicans and Libertarians and Ayn Randers who will no doubt try to lecture on out-of-hand spending and the problem is not on the revenue side, and all like bullshit.
You should be tired. You should get mad. You should take to the streets, like they do in the rest of the world when they learn the politicians are playing games with their future. And you should rebel against this kind of hypocrisy and stomp it out. Or it will continue to grow like an incurable cancer in your lives.
Another Open Letter to President Obama
Dear Mr. President.
Stop pussyfooting: Raise the damn debt ceiling already. You are a constitutional scholar, so you should know that the Constitution of the United States says that the national debt shall not be questioned. And, in fact, it never was. Particularly, it never was questioned by your opponents, who are now posturing as the most principled financial sages when in fact they raised the debt ceiling over and over again without batting an eyelid for decades.
You, Mr. President, like to call yourself "the adult in the room". That may be so. But you are not behaving like the type of adult anyone should take as an example. You like to say that you are seeking compromise because the House is in the hands of your opposition. It is true now, but it was not when you negotiated health care reform from a losing position, after surrendering to every demand your opponents made of you, even when the Democratic Party held the majority in both chambers of Congress.
Mr. President: If your goal was to show that there is nothing Republicans will say yes to, you have proved your point. Enough already. Let the chips fall where they may but, for our sake, it's time to move on.
Be the man we thought we helped elect. For once. Please. Or the only good thing that I'll be able to say about your presidency is that at least you weren't McCain.
Sincerely,
[Name withheld]
Stop pussyfooting: Raise the damn debt ceiling already. You are a constitutional scholar, so you should know that the Constitution of the United States says that the national debt shall not be questioned. And, in fact, it never was. Particularly, it never was questioned by your opponents, who are now posturing as the most principled financial sages when in fact they raised the debt ceiling over and over again without batting an eyelid for decades.
You, Mr. President, like to call yourself "the adult in the room". That may be so. But you are not behaving like the type of adult anyone should take as an example. You like to say that you are seeking compromise because the House is in the hands of your opposition. It is true now, but it was not when you negotiated health care reform from a losing position, after surrendering to every demand your opponents made of you, even when the Democratic Party held the majority in both chambers of Congress.
Mr. President: If your goal was to show that there is nothing Republicans will say yes to, you have proved your point. Enough already. Let the chips fall where they may but, for our sake, it's time to move on.
Be the man we thought we helped elect. For once. Please. Or the only good thing that I'll be able to say about your presidency is that at least you weren't McCain.
Sincerely,
[Name withheld]
Monday, July 18, 2011
Here Are Your Job Creators
When Republicans say that we can't raise taxes on the rich because they are the job creators, they must be thinking of these two:
Borders
Cisco
And remember, the idea is that not raising taxes is the key to job creation. It makes you laugh when you look at this.
And I am listening to Grover Norquist, the insufferable servant to the powerful who is saying that government should not raise taxes under any circumstances, including the debt ceiling deal proposed by the President, which says raise taxes one dollar for every four in spending cuts. Go to hell, Grover.
Borders
Cisco
And remember, the idea is that not raising taxes is the key to job creation. It makes you laugh when you look at this.
And I am listening to Grover Norquist, the insufferable servant to the powerful who is saying that government should not raise taxes under any circumstances, including the debt ceiling deal proposed by the President, which says raise taxes one dollar for every four in spending cuts. Go to hell, Grover.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
On The Fantasy That "Taxing Job Creators Is Wrong " (And Why, Poor Things, We Should Not Raise Taxes on Them)
The key to achieving success, motivational speakers and business leaders will tell you, is being able to envision the future you want to achieve for yourself. Everybody can start a successful company and contribute to the success of others by creating jobs and opportunities for them. All you have to do is dream big, think bigger, and pursue your goal with a singularity of intent. Such is the power of the myth of America, the land of opportunity, and so is born the myth of the "small-business job-creator" that Republicans mythicize. Perhaps it is so. Perhaps, and I don't for one believe it--Ayn Rand was right in dividing individuals into the equivalent of superhuman achievers, forces of nature that cannot and should not be messed with on the one hand and leeches on the other. But--and I don't know about you--I am starting to get beyond annoyed at hearing this little nugget of conservative PR: "This is the exactly the wrong time to raise taxes on 'job creators'."
The logic of this insidious, fallacious, and dishonest argument goes more or less like this: the economy is in deep trouble, unemployment is high, people need jobs, and raising taxes on those who are in a position to create jobs is plain dumb." Even at first blush there are so many things wrong with this mendacious line of thinking that one does not know where to begin rebutting it. But I'll try.
We'll start with 9/11. When 9/11 hit, the economy was already in a recession, or so Bush-friendly economists liked to point out. To be fair, it is not just Bush-friendly economists who agree with the basic idea that the economy was already in a period of downturn when Bush inherited the presidency, from Clinton and from the Supreme Court. So be it. So, enter George Dumbya. He almost immediately lowered taxes. On everyone, sure, but much more for the benefit of the wealthiest Americans. From here on, we'll refer to these wealthy Americans as "job creators", both to please conservatives and because living in a fantasy is sometime a necessary refuge from everyday life (particularly the type of live engineered by conservatives). It was supposed to be a temporary thing to help the country recover after 9/11, but you know how things go. Nothing in life is as permanent as the supposedly temporary.
Anyway, at the end of George Dumbya's eight years at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the net job creation (1st term in office vs. last term in office) amounted to 3 million, give or take a few heads. That's meager, particularly at a time when taxes were the lowest since Ronald Reagan's last year in office. Compare that figure with the 23 million jobs created under 8 years of Bill Clinton. Now add to that the fact that during the same time that jobs grew by 3 million (or +2.3% in term of payroll expansion) the population grew by 22 million, or 7.7%, and you will see that job creation did even remotely keep up with population expansion. (Under Clinton the population grew more rapidly, by 25.2 million or 8.9%, but roughly one job was created for each new arrival).
When George Dumbya left office, he left Obama a country in shambles. (Be it known that I think President Obama did a horrid job during the first 2.5 years in office.) Taxes under the new president remained untouched for the first 2.5 years, and yet joblessness continued to grow, from 7.8% when he came into office, to the current 9.2%.
To recap: taxes have remained at their lowest than at any time since Reagan's last year in office for the last 10 years or so, but the unemployment rate has continued to rise--from 4.2% when Bush came into office to 9.2% under Obama at present. Aside from the not tiny but conveniently overlooked fact (by conservatives) that most of this rise in unemployment came under George Dumbya (4.2% when he arrived, 7.8% when he left eight years later = +3.6%), where are the jobs that the job creators should have created under the most favorable tax treatment of them in 30 years? It seems that the correlation between low individual tax rates and job creation is dogmatic at best.
But, you will say, the economy is not doing well, so Obama should actually lower taxes. Really? How low is low enough for jobs to magically start appearing? There is only one thing that's worse than making the same mistake over and over again and expecting different results: doubling up on the same mistake.
But, you might also add in a desperate attempt to save the conservative day, corporate income taxes are very high. You would say that because you probably heard that corporate taxes in the United States are among the highest in the industrialized world. Of course, the fact that you heard it does not means that it is true; it is simply a consequence of the existence of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the Republican party. Simply hearing/saying it though doeth not truth make.
Consider, if you will, the fact that Citizens for Tax Justice estimated that only Icelandic companies pay lower income taxes than U.S. companies [pdf reader required] (for the 28 OECD countries for which data are available). Also, check out this list of 15 tax escape artists, compiled by The Daily Beast. Only the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Republican congressmen/women, and Joe the Plumber could say with a straight face that taxes are killing American jobs.
What in fact is killing good American jobs is the fact that the policies promoted by Congress after Congress make it easy, even rewarding, for American companies to export capital, and the jobs that go with it, overseas. What is killing good American jobs is the fact that conservatives have been waging an all-out war on unions and the middle-class ever since Ronald Reagan took office and that there is no countervailing force to the power of corporations. The United States have by and large stopped making added-value products, and they are no longer competitive against the rising competition of places like China and India, to name but two where labor is a slave-based commodity. The one thing that is not killing jobs is the effective tax rate that corporations pay, thanks to the loopholes that they themselves have written into the tax code only to cheat us out of what we should reasonably be able to expect from in return for all the legally-sanctioned tax breaks they have already been granted.
So what could a good government do to reverse the death spiral in which the American economy and labor market seem trapped?
To begin with, the last thing it should do is listen to the deficit hawks who say that we should cut spending and have balanced budgets without raising taxes. The exact opposite is true. Sure, in a strong economy we could in theory leave all in the hands of the so-called free-market (another expression as void of practical meaning as job creators). But what about the economy we currently "enjoy", as opposed to the economy we are asked to fantasize about? The economy we have is one in which everyone knows someone who is unemployed, as opposed to the fictional economy where Joe the Plumber, the plumber without a plumbing license, can talk about the business he is trying to protect from Obama's socialism as if it existed anywhere in the real world instead of being a figment of his closed, ignorant, and fevered mind?
In an economic situation such as our present one, you should learn to recognize the government as the buyer of last resort. When no one wants to buy or spend money, when corporations have more incentive in investing outside of the United States, the government could and should stimulate the economy by thinking big, by building big things, renewing infrastructure, public education, transportation routes and systems, that sort of thing. Instead, the power to think big has been squeezed out of the minds of our leaders to such an extent that they are incapable of simply following the successful steps laid out by their predecessors in the successful New Deal and Great Society eras.
The government could and should also disincentivize the pernicious but consolidated practice of American companies that follow profits anywhere profits can be pursued, regardless of the methods used and the damage requisite in reaping them. It could also raise taxes a bit and--yes--redistribute it (!) to those who could pump it back into the economy by simply purchasing life's necessities that they currently cannot afford.
A fair government could also punish, instead of rewarding them, those who gamble with other people's money because they know that when their Ponzi scheme comes to light they can can get away with a slap on the wrists and a bailout. It could, in my dream world at least, bolster the middle-class confidence by decreasing the eligibility age for Medicare, instead of increasing it; that move alone might help people to leave a job they are currently hanging on to only because they need to make it to age 65, opening job opportunities for those who are currently relying on public money to outlast the doldrums. It could, ideally, assure the nation that no changes are going to be made to the benefit structure of Social Security until the last wasted penny has been cut from the D.O.D., or until the last cent has been recovered from the tax cheats that game the system to pay no income tax on epochal profits.
That, and not the mythical faculties of job creators, is something worth fantasizing about. Why, if you can dream about it, you might even be able to make it come true.
The logic of this insidious, fallacious, and dishonest argument goes more or less like this: the economy is in deep trouble, unemployment is high, people need jobs, and raising taxes on those who are in a position to create jobs is plain dumb." Even at first blush there are so many things wrong with this mendacious line of thinking that one does not know where to begin rebutting it. But I'll try.
We'll start with 9/11. When 9/11 hit, the economy was already in a recession, or so Bush-friendly economists liked to point out. To be fair, it is not just Bush-friendly economists who agree with the basic idea that the economy was already in a period of downturn when Bush inherited the presidency, from Clinton and from the Supreme Court. So be it. So, enter George Dumbya. He almost immediately lowered taxes. On everyone, sure, but much more for the benefit of the wealthiest Americans. From here on, we'll refer to these wealthy Americans as "job creators", both to please conservatives and because living in a fantasy is sometime a necessary refuge from everyday life (particularly the type of live engineered by conservatives). It was supposed to be a temporary thing to help the country recover after 9/11, but you know how things go. Nothing in life is as permanent as the supposedly temporary.
Anyway, at the end of George Dumbya's eight years at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the net job creation (1st term in office vs. last term in office) amounted to 3 million, give or take a few heads. That's meager, particularly at a time when taxes were the lowest since Ronald Reagan's last year in office. Compare that figure with the 23 million jobs created under 8 years of Bill Clinton. Now add to that the fact that during the same time that jobs grew by 3 million (or +2.3% in term of payroll expansion) the population grew by 22 million, or 7.7%, and you will see that job creation did even remotely keep up with population expansion. (Under Clinton the population grew more rapidly, by 25.2 million or 8.9%, but roughly one job was created for each new arrival).
When George Dumbya left office, he left Obama a country in shambles. (Be it known that I think President Obama did a horrid job during the first 2.5 years in office.) Taxes under the new president remained untouched for the first 2.5 years, and yet joblessness continued to grow, from 7.8% when he came into office, to the current 9.2%.
