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.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
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.
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