To recap: taxes have remained at their lowest than at any time since Reagan's last year in office for the last 10 years or so, but the unemployment rate has continued to rise--from 4.2% when Bush came into office to 9.2% under Obama at present. Aside from the not tiny but conveniently overlooked fact (by conservatives) that most of this rise in unemployment came under George Dumbya (4.2% when he arrived, 7.8% when he left eight years later = +3.6%), where are the jobs that the job creators should have created under the most favorable tax treatment of them in 30 years? It seems that the correlation between low individual tax rates and job creation is dogmatic at best.
But, you will say, the economy is not doing well, so Obama should actually lower taxes. Really? How low is low enough for jobs to magically start appearing? There is only one thing that's worse than making the same mistake over and over again and expecting different results: doubling up on the same mistake.
But, you might also add in a desperate attempt to save the conservative day, corporate income taxes are very high. You would say that because you probably heard that corporate taxes in the United States are among the highest in the industrialized world. Of course, the fact that you heard it does not means that it is true; it is simply a consequence of the existence of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the Republican party. Simply hearing/saying it though doeth not truth make.
Consider, if you will, the fact that Citizens for Tax Justice estimated that only Icelandic companies pay lower income taxes than U.S. companies [pdf reader required] (for the 28 OECD countries for which data are available). Also, check out this list of 15 tax escape artists, compiled by The Daily Beast. Only the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Republican congressmen/women, and Joe the Plumber could say with a straight face that taxes are killing American jobs.
What in fact is killing good American jobs is the fact that the policies promoted by Congress after Congress make it easy, even rewarding, for American companies to export capital, and the jobs that go with it, overseas. What is killing good American jobs is the fact that conservatives have been waging an all-out war on unions and the middle-class ever since Ronald Reagan took office and that there is no countervailing force to the power of corporations. The United States have by and large stopped making added-value products, and they are no longer competitive against the rising competition of places like China and India, to name but two where labor is a slave-based commodity. The one thing that is not killing jobs is the effective tax rate that corporations pay, thanks to the loopholes that they themselves have written into the tax code only to cheat us out of what we should reasonably be able to expect from in return for all the legally-sanctioned tax breaks they have already been granted.
So what could a good government do to reverse the death spiral in which the American economy and labor market seem trapped?
To begin with, the last thing it should do is listen to the deficit hawks who say that we should cut spending and have balanced budgets without raising taxes. The exact opposite is true. Sure, in a strong economy we could in theory leave all in the hands of the so-called free-market (another expression as void of practical meaning as job creators). But what about the economy we currently "enjoy", as opposed to the economy we are asked to fantasize about? The economy we have is one in which everyone knows someone who is unemployed, as opposed to the fictional economy where Joe the Plumber, the plumber without a plumbing license, can talk about the business he is trying to protect from Obama's socialism as if it existed anywhere in the real world instead of being a figment of his closed, ignorant, and fevered mind?
In an economic situation such as our present one, you should learn to recognize the government as the buyer of last resort. When no one wants to buy or spend money, when corporations have more incentive in investing outside of the United States, the government could and should stimulate the economy by thinking big, by building big things, renewing infrastructure, public education, transportation routes and systems, that sort of thing. Instead, the power to think big has been squeezed out of the minds of our leaders to such an extent that they are incapable of simply following the successful steps laid out by their predecessors in the successful New Deal and Great Society eras.
The government could and should also disincentivize the pernicious but consolidated practice of American companies that follow profits anywhere profits can be pursued, regardless of the methods used and the damage requisite in reaping them. It could also raise taxes a bit and--yes--redistribute it (!) to those who could pump it back into the economy by simply purchasing life's necessities that they currently cannot afford.
A fair government could also punish, instead of rewarding them, those who gamble with other people's money because they know that when their Ponzi scheme comes to light they can can get away with a slap on the wrists and a bailout. It could, in my dream world at least, bolster the middle-class confidence by decreasing the eligibility age for Medicare, instead of increasing it; that move alone might help people to leave a job they are currently hanging on to only because they need to make it to age 65, opening job opportunities for those who are currently relying on public money to outlast the doldrums. It could, ideally, assure the nation that no changes are going to be made to the benefit structure of Social Security until the last wasted penny has been cut from the D.O.D., or until the last cent has been recovered from the tax cheats that game the system to pay no income tax on epochal profits.
That, and not the mythical faculties of job creators, is something worth fantasizing about. Why, if you can dream about it, you might even be able to make it come true.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Mowing Down Everything That Stands In The Way Of Unreason
Republicans and their corporate overlords have a pretty clear agenda: to mow down everything that stands in the way of their unreasonable claims and policies.
Scientist overwhelmingly agree that humans influence the climate? Defund science.
Public schools teach curricula that include evolution but not creationism and it's younger sibling, intelligent design? Defund public schools.
Research shows that the risk of unwanted pregnancy in sexually active young women is to make cheap contraceptives available? Defund Planned Parenthood and sex education.
The list of such examples is endless.
The goal of the Republican Party and of its funders is to remove all obstacles to unfettered corporate domination of our lives, to create an endless reservoir of easily replaceable and uneducated laborers (hence the drive to push the cost of tuition up and to eliminate public education as we know it), to destroy critical thinking, to establish a social climate which makes it easier to control individuals by making them live in fear of real and imaginary threats, and to control people's sexuality, which--as Orwell understood--is the primitive seed and the last bastion of individual freedom.
It does not come as a surprise, then, that the great Republican minds that control the House of Representatives--in particular those that inhabit the House Appropriation Committee--have devised yet another scheme to demolish science that stands in the way of their goal. As the Huffington Post reports
If numbers, real numbers, stand in the way of your plan, just stop collecting them, or weaken our ability to collect them and analyze them meaningfully. Then your opponents will have nothing on which they can base their criticism of your policies, because it will no longer be a case of what you say versus facts; it will be a case of he says, she says. Absent hard data, factual findings and scientific analysis truth will cease to have any meaning. That is what Republicans understand and what they have been working to achieve since at least the Reagan presidency. It's just a fact, and if they have their way, they'll make it disappear, too.
Scientist overwhelmingly agree that humans influence the climate? Defund science.
Public schools teach curricula that include evolution but not creationism and it's younger sibling, intelligent design? Defund public schools.
Research shows that the risk of unwanted pregnancy in sexually active young women is to make cheap contraceptives available? Defund Planned Parenthood and sex education.
The list of such examples is endless.
The goal of the Republican Party and of its funders is to remove all obstacles to unfettered corporate domination of our lives, to create an endless reservoir of easily replaceable and uneducated laborers (hence the drive to push the cost of tuition up and to eliminate public education as we know it), to destroy critical thinking, to establish a social climate which makes it easier to control individuals by making them live in fear of real and imaginary threats, and to control people's sexuality, which--as Orwell understood--is the primitive seed and the last bastion of individual freedom.
It does not come as a surprise, then, that the great Republican minds that control the House of Representatives--in particular those that inhabit the House Appropriation Committee--have devised yet another scheme to demolish science that stands in the way of their goal. As the Huffington Post reports
The House Appropriations Committee is set to put the final touches on a funding bill Wednesday that proposes to slash the government's data collection arm by 25 percent -- a cut that economists and statistics experts say could end up costing taxpayers and businesses billions.
"It's essentially turning out the lights as economic policymakers are trying to do their work," said Andrew Reamer, a George Washington University professor who focuses on economics and U.S. competitiveness.
[...] the cuts in question target the Commerce Department's Census Bureau -- recently one of the bogeyman of the right. The cuts would take effect in October, leaving the bureau little time even to plan to mitigate the impacts.
[...]
"[The cuts] would have major, permanent impacts on the nation's economic and demographic statistics," the bureau said, according to Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), a member and past chair of the House Joint Economic Committee.
If numbers, real numbers, stand in the way of your plan, just stop collecting them, or weaken our ability to collect them and analyze them meaningfully. Then your opponents will have nothing on which they can base their criticism of your policies, because it will no longer be a case of what you say versus facts; it will be a case of he says, she says. Absent hard data, factual findings and scientific analysis truth will cease to have any meaning. That is what Republicans understand and what they have been working to achieve since at least the Reagan presidency. It's just a fact, and if they have their way, they'll make it disappear, too.
An Open Letter to President Obama
Mr. President:
I am a 46 year-old male who understands that if a couple of Presidents like you should succeed you, I will not retire at 65, nor probably at 70. Most likely, I will not retire in the United States; if I have enough to retire on anywhere else, I will have to leave, my money with me.
If you are really thinking of raising the eligibility age for Medicare and of cutting Social Security Benefits in your desire to be re-elected or to appear as an adult who is capable of striking political compromise with unrelenting opponents, then know this: you are a traitor.
If you think that traitor is too strong a word, please consider this: In doing what you propose, why even in simply proposing it, you are betraying the promise that past generations have made to future ones, that they would get what they had been promised, when they were due to get it.
Worse, you are choosing to cut benefits (because a delayed benefit or a smaller benefit are cuts) instead of going to get the money we'd need to keep things intact where you should be looking for it: reducing the size and the budget of the military, which are ridiculously bloated; going after corporations who export not only profits (to tropical tax havens), but American jobs (read "lives); taxing the truly rich at rates that would be higher than they have been since President Clinton left office, but still lower than the rates the rich have paid, even for most of the Reagan presidency. Those, may I suggest, are a few things that a progressive President would have fought for. Instead, you are ready to sacrifice the futures of people who have already sacrificed much and have little left to look forward but the hope of relative tranquility in retirement. In essence, you are saying to them that seniors have it too good, and that delaying their life-saving benefits for two years would be a step in the right direction.
If that is not betrayal, Mr. President, I don't know what is.
Moreover, the message you are sending to those who would vote for you or any other Democrat is this: Why bother? If electing a Democrat means that things will get worse just a little slower than under a Republican, and not better, than you are giving your party's potential electors a good reason not to bother. In fact, perhaps it would be better if the country went to hell faster, under a series of Republicans. That way we'll find out quicker where rock bottom is, and what will happen when we hit it.
I am a 46 year-old male who understands that if a couple of Presidents like you should succeed you, I will not retire at 65, nor probably at 70. Most likely, I will not retire in the United States; if I have enough to retire on anywhere else, I will have to leave, my money with me.
If you are really thinking of raising the eligibility age for Medicare and of cutting Social Security Benefits in your desire to be re-elected or to appear as an adult who is capable of striking political compromise with unrelenting opponents, then know this: you are a traitor.
If you think that traitor is too strong a word, please consider this: In doing what you propose, why even in simply proposing it, you are betraying the promise that past generations have made to future ones, that they would get what they had been promised, when they were due to get it.
Worse, you are choosing to cut benefits (because a delayed benefit or a smaller benefit are cuts) instead of going to get the money we'd need to keep things intact where you should be looking for it: reducing the size and the budget of the military, which are ridiculously bloated; going after corporations who export not only profits (to tropical tax havens), but American jobs (read "lives); taxing the truly rich at rates that would be higher than they have been since President Clinton left office, but still lower than the rates the rich have paid, even for most of the Reagan presidency. Those, may I suggest, are a few things that a progressive President would have fought for. Instead, you are ready to sacrifice the futures of people who have already sacrificed much and have little left to look forward but the hope of relative tranquility in retirement. In essence, you are saying to them that seniors have it too good, and that delaying their life-saving benefits for two years would be a step in the right direction.
If that is not betrayal, Mr. President, I don't know what is.
Moreover, the message you are sending to those who would vote for you or any other Democrat is this: Why bother? If electing a Democrat means that things will get worse just a little slower than under a Republican, and not better, than you are giving your party's potential electors a good reason not to bother. In fact, perhaps it would be better if the country went to hell faster, under a series of Republicans. That way we'll find out quicker where rock bottom is, and what will happen when we hit it.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Planned Parenthood Defunded in New Hampshire
Another state has joined the long string of states who have decided to defund Planned Parenthood. It's New Hampshire this time. But that is not the news. This is:
The councilman's comments are insensitive, sexist, and plainly dumb.
"If THEY want to have a good time..."? Let's remind the Councilman that no abortion can follow lesbian intercourse. Once we have established that, let's then remind the councilman that in the type of intercourse he presumably prefers a man (at least) has to be involved. Sure, the councilman could possibly have meant that both the man and the woman who have unprotected sex are equally to blame. Call it a hunch, though: I will venture that when the councilman said "they" he was only thinking of the female half of the couple.
If you are a woman, or if you are a man who has a mother, sister or daughter, know this: defunding Planned Parenthood hits the poor the most, and does not only defund abortion; it also defunds access to cheap contraception, pap smears, STD testing, psychological assistance to women. That's why saying "If they want to have fun..." is not only sexist, it's also dumb. Councilman Wieczorek and the others on the New Hampshire Executive Council who voted to cancel the state's contract with Planned Parenthood did not simply defund "fun", they also defunded health care. Which is par for the course for socially conservative men and women in this country and for the Republicans who choose to put corporate health ahead of human health on a daily basis.
Note to Republican voters: the percentage of Planned Parenthood's work devoted to abortion services is 3%. The other 97% is not. If you agree with the New Hampshire Executive Concil's decision not on fiscal grounds, but on moral grounds, then could you please consider the greater good of the other people you are hurting? Oh, I forgot, you are Republicans. Never mind.
Councilor Raymond Wieczorek of Manchester added that he opposed funding for birth control and condoms altogether. "If they want to have a good time, why not let them pay for it?" he told the Concord Monitor last week. [via Huffington Post]
The councilman's comments are insensitive, sexist, and plainly dumb.
"If THEY want to have a good time..."? Let's remind the Councilman that no abortion can follow lesbian intercourse. Once we have established that, let's then remind the councilman that in the type of intercourse he presumably prefers a man (at least) has to be involved. Sure, the councilman could possibly have meant that both the man and the woman who have unprotected sex are equally to blame. Call it a hunch, though: I will venture that when the councilman said "they" he was only thinking of the female half of the couple.
If you are a woman, or if you are a man who has a mother, sister or daughter, know this: defunding Planned Parenthood hits the poor the most, and does not only defund abortion; it also defunds access to cheap contraception, pap smears, STD testing, psychological assistance to women. That's why saying "If they want to have fun..." is not only sexist, it's also dumb. Councilman Wieczorek and the others on the New Hampshire Executive Council who voted to cancel the state's contract with Planned Parenthood did not simply defund "fun", they also defunded health care. Which is par for the course for socially conservative men and women in this country and for the Republicans who choose to put corporate health ahead of human health on a daily basis.
Note to Republican voters: the percentage of Planned Parenthood's work devoted to abortion services is 3%. The other 97% is not. If you agree with the New Hampshire Executive Concil's decision not on fiscal grounds, but on moral grounds, then could you please consider the greater good of the other people you are hurting? Oh, I forgot, you are Republicans. Never mind.
What Do You Call 288 People Who Work Tirelessly Against 98% Of Americans?
Congressional Republicans AND the President of the United States, that's what you call them. Funny how during the 2008 Presidential campaign, Republicans liked to call then Senator Obama the most liberal guy in the U.S. Senate. You know, a socialist.
But now, as the Huffington Post's Sam Stein reports, it turns out that Obama offered to raise Medicare eligibility age as part of grand debt deal. No, your eyes are not failing you.
Two years ago, this guy had the opportunity to lower the Medicare eligibility age when health care reform was on the table. Economist after economist after health care expert indicated that lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55 would have done more to lower health care costs in the country than the bill that actually made it into law. Many went so far as saying that Medicare For All would have been the best way to address the health care crisis that this country faced and is still facing. But the President, or Traitor-in-Chief, as I will from now on refer to him, gave the negotiating platform away to prove how liberal he was, presumably.
Two years later, and he still has not stopped betraying the people who put all their faith in him after eight years of nation-wrecking at the ends of George W. Doofus and Dick(head) Chain-him (and waterboard him, too, while you're at it). Not only did Obama blow the best chance this country has ever had for aligning itself with the likes of Germany and Japan, the countries that the best generation had reduced to rubble but 66 years ago or so, in providing decent, sure, and affordable health care to everyone; he apparently decided that seniors have it too good, and that delaying their life-saving benefits for two years would be a step in the right direction. Balancing the budget on the back of seniors? Good move, genius.
We do not need a Republican president in 2012. We need a Democrat with balls, a spine, and a heart for the little guy. Primary challenge, anyone?
But now, as the Huffington Post's Sam Stein reports, it turns out that Obama offered to raise Medicare eligibility age as part of grand debt deal. No, your eyes are not failing you.
Two years ago, this guy had the opportunity to lower the Medicare eligibility age when health care reform was on the table. Economist after economist after health care expert indicated that lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55 would have done more to lower health care costs in the country than the bill that actually made it into law. Many went so far as saying that Medicare For All would have been the best way to address the health care crisis that this country faced and is still facing. But the President, or Traitor-in-Chief, as I will from now on refer to him, gave the negotiating platform away to prove how liberal he was, presumably.
Two years later, and he still has not stopped betraying the people who put all their faith in him after eight years of nation-wrecking at the ends of George W. Doofus and Dick(head) Chain-him (and waterboard him, too, while you're at it). Not only did Obama blow the best chance this country has ever had for aligning itself with the likes of Germany and Japan, the countries that the best generation had reduced to rubble but 66 years ago or so, in providing decent, sure, and affordable health care to everyone; he apparently decided that seniors have it too good, and that delaying their life-saving benefits for two years would be a step in the right direction. Balancing the budget on the back of seniors? Good move, genius.
We do not need a Republican president in 2012. We need a Democrat with balls, a spine, and a heart for the little guy. Primary challenge, anyone?
Sunday, July 10, 2011
What Do You Call 287 People Who Work Tirelessly Against 98% Of Americans?
Congressional Republicans, that's what you call them.
They will stop at nothing in order to preserve privileges for the wealthiest 2% of Americans, particularly for the top 1%, and even more so for the top 0.01%.
They will slash aid to the poor, to students, to most wage earners, and they will seek to destroy what's left of the unions, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, government oversight, public safety, health care, public transportation, environmental protections, education, you name it. They will protect at all costs the "right" of PhRMA, Big Oil, hedge fund managers, CEOs, big agribusiness, defense contractors, and transnational corporations to get away with paying less taxes than anyone in the world except for Iceland and Norway, to own tax-sheltered private jets and to conceal their income in tropical tax havens.
They will use anything they can in pursuit of their goals, aided and abetted by the criminally spineless or stupid president du jour, by the stupidity of almost half the electorate, which includes a stupefyingly high number hypocritical rubes, ignorant dupes, and ready-to-be-raptured imbeciles, and by too many incompetent, uninquisitive, or sympathetic media figures. Not to mention the many idiots on the other side of the political spectrum who believe that in order to get elected they have to move further to the right, instead of to the left.
It's a pretty vicious cycle, which is made possible to a large degree by timid Democrats like our current president, who fail to see that they are playing into the Republican devils' hands every time they refuse to act boldly. Tinkering at the edges of a failing system, they are doomed to fail and sink us deeper. As they do, the public is made more pliable to the Republican sirens who say that the only way out of the mess is to further cut taxes for the richest 1% of the population, the so called job-creators. When no jobs are created, and things get worse after a new cycle of Republican rule, Democrats get another stab at fixing things, except that they are apparently incapable of learning from their previous failures and they end up repeating the same mistakes and fail again. When they get clobbered in the next election cycle, the lesson they learn is not that they did not act boldly enough, but that they did not become move enough to the right. With every iteration of this vicious cycle, the political balance swings further to the right, the conquests of the New Deal and the Great Society are further eroded, and things get inevitably worse.
Meanwhile, other nations are not waiting for Americans to catch on to the Republican scheme and leave them gasping for air in the dust(bin) of history.
It is amazing that most people on the right believe that the New World Order is a liberal scheme conceived by the Buffets and the Soroses of the world, when in fact it is thriving thanks to the efforts of people like Grover Norquist, the Bushes, the Boehners, the Cantors, the Thomases, the Roberts and the Scalias of the world, with the help of traitors to the Democratic cause like Blanche Lincoln and Max Baucus, to name just two shameful examples. Their goal is to transform as much of the laboring world into an endless reservoir of modern slaves who toil their lives away for the benefit of the new slaveholders (corporations), only to be replaced by new blood when the old has been spilled.
287 (give or take a few) is the number of actors it takes to keep a nation in yoke for the benefit of "the chosen ones". You may call them Republicans, saint patrons of the oligarchs, or The Commission, as you like. They redistribute wealth to the top, the robber baron way, all the while decrying the dangers of socialism and statism. And a complicit electorate, at least a good half of the electorate, blesses their efforts year in, year out.
They will stop at nothing in order to preserve privileges for the wealthiest 2% of Americans, particularly for the top 1%, and even more so for the top 0.01%.
They will slash aid to the poor, to students, to most wage earners, and they will seek to destroy what's left of the unions, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, government oversight, public safety, health care, public transportation, environmental protections, education, you name it. They will protect at all costs the "right" of PhRMA, Big Oil, hedge fund managers, CEOs, big agribusiness, defense contractors, and transnational corporations to get away with paying less taxes than anyone in the world except for Iceland and Norway, to own tax-sheltered private jets and to conceal their income in tropical tax havens.
They will use anything they can in pursuit of their goals, aided and abetted by the criminally spineless or stupid president du jour, by the stupidity of almost half the electorate, which includes a stupefyingly high number hypocritical rubes, ignorant dupes, and ready-to-be-raptured imbeciles, and by too many incompetent, uninquisitive, or sympathetic media figures. Not to mention the many idiots on the other side of the political spectrum who believe that in order to get elected they have to move further to the right, instead of to the left.
It's a pretty vicious cycle, which is made possible to a large degree by timid Democrats like our current president, who fail to see that they are playing into the Republican devils' hands every time they refuse to act boldly. Tinkering at the edges of a failing system, they are doomed to fail and sink us deeper. As they do, the public is made more pliable to the Republican sirens who say that the only way out of the mess is to further cut taxes for the richest 1% of the population, the so called job-creators. When no jobs are created, and things get worse after a new cycle of Republican rule, Democrats get another stab at fixing things, except that they are apparently incapable of learning from their previous failures and they end up repeating the same mistakes and fail again. When they get clobbered in the next election cycle, the lesson they learn is not that they did not act boldly enough, but that they did not become move enough to the right. With every iteration of this vicious cycle, the political balance swings further to the right, the conquests of the New Deal and the Great Society are further eroded, and things get inevitably worse.
Meanwhile, other nations are not waiting for Americans to catch on to the Republican scheme and leave them gasping for air in the dust(bin) of history.
It is amazing that most people on the right believe that the New World Order is a liberal scheme conceived by the Buffets and the Soroses of the world, when in fact it is thriving thanks to the efforts of people like Grover Norquist, the Bushes, the Boehners, the Cantors, the Thomases, the Roberts and the Scalias of the world, with the help of traitors to the Democratic cause like Blanche Lincoln and Max Baucus, to name just two shameful examples. Their goal is to transform as much of the laboring world into an endless reservoir of modern slaves who toil their lives away for the benefit of the new slaveholders (corporations), only to be replaced by new blood when the old has been spilled.
287 (give or take a few) is the number of actors it takes to keep a nation in yoke for the benefit of "the chosen ones". You may call them Republicans, saint patrons of the oligarchs, or The Commission, as you like. They redistribute wealth to the top, the robber baron way, all the while decrying the dangers of socialism and statism. And a complicit electorate, at least a good half of the electorate, blesses their efforts year in, year out.
Republican Voters Are Enablers Of Their Own (And Everybody Else's) Misery
I think the title of this post encapsulates the jist of yesterday's final New Rule on Bill Maher's Real Time in the title of the post.
Friday, July 08, 2011
Obama Is A Timid Right-Leaning Centrist Fool
The jobs report for June is out, and it's not good. Meanwhile the President continues to be a timid fool about how to boost employment. What we need is a national jobs program to rebuild infrastructure and help consumer spending. Many authoritative economists had warned him that he should have focused on boosting employment by initiating a recovery program centered around rebuilding and renewing America's crumbling infrastructure, But no, the timid fool has let Republican hijack the spotlight away from job creation and move it to the budget, the debt ceiling, and mounting deficits. So government jobs have actually declined in the 2 1/2 years Obama has been president.
I am not even sure he means well any more. He is just another centrist fool in a long string of foolish presidents. Makes Nixon and Carter look like progressive giants.
I am not even sure he means well any more. He is just another centrist fool in a long string of foolish presidents. Makes Nixon and Carter look like progressive giants.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Surprise, Surprise? Nah!
President Obama and Congressional Democrats tried to pass (minor) health insurance reform for health care reform. Anyone who followed things closely could have told you that it was, for the most part, a sham, a scheme aimed at giving the impression of taking action when in fact the goal was to leave things as they were and, if possible, to expand the revenues of a powerful industry. Mission accomplished, for the industry at least. For Americans? Who are we kidding?
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
The Lone Tree Declaration Dissected
The Constructive Curmudgeon re-posted The Lone Tree Declaration, which is a conservative manifesto "released in conjunction with the upcoming Western Conservative Summit, sponsored by Colorado Christian University."
Since I live just a few miles from Lone Tree, I feel I have a stake in this. Though the Declaration, which has a thinly-veiled undercurrent of xenophobia, is obviously not representative of the views of all Coloradans (or Lone-Tree-ers), it nonetheless will get the endorsement of many, particularly many who are easily swayed by declarations which appeal to the limbic system more than to the cerebral cortex. I thought of sending the following response to the blog where I found the Declaration, but then I thought I'd rather post here instead. So here's the point-by-point response.
1) It will be news to the liberals in this country that adhering to the allegedly (and hazily-defined or undefined) "self-evident truths of the American Founding" leads to conservatism.
2) It will be news, and unflattering news at that, to the Native-Americans, the Asians, Africans, the millions of immigrants from Eastern Europe, and many more, that "we" are Westerners.
3) You probably have to be a signatory of the Declaration to see freedom in the balance and liberty under a mounting threat. (And then again it might be, but not at the hands of foreigners and "Islamofascists"; rather at the end of the Supreme Court Justices who found for the plaintiff in Citizens United v. FEC, or who ruled that a class action suit brought against Walmart by 1.6 million women had no standing because the class lacked the element of sufficient commonality)
4) That's commendable, but what exactly does putting "principle above party" mean? Is it the same principle that allows transnational corporations to ship jobs out of the United States at the expense of Americans, for the glory of corporate profits? Methinks "principle" needs defining.
5) The unswerving commitment to "a political and social order that upholds individual freedom and personal responsibility" is also commendable, but it should not be at the top of the list (in order of appearance), otherwise it looks like a sneaky act of bait and switch: Traditional family values and the sanctity of life should be mentioned at the top, as they obviously trump the individual freedom and personal responsibility of individuals in the LGBT community, or those of incestuously raped or life-endangered girls and women who would presumably be forced to carry their pregnancies to term if the Lone Tree Declaration happened to be the founding manifesto for law of the land. The unswerving commitment to free enterprise and private property, for example, is mentioned ahead of compassion for the poor, which is obviously the right ranking for conservatives, seeing how supposedly compassionate conservatives prioritize budgets: Tax breaks for everybody who doesn't need any more money and crackers and catsup for the poor; you know, "vegetables" in the diet. Or no subsidies for heating oil. It took America to popularize the concept of free-enterprise, and American conservatives to give the concept a bad name.
6. 4 out of 6 items in this list appear desirable to me. The non-desirable ones are appeasement and capitulation to jihad and sharia. In fact, one should never appease those who seek to establish a religiously inspired form of government, no matter which religion.
1. In our adherence to the self-evident truths of the American Founding, we are conservatives.
2. In our debt to the civilizational heritage of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and Philadelphia, we are Westerners.
3. In our concern for the mounting threat to liberty, seeing freedom in the balance, we convene with solemn purpose at this Summit.
4. We seek a conservative renewal for our country through civic action that puts principle above party, resists the corruption of power, bridges intramural disagreements or rivalries, and protects an open public square centered on the nation’s Judeo-Christian core.
5. We commit ourselves unswervingly to a political and social order that upholds individual freedom and personal responsibility, limited government and the rule of law, free enterprise and private property, traditional family values and sanctity of life, compassion for the poor and voluntarism in service to others, natural law and morality, strong defense and secure borders, all in keeping with the original intent of the Constitution.
6. We reject, and will resist, the socialist temptation, transnational progressivism, secular utopian illusions, appeasement, disarmament, or capitulation to jihad and sharia.
Since I live just a few miles from Lone Tree, I feel I have a stake in this. Though the Declaration, which has a thinly-veiled undercurrent of xenophobia, is obviously not representative of the views of all Coloradans (or Lone-Tree-ers), it nonetheless will get the endorsement of many, particularly many who are easily swayed by declarations which appeal to the limbic system more than to the cerebral cortex. I thought of sending the following response to the blog where I found the Declaration, but then I thought I'd rather post here instead. So here's the point-by-point response.
1) It will be news to the liberals in this country that adhering to the allegedly (and hazily-defined or undefined) "self-evident truths of the American Founding" leads to conservatism.
2) It will be news, and unflattering news at that, to the Native-Americans, the Asians, Africans, the millions of immigrants from Eastern Europe, and many more, that "we" are Westerners.
3) You probably have to be a signatory of the Declaration to see freedom in the balance and liberty under a mounting threat. (And then again it might be, but not at the hands of foreigners and "Islamofascists"; rather at the end of the Supreme Court Justices who found for the plaintiff in Citizens United v. FEC, or who ruled that a class action suit brought against Walmart by 1.6 million women had no standing because the class lacked the element of sufficient commonality)
4) That's commendable, but what exactly does putting "principle above party" mean? Is it the same principle that allows transnational corporations to ship jobs out of the United States at the expense of Americans, for the glory of corporate profits? Methinks "principle" needs defining.
5) The unswerving commitment to "a political and social order that upholds individual freedom and personal responsibility" is also commendable, but it should not be at the top of the list (in order of appearance), otherwise it looks like a sneaky act of bait and switch: Traditional family values and the sanctity of life should be mentioned at the top, as they obviously trump the individual freedom and personal responsibility of individuals in the LGBT community, or those of incestuously raped or life-endangered girls and women who would presumably be forced to carry their pregnancies to term if the Lone Tree Declaration happened to be the founding manifesto for law of the land. The unswerving commitment to free enterprise and private property, for example, is mentioned ahead of compassion for the poor, which is obviously the right ranking for conservatives, seeing how supposedly compassionate conservatives prioritize budgets: Tax breaks for everybody who doesn't need any more money and crackers and catsup for the poor; you know, "vegetables" in the diet. Or no subsidies for heating oil. It took America to popularize the concept of free-enterprise, and American conservatives to give the concept a bad name.
6. 4 out of 6 items in this list appear desirable to me. The non-desirable ones are appeasement and capitulation to jihad and sharia. In fact, one should never appease those who seek to establish a religiously inspired form of government, no matter which religion.
Corporate Tax Whiners
You know the meme that corporations are overtaxed, that the tax rates on corporations in the United States is one of the highest in the world, and that cutting all kind of taxes (corporate, capital gains, and individual taxes on millionaires and billionaires) would create jobs? Well, it's a meme, as I said. But don't believe me: Check out Marie Diamond's article at Think Progress.
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Rewarding Hard Work, The Republican Way
Here's another great idea from starlet crackpot presidential candidate Michele Bachmann: Let's do away with the federally-mandated minimum wage. And why not? Anyone should be able to "live" on $2 a day, as they do in much of the world anyway.
What is wrong with a country in which a large number of people promote/are swayed by this kind of supposedly pro-employment drivel? What is wrong with a country where we cannot agree that dignity and work should go hand-in-hand, and where the minimum wage is less than half of what is needed just to make ends meet (i.e. to live with dignity, not in the lap of luxury)?
When a presidential candidate's solution for the dire straits in which the middle-class navigates life in the USA these days is to remove even the paltry protection from complete exploitation that the minimum wage offers, instead of rising against corporations that pay no U.S. taxes in spite of reaping epochal profits; when you live in a country where a presidential candidate can answer, without a shade of shame, "that's uniquely American" to a woman who had just told him that she had to pick up three jobs just to make ends meet, and people re-elect him for another four years of making fools of us all; when Republican leaders hold the middle-class hostage and the ransom is extended tax cuts for corporation and Uncle Scrooges and cuts for social programs: that is the sign you live in a country that has fucked-up priorities. In that, at least, we still seem to be number one.
What is wrong with a country in which a large number of people promote/are swayed by this kind of supposedly pro-employment drivel? What is wrong with a country where we cannot agree that dignity and work should go hand-in-hand, and where the minimum wage is less than half of what is needed just to make ends meet (i.e. to live with dignity, not in the lap of luxury)?
When a presidential candidate's solution for the dire straits in which the middle-class navigates life in the USA these days is to remove even the paltry protection from complete exploitation that the minimum wage offers, instead of rising against corporations that pay no U.S. taxes in spite of reaping epochal profits; when you live in a country where a presidential candidate can answer, without a shade of shame, "that's uniquely American" to a woman who had just told him that she had to pick up three jobs just to make ends meet, and people re-elect him for another four years of making fools of us all; when Republican leaders hold the middle-class hostage and the ransom is extended tax cuts for corporation and Uncle Scrooges and cuts for social programs: that is the sign you live in a country that has fucked-up priorities. In that, at least, we still seem to be number one.
Monday, June 27, 2011
America's Last Stand
"No, we will not balance the budget on the backs of working families, the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor, who have already sacrificed enough in terms of lost jobs, lost wages, lost homes, and lost pensions. Yes, we will demand that millionaires and billionaires and the largest corporations in America contribute to deficit reduction as a matter of shared sacrifice. Yes, we will reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending at the Pentagon. And, no we will not be blackmailed once again by the Republican leadership in Washington..."
So begin Sen. Bernie Sanders's remarks, given today on the floor of the Senate. Please read Sen. Sanders's entire floor speech, particularly if you are inclined to support the Republicans' view of budgetary issues. Perhaps you will be touched by the senator's words, perhaps you won't. If that's the case you are an ideologue and nothing will move you. I just hope that you will never find yourself in the situations that Sen. Sanders's correspondents described to him.
But if you do not emphatize with Sen. Sanders's plea and with the cry for help of those who sent their prayers to him, if you don't realize that these are not people who are looking for handouts but regular folks, who are tired of being financially raped by those who rule unopposed (not the politicians, but those that buy their services) while they themselves struggle to keep a roof on their heads, food on their table, life-saving medication in their pill-box, and gas in their tank in spite of doing everything they were told and taught to do, then maybe I should wish the same dire predicaments on you as well, for that might be the only way you can regain the humanity you lost somewhere along your ephemeral trek on this planet. No one is born without a shred of humanity.
We are, save rare exceptions, all born with the ability to feel our kin's suffering, to feel empathy for one another, to be compassionate. We are taughtby the masters of the ideology of selfishness, the children of Ayn Rand and of American biblical fundamentalism's incestuous relationship with corporate power, to look at others as if they were so different from ourselves, to think that if they need help it's because they have failed, because they made the wrong choices, because they are lazy, and because they expect the tyrannical state to help them instead of an imaginary god, be it the Christian god, or Mammon or who knows what other irrational distortion of reality.
If you are so lost in your own selfish idolatry that you fail to be moved by Sen. Sanders's words, I pity you because you are a failure to the god you worship, whatever it is, and a miserable fellow traveler in this life.
So begin Sen. Bernie Sanders's remarks, given today on the floor of the Senate. Please read Sen. Sanders's entire floor speech, particularly if you are inclined to support the Republicans' view of budgetary issues. Perhaps you will be touched by the senator's words, perhaps you won't. If that's the case you are an ideologue and nothing will move you. I just hope that you will never find yourself in the situations that Sen. Sanders's correspondents described to him.
But if you do not emphatize with Sen. Sanders's plea and with the cry for help of those who sent their prayers to him, if you don't realize that these are not people who are looking for handouts but regular folks, who are tired of being financially raped by those who rule unopposed (not the politicians, but those that buy their services) while they themselves struggle to keep a roof on their heads, food on their table, life-saving medication in their pill-box, and gas in their tank in spite of doing everything they were told and taught to do, then maybe I should wish the same dire predicaments on you as well, for that might be the only way you can regain the humanity you lost somewhere along your ephemeral trek on this planet. No one is born without a shred of humanity.
We are, save rare exceptions, all born with the ability to feel our kin's suffering, to feel empathy for one another, to be compassionate. We are taughtby the masters of the ideology of selfishness, the children of Ayn Rand and of American biblical fundamentalism's incestuous relationship with corporate power, to look at others as if they were so different from ourselves, to think that if they need help it's because they have failed, because they made the wrong choices, because they are lazy, and because they expect the tyrannical state to help them instead of an imaginary god, be it the Christian god, or Mammon or who knows what other irrational distortion of reality.
If you are so lost in your own selfish idolatry that you fail to be moved by Sen. Sanders's words, I pity you because you are a failure to the god you worship, whatever it is, and a miserable fellow traveler in this life.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Michele Bachmann's Derangement Is A Threat To This Nation's Future
You MUST read Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone scathing and frightening article about rising Republican star Michele Bachmann. Death Star is probably more appropriate*, since everything she stands for (hypocrisy, theocracy, indoctrination) is antithetical to the well-being of the United States.
Bachmann, who likes to rail against the evil of socialism (which in her complete ignorance, or deviousness, she equates with communism) and the infiltration of the U.S. government by socialist elements, works feverishly to bring about a much more dangerous form of government than the European style socialism that she inveighs against: A Christian fundamentalist theocracy that is posed to plunge the nation into a new intellectual dark age.
It is therefore no surprise that she is earning the endorsement of Christian fundamentalists all over the place. Christian fundamentalists are the ones who do not understand (or choose to not understand) the humongous gulf that separates socialism from communism, progressive taxation from confiscation of wealth, or big government from a form of government that seeks (or should seek, in principle) to eradicate discrimination, to lessen the societal blight of hereditary privilege, to protect the right of all citizens to believe (or not to believe) without institutionalizing favoritism for one creed over another, to promote access to education, healthcare, and good nutrition, for all children regardless of the societal standing of their parents, and so forth.
I do know to consider Bachmann a serious candidate for the President's Office in 2012 seems ludicrous, but we live in a nation that has begun a long time ago to make politics tragicomical matter, instead of the serious business that successful countries are supposed to value. Like Taibbi says in his article, there are millions of Americans who are determined to make laughter at Bachmann's expense the fuel to rocket her into the White House. Even if it will make America the laughingstock it would deserve to be should that happen.
*Just so you know, I used the term death star before I got the end of Taibbi's article only to find he had used the same term at the end of his article, although in a slight different manner.
Bachmann, who likes to rail against the evil of socialism (which in her complete ignorance, or deviousness, she equates with communism) and the infiltration of the U.S. government by socialist elements, works feverishly to bring about a much more dangerous form of government than the European style socialism that she inveighs against: A Christian fundamentalist theocracy that is posed to plunge the nation into a new intellectual dark age.
It is therefore no surprise that she is earning the endorsement of Christian fundamentalists all over the place. Christian fundamentalists are the ones who do not understand (or choose to not understand) the humongous gulf that separates socialism from communism, progressive taxation from confiscation of wealth, or big government from a form of government that seeks (or should seek, in principle) to eradicate discrimination, to lessen the societal blight of hereditary privilege, to protect the right of all citizens to believe (or not to believe) without institutionalizing favoritism for one creed over another, to promote access to education, healthcare, and good nutrition, for all children regardless of the societal standing of their parents, and so forth.
I do know to consider Bachmann a serious candidate for the President's Office in 2012 seems ludicrous, but we live in a nation that has begun a long time ago to make politics tragicomical matter, instead of the serious business that successful countries are supposed to value. Like Taibbi says in his article, there are millions of Americans who are determined to make laughter at Bachmann's expense the fuel to rocket her into the White House. Even if it will make America the laughingstock it would deserve to be should that happen.
*Just so you know, I used the term death star before I got the end of Taibbi's article only to find he had used the same term at the end of his article, although in a slight different manner.
Friday, June 03, 2011
A Pioneer Dies, R.I.P.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian died today at age 83. No introduction should be needed. This is a man who will hopefully be remembered as the man who charted a new path for human dignity.
There are millions of fundamentalist Christians out there who will no doubt not grieve his death, many will even rejoice (luckily not all believers will do so). Dr. Kevorkian was reviled by many because his convictions were viewed in stark contrast with the concept of the sanctity of life. That is quite ironic, since only a person who had high regard for human life and human dignity would concede that a human being should not have to endure prolonged and needless suffering for the sake of not offending a supposedly benevolent life-giver and creator and the feelings of the adherents to his religion, regardless of whether the terminally ill, suffering poor sonofabitch who seeks to end his torture is a believer himself or not. (This, by the way, is why people like me don't believe those fundamentalist Christians who maintain that their goal is not to establish a theocracy: it is, don't be fooled, and in many ways they have succeeded in furthering their goal.) Only a person who is serious about the value of the life, all life--not only his own but that of others as well, would choose to sacrifice a large chunk of his own by going to prison for upholding his convictions. So today all people with a good heart and sound rational powers, in the United States and around the world, should mourn the loss of Dr. Kevorkian, whether they agreed with everything he stood for or not.
What is particularly ironic is that religious advocates of the sanctity of human life are often on the same side of the ideological divide with those who show absolutely no regard for the life of anything which is not a zygote or a foetus or, at the other extreme, a corporation. Anything in between is fair game for predators, political, ideological, and financial.
As Jon Stewart deftly showed on last night's Daily Show, those who are adamant that they would not raise taxes on the wealthiest among us are also quite adamant that people affected by the recent swarm of deadly tornadoes should sweat for every penny of aid they seek from the government (it's their money, too, by the way).
Long live the memory and the legacy of Dr. Kevorkian, a true pioneer, a man who has done more to advance the cause of human dignity than the vast majority of those who reviled his convictions as murderous.
There are millions of fundamentalist Christians out there who will no doubt not grieve his death, many will even rejoice (luckily not all believers will do so). Dr. Kevorkian was reviled by many because his convictions were viewed in stark contrast with the concept of the sanctity of life. That is quite ironic, since only a person who had high regard for human life and human dignity would concede that a human being should not have to endure prolonged and needless suffering for the sake of not offending a supposedly benevolent life-giver and creator and the feelings of the adherents to his religion, regardless of whether the terminally ill, suffering poor sonofabitch who seeks to end his torture is a believer himself or not. (This, by the way, is why people like me don't believe those fundamentalist Christians who maintain that their goal is not to establish a theocracy: it is, don't be fooled, and in many ways they have succeeded in furthering their goal.) Only a person who is serious about the value of the life, all life--not only his own but that of others as well, would choose to sacrifice a large chunk of his own by going to prison for upholding his convictions. So today all people with a good heart and sound rational powers, in the United States and around the world, should mourn the loss of Dr. Kevorkian, whether they agreed with everything he stood for or not.
What is particularly ironic is that religious advocates of the sanctity of human life are often on the same side of the ideological divide with those who show absolutely no regard for the life of anything which is not a zygote or a foetus or, at the other extreme, a corporation. Anything in between is fair game for predators, political, ideological, and financial.
As Jon Stewart deftly showed on last night's Daily Show, those who are adamant that they would not raise taxes on the wealthiest among us are also quite adamant that people affected by the recent swarm of deadly tornadoes should sweat for every penny of aid they seek from the government (it's their money, too, by the way).
Long live the memory and the legacy of Dr. Kevorkian, a true pioneer, a man who has done more to advance the cause of human dignity than the vast majority of those who reviled his convictions as murderous.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Religion, Atheism, and Altruism
When dealing with Christians, I am often confronted with the statement "Altruism in an atheist = mental disorder" or some similar offensive and silly remark. In fact, I have just encountered that silly accusation (passed incidentally not as a matter of religious conviction but as a scientifically sound fact) on a blog I follow. The foundational assumption that allows such a statement to be mad is as clear as it is flawed: Atheists all believe in evolution; scratch that: Atheists believe in Darwinism, which is all about selfishness, so any atheist who acts in an altruistic fashion is doing so in opposition to natural selfishness and is, to oversimplify, mentally ill. This is such a simplistic, incorrect, and demeaning view of atheists (and of the scientific theory of evolution) that I don't even know where to begin in rebutting it. In fact, it assumes so many wrong preconceived notions that I am not sure it is even worth trying to do it. So, on careful consideration, I have decided not to. Instead, I would like to ask the following questions:
Consider the following definitions:
Which of the definitions above best approaches your view of altruism and its existence?
Also, when dealing with Christians I am often given examples of altruistic, why, completely selfless behavior that some Christians have been capable of, as if at that point my natural reaction should be "Really? Oh my! I am a believer now that I have been faced with such incontrovertible evidence of the existence of your god."
On a deeper level, though, I wonder if you can call an act that benefits others with no regard for the effects it may have on yourself an altruistic act, when such an act is performed under the conviction that it is what your god would want you to do to honor him, his desires, and his teachings. Not to mention that there could be horrific negative consequences for defying that god's wishes. I wonder if a Christian can be justified in acting as morally superior to an atheist, or in believing that he is acting in a healthy manner, as opposed to the "mentally defective" manner that he would attribute to an atheist performing the same act(s) of selflessness.
Notice that, in reality, both the Christian and the atheist can expect future benefits from the performance of an altruistic act: The Christian can combine his faith with good deeds to expect rewards in the afterlife that he takes as a given; the atheist in all likelihood will assume that, while selfless behavior may have dramatic consequences for him and his family, up to and including his own death, he will leave the world a better place, both by setting an example for others to follow, and by performing an act that, while detrimental to himself in the immediate, may yield a better future for the species.
It is my firm conviction that Christians who demand that altruism, moral order, and justice, among many positive societal values, should by necessity descend from divinity are guilty of denying those traits in human nature that have led to benefits for the human race as a whole throughout millenia. But why shouldn't Christians reason as they do? After all the believe in the fall of mankind from grace, and that alone requires that we should be saved in spite of ourselves.
Consider all the humans that lived before the Hebrew and Christian god decided, in his assumed infinite generosity and goodness, to reveal himself to a small subset of the human population, leaving all others at the mercy of missionaries and preachers for centuries. Were their lives doomed to selfishness, completely devoid of altruism? Of course not. Imagine this scenario: Members of different tribes come face to face with a deadly predator. The predator attacks a member of one tribe. While members of his own tribe stand frozen in fear, incapable of defending their fellow tribesman, members of the other tribe unite in attacking the predator, ultimately killing it. What motivated them to act in defense of the member of a competing tribe, an individual that on any other day they would have been glad to see die: Altruism? An overwhelming instinct for self-preservation? The expectation of a future potential benefit? Was the man who led the attack (an atheist, perhaps) affected by a mental defect? Most importantly, does any of it matter? Shouldn't the real question be: Was the performance of an act that would appear to be, to a large extent, selfless represent a step backward or a step forward for mankind?
The Christian will contend that my imaginary scenario has nothing to do with altruism in his sense of the word, because no moral judgment was necessary or present in the scenario I have given. Really? Whose morals? Christian morals? If we know anything about morals and moral judgement is that they are not written in stone. Why, we know that even from how Christians handle morality themselves. With the exception of a few biblical literalists and Christian fundamentalists, aren't Christians very flexible in their application and interpretation of morality and moral law? When was the last time you saw an adulteress stoned to death, for example? Oh, but my objection shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the world changed with the first coming of Christ. And that's where I lose any interest in debating them or arguing with them. They can always have the last word, in any situation, in any conversation. It's a 3-letter word that ends all doubt, all debate, all honest attempt at advancing the understanding of human nature, behavior and interaction. And no, it's not ego.
Consider the following definitions:
- "Altruism is acting out of concern for others with no concern for oneself. As opposed to Egoism, which is to act only in ones own, rational, self-interest." (From The Arrogant Atheist Forum)
- Unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others. (Merriam-Webster, definition 1)
- Behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species. (Merriam-Webster, definition 2)
Which of the definitions above best approaches your view of altruism and its existence?
Also, when dealing with Christians I am often given examples of altruistic, why, completely selfless behavior that some Christians have been capable of, as if at that point my natural reaction should be "Really? Oh my! I am a believer now that I have been faced with such incontrovertible evidence of the existence of your god."
On a deeper level, though, I wonder if you can call an act that benefits others with no regard for the effects it may have on yourself an altruistic act, when such an act is performed under the conviction that it is what your god would want you to do to honor him, his desires, and his teachings. Not to mention that there could be horrific negative consequences for defying that god's wishes. I wonder if a Christian can be justified in acting as morally superior to an atheist, or in believing that he is acting in a healthy manner, as opposed to the "mentally defective" manner that he would attribute to an atheist performing the same act(s) of selflessness.
Notice that, in reality, both the Christian and the atheist can expect future benefits from the performance of an altruistic act: The Christian can combine his faith with good deeds to expect rewards in the afterlife that he takes as a given; the atheist in all likelihood will assume that, while selfless behavior may have dramatic consequences for him and his family, up to and including his own death, he will leave the world a better place, both by setting an example for others to follow, and by performing an act that, while detrimental to himself in the immediate, may yield a better future for the species.
It is my firm conviction that Christians who demand that altruism, moral order, and justice, among many positive societal values, should by necessity descend from divinity are guilty of denying those traits in human nature that have led to benefits for the human race as a whole throughout millenia. But why shouldn't Christians reason as they do? After all the believe in the fall of mankind from grace, and that alone requires that we should be saved in spite of ourselves.
Consider all the humans that lived before the Hebrew and Christian god decided, in his assumed infinite generosity and goodness, to reveal himself to a small subset of the human population, leaving all others at the mercy of missionaries and preachers for centuries. Were their lives doomed to selfishness, completely devoid of altruism? Of course not. Imagine this scenario: Members of different tribes come face to face with a deadly predator. The predator attacks a member of one tribe. While members of his own tribe stand frozen in fear, incapable of defending their fellow tribesman, members of the other tribe unite in attacking the predator, ultimately killing it. What motivated them to act in defense of the member of a competing tribe, an individual that on any other day they would have been glad to see die: Altruism? An overwhelming instinct for self-preservation? The expectation of a future potential benefit? Was the man who led the attack (an atheist, perhaps) affected by a mental defect? Most importantly, does any of it matter? Shouldn't the real question be: Was the performance of an act that would appear to be, to a large extent, selfless represent a step backward or a step forward for mankind?
The Christian will contend that my imaginary scenario has nothing to do with altruism in his sense of the word, because no moral judgment was necessary or present in the scenario I have given. Really? Whose morals? Christian morals? If we know anything about morals and moral judgement is that they are not written in stone. Why, we know that even from how Christians handle morality themselves. With the exception of a few biblical literalists and Christian fundamentalists, aren't Christians very flexible in their application and interpretation of morality and moral law? When was the last time you saw an adulteress stoned to death, for example? Oh, but my objection shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the world changed with the first coming of Christ. And that's where I lose any interest in debating them or arguing with them. They can always have the last word, in any situation, in any conversation. It's a 3-letter word that ends all doubt, all debate, all honest attempt at advancing the understanding of human nature, behavior and interaction. And no, it's not ego.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
I Second This Thought
I read on an Italian blog that the only way the condition of the lower class is going to improve is if you tie a congressman's salary to the salary of the poorest person in the nation. You would quickly see the salaries of the poor rise.
(The other possibility is that congressmen would accept that condition because they could make money "on the side", if you know what I mean. But don't many of them already do?)
(The other possibility is that congressmen would accept that condition because they could make money "on the side", if you know what I mean. But don't many of them already do?)
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
On The Folly of Mainstream Religion
Greta Christina has written a lenghty, irate, appropriately righteous piece about the complete folly easily discernible in William Lane Craig's defense of genocide and infanticide. Read the whole article, it's worth it.
To whet your appetite, here's my favorite passage:
I have just one question for William Lane Craig: how do you muster such sophistry that allows you to defend the sanctity of life and, at the same time, defend the extermination of innocents?
To whet your appetite, here's my favorite passage:
[A]theists are commonly accused of moral relativism: of thinking that there are no fundamental moral principles, and that all morality can be adapted to suit the needs of the moment.
But it isn't atheists who are saying, "Well, sure, genocide seems wrong... but under some circumstances, it actually makes a certain amount of sense." It isn't atheists who are saying, "Well, sure, infanticide seems wrong... but looked at in a certain light, it really isn't all that bad." It isn't atheists who are prioritizing an attachment to an ancient ideology over the clearest moral principles one can imagine: the principle that entire races ought not to be systematically exterminated, and the principle that children ought not to be slaughtered.
I have just one question for William Lane Craig: how do you muster such sophistry that allows you to defend the sanctity of life and, at the same time, defend the extermination of innocents?
Friday, May 13, 2011
On the DOJ Ban on Online Poker in the USA
Ed Brayton of Dispatches from the Culture Wars, and a poker player to boot, has a post about Rep. Barney Frank's (D-MA) position on the DOJ's strike against online poker sites operating within the U.S.A. Frank ridicules the DOJ's effort with typical wit. One highlight: he mocks the DOJ for wanting to protect the public "from the scourge of inside straights." You can read Ed's post here.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The Liberal Media Meme Debunked, Once Again
You don't dispute right-wing bullshit with more bullshit. You do it with facts. And that's what Rachel Maddow does every day, including last night.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Friday, May 06, 2011
Poor People and Fair Shares
Think Progress reports that Sen. Hatch (R-UT) thinks that the tax system is unfair because it doesn’t tax poor people enough.
Of all the Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say (which you can find under the label SHITTERS on this blog) this has to be one of the most horrible and offensive.
Poor people do not pay income tax for a reason: they have no money to pay income tax. In fact, income tax is the one tax they do not pay, but they do pay withholdings on their paycheck for Social Security and Medicare, not to mention sales tax on everything they buy. They may be too poor to buy health insurance but not poor enough to fall under Medicaid. They are paying near $4 a gallon for gas, they pay car registration and other fees as the richest among us, and they eat crap that will kill them more quickly because it's all they can afford.
So, yes, the poor have it made. Let's tax them a bit more, so we can continue subsidies for the oil companies and pass tax breaks for yacht owners. Because, as every good Republican knows, a rising tide lifts all boats, including the yachts owned by minimum wage earners.
Fuck you, Sen. Hatch. I mean it.
Of all the Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say (which you can find under the label SHITTERS on this blog) this has to be one of the most horrible and offensive.
Poor people do not pay income tax for a reason: they have no money to pay income tax. In fact, income tax is the one tax they do not pay, but they do pay withholdings on their paycheck for Social Security and Medicare, not to mention sales tax on everything they buy. They may be too poor to buy health insurance but not poor enough to fall under Medicaid. They are paying near $4 a gallon for gas, they pay car registration and other fees as the richest among us, and they eat crap that will kill them more quickly because it's all they can afford.
So, yes, the poor have it made. Let's tax them a bit more, so we can continue subsidies for the oil companies and pass tax breaks for yacht owners. Because, as every good Republican knows, a rising tide lifts all boats, including the yachts owned by minimum wage earners.
Fuck you, Sen. Hatch. I mean it.
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Pet Peeves: One or Two Spaces After a Period?
Could it be that I found the definitive article about the fact that it is wrong to use two spaces after after a period?
And this reply to "a marine" from the Chicago Manual of Style is pretty funny as well.
And this reply to "a marine" from the Chicago Manual of Style is pretty funny as well.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
The Irreparably Frivolous American Newsmedia
Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post, a news organization that in many ways defines frivolous, caught another news orgnization red-handed when it comes to senseless news and polls. It really is no surprise Americans are a duped bunch, when the supposedly serious alternative to Fox News wastes its time on such idiotic pursuits.
Photos Of OBL Not To Be Released
President Obama has announced that photos of dead Osama Bin Laden will not be released. Good for him.
If you believe the U.S. has killed Osama, good for you. If you do not, then no photo is ever going to convince you otherwise. You will claim that the photos have been doctored, that the men killed by the Navy SEALs was a lookalike or a human-clone. Whatever. If you are the Orly Taitz type who believed for years that the President is a Kenyan-born Muslim and still do, no matter what the evidence to the contrary is, no amount of visual evidence will convince you.
But in order to believe that OBL is still alive, you would have to also believe that the Navy SEALs are an incompetent bunch, and a lying one, too. So then don't go around calling yourself a patriot who supports our troops. Short of finding OBL yourself, nothing will convince you. So go ahead, go look for him in the caves of Tora Bora. And don't come back.
If you believe the U.S. has killed Osama, good for you. If you do not, then no photo is ever going to convince you otherwise. You will claim that the photos have been doctored, that the men killed by the Navy SEALs was a lookalike or a human-clone. Whatever. If you are the Orly Taitz type who believed for years that the President is a Kenyan-born Muslim and still do, no matter what the evidence to the contrary is, no amount of visual evidence will convince you.
But in order to believe that OBL is still alive, you would have to also believe that the Navy SEALs are an incompetent bunch, and a lying one, too. So then don't go around calling yourself a patriot who supports our troops. Short of finding OBL yourself, nothing will convince you. So go ahead, go look for him in the caves of Tora Bora. And don't come back.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Juan Cole on the Death of OBL
You will be hard-pressed to find a better analysis of the life of Osama Bin Laden and of what his death means, or should lead to.
Monday, May 02, 2011
I Wonder
I am glad that Osama Bin Laden was killed. I would have been happier if he had been caught alive. I am sure he would have had some interesting things to say about his relationship with America, which started many years before 9/11, but I have always suspected that the "alive" part of "dead or alive" was just a formality.
But no matter how glad I am (I am not really relieved, since I do not think that the death of this man means an end to the resentment that many Muslim extremists feel about their treatment by the West) I am not taking to the streets to celebrate. There is a difference between being glad that justice has been meted out, however summarily, and showing enthusiasm that a man, however ill-intentioned and evil, has been killed. Perhaps I would feel different if I lived near Ground Zero. But I doubt it.
Over the years, Americans (Westerners in general, but Americans in particular) have been quick to exploit the images of flag-burning, animated Muslim crowds after successful attacks on the West and Israel, in order to incite animosity towards those "who hate hate us for our freedom", to show that it is right to hate "them" because we are different from them, we are better, we are human, and "they" are not. I wonder if today Arab televisions were showing images of Americans in the street of New York and in the seats of a baseball stadium exulting at the news of the death of their enemy.
The whole situation only goes to show that there are some things that appeal to the worst nature of people, regardless of their creed, their upbringing, and their education, and that we humans are an interesting mix of good and evil, but far from a perfect one. And if we spent more time focusing on our similarities rather than on our differences, on common interests instead of special ones, and on what makes us human, we would live in a much different world.
But no matter how glad I am (I am not really relieved, since I do not think that the death of this man means an end to the resentment that many Muslim extremists feel about their treatment by the West) I am not taking to the streets to celebrate. There is a difference between being glad that justice has been meted out, however summarily, and showing enthusiasm that a man, however ill-intentioned and evil, has been killed. Perhaps I would feel different if I lived near Ground Zero. But I doubt it.
Over the years, Americans (Westerners in general, but Americans in particular) have been quick to exploit the images of flag-burning, animated Muslim crowds after successful attacks on the West and Israel, in order to incite animosity towards those "who hate hate us for our freedom", to show that it is right to hate "them" because we are different from them, we are better, we are human, and "they" are not. I wonder if today Arab televisions were showing images of Americans in the street of New York and in the seats of a baseball stadium exulting at the news of the death of their enemy.
The whole situation only goes to show that there are some things that appeal to the worst nature of people, regardless of their creed, their upbringing, and their education, and that we humans are an interesting mix of good and evil, but far from a perfect one. And if we spent more time focusing on our similarities rather than on our differences, on common interests instead of special ones, and on what makes us human, we would live in a much different world.
Obama Did Not Kill Osama, The Navy Seals Did. Yes, But...
Over his time in the White House, and even before as a candidate, President Obama has been accused by right-wing characters of dubious expertise on foreign matters of being an appeaser, of being sympathetic to terrorists, of not understanding the threat of terrorism; why, even of catering to terrorists.
Today, some are silent after the killing of Osama Bin Laden in an operation approved by the current Commander-in-Chief.
If and when they speak, they will give credit to President Bush for yesterday's success, and will diminish the import of what has been achieved under the Obama presidency. They will gloss over the fact that Obama made getting Bin Laden a priority, and Bush did not (in his own words, saying that he did not worry about him much, even though after 9/11 he had declared Osama Bin Laden was wanted "dead or alive.") Let them live with their silence. They were wrong, whether they will admit it or not.
Today, some are silent after the killing of Osama Bin Laden in an operation approved by the current Commander-in-Chief.
If and when they speak, they will give credit to President Bush for yesterday's success, and will diminish the import of what has been achieved under the Obama presidency. They will gloss over the fact that Obama made getting Bin Laden a priority, and Bush did not (in his own words, saying that he did not worry about him much, even though after 9/11 he had declared Osama Bin Laden was wanted "dead or alive.") Let them live with their silence. They were wrong, whether they will admit it or not.
So Very Predictable
It is so predictable I hesitate to take credit for it, but what the heck.
Yesterday I wrote: "Fox News will say George W. Bush was right for starting the Iraq War and deserves all the credit for the killing of Bin Laden, in spite of the fact that in a famous press conference then President Bush said, "you know, I don't think about Bin Laden much."
This morning Think Progress wrote (emphases added):
In fact, the killing of Bin Laden vindicates nothing because U.S. strategy in the region included a war on a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat to the United States. This last statement is in fact indicative of the dishonesty and the bias of The Heritage Foundation, which is consistently on the wrong side of history and supports interests that have nothing in common with those of the overwhelming majority of Americans, which is also why it qualifies for our new SHITTERS (Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say) category.
Yesterday I wrote: "Fox News will say George W. Bush was right for starting the Iraq War and deserves all the credit for the killing of Bin Laden, in spite of the fact that in a famous press conference then President Bush said, "you know, I don't think about Bin Laden much."
This morning Think Progress wrote (emphases added):
Now, Obama has fulfilled his campaign promise to capture the terrorist leader, so did Fox News give credit where is due? This morning, Fox and Friends approvingly played a clip of Bush from shortly after 9/11, saying, “President George W. Bush promised to the nation that Osama bin Laden would be caught any way possible.” “We did finally get him,” host Brian Kilmeade said after the clip.
In what is likely to become a chorus on the right, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s president wrote this morning that “Bin Laden’s elimination vindicates U.S. strategy in the region, started under President George W. Bush.”
In fact, the killing of Bin Laden vindicates nothing because U.S. strategy in the region included a war on a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat to the United States. This last statement is in fact indicative of the dishonesty and the bias of The Heritage Foundation, which is consistently on the wrong side of history and supports interests that have nothing in common with those of the overwhelming majority of Americans, which is also why it qualifies for our new SHITTERS (Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say) category.
Why Didn't Barack Hussein Obama Show Us The Body (UPDATED)
If you don't know which body, you live in a cave, and if you don't know who will utter those words you have not been following the "birther controversy".
I also predict that Donald Trump will claim credit for the fact that Osama Bin Laden has "allegedly" killed, that Sarah "Hannity" Palin will say something like "people don't care about Osama Bin Laden, they want jobs", and that Fox News will say George W. Bush was right for starting the Iraq War and deserves all the credit for the killing of Bin Laden, in spite of the fact that in a famous press conference then President Bush said, "you know, I don't think about Bin Laden much."
UPDATE
Think Progress reports the following headline: Meet The Deathers: Andrew Breitbart Website Pushing Conspiracy Theory That Osama Might Not Be Dead. I can't say that Breitbart is idiot-in-chief, because there are so many on the right-side of the political spectrum, but he is certainly one of the most deceitful and disingenuous around, so it does not surprise me that his website should be (one of) the first to pursue this line of criticism.
I also predict that Donald Trump will claim credit for the fact that Osama Bin Laden has "allegedly" killed, that Sarah "Hannity" Palin will say something like "people don't care about Osama Bin Laden, they want jobs", and that Fox News will say George W. Bush was right for starting the Iraq War and deserves all the credit for the killing of Bin Laden, in spite of the fact that in a famous press conference then President Bush said, "you know, I don't think about Bin Laden much."
UPDATE
Think Progress reports the following headline: Meet The Deathers: Andrew Breitbart Website Pushing Conspiracy Theory That Osama Might Not Be Dead. I can't say that Breitbart is idiot-in-chief, because there are so many on the right-side of the political spectrum, but he is certainly one of the most deceitful and disingenuous around, so it does not surprise me that his website should be (one of) the first to pursue this line of criticism.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
The Daily Kos on Osama Bin Laden's Death
Someone else already did the work for me, so I thought I wouldn't reinvent the wheel.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Unemployed = Lazy, Alcoholic, Drug Addict
The entries for the new SHITTERS (Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say) category don't stop coming. The latest is from GOP representative Blake Farenthold (R-TX). Via Think Progress.
Think Progress does an excellent job of breaking down the many ways in which this is an idiotic statement, so I invite you to click the link above to see for yourself.
Drug testing for recipients of various welfare programs, I really think that’s something that needs to be considered. We’ve gotta, you know, nobody wants to starve anybody. Everybody wants to help folks out. But we’ve got a system where you can stay on unemployment for an awfully long time. And I think we need to create a system of decreasing benefits over time to encourage you to get a job. I think anybody who’s had an alcoholic in their life or somebody with a drug problem, realizes that until things get bad enough there’s no incentive to change. I think that we’re so generous in some of our social problems that people are unwilling to get a job outside in the heat. Rather than get 15 dollars to go get roofing they’d rather get 9 or 10 dollars in benefits. I think drug testing is not an unreasonable requirement to get benefits.
Think Progress does an excellent job of breaking down the many ways in which this is an idiotic statement, so I invite you to click the link above to see for yourself.
Douche Tuberville
Another entry for the SHITTERS (Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say) label. A conversation between two great American minds: Sean Hannity, host of Hannity on Faux News, and his guest Tommy Tuberville, Texas Tech football coach. Via Think Progress.
I agree, the birth certificate controversy continues to divide the country. It divides it between sensible people with better things to do (like fixing the country after 8 year of reckless Bush policies), and racist, hateful, and IQ-depleted sore losers who will not accord to the president the legitimacy that the record number of votes he earned in 2008 would have accorded to any white Republican.
P.S. I should say that Mr. Tuberville's political affiliation is uknown to me, but I am willing to take a leap of faith and chalk him under "Republican" since this "birtherism" is a predominantly Republican endeavor and because if you, a sport coach, choose to be a guest on Hannity, chances are you are a Republican.
HANNITY: He (Obama) could just get the birth certificate and it’d all over and I’m just curious why he wouldn’t do that?
TUBERVILLE: We’ve got enough controversy in this country, I don’t know why he wouldn’t just step up and say here it is.
HANNITY: Move on.
TUBERVILLE: Obviously there’s got to be something on there that he doesn’t want anyone to see. I don’t understand it. I’m an American. I don’t understand why we just go through this. I think it just continues to divide the country. [Emphasis added]
I agree, the birth certificate controversy continues to divide the country. It divides it between sensible people with better things to do (like fixing the country after 8 year of reckless Bush policies), and racist, hateful, and IQ-depleted sore losers who will not accord to the president the legitimacy that the record number of votes he earned in 2008 would have accorded to any white Republican.
P.S. I should say that Mr. Tuberville's political affiliation is uknown to me, but I am willing to take a leap of faith and chalk him under "Republican" since this "birtherism" is a predominantly Republican endeavor and because if you, a sport coach, choose to be a guest on Hannity, chances are you are a Republican.
Tom Tancredo: Obama Withheld Birth Certificate To Make Republicans Look "Nuts"
According to former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, President Obama withheld his birth certificate to make the Republican Party look "like nuts".
Tancredo's theory omits one important and self-evident fact: many Republicans in Congress or running for office do not need anyone's help to look nuts. All they have to do is move their lips, and something nuts will naturally flow.
Think of Sarah Palin's saying that she was fit for foreign policy because she can see Russia from her house. That of course is like saying that I am fit to be an astronaut because I can see the moon from my apartment.
Or think of The Donald, the bankruptcy expert who would be president if he can find enough nut-job Republicans to vote for him, who basically said that America needs a man with the balls to call 1 billion plus Chinese "motherfuckers" because of their unfavorable trade policy to America (while neglecting to mention that part of his clothing line is made in... yes, China.)
But if two examples are not enough for you, go to this YouTube gallery of Republican horrors, ten minutes of hard-to-endure, inane, offensive, and bat-shit crazy statements by a variety of Republican characters, including common folk.
Tancredo's theory omits one important and self-evident fact: many Republicans in Congress or running for office do not need anyone's help to look nuts. All they have to do is move their lips, and something nuts will naturally flow.
Think of Sarah Palin's saying that she was fit for foreign policy because she can see Russia from her house. That of course is like saying that I am fit to be an astronaut because I can see the moon from my apartment.
Or think of The Donald, the bankruptcy expert who would be president if he can find enough nut-job Republicans to vote for him, who basically said that America needs a man with the balls to call 1 billion plus Chinese "motherfuckers" because of their unfavorable trade policy to America (while neglecting to mention that part of his clothing line is made in... yes, China.)
But if two examples are not enough for you, go to this YouTube gallery of Republican horrors, ten minutes of hard-to-endure, inane, offensive, and bat-shit crazy statements by a variety of Republican characters, including common folk.
Friday, April 29, 2011
The Townhall Protests No One Is Talking About
Remember all the folks that showed up at townhall meetings across the country in 2009 to protest against "Obama-care"? Of course you do, because the so-called liberal media covered them like a heating blanket on a hypothermia patient.
Well, there is similar backlash now against Republican representatives who voted for the "Ryan budget", a budget proposal so extreme that it would end Medicare and cut the top marginal tax rate for the wealthiest Americans by 10% percent (down to 25%). In townhalls across America, constituents are showing up to express their displeasure with their elected representatives, often grilling politicians who are totally unprepared for the barrage of tough--and sensible--questions. But have you heard about it? I doubt it, because the so-called liberal media--with a few notable exceptions like Cenk Uygur and Rachel Maddow, is covering these protests not "like" a blanket but "with" a sheet. The sheet usually reserved for corpses in a morgue. Because, after all, you don't bite the hand that feeds, do you?
The protests are also aimed at Republican support for subsidies to oil companies, which keep posting record profits quarter after quarter.
Well, here is a list of such townhall protests that Think Progress has reported on:
Freshman GOP Rep. Hultgren Dumbfounded After Constituent Grills Him On Oil Subsidies
Town Hall Citizens Confront Rep. Grimm Over Vote To Kill Medicare And Give More Tax Cuts To Rich
GOP Freshman Ends First Town Hall After Tough Questions On Tax Cuts For The Wealthy: ‘We’re Done’
Constituents Challenge Rep. Huizenga: ‘Your Party Has Become Of The Rich, By The Rich, For The Rich!’
Town Halls Spawn Main Street Movement Pushback On Republican Ideas
14-Year-Old Challenges Rep. Frank Guinta On Privatized Medicare: ‘What Am I Going To Do?’
Rep. Barletta Laughs At Constituents Who Question His Support For Oil Subsidies
Town Hall Attendees Tell GOP Rep. That Ending Medicare Is ‘Unconscionable,’ Demand ‘Tax The Rich!’
And that is just a partial list.
Be incensed, the situation demands it. And act upon your rage in November 2012. Vote th bums out that were voted in in 2010. It did not take them long to show their true colors.
Well, there is similar backlash now against Republican representatives who voted for the "Ryan budget", a budget proposal so extreme that it would end Medicare and cut the top marginal tax rate for the wealthiest Americans by 10% percent (down to 25%). In townhalls across America, constituents are showing up to express their displeasure with their elected representatives, often grilling politicians who are totally unprepared for the barrage of tough--and sensible--questions. But have you heard about it? I doubt it, because the so-called liberal media--with a few notable exceptions like Cenk Uygur and Rachel Maddow, is covering these protests not "like" a blanket but "with" a sheet. The sheet usually reserved for corpses in a morgue. Because, after all, you don't bite the hand that feeds, do you?
The protests are also aimed at Republican support for subsidies to oil companies, which keep posting record profits quarter after quarter.
Well, here is a list of such townhall protests that Think Progress has reported on:
Freshman GOP Rep. Hultgren Dumbfounded After Constituent Grills Him On Oil Subsidies
Town Hall Citizens Confront Rep. Grimm Over Vote To Kill Medicare And Give More Tax Cuts To Rich
GOP Freshman Ends First Town Hall After Tough Questions On Tax Cuts For The Wealthy: ‘We’re Done’
Constituents Challenge Rep. Huizenga: ‘Your Party Has Become Of The Rich, By The Rich, For The Rich!’
Town Halls Spawn Main Street Movement Pushback On Republican Ideas
14-Year-Old Challenges Rep. Frank Guinta On Privatized Medicare: ‘What Am I Going To Do?’
Rep. Barletta Laughs At Constituents Who Question His Support For Oil Subsidies
Town Hall Attendees Tell GOP Rep. That Ending Medicare Is ‘Unconscionable,’ Demand ‘Tax The Rich!’
And that is just a partial list.
Be incensed, the situation demands it. And act upon your rage in November 2012. Vote th bums out that were voted in in 2010. It did not take them long to show their true colors.
Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say
I am going to start using a label named Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic, Things That Excrementous Republicans Say, or SHITTERS for short. At any point, you will be able to go to the list of labels on the right side of The Daily Fuel to bring up all the stupid, horrible, idiotic things that excrementous Republicans have said. I promise you it will be a veritable gallery of horrors.
If you would like to contribute a submission to this gallery of horrors, use the comment feature. (Please source your comments.)
We begin with Sally Kern, Oklahoma GOP lawmaker:
If you would like to contribute a submission to this gallery of horrors, use the comment feature. (Please source your comments.)
We begin with Sally Kern, Oklahoma GOP lawmaker:
We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.” (via Think Progress)
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Ezra Klein Hits The Nail On The Head
Shortly before President Obama hopefully put the birther controversy to rest by making his original birth certificate public (but don't count on it, more conspiracy theories will surface), Ezra Klein correctly identifies the birthplace of Obama's policies in an astute analysis of the President's work in his first two years at the White House.
Those Who Elected This Other Douchebag Should Also Be Ashamed
Douchebaggery is a favorite Republican trait that some Democrats seem eager to embrace. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) embodies Republican douchebaggery to a tee. To understand what I mean, just watch these two clips from last night's The Daily Show.
Sensible people often decry the fact that too many politicians waste a lot of time tackling non-issues, such as the birthers who claim that President Obama has not released his long-form birth certificate. But the real problem is that there are as many politicians who proudly come up with crackpot ideas, like Congressman Stearn's, that do affect the lives of Americans in dramatic and destructive ways. The fact that even a usually sensible politician like Rep. Waxman (D-CA), who has often been on the right (left) side of many issues, are quick to jump on the bandwagon of stupidity is demoralizing to say the least. How Rep. Waxman could be so wrong about such a ridiculous idea as the Stearns amendment to the Zadroga Bill is a question the congressman will have to answer to his conscience and to those who voted for him.
Sensible people often decry the fact that too many politicians waste a lot of time tackling non-issues, such as the birthers who claim that President Obama has not released his long-form birth certificate. But the real problem is that there are as many politicians who proudly come up with crackpot ideas, like Congressman Stearn's, that do affect the lives of Americans in dramatic and destructive ways. The fact that even a usually sensible politician like Rep. Waxman (D-CA), who has often been on the right (left) side of many issues, are quick to jump on the bandwagon of stupidity is demoralizing to say the least. How Rep. Waxman could be so wrong about such a ridiculous idea as the Stearns amendment to the Zadroga Bill is a question the congressman will have to answer to his conscience and to those who voted for him.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Those Who Elected This Douchebag Should Be Ashamed
Douchebag is probably not a strong enough epiteth for this piece of work who goes by the name of Paul LePage, Governor of the crazy state of Maine. What did he do to deserve me calling him names? For starters, LePage is in favor of relaxing Maine's child labor laws. Yes, because at a time where unemployment is still rampant, what the country needs is for children to enter the workforce and the clock being turned back to the 19th century.
But perhaps I misunderstand LePage. Perhaps he is a humanitarian and a realist who knows that if Republican wish-list policies are implemented, only the children of patrician class will be able to afford private school 20 years from now (there would no longer be any public schools), and everybody else had better get ready for a life of toil that should begin at 14 or earlier and end at 75 or later, since Republicans are also hell-bent on destroying Social Security.
LePage belongs in hell, but not the imaginary one that Christians believe in; a real one, where he should lose everything he has earned so far and has to make ends meet for the rest of his life on minimum wage, with no benefits, no Medicaid, and no Social Security to boot. Let him experience in the present a little taste of the future he wants to help build for future generations of Maine children.
But perhaps I misunderstand LePage. Perhaps he is a humanitarian and a realist who knows that if Republican wish-list policies are implemented, only the children of patrician class will be able to afford private school 20 years from now (there would no longer be any public schools), and everybody else had better get ready for a life of toil that should begin at 14 or earlier and end at 75 or later, since Republicans are also hell-bent on destroying Social Security.
LePage belongs in hell, but not the imaginary one that Christians believe in; a real one, where he should lose everything he has earned so far and has to make ends meet for the rest of his life on minimum wage, with no benefits, no Medicaid, and no Social Security to boot. Let him experience in the present a little taste of the future he wants to help build for future generations of Maine children.
Monday, April 25, 2011
The Only Serious Plan To Cut The Deficit
Paul Ryan and President Obama are both demagoguing on how to address the deficit. I don't say so, Paul Krugman does. I don't have a Nobel Prize, he does.
In Let's Take a Hike, Krugamn also says that the only serious plan to address the deficit and balance the national budget comes from... are you ready? The Congressional Progressive Caucus. Yes, progressives, a.k.a. liberals, the very people accused by Fox and by Republicans marionettes in Congress of wanting to destroy America. Imagine that.
In Let's Take a Hike, Krugamn also says that the only serious plan to address the deficit and balance the national budget comes from... are you ready? The Congressional Progressive Caucus. Yes, progressives, a.k.a. liberals, the very people accused by Fox and by Republicans marionettes in Congress of wanting to destroy America. Imagine that.
Refute Ted Rall... If You Can
Someone had to say it, Ted Rall did it: "The family budget talking point is a fascinating meme that reflects a rarely considered national blind spot." Like their government, Americans live on debt.
Friday, April 22, 2011
The Truth About Taxes According to the Wall Street Journal? Yeah, Right.
The opinion of the Wall Street Journal is given way too much weight in discussions about the economy. I have often heard the distinction made that the WSJ has excellent reporters and a daft editorial board. Perhaps it is so. But the reporting will suffer if the editorial board is populated by idiots in service of the rich who write the kind of idiocies that Jeffrey Sachs exposes in this short op-ed for the Huffington Post.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Jon Kyl's Factually Depressing Behavior
Jon Kyl is the moron from Arizona, a U.S. Senator no less, who less than a couple of weeks ago entertained millions of discerning Americans with his naked lie or error (not intended as factual statement, according to a spokesperson) about the percentage of Planned Parenthood's business which is categorized as abortion: 90% according to Sen. Kyl, 3% if you let boring things like facts bog your rhetoric down.
Well, now Kyl has expunged his not-so-factual statement from the Congressional Record. Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post explains how, and what it says about lawmakers.
Well, now Kyl has expunged his not-so-factual statement from the Congressional Record. Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post explains how, and what it says about lawmakers.
Krugman: Patients Are Not Consumers
It's a distinction that nowhere else in the civilized world would need to be made, but in the United States it takes a Nobel Prize winner to remind us: Patients are not consumers, and to nonchalantly use the two words interchangeably shows the level of corruption that big finance has brought upon us.
Medicare Isn't The Problem: It's The Solution
Robert Reich reminds the President, and all of us in the process, that Medicare is part of the solution in fixing America's fiscal problems. The only problem is that the right-wing echo chamber is fine-tuned to make Americans believe just the opposite.
Framing the Budget Debate
Robert Reich, with a much needed reminder that Paul Ryan and the Republicans' idea of how to fix the deficit is radical and extreme, and that much, most of America--in fact, is in line with the Democrats' suggestions for righting the financial course.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Tax Day Is Gone, But Not The Silly Rhetoric
Republicans like to pretend that they know how to fix the deficit and budget problems: just slash taxes and spending, and tax revenues will grow and the deficit will decline. That is their recipe for fiscal success. Except that it omits facts: yes, slashing spending could reduce the deficit (at the expense of the neediest Americans, including children--because the culture of life... well, you know all about that holy crap) but the if the revenue side continues to falter, largely because of Republican fiscal policy, then how much exactly needs to be slashed.
NPR had a more realistic take of things yesterday, on Tax Day. You can read it or listen to it. The report is called Looking At Who Pays What In Taxes.
Frankly, I am fed up with Republicans telling me that taxes for the rich need to be cut, when the amount of taxes they actually pay has declined from 26 to 17% over the last 20 years and their income has grown more than that of any other income group. You should be too.
NPR had a more realistic take of things yesterday, on Tax Day. You can read it or listen to it. The report is called Looking At Who Pays What In Taxes.
Frankly, I am fed up with Republicans telling me that taxes for the rich need to be cut, when the amount of taxes they actually pay has declined from 26 to 17% over the last 20 years and their income has grown more than that of any other income group. You should be too.
Friday, April 15, 2011
One of the Most Interesting Discussions on Anthropology You'll Ever Hear
From today's edition of NPR's Science Friday: Richard Leakey Reflects On Human Past--And Future. After you click the link, you can stream audio from the top left corner of the page.
Note how the first comment on the page (currently) reads: "How does Richard Leakey discount the Bible? Genesis chapter 1 verse 26? Or all other passages of the Bible? How about the other guy with language evolution.... Genesis chapter 11 verses 1 --9??????? There is no way to leave God out of creating the universe. God caused the Big bang and He will take us out with a big bang........ Any one else believe this too????????????". Oh dear.
Note how the first comment on the page (currently) reads: "How does Richard Leakey discount the Bible? Genesis chapter 1 verse 26? Or all other passages of the Bible? How about the other guy with language evolution.... Genesis chapter 11 verses 1 --9??????? There is no way to leave God out of creating the universe. God caused the Big bang and He will take us out with a big bang........ Any one else believe this too????????????". Oh dear.
Bring Out The Dunce Caps
As the political season is heating up in view of the upcoming presidential election cycle, our old friend The Constructive Curmudgeon has picked his front runner for the Republican Party.
Looks like it's gonna be another fun election season!
Oh, and check out Michele Bachmann's PolitiFact file. I can already savor the Bachmann/Kyl 2012 ticket!
Looks like it's gonna be another fun election season!
Oh, and check out Michele Bachmann's PolitiFact file. I can already savor the Bachmann/Kyl 2012 ticket!
Monday, March 07, 2011
Tax Breaks in Bizarro World
If by Bizarro World you mean the United States, that is. But wait: isn't Bizarro World suppose to be the opposite of what earhtly things? That may not be a bad idea, given how ass backwards we earthly things are doing things (at least in the U.S.=
Read how Tom Cruise, Gov. Hickenlooper (D-CO) and a host of tax dodgers pay close to nothing in taxes on their 200+ acre properties.
Then, also from Think Progress, read how Gov. Scott (R-FL) is seeking to slash teachers' pay to fund corporate and property tax breaks.
Read how Tom Cruise, Gov. Hickenlooper (D-CO) and a host of tax dodgers pay close to nothing in taxes on their 200+ acre properties.
Then, also from Think Progress, read how Gov. Scott (R-FL) is seeking to slash teachers' pay to fund corporate and property tax breaks.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Anti-gay Marriage Bill Goes Down in Wyoming
Apparently not all Republicans are seeking to meddle with the private lives of Americans. So kudos to the Wyoming legislature for rejecting an attempt to pass a law that would have caused civil unions sanctioned by other states of the Union to be voided once a gay couple entered Wyoming.
Don't get me wrong: the people who introduced the bill were also almost entirely Republican, so we still have a long way to go in bringing about the equality that everybody deserves. Still, it's an encouraging sign.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
.Don't get me wrong: the people who introduced the bill were also almost entirely Republican, so we still have a long way to go in bringing about the equality that everybody deserves. Still, it's an encouraging sign.
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Media News
Keith Olbermann is back! Non on TV yet, but he has his own website, called FOK News Channel (FOK = Friends of Keith). His logo looks a lot like Fox News Channel's, it'll be interesting to see if they sue him. But he is pretty smart, isn't he? So my hunch is that before putting the logo on the website he probably got good legal advice.
In other media news, Frank Rich is moving to New York Magazine after 31 years at the NYT.
In other media news, Frank Rich is moving to New York Magazine after 31 years at the NYT.
Boycott and Defeat Koch Industries
Boycott Koch Industries. The Koch Brothers are a truly destructive influence on American politics. You can read more about them here (scroll down the page to see a list of products you should boycott) and here.
Yes, my money is but a drop in the ocean of billions that go to Koch Industries everywhere, but why should I support their regressive political activities with my money? Resistance has to begin somewhere. So vote with your dollars.
Yes, my money is but a drop in the ocean of billions that go to Koch Industries everywhere, but why should I support their regressive political activities with my money? Resistance has to begin somewhere. So vote with your dollars.
Fox News Lies, It Cannot Broadcast in Canada
Good for our neighbors to the North: They refused to change a law which prohibits broadcasting licenses to be issued to organizations that lie and deceive their listeners, which for all effects and purposes practically closes the door on Fox News-like organizations.
One has to wonder why such a law does not exist in the United States. Yes, I know, the First Amendment goes a long way in granting people the right to misinform. The question is: should it?
One has to wonder why such a law does not exist in the United States. Yes, I know, the First Amendment goes a long way in granting people the right to misinform. The question is: should it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)